Show Me How to Get Off the Ground

He was trapped.

Mithrun took a deep breath and tried to get a grip on his surroundings, on what was happening, but his mind couldn’t seem to focus. I’ve been drugged, he concluded as he struggled to move.

His arms were bound against his sides, and when he tried to kick his legs, something seemed to stop him. He was somewhere warm, laying on the ground. It was dark… He felt dread crawling up his throat like bile, and his breath grew shallow and panicky.

He heard footsteps approaching his cell (he was in his cell, he was back, he’d never left, he was still there...) and struggled even harder, thrashing against the ropes that bound him. No, not ropes? It should have been handcuffs of cold iron to prevent him from spellcasting… Why would they bind him up with ropes instead of handcuffs…?

He heard a loud crashing noise and knew it was the cell door opening, that they were coming for him, that they were going to cut him again--

Mithrun woke to the sudden, startling feeling of dull pain in his head.

He was tangled up in his bedsheets, half hanging out of his bed in his flat in Vakstran. He could hear the sound of a lorry driving away down the street, crashing and clattering across the cobblestones.

He’d been… asleep. In his bed.

The panic induced by his nightmare faded as the real world displaced it. There was midday sun shining through the blinds and the sounds of the city: the bubbling murmur of cars and pedestrians and the twittering of birds.

For the first time in weeks the sound of birds didn’t make Mithrun feel irrationally angry. For a while now he’d been having violent fantasies of teleporting one bird into another just to shut them up. No, they sounded lovely, and he was… happy to hear them. They reminded him of home, the estate always had birds chirping outside in the gardens. He’d never appreciated that before going to war.

What time was it? What day was it? He squirmed the rest of the way off the bed and wiggled free of the cocoon of sheets on the floor. He was… clean, he realized with a start, running his fingers through his hair and marveling that it felt freshly washed.

Oh, right. I met someone last night… What was his name? Kabron? Kabril? He made me take a shower, and he must have helped me go to sleep… Mithrun grabbed his mobile to check the man’s name in his messages, frowning when he saw that the battery was dead.

Of all the times to forget to top it up. He set his mobile down on its wireless charger, ignoring the blinking red magic circle that bloomed around the device, telling him that the battery was at 0%. He already knew that. He made a mental note to check it later for the mystery man’s name.

Mithrun shuffled his way to the bathroom, ignoring the twinge of shame he felt as he saw how dirty and disorganized his living space was. He really needed to do laundry, as getting all the dirty clothes off the floor would be the necessary first step towards cleaning the whole flat, but first he’d have to hang up the clean clothes currently in the hamper to make room for all the dirty ones, and he was out of detergent because he hadn’t had the energy to go to the store---

He tried to ignore his rapidly spiraling thoughts as he brushed loose hairs off of the bathroom counter and into the sink, turning on the hot water so he could wash his face. Leaning over the sink gave him a good view of his own face in the mirror, and he recoiled a little at the sight. Oh, he looked rough.

Peering at his reflection, Mithrun poked at the dark bags under his eyes and the various other imperfections that littered his skin: blackheads and red spots, chapped lips, and even a few stray hairs growing from his chin. Hideous, he thought, frowning as he got out his tweezers to take care of the last item immediately.

He told himself he would take care of the rest eventually, do some much needed skin-care, but he knew deep down that he would probably forget or just lose his motivation. After all, there wasn’t any point to looking good anymore, was there?

A quick survey of his walk-in closet reminded him that literally all of his clothes were dirty. The T-shirt and shorts he’d worn to sleep last night would have to do for now. He’d need to walk to the corner store to buy detergent or take the subway to the hypermarket if he wanted any other supplies… Did he have any food left in the refrigerator? The fact that he couldn’t remember was bothersome.

Mithrun picked up the hamper of clean but wrinkled clothes in the bedroom and carried it to the closet, where he hung up most of them and stuffed everything else haphazardly into a drawer. Good enough.

Next he went to the kitchen, trying to ignore the mess of discarded clothes and dishes that was battling his paintings to win territory in the living room. It was such a nice flat, and he’d let it get so awful, and he didn’t know why. Even with his bad eye, it wasn’t like he was crippled. He could walk and carry things just fine, and he even knew how to do some basic chores thanks to his time in the AEGIS. Now that he’d slept, it seemed so absurd that he’d let things get this bad… But when he was on day four or five of no sleep, it was like he couldn’t even see the mess anymore. It stopped existing, and he just navigated around it in a daze.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much left in the kitchen that was still edible. The heels of a loaf of bread sat in a bag on the counter next to the piles of dirty dishes that were overflowing from the brimming sink. Mithrun cracked open the dishwasher suspiciously but was relieved to see that it was full of clean dishes and cutlery. He just hadn’t ever been able to gather the willpower to unload it.

Checking the bread, Mithrun was glad to see that, while it was quite hard, it hadn’t yet grown mold. Maybe he could do something with it.

In the refrigerator he found nearly empty take-out containers in various stages of decay, a few wilted root vegetables, half a stick of butter, his second ashtray (why the hell was it in there?) and a single slice of cheese. He’d had other food of course, but he’d been eating his way through it over the last several weeks as he came in and out of the fugue state that his chronic insomnia left him in.

I’d better do something about this while I still have the energy for it, Mithrun thought, and he went to get a bin bag so he could empty out the fridge. He stopped short when he realized that he was out of bags.

“Shit,” he muttered to himself. “Fuck. Stupid.” Well, alright. He’d put away the clean dishes, and then he’d put whatever he could fit into the empty dishwasher, hand wash the rest, then he’d eat something, and then he could go shopping…

I can do this, it’s not hard, Mithrun told himself sternly. I just have to get started.

Emptying the dishwasher only took a few minutes, but that meant refilling the dishwasher with dirty dishes also only took a few minutes… And there were still plenty of dirty dishes afterwards. Mithrun spent a few more tedious minutes rearranging items in the dishwasher until he was satisfied that he’d gotten as many as he possibly could inside, started the dishwasher, and then set to work washing everything else by hand.

The simple task took a grand total of fifteen minutes, which didn’t seem that bad now but it had seemed insurmountable when he’d been sleep-deprived. At least now he had some clean plates and utensils to eat with and a clean pan to cook with.

