#panevent002

[kazxraval]

The Dorms @emreakbar

'You can turn around.' A soft sigh as a swash of two watery currents collided. 'Our scars are kind of in the same place. I won't show mine right now. I wouldn't do that. You're not ready.' Kaz felt a wet hand rest at the middle of his back and he not-so-subtly squirmed away. 'I want to know what happened to you.'

"Wait here," Kaz insisted as he stepped through the doors of the dormitory. Wound tight by the distruption at the end of the night. Unable to shake a featureless figure made of indigo-colored water that followed him for the last hour.

As he knocked on Emre's door, the swishing of water grew close again. A five foot tall wave passed through several adjoining dorms as if walls didn't exist. 'Oh, wow. Got a hoarding situation in some of these rooms. Yikes. Real slobs live around here.' The ghostly swirl appeared beside him, and Kaz did his best to keep it in his peripheral. He blinked with a shake of the head. "I told you to fucking wait outside."

'You can't tell me what to do,' Ani said, gleeful with the knowledge they both knew: Kaz couldn't do much.

Kaz debated knocking again and even raised a fist but stopped as rivulets of water ran over his knuckles and down his arm. 'No one's home,' Ani huffed, as if she read his mind. 'And I'm here. Me! I missed you, Kazzy! Come onnn.' A cuff of water circled around a bicep and tugged. He deliberated by taking a few steps away from Emre's door. Ani persisted. 'I want to talk, Kaz. I've been waiting all this time to talk.'

[nickambrose]

Location: Arden's house @arden-fischer

There was something inexplicably not fun about having his mum crash. Needling thoughts and wishes of not wanting her to stay for much longer would spring up. Quick as they would come Nick felt the guilt creep in. Shouldn’t he be grateful his mum was here? But there was a gulf that had formed in her two decade long absence, one that Nick wasn’t even sure how to bridge. If her being here was permanent or if this was only going to be fleeting. What if she wasn’t even fucking real to begin with? Just some long drawn out trip from the party, or some trippy electro-fuckery from the tower. 

Nick had snuck out of the house, mum in tow, to go make his way over to Fischer’s place. If the holy-man didn’t have the answers, Nick was never going to forget Tomas in that white suit, then maybe she would. ‘Where are we going?’ It wasn’t that he didn’t want her to know where he was going, there was no secret to it. It was the why. “Err…the doctor’s place figured it would be a good place to start. Figure out what’s happening. Mum, there’s something else I need to tell you about me and Mik…” They’d rounded up to Arden’s place, and Nick knowing full well he didn’t want that conversation within her earshot added. “Later, yeah?” He knocked twice, and then politely waited as much as one could with a floating dead mum. ‘Oh! Is he a handsome doctor?’ 

“Christ mum, no–”

[nickambrose]

“Oh fuck off.” Nick uttered, eyes narrowing as Emre bolstered himself by flying out offhand compliments meant to cause catastrophic damage. Falling right for the trap that was laid out for him, Nick brought a hand to his face exasperated by it all. There was a sad kernel of truth in Emre’s words. Ana was a little younger than he was now, and that was the real tragedy of it all. Something he’d never really seen in his angst-fuelled youth. Even now, Nick had done a good job of turning a blind eye to that. Focusing on feeding them all sweet highs. The wedding. His achievements. He, himself, and none of the pitfalls. No self-destruction.

“Mmph…right so jinn are good, but I was brought up believe souls moved on y’know…” Nick gestured with his hands. “They didn’t come back. No, it’s definitely not old memories, or not exactly.” They were an interesting pair, Emre’s ex and his mum, another enlightening moment that he couldn’t quite read her. Not in the way he’d grown accustomed to for those he surrounded himself with. She wasn’t so much old memories rehashed, but so totally detached to him that it was hard to mesh back together. Maybe that was a little bit pessimistic. 

“Space dust. Well Emre tell you what theories like that should really get your name written down in history, enlightening. Fascinating.” Nick drawled, dry and with a sliver of a smile. Melody interjected loud enough for them all to hear about shagging, and that was about as much as Nick needed to learn about Emre’s sex life. It was a rather messy cross-section of life spliced together for a higher chaos.

‘Oh he was–’ Ana was cut off, and in some ways Nick was a little relieved. What was there to say? Melody started spouting off about death, a train, cage fights, he tuned out hearing nothing but fast-paced static until she sung his name. Nick turned back to her, a sly grin. “Of course it is, who wouldn’t want to cut loose at end of the world?” So much for uplifting, Melody turned back to Ana, with another question.

‘Well…’ She looked adrift. ‘Nick’s father and I were going away for a weekend, I had an art show and I believe a lorry went straight into the side of us but if I’m honest it’s all just a smidge hazy. It was a long time ago and Nick well you were such a little kid then, a child.’ His mum seemed to reappoint Emre, a calm smile even though there was tremors under the surface. ‘He was such a shy little kid, my darling angel. I’m so proud of him for coming so far. And well, Melody it sounds like you lived quite the life. I do think, unfortunately, that you are dead love.’

“Well, this is charming.” Nick chimed, eager to side-step to another topic that didn’t involve his youth. “Emre I can’t believe you’ve been holding out on us, keeping Melody such a secret. I don’t think you’ve even ever mentioned the lovely lady.” 

"Obvi it's real. You're seeing what I'm seeing, innit. Your mum's fit, by the way," Emre commented offhandedly. Nick's 'ghost' mum could've been half-decapitated and guts spilling out, and Emre would've still called her 'fit'. After all, this was about annoying Nick, nothing more.

Emre kissed his teeth. "Not demons exactly. Jinn could be good, could be evil..." He glanced over at Nick's mum, and Melody. Melody more tentative and expecting cruelty from a woman so posh. "Isn't exactly like they's old memories replaying," Emre mused, watching Melody's reactions to Nick's mum. Fascinated, really. She was real, but not alive. Or she was a jinn that believed it was Melody. He forced his gaze back to Nick.

"They're here to bother us? Fuck with us? Island's doing? Might - " Emre thought about Walid, and their worship of Flower Tower. "Oi! Might be, erm, time-traveling! The teleports and...electric...erm, misfeed. Space dust..." Emre huffed. "Fucking hell, mate, I don't know."

"It's alright, innit? Could do this." Melody replyied to Nick's mum, perhaps a bit too eager to get on mum's good side. She giggled. "Haven't had a drink though have I. No one's offered -" She threw a glare at Emre; like a good boyfriend, Emre rolled his eyes. "And what's the shagging gonna be like - oop! I mean, erm. Soz, ma'am, no offense and that."

Melody beamed (or rather hummed, like an old LCD tv) at being called 'lovely' by the posh bint, and Emre smiled wanly at mum's question. "I'm sort of an organizer around here, Mrs Nick's Mum," he airily replied. "Mrs Nick's Mum, can I ask you a question? What was little Nicholas like as a little one then? I've been dying to know but your Nicholas here, he's rather shy, isn't he."

"I'm not dead!" Melody protested to Nick, then sided with Nick's mum. "I mean we - we're not dead! Or...well I suppose I am, now that I think about it. A train fell on my head, Emmy. Whole bloody thing just toppled right on me and that was it. Done for. I was doing quite well for myself too. I had a new gig after London fell, didn't I. Bookie accounting for cage fights, in the Underground. Told you I had brains, you're the daft one between us innit. Oh but the cage nights was proper lush, you would've loved it Emmy. You too, Nick! This club yours? Oh it's brilliant," Melody gushed happily, looking back at Nick's mum. "How'd you reckon you died, luv?"

[kazxraval]

Task 1: Neo, The Matrix (Embellished with mesh shirt and chest harness) What is real? How do you define 'real'? If you're talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then 'real' is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.

