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I woke up to my head feeling split open. Not my best start to a day but considering where I'd left off yesterday it was about as good as I could expect to be doing. I couldn't recall my dreams either which I took as a promising sign. Maybe Mother had laid off for once.

Yeah right. And maybe pigs will fly.

She'd probably attacked me as ferociously as she ever could if she knew I'd met my sisters yesterday. I remembered so much.

Digging up worms with Iris before a fishing trip.

Fake.

A family photo with me surrounded by my energetic sisters. Lily smiling and upside down on the couch for the photo. My eyes rolled for the camera.

Fake.

Playing huntsman in the woods near my home with Saphron. I used a small stick as a small imaginary sword to fight off pretend Grimm.

Fake.

Kolumbine and Juniper teasing me over my first crush. A wispy girl I could hardly remember from back home.

Fake.

Home. Where even was home for me? I remembered it as a lone tall house in a small woods but where had it been? What was the name of the town it had been a part of? I couldn't remember. Had it been anywhere at all? Or was it all fake pressure from my Mother to help me along the way to losing my mind? A gatekeeper to my madness.

I stood from my bed and took my morning medications. I swallowed them down my dry throat without any water. I tried to shake off what I knew were incomplete memories but I couldn't. I remembered so much and so little at the same time. The same few frames replaying over and over in my head, there was nothing I could do to escape my wrathful memories of peaceful times.

I felt like a bug on a leaf. So unsteady. So uncertain. Ready to be swatted down at a moment's notice. I felt like hardly anything at all.

I wanted to kill something. That would make me feel better. Even if it was just Grimm. Slaying monsters would get me warmed up and ready to go. It would put me in the right mindset. Instead I settled down at my desk and pulled out my chair. I pulled out my needle for a moment and I focused on it.

Change.

I demanded of it.

Transform.

I told it.

It did neither. The needle remained a needle. And I performed no magic. I wasn't sure who Ozpin thought he was fooling. My sisters had done no magic and they would have had my Mother to teach them their entire lives. However long that was. They couldn't be older than me chronologically or biologically. They must be younger than me. They must have been grown until they were about as old as they are now give or take three years. How long I'd been alive and out of my tank for.

There came a knock at my door. A polite double tap-rap. It sounded like Weiss from my experience without even opening it. I could be wrong but it sounded like her.

I wasn't sure I wanted to see her. Or anyone. My head still ached and remembered losing my mind a little the night before. I was embarrassed by it. I was embarrassed by my own weakness. And Ruby and Weiss had seen it all unfold.

I got up anyway and left the needle behind. The frustrating fucking thing that it was. Ozpin had transformed it so easily and here I was still struggling two weeks later. I'd made no progress. None.

I opened the door to find Weiss as I suspected I would. Her blue eyes like shimmering ice and her hair not yet done up in her plait. It left it mid-back length long locks of platinum. She was beautiful.

I looked away. I was embarrassed about losing my marbles last night over my sisters.

"How are you feeling, Cloud?" She asked in a low voice. She raised an eyebrow at where I blocked the door. "Are you going to let me in?"

I was because of course I was. I stood to the side of the door frame and held the door open. She stepped inside, slippers making soft noises against the cold floor.

"I'm alright," I told her.

"You always answer that way. Even when you're doing poorly. You can tell us how you're really feeling. We won't hold it against you if you're not your usual self," she murmured. She gave me a soft reassuring smile.

I looked away and sighed. "What is my usual self? I'm feeling fragile today. I want to kill something though. I want to be violent. I feel like that's all I'm good for. Violence. I can barely stave off the memories in my head that I know are fake. I know that they're fake."

"Tell me about them." She brushed her hair back behind her head as she spoke.

"My Mother was always wearing the same white dress in every memory I have of her. And… and I don't remember my father's face. There's other inconsistencies too. Little impossibilities. I remember being teased by my sisters about my first crush when I was a small boy. Something I know is impossible. It couldn't have happened but it feels real to me. I wonder if they remember these things too but from their own perspective. I wonder how twisted Salem has made them."