Mithrun got himself a glass of water and took his plate to the table. The fact that the anemic sandwich and carrot both tasted really good told him he was probably hungrier than he’d realized.

He was licking the traces of melted butter and bread crumbs off of his plate when the doorbell buzzed loudly, startling him so much that he nearly snapped the plate in half. Heart racing, he counted to ten in his head before carefully unclenching his death grip on the edges of the ceramic. He set it down carefully on the table.

Why was someone at the door? Mithrun got to his feet and approached slowly, cropped ears pricked forward as he tried to listen for any clue as to who might be outside. He flattened himself against the wall next to the door and waited.

“Mithrun?” called a familiar voice. It was his brother, Malthus.

…Or was it? Malthus should have been halfway across the world at home. It was a twelve-hour flight from Maalinus to Vakstran, not an insignificant amount of time to spend on travel, and Malthus was a busy man. He had no reason to come out here except to see Mithrun, and wouldn’t he have called him, texted him before undertaking such a long trip?

“Mithrun?” the voice called again, and wasn’t it suspicious that all it was saying was his name?

What if someone recorded Malthus’ voice and they’re trying to trick me? Mithrun thought, his breath growing shallow and quick as he imagined the possibilities. It could be Southern separatists from Usilan back to finish what they’d started or any of the dozens of enemies their family had…

No, no, no. That’s so unlikely! Mithrun scolded himself, frustrated by how easily his brain wanted to accept wildly improbable threats as being totally reasonable.

Am I sure he didn’t contact me? I might have forgotten if it happened while I wasn’t able to sleep.

Mithrun instinctively touched a hand to his hip to look for his mobile but then remembered he was wearing shorts that didn’t have pockets and that the mobile was charging next to the bed.

The doorbell buzzed again, and Mithrun took several deep, slow breaths to try and calm himself. His heart was racing for no good reason. It was probably just Malthus. Of course, realizing that only made him feel marginally better because if it was Malthus and not armed thugs bent on kidnapping and torturing him, that meant Malthus was here and Mithrun would have to let him in, and Malthus would see the horrible state that the flat was in and know that Mithrun was still incapable of taking care of himself.

And that would be only slightly less excruciating than getting kidnapped by armed thugs.

“Mithrun?” Malthus called again, accompanied by an excessively gentle knock on the door. “Are you home?”

Mithrun took another deep breath. That soft knock had to be his tender-hearted brother. He silently crept closer to the door and dared to look through the security peephole, all while desperately trying to forget every story he’d ever heard from other soldiers about getting shot through a door while trying to decide if it was safe to open it.

It was his brother standing outside, by himself, bracing his weight against his forearm crutch. He had a carry-on bag on wheels beside him. He looked sad and worried, which unfortunately had become his default expression anytime he was around Mithrun.

“Sorry,” Mithrun answered, undoing the security chain and two deadbolts. “I didn’t realize you were coming. I got startled by the doorbell.”

“That’s alright,” Malthus said, sounding equal parts relieved and forgiving. Malthus was constantly forgiving Mithrun for things. “I thought you must be unwell and that’s why you stopped answering my-- Oh.”

When the door opened, there was no way that Malthus couldn’t see the garbage bags, the space cluttered with rubbish, and the paint and canvases everywhere. Mithrun said nothing, shame and embarrassment strangling the voice out of him.

Malthus quickly closed the space between them and caught Mithrun up in a one-armed hug.

“Why didn’t you call me?” Malthus asked, sounding on the verge of tears, which Mithrun hated.

“I… couldn’t,” Mithrun mumbled, his arms rigid at his sides as he tensed up in Malthus’ embrace.

“I should have checked up on you sooner when you stopped texting back,” Malthus said, sounding like he was angry at himself.

“You’re busy, the bank--” Mithrun started to say, but Malthus spoke over him.

“Forget the bank. It can run itself for a while.”

They stood there like that for a few minutes while Mithrun struggled to react. It was good that Malthus was here! He’d help Mithrun dig himself out of this hole he’d gotten into. With Malthus around, Mithrun would be able to relax and sleep normally for a few days. Get some work done for his classes. Set himself up for success once he was back on his own.

But it was also bad that Malthus was here. Mithrun hated needing help, hated getting it from his brother of all people. Malthus was the one who was crippled, he needed help, and it was backwards and wrong for Mithrun, who really had nothing wrong with him, to get taken care of by his crippled brother. So why did this keep happening? Ever since he’d returned home from the war, it felt like it was this, just over and over and over again.

Though Malthus was their parents’ firstborn, he’d never measured up to the family’s expectations. Malthus had always been timid, had never excelled in any of the ways Mithrun had, didn’t make friends easily, and preferred the company of his horses to people. Their parents ignored and neglected him in favor of Mithrun. Mithrun couldn’t even begin to count the number of times he’d overheard their parents say, “Malthus, why can’t you be more like your brother?”

Malthus was painfully average-looking, with a perpetual baby face, hair that was bronze instead of the family’s usual silver, and ruddy, freckled cheeks. Most people were shocked to find out they were even from the same social class, let alone related. Malthus looked more like a peasant than an aristocrat, and on more than one occasion, he’d been mistaken for a servant.

As young children, they had been each other’s only playmates, but after Mithrun had been sent away to boarding school, he often found himself secretly wishing his brother would leave him alone so he could enjoy his own life, full of things that Malthus lacked: friends, parties, romantic attention from their peers.

Looking back on it now, Mithrun knew that he’d been obnoxious and arrogant. He and the rest of the family had underestimated and dismissed Malthus unfairly, never giving him the opportunity to prove himself. So every time Malthus was kind to him, it made Mithrun feel guilty, and sometimes that guilt boiled over into anger. So he lashed out at Malthus sometimes, and felt like shit about it after the fact.

And yet, nothing he said or did, no matter how cruel, seemed like it could make Malthus stop taking care of him. It was baffling to Mithrun, but he was grateful for it all the same.

“Um, let’s go sit down,” Mithrun suggested after several long, awkward minutes of being hugged by a sniffling Malthus.

