Chapter Text
Four woke up wrong.
They’d woken up wrong a few times now. Before they became human, they’d have never guessed there was a right way to wake up—but whatever that constituted, they’d yet to achieve it. If anything, they were getting worse with each attempt.
It was hard to say their mornings were on a downward trend, given that they’d only had about three of them since Warren had given them their new body. But the mornings certainly weren’t fun. And this one, on this particular day, was particularly unpleasant.
Four sat up and stayed there for a while, lacking the courage to swing their legs over the side—god forbid, to walk. They hated walking. The Narrator kept assuring them that they’d get the hang of it, and while they didn’t want to sound like they were dismissing him, they were certainly having their doubts. Presently, they pressed the heel of one palm into the space between their eyes, while their other arm, shaky but sure, kept them from flopping back onto the mattress.
Headaches. Like walking, headaches were another thing they hated. They had a headache today. The best way to cure it, they resolved, would be to make the perilous journey to the kitchen in order to get a cup of coffee.
Meaning the only way to cure their headache was by… walking.
They hissed through their teeth, but, after a moment’s tortuous deliberation, started to climb out of bed. The trip to the kitchen, they reasoned, was limited, if difficult. And the headache probably wouldn’t go away unless they did something about it, so if walking to the kitchen wasn’t their most ideal solution, it was at least the most cost effective one.
They paused for a moment as their feet met the floor. The contact was a shock to the skin; a jolt that run up their calves and through their torso, causing them to shiver. It didn’t dissuade them, though, not now that they were on a mission.
Summoning every ounce of mettle they possessed, Four stood up…
… and immediately ate shit on the floor below.
They were dazed for a moment, unsure why they were so close to the ground, or why their whole body suddenly hurt. But they came to their senses after a while, and were able to push themself up onto all fours, glaring approximately at the space where the floor met the wall.
As far as any of their mornings had gone, this one certainly wasn’t shaping up to defy expectations.
It took Four exactly three minutes and twenty-eight seconds to struggle all the way to their bedroom door—lagging an entire forty-one seconds past their usual pace. When they finally did reach it, it was all they could do to lay a hand on the doorknob, exhausted but triumphant.
Shutting their eyes and pressing their head against the surprisingly cold wood was more instinctual than it was conscious action. Four almost didn’t want to open the door, so comfortable they were to lean against it; but they hadn’t made it this far to give up now.
They pushed the door open and stumbled into the hallway, gritting their teeth as the world warped and wobbled around them. They all but fell against the far wall—they were lucky this house had narrow halls—and had to prop an arm against it.
They were tempted to close their eyes again. At least until everything stabilised. But they didn’t do that.
Step by careful step, inch by aching inch, Four began to progress down the hallway. Balance was a conscious effort, and it took all the body strength they had just to not fall over again.
They were vaguely aware that they were sweating, but tried not to pay it too much mind; they were too focused on the task at hand. They tried not to let anything distract them from putting one foot in front of the other, not the creak of their own footfalls against the hardwood, not the distant ripple of voices laughing down the hall. Nothing at all.
Until the shadow appeared in their path. Despite themself, they looked up, and locked eyes with Tim, whose shoulders immediately drew upwards.
For a long moment, neither spoke. Tim’s face was contorting in a number of strange ways, but Four was still getting the hang of facial expressions—having not been able to see them for hundreds of years—and had no idea what to make of the pinch in his eyebrows, or the twitch in his jaw.
They didn’t need body language to guess what he was thinking about, though. Because Four was thinking about it too.
It was, in fact, pretty much the only thing they’d been able to think about for the past day. And while they couldn’t say if Tim was equally preoccupied with it, it was certainly the only thing he seemed to be thinking about whenever he and Four crossed paths.
“I, um… I left my phone,” Tim said, “in… in the guest room.”
It was the first non-threatening thing he’d said to Four directly since the argument. They hoped the flicker of optimism that bloomed in their chest wasn’t visible on their face, but just as they couldn’t read other people’s faces, they didn’t know their own well enough to say if they were effectively hiding it.
They were so preoccupied with this that they forgot to reply.
“I’m just gonna grab it,” Tim added in a mutter, as if more for his own sake than for Four.
Four waited a few moments, expecting him to move forwards. But instead he just stood there, staring Four down.
Staring. They didn’t know a lot about faces, but they knew this one: staring meant expectation. Tim was waiting for something.