[nickambrose]

Location: Halloween party, or after party @kazxraval

Nights often had a tendency to blur, jag around the edges and sink into endless boozy filled pits. This wasn’t really like any of the others. In the sense that Nick didn’t wake up in bed, nor even on the couch, or anywhere close to home. He reeled, hands sticky from grovelling, as he pushed himself up everything spun into a neon garish blur. “Fuck..” He blinked, steadying himself against the bar. “Mum?” Definitely an apparition, some kind of fucked-up-halloween-scare. His mum stood covered in gore was not the high he wanted to be chasing. The music was still blaring, by all accounts the party was still going. ‘Oh my gosh, kid it’s you isn’t it? It’s really you…’

“Hey––UH…who the fuck turned this into a horror house.” Nick’s gaze scanned the nearby vicinity, landing on one moody dealer-come-goth sci-fi boy who had probable cause. He stalked after Kaz. “Hey, hey, hey!” There was a slight misshapen rhythm to his steps, the galloping walk of someone who’d had one too many drinks and not enough Mik-mandated water breaks. Nick immediately changed tacts upon cornering Kaz. Mostly because his mum had floated up behind Neo-Kaz to say. ‘Please can we just talk?’  “Please tell me you can see her…fuck me…” Nick ran his hands over his face. This had to be a bad trip, there was no way someone could make a projection that spot on, that personalised. 

“I need a fag, wait…” Nick had been so painfully self-absorbed he hadn’t noticed the carnage unfolding all around them. “Is this…is this real?”

[nickambrose]

Location: The Agora, the morning after @tomasespinosa

In Nick’s humble opinion it couldn’t be called a hangover if he hadn’t actually slept. Last night’s spilling of the ether, the other side, whatever one wanted to call it, had left it’s mark on them all. Sleep apparently had been an optional extra. Hunched over in the agora with a cup of fresh coffee – about the only time he could stomach to drink it, in dire emergencies, black and several sugars too many.

Beside him, a voice piped up. ‘Sweetie, what did you say you do around here?’ Nick mindlessly stirred his drink unusually quiet only because his mum floated around to face him, he flinched. He hadn’t gotten used to seeing the gore. It was one thing to read about the crash, they’d never let him see their bodies, and now he understood why. ‘Oh! Who’s that?’ Nick followed the point of her finger. “Tomas.” Wait. “Mum wait here, yeah? I’ll just be a sec.”

Nick sprung up feeling all of a sudden bolstered by a hit of caffeine. “Hey, hey Tomas.” He waved him down, like he was hailing a ride off this damn island. Tomas always seemed to be…put together. Good first port of call for, “what the fuck is happening?”

Apparently, Nick’s simple instruction of wait was insufficient. ‘Hello, Tomas! It’s a pleasure to meet you I'm Nick's mum, Ana.’ His mum had floated on up, all broad smiles as if she was greeting a patron. 'How do you know my son? Oh! Do you two work together?'

[nickambrose]

“Tried turning it off and on again didn’t get anything, not even a little jingle.” He was fairly certain the phone was some kind of waterproof, but to what extend he didn’t know and frankly had never really cared. Lee had forever taken the piss out of him for buying into the apple eco-system, but what else was Nick going to use? It all worked harmoniously together anyway and that’s all he really cared about. “I can pay you for your time, got the creds Walid.” Which was maybe a stretch because Nick had been steadfastly reserving credits to go on a blow-out honeymoon. He wanted to forget the plebs of Panopticon and lay on a white sandy beach for a week, with Mik of course.

‘Are you a mechanic, or a repair-person Walid?’ Ana interjected, dotingly smiling as if Walid wasn’t older than her. ‘I can’t even imagine how you’d repair these sorts of phones with their touch-screens it feels so futuristic! I still have one of these…’ She dug around in what was left of her pockets, to produce a flip phone that was somehow still intact. Save for a totally busted screen once she’d flipped it open. ‘I wish you could fix this for me! But I guess I don’t really have much use for it now. Besides my baby is right here for me to talk to.’

Nick shivered, as his mum had decidedly clung to his shoulder but fell through anyway. “Yeah I really was Walid, figured it’d be easy work for you? Bit of no-brainer downtime between the big juicy jobs?” Nick urged, voice tilting into a riot of enthusiasm. “Hey if you’re busy with the big stuff no worries, I can find someone else.”

'What kind of work do you normally do around here Walid?'

Walid looked confused, then shook their head. “What did you do to fix it?” They pressed their lips together, then went. “Did you turn it off and on again?” There he went, but it needed to be asked. He could feel annoyance take root. He was very often asked to fix things, but at times the requests were simply below his technical expertise. “I guess I will,” he said, biting his lip as he looked at it. 

They’d seen plenty of weird things, so getting used to ghosts around wasn’t such a big thing. Luckily their mother was always a little away, busying herself with… well, she couldn’t really clean things, so they figured she was making tea again. Which she couldn’t drink, but she could make it. And she loved making tea. He wondered how many of his engineers has been fed a litre of tea by now. 

“Nice to meet you, Ana,” he said, smiling like a good boy meeting a new auntie. Though they felt the hair on the back of their neck spring up at the… compliment? “You're really hoping I will fix it, don't you?” They sighed, setting the phone down on the floor and screwing the back off.

[nickambrose]

Nick sucked on his bottom lip, brows pulled up as the sickly sweet droll of Tomas being inquisitive over his school years kicked mum into high-gear. She gushed, nodding along only swallowing her words as Tomas’ haunting piped up with a song. The kind that was destined to shatter windows, and beckon cats to the redhead’s feet. Nick inhaled through his nose, his arms slowly folding over his chest as Tomas decided now was the opportunity to really wring it it. Declaring himself a creative in what was supposed to be a sure-fire way to ruffle feathers. Nick glided above the remarks having already long mastered the art of a politician’s smile. 

Nick turned a little over eager to Libby, the ex-wife. “Well fuck, Libby it’s such an honour to meet you. I would say in the flesh but well…y’know…let’s not linger on that, yeah? What was Tomas like before all this, when he was young and fun, totally not a mood-hoover grump, or whatever?” Nick needled, which undeservedly got a slam-dunked ice cold swat from his mum. He didn’t see why that was needed it wasn’t like he was asking if Tomas was bad in the sack. Nick ran a hand through his hair to note it was full of…goop…ghost…goop. “Gross.”

‘Excuse him I think he’s hyped up on fizzy pop or…whatever it is you kids are drinking these days.’ Ana smoothed over, as if she wasn’t around-abouts the same age as he was. No need to implore that too deeply, the implications were dire and Nick was keen to side-step the crash in it’s entirety. Libby seemed well, she looked a priss but who was Nick to judge on that. He’d spent the last five minutes smoothing out his hair. “No mum just a good old-fashioned hangover.” He muttered under his breath as if they’d been pulled back to the first half the millennia. 

Ana carried on as if she hadn’t heard him. ’Nick was a quiet kid, weren’t you love? So shy, I remember year seven parents' evening they were telling me how you were away with the fairies. I’m so glad to see he’s got friends now, and my little baby is getting married…’ She drifted, and Nick narrowed his eyes at her, she’d embellished on that to paint him a friendless victim. “Actually–” He started, but she beat him to it. ‘I’m so sorry Libby, do you remember how you went? Nick has been telling me the world’s ended? Heavens it sounds a terrifying ordeal.’ 

She smiled, a little shy as she addressed Tomas. ‘Don’t pay my son any heed his taste in music was always dubious we had Autoamerican on vinyl, but he told us it was old-fashioned. You’ve got such a good voice, my husband could sing too but I haven’t a musical note in my body.’

It was bad form, even in front of the deceased, but Tomas couldn't help a derisive, incredulous snort when Ana toodled out loud about her precious baby perhaps having become an academic. "Was your little one very much into school, then?" Tomas asked, in what was probably enough of a sweet tone that Nick would catch on to the insincerity while Ana might not. "I'd say he's a creative. Only he calls it--"

Nick was advocating for himself somewhat at that point, objecting to being talked about instead of with, and Tomas bit back a snicker at the mention of Rapture. "Be pure," he said, almost automatically, rattling on, "...take a tour, through the sewer, don't strain your brain..."

Libby chose that moment to pipe up, her voice pitched as high as humanly possible: "--paint a train, you'll be singin' in the rain!" She giggled, clapping her hands over her mouth. "Oh, now Tomas is gonna scold me!" she said, "for singing in my little chickadee voice!"

One eyebrow raised and the other lowered, Tomas bit back a grimace, his fun in teasing Nick and in singing Blondie ruined. "No," Tomas said blandly to Ana, "I do not, in fact, work at Rapture. I am, in fact, an academic. And creative." He shot a smug look in Nick's direction, which was marred somewhat by the kid asking who Libby was. She planted her hands on her hips, the backs of her wrists and not the heels of her hands, gasping, "Ah! Tomas didn't mention me? His better half? His reason for life and living, his muse, the jelly to his all-natural no-sugar soy butter?"

