Chapter Title: Temporary

Series Title: Unlikely Brothers

Ages in this chapter: Tanner (11) Dashen (17)

POV: Dashen

Chapter Summary: The boys are temporarily displaced to another planet when the Empire raids Terra.

I'd not ever shivered so badly in my entire life. Of course, I'd never really been off Terra for any extended period either. We had Winters there. They were cold. But I'd always had a way to stay relatively warm.

Not really the situation right now.

I shivered, but my brother actually rattled. The kid was small and compact and he'd not had much experience in colder climates. The Jedi temple he'd been raised in had been climate controlled, his exposure to other planets limited.

My arms were tight around him as we huddled in a deep dark corner of a forest valley floor somewhere, wherever we were. The ship Colton had stowed us on - the horribly small cargo area - was going off planet, away from Terra. That's all we knew, all he knew.

Get out, get away and figure out how to survive until it's safe to return, is what he told us.

An Empire raid was happening on Terra. Planet-wide, months long. We couldn't take the chance with Tanner and the bullseye on his young Jedi back.

So we got on that ship. We got off when it stopped. We ran for our lives when our feet hit solid ground.

I looked down at Tannerlin Vai, huddled in my arms. His brown hair soaked from the steady fat drops of rain that had been pounding us for hours. Tanner's normally joyful self, reduced to shivering violently in his fake big brother's arms.

"M'really c-cold, D-dash." He chattered.

"You're not the only one, Mouse. We'll figure something out. Tomorrow we'll sneak back into town. Would be nice to know at least what planet we're on. Food would be good too. Colton shoved a few ration bars in my pocket at the same time he was shoving us into the cargo hold. I guess there was no advanced warning about the incoming Imperial trouble."

Tanner adjusted. It's one of the things he did best. Adjusted to circumstances around him.

Adjusting was one thing though. Freezing to death was another. The kid wasn't all that resilient to crappy weather.

"Here," I said, moving us back a few feet. A bit more protection from the weather with some broad-leaved branches directly over our heads. My eyes rested then. We weren't deep into the forest, just on the skirts of it. After we'd landed, we had hurriedly climbed a short hill to find the valley below. It was only moments from the spaceport, but it seemed sheltered enough for an overnight.

I wavered. My head bobbed around as my mind tried hard to stay awake. "Pretty sure we're safe for the night. Rain or not. Let's try and rest. Figure out tomorrow, tomorrow."

Another thing Tanner did well, listened without fighting when I needed him to follow. Truth be told, I had no plan or any real ideas except to keep us from freezing to death. Tanner knew that and agreed by tucking himself further into me. Together, we found a comfortable position, closed our eyes and wished for another day.

—-

Another day turned into weeks, turned into months. Four to be exact. I'd gotten coded com messages from Colton telling me after that first week, this would be an extended ordeal. The sweep that was being done of Terra was exhaustive and at times, violent. Despite our hardships where Tanner I were now, we were safer on this foreign planet than we were at home.

This foreign planet was Kallarsin. I'd heard of it, but didn't know much about it. It wasn't all that friendly a place, but there wasn't much in the way of threats to two kids just trying to make a life. I'd found a job rather quickly at a second-rate cantina. It was easy for me - with my height and the fact that I'd had to mature so quickly in my life - to pass for older than I was. Serving drinks to the various creatures that came to and through the area was simple enough. I didn't much drink ale, but this place had a long list of varieties it served, making it one of the more popular spots near the spaceport.

I made just enough money to scare up a single room. It was dirty and cold and underground, but it had a bed and enough utilities to allow us to survive. Tanner was small, didn't take much room, though he did often steal the single blanket we shared. He was cold. Constantly. Regretfully, there was little we could do about it.

We did get food in our bellies. The cantina offered me less pay if I accepted leftovers as part of the salary. Figured it was the easiest way to keep us fed. And it wasn't forever. Tanner spent his days shivering, I wasn't about to add starving to that short list.