It was only after Malthus let him go that Mithrun realized he wasn’t sure where he was going to seat his brother. He hurried to grab Malthus’ suitcase and then rushed ahead of him to pick up an armful of unopened mail from one of the armchairs, dumping it onto the sofa. Malthus discreetly adjusted his bad leg as he sat in the now-empty chair, and Mithrun sat across from him on the edge of the coffee table.

“What are you doing here?” Mithrun asked, trying to sound casual, like maybe his brother really was just visiting him on a whim. “It’s such a long flight--”

“I was worried about you. Did something happen to your mobile? I’ve been texting you all morning, telling you I was on my way… And it’s been more than two weeks since we last talked…”

“...My battery died,” Mithrun said dumbly. Without really wanting to, he started to bounce one of his legs in a desperate attempt to calm his nerves. His hands itched for the reassuring ritual of a cigarette and his brain for the soothing dullness that his usual cannabion-celery blend brought him.

He didn’t want to talk about how the flat had ended up looking this way. He didn’t want to talk about how he hadn’t slept properly since Malthus had left him here. He didn’t want to talk about how he clearly wasn’t able to take care of himself anymore.

“For two weeks? Did your laptop die too? Did you forget my mobile number? My e-mail? There are other ways you could have contacted me!”

Mithrun knew that he deserved to be scolded; he felt guilty for his lapse in communication. These days, he enjoyed hearing from Malthus and telling him about his own adventures, even if they had been rather dull since his retirement from the military… But he didn’t want to answer the questions Malthus was asking him now, or the ones he knew would come next, because answering made him feel like an idiot. Like he couldn’t even control himself, let alone what went on in his life.

What kind of elf couldn’t control himself? Self-control was the absolute minimum to expect from a normal, functional member of society. Mithrun wasn’t like that. He couldn’t be like that.

The silence between them felt suffocating, and Mithrun couldn’t think of a single good excuse for his behavior. Why hadn’t he just picked up his mobile and called him when he started having trouble? Why was that so hard?

“... I’m sorry,” Malthus said eventually, apologetic. As if he were the one that needed to apologize! “I’m not angry, I’m just worried about you.”

“I know, I know,” Mithrun said, running his hands through his hair out of sheer frustration. “Honestly, I’m fine! I’m still going to classes. I’m doing my assignments!” He gestured towards the array of canvases in various stages of completion. “I’m doing most of my assignments. The flat’s just gotten a little messy. I was going to clean it today.”

He didn’t know who he was trying to fool. The flat was disgusting, he was a shambling zombie only propped up by a single night of rest, and he had gaping holes in his memory where his classes should have been. He was acting petty and stupid, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself.

“That sounds good! Why don’t I help you?” Malthus suggested, clearly playing along to spare Mithrun’s ego. However, it felt like he was being placating to keep Mithrun calm, and that really had the opposite effect. Mithrun’s heart was pounding, his chest hurt, and it felt like he couldn’t get enough air. What if Malthus thought he needed to go back to the mental hospital?

No! No, Malthus had promised him he’d never do that again. He’d promised Mithrun would never go back to a padded cell, to restraints and electric shocks. It had been hell and it hadn’t even worked! Malthus had said they’d find new, more radical treatments to help Mithrun get well, and they had.

Mithrun had a therapist, he had a support group of other veterans, and he regularly wrote about his feelings in his journal. Those things had all felt very strange at first, but he’d gotten used to them over time and now they felt like second nature. Sure, he’d fallen off on doing them because of his insomnia, but they’d been working well for years. He just had to get back in the habit. He couldn’t let his first mistake ruin all the progress he’d already made.

He had to convince Malthus that he really was fine because even if Mithrun was certain that institutionalization was off the table, if his brother got too worried, he might decide that it had been too soon for Mithrun to leave home, and that he hadn’t been ready to live on his own. He might force him to return to the estate, where he’d have nurses and aides breathing down his neck at all hours of the day, making sure he was taken care of and not hurting himself or getting into trouble...

Mithrun didn’t want any of that. He wasn’t an invalid and he’d prove it to Malthus. He just needed to fix the small, annoying things that had gone wrong in his flat while he still had the extra energy required to do it. Then he could get himself back on track with all the stopgap measures he had in place so he could live his life independently.

Mithrun was desperately trying to remember how to have a normal conversation. There were rules to basic etiquette, and if he could just give a good enough performance, he could make Malthus stop looking at him with that pitying expression that made him feel like the walls were closing in on him.

“We just have to get started,” Malthus said coaxingly. “I’m sure you’ll feel better afterwards. We can throw out all this rubbish, and--”

“I’m out of bin bags,” Mithrun said in a strangled voice. His head was spinning. Shit. I’m an idiot. I can’t even keep basic necessities around the flat. Malthus can see right through me, he’ll make me quit Earthdigger and go home--

“Well, then, why don’t I go out and get more bags. And whatever else you’re needing?”

This was a shocking enough idea that it snapped Mithrun out of his downward spiral. He stared at his brother.

“You? Go shopping?” Mithrun asked incredulously. He didn’t doubt his brother’s sincere desire to help him, but they had servants for things like this. It was only when Mithrun had begun his military service that he’d learned how to survive in the outside world without a fleet of staff tending to his every need.

“I think I can handle it,” Malthus said, drawing himself up in his seat to try and look more confident. The splotchy blush all over his round cheeks and droopy ears somewhat spoiled the effect.

“... Are you sure?” Mithrun asked hesitantly. Of course, he didn’t actually want to go shopping himself. The crowds bothered him, which was why he’d spent weeks avoiding it, but he knew that it needed to be done.

“Yes, I can do it,” Malthus’ voice was firm. “You stay here and tidy up a little while I’m gone. It’s really fine! I’ll have the driver help me if I need to.”

“... Alright,” Mithrun conceded grudgingly. Even if he felt ashamed that he was making his crippled brother run an errand for him, the prospect of getting Malthus out of the flat for even a half hour so he could pull himself together was too tempting to pass up. “... But you should change into something less conspicuous.”

“What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?” Malthus asked. He was dressed in tasteful, conservative menswear, in this case a sleeveless, ankle-length white gown, cinched at the waist, with a high neck and a black cape over it. Large golden earrings framed his face. It wouldn’t have been out of place at an informal social gathering or a business meeting, but it was certainly much too dressed up for going to the grocery store.