"This is my ex-wife," Tomas said tightly. "Libby. I may have mentioned her." He had. Vociferously and with much rancour.

[nickambrose]

“Mmm–-right, yeah no you’re devastatingly handsome Arden.” Nick leaned in against the doorway, “but I prefer not to be a dirtbag in-front of my mum.” Or otherwise reap the repercussion no doubt. Actually, Nick didn’t really have much of an idea what would happen. All those memories of her had been so hazy and distant. How was he supposed to really cling on to anything when she’d passed so long ago? Now she was here and Nick was grateful, absolutely, but also inclined to ask when they would all pass on. Mik had finally come around from his vow of solitude though he was harping on about bad-vibes and bad-energy. 

“Mum this is Arden, the island’s resident handsome doctor, and Arden this is my mum. Don’t mind the err…outfit she’s dressed for halloween.”

‘Right, gosh I’m so sorry Arden this really isn’t my Sunday best.’ Ana had swooped in practically past Nick to peer at Arden. ‘It’s really impressive. Oh, hello back there? Sorry are we intruding? My son here has been informing me of all the different sorts of relationships and well a woman doctor…’

“Riiight, y’know sure, sure uh, actually I did do that but…right I guess I just wanted to ask.” Nick’s voice progressively dropped, until he was at a whisper. “You can see her too right?” It was all good and well everyone in the moment seeing the chaos of last night for themselves, but in the aftermath. Some part of him hoped it was real, or even just a shard of the truth. A thimble. Nick hadn’t clocked at first, or at least had been too absorbed in his own woes to pay much heed. But he could see the way her eyes were a little raw, glassy from tears.

Nick kept the whisper quiet voice as he asked. “you alright? Also...I don't mean to be rude but who is that?" He subtly gestured towards the ethereal woman beside her. Another ghost? Hallucination? Whatever they were supposed to be calling these hauntings.

Arden woke up slowly, a little hungover from the night's festivities. Her Morticia Adams dress and wig lay draped over her desk chair. Arden rolled over and immediately felt a chill, gooseflesh creeping over her body.

"Oh, I'm sorry baby." Elena said. Arden blinked. Rubbed her eyes. Opened them again. Elena was still there, in her bed, looking a little pale but no worse for wear. She was glowing, actually. Arden had no words. She reached out for Elena, but Elena just shook her head.

"I don't think touch is included," Elena continued. "But we can talk. We can see each other again. That's more than we thought we'd ever get again though, right?" Arden nodded slowly, tears in her eyes. But she still couldn't help but reach out again for Elena's hand. She shivered when she felt the air where Elena's hand should be and was repulsed by how wrong the whole thing felt.

"What's happening?" Arden finally asked, her voice hoarse. She couldn't stop the tears from flowing, but it didn't matter. Elena was here, in whatever capacity. And that alone was a miracle of its own. If this was a hallucination, Arden would gladly stay in it forever.

But there was a knock on the door before Elena could answer. Arden scrambled, throwing on a pair of jeans and an oversized sweater. Arden paused then, wondering if she turned away if the illusion would shatter.

Elena smiled then and Arden felt something in soul stitch back together. As if the ache she had been carrying for nearly three years was finally beginning to heal.

"It's okay, baby. Go get it. I won't go anywhere."

Arden walked to the door and opened it, hastily wiping tears from her face.

"What, Nick? You don't think I'm handsome?" She felt Elena hovering beside her and did her best not to look back at her, though it was nearly impossible not to. But she saw a woman next to Nick that had the same glow as Elena and her mind began to whirl.

[kazxraval]

"It's easy to make a vibrating motor. Bet Walid can do it in their sleep." Not as if what they discussed had a thing to do with rest. "Probably not so artistic, hm. Don't know how good Walid is with silicone. Or how 'artistic'. But one hell of an idea for a cottage industry. I'm guessing Walid didn't take the career advice?" Perhaps none of it said with a huge amount of conviction. Rattled off as more or less a diversion.

"A birthday... my birthday?" Kaz forced a hiss of air between his teeth to then joke, "You're obsessed with me now." He met Emre's gaze. "It's fucking elaborate." Self-serving wasn't too deceptive. Clearly he meant to include Kaz, the space designed to be shared. "I'm not feeling so creative at the moment. We'll call it the fuckpod for now. Since that's mostly what we'll be doing in here. Make some new noises down your hallway, hm?"

Emre offered up a brag and a truth combined. Kaz studied Emre and how much he resembled volcanic glass. Obsidian, wet, glossy. So smooth Kaz's tongue could skate across his skin. And then the pipe was ready and tested, and the smoke deposited them both among the cushions and pillows in the room.

There was a question about Ani. No, more about Kaz, something he'd not had to answer before. "Mm," a hum, a start. "Well. He said she didn't come home. No one knew where she was, and Nana wanted to know if I'd seen her." A long pause as Kaz stared at the intricate pipe. "I thought maybe she finally got sick of our father's shit. And she'd turn up where I was staying. As the days went on, I kind of changed my mind. Thought Ani was so pissed off at me, she was making a point not to contact me. Make me worry and all."

The hash allowed some of the reluctance to tell the story spool away. "A few weeks later Nana left a message. It was on Sunday morning, I was still asleep. He said that I needed to call him. Nothing else, but something in his voice...I thought they'd found her. She might be hurt, maybe in the hospital. But she'd be okay."

His teeth scraped along his lower lip. "The next message on my phone was from Reyansh. He was, like. Upset." Frantic didn't quite cover it. A strain in Rey's voice was one he'd heard later on the island. "Ani's car and bookbag were found. Her purse, other things. And. Yeah. I kind of went numb." An inevitable moment, a scene in a movie. A controlled collapse to floor with phone in hand, both unable to believe what was said and undeniably knowing at the same time what it all meant.

I know you know. I know you know that I know that you know... All the indictments Emre laid out against Mr. and Mrs. Raval heard, but his expression showed no interest. Only a distant mhm came out of Kaz. A nod about how well he knew himself. Nothing for Emre to be sorry about, so his brows pinched tight for a few seconds in the middle. "Your family was real. It's how it should be, yeah? Everyone cares about each other." He waited for Emre to confirm.

Kaz straightened every kissed finger to feel them fully against Emre's lips. "I'd rather destroy you." A half-grin slid across his face and he held firmer the grip of their hands together.

Reckon I lost myself in my brother. "He's all you had." A shrug, his head tipped to look at Emre so close beside him. "Just because you know yourself doesn't mean you can't make mistakes." Out of his mouth before his own mistakes tapped him on the shoulder.

Emre's partial roll on Kaz was the sweetest part of a merciless conversation. The hose in Kaz's hand slipped away to cup Emre's face for a kiss intoxicating in more than one way. Emre's slow exhale filled Kaz's lungs and absorbed more of those harsh memories. The effects of the hashish kiss soaked into the deeper recesses of his brain (and body).

His lids were heavy but the rest of him as light as a feather. Not tired, just high. Master wooer. A hand wiggled under the back waistband of Emre's shorts to stroke soft skin. His other hand splayed flat over the middle of Emre's spine to keep him in place. "

This one is hard to top, yeah?" His grin spread wider than he wanted with a short-lasted laugh. "I mean, this room. This spot." A return to what was said earlier. "But, I don't know everything about myself. Thought I did. Not so sure now." A lazier, thicker smile and quick swipe to wet his lips. "I know you should get on top of me, that's all I care about right now."

Emre snorted in amusement as Kaz turned to childish teasing - something Emre could always get behind. Could never grow out of. "Worse that - Walid's an engineer. Noises what come out of them pods at all hours of night and day is ungodly. Honestly told Walid to manufacture sex toys innit. He'd be well-popular on the island."

It was easy for Emre to be chatty, to keep himself sane. Keep himself from drowning too deep in moments like this. Iyaz was always good for a chat; so clever and wonderfully peevish about inane things. It was instinct now, to encourage it with Kaz.

This is the best. Emre surreptitiously paused to extract a deep pleasure from that praise, coming from Kaz. He hadn't expected it. "Obvi it weren't how I wanted to show you. Hoping for a birthday or something innit. It's no trouble, is proper self-severing. I get two of my favourite things to do in here." Emre gazed at Kaz, head tilting winsomely as Kaz made sudden plans to install a sound system himself. He recovered so quickly, so proudly. Always moving forward, never back. Even when he was plunged into it. "Right, well we've got the high part sorted. Just got to do the fucked part more, yeah."