He was with me when I worked. Wasn't about to leave him alone. He tucked himself quietly behind the bar. No one seemed to notice or care. More so the latter. This particular cantina seemed a quick stopover for those coming and going. Kallarsin wasn't a large planet from what we'd gathered after a bit of intel. Mostly travelers and dealers. A compact local population. Safe enough. But it was dark and cold and not friendly. The planet's lone sun shone for a mere five hours during one of their standard days. The planet, or at least the city we'd found ourselves in, operated mostly in dusk and darkness. I was certain there were reasons that I didn't care to think about. Seeing how Colton's underworld operated within the bounds of darkness gave me enough ideas.

I snatched a short break during each work shift. Enough to grab a bite, ensure Tanner did the same, and get outside for a few minutes. The other tender of the bar was some type of being I'd not seen before. Green-taut skin, solid black eyes, and two menacing horns that extended from either side of her temple. She looked like someone I did not want to cross, but honestly, she showed me more courtesy than anyone else around this place. I think maybe it was the sad story I'd told her. Little brother and I on our own after our family was murdered by the Empire. Good story. Relatable story. Not horribly far from the truth. She took pity on me more than anything in the fact that she didn't threaten to kill me as did many of my customers. Heh. I'd take it. We were only temps here anyway.

Tanner stuck close to me when we ventured outside. For as minimally populated as this place was, it made up for it in traveler volume, those catching a ride, stopping over, picking up stockpiles of whatever. Wasn't completely clear yet on what Kallarsin produced in such high quantities to attract so many freighters. Probably best if I didn't know. It was an interesting place and it could be a bit scary. More often than not though, it was just hectic and chaotic.

"Reminds a little of Coruscant." Tanner said out of the blue as we sat on the dusty ground shoveling food into our mouths. We leaned unnoticed against the bar's outside stone wall. Shadowed in an out-of-the-way corner.

"Busy?" I asked curiously.

"Yeah. People of all types. Walks of life. Going their different ways for different reasons. It was organized chaos."

Kinda like here, but on a reduced scale. Coruscant was a city planet, this was just a city on a planet. Different but similar.

"Fascinated by it, aren't you?" I said, knowing full well what the answer would be. Strange planet or not, Tanner was who he was and he loved watching and absorbing. Learning and knowing.

He nodded as he swallowed the last of his sandwich. "I am. I recognize some of the species. But there are many beings here that I've not ever come across or read about. That short squatty creature with the hairy back and four arms, for instance. I wonder, what does it speak? Where was it born? What is the purpose of having four arms?"

Tanner wondered all that. I just saw the thing as a short hairy squatty creature. For me, it meant little. For my brother, I knew with absolute certainty that he was making mental notes of any creature he could not identify so that he could spend countless boring hours researching every last one of them when we eventually got home.

"I'll remember and look them up when we get home."

See what I mean? True to form. Though the way he said home worried me some. It sounded a bit too hopeless for Tanner's usual bundle of positivity. But yeah, this place had worn on us both after four months and who knew how much longer.

"We'll get home, Mouse. As soon as Colton gives word that it's safe. He's not gonna have us back until there's zero immediate Imperial threat."

"I know. Just... as much as I enjoy this" he motioned to the tens of beings wandering by while completely ignoring us, "It's dark and cold and it rains every day. I'm really tired of being wet."

My brother. He didn't complain often, but when he did, it meant he was struggling. I passed him the drink we were sharing so he could wash down his sandwich. Tanner shook his head to refuse, then edged toward me until his head lolled comfortable against my shoulder. With my free hand I reached up and ruffled his hair. Shaggy now with us having limited bathing access. We were looking scruffier than normal and that actually served a purpose of helping us fit in. No one paid any mind to us here on the ground.

I felt Tanner sigh heavy once before taking in a long stretch of deep, purposeful breaths. Trying to find himself. Settle himself. Using his Jedi magic. Usually, it worked.

I let him be for several minutes before asking, "Doing okay?"

"I think so. I miss home. I miss Colton. I miss school."

My arm wrapped around his shoulders briefly and I held him snug. "Me too, Mouse. Well, not the school part, but I get it." Then I glanced at the sky to see the rain clouds incoming, preparing to blockout the sun. A very daily and very annoying event.

"Ready for more rain?"

"No."

"Good. I've gotta get back on duty anyway. You know how it is if I stray too long. Miss Horns in there likes to lecture me."

"Her names isn't Miss Horns, Dash. It's Ornas. And she doesn't lecture you, she just glares."