"You care about them. Your sisters."

"I… I do. My feelings for them are not real, though. I've never met them. Not like I've met and gotten to know the rest of you. You and Ruby. And Blake and Yang. Even my team when they were around. When they were around."

"Your feelings are valid, Cloud."

I scoffed. A low sound. She reached out and touched my face. She had to stand up on her tiptoes to truly manage it. She forced me to look at her. I could hardly stand it. She was gorgeous even with the long scar running over one eye.

"What?" She asked. "They are. Just because Salem has you all twisted and strung out doesn't make what you feel any less true. I remember my own father's emotional manipulation. My feelings were valid then even if they were caused by him."

"Your father… will you tell me about his manipulations?" I asked. I bent low and ran my lips over hers. I threaded and held her bottom lip between my own and she let out a little sigh through her nose. I watched her eyes flutter shut and I reached my long arms around her waist and just held her close to me. She put both her small hands on my chest and let out a hum into the kiss.

"I will if you let me," she whispered when I finally broke off the kiss. "Are you going to let me?"

"Tempted to not…" I groaned.

"He brought up my mother a lot. He liked to imply that I was responsible for her drinking habits. I wasn't. She had only herself to blame for them."

"Your mother was a hard drinker?" I confirmed. I think she'd told me before but it had been a while.

"Yes, she was. Ever since I was very young. My father was sober and in control throughout most of my life. It wasn't a good thing. I wonder sometimes if my mother would have been a better parent even as a drunk. Or perhaps no one at all. At least I had my butler, Klein. He really raised me."

"Well, not to shave off your suffering, but I think you turned out pretty good. Good enough to keep," I informed her.

"You would say that," she said softly. But she had a small smile quirking her lips to let me know I scored at least a few points with her.

"How did the election go last night? I went to bed and didn't pay it any attention."

"I forgot, myself. But when I woke up this morning Robyn won her seat. She's a sitting member of the council now, with Ironwood. But there's some investigation going on into the election. Electronic voter tampering."

"Sounds like bad news for Mantle. But then what isn't in this place?"

"You're so pessimistic, my gods," she laughed at me a little. "Good thing Ruby is around to balance me out or I might join you down there. She keeps me balanced."

"It's my experience. All my recent, which is to say real memories usually involve somebody I care about dying. Or worse."

"We're here for you. So don't be all doom and gloom. You have two beautiful girlfriends."

"Little arrogant of you, don't you think."

"Please," she retorted. Swishing her hair back behind her. "I am beautiful."

"Don't forget narcissistic."

"You don't go down that road. This is the part where you agree with me. Didn't you say boyfriends agree with their smart girlfriends?"

"Hey, of course I think you're beautiful. First real crush, remember? Couldn't believe I thought I had a chance with you. Then it turns out that I did. Still can't really believe it."

"You just needed to change a little. To grow up some, lose the fake confidence and get your hands on something real."

"Change my look, too. That probably helped."

"Now who's being narcissistic."

"Please," I pushed a hand back through my hair. "I am beautiful," I managed a passable imitation of her and she beat my chest with a tiny fist in retaliation but she was giving me a sly smile.

"You don't go down that road either," she cautioned me.

"Fine. Fine. What's Ruby up to?" I asked.

"Still sleeping. I am an early riser, I wasn't sure you'd be up."

"Late to bed and early to rise? Aren't you burning your candle at both ends? And I was just up trying to turn my needle into a feather."

She shrugged. "I can't help it. It's a part of who I am. Did you have any luck?"

"Not really, no. I'm starting to doubt that I have Ozpin's brand of magic. My sisters didn't fight with it either or anything like that."

"Maybe you just need more time or more faith."

"Maybe…" I trailed. I looked down at her and she gave me an odd sort of pleading look her lips pursed out and her eyes closed. She looked scrumptious like that. I figured what she wanted and I bent down and I kissed her again while she hummed in satisfaction.

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"I never even got to drive the bike yesterday. We were attacked by Cloud's sisters," Ruby said.