The name seemed important for Kaz - or maybe the shorthand. A new language built between them. Emre shrugged cautiously. "Got a better idea? Fuckpad, smoke den. You're the creative one."

A fond snort from Emre. "Yeah, but I could punch harder. Is not a brag, just...is." His smile fell away for a moment, but Kaz saved him with distractions about smacking people around kinkily, and then about love. The combination of the two separate concepts made Emre dizzy when his eyes locked with Kaz's, caught in that glassy-dark stare. "Erm," was the most Emre could say; made breathless, speechless.

Fortunately the shisha was ready, and Emre took a long drag, exhaling gratefully. The hit came almost immediately; Emre had been clean for so long. With a sighing laugh, Emre flopped close to Kaz, heads touching. Kaz took Emre's hand, and Emre could feel those strong fingers playing his tendons like an instrument. He hummed and closed his eyes. Kaz's words floated over him, and Emre made sure to catch them, pin them down in his mind to remember later.

Kaz started off-handed, got specific. It was a studied practice, to make himself seem unimportant to others, but hold such razor-sharp specificity within. "What'd you do, when your nana called about Ani?" Kaz would remember, because of course he would.

We weren't like you and Iyaz. A goalpost, that Kaz used to preface his own story. A goal Kaz didn't reach. And he was right; because Emre's silent answer was: you look after her! You put her first, you make her priority. She's your younger. She's your baby.

But Kaz already had clarity about that, even before Emre said a thing. Emre took another puff, exhaled slowly. "I know you know, man." He shivered slightly, a private and selfish enjoyment over hearing Kaz say his name like that. Like they were together, in cahoots. It was intimate; it was small but it felt so big.

"We was raised different innit. My parents made Iyaz my responsibility from the time he was born. It was my role to mind him. My parents gave him to me to love, and I did. Your parents didn't raise the lot of you like that. Your parents did fuck-all to raise any of you to be anything, even to each other." Emre tilted towards Kaz some more.

"So you had to raise yourself innit. Figure it all out alone. That's how I know you know. I wager you know everything about yourself." Emre slid his fingers between Kaz's, into a clasp. "I'm...I'm just sorry it had to be at the expense of knowing your Ani, my luv."

Once Kaz was satisfied with his inspection of Emre's hand (just some bruised knuckles, it stung a bit but the hash helped), he tugged Kaz's hand close to kiss his rings. "How pissed are you? We can go destroy something."

Kaz sprawled out, long and leggy, as Emre propped himself on a couple cushions. "You what. Never had anyone want to be like me. Yaz would tell you different, man, might be I took my love too far..." Emre didn't sound convinced about that, just conciliatory. But when he spoke again, his tone was soft and contemplative.

"Reckon I lost myself in my brother. Wish I knew myself better, like you. Then I wouldn't make so many mistakes now." But at least his Iyaz was still alive, and supposedly happy. Kaz had nothing but to live with his own regrets and loss, maybe even his own 'what if's. What good was the pride of knowing himself, if his sibling was dead. Emre, so family-oriented, couldn't answer that.

So instead he rolled onto his stomach, halfway on top of Kaz. "Nah - never enough from you..." Another puff before Emre kissed Kaz, letting the smoke trail between their lips. He smirked, arrogantly proud. "Did good with this, didn't I. Master wooer."

[kazxraval]

When people died, especially young and especially tragic, they remained behind glass. Yes, Kaz felt compelled to dissect those moments with the ghost and a singular memory thrust upon him to experience again. Later. Alone. Not then. For the time being, Ani returned to the space behind her protective glass.

Emre found a similarity with the siblings. Kaz's brows rose and fell as a reply. In the pod, they touched with a brush of fingers, a clasp of hands. Emre did so as an invitation into the pod and Kaz accepted. "Not sure Walid would agree about not counting. You two farting and ranting so loud no one wants to bother coming down here or what?"

Enough teases. It's our lounge-- made so clear. "This is the best." Low and appreciative, still in awe with a few clear nods of his head. "Can't believe you went through all this trouble." His gaze swept around the little oasis. "Now, gonna need a sound system. I'll be in charge of setting it up. And yeah. Finding shit to smoke isn't too difficult for me." Walid was his best customer, but he kept that bit to himself. "Nowadays people want to get high and get fucked more than ever, yeah?" Undeniably.

"We just calling it the lounge, when we want to meet up here?" A new spot, a bit of permanence on an island where everything changed.

His eyes lifted away from the charcoal for a few seconds. "Surprised she didn't kick your ass instead. Looks like she could throw a punch," a compliment, impressed. Kaz normally said little about the past, lately Emre encouraged. "I was with a couple of people who wanted me to do that. Smack 'em around a little." Another look at Emre, but longer lasted. "Never heard you say anything about love except for your family. Even for a cat."

Once the preparations with the pipe were done, Kaz flopped down in the cushions. And took his sweet time to answer. A deep draw from the hose Emre passed over. Kaz placed Emre's hand between them to examine each knuckle for pain or swelling.

"I was 19. What you saw. She was 16." So much occurred that year, it felt like a lifetime. "I talked to her on the phone after. A week later, or two, dunno." He did know, actually. Those final seconds with someone seared into the brain. "Two weeks. Eventually my grandfather called and said Ani didn't come home one day."

And the rest, a giant wheel that spun Kaz dizzy. "She was mad at me in the end. Really pissed off. We'd grown apart. We weren't like you and Iyaz. She wanted to move in with me and... well, I was barely on my feet at that point. The fuck was I supposed to do." Kaz left out particulars as they seemed neither interesting or important.

He tapped his teeth on the end of the hose and glanced beside him. And then another huff from the pipe. "I should've done more, so you don't have to tell me." Not defensive necessarily, more to acknowledge it was too late. Should've helped, should have asked more questions. His own emotional deep-freeze thanks to his father paralyzed him, perhaps. "I already know this, Emre."

But Emre was the protective brother too and probably saw through every mistake made. He melted further into the 'lounge'. Long legs spread and his gaze turned more to the ceiling as he slouched. "Wish I could've been more like you in that sense. The big brother. She should've had that, hm?" A drag with the smoke held in his mouth followed by several puffed smoke rings. "Anyway. Enough from me, let's get high."

It was painful, witnessing Kaz suffer. He was an immutable man; things had to move around him. He'd carve his own way and he'd earned that right. He'd made himself distant and acerbic, but not purposeless. Certainly not purposely cruel. Emre had only known him for three years, but this bizarre island granted him multiple scenes from Kaz's history. Ani had always been a bright light in that past, sometimes too blinding for Emre to properly see or understand. But he assumed Kaz understood all of his little sister - her short life, herself - in agonizing, gory detail.

Having Ani on the island, seeing how Kaz had been with this ghost of her...now Emre wasn't sure what he understood about the pair of them. As a ghost, she floated and flittered about; but maybe she was like that in real life. A butterfly fluttering around Kaz's head; sometimes beautiful, sometimes irritating. The memory was so raw, an interaction more vibrant than Kaz's reality with Ani's ghost. It still frustrated Emre to see how Kaz missed this chance. Not to make things right, but to do something. It was devastating, to perceive that Kaz had, once again, done nothing about his little sister.

Emre couldn't wrap his head around it, so he made concessions instead. Maybe Kaz and ghost-Ani did have a heart-to-heart, before Kaz brought Ani to meet Emre. Maybe they did sort things out, as much as they could. Maybe Kaz got some closure, maybe something good came out of this, for Kaz. Emre didn't know everything that had transpired between the two siblings, for Ani's short stay on the island. He just saw what he was allowed to see, before the island took the girl back.

He listened as Kaz narrated for his little sister. He made it sound so friendly and congenial, now. Kaz could tell stories about Ani better than he could be with the girl. "Loads of questions. Just like her brother, yeah?"

Emre had forgotten about the state of his hand, but he just nodded. His hand would be okay; but it would be better if Kaz wanted something of fuss over. And Emre liked being fussed over.