"Horns. Ornas. Close enough. And she does have horns. It's a better name than Scruffy."

Tanner laughed at the nickname Ornas had slapped on me. It had stuck. "I like that name. You are kinda scruffy looking."

"Who's scruffy looking? And look who's talking." I mussed his hair again. "Come on, back to work."

We moved inside and I avoided Orna's dark-eyed glare, keeping Tanner nearby. I suppose she fell for the perfected pathetic-little-brother look on Tanner's face because I didn't get any crap from her for being two minutes over my allotted break.

—-

Our crap-hole rented room flooded for the tenth time in four months. That was fun. Again. I couldn't afford anything else and unless we moved into the forest, we'd just have to put up with a little extra water at our feet. It would stink after for a few days until it dried out and I was sure that chemical smell wasn't something we should be breathing in. Thankfully that also faded.

We were at the end of that fourth month, a day when I just couldn't drag myself out of bed for another long shift at the cantina. It wasn't a tough job but it was wearing. That and I still had Tanner under my guard all day, every day. We had no protection here. We had each other and that was about it. So I lay there, in our damp dark room, stretched out on my back. Tanner curled in beside me, sound asleep. If I wasn't fearful of losing our only income and having nothing, I'd have laid here all day and done absolutely nothing. I was that exhausted.

As it was, Tanner possesses this weird inner clock where he knows when I'm about to be late for something important. He woke up, reached across me and smacked me in my face. Hard.

"Damn it, Tanner."

"You're late."

"I know. Can't do it today."

"You can."

"Tanner."

"I'd do your job for you, but I'm too short to see over the bar."

That made me smile, picturing that image in my head. Gave me that little umph I needed to get my sorry butt outta bed. I reached over tugged Tanner to me for a second.

"You're a good kid, Mouse. Thanks. I'm getting up."

My comlink buzzed as I climbed out of the raggedy bed. Tanner grabbed it. "Coded message from Colton." He said, handing it to me. I'd gotten quite adept at figuring out the man's cryptic notes.

"Well," I began. "Bad news is, we can't yet go home. Good news, there are signs that the invasion excitement is beginning to dim. No timeframe though. We're still stuck here."

"Why'd you put that under the good news section then?"

I snorted. Another smile. Tanner did have the knack, even when he wasn't quite feeling it himself. I sent a coded message back to let Colton know we were still upright and vertical, if exhausted and beaten down. Not to mention soaked from the constant rain storms. No idea how people lived on this planet without going insane - or drowning in bed. I didn't mention to him that planet we were on. Did he know? Unclear, but if he didn't, he couldn't say if interrogated. Not that he'd ever shed that information voluntarily. Colton was apparently monitoring his com, as he responded immediately telling us to hang in there.

Which was really all we could do.

I pushed myself out of bed. The floor was dry, so there was a positive. We'd each managed to procure one change of clothes so I cleaned up first. Tanner followed. On the way out, I passed rental credits to the landlord-type character. It never talked, just held out one of it's eight blood-red thorny hands and made a strange barking sound with it's rounded mouth. It was all very weird.

Our walk to the cantina was usually uneventful. Today, well, not so much. Someone got an eye on Tanner. Don't think it was a Jedi thing, I mean there were no giant money signs in it's eyes showing that he was about to strike it rich with the Empire for bringing in a Jedi for slaughter. No, this was less greedy and more... creepy. We'd been warned of slave traders before. Especially the ones that favored the young. This was a little creepier than that. I got one of those feelings, one that made the hairs on my neck stand on end.

I put Tanner directly in front of me as we walked, my hands tight on his shoulders. He felt the tension there, asked no questions and kept moving.

The faster we moved, the faster that thing moved. Pale skin. Feline eyes. Claws for hands. Nope, wanted no part of that. I nudged Tanner to keep going. The cantina was ahead. Not exactly my idea of safety, but less exposed.

We turned the corner, Pale Thing on our heels reaching for us at the entrance and BAM! One green arm lashed out. One pale creepy creature flat on it's back. Knocked cold.

What the hell?

"Inside. I will dispose." Ornas and all her black-eyed, horned-head glory had taken the creature out in one purposely placed physical shot. Unexpected. And by dispose, did she mean... ?