“That’s Vivienne Mirkwood, isn’t it? And the earrings are Yves Sanct Lothlórien? They look expensive,” Mithrun explained patiently. He’d ceased to have much personal use for fashion, but he’d dressed himself well when he was younger.

It was funny in a grim way. When they were boys, Malthus had hated fashion and always wanted to be dressed in baggy jumpers and formless, loose-fitting tunics that he could hide in. Nowadays, it was Mithrun who wanted clothes he could lose himself in, wanted not to be seen, and Malthus…

Malthus was the Parensfamilias of the family now, and he even dressed the part. When the hell had that happened? Mithrun felt like he’d blinked and missed it. These clothes didn’t suit Malthus, it was like watching him play dress-up in their father’s things… Except he’d been doing it for years, and it was like the information was only registering in Mithrun’s brain now.

“I’m sure you have something less flashy in your bag.”

---

Despite Malthus’ earlier bravado, when the car rolled to a stop at the entrance of the shopping center, he found himself intimidated by just how large the building was. He’d never gone inside of a shop before and certainly never picked out items and then paid for them himself. He’d seen people do it on TV, and that was the limit of his experience.

Dressed in just a T-shirt, a pair of slacks, and absolutely no jewelry, he felt terribly naked. A T-shirt, as far as Malthus was concerned, was basically underwear.

He saw that people were inserting something into the shopping trolleys lined up by the door before they detached them from a chain and wheeled them away inside. Coins? Did he even have any coins on him? Certainly not dwarven coins...

“Um, do you know what sort of coin the trolleys take?” Malthus asked his driver, an elven man he’d only met an hour ago at the private airfield where his jet had landed. The agency he worked for had been hired to provide ground transportation and someone to accompany Malthus around on his trip. After eight hours this man would be replaced by someone else. Malthus felt a little silly asking such a basic question from someone who was a stranger even though it was his job to take care of anything he needed.

“Trolley? You mean the shopping carts?” his driver asked. By his accent, Malthus guessed that he was from Sadena despite being an elf. They said things like “shopping cart” in the dwarven lands. “Oh, yeah, they take a 5-øks coin. Hold on, I’m sure I’ve got one.” The man rummaged through his wallet for a moment before handing Malthus a small brown coin. “There you go. Ah… Are you sure you don’t need any help inside the store, m’lord?”

“No, thank you,” Malthus insisted, adjusting his grip on his crutch as he clambered out of the back seat of the car, determined to take care of this errand on his own. “I’ll be alright.”

Once he got inside the store, Malthus realized just how far out of his depth he really was. The place was huge, and he really had no idea where to start… Yes, he’d seen people on TV buy things in shops, but the focus was never on the process of buying things, it was just a backdrop for whatever dramatic action was happening.

But it would be too embarrassing to backtrack so quickly and ask the driver for help now, and he didn’t want to call his brother after he’d insisted that he could handle going to a market by himself. Mithrun probably felt guilty enough about having Malthus do this for him - he didn’t need to worsen things by making it sound like he was having trouble with it.

Near the entrance, he saw row after row of fruits and vegetables laid out in neat tiered pyramids. He stood back for a while and watched how other people pulled a plastic bag from a dispenser, picked through the produce to find what they wanted, and placed their selections into their bags. A different bag for each type of item… That made sense. Malthus copied them and collected a variety of things that he knew Mithrun liked to eat. Fruits and vegetables were good because they could be eaten without cooking.

The busy clamor of people around both the meat and seafood departments seemed far too daunting to interact with, so Malthus skipped them. He had no idea how much or how little to get of anything, and he had the vague notion that raw meat spoiled quickly. He didn’t want to buy his brother things that would just go bad on him.

Pre-packaged things were easier. Malthus selected a few different types of cheese and some kind of sliced ham that he hoped was already cooked.

After some time, he managed to find toilet paper, paper towels, and kitchen garbage bags all near each other in one aisle. Not knowing which brands to buy, Malthus opted for the most expensive product in each category, hoping that meant they were superior somehow.

Eventually he stumbled across an aisle labeled Draugrfolk and realized that this was where all the imported elven specialty items were kept. Draugrfolk was an old dwarven word for elves. Not a particularly polite one, but Malthus was just happy to have found something more familiar.

Unfortunately, despite the fact that he recognized some of the items in the aisle, there were dozens of different brands of teas, candies, biscuits, canned soups, and boxed ingredients, and to his untrained eye, they all looked indistinguishable. After some deliberation, Malthus picked out a variety of things in the flavors Mithrun liked most and just hoped for the best.

If the cashier noticed or cared that he didn’t know what to do with his personal banking token when it was time for him to pay, they didn’t give any indication. They just tiredly said, “Try inserting it the other way, sir.”

---

The first thing Mithrun did once Malthus left was smoke a cigarette on the balcony. Thankfully, he still had some though he was down to his last four. Hopefully, Malthus would pick up more for him. Mithrun wasn’t a heavy smoker, but he did smoke about a pack a month. The familiar routine soothed him, and as the vapor entered his system, he felt the tremulous, panicky energy bleed out one deep breath after another.

He really had wanted to clean the flat today, but now that Malthus was here, the sense of urgency was greatly increased. Malthus would never complain that the place was too dirty, but the idea of his brother seeing the evidence of Mithrun’s inadequacy everywhere was too much for Mithrun’s ego to bear. He couldn’t just clean up a little bit; he needed to get the place looking spotless.

So Mithrun got all the full garbage bags thrown out in record time, loaded as many boxes of desiccated leftovers as he could into his arms at once, and made five trips like that to the garbage chute by the lift to dispose of them all. He organized the rubbish that was left so that it would be easier to just shove it into bags once he had more of them. Things that he needed to keep all went onto his desk and things to be thrown away went on the sofa.

Teleportation magic made sorting through the mess fast and relatively painless. He hadn’t used much magic recently, and after a good night’s sleep he was full of mana, which made moving bits of paper and the occasional book across the living room such a minor drain that he didn’t really notice it, even after dozens of repetitions.

Right now, Mithrun’s mission was to clear off as many surfaces as he could so that he could try to clean away food debris and grease stains before Malthus returned. He finished the stovetop and the kitchen island, and he was head and shoulders deep inside of the refrigerator when he heard his mobile ringing from the bedroom. He ignored the impulsive urge to try and teleport the mobile into his hand, knowing that he could do it, yes, but since his mobile was in the bedroom where he couldn’t see it, he was likely to break the delicate electronic device in the process.