"What? You were? Why is this the first I'm hearing about this?" Yang asked around the dining hall breakfast table.

"You got in late, remember? You and Blake both. We were already asleep by the time you got back," Ruby responded. "Cloud took it poorly. I thought the experience might have knocked some screws loose for him."

"You mean a few more screws loose. Cloud doesn't scream stability."

"Blake!" Weiss hissed.

"No, no," I said. "Blake's got a point."

"Well you don't have to agree with her," Weiss muttered. She shook her head at me. Plait waving slightly as she did. We'd split up and she'd gone back to her room in the early AM to get it done.

"She does though. I'm not the sanest of individuals."

"That's not your fault," Ruby told me. She reached out and stroked my arm.

"So I have more excuses than your average person. Salem's influence, the way I was grown, probably some other factors I can't think of… the list goes on." I shrugged through a bite of eggs. "Plus I think I did almost lose it yesterday. My head still hurts off of it."

"You sure that's not just because what's her name shot you in the head a couple of times?" Ruby asked.

"Saphron. And not entirely."

"How many times did you get shot exactly yesterday evening?" Blake asked.

"I forget. She was really hitting me in the head a bit. I'm not immune to headshots."

"Then she hit you with that knife…" Ruby reached out and touched my face. "She cut your cheek. You'll have a little scar there, I think."

I reached up and touched where I'd been cut next to Ruby's own fingers. There was a triangular scab on my cheek. Ruby was probably right.

"And there goes my good looks. You will be missed, we hardly knew ye."

"Oh stop it. You'll look fine," Ruby sighed exasperatedly but she smiled up at me.

"They never really got through my aura. A bit like you. You got shot yesterday too."

"I was fine." She waved off. "My aura protected me from everything but a bit of pain. Thanks though."

"A bit late for that kind of worry, isn't it?" Yang asked.

"It's the thought that counts." Ruby returned. "And Cloud was really out of it last night. He was delirious and talking about a family reunion."

I shuddered.

"A family reunion for Cloud. Get me the fuck away. His family is problems," Yang said. "No offense Cloud but your family has issues."

"I'm really the only one with issues. All my sisters seemed fine. The ones I met did at least."

"They tried to kill you," Blake pointed out. Jabbing a fork at me as she did.

"I think I'm the black sheep," I muttered. "They even seem to get along with Mother fine. No, it's just me that has a problem. I am the failure, after all."

"And your sisters are all successes?" Oscar asked. He'd been quiet in his new huntsman outfit. A suit jacket with a white undershirt and orange gloves.

I nodded.

"Well according to who? The people that made you all? Those aren't good people anyways. What would they know about being a failure or a success."

"Yeah. We're not taking a bunch of mad scientists' word on it," Ruby followed. "You're not a failure to us, Cloud."

I took a bite of banana and said nothing. They didn't really get it. I was a failure in a scientific sense. Not a moral one. I was just a prototype for those models which came later.

"Do you know your sisters' names?" Blake asked.

"Iris, Juniper, Kolumbine, Saphron, Violet, Lily, and Lavender," I told her.

"They're all flowers. They have pretty names, at least," Yang said. She took a forkful of her own food.

"I told the others this but they're like car models, the successes."

"That sucks to think about people like cars. And you're what? Jealous of that?" Yang asked.

"I wish I'd been built better. I guess," I defended my feelings. It sucked to think about myself as the kind of failure I was. "Might as well just end it all, the way I see it."

"Bad, Cloud. No suicidal thoughts," Ruby scolded. She hit me, harder than flirtatious. "You need to want to live."

"Damn, Ruby, let him alone. He's going through a lot right now," Yang protested. "Just listen to his family problems."

"That still isn't the kind of line of thinking we want to encourage in him," Weiss retorted in Yang's direction. "We want him to be on the bonuses of living. Not thinking about how bad things could be."

"'How bad things could be,'" I quoted. "My fucking family is literally the worst, isn't it?" I asked nobody in particular. I took another bite of banana. "It's just me that's this side of fucked up as opposed to the other side. The other side of fucked up, that is."

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-WG