Tanner grabbed my arm, dragging me from the scene before we had a chance to collect an audience. "Dash, inside. Come on!"

"But what... she... what just happened?"

"Ornas saved us from that creature."

Behind the bar now. "Yeah, but why?" I snapped myself into work mode and Tanner grabbed the nearby stool. He shrugged at me.

"The pay is good."

That was Ornas' voice, who was now standing opposite me across the bar. Her piercing horns distracting my glance for a second as I took in what she'd just said.

"The pay is... what?" If I sounded confused, I was.

"It means what I said. The pay is good. Indeed you are hard headed."

This from a woman who'd barely said three words to me in four months. Now she was calling me... oh hell. I got it. And here I thought we were completely unprotected on Kallarsin. We weren't. Not totally. Ornas, in all her strangeness was part of the immense web of Virgil Colton.

Apparently, he did know the planet we'd stashed on and he had people here. Or at least a person. My guess was that she was paid well and had one rule to follow; keep his boys safe. Payment stacked high enough to ensure that questions were neither permitted nor asked.

Ornas. Of all people. Well, I'd not seen that one coming.

"Dash, she's..."

Tanner started but I set a hand on his shoulder to quiet him as I stared at Ornas. Squeezing gently, the movement told him that I knew. Her space-black feline eyes blinked slowly. My mouth wanted to say something, but my brain was strongly advising me to keep it shut and just take the win. Small discussions could make for big trouble, so I lay down a single nod before Ornas turned back to work.

And that was that.

Truth be told, after all of that, it took me a chunk of time to get my heart rate returned to normal. Typical me and anxiety. It's what I did. It wasn't the discovery of Ornas as a Colton operative, but the threat to Tanner that I had trouble absorbing. It's how it was with me, my brother in trouble was a stressor, probably my worst. It was all right though, I'd be okay.

—-

Life went on. Tanner struggled the longer we lay stranded on Kallarsin. The dark dreary weather. The chaotic people. The lack of the stuff he thrived on. School. Learning. Long exhausting talks with Dec'lar about exceedingly boring paper books. The familiarities of his room at home with the pieces of his Jedi life that kept him connected to his past. We were stuck in this monotonous, damp and dark world where no one should ever be stuck and he was emotionally tired.

Funny. Usually it was him holding me up. Here, it was the exact opposite. Not that any of this was enjoyable for me, but my life had never been anything magical, so this temporary change of scenery, I'd figured it out.

My little brother though...

It all came to a head in the middle of the night, he was pressed up against me in our crappy compact bed. Back to back. Restless. Another sign he was having difficulty. Tanner slept like a rock most of the time. All that mind-work meditation he did, is what he always told me. But recently, not so rock-like.

Back to back, then flopping onto his stomach, rolling back and forth until I finally felt his face pressed into the small of my back. I turned off my side and he folded in closer.

"Mouse." I whispered. Careful to not be frustrated even though I was. I needed what little sleep I could scrounge up, and the kid was making that tough. "What happened to your zen Jedi crap?"

"This place." Was all he said and all I needed. I understood.

"This place sucks, I know. You are not good though and you usually are. What's going on?"

Of course I knew what was going on, but I wanted him to tell me.

There was nothing but quiet for a time. Dead silence really. I couldn't even hear his breathing. I nudged him.

"Mouse."

When he finally spoke, it wasn't anything that I had expected to hear.

"They destroyed my home. My friends. My family. All that I knew. Coruscant. The Empire did all of that. Now... now they've chased me from my home again. Taken me way from what I know and love. Twice now. I just... I just want them to go away and leave me alone. To leave everyone alone. Why is that so much to ask, Dash?"

"It's not so much to ask, little brother. It's a simple request. But we're not dealing with simple people. The Empire is evil and wants only to hurt and kill and conquer. To rule. They don't care who or what's in the way."

More quiet. And I'll be honest, it was unsettling. In general, Tanner was a quiet kid, but this felt out of the ordinary even for him. I did what I could. Offered what I could. It felt inadequate and incomplete, but what else could I do? I couldn't leave him feeling wrecked and floating out there on his own.

One thing I had to my credit - maybe the only thing - big brother experience. It ran deep. I'd been one since about the age of four. It's a talent I never lost. So, I used it.