He pulled himself out of the empty, wet, soapy refrigerator and wiped his hands dry on his shorts as he jogged back to the bedroom to get his mobile. As he’d suspected, it was Malthus calling.

“Are you back?” Mithrun asked after picking up. “Need me to come down and help unload the car?”

“Yes, please,” Malthus said, and Mithrun hung up before his brother could say anything else.

He peered out the bedroom window and saw a generic black 4-door sedan parked in the flat’s loading zone with Malthus and an elven man in a uniform standing by the trunk. Mithrun chose an empty spot near Malthus and teleported himself into it.

“Holy shit!” the driver shouted when Mithrun appeared out of thin air.

“Mithrun!” Malthus also raised his voice, clutching his chest with one hand in surprise. “I was expecting you to come out the front door--”

“This was faster,” Mithrun said, reaching into the trunk of the car to gather as many bags as he could at once, sticking his arms through the handles. “I’ll be right back,” he told them before teleporting back up to the living room of the flat.

He could have teleported directly into the kitchen, but the tighter space there made it a little more hazardous. There was more open space in the living room.

Mithrun set down the shopping bags on the floor and teleported himself back to the street. Malthus’ driver didn’t shout this time, but both he and Malthus still jumped a little bit.

“--eally sorry,” Malthus was saying to the driver. “Sometimes he’s just--”

But Mithrun didn’t stop to listen to the conversation. He gathered up another armload of bags and teleported himself and them back to the flat, and then back down to the street one more time.

“Is this the last of it?” Mithrun asked as he picked up the remaining shopping bags.

“Yes,” Malthus replied. He looked at the driver again. “I guess I don’t need your help unloading the car then. I should be fine here for the rest of today. I’ll call if I need anything tomorrow.”

“Of course m’lord,” the driver said. “I’m on duty for another six hours, so call me if you need anything. After that, just call the main office.”

“Thank you, I will.”

“Do you want me to teleport you up with me?” Mithrun asked.

“No, I’ll take the lift,” Malthus said with a sigh.

---

“This is looking much better already!” Malthus exclaimed. He was pleased to see how much progress Mithrun had made in the short time he’d been gone. The flat no longer looked like a biohazard site in need of governmental intervention.

“I’m almost done with the kitchen,” Mithrun said stiffly. “Sit down and rest until I’m finished.” It was more of an order than a suggestion, but Malthus didn’t mind. He’d been very gung-ho about going to the market, but now that he’d done it, he was tired. A rest sounded good, and giving Mithrun some space and a physical task to do usually improved his brother’s moods.

“Alright,” Malthus said as he took a seat in the armchair Mithrun had cleared for him earlier. After a few minutes of silence only punctuated by the sound of a wet sponge squeaking against glass and disposable bags rustling, Malthus palmed his mobile out of his pocket and checked to see if he had any new messages.

There were a couple of e-mails from his secretary and personal assistant, Darun, but nothing that couldn’t wait until later. What really drew Malthus’ attention was a series of text messages he’d received.

Getting texts from Ned was a relatively new experience, something that had only been going on for about a month. Normally, seeing a new message from him pop up made Malthus feel like there was a whole flock of hummingbirds in his stomach, but right now he mostly felt a rising sense of panic.

Hurriedly, he navigated back to his home screen to hide the message, heart pounding. The thought of his brother catching him talking to someone like this filled him with dread. Mithrun would surely make fun of him if he caught wind of who Ned was and how Malthus had been meeting up with him. He certainly wouldn’t approve. Nobody would.

The truth was, Malthus had only ever “dated'' one person before, and that had been partially arranged by their families. A stiff, fruitless attempt at courtship, it had been such a disappointment to everyone involved that no more attempts had been made to pair him up. Their mother had even switched tactics to see if she could get an heir out of Mithrun instead. Apparently, she’d decided there was a better likelihood of success there, despite the legal difficulties.

Ned was, unfortunately, the furthest possible thing from a suitable partner for Malthus. He wouldn’t satisfy any of his family’s requirements, and if news about him got out, Malthus would be ridiculed and torn apart by the gossip mill. It would probably even cause a stock crash, and senior management at the bank would be furious with him for being so reckless. Didn’t he know that any news that got out about his personal life impacted the stability of the bank? He needed to maintain a spotless public image for the sake of the economy.

Despite all of this, Malthus still very much wanted to keep seeing Ned. The possibility of negative consequences frightened him, of course, but the giddy emotion that welled up inside his heart every time he met with the man or got a text from him was too addictive to abandon.

He hadn’t thought to tell Ned that he was going out of town, but apparently Ned had missed him? Had been waiting around for him last night? They’d met every Friday for the past couple of weeks, it was true. The idea of Ned missing him made Malthus’ heart pound with excitement instead of fear, and he couldn’t resist surreptitiously peeking at his texts again.

The fact that Ned had answered his text almost immediately despite how late it was back in Maalinus kicked the giddy feeling in Malthus’ chest up another notch. He was in the middle of typing out a response when he saw Mithrun emerge from the kitchen in his peripheral vision. In a panic, Malthus fumbled his mobile into his lap and shoved it into the gap between the seat cushion and the hard body of the armchair with his elbow.

Mithrun seemed oblivious to Malthus’ turmoil, and he began picking up grocery bags and carrying them into the kitchen, where Malthus could hear him shuffling and rustling as he put things away.

It’s fine, he’s not paying any attention to me, Malthus thought, taking a couple of deep breaths to slow his racing heart before he pulled his mobile from its hiding place and tapped out a quick response.

Eventually, Mithrun returned to the living room with the box of new garbage bags. He tore it open and shook out one of the bags, his brow creasing as he brought it up to his face to give it a curious sniff. “It’s… perfumed?”

“Deodorized,” Malthus corrected, face flushing with the realization that maybe the bags he’d bought were fancier than they needed to be. Was a deodorized bag unusual? It seemed like a logical idea to him. “Are they no good?”

“No, they’re fine,” Mithrun said without hesitation. He began to shovel garbage into the bag. “Normally, I get the plain ones, but these are nice.”

