May 2010

Somehow a dream in the night touched it off this time, and Brad was savagely wrenched awake by the roar of every Psychiccer in who-knew-how-many miles flooding in on his brain in a torrent of minds so overwhelming that any distinct identity among them was swept away, even his own. He barely broke free of sleep in time to snatch the thin thread of his panic and cling for a moment to who he was — and who he didn't want to be, his fragmentary memories of the voice that could stand against the current with a laughing vow to carve a blood-soaked silence, the crimsoned claws that would come out when he was inevitably swept under…

He was nearly lost when something rose above the din, at first only a formless nudge, but it held him and pressed forth on him more insistently until he could hear it as one distinct voice.

…Brad? …Brad!

It was Keith calling him back from the brink again, and Brad clutched at him desperately. Help me!

As patiently as ever, Keith did help him, as if with a hand over his on the handle of a door, guiding him through the slow arc of drawing it closed against the voices until, with a gently jarring shudder, his mind was sealed again, and he was alone in the blessed silence.

He found himself prostrated on the floor, having unconsciously struggled out of bed, and he picked himself up and looked around at the familiar sight of the room to calm his still-pounding heart. Back when NOA's headquarters had been a Psychic research laboratory, this had been the maximum security level, and now it was enough to keep Brad's other self contained and limit its rampages to the ripples and claw-gouges in these walls and the twisted shreds of metal where there had once been robotic arms in the ceiling. Constantly looking at the damage had oppressed him at first, but now he was used to it, used to the multi-directional light that bathed the room day and night and cast petals of shadow around every feature, even used to limiting his comforts and personal touches to things he could smile at but wouldn't have to cry over when they were inevitably destroyed. It was humble, certainly, beyond anything he could have imagined back in the lost horizon of his former, normal life, but it had become home.

…Which made the sudden intrusion of danger all the more unsettling when it happened. Tonight, it would be useless to try to go back to sleep. Better to use the time during the night when no one else was around for him to endanger or bother. He could tend his flowers, change out which ones were getting sun… Whoever was in C&C controlling the door locks and elevator knew that he was safe now — every Psychiccer for miles around could hear him rage when he wasn't — and so he got dressed and went out.

No one knew why Brad was like this: why he was unable to telepathically "filter stimuli" so that it took Keith's sheer signal strength to cut through the noise; why, once triggered, he couldn't shut it down on his own no matter how many times Keith guided him through the motion; why his mind resorted to that kind of other self to cope with it… Wong had been studying it for months but declared himself baffled. Keith still told him not to give up hope of mastering it or being cured, and generally did everything possible to let him live here decently and feel useful despite the trouble it caused.

Most of the people who lived at NOA's headquarters did so because they needed care or protection or had nowhere else to go where they could act as field agents, but even here, Brad was an outcast among outcasts. Even on a good day, he could make them uncomfortable with his tendency to say or ask or do things that came into his head even if they were awkward, out of fear that if he kept the ideas to himself they would tempt him into the trap of his broken telepathy. He could only thank God most of them hadn't seen a bad day yet, although everyone knew what it looked like. Other Psychiccers would shy away from him in the hallways, surely thinking to each other where he couldn't hear them or at times even whispering, "He's the one who goes crazy and kills people."

And who could blame them? After all, it was true — he was uncomfortably awkward; he did go crazy; he had killed people. It left him feeling that his life was a debt, and it made him uneasy when he wasn't somehow paying on it, but equally uneasy when he was, because he knew that with the slightest wrong move, the debt would only grow faster — certainly much faster than the trifle of keeping flowers around could repay anything, but hopefully they made life just a little bit better.

When he got off the elevator in the communal sector, the lonely echo of his footsteps on the metal floor sounded empty but reassuringly safe, and so he was surprised when he came to the library and saw the door open with a harder light slanting out from it. Diffidently, he edged inside. It was lit exactly as in the day but eerily night-silent — until, from somewhere among the shelves, he heard the not-quite-sniffle of someone drawing in a breath.

He thought that he should just quietly borrow the surgical cart cum book truck and take his flower pots and go, but a flash of blue down an aisle caught his eye. The familiar jacket and cape were thrown on one of the low tables, and it drew Brad closer until he found Keith leaning back in the center of a sectional sofa, nestled into the cushioned angle and reading a book.

"I'm sorry!" Brad lamented. "I woke you up."

"No, you didn't." Keith managed a smile despite watery, dark-rimmed eyes and the serration of fatigue at the bottom of his voice. "It's just no use tonight. I'll get through tomorrow and then…"

"Are you all right? Is there anything I can do?"

He shook his head. "It isn't the first time. Don't let me keep you from what you were doing."

Keith settled back into his book, and at first Brad accepted it meekly. He took his flowers and loaded them on the cart, but the prospect of leaving pulled against him like a tether. He didn't know why he felt that debt most keenly with the person who most assiduously assured him that he didn't owe a thing, but if he just walked away, he wouldn't be able to get it out of his head, and that was always dangerous…

There was nothing else to do. He went back to the sofa and shyly but determinedly sat down. It might have been enough for him just to sit there until morning, but when Keith gave him a questioning look, he had to say something.