He was waiting, Four realised belatedly, for them to get out of the way, because they were taking up too much space in the hallway for him to walk past them.
“Sorry,” they mumbled. Tim opened his mouth, and quickly shut it. Four wasn’t sure what that indicated, but they had the vague sense that it was bad.
They took a few more steps forward, breath frozen in their chest. They were making such good progress. They were almost at the end of the hallway.
Their knees were starting to wobble.
“Sorry,” they said, again. “Sorry. Sorry.”
For a moment, they didn’t think Tim was going to reply. Then, in a voice several layers thick and rippled with distaste, he said: “Sure you are.”
Four may not have been good at faces, but they were excellent with voices. And that had been a voice whose thoughts were somewhere totally different.
As if he thought they weren’t remorseful. As if he thought they hadn’t changed.
As if it was his place to judge, anyway. It wasn’t like he’d been there.
Four tried to put another foot forward, trying to tune out the ringing in their ears and the blur in their vision so as to focus on the task at hand.
They planted their foot down on the wood and missed.
The fall was a slow, awkward thing, consisting mostly of limbs pressed desperately against tight walls and the occasional yelp of surprise. Four ended up in an ungracious heap on the floor, curled into themself, acutely aware that Tim was still watching them, with those narrowed and unreadable eyes.
Four allowed themself the brief hope that Tim would help them upright. That he would grab them by the forearm and drag them to their feet, maybe a little roughly, but helpful all the same.
But Tim didn’t do that. Instead, he stepped directly over Four, and while they didn’t turn their head to look at him, they could hear his footsteps receding down the hall.
They wanted to think that they hadn’t deserved that, but they knew, deep down, that they probably did.
They stayed like that for a while, hating their growing headache, hating walking. Hating themself; or, at least, every prior iteration of themself, every mistake gone by, every moment they’d spent crafting themself into the monster they now struggled to outrun or outcast or outgrow.
They tried to comfort themself with the knowledge that they weren’t alone in all of their struggles. After all, Gaia and the Narrator had been through almost the exact same thing—and Four was sure it had been just as difficult for them, to start with. They’d both talked about having to learn to walk, although Four couldn’t help but feel like they’d understated how hard it had been.
But if they’d managed it, then so would Four. They had to.
They told themself that everything was normal. That they weren’t supposed to be able to stand up straight. That every step was supposed to feel like it didn’t quite reach the ground.
That everything was fine. That they were going to be okay.
But despite their best efforts at self-reassurance, they didn’t find it in themself to get off the floor until Tim had already come back through the hallway. He’d paused halfway down, judging by the halted sound of his footsteps, but this time Four didn’t hope he would pick them up. And just as they’d expected, he stepped over them, coldly and deftly, without so much as uttering a word.
Perhaps it was better for the both of them that Four didn’t notice the hall lights waver when he did so.
Warren had made pancakes for breakfast. They’d also made coffee, thank god.
Four sipped at the bitter but blissful brew, both hands wrapped around the mug. It was scaldingly hot to touch, but they didn’t trust themself not to drop it if they took it by the handle yet.
It wasn’t curing the headache, unfortunately. But it was lessening it. And Four was happy enough with that.
Stanley was there, too, although he’d finished eating before Four had even sat down. Gaia and the Narrator were absent, presumably downstairs.
Stanley was moving his hands emphatically, and Warren was watching. When Stanley was done, Warren laughed, and replied, “Seems like something he’d do.” To which Stanley waved his hands again. And Warren laughed. Again.
Four set their mug down on the table, trying not to look put out. They were trying to learn sign—they’d even put a poster up in their new room, little illustrations of the alphabet in BSL fingerspelling. But they weren’t any good at it yet, and it made for decidedly weak conversation, at least on their part.
Not that any exchange he could’ve had with Stanley at the moment would’ve been strictly pleasant. They weren’t unaware of the way he was avoiding them, always hasty to leave a room the moment they entered it, always hesitant to address them directly. Four was probably lucky, in a way, that Stanley always needed someone to translate for him; otherwise he mightn’t have had the courage to talk to Four at all.
They couldn’t exactly blame him for his distrust, after… everything. But that didn’t mean it stung any less. And it certainly didn’t staunch the ache that bloomed in their chest when, presently, he left the room, just as they’d expected him to. He’d stacked his plate in this sink—gone to wash it himself, but Warren had admonished him, insisting they’d do it—then all but ran downstairs, pausing only briefly to give Four a sidelong glance that they couldn’t interpret.