Turning onto my back first, then to my side, Tanner was there, looking pitifully sad and that just wasn't right. That wasn't Tannerlin Vai. This was a kid that saw the positive in everything. Picked me up countless times when I was about to fall on my face. This was a kid that was everything good in the galaxy. Seeing him distraught, no. We just couldn't have that.

"Hey." I said to him, now face to face. "Feeling pretty crappy, huh?" He frowned. "It's okay to feel that way. You know that, right?" A shrug this time. "Yeah, well, it is. You know how many times in the past I've felt like hell? More than I can ever count. Most of the time I managed my way out with help from certain little brothers." I scooted a few inches, reached out and pulled Tanner to me. A little adjustment and he fit perfectly, tucking his head into my chest.

"We're all good, Mouse. You and me. And the damn Empire isn't taking away anything else from you. We are so close to getting off this planet and back to what's ours. Promise, okay?"

His nodded against me. My words and actions accepted for truth.

And they'd be absolute truth if I had any say.

—-

Well, my words were truth, it just took them a while to become so. Another three weeks to be exact. I'd gotten a coded message from Colton that sounded promising, but it wasn't until Ornas in all of her dark-eyed, grumpy glory forcefully shoved me out of the entrance to the cantina when I knew for certain. I guess my shift was over.

"Get your things. Meet me back here. Twenty minutes. Don't be late, wazzock."

Hey, there was something. I'd apparently graduated from Scruffy to wazzock. Wait, what exactly was a wazzock?

"Dash, I think it's the Kallarsin word for idiot." Tanner nudged, with a mischievous smirk. The smirk I was happy to see but...

"How do you, wait... wait a second!"

Ornas said nothing more as she pointed me down the block in the direction of our quarters. "Will be glad to rid of you. Go. Now."

"Dash, I think we do what she said. Maybe it's a good thing. You said Colton sent you a new com."

"Yeah, but it didn't make complete sense and some of the message was scrambled rather than coded."

We hurried to our sorry excuse for a room, gathered our meager belongings and stuffed them into our cramped travel bags. We made it back to the cantina in nineteen minutes.

"Follow." Was all Ornas grunted as her horned head lead the way through the streets and over and under and around, for what seemed like forever. It was an hour. At the end of our weird journey, there was a stunted freighter. One of many that came and went from this planet all hours of the day. Ornas pointed to the pilot. The pilot pointed to the ship's belly. A horribly dingy, confined and awkward space.

I looked at Tanner. He at me. Then we both turned our heads to Ornas.

"You want home, you ride. If not, you stay." She paused a moment to glare one last time. "Strongly suggest you go."

Right. Code for, get the hell out of my life and I never signed up for babysitting duty.

So, Tanner and I climbed in with barely enough room for my long legs which were folded and then folded again. With me taking up most of the room, Tanner had little to work with. Thankfully, being as compact as he was, we rammed in together. Don't ask how we did it, but if this ship was going to Terra - going home - we were going to be on it. Or in it, I guess would be the better option.

The door slammed shut behind us and we both flinched in the dark. Tanner so much that his pointy elbows poked me in just the wrong place. Damn it!

My voice rose a few octaves. "Tanner! Watch those deadly elbows, come on. I need that area of my body for future use."

"I can't see, Dash."

"Use your magic."

"I can't make light with it."

"Ben does."

"Ben is a master Jedi, not an orphaned boy with two years of experience."

"No excuse to be flinging your stick elbows around. Sit still."

"I'm anxious."

There was something. Tanner? Anxious? That didn't happen. Well, it did, but he had abilities to calm it when it got too bad. I understood though. Going home. We'd been dreaming of this for I guess for all of these months. Was this actually happening? Or did we'd just jump into the bottom of a scary freighter because were so desperate to escape Kallarsin?

Good news, this was good news. Ornas was a paid operative of Colton's. And now this freighter pilot, either Colton was paying him more money than he'd ever seen before or... yeah, that was it.

I adjusted my tall body so Tanner fit against my side. There, his elbows were less deadly. "Stop being anxious. Unless this guy takes the long way home... or worse." My head titled and I raised my nose up as the ship lifted from the planet surface. "What's that smell?"

