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Lucas still isn't losing patience with him. He’d been hinting for over a week now that Claus should come with him on his daily trips down to the main village, with decreasing subtlety. Claus had responded first with obliviousness, then with claims he wasn’t feeling well (true), and finally just saying he was busy (false, and they both knew it).
His brother never called him on it.
It’s so stupid anyway! He knows that they think hes fucking afraid or something, both Lucas and Dad, and he isn’t! Okay!? Of course he has…concerns about going down and seeing the villagers. The villagers he’d helped terrorize and brainwash, who’d watched him head a terrifying army bent on destroying the world. Some of them are probably even his former subordinates. (How would they feel about seeing him? Would they think he was weak? Would they be disgusted with what he’d done, or with what had happened to him? He didn’t know which would be worse).
Whatever, he can handle it. Whatever staring or whispering, he can handle it. (He has disjointed memories of how civilians reacted to him during his time as Commander. He tries to avoid those.) They aren’t going to join in an angry mob and attack him or anything (Probably. Maybe. Lucas would definitely put a stop to it if it happened.) He’s fine. That isn’t the problem.
The problem is sitting oh-so-innocently in front of him. It’s his shoes. Currently, the only pair of shoes he has, part of his Commander's uniform. Now, those shoes specifically aren’t the issue. Claus actually rather likes his clothes from That Time, despite the attached…everything else. They’re comfortable, durable and easy to move in. He likes all the little pockets in his jacket. Not to mention, they were tailored specially to fit his freakishness modifications. His boots fit his mismatched feet, the mechanical one broader and rounder than a natural foot would be.
And anyway, new clothes are hard to come by at the moment, less than two months after the Renewal. (Apparently that’s what the villagers had been calling it. Claus thinks it’s stupid. He doesn’t want to call it anything.) The tailor and cobbler are working as hard as they can, just like everyone else rebuilding the town, but for the most part everyone has to make do with what they had been wearing that day for now.
But no. His stupid uniform and his stupid body and the stupid villagers are not the reasons he’s been brushing off his brother’s invitations. The problem is little and stupid and he hates it so much.
He can’t tie his shoelaces.
It hadn’t even occurred to him until the first day he was strong enough to get up and walk on his own. He wanted to head to the nearby river to get properly clean (his healing injuries being wiped down with a cloth was not sufficient). Lucas had left earlier (He’d always been an early riser. So had Claus, before this most recent time he’d been dragged back from the brink of death.) and he’d told Dad to go on ahead so he could dress himself. The man had clearly been reluctant, but had headed out after giving Claus a careful pat on his shoulder.
(His two remaining family members had already spent so much time and resources caring for his injuries and his breakdowns issues. He needed to get the fuck up and stop being a problem. He was the older twin, the stronger, bolder one. He’d already caused them all enough trouble, it was time he started pulling his own damn weight.)
Dad had been different, since he got back. He’d never been a talkative man, especially compared to his friends or Mom, but he was so much quieter now. It wasn’t surprising, really, everything had changed. Still, every time he caught Dad watching him intently, almost desperately, like he thought that once he looked away Claus would disappear forever, it made Claus feel…something. (Feelings were hard, okay.)
He’d pulled his clothes on slowly, fumbling with sleeves and not bothering with his jacket. It felt good to be moving again, even a little bit, even through the aches of mostly-healed wounds and the stretch of scar tissue stiff from being stationary for so long. (There was no way he would have survived without Lucas’ healing abilities. As it was, it had taken him over a week and several reapplications of PK Lifeup to get this far. The stuttering progress was odd, abnormal for Lucas’ ability, and they theorized that PSI abilities had less of an effect on Claus now because of his fucked up body chimeraization.) He sat and pulled his shoes on. And then he stopped.
See, he knew how to tie his laces, Mom had taught him when he was little (taught them both, but Claus had picked up on it faster and had spent a few weeks helping Lucas until he figured it out.) But…
His left arm was normal, at least on the outside. He knew there were internal structural supports in his joints and along his limbs that made him stronger, faster, but for the most part, his arm still worked like a regular arm. On the outside of his right arm, skin fused to mesh dermal plating midway down his bicep, and his arm appeared to terminate just below his elbow, where the mesh flowed into the large barrel of a ranged energy weapon. The Pigmasks had called it the PK Pork Barrel Blaster 3000. Claus called it his arm cannon, because he wasn’t calling something attached to his body a dumb name that they had come up with. (He wondered sometimes whether the Big Man himself had thought it up or whether the title had come from some scientist or soldier. It didn’t really matter, he hated it the same either way.)