“Oh, good,” Malthus said, watching Mithrun work for a minute, hands in his lap. “Um. What can I do to help?”

“Everything on the desk is stuff I probably need to keep or at least look at,” Mithrun said, and Malthus didn’t need any further invitation. Paperwork was something he felt entirely confident taking care of. He made his way over to the desk and began sorting through the various envelopes and pieces of paper, carefully dividing them into different piles for academic instruction, school administration, and bills.

They worked in comfortable silence for a while, the quiet of shuffling papers and rustling garbage bags punctuated only by the sound of the front door opening and closing as Mithrun ferried away bag after bag.

When all the rubbish had been cleared away, Mithrun began to organize his art supplies and canvases, stacking them together using some criteria that Malthus couldn’t guess at but that he was sure made sense to his brother. Malthus paused his own work in order to watch.

“How was the market?” Mithrun asked, avoiding eye contact to focus on his task.

“It was good,” Malthus answered, happy that his brother was talking to him even if it wasn’t exactly a thrilling heart-to-heart. “No trouble at all.”

“Really?”

“Really,” Malthus lied. He didn’t like lying, and when they were children he probably wouldn’t have been able to lie to Mithrun without bursting into tears, but he’d learned a lot of things while running the family business. Lying with a straight face was one of them.

It didn’t hurt that, in this case, it was really just a white lie he was using to spare his brother’s feelings. Sure, the market had been daunting, but it had been fine in the end! So Malthus didn’t mind that he’d had to go. It was worth it to help Mithrun.

“Where’s your letter opener?” Malthus asked now that he’d sorted all the papers into categories.

“Not sure, let me look,” Mithrun said, joining Malthus at the desk. After opening and closing the desk’s drawers multiple times failed to yield the letter opener, Mithrun made a frustrated noise.

“I already looked in all of those,” Malthus said, amused as Mithrun stalked off to the kitchen. He was less amused a moment later when his brother returned with a serrated steak knife, which he set down on the desk in front of Malthus with a little more force than necessary.

“You can use that to open the mail,” Mithrun explained, as if Malthus needed him to spell it out for him.

“Seeing as I don’t have any wagyu filet I need to slice, I’ll have to content myself with envelopes, yes.” Malthus said dryly. “Yes, I understand why you gave me the knife.”

Mithrun stared at him for a moment in what might have been shock, before a hint of a smile cracked his face. His brother playfully grabbed one of Malthus’ ears and gave it a tug, before he went back to organizing his art supplies. Though it was a truly minor thing, Malthus’ heart felt fuller than it had in ages. It was good to know that, while Mithrun had been terribly tense on his arrival, he was starting to relax. Malthus wasn’t making him feel worse by being here.

Malthus opened all of the envelopes and separated the unnecessary mail from the letters that actually needed attention. It was relatively mindless work. Mithrun moved on from organizing his art supplies to dusting surfaces and then cleaning the tile floor with a broom and dustpan.

“So… Did something happen with the cleaning service?” Malthus asked eventually. “They obviously haven’t been here in awhile.”

The long silence that answered him at first told him Mithrun was embarrassed, but Malthus just waited, and eventually he heard Mithrun sigh in defeat.

“I…Yelled at them,” Mithrun said, not looking up from his cleaning.

“...Why?”

“I was trying to sleep in the middle of the day,” Mithrun said, sounding exhausted even by the memory. “The cleaners showed up to do their job. Scared me. I was rude. They haven’t been back since.”

Malthus, of course, knew exactly how Mithrun got when he was desperate for sleep. He also knew how dangerous it could be to wake him unexpectedly. Mithrun trusted him more than anyone, but over the years Malthus had still been on the receiving end of physical violence and threats from a half-asleep, hysterical Mithrun. They’d learned to live with it.

“I’ll call them tomorrow and apologize,” Malthus said. “Maybe we can set it up so that they always have to check with you the day before. If they aren’t able to confirm with you ahead of time, they don’t come.”

“That’s so stupid, they should just come at the same time every week,” Mithrun protested wearily. He sounded frustrated. “I need to… To just go back to acting like a normal person. They shouldn’t have to jump through all these hoops to clean the damn flat. I shouldn’t be sleeping in the middle of the day, and I shouldn’t act like an orc just because someone rings the doorbell when I’m not expecting it.”

“If it works, it’s not stupid,” Malthus insisted gently. “Sometimes we have to… Work around things in our lives.” Malthus had to think carefully before he spoke, wanting to avoid insinuating that Mithrun was an invalid or weak in any way. He knew that wouldn’t go over well.

Mithrun made a grumbling sound but didn’t offer any further complaint. Instead, he vanished into the bedroom, putting the conversation on hiatus. A short while later he emerged with a wicker basket full of dirty clothing, which he took to the kitchen where the washing machine was.

“How’s mother?” Mithrun asked with so little enthusiasm that Malthus wondered why he was bothering to ask at all.

“The same as always. Are you expecting her to change?” Malthus asked incredulously, “We are talking about our mother, right?”

“I was just hoping she’d give up since I’m so far away,” Mithrun said with a defeated sigh. “Some predators lose interest in prey if they can’t see it.”

“You have to give it time. Two months is nothing to her… But it wouldn’t hurt if she had a distraction,” Malthus agreed. “A hobby or a new boyfriend or something. I can try to nudge her...”

“That’s like trying to nudge an elephant,” Mithrun said. “At best, it won’t notice, and at worst, it tramples you to death. You can’t manipulate mother into doing anything but what mother wants to do.”

“Well, at least she’s finally calmed down about you leaving,” Malthus said. “We had a few nasty rows about it. Now she just keeps asking when you’re going to come home for a visit.”

“When she’s joined father in the mausoleum permanently,” Mithrun said dryly. The metal door of the washing machine clanged shut, and Malthus heard the dials making ratcheting noises as Mithrun adjusted them.

“Do you really think you can outlast her?” Malthus asked. “I know that was the whole idea behind this… But…”

“I’m fine,” Mithrun said sharply, stepping back into the living room. He must have realized the irony of his assertion, so he amended his words. “I’ll be fine… Especially if you come to visit me every once in a while…”

“I’d be happy to,” Malthus said, feeling a warm swell of affection for his brother. He could never say no when Mithrun actually managed to ask him for something outright. “Listen, I’ll take any excuse I can to get out of the house myself.”