"It's not me!"

"No, it's the same smell that was on the planet surface. Could be it's what they export. Must've been a couple thousand freighters on and off that place while we were there."

"Smells like bantha poo-doo."

"That's nice, Mouse. Real nice."

"Well, it does."

"No, it's oh, I got it. It's that nasty brown-caked mud that forms when it rains. You know, that stuff that feels like cement when it's hardened."

It was weird, that mud. Reddish-brown and disgustingly slimy after the rains (and of course it rained every day), then there were these crews of whoever that plowed the piles and skimmed the streets, taking the excess somewhere. The stuff took about six days to harden completely and didn't require dry weather to do so.

"That must be what they export here. Any why the freighter flow is constant. There's a window of time before it hardens and they can move it. Would explain a lot of things. You'll have to check it out when we get home. Research it in all your unexciting glory, hey, Mouse?" No response. "Mouse?" Still nothing.

Reaching down, I felt Tanner breathing steady, his head having fallen against me in a sound contented sleep. I sighed in relief.

—-

The pilot did not take the scenic route back to Terra, though he didn't drop us in Kaolin either. Not surprised.

It also didn't surprise me that there was a nondescript ground car waiting for us when we painfully crawled our cramped selves from the belly of the ship. Took me a minute to stand upright and adjust to the wonderful brightness of the planet's large sun. I kept a hand on my brother's shoulder until I knew what was happening. The driver of the ground car got out. Abnormally tall. Dark. Menacing. Sydenious Greyer. Colton's number one everything. And one of the scariest men around.

I'd never been so happy to see the giant man in my life.

We were finally going home.

"Tanner, go." I pushed him toward the car and he leaped into the rear

seat. I followed, nodding to the big security guy. Sydenious and I had a relationship of I was an idiot, he was not, and don't make me kill you.

That kinda thing. It was an understanding that I accepted.

The door shut behind me and we took off for home. Tanner was excited. His doldrums from recent months fading and that light returning to his face.

"We're home, Dash. Almost. Finally." He said, about bouncing out of his seat.

"Finally is right. I'm just glad to see sun."

The trip was quick and the ground car piloted to Colton's estate. From the car, we were picked up by Kebrey Pacus. Essentially, Colton's number two everything. His gray beard having been trimmed since we'd last seen him, to the point that it no longer ran past his neck. His strange lavender eyes shone from his rich-brown skin and caught ours as we stepped from the the ride.

"Good to see you boys." He said. Kebrey wasn't much for smiling, but he always had one for Tanner. Especially when Tanner launched himself in for a hug.

"We missed you, Kebrey. So much. We missed all of this."

I shrugged a smile at the big man. He actually returned one back. Wow. Maybe he really had missed us too. Then he peeled Tanner off and moved us toward the house. Eyes watching. His back covered by the other guards well hidden around the property. Careful, but not anally so.

It appeared most of the Imperial danger had come and gone.

Kebrey vanished once we were safely inside. He and Sydenious clearly having tasks on their things-to-do lists other than playing escort. Of course by the time I walked into the house, Tanner had spotted Colton, run toward him and gotten lost in the giant man's embrace.

Virgil Colton, not well known for his affinity for hugging, tended to make exceptions where my brother was concerned. Seriously, who could resist the kid? He was a magnet of touchy-feely. Felt good to have the old version of him back too. I'd worried (yes, I always worry) about him back on Kallarsin. Mental note to never ever go back to that place. It turned my brother into something he wasn't. If for no other reason, that was enough to never step foot there again.

Anyway, with all this hugging going on, I was beginning to feel left out. Clearing my throat, I raised an eyebrow when Colton lifted his head in my direction. Tanner still stuck to him.

"Yes, you idiot, come on."

Invitation to a hug from Colton. This was a big deal.

I asked a question once he'd released us and motioned us to the giant comfy couch. Another rarity. Me and Tanner allowed on his furniture? He must have truly missed us.

"You sure it's safe here again, Colt?"