Emre liked fussing as well, over certain people. Iyaz was long gone, so Kaz got the brunt of it now. A great motivator to transform this dorm pod into a smoke den just for the pair of them (maybe Walid if he wanted in, but Emre doubted the little old thing would be interested). "It's our lounge," Emre corrected, reaching for Kaz as he slipped inside. "No one but Walid and me comes down this wing anyway. And Walid don't count."

If Kaz wanted this too. The way he jumped into work preparing the shisha, Emre believed that was a yes. "And you'll have to find more things to smoke in it, yeah. I only got this little bit of hash from Orion, only last one go."

Emre took his time, as Kaz filtered Emre's life through his own lenses. "Melz got hurt plenty in her life. Nature of the world..." Kaz would know. "I never hit her though. Nah that's not true - she hit me and then I smacked her back. Then we shagged," Emre huffed, remembering slowly. "But I never beat her. High bloody standard."

It was a fondness, Kaz was right. "I loved her, but not enough to change anything for her. She'd always be my sidegirl. I'd always be her sideman." A rueful chuckle. "I miss her cat."

The bowl was packed and placed, Emre did the final flourish of lighting the coconut charcoal, waiting a moment. He handed a hose to Kaz, took one for himself, and lounged against the cushions. And Kaz finally spoke, about his memory - through Emre, anyway. Emre went along with it. "You looked so young. Your face is young now but I keep forgetting you was only 27 when the island snatched you. How old you was, when that happened?" Emre finally took a puff, eyes fluttering from the smoky inhalation. "Was it the last time you saw her?"

[kazxraval]

A ghost arrived and caused a spiraled free fall. No parachute, too dizzy to register more than cloudless sky above and a deeper shade of blue water below. The wind rushed in his ears so he didn't hear much of anything. Not until Emre gently pointed out sensitivity innt so bad, and Ani's tongue ticked against the back of her teeth.

And then his sister was gone, as Emre said. Gone, along with all the opportunities for answers he'd waited so long for. But his feet cemented with the need to push everything away, like the sky and the sea he continued to fall between.

With Emre behind him, Kaz reached back to sink fingers into hair. Softly oiled and smooth waves, short enough to sink down to the scalp. "That wasn't meant for us." An apology. Emre's memory not a wisp of action behind a deathly transparency. It seemed as real as the Emre that returned. "It's easy to see you with a kid. You took care of Iyaz."

Everything else seemed painful to say, so he held on to most for later. "She came back for you, huh?" Or did everyone call across a spectral plane in search of these ghosts?

Kaz's natural need to know kept a relieved distance between himself and his own past. Protected the senses from the hum and odd bounce in the room. (Not for long. If Kaz was made of metal, Ani's trip into the teleporter was the magnet strong enough to capture him. He let go of Emre just in time to be dragged away).

Ani hiccuped.

She sat on the curb in front of the convenience store and swayed as though she rode across choppy seas. Eyelids heavy and a silly grin, amused by her fumbled attempts to replace a lid on a water bottle. 'Top won't fit. Or the bottle's too big.' The water was held up and the cap fell from a hand to roll under Kaz's car. Ani squinted an eye to look through the bottle at her brother. Arms crossed and with a deep-set frown, Kaz was not near as entertained. Ani's shoulders shook with a giggle. 'You look funny when you're mad.'

"You look stupid when you're drunk," Kaz snapped immediately as he snatched the bottle away. Water shot and splashed out before Kaz fired it like a missile into the nearest trashcan. It was almost 2am and the Kwik-E-Mart parking lot was not the best place to be for a drunk teenager. He was anxious to get her out of there.

The girl's smile evaporated as her gaze fell to her shoes. 'And you're being mean like Dad!' Another hiccup from Ani as Kaz hissed at a boil: "Never doing shit for you, don't ever call me for help again." He stormed the few paces to his car with a slam of his first on the roof for good measure. Ani leapt up from the curb, but instead of following she rushed towards the trash can to vomit.

The drive was made in silence, the kind that strangers find awkward but siblings use against each other with proficiency (to annoy, to dare, to punish). Even the freezing air from the rolled down passenger side window didn't crack him. Froze his balls off but he refused to say not a damn word. While Ani sobered a little through terse directions ('turn here').

He parked on a residential street and turned off the headlights. His sister climbed slow and heavy out of the car. Her eyes went to the outside top of the door and the now rolled up window. Ani's breath caught loud and sharp to notice the details. 'Did you-- what did you-- there's blood! Did you hurt him, I told you not to hurt him. He's...' Ani's face plunged into open palms that muffled her voice. 'It'll be worse now.'

Kaz looked blankly. "Well, it ain't my blood. I won the fight, so." He sniffed with pride-- hell yes he won. The self-congrats faded as his brows pinched tight. He ducked to see his sister outside the door. "You didn't give me a lot of details, you know. Just called me to pick you up from the party." Did she remember? "I found you outside, some prick was bothering you. He wanted to start shit so I finished it."

A pause to see if she'd say more. "He go to school with you? Ani, if something happened you aren't telling me, I swear--"

'No, no he goes to the university, it's not that big of a deal. He's the brother of someone I know and just. He's weird? But harmless.' One hand remained on her forehead as she smiled and shook her head. The demeanor changed as she leaned against the open door. 'I drank too much, and. I don't feel great, like. Probably will puke again. My friend is waiting up for me. Um.' She rushed the last words. 'Thanks for the ride, sorry I called and got on your nerves, I'm a pain and won't do it again.'

She swung the door shut and made a swift if swerved walk towards the sidewalk. His mouth opened, the hell was that about. An attempt was made to whisper-shout her down the street. "Wait, Ani!" but it only made her run faster.

When he shouted louder, Kaz found himself yelling at the inside of the teleporter. His hand ran over the inner wall. "That's all." No expectation of Emre being there or answering, there wasn't a reply to give in the first place. "Did you see it?"

Kaz stepped out of the teleporter. A hazy film remained over his mind in remembering the conversation. When it happened, why now to experience that all over again. "They wanted us to see these things, Melody and Ani?" Maybe. "I meant individually." Even as they saw each other's memory. He scratched at his neck. "I was mean to her, yeah? Like she said. I know I was, she's right."

Was there more in store, should they have tried to alter what they remembered. Could there have been a way to intervene? Plenty to mull over while suddenly there was the longing to dive into the teleporter again and chase Ani down that after-midnight street. Of course, Emre had been smack hard with the past too. "You okay after all that?"

Bloody hell, did Emre wish he could meet Ani Raval. Not this open-wound ghost-child, but the real girl - alive, vibrant as she should be, a bloom that refused to be trampled despite her home life and what happened next. Emre wished he could sit her down with lager or tea or a fat bowl, and just chat. Even as a ghost, she was incredible - mouthy, chipper, unafraid, dark-humoured with a silver lining. Emre didn't think he could fall in love so many times with so many people in just one hour; and two of those 'people' were already dead.

He could only imagine how Kaz felt right now. A glance at Kaz's expression betrayed nothing but sculpted stone.

"Is not about makeovers, luv. Is about what happened; no one knows what happened to you, except you." Ani's obstinate teenager drawl: 'Soooo sensitive.' "Sensitivity innt so bad, sweetheart."

But the Ravals had both hit respective walls - or had rapidly built them on instinct - and Emre shared a meaningful glance with his dead girlfriend, silent communication. Emre pressed his lips together before answering Kaz. "Hard to describe; but Ames wasn't hurt, I don't think...not physically."

Melody had to try once again with Kaz, because Melody didn't know when to just fucking shut up; but the teleport did its thing. Last words Emre would hear from Melody, directed at Kaz. And when Emre stumbled back through, Melody was gone. He barely had a moment to himself, both Ravals were on him. Kaz with his surprisingly anxious touch, and Ani raging beautifully.

"That happened." Emre couldn't look at Kaz yet. Part of him wanted to explode with rage, grief for reliving that memory, the humiliation of his own frustration and stupidity. He wanted to keep shoving and punching, like he'd done that night; and Kaz was right there, steady hands on his heaving shoulders. He could scream at Kaz to fuck off, just like he'd done to Melody. He could stalk away now and come crawling back later to win Kaz over again, just like he'd done with Melody.

