Myst - Sirrus, Achenar - "Bedding"

[driftinginnines]

Title: Bedding
Fandom: Myst series, pre-Myst
Characters: Sirrus, Achenar
Word Count: 1760
Date Finished: February 13, 2007
Author's Notes: There had to be some good moments in Sirrus & Achenar's lives that they had with each other, right? Maybe? I feel like they occasionally try to hurt the other and then act like it wasn't their fault. I don't know what it is about these two but they have amused me for years. I was speaking with a friend I met through the Myst community about them both and somehow we got on the subject of what happens when all that alcohol they have is consumed -- and how much of it was there before the Stranger ever showed up?

Bedding

He was confined -- and he was damn cold too. Shifting slightly, as much as he could manage in the tiny space he occupied, Sirrus opened his eyes. It proved to be fairly difficult since they were almost caked shut. Letting his vision come into focus, he peered ahead of him, trying to orient the rooms layout and where he was. It was sideways, the floor to his right and the open air to the left. He was laying on his side, on the ground.

He could see empty wine bottles ahead of him, strewn across the dirty wooden floorboards and a chest of drawers past that. Staring at it for a few seconds, Sirrus recognized it. He was laying on the floor of Achenar's bedroom in the Stoneship Age.

A gasp caught in his throat as he tried to move, wiggling around onto his back. That was when he realized it was a pair of arms around him. A quick glance to his left showed him the owner of those arms, his older brother, his dark hair splayed out across the ground in a messy halo. His eyes were closed and he seemed to be breathing peacefully, which was something Sirrus had rarely seen.

His first question was how they got there, the second was how long had they been there and the third -- which was the one that stuck out in his mind the most -- what had they done exactly? The last thing he remembered was watching Achenar balancing on the edge of the ship's bow and debating on whether or not to run up and push him into the water below. Apparently he had decided against it.

"Achenar," Sirrus hissed, poking his brother's cheek.

"Mmmm." It was the only noise that came from Achenar, as a lazy hand moved up to bat Sirrus' finger away.

Struggling, Sirrus finally pulled himself to a sitting position and tossed a quick glance around. They were asleep on the dirty sheet that passed for a rug in Achenar's room, their boots and overclothes tossed in a heap down by their feet. Glancing down at himself, Sirrus realized why he was so cold. He was dressed in a thin shirt and a long pair of pants, clothing that was usually hidden under other layers. And here they were sprawled out on the floor of Achenar's ice cold bedroom, a single blanket being shared between them.

And not surprising to Sirrus at all, Achenar was curled up in the whole blanket himself.

Poking his cheek harder, before finally giving up and lightly slapping his brother's forehead, Sirrus growled. He was already in a bad mood because he was cold -- and because a hangover seemed to be creeping up on him, but now the thing that was annoying him the most was the fact that he just woke up on the ground, in his brother's arms.

He kept a shudder from taking over his body as he watched Achenar lazily pull himself to his knees. Sirrus reached out to poke at his face again, but this time Achenar caught his finger, bending it backwards slightly. "Stop."

Quickly retracting his finger, Sirrus motioned around the room and spoke before swiping the blanket back from his brother. "What is all this? What did we do?"

"Eh..."

Another random noise. Sirrus was used to those from his brother; grunts and growls and murmurs under his breath. The younger stopped paying attention to them a long time ago. "Hmmm?"

Pulling himself to his feet, Achenar raised his arms over his head and stretched, opening his mouth in a yawn. He could feel the beginnings of a hangover in his system as well, causing a smirk to cross his stubbly face as he looked around the bedroom.

"Well," Achenar pointed out the empty wine bottles and counted out five -- no, six. "There's those." He crossed his arms over his chest, his gaze scanning the bedroom. Beside the ribcage lamp he had made a few years earlier, there were mushed berries and small crushed pods from the Channelwood Age. "That explains your lovely made up face," he exclaimed, pointing to the pile.

Sirrus jumped up from his spot on the sheet and paced over, leaning down to study the flora from the other Age. The ribcage lamp beside him cast a dim sickly glow over his scowling visage. "My made up face? You're the one with the colored lips." He threw a nod towards the berries, his mind planting a memory in his head -- Sirrus had smeared the berries on Achenar's lips, right? He could hear his own drunk cackles in his head. Yes, that was it. They had been drinking and he had taken the berries from the Channelwood Age and smeared them on his brother to make him pretty. And he had used the pods to... to...