"Um… Is it a good book?"

"It's a way to stay out of my own head. It's strange, I used to like it there."

The words resonated too deeply. Brad straightened and opened his mouth, but words eluded him.

"Well, everything outside was so awful then," Keith explained. "That's really all I mean."

"Oh, I see…" Brad settled back against the cushions again, feeling reassured but also foolish to have presumed any comparison. He even knew the story, that Keith had been imprisoned here when it was still a horror-movie laboratory, on that same maximum security level. At first, those robot arms had cost Brad some sleep even with the promise that they weren't going to move, and his other self had quickly been impelled to tear them to shreds. After it was all over, Keith had come down to comfort him and had stared at the twisted metal remains with a strangely open, abstracted look, but the memory of them — and who-knew-what else — couldn't be broken so easily.

No, Keith wouldn't be stranded in a minefield like Brad was, twisting himself into some half-human shape to navigate the debt and the traps and the flash-visions of blood; he wasn't that weak. He just needed something to distract him from bad memories and help him relax.

"Maybe," Brad ventured, "you need to get out of your head and into your body."

Keith gave him a look, and he didn't need telepathy to hear I thought we had that conversation.

"No, not like that!" he insisted, defensively waving his hands. Even the fact that they had had that conversation was still overwhelming beyond anything he would dare, and he ran back to his passing notion for shelter. "Just — come here, come here."

Keith looked quizzical but didn't resist as Brad took his arm, pulled him up from his seat, arranged him lying face-down on the sofa, and began massaging his shoulders. At first he tensed with a brittle, nervous energy, and Brad ran his palms in light, slow circles to let him get used to being touched before gradually building to a warming speed and pressure. "Have you ever had this done before?"

"No, never."

"Well, you might have to bear with me, it's been a while," Brad admitted.

"'Been a while'?"

"Yes, I used to work in a spa before… everything." It ached to be reminded of those times, but it gave him a little swell of pride how easily it was coming back to him as he perched his weight on the edge of the table beside the jacket and shifted to pattering his way down Keith's back with the edges of loosely-curled hands.

"It still feels good," Keith assured him, and laughed at how the percussion came through in his voice.

"It would be even better if I had some lavender oil," got Brad another laugh, but that was good — the laughs were more honest. He could feel under his hands that Keith still wasn't quite sure what to make of this, but gradually, under patient pressing and kneading and long, soothing strokes, he did relax until even his head, propped on his folded hands, began lolling side-to-side with the motions. Brad moved to support it, gently working the muscles in his neck and moving up the back of his head until he gave a distant, contented sigh that sounded almost like a purr.

Brad smiled at that, but in the next moment, his fingers slowed. Pushing up into Keith's hair lifted it off his nape to reveal the inch of bare skin above the high neck of his black shirt. There, the dotted tracks of surgical scars traced up each side of his spine and into his hair, where they branched and dissolved into some invisible pattern over his skull. Brad had been feeling those roughened places and knew what they were, but it was another thing to see the lines, see his own hands touching where, not so very long ago, someone had laid Keith face-down much like this and traced with a knife…

—Blood—

For one flash he saw it — a scarlet stain welling up hot under his fingertips. It shot through his chest and sent him flying back as he snapped his hands clear and caught himself before falling back over the table. His heart hammered What was I thinking — if the claws had come out then—! But it was an "if." It was his own lone voice ringing in his head, and outside only the fluorescent lights buzzing low and cold in the silence. He stared at his hands — not a trace of blood no matter how closely he looked.

"Hmm?" Keith's hair was still blue-white like fresh snow as he drowsily lifted his head.

"It… it's okay." Brad pressed gently into his shoulders again, making certain to keep his nails aimed away from the skin. Keith must have been too nearly asleep to realize what had happened. It would be too miraculous or too suicidal for him to know and be so unfazed, and it was too late to disturb him now. Still, Brad was sure that the lingering fear must be coming through in his touch; it was gnawing at him, maybe pulling him into a trap, and he had to say something…

"You… Why do you trust me?"

"Mmh." Keith settled his temple on his hands, showing an oblique sliver of another tired smile. "I think I'm supposed to say something noble here."

"Well, that's not… not really…"

"It's actually selfish, you know." The smile fell. His eyes were closed, but that sleepy, watery sparkle had lodged droplets in his lashes. "If I didn't believe in you, I couldn't believe in myself…"

For Brad, that was noble and generous enough to steady him, although he still didn't quite trust his own hands and moved into pressing and pivoting with his elbows. If nervousness could be felt in his touch, Keith seemed to pay it no mind, but lay quietly until at last his breath fell into the heedless nonrhythm of sleep.

Brad crept away and took his cart of flowers, but he had had enough for now. He found a piece of paper to write "Do Not Disturb," tucked the edge under one of the flower pots, and left the cart in front of the library door as he left.