But Emre forced himself to look up at Kaz instead, slow blinking as he met Kaz's eyes. Unmoving as Kaz's flat palms skated his shoulders. Ani hurled righteous accusations, made to flee - but her ghostly form snapped like a rubberband. Emre, mind still swirling, could only watch as the little girl was hurled towards another flickering teleport and her brother lurched after her. "Fucking hell-"

- but Kaz didn't leap into the teleport. He hovered by the control panel, watching the portal. Emre counted two seconds - close his eyes, take a breath, centre himself - then trotted closer.

Emre curled his hand over the broad slope of Kaz's crooked shoulder. "Then don't. Yeah?" Emre said, and pressed his mouth against the curve of Kaz's shoulder too. His chin rested in a divot between Kaz's joint and muscle. Kaz's query was borderline-plaintive, a rare jeweled tone. "I dunno what'll happen. But if you can't, is alright. Maybe you don't have to go with her. Maybe she's...just gone. Maybe if we -"

The portal didn't become a mirror though. The flickering got heavier somehow, wilder. A low hum in the room like energy amassing. It buzzed in Emre's head, blurred his eyes. The graph spiked and dropped, like an arrythmia. "Kaz-"

[kazxraval]

Wants me all for himself. Melody played the part of fiery girlfriend to grumbly boyfriend like a pro. Kaz took the role of single friend who admired his mate's girl from afar without any real heat. "I can't blame him." Instead of another sweep of a look up and down the stunning Melody, he checked in with Emre instead. Kaz expected a different type of reaction, perhaps mistakenly. Maybe he was sweeter on Melody than he'd ever shared. Old feelings rushed back, probably threw Emre for a loop.

Kaz's head felt pretty fucked too. Over the wave of water that sounded like his sister. A voice he'd forgotten the finer emotional colors of. They were there as she spoke to Emre. Ani and Emre.

Ani squinted at Kaz as if his face was a meter for whether Emre told the truth. 'Has he really chatted about me?' She must've forgotten her brother forged an expressionless mask, easy to slip on as deemed necessary. 'What did he say? Let me guess-- he said I'm bratty. Or annoying? Come on, you gotta spill the terrible stuff so I know how to properly haunt him. Still trying to get this whole dead thing down.'

Airy and light, joking along with the expectation Emre saw the humor in it. A certain bounce in her tone that clashed with her appearance. With Emre's quiet mumuring, she turned fully towards him. Big brown eyes blinked in some type of understanding, a sense rather than a pure translation. Her smile blurred, like a shell tossed into the ocean and last seen in a tumble to the bottom. A nod of her head. Ani brightened again to answer Melody. 'Mm. Kind of wish I, you know. Got to actually live. But, you're right. It's not too bad. Not anymore.'

"Yeah. We're mates. Friends." A small giggle from Ani that Kaz chose to ignore. Emre once said he didn't have any friends in London. "He has loads of friends." Kaz quick to back up with a displaced sense of... pride? Like he wanted to brag on a child's success of riding a bike without training wheels.

Finally, the newly co-conspirator ghosts blew away as weightless as leaves caught in a gust of wind. You won't look at her. Kaz felt the hard set of his brows, despite the natural instinct to push into the gentle touch on his chest. His fingers curled around Emre's wrist. "What?" A pause, a blink as his brows tensed further. "I am looking at her -- it. It's just water, Emre. That's all."

The frown deepened. Anger began to flame up in his tone. "What do you see? Ghastly? The fuck you talking about? What do you see that I don't, Emre? Why would you even say that to me?"

He backed off and turned away. His fingers laced together behind his head. Weird shit happened all the time. Hell, their entire existence on the island easily classified as entirely bat shit. Several paces and seconds acted as a cool down. His arms fell heavy at his side as he exhaled loud. "Sorry."

Emre called him out. Disappearing was his style. "Yeah thanks for coming to check on me then," he drawled. Not that Kaz imagined being hunted down and swaddled in protection. His brows rose and fell. "I planned to come here after the party anyway. I wanted to see you." Shame on him if that hadn't been made clear.

He bit his lip. "Didn't expect you to be all wifed up." Fear of an Ajit, an Iyaz, Omar-- devastating choices wiped away by one bubbly dancer. Or, was it all that simple? Maybe not. "I was messing around, flirting with your Melody. Didn't mean anything by it. I got a favorite, so."

His gaze dipped to the floor and then up again. "I followed up with everyone at the tower during the party." Journalist mode activated, voice level, professional, as crisp as Seattle air. "Nothing like this happened anywhere on the outside. However, odd activity was noted in the teleport room. It's off limits at the moment, and the engineers are working on it."

Smooth as silk, Kaz fell into Melody; who, despite her stunned staring at Ani, cleaved to the attention. She cast Ani a nervous glance but then shifted and swayed for Kaz's entertainment, with a defiant flick of her chin. "Arrogant sod, likely figured he didn't need to. He gets proper jealous, you know. Wants me all for himself," Melody purred. But looking over at Emre, she abruptly stopped the flirting and frowned. "What's your problem? You look odd."

"Erm, nothing. No problem, just. Glad you two have...erm. Met," Unused to being this uncool (in Emre's head), he focussed on Ani. Her rote 'I'm fine' an echo of her brother (Kaz's family! They looked so achingly, horribly alike), but not Ani's immediate chirpy cheer. Kaz usually recouped with light sarcasm, or chirpsing. Or both.

"Right....Ani Raval, yeah? He's chatted about you, luv." Not really, bits and pieces. Kaz's memories, and from that fateful imposter that had posed as Ani. But the imposter was fancy costume compared to this version preserved in her violent end. So incongruent to her sweet ghostly smile - a maddening mockery of Kaz's own magician's smile, there and gone - that Emre involuntarily murmured, "Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi..." ...something. Emre always forgot that last bit.

"Little sister! Oh bloody hell, I'm so sorry, you're so young! I died too, it's alright innit. Not so bad," Melody cooed at Ani, then pointed between Emre and Kaz. "And you and Emmy is mates then? Another mate, like forreal? Emmy, who knew you could be so friendly."

"Girl, just shut your trap for five bloody seconds, please," Emre groaned at Melody, pinching his brow. "No one wants to hear your barmy opinions."

"He wants to hear, don't you Kaz? If I weren't a ghost, the things I could do with you - oh," Melody jumped when Ani got closer, then looked down at herself as if wondering if she also looked as bloody and damaged. "Right, alright little sister. Might be we should find a mirror, yeah? See how...we look. Let the boys chat about their bloody boy business." Melody pinched Emre again, before whooshing backwards, with Ani in tow.

"You won't look at her," Emre turned back to Kaz, after watching the ghosts (or jinn, or whatever they were) recede. "I can't blame you. She's...fucking hell, bruv. She's ghastly, not to put a pin in it. That poor little girl." Close enough now, Emre tentatively touched Kaz's chest, as if to make sure that at least Kaz was as real and alive as him. Kaz emitted that familiar warmth that made Emre exhale in relief.

"And you're here. I wagered you'd scarpered to one of your little hideouts, wait this all out and all."

[kazxraval]

Maybe Kaz short-circuited. Shut down entirely. Why run the risk of electrocution by falling into Ani's watery grave, just to ask those nagging questions? Trust your instincts, and instinct said it was easier to look through Ani than at her.

Emre's description stung Ani's diaphanous expression -- it's madness just to look at you. 'Victim blaming. Nice,' she muttered in a misconstrued flair of Kaz-branded moody detachment. With the swish of Ani's long hair her image darkened into an indistinguishable wash. 'Melody says she'll fix me up, make me look nice. Or peng. I assume that means nice,' and Ani's voice rose again, an off-course kite kite that found a new current to climb on. ''Since everyone here is sooo sensitive.' Meanwhile, Melody gave unsolicited advice. The only precious little. Kaz let it slide with a dull response. "I got it."

One portal danced like a flame, backlit as it shifted with the on/off sparkle of Melody's image. All the attention in the room drawn to the single spot. The graph went calm. Kaz reached to touch it, and with Emre near all the spikes and dips on the graph leveled out, almost as if it listened to Emre. "What exactly did you see before Amelia came back?"

Another question: how could anyone be certain those who passed through the portals returned unchanged. Emre sounded sure and Melody resigned. But once she shot an acidic glare at Kaz, a tight smile sprung to life. "Yeah, it's your turn and I don't want to keep you." He nodded to the portal. Hey, if she was gonna be like that...