And then it was just Four and Warren, seated at opposite ends of the small table. Warren had only just sat down, having served everyone else before themself, and Four studied their hands for a moment, noting the way they gripped the cutlery before picking up their own.
It was a slow, laborious process, carving out a piece of the pancake with a shaky knife, stabbing at it resolutely with a just-as-shaky fork. But, eventually, Four was successful. It was a small achievement, but an achievement nonetheless—yesterday they’d given up and started eating dry cereal with their hands, to which Gaia had started doing the same, in what they were well aware had been an attempt to empathise.
They shoved the piece of pancake into their mouth before they could manage to drop it.
The taste was amazing. Buttery and silky and warm and soft and sweet and so intensely wonderful that Four felt like their face was melting. Everything Warren cooked was amazing, really—so was everything Gaia cooked, and everything the local takeout joints cooked, and… well, everything. Four had been deprived of every sense but sound for so long that they couldn’t help but relish every little thing. Of course, most senses had their downsides—some a lot more than others—but taste, so far, was their favourite. It was the sense that had failed them the least.
‘Failed’ being the operative term. Taste was everything they could have ever wanted, but eating… not so much. It was hard enough to swallow on a good day, and Four was particularly struggling this morning. They pushed it down with difficulty, giving themself a few moments to recover before chancing another bite.
They managed to get a few mouthfuls through their meal—by which time Warren had already nearly finished—before something went wrong.
They didn’t choke on it. They’d choked on their dinner last night, only for a few seconds, coughing uncontrollably, netting momentary terror then muted laughter from Warren and Gaia, who’d both rushed instantly to their side. That had been awful, almost beyond compare, but that meant it had been unforgettable, and so Four knew with certainty that this was different, some new inconvenience they had only just discovered.
The flavour in their mouth was souring, turning sharp, twisting into something strange and awful and acid. Like motor oil, almost, which, yes, they had actually tasted—android thing—and, no, they had not enjoyed.
Four lurched forward, instinctively, dropping their cutlery with a clatter, earning a glance upwards and raised eyebrow from Warren.
They swallowed, not knowing what else to do, and instantly regretted it. It burned in their throat, sludge-like, and there was a sudden and swift rush of heat to their head, causing them to press their hands over their face, mouth pulling back into an involuntary wince.
“Four?” That was Warren’s voice, oddly distant, as if they were speaking from another room; which Four knew was impossible, because they’d been sitting across the table only a moment ago.
The feeling passed in seconds, but not without leaving its imprint, the shadow of something acrid and ashy at the back of Four’s tongue. The first taste they’d sampled that they could say, with no uncertainty, that they absolutely despised.
They had a hand pushed against their mouth. They weren’t sure when they’d done that. They placed both palms flat on the table, closing their eyes, trying to steady themself.
They inhaled. Counted to four. Exhaled. Counted to four. Inhaled…
Warren was still watching them by the time they’d opened their eyes. (Watching, waiting, expecting… something.) Four picked up their cutlery, hoping Warren wouldn’t think too much of whatever had just happened. Trying not to think too much of it themself.
Their hands were trembling. They willed themself to move, to take another bite, to prove that everything was fine. But they couldn’t. As hard as they tried, they just couldn’t bring themself to try again, to risk that awful taste returning.
They set the fork and knife against their plate with a gentle clink.
Warren’s voice was a tone quieter than usual, laced with something that mingled between confusion and concern. “What’s wrong? Do you not like it?”
“No,” Four responded quickly. Then, recognising their potential lapse in communication, hurriedly added, “As in, I don’t not like it. Meaning I—I do like it. I’m so sorry.”
Their face burned, and Warren chuckled. “It’s fine, Four, I know what you meant. But you can tell me if you don’t like it!” They put their own utensils down as they spoke, in what Four could only approximate was a gesture of sincerity. “I won’t be insulted. You haven’t had a lot of chances to taste test things, so it’s okay if you haven’t figured out what you like yet. Everyone has preferences, and that’s okay!”
A silent moment passed between them as Four tried to process this.
“I do like it,” they said eventually, in a small voice. It was true, and they did.
So they weren’t sure why the words tasted so much like a lie.