"I wouldn't have brought you back if it wasn't. No lie, it was a mess for a few months. They raided everything and everywhere more than twice. Good thing your little brother keeps his Jedi trinkets stashed in an impossible to find spot. All my people are accounted for. A few scuffles, but nothing Quin couldn't patch up. Your school, Tannerlin, survived with minimal damage. A few pot shot blaster bolts. Some of the troopers with a little too much ale starting randomly firing off shots. If you know how crappy a shot they are when sober, imagine when not. Damn imps. Oh, and Dec'lan is fine. His shop sustained no damage."

I saw the relief on Tanner's face that his friend was okay. I was glad of that, but still, I couldn't resist.

"Shows you how boring those paper books you guys love really are, Mouse, huh? Even the Empire left them alone." I chucked. Tanner kicked me in the shin. "Ow!"

Colton laughed. A nice sound, but come on!

"You earned that one, Dash."

"Whatever," I rubbed the bottom of my knee, "Oh and about this Kallarsin place. Never again, Colt. Seriously. Just, no."

"Honestly, I had no idea where that ship was off to when I put you on it. I just needed you gone. The kid really. Mostly anyplace would be safer. Kallarsin is a depressing place. Ornas is devoted though. Her kind thrive in the damp weather and lack of sunlight. Has something to do with the black eyes. She told me once, but eh, I can't keep track of everyone everywhere."

"She's your people."

"In a way. You pay her right, she won't betray. Once I figured out where you were, all she knew was that I wanted you safe and alive. Nothing else. For Ornas, money talks. You were as safe there as anywhere."

Physically safe, mostly. Thanks to Ornas in part. "Mostly safe. Emotionally, I think that place almost broke Tanner."

"Yes. There is an unseen fog that seems to hang over that place. If you can handle it, you're fine. If it drags you down into it's grasp..."

"I hated that place, Colton." Tanner said. Using the word hate. It wasn't a word you heard from him. So when he said it, he meant it. "Gloomy and dark and it rained constantly. Made me feel so... different."

I found the soft cushion next to my brother and sat close. Supportive where I could be. He was good though. Bouncing back. Once he returned to school, saw Dec, and found his routine again, he'd be happy as a sea clam. Stupid saying, but whatever. It was true.

Colton studied us for a few minutes. Taking in our dirty appearance and then probably wondering what the hell he was thinking for letting us sit on his precious couch. We did look a mess. Felt a mess. Needed haircuts, long showers and to burn every bit of clothing we had on. Then to our own beds and comforts of home. I was so ready to just collapse and fall unconscious for a day. Or three.

Didn't work out that way. Middle of the night, there was a presence at my bedroom doorway. The outline of my brother stood there softly illuminated by the light from another room.

"Dash?"

"Hey, Mouse. What's up? Besides you, I mean."

He ignored my sad excuse for humor.

"Feels weird to be home."

"Yeah. Just standing in a shower was the most amazing thing. Guess I take those things for granted. Funny. I never used to when I was younger. We didn't have all these fancy things that we have with Colton. Dunno. Maybe it's why I adapted a little better than you did on Kallarsin."

"Maybe. But it's weird to be separated."

"Well, we were literately attached at the hip for about five months, weren't we?" I smiled and sat up in bed, patting the empty spot next to me. Tanner wasn't difficult to read even when dimly lit. The kid wore emotions out there. He also had an interesting tendency to be a little on the needy side when it came to finding his comfort level again after being off kilter.

He climbed onto the bed next to me without a word and turned to lay his back to mine. For the first time in five months, he wasn't shivering himself into unconsciousness. Sleep found him in less than two minutes. I timed it. Kinda. He was right though. It was weird. I mean, we spent a lot of time together here at home. But at least he had school, I had work and we got away from each other enough so that I was pretty sure we never once thought about murdering each other.

There, on Kallarsin - our temporary and forced home away from home - we were glued together from day-start to day-end. Probably neither one of us was brave enough to let the other out of our sights.

Now, home again, and we had our own rooms and our own lives - to an extent. That sudden separation felt strange. I was sure it wouldn't bother me within a few days time, but yeah, like Tanner, I didn't care for it much at the moment. So, I was kinda glad he'd wandered into my room. I was glad he plastered himself to my back. I was glad he was by my side - literally - for a while longer.

Return to normal would come soon enough. A few days for us to readjust, rest and find that comfort zone again. As long as I had my brother with me, all was good.

END