Melody exploded with a scream as Emre's hand stripped out of his. The entry of the teleport fogged up like an invisible heavy breath had been huffed on a cold window. Once Kaz wiped away the condensation, he and Ani could see the two on the other side.

Melody dressed to kill and Emre even tidier than usual. 'Geez, can't afford a kid or a secret wife because the guy spent all his money on shoes!' Ani's laugh bubbled, beautiful enough to bottle. 'He wants a kid so bad, huh? Their kid. You know what, I feel sorry for both of them.'

A pensive pause as they looked on. 'You held his hand, Kaz.'' Several blinks and an amused sound hissed through his teeth. "I did." A glance of Ani was caught out of the corner of his eye. Yet she was the one who recoiled. Melody had stumbled and Ani jerked away as though she absorbed the shove. Likewise, she jumped to the distinct anger of a fist against the inside of the teleporter.

Once Emre returned, Kaz moved in with the inevitable question. "Are you okay?" Fingers shuffled over curls that replaced the fade, hands searched familiar shoulders to see if any significant change could be recognized. "What was that? Was it real. Did it really happen, a fight like that?" If it was an actual memory, why would Kaz be able to see it? Whose perspective was it from, Melody or Emre's?

Ani's arms crossed tight and twisted, eyes burned with accusation. Her observation came quick. 'Yeah, we saw it all. You pushed her, she was pregnant with your kid and you freakin' pushed her!' She pivoted away as if to run the opposite direction. A bang!, the sound of bones snapped, an agonized wail-- and Ani's ghostly image changed directions, as if a force had picked her up as easily as a rag doll and thrown her into the teleporter. "NO!" Kaz shouted as regret suddenly flooded him. He moved around Emre to the opening of the teleporter and checked the graph as if it could tell him something.

"I don't want to go in there. If I stay here, will she come back?" The speculation more to the empty teleporter than Emre. A long pause made before he looked over his shoulder to Emre again. "I'm not going in, Emre. I don't think I can."

Kaz, so sturdy and sure-footed on even the sheerest rockfaces, now seemed unbalanced. His world rocked - not for the first time, but perhaps not for a very long time, not like this. Not by a bond so fraught but so loaded. And Kaz here, overloaded. Maybe he'd felt this way many, many times before, but this was a rare moment of Kaz so disoriented he was letting people see it. Or really, letting Emre and his dead ex-girlfriend see it.

And letting Ani see it.

Would Ani consider this normal, for the Kaz she'd known? When he was still fine-tuning himself, still malleable and young? The both of them so young; it broke Emre's heart all over again just thinking about the sibling and their tragic fate. Ani's doom far out of her own control, for all her upbeat effort.

"Trust your instincts, yeah? You don't need to know all the facts about this ghost ting, not when it comes to her." Emre exhaled, reluctantly admitting to himself as much as to Kaz. "I reckon - I reckon it really is them, luv."

When the ghosts raised their alarm, Emre laid on manly reassurances for Melody's fretting, a typical pattern they both enjoyed. A romance they liked pretending at. He only looked at Ani when she piped up, and Emre's vision went clear. Three adults, all so serious; and one child meeping about them, trying to contribute like youngers often wanted. Trying to be seen, but not bothersome (or face the consequences). Little Ani, wanting to be both fun and useful. And Kaz - the one person who's attention she wanted more than anything - Kaz stalwartly ignoring her.

Emre started up at the same time Melody did: "Ani bhain, he wants time with you, but you're an honest fright, luv. It's madness just to look at you." and from Melody: "Mister Gorg, man up and talk to her yeah? She's the only precious little you got! My olders never let up on me...no matter how much I disappointed them."

As they looked at the teleports, Emre pointed at the one Amelia had used. "The teleport, it was...pulling at her ghost. Just like this teleport is doing to my Melz, innit. You're feeling it, aren't you baby?"

Melody nodded, drifting towards one specific teleport, whose portal seemed to flicker like channel-changing on speed. With Kaz's hand securely in his, warm and dry, Emre approached the teleports' control panel and poked at it until the power graph popped on the screen. "I poked at this and this graph went calm when Ames got close. So Amelia and her ghost went through it, and Melz and I was stuck out here. We could see what was happening, but the teleport locked us out. Like watching on a telly. And then...Amelia came back, without her ghost. She was fine, honest. Still the Amelia we know."

"It's my turn now," Melody murmured, but she smiled at Ani's contribution, then gave Kaz another glare for his glare, her head ducking in an urgent prompt towards his little sister. All smiles for his sister as Melody tartly said, "Then bless the little dears, they make a perfect pair of daft cunts, don't they Ani?"

Melody made an upset hiccup, at the sight of Ani. The little girl's alarm making a red-washed mess of her, like she could never get clean of the violence that sealed her fate. It was brutal and tragic, and the teleport's flickering flared bright as Melody screamed at Kaz: "TALK TO HER, she's right there!"

Before she grabbed Emre's other hand, and summarily pulled them through the teleport. Emre still held onto Kaz; but as he went through, the portal's surface bounced Kaz's hand back.

The surface then went clear, before crystallizing in a distinct location. An extraordinarily tidy flat, modern and minimalistic, windows that gave a view of London at night. Emre and Melody stood in the middle of the scene, in different clothing and styling. Emre's hair faded, beard clipped; every inch of Melody from hair to lashes to nails were on point.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

"You can't get rid of it, you stupid girl. It's wrong."

"Bruv, I've gotten rid of loads before, I wasn't even going to tell you about it! But big manz got to go through my phone innit, play detective just to feed his bloody paranoia! Insecurity's a well small-dick look, Emmy, I'm just saying."

"Shut up! You can't get rid of it, I'm ordering you. If it's mine then -"

"Of course it's yours, you bleeding twat!!"

"Then I want it!" Emre raised his voice, to get louder than Melody. She sat back on her hips with a defiant, smug smirk and clicked her tongue.

"Right. Marry me then. You want to chat about 'wrong' then let's do it proper, yeah? I'll convert to Muslim and all, I'll be your good little wifey and we'll raise a good little Muslim family."

Emre massaged his forehead, then headed into his bedroom. A wall dedicated to shoes on one side, massive impersonal bed on the other. Melody followed him. "Ya'allah...I can't - we can't get married. It's - it's not. The boss wouldn't allow it."

"Ha! The boss! The boss?! You mean your secret little Pakistani wife, yeah? Bad enough you got your mistress up the duff, but manz can't be a polygamist, can he? You can't eat your cake and finish it too, Emmy!"

"That's not how the sayings goes!!" Emre yelled back again, then swiveled and came over, holding Melody's arms. He stroked them, meeting her eyes; she stood the same height as him, her piled hair making her taller. "And I don't have a bloody wife, or any bloody children, I keep telling you. Melz, baby - this child, our child. I want our child, I'd. I'd keep you proper, I keep saying. You could live here. I'd look after you, I would..."

Melody's lips pressed together, as she shook her head. Raised a lacquered-nail finger. "I am no one's kept woman, not even for you. I love you, Emmy, but I know you. You say things now, but I'm not your first duty, I'll never be. Your duty is to that bloody boss of yours, and that - that - not-secret-Pakistani-family you might or might not have. You have too many secrets and I would never ever raise a child with someone who --"

Emre shoved Melody back, hard enough that she stumbled in surprise. "Then fuck off!" Emre snapped. "Fuck you for telling me, you fucking manipulative cow! You know why I keep secrets, it's because you're too fucking daft to fully understand anything except yourself! Selfish cunt, get out of here. Go kill my baby and stomp on my heart. You're good at that, yeah? So piss off, Melz. and leave me the fuck alone."

"Fuck you too, prick!" Melody screamed, like a tornado as she whirled her grab her belongings, stuff them into a knock-off bag. "You're a whinging little bitch, Emmy, I don't know why I love you. I deserve better than this - than you! I'll be laughing to get the little parasite out, yeah? I'm done - we're done!! Lose my number, cunt!" Her favourite part - the door slam as she stomped out, first the bedroom door and then the front door. Distraught and alone, Emre turned in a circle until he settled on punching a wall.

He punched the teleport's surface instead, and Emre - island Emre with his curly hair and older face - came tumbling out. Emre staggered forward, hands bracing on his knees like an exhausted football player who just lost the penalty shot. He glanced over at Kaz. "She's gone, yeah? You -" Emre glanced over at Ani, then back at Kaz. "You saw all that, then."