The cannon couldn’t be removed. When Dr. Andonuts had examined him in those first few days, he’d concluded that, for several reasons, it would both be very difficult to disassemble the weapon from its support struts and impossible to fully integrate any hand prosthetic with his existing neural interface with the resources they currently have access to. The scavenging teams had found lots of equipment the Pigs had used to create and maintain chimerae, but it would take months, if not years, to find and repair everything they needed, compile the components into working systems, and set up a brand new power grid.
The doctor did also say that it was likely that he had lost his arm from the trauma of the drago attack, rather than from the military deciding to just hack it off and see what they could stick on in its place. So. That was something Claus could feel better about, he supposed. (Or maybe not. Was it better if it was his own fault for making stupid choices? At least then his decisions had some sort of impact, and that was definitely better than his fate being entirely decided by their choices.)
Anyway, the point is, he’s only got one hand now, and for the foreseeable future. Which is fine, it's fine, he’s been down one hand and up one deadly weapon for three years now. Which means he should have had plenty of time to relearn how to tie his shoelaces. Except.
It’s not that he’d forgotten. He just hadn’t had a reason to think about it yet, so the memory hadn’t come up. He’d never tied his own shoelaces as a Commander. There were always attendants, people (and robots, sometimes) working for the military, but not in combat roles. They mostly attended to their King, but he’d spared several for his favorite pet toy weapon, once he’d gotten ahold of him.
They’d prepare his food, do his laundry, clean the buildings and facilities. Every morning, they dressed him. (He wasn’t allowed instructed to dress himself.) He supposed he should count himself lucky they didn’t bother washing him. Showers in the military were few and far between, at least for him, and purely utilitarian. No need to waste energy heating water to clean a weapon. (It was weird, now that he was actually able to think about it, how...paradoxically he’d been treated. Simultaneously the revered and powerful Commander, to be doted on hand and foot, and the lowly chimeraized weapon, something less than human.)
But he’d never had reason to tie his laces before he’d come back (never was instructed allowed to) so he didn’t have any practice doing it one handed. There had to be a way, obviously, but he had yet to figure it out. That morning he spent at least twenty minutes trying to achieve some kind of useful knot, panic frustration climbing with every failure. Dad was waiting on him, he was going to be wondering what was taking him so long, he might start to get worried (he’s making his dad worry about him, again, because of his stupid failures). He gave up. Tugged his shoes off and tossed them in the corner, anger coiled tightly around his lungs.
(He hadn’t told anyone yet, that he had still been able to feel emotions when he was the Commander. He hadn’t been able to act on them, of course, but it went deeper than that. A good portion of the obedience coding in his governing processor had been dedicated to preventing him from recognizing and labeling emotions. They couldn’t stop the actual internal emotional responses, the physiological ones, but the coding prevented him from taking any action that didn’t further the mission. He still felt, though, even if he was unable to translate any of those feelings into motivation. All the pain from anger and fear and helplessness with no drawbacks, like “compromising mission integrity.” No matter how distressed he was, his competence never suffered for it.)
He gave himself a few more seconds to just scowl and grit his teeth, emoting just because he could, before he moved to leave the tent.
Walking without shoes was difficult. His metal leg was shaped differently from his normal one. Instead of a heel that rested flat on the ground, his ankle joint occurred higher up on his leg, and had several spidery protrusions that held his weight while he stood. The difference between his feet made his gait lopsided and off balance. His boots usually compensated for the difference, shaped specifically to offset the issues. He didn’t know why they hadn’t just given him a normal fucking leg.
(He did know why. The scientists were curious as to how a human brain would integrate and control a digitagrade limb it was never designed to pilot, and their glorious leader thought it would be an excellent experiment. He always took the time to tell Claus how he looked ‘cool’ when he wanted to bask in his own brilliance, or that he looked stupid when he felt the need to reassert his control.)
Now on his way to the river, he picked his way forward, slowly and carefully to keep from stumbling. By the time he made it there, his internal cooling system had pinged in activation, and he was looking forward to settling into the cool water. He's pretty much waterproof, he just has to be careful of his cannon (powering it on while wet was a Bad Idea) and to make sure his access ports are closed. No swimming, though. Too dense.