---

“I found your letter opener,” Malthus told him maybe an hour later. It had taken a lot of effort, but Mithrun had managed to clean the flat to an acceptable level. He no longer felt that the place was too disgusting for Malthus to inhabit.

“Where was it?” Mithrun asked, only idly curious. He was more preoccupied with getting a snack from the kitchen. Malthus had bought him a whole bag of oranges and although they’d never be as good as the ones they grew at the estate, they were still one of Mithrun’s favorite fruits. He grabbed two from the refrigerator and went to join Malthus, who was currently sitting on the sofa and looking through Mithrun’s painted canvases.

“With your paint brushes,” Malthus said. “There’s dried paint on it, so I guess you used it instead of-- What’s it called? The thing painters use that sort of looks like a knife.”

“Painter’s knife,” Mithrun replied unhelpfully, smiling at the put-upon scowl that Malthus shot his way in return. He started to peel an orange. “What!? That’s what they’re called.”

“It has another name,” Malthus insisted primly.

“Palette knife,” Mithrun admitted, still smiling. He pulled the orange apart and offered the first section to Malthus, who took it gratefully.

“Thank you. I knew it had a proper name! You can’t just call it a painter’s knife, that’s like calling it a painter’s paintbrush.”

“The names are used interchangeably,” Mithrun said, popping the second orange slice into his own mouth as he leaned over to see which painting Malthus was looking at. It was a nude human figure done in acrylic paint in shades of green and purple and orange.

“Oh, that one’s crap,” Mithrun said with a frown. “Just practice from class. I’m going to paint over it soon.”

“I think it’s interesting,” Malthus said. “It’s a study, right? You had a model?”

“Yes.”

“Why did you pick such… Unusual colors?” Malthus asked gently. At least when Malthus asked him something like that, Mithrun didn’t think he was making fun of him. He was just curious.

“I was bored,” Mithrun admitted sheepishly. “I understand why they want us to paint models and still lifes, it’s so we can learn how to use the medium. If everyone’s trying to paint the same thing, the teacher can evaluate our work better… But I’m never going to be good at painting anything realistic. The more I try to do it, the more frustrated I get.”

“You used to like drawing,” Malthus said, sounding uncertain. “I remember you doodling in your notebooks all the time in school. I thought they were quite good.”

“You think everything I do is quite good,” Mithrun said dryly, and he laughed when he saw how pink Malthus’ ears turned. He offered his brother another orange slice. “It’s my eye. My depth perception’s fucked, and it takes me ten times as long as it should to get something decent down.”

“So take ten times as long. You’re an elf, what’s your hurry?”

“Stop being so sensible,” Mithrun groused, tugging on one of Malthus’ ears again, which made his brother give a squeaky laugh. “Didn’t you hear me? I get bored. I don’t like that it takes me ten times as long.”

“Sometimes, we must do things we dislike in order to accomplish our goals.” Malthus said, doing a painfully accurate impersonation of their parents.

“Shut up,” Mithrun said affectionately. “Quit looking at that one, look at the next one instead.”

“I’m taking this one,” Malthus said, picking up the canvas and setting it aside. “I want it.”

“You have awful taste,” Mithrun replied, but he made no other protest. If Malthus wanted his bad paintings he could have them.

They ate orange slices in silence for a while as Malthus looked at Mithrun’s other paintings.

“So you don’t want to paint… People? Scenery?” Malthus asked as they stared at a painting of some fruit and flowers that Mithrun didn’t loathe. At least the perspective on this one wasn’t complete bollocks.

“I’ve been doing that for years, even before I came here,” Mithrun explained. “I painted a lot of our gardens back home. And the human figure is difficult to capture. Everyone’s an expert. Everyone can tell when you fuck it up.”

“Well, does it matter if you, uh, fudge it up?” Malthus asked. “What if you just painted things the way they look to you? Lots of people can paint a realistic picture. Nobody else can paint the world like you see it.”

“The world the way I see it? So… Looking like shit? Who’d want to see that?”

“I would.”

“Oh stop it. I know you would,” Mithrun muttered, feeling equal parts embarrassed and pleased by his brother’s unflagging support. “I mean other people…”

“I’m sure there are other people, too,” Malthus said. “And even if nobody wanted to see it… Is that a reason not to paint?”

“I don’t know, I guess not,” Mithrun conceded. “But it’s late, we should get something for dinner--”

“Yes, fine, alright,” Malthus said with a smile. “I’ll order something while you wash up. You’re a mess.”

---

Post-shower, wrapped up in a fresh, clean bathrobe, Mithrun checked his messages on his mobile. Of course, there was the truly embarrassing amount of missed texts from Malthus, which he could now safely dismiss, and a number of e-mails from his teachers he’d need to respond to later, but what he was really curious about was the tallman he’d met the night before.

Kabru! Kabru was his name. It was one of those foreign tallman names that Mithrun didn’t normally see, so of course he hadn’t remembered it. Where was it from, he wondered?

Really, Kabru was a life-saver. If he hadn’t helped Mithrun last night, he was sure that Malthus would have panicked and dragged him to the emergency room as soon as he saw how bad off he was, and then Mithrun would have had to suffer the stress and indignity of being poked at by droves of doctors. Instead he’d gotten the gift of a relatively normal day with his brother, a day where he felt better and more alive than he had in weeks. He needed to do something to express his gratitude.

…And he needed to see if he could work out some kind of arrangement with the tallman because Mithrun did not want to go back to how he’d been living before. Which meant he needed to convince Kabru into helping him sleep on a regular basis.

For dinner they had paka mallah, a common elven soup with a wonderfully complex flavor that was sweet, sour, and spicy at the same time. Mithrun hadn’t had it in ages and was surprised that a restaurant here in the southern continent had been able to make it so well. There are elves who were born here and have never set foot in Maalinan. I’m not the only elf in the country, he reminded himself. He really needed to get out more. If he’d bothered to explore the city, he could have been having paka mallah this whole time.

When they were done eating, Mithrun began drawing in his sketchbook, completing overdue art assignments while Malthus worked on his laptop and sipped a glass of whiskey. Occasionally one of them thought of something to say, and they chatted briefly before returning to the comfortable silence.