Usually, as Four understood it, Gaia took her lunch breaks downstairs, eating in the shop while Warren manned the front desk. But today, for whatever reason, she’d chosen to spend her spare half hour with Four instead, watching reruns of the Great British Bake-Off from the comfort of the living room.
She’d brought an extra sandwich upstairs for Four, in case they wanted it. It sat on the coffee table, untouched.
They were staring at the screen listlessly, trying and failing to make any sense of the shapes and colours that played before them. Even the sounds of the words, with which they were usually so familiar, were warping strangely in their ears.
They’d just woken up from a nap, which was why they assumed they felt so disconnected from reality. They hadn’t meant to fall asleep, exactly, but the couch had just been so comfortable, and it wasn’t as if they’d had anything better to do. They’d been awoken by Gaia’s footfalls on the stairs, and were now more or less grappling with their own consciousness while a pleasant voice whined about the malleability of buttercream icing.
“Just use fondant,” Gaia said through a mouthful of her own sandwich. “I know it’s like eating Play-Doh, but that’s the fun.”
Four decided not to ask what she meant by this.
They cupped their jaw in their hand, propping their elbow against their knee, gaze drifting past the screen until it met some blurry space in the distance. They blinked, but it didn’t really help—only made them more aware of how hard they were fighting to keep their eyes open.
Gaia laughed at something, and they dragged their gaze across the screen, trying to figure out what was so funny; until she said, “Mesmerising, huh?” and they realised she was laughing at them.
They shrunk into themself a little, which Gaia must have also thought was funny, because she giggled again. Four bristled despite themself.
It wasn’t that she’d made fun of them, really, that ticked them off. It was just the sound of it, the pitch of her amusement, sharp and keening in Four’s ears. They were usually good with sound—it was the one thing they were actually used to—but something about it had bordered on overwhelming for the entire day, and Gaia was kind of pushing the iceberg.
She must have read this in the way they flinched, because she did add, “Sorry, sorry, I shouldn’t laugh.” She sounded genuinely penitent, and Four couldn’t find it in themself to stay too annoyed.
“I have to admit,” she continued, “I’ve fallen asleep to this show sooo many times. So I get it. It’s just relaxing, you know? Like Bob Ross—oh, my gods, I have to show you Bob Ross, you would love it—”
She babbled on like that for a good few minutes, something-or-other about titanium hwite and happy little accidents, but Four wasn’t really paying attention. They were focusing more on the images on the screen, the too-bright colours, the way each frame punctured their vision yet slid so quickly out of their grasp.
They felt like they did whenever they were walking and on the verge of falling over. Some strange feeling of vanishing balance, of stability that they should have been able to find by now.
At some point, eventually, they were lying horizontal, with a blanket tucked over their shoulders. The TV had been switched off, and Gaia was gone. The apartment was blissfully silent, save their own breathing, and dark despite the hour. (1:35pm exactly, Four knew without checking.)
They weren’t sure when they must have nodded off. But they were more inclined to slip back into sleep than they were to ask questions, and so they did just that, curling onto their side and sliding nearly instantly into unconsciousness.
Their sandwich sat on the coffee table, still wrapped.
Four woke up disoriented, and tangled in their blanket, and cold.
They pushed themself upright, wincing as the cogs in their joints clicked and creaked in myriad semblances of protest. It was still dark in the apartment—darker, even, than it had been when they’d drifted off—but what little light there was pierced them, gouging through their eyes and into their skull, dragging the morning’s headache out of hiding. If they’d been feeling brave, they would have gone and grabbed a coffee from the shop, but they found they weren’t in the mood to brave the stairs.
What they did plan to do was something about the temperature. They stood, a little swiftly, swaying on their feet, before making for the thermostat.
It was a sad-looking little thing, chipped with age and dusted with disuse. For a long time Four had been in control of the house, adjusting the heating or editing the rooms as they saw fit—but now that they’d evolved from their status as an especially sentient Alexa, they were finding other ways to make changes. Of course, they could still use the computer to do much of what they’d normally do, but they couldn’t remember the login and it seemed less effort to use the thermostat than it was to go and ask Warren for the password.
They cranked the dial to 26°C, then, after a moment’s deliberation, pushed it to 27°C. Even as the heating system kicked in, there were shivers running through their body, rippling the surface of the blanket they still clung to. They were tempted to turn the temperature even higher, but they were aware they were already testing the limits, so they left it alone.
