Twelve's POV. This chapter is linked to the events in episode 6 "Ready Or Not", but doesn't stick to it entirely.

Enjoy~

A tingle of yellow sparked in the back of his head. Twelve blinked a few times, as if he could bring it back like that. It took him a moment to understand the words that had kindled the colours. She had asked him whether he had ever dropped something.

He always threw things up in the air to catch them again. Be it his phone, Nine's glasses, the keys of their apartment or a grenade. His hand moved swiftly according to the course of the object. It seemed to be just another automatism, like writing or smiling. He briefly wondered whether illegally buying chemicals or driving triple the allowed speed would ever become such dulled habits too.

"I'm pretty good at catching things," He answered with a wink.

In between blue and green, with a grey undertone. That's how he would describe his own voice. A colour not too often seen in daily life, which he, for some reason, appreciated. It was not overused in commercials or always hovering over them like the sky did. Lately he had also noticed that when he talked to Lisa, it grew a few shades greener. The thought that her yellow blended into it made him happy.

And such a frail thing happiness was.

Except for playing with his phone, he barely moved. His fingers were still stiff and he was reminded of it every time they curled around the object. The thought of completely sinking away into the couch was comforting. He had been sitting there in exactly the same position for about a half hour now, with his head back and his legs stretched. At least the bomb had been finished on time, after hours of late night work.

"Twelve, um," Lisa stammered. She was standing right in front of him, firing off her pale words at him. "You, you were going to tell me, something."

He cocked his head to the side with a playful grin. "I was?"

It was easy to tell that Lisa knew he was playing dumb. Whether she ignored it or understood it, he didn't dare to guess. "You know, you," Her voice grew quieter, dimming the colours in his head, "You would tell me about, you and Nine."

"I would?"

She didn't respond, but didn't look away either. Her expression was soft and almost melancholic. It didn't let go of him. He found himself surprised (if he dared to admit it, pleasantly surprised) with her persistent stare. As if his face grew transparent to her and she could flip through the pages of scribbly thoughts by blinking. She was staring not just into the obvious, because indeed he was tired and the past was not quite an amusing topic, but into a world of which he didn't know whether he was allowed to acknowledge it. A world of doubts and conflicts that felt like spider webs in his brain.

But perhaps she couldn't see that at all. Perhaps he just wished she did. He had learned that humans could see things that weren't really there, if they really hoped they were. And hope was a dangerous thing. He stretched himself slowly and then patted on the spot next to him. She sat down, a little too close and a little too far away.

Perhaps believing she was reaching out to his world, whether it was true or not, was just another things that made him human.

"Nine and I are orphans. Gifted orphans, or hyper-intelligent, if you will." He felt tired. Whether the words tired him out even more or the previous work was still weighing on his shoulders, he couldn't tell.

"Twelve," Lisa's hand touched his knee and sparked what felt like electricity. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to. Or you don't have to do it now. I can wait."

She had these big brown eyes that were so plain and simple, so filled with something that could not be named in one word, something he could only describe as familiar to him. Surely other people didn't see or understand it. Just like they didn't understand a void wasn't always empty. All he could do was smile loosely at her as his chest tightened.

"We were taken by scientists to become test subjects. The goal of their project was to develop a new kind of humans, more intelligent and capable. They had some kind of new drug that could apparently further develop us into,"

Twelve held his breath for a moment. Nothing. No memories. No whirlwind of emotions. No craving for revenge or cry for justice. He inhaled deeply. The distance between him and his past had grown over the years and it felt like he had expected to cross it in a few seconds. The only sorrow he felt was the one that came with knowing Nine would never be able to think back and remain even half as calm as he did.

Lisa braced herself. He wanted to rest his hand on hers, as if she needed such comfort more than he did, but he didn't do anything. She shifted, and the shadows on her face played around. Everything had a yellow tone under the artificial light. When Nine wasn't at home and he felt well, he liked to cover everything in that yellow glow. The same one that reappeared in the back of his mind just that moment. "What happened?"

"The drug– or actually all the different drugs they gave us, slowly backfired on most of the children. One day we just wouldn't see someone anymore, and we knew they would never come back. The doctors and scientists never told us that. But we all knew what they did to us." He tapped a rhythm on the cushion, alike to one of those catchy songs he had heard on the radio. "Not that we knew a lot about the drugs or the goal of the project. But we knew they were killing us."

With every spoken word, he felt himself sinking away deeper into the couch. Every thought of the past seemed to drift apart quietly and peacefully. They dissolved in the ocean of Lisa's eyes. It all started to sound like just another part of a story, one that had already past and shouldn't be relived every single day.

"That's also why Nine and I have to be careful. You see, our bodies exist of chemical imbalances."