He approached Dad, who looked calm but smelled like elevated cortisol levels (fuck, he was worried). The man stood from washing clothes and bedding and came over to stand near Claus, close but not touching. An invitation. Claus leaned in and pressed his shoulder against his dad’s arm, soaking in the contact for a moment (He’d missed him so much. He didn’t have any understanding of the feeling at the time of course, and without access to his memories the emotion was directionless. It still hurt. He had ached, every single day, with how much he missed everyone.)
“Alright?” Dad’s gentle, gravelly voice. As unflappable as when Claus was little, at least on the surface. But now Claus could hear the small changes in blood pressure and breathing rate in response to stressors, smell the accumulated stress hormones from prolonged anxiety. His dad seemed almost fragile sometimes, not like the pillar of strength Claus remembered from when he was young.
(He remembers, clearly, the night Mom—the night that—the last night, how his dad had shattered. He’d lashed out like an animal, and nothing any of his friends did had helped. Claus remembers Lucas sobbing, begging for Dad to stop, but it was like he couldn’t hear him. It was the first time Claus had ever been afraid for his father. (It was the only time Claus had ever been afraid of his father.))
He didn’t look up, but he hummed an affirmative and nodded slightly. The sunlight glittered over the river, the surface choppy but not dangerously rough with the current. The long grass on either shore was green with the summer, wavering gently in a light breeze. Claus could hear the quick heartbeats of a couple small animals, probably rabbits, padding around under the greenery. He made a decision, and walked the rest of the way to the bank, trying to ignore the feeling of his dad staring at the limp he didn’t attempt to hide. After a few seconds, the man made his way back to the edge of the river, moving his washing closer to where Claus had begun to remove his undershirt and pants.
They spent the morning companionably, not talking much, but not needing to. After washing, Claus had tired quickly, and moved to sit on the grass with a towel while Dad washed his clothes. After hanging everything on the drying line, Dad pulled out the lunch he’d brought for the two of them, a half loaf of sweet bread and a small scavenged tin of apricots. Claus had loved apricots when he was little. That day he found out he still did. It was a nice day. (It was a wonderful day. Claus hadn’t felt that happy since before… since Before.)
He didn’t tell Dad about his problem. He couldn’t. He’d already caused so much trouble, caused so much grief and pain for his father, he couldn’t create another burden. And maybe, maybe it’s stupid (of course it’s stupid, it’s shoelaces, you’re being a baby, a coward, just ask—) it’s such a small thing, but he has to do it, he has to do it on his own. (When was the last time he did anything on his own, could do anything for himself?!)
His dad (he threw himself in front of your brother, he begged you to stop but you didn’t, you fired again it’s Dad—!) has plenty to worry about when it comes to Claus. He doesn’t need more. (Is it possible for someone to be an incompetent waste of space and heartless monster at the same time? Claus wouldn’t be surprised.)
He went to bed that night exhausted, and was sore all the next day from overexertion. Walking on his mismatched feet pulled on all his muscles the wrong way and strained some of the actuators in his hips. It was definitely worth it, but if the few hundred feet to the river was enough to wipe him out like that, there’s no way he’ll make it the three-quarters of a mile to the large scattering of tents where the village is being rebuilt without his shoes.
And now he’s awake, and staring at his fucking shoes while Lucas is getting ready. After he dresses he’ll ask if Claus will come with him, and Claus will invent some excuse, and he’ll look all sad and sympathetic but he’ll go without pushing.
He wants to. He wants to go, he wants to be brave, he wants to get out and see the villagers and help his brother carry things, and maybe see his old friends. (They’ll hate you. At best they’ll smile awkwardly, avoid looking at your arm or your face and stammer an excuse to leave. But they’ll hate you and fear you and there’s nothing you can do to fix it you can never heal the harm you’ve done—) But. But he can’t do this, not without help, (how is he supposed to ask for help?)
Lucas hums a little melody as he finishes gathering up his supplies. He has a few bags with some dried meat that Dad had caught and prepared, and woven, wide-brimmed hats that Duster had fashioned from some tall, flat grass (he had taken quite happily to creating little things with his hands, and said it was much nicer than fighting). He would trade them for fresh fruit a couple had found growing in the wild and firewood from Lighter down in the village. After all the DP bullshit and money craziness, apparently it was very easy for everyone to settle back into old habits. When there is enough to go around, everyone gets what they need; when there isn’t, everyone rations accordingly. No one is left out in the cold, no one is left behind.