They turned around, fully intending to crash back onto the couch, and damn near had a heart attack.
Stanley was standing in the doorway to the room, watching them. Four didn’t say anything—didn’t know what to say—and the moment stretched between them, Stanley’s face twitching and contorting in ways Four only wished they understood.
He shrank back into the doorway, and Four expected him to leave again, but then he froze. He looked Four up and down, as if searching for something.
And then he actually approached them, which they hadn’t been expecting, and which they were honestly a little alarmed by. They took one step back, but it was only small, and it didn’t reopen much of the distance he’d closed. They were aware they were still shaking, but they weren’t fixated on that.
Stanley was moving his hands. Signing. Rapidly, fluidly, easily. Completely unintelligibly from Four’s perspective.
They just stared at him helplessly, and he gave a little sigh—one that was less disappointed than it was resigned, as if he’d known better than to expect much else.
He raised his hands and tried again. Slowly, deliberately, in a punctuated way that didn’t seem entirely characteristic of him.
The palm of his—left? Right? Left? Four could never tell—one hand, held out flat, other hand’s index finger curled against it like a claw.
Palm still laid out, index finger of the other hand meeting the outstretched pinky of the first, joined at the tip.
Index of the second hand meeting the ring finger of the first, palm flat as ever.
And then a more complicated gesture Four could barely describe, let alone decipher—first hand’s fingers curling, all but the index, which the other hand rested against the length of, itself balled into something like a loose fist.
It was all so cautious. So carefully selected, so gingerly performed. And Four hadn’t understood a second of it.
They looked up at Stanley and nearly said “I’m sorry,” but those specific words, to Stanley in particular, stuck in their throat and died before it even reached their lips. They swallowed down its remnants and elected, instead, to shake their head. Stanley sighed again, and it was no less resigned in nature than it had been before.
He stepped backwards, towards the doorway, as if to leave again. Four chided themself for the pang that struck them; they knew things were still rocky between the both of them, but in that moment, even if Four hadn’t understood, it had felt, in some small way, like the two were connecting. They had been communicating, if not in quite the way either of them had wanted to.
Stanley hesitated at the mouth of the room, locking eyes with Four. They shivered again, maybe from the cold, maybe from the anxiety that Stanley had ignited within them.
There was something so strong on his face. Something that, with what limited knowledge of facial expressions and body language they did possess, Four wanted to say looked a lot like worry.
But he was gone before Four could decide if they really believed that.
Four was standing in the middle of the living room, listless, when the Narrator found them.
“Oh! There you are,” he exclaimed, catching their attention. They turned to face him as he added, “I thought you’d be in your room. What are you doing just standing out here?”
Four found they couldn’t answer this. They remembered making the decision to do something, anything, given they’d probably wasted enough of today passed out on the couch. But if they’d resolved on any particular goal, they’d apparently forgotten it. And standing blankly in the middle of the room must have just been easier than making the active choice to leave it.
They shrugged by way of a reply, blanket bunching around their shoulders, then actually understood the implications of the Narrator’s words. “You were looking for me? Why?”
“Oh, it’s just…” His voice was measured, carefully neutral, but there was a frown on his face. This was another of the few facial features Four vaguely knew the meaning of: it was bad. A frown was bad. “Stanley said you’d been acting strange, and since you can’t read sign and Warren and Gaia were working, I took it upon myself to come see if you were okay.”
He distinctly didn’t mention Tim as a possibility, and they both knew why.
“So, um… are you? Okay, that is?”
He didn’t sound like he knew the meaning of the question as he asked it. Four, in turn, didn’t seem to know how to respond.
They wanted to tell him they were fine, because that was what was true. They were still getting the hang of things, sure, but they were getting the hang of things. They had a new body, all sorts of fantastic new senses (taste!), and two roommates whose love for them seemed unbound by the very limits of the universe.
Four’s life, by all decisive measures, was perfect. Which was why they were so surprised—and confused—at themself when they started crying.
They didn’t bother looking the Narrator in the face, knowing they’d find nothing useful on it, but they did hear his soft gasp echoing through the room.
“I d-don’t think I can do this,” they sobbed, before they could think better of it. The Narrator was silent, apparently at a loss, then, wordlessly, he was pressing a gentle hand to Four’s back, guiding them towards the couch.