"Brother, you have colored lips and a nice dark shade around your eyes." Achenar motioned to the pods, which were the "nice dark shade" Achenar had been referring to.

Sirrus' brow furrowed, his pale eyes moving up to his brother's face. Achenar's eyes were clean. Dark, tired circles under them aside, they were clean. Rubbing his own face, he pulled his hand away and noticed red streaks where his fingers had been on his lips. "What happened?"

Achenar shrugged in response, licking the berries from his lips. They tasted sweet -- but he could taste something else too. It was the scent of his brother -- a rich, cloying, disgusting perfume he always doused himself in -- he could taste it in the chapped crevasses of skin. "I don't know what happened," he murmured suddenly, memories from the previous few hours coming back to him in bits and pieces. He turned and absently stared down to the bed, his eyes glazing over.

Sirrus peered to mattress, where his brother was looking, the stains on it every color from red to green to black. His face twisted into a horrible sneer and he swore he could feel his throat threatening to retch.

What exactly had they done last night? Had anyone else been there with them? Was there a body? If there was, where did they hide it?

"Oh no, that was already like that." Achenar waved a hand at the mattress after he noticed his brother peering at it. "I usually end up sleeping over there in the corner anyways."

Sirrus stared at his brother, relieved for a moment that the mattress was always that way. His jaw hung open the slightest bit as his brother's words sunk in. "You sleep on the floor, in a corner?"

Achenar nodded nonchalantly, opening his chest of drawers and changing from his alcohol stained underclothes to something a little cleaner.

"Maybe you should try sleeping on your bed for once." Sirrus almost took that sentence back the instant after he said it, as his eyes moved back to the disgusting mattress that inhabited Achenar's bed. He wondered how many things were living in it.

"Nnneh," the noise escaped Achenar's lips as he pulled a clean white shirt over his head.

With a frustrated sigh, Sirrus waved a hand. "I'm going back to my room, cleaning up and going back to sleep. Good night."

Stalking out of the bedroom without giving his brother a second glance, Sirrus climbed the stairs to the deck of the ship and rounded the corner to the stairwell leading to his own room. His mind continued to race backwards in an attempt to piece everything together.

Mere minutes later, Achenar stared down to his brother, feeling slightly out of place in his lavish bedroom. Sirrus was sprawled out on his back across the left side of the bed, his legs curled up, the soft sheets tangled angrily around his legs and arms. He had changed into a pair of simple black pants and a robe that matched. The robe was open and almost fanned out behind him like a set of wings -- the darkness of the fabric contrasting heavily with his brother's pale skin. Achenar's eyes moved to Sirrus' chest, where a scar ran up the right side almost parallel to his sternum.

Gently setting himself down in the lush bed, Achenar instantly turned onto his side and watched Sirrus sleep. He remembered giving him that scar a couple years back, the details coming back once he reached out with a single finger and traced the air a few inches away from the raised skin. Hell, he had a couple of his own scars from Sirrus. Physical and mental.

He recalled the fight on the Mechanical Age, over the Fortress plans - him armed with a broken bottle and Sirrus with a decorative spear. He could still hear the echoing clang as the spear smacked against the metal wall of the Fortress. He remembered chasing Sirrus through the Selenitic Age, the two of them almost choking the life out of each other near the chasm. There were so many instances like these in the nineteen years Sirrus had been alive. Sometimes Achenar tried to recall the three he spent alone, before Sirrus was born. How peaceful they probably were. He also occasionally wondered what he would be like if his brother had never been born.

The fights caused injuries, again, both physical and mental, but the two would always fall back into the close, clever set of brothers they were capable of being when it came to their parents. They would always band together against them.

Achenar watched his brother's eyes flutter open, both them and his lips clean of any trace of the berries or pods. He watched Sirrus lean up on his elbow, facing him. "What in the hell are you doing in my bed?"

"You're the one who suggested I try out a bed, brother. Deal with it."

"I said your bed."

"Oops," Achenar replied in a bored sort of tone, flipping over to face away from his brother. He continued to run his tongue over his lips, trying desperately to get the two mingling, overpowering tastes off of them.

Sirrus, with an eyeroll, turned to face to opposite direction and curled up, his back meeting with Achenar's; the white of the older's shirt pressing against the black of the younger's robe.

They had done so much together in the many years they spent growing up. Whatever happened with the six bottles of wine and the face painting in Achenar's room was just another something to add to the list. At least they hadn't tried to kill each other. Or had they?