Lucas looks over and smiles from his side of the brothers’ tent in the dim, early morning light. (It doesn’t show even an ounce of pity. Claus is impressed.) “I was thinking I’d take Boney down to the village today, let him run around some in that field nearby. Would you want to come with us, maybe? I know you like Boney’s jokes a lot more than me.” Their PSI had given both boys strong empathic communication abilities from the time they were born, and now, even with Claus’ abilities stunted like some sun-starved plant diminished, he could still understand their faithful dog perfectly, just like always.
Claus doesn’t look away from his shoes. (He can’t stand making eye contact anymore. Some days he can’t bring himself to look at other people at all. He can’t stand to look at himself either.)
He’s going to say No, he’s going to say You go on, I’m pretty tired today (like a coward), he’s going to not say anything (like he’s still a mindless machine, awaiting orders), he—
He’s been quiet too long. He opens his mouth and says “I want to come.”
Well, damn. He hadn’t meant to say that. He feels Lucas’ vitals tick up in surprise, chemoreceptors and vibrational sensors doing their job, whether he likes it or not.
“R-really?” Lucas stutters out, “I mean—that’s great!” He giggles a little, sounding giddy with happiness. Well fuck, Claus can’t back out of this now, Lucas would be disappointed and over his cold dead body would he ever disappoint his brother again. Claus feels a small dump of adrenaline into his system, which triggers battle subroutines that he has to waste precious processing power disabling and shunting aside, processing power that he needs to be using to think of a response. (He will not let his brother hear his canon coming online in response to distress his stupid adrenal relays, he will not—).
“Are you—uh, are you ready to go now?” Lucas asks, then quickly follows up, “I mean it’s—totally fine if you need more time to get ready, uh—” He’s getting so worked up his stutter is acting up again, and Claus—Claus needs to look away from his shoes, if he doesn’t Lucas might figure it out does he want Lucas to figure it out?
“I can wait outside while you’re—”
Clause interrupts “I need.” He can’t say it. He has to. He—he’s—
Lucas waits patiently for him to finish his sentence.
He wants to do this. He can’t do this without help. He needs help. “I need help.”
A beat. “Okay.” He moves a few steps closer, gives Claus some time to elaborate himself before pushing (so gently). “What do you need help with?”
Claus—fucking adrenaline fucking battle protocols shut up shut up—pulls on one boot, the movement a little clumsy but not too slow, and pulls the laces taut with his one hand before letting them go. He doesn’t think he can explain it. Words are so hard at the best of times, whenever his battle subroutines start up he feels like he’s back there don’t speak, a weapon has no use for words, you will report mission-relevant information when required and nothing else. (It was one of the most important rules, hard-coded into his governing processor.)
Lucas doesn’t need words.
“Ohhh, your laces. Yeah, that would be pretty hard to do one-handed, huh. Here, I’ll get it.” He starts reaching for Claus, but pauses. He doesn’t need to look up to know what his brother is waiting for. He nods, It’s okay, and Lucas waits for his assent before he begins.
(They always ask his permission before touching him now. He wants to think its stupid, but he can’t. He just can’t, it makes him so happy that they would give him this choice, let him decide what happens to his body in this one small way—)
And it’s. Not bad. It feels not bad. Okay, even. He. Expected it to feel like before. When the Pigs would touch him (there was that dichotomy again. Some would touch him constantly, the attendants, the scientists. The rest of the soldiers, though? Never. Few would even get within a few feet of him. He remembers seeing them touch each other. Friendly pats, slinging arms around each other, leaning on each other after an exhausting training period. Never him though. Even as their superior, he was more tool than comrade), when they’d do his laces, button his shirt (everything perfectly controlled, he owned his clothes just as much as he owned his body, which was not at all. His entire being just a plaything of His theirs.) he was almost always running diagnostics, trying to find what damage was causing such negative biological reactions.
Of course it wasn’t until now, afterward, that he could look back and identify the disgust, disgust at himself, for allowing this to happen over and over, a horrible, roiling, slimy pit below his lungs. Even remembering it sends a coiling echo of nausea through his stomach. Sometimes the thought of being touched is unbearable. (Sometimes he can’t hug his brother when it’s all he wants.)
But right now. Lucas is kneeling close to him, and he’s squinting as he focuses on his movements. The tops of his fingers brush Claus’ leg a few times, and his forehead is close enough to Claus’ face to disrupt his sonar receivers. His heartbeat is calm and strong. And Claus doesn't feel filthy, or helpless or degraded or even particularly like a burden.
