Onus 06

"Home?" I whispered. The fabric of his coat was rough against my lip.

He nodded. I turned and started walking towards the van. Confident that he was one step behind me.

--

His hand was very gentle on my upper arm. I blinked, and the dashboard steadied and sharpened. We were in front of the house. Surrounded by skeletal trees and under a crust of stars. The heat from the dashboard was heavy and stupefying.

"How is your leg?" He asked me. It wasn't snowing outside. It was perfectly clear. I gave him a thumbs up. My hip was a little sore, but the fall hadn't hurt me.

"It's pretty slippery out there. I'll come to the door, be your crutch."

He slipped out of the driver's side. I was under layers of jackets and sweatshirts, in a heated car, and I still shivered at the draft that came in through his side. He helped me to stand. My feet slipped, but I was clutching his arms for support, so I stayed upright. I held on tight. Fingertips digging into the meat of his upper arms. Face buried in his jacket to stay away from the wind.

We scurried to the house. As soon as the door was closed, I could feel the warmth of the house. The emptiness of it. It was late. Nearly one in the morning. I heard Sam yawn behind me. He had a long day. A long day of fighting. For me, for my kind.

"H—ah—how's you're level of pain? I can give you one more tablet today" He unstrung his scarf and hung it on a hook. I shrugged out of his heavy coat. I tried to hang the coat, but the hooks were high above my head and I almost lost my balance trying to tip-toe on my stiff walking boots. "I can get that..."

"Please." I whispered, hoarsely. Now that I was standing again, my feet were aching from all the walking.

I sat at the table, rubbing the sleep from my eyes.

"Shiloh?" I flinched, and looked up. He was holding a green glass bottle. "I... I was going to have a glass of wine before I went to bed. Did you want one?"

He was sad that I flinched. I could tell by the way he looked at me. I felt guilty. He hadn't hurt me. Not once. But I was so...

I nodded. I had never tasted wine. Never tasted any kind of alcohol.

He did one better than a glass of wine. He sliced a few apples with a paring knife, so quick and efficient that I was a little mesmerized by how fast he dismantled them. He saw me watching, and smiled. "The glasses are in the cabinet behind you."

The stems of the glasses looked so delicate. I looked down at my hands. I didn't have nimble steady hands like Sam. When I held my hands flat they shook. I was very careful with the glasses. I moved slow and set them on the table deliberately.

Sam brought the bottle and plate to the table. He had added a wedge of chalk-white cheese and a tube of crackers to the plate.

He filled our glasses. I could smell the wine right away. It was almost overpowering. A purple fruit-smell that practically clawed it's way up my nose. I could taste it on the air when I opened my mouth and inhaled air over my sensitive grey tongue.

I felt him watching, but I did it anyway. I carefully dipped my fingertip into the wine glass.

When the sensory patch on my fingertip was hovering above the wine I could take in the strong purple smell. The wine was so dark that it was only red at the meniscus. When I actually touched the wine, I wasn't quite sure that I liked the taste, but I was sure that I didn't dislike it. I took a sip, holding the glass with both hands so I wouldn't drop it on accident.

I covered my mouth with my hands so I wouldn't stick my tongue out. The wine was burny-tingly all over my mouth. But it wasn't a bad feeling. Just funny. I knew how to make a knot in my tongue, work the knot from root to tip to cleanse the burny-tingly spit away. I wanted to do it. But I couldn't do it with my mouth closed.

"That bad?" He asked, a little smile on his face. I shook my head, but the taste was clinging to my tongue, heavy and a little nauseating.

I gingerly got up, he started to rise, too. I shook my head and held up my hand tentatively. It felt wrong, wrong to do that. To tell him not to get up. I dropped my hand right away. "Back." I whispered hoarsely. "I'll c-come... back."

I clopped to the bathroom. As soon as I was out of sight I opened my mouth and watched my long grey tongue in the mirror. Long and grey and shiny, made of softer tissue than human tongues. It was smooth to the touch except for a double-line of darker buds on either side of the middle crease. Mucus glands. My tongue was much longer than a human's. When I stuck it out as far as I could, I could tap my Adam's apple, or the middle of my hairline with the pointed tip.

I stuck my tongue out so the tip hung below my chin, and I flexed the base of my tongue into a knot. The movement was reflexive, once I started to knot my tongue, I couldn't stop or speed up the way the knot slid down to the tip of my tongue.

A thick gob of pinkish mucus landed in the sink, and the burning sensation was gone. I put my tongue back in my mouth. I ran the water until the mucus slid down the drain.

I opened the door a crack, and hid. He was facing three quarters away from me. I could see the laces of his patch making horizontal parts in his short sandy hair. The black void of his patch was on my side.

He glanced my way and I didn't think. I flinched back, slamming the door shut. As soon as I did, I mouthed 'stupid' and clutched my head in both hands. My heart jackhammered frantically in my chest and I felt flushed and angry. Angry at myself. I couldn't tell if I was angry for spying, or angry for being caught. Maybe a little of both.

I sighed and opened the door, hanging my head a little.

"Shy? Are you okay?"

I nodded, and finished clacking back to the dining table. I liked it when he said my name. Somehow, I liked it even more when he only used half of it.