They stumbled over, sat obligingly. The Narrator’s weight pressed down on the padding beside them. For another long moment, neither spoke, the silence only broken by Four’s staggered and watery breathing.
Then, in a voice so soft it was barely audible, the Narrator spoke. “Can you tell me what’s the matter, Four?”
They didn’t want to. They didn’t know how they could, really, because there was nothing the matter, nothing wrong about any of this besides their own damn self, their own inextricable failure to do anything right.
But none of this stopped them from breaking down in front of him, dissolving into a flurry of undeserved complaints, punctuated only by their own desperate gasps for breath.
“I just—I—I know you said it would take time, and, you know, I’m good at time, that’s—that’s, you know, my thing, but…” They paused, took a shaky breath, continued. “It’s just… it’s hard. And it’s—I know it’s normal, but I can’t—I can barely stand up straight, and I just—I feel like…”
Like I’m letting everyone down, they thought but didn’t say. Like I’ve been given the restart of a lifetime and I’m wasting it on… whatever this is that I’m doing now.
The Narrator chuckled wryly; a sound made of sympathy, not derision. “Oh, I remember those first few months.”
“Months,” Four echoed quietly, because the word was comforting.
It was like a promise—an assurance that they were only at the start of their journey, that there was progress still to come. It was the faint, distant hope that the weird energy they’d accumulated over the last few days meant nothing in the long run, because there was a long run, there was a goal to reach, a target to hit.
It was the seed of an idea that they really would be okay.
“It will take time,” the Narrator continued, carrying the ‘m’ with a thoughtful little hum. “But you and I are… well, you know, we’re…”
He trailed off, like he was regretting saying it before he’d even said it. But he followed through.
“We’re alike,” he said, meaning it in a lot of ways, disliking it in several. Four prickled. “Which is to say that if someone like me could manage, then I’m sure you can, too.”
It wasn’t anything that Four hadn’t already heard, more or less. But it was, in some small way, nice to hear anyway.
“Thank you,” they said. “That helps.”
“I should think it does. I have quite a way with words.”
They snorted, and the moment flickered into silence, a lull laden with a certain anticipation.
“It’s not just that, though,” said the Narrator, softly, curiously. “Is it?”
They hadn’t realised they’d been expecting him to ask, but the question didn’t come as a surprise. That didn’t mean Four was prepared—much less willing—to answer it, though.
They turned their head away. Already they had said far too much; spent more than enough time complaining about the body they were lucky to have, about the chance they should have been endlessly glad they were given.
But perhaps that was what motivated them to continue. They were already in too deep, so what was another mar upon their tainted image?
They sniffed, pushing tears off their own cheek with the heel of their palm, before finding it in themself to continue.
“Everything is just a lot,” they sighed, “all at once.”
The statement hung in the air for a moment.
“Meaning?” the Narrator prompted, not forcibly, only with intrigue.
“I can’t…” They looked down at their hands, which still shivered, only slightly, infected with the chill in the air and their own persistent instability. “Light, and colour, and temperature, and even taste, are just… so much?”
It wasn’t really a question, and there was no answer for it, but they couldn’t bring themself to state it as a fact, so they allowed the end of the sentence to lift as they spoke it.
“It’s not that I’m not happy about it, I guess. It’s just… overwhelming. And I—I can’t—“ They put their head in their hands. “Just… you know what I mean, right?”
The Narrator paused for a fraction of a second too long before answering, “I suppose.”
Four tilted their head to look at him. His gaze was fixed at the coffee table, not at them, and his eyes flickered behind the frames of his glasses with some kind of emotion Four always, always wished they understood.
“Touch was like that for me, at first,” he said, voice thick with a strange hesitance that concerned and confused Four. “Physical contact was so overwhelming. But then, I suppose, I was always able to see, so there was one thing I didn’t have to worry about learning.”
Lucky bastard, thought Four. “Did it take you long?” they asked aloud.
“Did what?”
“Getting used to it all.”
The Narrator thought for a moment before replying. “Honestly? I’m not sure I ever truly did.”
Four’s stomach dropped.
“I adjusted a little,” he continued unhurriedly—if any of Four’s distress had shown on their face, he hadn’t seen it, gaze still stuck to the coffee table. “You know, I learned to cope with it. But I still find I’m sensitive to certain textures or temperatures in a way that a lot of people… aren’t.” He shrugged. “Maybe that comes with the territory, maybe that’s just me. You could ask Gaia, I suppose, if you really wanted to know.”