He feels safe.
He starts spasming, the movement erratic and focused in his chest. His diaphragm and larynx especially begin to contract sporadically, and he starts making hiccuping, gasping noises and, oh, he’s crying. No tears (no tear ducts) but sobbing is definitely something he’s doing right now, sobbing into his brother’s chest and fuck, Lucas is having an adrenal response, he’s freaking him out. His hearing has gone all fuzzy and blank, but his vibrational sensors show that Lucas’ speech has increased in pitch and speed. Claus wants to say something reassuring, but that is definitely not happening right now so he scrambles for another way to communicate that this is in fact a good emotional breakdown (as opposed to the other ones that he’s had since he regained his personhood, which were all due to very bad emotions.)
He leans forward and throws his arms around his twin, and feels the other freeze for 0.3 seconds before he realizes fuck, his fucking cannon, he needs it to not be touching Lucas, he needs to move it away, move away—and then Lucas leans into him, hugging him tightly, almost clutching at him. His head leans against Claus’ temple, and he keeps talking, quietly now. Claus can only feel the vibrations of the words, not their content, but they’re comforting all the same.
A hand reaches up to run through his shorn, choppy hair. (It was kept buzzed so that the maintenance technicians could more easily reach the access ports in the back of his head. He can’t wait until it grows out again.) He receives an alert that his blood oxygen levels have dropped and he should initiate an override to allow his processor to regulate his breathing for him. He dismisses the alert.
They sit like that for several minutes. Lucas continues petting his hair and gently speaking (or maybe humming.) Bit by bit, Claus calms down gradually. He doesn’t try to push anything away or force himself back into standby readiness. He just feels for a while, emotions rolling through his chest and out his mouth before settling. He can weakly feel his brother’s presence, in his mind, the connection faint after the damage done to his head.
Still there, though.
After everything, they’re together. Lucas doesn’t push, leaning against the boundary of his mind without crossing it, just being a strong, comfortingly familiar presence. Claus dimly turns towards it, weakly attempting a greeting with his damaged PSI. Lucas sighs into his hair and squeezes him briefly, so apparently he managed something.
After another minute, Claus’ breathing returns to an acceptable level of regularity, and he leans back a little, feeling…light. Less burdened. Lucas leans back too, his hands slipping from Claus’ back down along his arms, to rest with one gripping Claus’ hand and the other splaying on the top of his cannon barrel. Claus, having very strong feelings about his family members being near his canon, immediately goes rigid, but before he pulls away, Lucas presses down on it slightly.
“It’s okay.” Claus drags his gaze from the pale, undamaged (for now, who knows when you’ll hurt him next) hand up to the space between Lucas’ shoulder and jawline. He can see that the other is leaning forward slightly, looking at Claus directly, with a soft expression. “I won’t touch it if you’re uncomfortable, but only if you’re uncomfortable. ‘Cause I’m not uncomfortable with it at all.”
Claus must be expressing some kind of doubt, either in his face or in his detectable psyche, because Lucas doubles down. “Listen, I love you. Every part of you, even the ones that are dangerous. I’m dangerous, too, remember?”
Claus definitely does not laugh at that (if he laughed he would start crying again, and no thank you) and it was almost funny, trying to imagine little crybaby Lucas being dangerous. But it’s true now, isn’t it? This Lucas isn’t the little boy he remembers, this Lucas is dangerous. Claus can manage a PK Love, too, in a pinch, but he needs far more concentration and it takes a massive toll on the power supply for his inorganic parts. In comparison, Lucas makes such a powerful attack look as easy as breathing.
Claus needs to say something, respond in some way. He hasn’t pulled away, which would technically communicate that he understands and accepts Lucas’ words but it’s not enough, he needs to do something more—(words are hard at the best of times, but) he manages—
“‘Love you, too.”
It’s mumbled, the intonation coming out flat, and he’s staring at the other’s left elbow, but the wave of Lucas’ happiness ballooning through the room is unmistakably bright. He almost seems to physically glow (he probably does; Claus has a personal hypothesis about the diffusion of unused PSI energy) with it, and Claus doesn’t need to look to see his smile. In the face of his brother’s happiness (because of him! Claus had made him feel this way!) he can’t suppress a small, tired smile of his own. And, he realizes, he doesn’t really want to suppress it. He wants Lucas to see. They’re together. They can still be happy.