Lisa inhaled slowly. The touch of her warm hand on his knee was like a connection. She understood his calm words but even more so she understood his silence. Her eyes travelled back and forth over her hand. "Is that why you don't go to a hospital?"

"It is," He answered and ran his hand through his hair. Outside a drizzle had started and tiny drops of water kissed the window in shades of beige and light brown. How odd for the rain to have such a warm colour that evening. "Even as much as a painkiller can inflict quite some damage, or worse. Some stuff does work of course."

With her free hand, Lisa fiddled with her skirt. He wondered whether she was keeping herself from holding it against her belly. "Is that also why, I mean, I noticed that Nine only drank his soup, but left the noodles untouched."

"There are few things Nine can stomach. His digestive system is ruined. As for me, I have a chronic shortage of some things, but I can tolerate nearly anything." He refrained from going into the details, because things would only grow long and boring. His heart was beating vividly and his thoughts clear. He was wide awake, maybe even more than just awake.

"I'm sorry," She muttered.

He closed his eyes for a moment before slowly opening them again. His lips automatically curled into a smile. Pecks of soft brown tints were mangled with his thoughts. Time past slowly but surely and neither of them dared to move. He didn't mind. He inhaled deeply and then carefully rested his hand on hers.

Such a frail thing indeed.

Twelve lied in bed when a black streak ran over his mind. He opened his eyes, hazily lingering on the edge of consciousness. They were there. They ran out of Nine's mouth, darker than the night, like rats, searching for refuge in Twelve's head.

He was afraid to talk. To see that darkness escape from behind Nine's lips. To find his own colours fade into greys. Those were all he wanted to keep, keep them bright and lively. He didn't dare to speak, and instead desperately held onto his sleepiness. He hated it. Just like he hated to hear Nine suffer through his nightmares alone. All those words, smothered into a pillow; Twelve could hear the calls for numbers long gone and whispers of a fire extinguished in the world but forever burning in his head. Most of all there was that incomprehensible whimpering, words that didn't need to be understood for him to know they craved justice and vengeance. They were all ashes from the fire that was to this day devouring Nine.

The stairs were uncomfortable and cold, but they weren't the cause of the shiver that ran over his spine. He felt it tiptoe all the way down and chill him deeply. As much as he liked to throw things around, he wish he could fling his phone away to never look at it again. Or at least, he wished that would matter. His eyes ran over the text, again and again. Five. The thought of her presence, her wish to interfere with their life, was probably one of the only things that actually revolted and scared him.

Nine startled awake. It was noon, but the night had been long and the hours short for him. Twelve rarely asked him how he was feeling, because he knew the answer, but even his concerned "Nine," went unheard. It wasn't hard to tell something was up, and it was bad. Twelve threw the phone into the air and caught it just in time. That being done, Nine knew disaster awaited.

"I think you should rest," He said, even though Nine was already getting up.

He used to sleep without a T-shirt sometimes, certainly during the hot summer nights. Warmth had never been truly enjoyable to them. But since the train accident not a night had passed in which Nine hadn't worn anything to cover up the scars. Now too, he wore a dark grey tank top, just a few shades of blue from his voice. As if no one was supposed to see or know about it. Ignoring things in order to make them invisible was a little habit of him of which Twelve wasn't entirely sure he was aware of himself.

Twelve picked up glasses and threw them to Nine, who shot him a glare for throwing them but caught them and put them on either way. "She won't give us the time to recover."

"I know," Twelve stood up as well. He reached out his phone to Nine but didn't let it go if it when Nine tried to take it. "But that doesn't change that you should really rest."

Nine didn't understand. He thought in necessities, in time and effort, in planning and working. Care and love did not come to his mind when Twelve spoke to him, or anyone else for that matter.

A fake Sphinx message. It was only obvious that if they wouldn't do anything, no one would, and people would die. People would die and they would be blamed. It hit a highly sensitive string. And as if the two of them shared the same doubtless connection with Five, they knew that hitting that string had been exactly the purpose. Atop of that, all three of them knew it had succeeded very well.

"She wants to play with us," Nine said, putting the phone down and opening his laptop.

They were bombers, yet casualties were the very last thing they wanted. As for Twelve, that contradiction seemed the edge absurdness. Not that he wanted to murder people, but technically, they weren't the ones murdering anyone. Nine however approached it differently. He would believe himself to be a murderer. Just like those scientists. In such a tense and sensitive mind, loaded with traumas and stress, there was little room for that kind of guilt. And if Nine would break, Twelve feared only for the worst. He feared that Nine would become just like Five. Thus, for the sake of keeping the insane from going entirely mad, Twelve too would do anything to keep their hands clean.

The line between madness and murder, it was indeed a very brittle thing. But he had once heard that he had very steady hands, and learned that those could serve for more than creating and dismantling bombs. After all, frailty was what made it worth to keep going, wasn't it?

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