It felt good to just exist in the same space together with no expectations, each occupied with his own tasks. Mithrun had often sat in Malthus’ home office with a sketchbook or his mobile or something, just passing the time while Malthus worked. He felt at ease, knowing he wasn’t alone, knowing that Malthus was with him.

Having Malthus around was also handy because it gave Mithrun a model to draw. He practiced contour and shading and moved around the living room to find different angles to draw Malthus from. He was careful to leave out his brother’s bad leg. If Malthus ever happened to see the drawings, Mithrun wouldn’t want him to feel bad.

“Alright, these e-mails have stopped making sense, time for bed,” Malthus announced eventually. Mithrun had entirely lost track of the time, but as he uncurled himself from his hunched position on the sofa, the popping of his joints made him glad for the interruption. Tomorrow was Sunday, the flat was clean, the kitchen full of food, and Malthus was here… He could do more artwork tomorrow.

“May I borrow your shower?” Malthus asked.

“Sure, just remember to bring it back,” Mithrun replied, which prompted Malthus to stick his tongue out at him. Sometimes it felt like they were still ten years old and only pretending to be adults. Mithrun wondered if that feeling ever went away or if at a certain age a switch flipped, and you began to feel like an adult.

He’d thought he’d been an adult when he was serving with AEGIS, but that delusion had been stripped away very thoroughly by the torture. He wondered if he would ever feel like a competent adult again.

“I put out a towel for you earlier,” Mithrun said because that seemed like the sort of thing an adult would do.

While Malthus showered, Mithrun took his evening medication, and checked that all the doors and windows were locked.

He was lying in bed reading the news on his mobile when Malthus shuffled out of the bathroom and made his way to the other side of the hall, where the guest bedroom was. Mithrun’s attention was mostly on the article he was reading, but he was also vaguely aware of the quiet sound of Malthus unzipping his suitcase and digging through his things in the other room.

Mithrun wasn’t sure if he’d be able to sleep tonight (two nights in a row seemed like a ridiculous luxury to hope for at this point), but Malthus was here, and at home Mithrun had been able to sleep regularly for weeks at a time… So maybe he’d luck out and be able to sleep properly for at least as long as Malthus was visiting him.

“Um,” Malthus said, prompting Mithrun to look up. His brother was standing in the hallway, dressed in his pajamas, with a pillow tucked under one arm. “I know you made up the guest room for me, but… Do you want me to sleep in here with you instead?”

It was an embarrassing question, and Mithrun hesitated to answer it. They weren’t little boys anymore, sneaking into each other’s rooms to stay up past their bedtime, whispering and giggling as they tried to evade the watchful eyes of Malthus’ nanny, Aelfred. They were supposed to be adults, and yet here Mithrun was, afraid of the dark, afraid to be alone.

The worst part was that he knew it was illogical. It wasn’t as if Malthus could protect him if something did happen. At best Malthus could give him a few seconds of extra warning, enough time for Mithrun to wake up and react… But that still left Mithrun in the unenviable hypothetical scenario of having to defend himself and Malthus at the same time.

Malthus’ presence didn’t make Mithrun safer while he was sleeping, just like random massage parlor employees and medical students he met on Embr didn’t really make him safer. He was safe because he was far away from any conflict zones, and statistically it was unlikely that someone would randomly break into his flat and try to kill him.

But Malthus and those other people made Mithrun feel safer, and that was apparently enough to trick his brain into relaxing so that sleep could happen. It was truly an embarrassing and silly problem to have, but no amount of wishing was going to make it go away.

Back home, Mithrun had been able to partially wean himself off of this kind of behavior. Knowing that Malthus was nearby in his own room had generally been enough for him. But there were bad nights even at home, nights when the dreams were too vivid and he would sheepishly ask Malthus if he could sleep in his room for the night.

Mithrun didn’t know if tonight was going to be a bad night or not yet, but Malthus was offering… No doubt his brother assumed that Mithrun hadn’t been sleeping regularly, and that was the cause of his erratic behavior.

“... Only if you don’t mind…” Mithrun said hesitantly.

“I don’t mind at all,” Malthus said, smiling as he turned off the light in the guest room, then the hallway, before hobbling his way into Mithrun’s room. “Do you want me to lock the door?”

“Yes, please,” Mithrun said. He preferred to sleep behind as many locked doors as possible whenever he could. Malthus obligingly turned the lock and then made his way over to the unoccupied side of the bed, dropping his pillow into place before he sat down.

“Don’t look at your mobile for too long, it can make it harder to fall asleep,” Malthus chided as he set his crutch down beside the bed and lifted his bad leg onto the mattress with his hands.

“It really doesn’t seem to matter,” Mithrun replied with a sigh, setting his mobile down on the nightstand.

“Well, it can’t hurt to try,” Malthus insisted as he tucked himself in under the sheets and adjusted his pillow until he was comfortable.

“Don’t you look at your mobile before bed?” Mithrun asked, frowning at the memory.

“I don’t have trouble getting to sleep.”

“I hope you never do, it’s miserable,” Mithrun sighed.

They lay there quietly for a while, Malthus watching cat videos on his mobile while Mithrun stared up at the ceiling and tried not to think about anything in particular. He tried to remember some of the things Kabru had told him the night before about focusing his breathing and relaxing his body. It felt like maybe it was helping a little bit.

“Lights out?” Malthus asked him eventually, and Mithrun had to rouse himself out of his stupor enough to answer.

“Mmn. Yeah.” Trying not to wake up too much, Mithrun switched off his bedside lamp and then rolled over to get closer to Malthus. His brother slipped an arm around Mithrun’s neck and shoulders, pulling him into a firm hug accompanied by a kiss to his forehead.

“Goodnight.”

Then Malthus pulled away from Mithrun and got comfortable, and once his brother was settled, Mithrun scooted himself back so there was a safe distance between them. He wished he could stay close to Malthus, but there was always the chance that nightmares might make him lash out in his sleep.

"Goodnight," Mithrun echoed quietly. A few minutes crept by in the silent darkness. Mithrun could hear the muffled sound of the living room clock through the locked bedroom door.

"Malthus?"

"Mm?"

"...I'm sorry."

"I know."