A flash of panic gripped Four. Don’t tell Gaia about this, they thought urgently, and were immediately confused as to why.
“Speaking of temperature,” the Narrator said, “it is horrifically warm in here.”
“Really?” Four said, reflexively. “I’m freezing.”
At this, the Narrator did look at them—rather rapidly, and with brows so tightly drawn together they might have met at the centre. “You think so?”
Four had the sense they’d misspoken, somehow. They shrank back into their blanket, feeling slightly put out, and their traitorous body picked just the perfect time to give a shudder, under the Narrator’s scrutinous eyes.
His face was shifting. Slowly, subtly, and, as always, in ways that didn’t mean a single thing to Four. It was so frustrating. They wanted to yell at him, for whatever reason, but they knew there was little point.
“How…” His voice was hesitant, a little higher than normal. He sounded like he was searching for something: the right words, maybe, or answers. “How bad has it been? For you? In… measurable specifics?”
It was a weird way to phrase the question, and he sounded like he knew it, stuttering and starting and lilting in odd places. But Four answered anyway.
They drew their knees up to their chest, dropping their chin into their lap. “It’s been…”
They had a brief moment of hesitance. They felt, if only fleetingly, like they were at a point of no return; a room with two doors, past which there was no way to reset. But some small part of them had picked a door already, and they took a shuddering breath.
“It’s been really hard, today,” they managed to answer, voice coming out smaller than they would have liked. “I thought it—it would get easier. But it just feels like every day, I…”
There were tears springing to their eyes again, and they pressed their entire face into the part of the blanket that bunched around their knees, hoping to staunch the flow.
“Could you be a little more particular,” the Narrator said, cautiously, and Four realised he was definitely looking for something. For what, they didn’t know, and they were tempted to ask—but somehow they doubted he would actually answer, so they didn’t waste their energy in protesting.
“I haven’t been able to get warm in hours,” they said plainly, gesturing vaguely at their entire self. “I could barely focus on the TV earlier, not even on the audio. I nearly… well, I don’t know what happened at breakfast, but it was awful, I’ll tell you that much.”
The Narrator was worryingly silent.
“I couldn’t even get out of bed this morning without tripping over myself,” they finished despondently. Then, before they could stop themself, they asked: “How pathetic is that?”
They turned their head towards the Narrator, trying fruitlessly to gauge his reaction. His eyes, they thought, were a little wider than normal; his mouth, too, parted at the lips, his jaw—thoughtfully? Calculatingly? Curiously?—slack.
“Is that a rhetorical question?” he asked, slightly distantly.
It had been. But this, Four decided, wasn’t: “Do you think there’s something wrong with me?”
There was a very, very, very long pause.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” the Narrator began.
Because that’s such a promising way to start a sentence, Four thought, almost disbelievingly.
“Yes.”
They’d known, right before he’d said it, that he was going to say it. And they also had been the one to, y’know, ask. But that didn’t make the answer any less of a punch to the gut, and they recoiled, shrivelling towards the opposite end of the couch.
“Four, I’m sorry, but… I genuinely don’t know what else to tell you.” He ran a hand through his hair, looking—mournful? Apologetic? Whatever, it didn’t matter how much they tried, Four would never understand. “I mean, at first, it all sounded normal, and then I started wondering if perhaps I wasn’t remembering my own experiences right, and then I thought maybe I’d just been lucky at the time and you would have been better off talking to Gaia—”
“—No! She can’t know!—”
He shot them a look, but didn’t falter “—but then you just kept going and I thought, no, no no no, there is absolutely no way that this can be normal.”
Four’s breath was coming to them rapidly, now, passing in and out of their chest so fast that it was useless to them, oxygen leaving their body before it was absorbed.
“Four—Four!” The Narrator’s voice was stern, relatively loud, but muffled through the ringing that was growing in Four’s ears. “Good god, Four, are you okay? I—”
No. No, they weren’t okay, he’d made that expressly clear; they were broken, fundamentally, wrong and awry in all sorts of ways they’d never understand, all sorts of ways that the people they loved would hate them for.