I sat and took some apple slices. The taste of those was sweet and uncomplicated. Singing in my fingertips.

"Shiloh?" I looked up at him. "Were you just shedding your tongue lining?"

I suddenly felt naked. I flushed and looked down at the table, covering my face with my hands. He knew. It didn't matter that I had tried to hide my ugly eel-tongue from him.

"Hey, hey, shh. It's okay. Shy... If you ever need to slough your tongue, just do it. A healthy Onus is supposed to shed the lining about four times a day." I looked at him, startled. I had never heard anything like that. I could see sadness in his eye, and something like quiet rage was slipping into his voice. "I know what most humans say about your tongue. I know you're probably used to hiding it. If you ever want to taste the air, shed the lining, make silly faces, whatever, you can do it. You don't need to hide in the bathroom." He shrugged. "You can if you want, but it's important that you try and shed at least twice a day. It's just part of oral hygiene for Onus."

I took a bite of soft cheese on a cracker. After knotting my tongue, food always tasted better, my sense of smell sharpened. I took another sip of wine, and this time, the cloying taste didn't stick to my tongue like a stench. "Mmm."

"It's good? You like it?" When he said that, his face lit up, almost transformed. I liked it when he smiled. I nodded earnestly, taking another bite.

When the plate was reduced to a waxy rind and a spatter of crumbs, I decided to scrape together as many words as I could.

"sssSam?"

"Hm?"

"Tha... Thank you."

"Don't worry about it. You helped out at the Onii tonight, and I thought you might be hungry."

"For... Everything. Kini-Kin... Kinick-ke." I pointed to a spot on the table. "Food." Another spot, punctuating my gratitude. "For... " I felt my face crumple a little and I couldn't say anything else. My collection of words had scattered to the winds. I was so angry that I hit my forehead with the palm of my hand over and over again, my mouth screwed into an angry cut.

"No... No please, don't do that Shiloh." He didn't want to grab me, didn't want to physically restrain me. I was too upset. I crossed my arms tightly, tucking my hands into my armpits, and crying with frustration.

He stood and opened a drawer, looking back anxiously, watching me to make sure I didn't hit myself again. I followed him with my eyes. He came back with a pen and notepad.

"Here. Just use this, if the words wont come out."

I took the pen and wrote angrily. I could barely see the paper through my tears. When I blinked, I could see my angry pointy scrawl for a moment. I could see my bloodless knuckles tight on the pen.

'You saved my life, my mother, my mind, my kind. I can't even say thank you.'

I let go of the pen, and it rolled away from my loose hand. My breathing was slowing. My mouth and eyes went soft and relaxed. I let go of my arms and wiped my eyes with the heel of my hand.

"Well, now you can, Shy."

His hand was resting on the notepad, his fingers splayed under my frustration. I nodded, and tentatively reached out. His fingers were wider than mine, darker. He had fine golden hairs on the back of his hand, the back of his fingers. I wanted to see if they were soft.

He let me run a fingertip down his middle finger, from the smooth white bed of his fingernail, to the gentle blue-tinged ridge of a vein. I followed the vessel with my fingertip, feeling the thin coarse hairs. The vein branched, a tributary runneled down his thumb, another to the contour of his wrist.

When I followed his blood to his thumb, he reacted for the first time, turning his hand over slowly. I touched his palm with two fingers, then three. Sliding my fingertips over a valley of lifelines to the three crevasses between four digits.

His palm tasted like wine and soap and apples.

The gentleness of his fingers closing over mine was a balm.

--

I fell asleep in Pocky's room. I wrote a note for Sam, asking him to leave the door all the way open. He told me goodnight, and gently squeezed my hand.

Sleep evaded me. The green digital readout on my radio measured one hundred and seventy-three fragments of time before I gave up.

I turned off the hall light as I left Hippocrates' room. I closed the door behind me. It was dark, cut off from her heat lamp, but my eyes adjusted quickly.

The stairs creaked twice, but the house was very sturdy.

The house felt alive, but asleep. It made quiet sounds. Water and electricity and air. That was all any life form needed. The house was as alive as I was.

I shuffled my boots on the carpet so I wouldn't clop. I was barely breathing. I could hear the house breathing, the air humming through the vents, the faint buzzing of it's synapses, the gurgle of it's pipes. And as I crept closer, I could hear him breathing.

He wasn't snoring. Not quite. His breath did catch a little every time he inhaled. Nothing so vulgar as a snore.

The doorknob shocked me when I tried to touch it. The blue spark leapt from my finger to the cold metal with an audible snap. The tiny afterimage was burnt into my tired eyes.

It may have taken thirty seconds to open his door. It may have been closer to three or four minutes. Inching it open. Creeping it open. Freezing at every individual fraction of a creak.

I slipped through the gap.

The only light was the faint blue glow of his alarm clock. His soft rough breathing was slow and even. I could see the long hump of his body under the covers.

His mattress was memory foam. Not springs. I never would have dared, if the bed had been able to announce my presence.

I perched myself at the very edge of the bed, facing the door. I didn't cover myself with the blanket. I was as close to the edge as I could be without falling off.

I let his breathing lull me to sleep.

*****

*Round and round and round she goes

When will she post?

Nobody knows.

I keep my promises.*