Their ears were ringing. They couldn’t breathe. That feeling from breakfast was back, that acid that burned at the back of their mouth. The Narrator’s weight had lifted from the couch and he was probably going to leave like he had every right to do and he probably hated Four and Four probably deserved it and he was kneeling in front of them with a hand on their lap and he was wiping a tear from their cheek with his thumb and it was probably just an act and he probably didn’t really care and he was frowning—frowning, displeasure, one thing they knew, bad bad bad bad bad—and he probably couldn’t stand the sight of them and they probably deserved it and he was pressing the back of his hand to their forehead which they had not been expecting, and which actually felt really nice, and that they were leaning into before they knew what they were doing—
He swore under his breath, and pulled his hand away. Four barely, barely stopped themself from whining.
He was silent for a moment, hands locked around Four’s shoulders. Then, in a tone of voice that—in a rare occasion for Four—they struggled to interpret, he said, “I’m going to go get Warren and Gaia. Stay here.”
Four’s stomach twisted in horror. “No. No, you can’t—you can’t do that.”
The Narrator wasn’t listening. He was already walking away from the couch, towards the stairs. Towards the café, where Warren and Gaia would be.
“Narrator, please!” They hated how desperate their voice sounded, but they couldn’t restrain it. “Please don’t tell them. They’ll—they’ll hate me.”
“Why!?” The Narrator’s voice was almost as much of a whine as Four’s as he whirled around. “Why do you think that?”
Because god knows the rest of you already do.
“Because… Because, I…” A ringing sound, a russet colour, a taste like iron, fear. “Because I’m supposed to be fucking gra-gra-grateful,” Four snarled, voice glitching and distorting around the synthetic shape of the words. It was a sentiment more for their own sake than the Narrator’s, and they were pretty sure he knew that, but they didn’t care. Tears poured down their face as they continued, “Because this is what I asked for. Because this is my fault, and my problem. Because they’re already busy. Because I can handle it on my own. Because I’m fine. Becau—”
“Because you’re not thinking straight,” the Narrator interrupted firmly, “and I’m pretty sure you have a fever.”
This gave Four pause. “I’m not…”
They tried to find the right words. Failed.
The Narrator turned to walk down the stairs.
“I’m not sick,” they called after him, but only half-heartedly, not really thinking he would hear it either way. “I don’t get sick. I can’t…”
But as they were saying it, they realised it wasn’t true. They were human, right? Technically? And humans got sick.
No. No, no, they couldn’t. It wasn’t… they weren’t…
They stood before they could think better of it, blanket falling from their shoulders as they paced the room, like a caged animal, a rabid dog in a too-small enclosure. This couldn’t be happening. They couldn’t do this.
Warren and Gaia had lives, they were busy, Four couldn’t ask them to just drop everything and take care of them (if they were sick, which they weren’t).
Their headache was back, and it was back with a vengeance, burning like hellfire in the space behind their blurry eyes.
It had been a rough enough few days, what with everything that had come out, and—god, they didn’t have anyone to fall back on because everyone hated them, which they deserved.
They were so, so cold. Or so warm. Something prickled across their entire body, just under their skin, threatening to swallow them whole.
And it didn’t matter if they were sick. The fact remained that they’d asked for this body, that they’d wanted it, they’d taken it willingly, and now they were reaping the consequences.
They knew, vaguely and distantly, that they were breathing too fast—0.86 seconds, 0.77 seconds, 0.63 seconds—but they couldn’t slow it down—0.54 seconds, 0.44 seconds, 0.39 seconds—couldn’t hold onto any air long enough—0.32 seconds, 0.28 seconds, 0.29 seconds—for their body to extract that from it which it desperately needed.
They told themself to stand still, to stop spinning in place, but they were trying, and it wasn’t working, and they realised it was the room itself that swayed beneath their feet—
—and there were footfalls, somewhere, heavy but muffled, and they couldn’t figure out from where, and the one sense they’d always thought they’d known was failing them—
—and they couldn’t breathe and they couldn’t breathe and they couldn’t breathe and they couldn’t—
—and they were so, so ashamed, and so, so tired, and everything was just so, so much, all at once and everywhere—
—and they couldn’t do it—
—and they couldn’t do it.—
—and there were Gaia and Warren’s faces on the landing, painted with horror or irritation or incredulity or horror or no, okay, absolutely definitely horror—
—and someone, somewhere, was screaming, and it sounded a little bit like their name, but Four was too unconscious too quickly to figure out who it was or what they’d said.
They slumped into someone’s outstretched arms, and then they were gone, sliding backwards into a familiar and fathomless black.