[kazxraval]

Ani's water warped with increased urgency around Kaz's arm. He stood unmovable against her current. Death brought a need to know everything. Including the most perverse details to keep the hate burning bright. Did she fight her attacker. What did her final breath sound like. What did she see before her eyes pinned lifelessly frozen?

And yet, for some reason Kaz wanted to run. Retreat to his side of the island without ever knowing a damn thing.

He ran in the absolute wrong direction and ended up outside Emre's door. A dramatic and husky wail was heard around a corner somewhere. Joined by a playfully combative higher-pitched voice. He reached for the hold on his arm but again his hand came away wet. "One sec. He's here." A heavy, exasperated sigh and slap of water. 'WHO is-- uggghh. Whyyy are you so cryptic, gah!'

There was something more than the long memorized resting smile on Emre's face. This triggered a blink and a lopsided false start of a grin from Kaz. The conversation was about to get crowded as another ghost piped up. From having known Emre, they could only be one person. "Are you Melody?" His gaze turned slippery looking over her (unreal, in every sense) figure. Kaz lingered around her hips as if he could see them swish. "Damn, girl. Emre's mentioned you, but never said just how fine you are."

A lie, Emre bragged about his Melody sat on a high pedestal. But maybe Kaz wanted to see them argue up close. Ultimately an empty flirt when his eyes went right back over to Emre. (And Ani whispered, 'Ok, ew?')

Ani appeared to Kaz as an upright wave of murky sea water and tangled sea weed. No face or form in the walking wall from Puget Sound, only a disembodied voice.

But to others, all the horrors of her kidnapping and murder were evident. From the caked blood to severed shoulder that barely hung on. Dark brown and red ligature marks on her thin wrists. Multiple slice wounds from a very personal, irrationally angered knife.

Her smile spun between proud and mischievous but broke apart to Melody and Emre's reactions. Ani's voice fell limp with disappointment. 'I'm fine.' A mirrored reflection of a brother's usual state. 'It looks like it hurts, but it doesn't anymore.' Then the fake bounce-back that kids like Ani knew how to seamlessly execute. What realllly hurts is Kaz not introducing me! So rude. I'm Ani, his sister.' Kaz frowned, as Ani's words made no sense when all he saw and felt was the chill of the Pacific Northwest. For the moment, he would only answer Emre's question. "Yeah. I was looking for you." Of course he was. "Can we talk for a second?"

Ani's bloodied hands (as seen by Emre and Melody) covered a crinkled nose and mouth with a muffled but excited squeak of eep! 'Ohhh. Uh huh.' Her hands then dropped as she looked from Emre to her brother as though a secret had suddenly been revealed. 'Uhm. Melody. Do you wanna go through all these rooms and look through people's stuff? Move their things, totally confuse them. That would be fun. Or at least the most fun I've had in years. Let these two talk about whatever boring thing they want for a minute?'

"For the fifty-millionth time, I'm not a bloody jinn you twat," Melody reached forward to give Emre a shove. Her hands so cold, that Emre howled (perhaps disproportionately loud and offended) and turned to give Melody an offended look.

"I told you don't do that, fucking hell! It hurts! You never listen."

"I never listen. I never listen? I've been saying the same thing to you for the past five minutes, dickhead."

Emre looked superior, and smug. "Right, but the difference being that I'm right and you're wrong, sweetheart. I'm the one with the life innit? You're just a -"

"A what? If you say 'jinn' one more -"

"Shut up," Emre snapped, as he listened. Voices, near his and Walid's wing of the dorms. People hardly went that side, mostly to avoid Walid's things. A girl, her voice piping and pleading and sing-song like a teenager's. And a voice Emre recognized immediately at the way the other said 'fucking'. No one perfected monotone anger like that.

"You're smiling, why're you smiling?" Melody asked.

"Just shut it and behave, alright? I'm not smiling," Emre lectured her, before he turned the corner and found --

"Hiyaaaaa, ooh hello, what have we here?" Melody cooed, staring at the pair. "Oooh Emmy I can see why you're smiling. What a pretty man you've found! And who's this?" Melody tipped to the side to look at her fellow ghost, only to tut and gasp in ghostly horror. "Bloody hell, sweetheart. What happened to you?"

"Kaz? You was looking for me?" And yes; Emre was smiling. But when he looked to Ani, his smile faded, eyes going as round as Melody's. "Bloody hell."

[kazxraval]

She's your younger. A gentle prod and no scolding. The distance between siblings a wide canyon. Kaz no longer understood what it meant and how it felt to be a brother. Certain he wasn't the best at it when Ani was alive. "Don't know about all this." His response low, no digging in of his heels. Kaz gave a vague head wobble, noncommittal and partly lost in thought.

In a fleeting moment Emre risked an affectionate reminder of why Kaz set off for the dorms in the first place. When the ghosts interrupted again, they were undergoing a change. Seaweed and sandy murk around Ani began to dissolve. Melody flickered like a distant star in the sky.

Never heard baby come of the man's mouth like that. In reference to Iyaz, his baby, yes. Not as a term of endearment. Kaz stayed fascinated enough to watch Emre and Melody interact. That naturally mirrored banter with a sugared coating of complaints on top.

'I like being here too!' Ani piped up and attached herself to the weight of Melody's pleas. As much as he wanted to break away on his own, Emre wouldn't let him. Kaz grumbled under his breath but joined them in the walk towards the teleporters. Curious. Hoping to escape the hovering of his sister's ghost, even as she floated beside him and whispered: 'Not yet. Please, Kaz. You haven't given me any time! Not yet.'

"Fine, fine. But, let's see what's happening over there. Just have a look." That was more for Ani's sake. Emre described what happened during his tower shift. "We've been told the teleporters weren't working. How did either of you know what to do, to go through them?" That it would work at all? Was it permament, did anyone even know what happened once inside?

Emre reached back for his hand, the only thing that kept Kaz from barreling straight away into the teleport room. He stared at the unexpected gesture, particularly during what felt like a personal moment with the exes. It was tender and melancholy, all the things it should be. Still, his hand slipped together with Emre's.

Makes you a better person-- the line stuck. Not for Kaz, the island triggered years of isolation initially. But for Emre. The steady sound of Ani's surf quieted to a gentle lap. She nodded at the same time Kaz did, and interrupted. 'Trust me, Kaz is a daft cunt too, so.' Kaz gave Ani a heavy frown, not in the mood considering where they were. Then, he assured Melody: "I'll look after him, yeah."

The light inside the teleports strobed. The room emitted an electrical harmony of beeps and hums. It smelled like camphor and ozone. He finally pulled away for a more thorough inspection of the individual teleporters.

"Fucking hell, everything is wrecked. You sure this'll work?" When he turned to look back on the three, Ani stood as she appeared to the others, with the only remaining water in a white-capped rush around her ankles. He hid a catch of breath from the shock before carrying on. One thing at a time.

"Uhm. Emre, when Amelia went through. Did she program any coordinates first?" Were ghosts simply zapped away, easy peasy? Did they have to pick a location? Where did they go? "How long will this take? Shouldn't someone be watching from the tower?" Sounded iffy at best, looked sketchy as hell. "Don't know if this is the best idea." Ani's image began a slow melt, her dangling hand stretched and running red into the water at her feet. 'I don't either! Melody, are you sure about this? It doesn't feel right to me, when we can stay here instead.'

"I...don't know," Emre confessed, brow forming archways on his forehead. "I don't want it to be, but. Maybe." His thumb skirted along the muscled base of Kaz's neck, pad pressing around the spinal bone.

Kaz flatly refusing his sister - this, Emre recognized. Not ignoring it, but simply saying 'no, I won't'. But Ani wasn't a memory, or beast, or relic; she was herself, here, in his face. Just water. The idea of being aware of his sibling but obscured by the water she likely drowned in...it would've driven Emre frantic. For Kaz, it seemed to make him waterlogged, heavy and drenched.

"She's your younger, man. You have to, she needs you." Emre teethed the inside of his lip. "You need her."

The intention was a brief but passionate respite before they returned to tasks at hand. A kiss, a touch, some laddish chirpsing. Emre daring to still be private, but public about it and Kaz allowing some comforting in intimacy. Emre curved easily for the kiss, hopped back just as quick.

But Melody's issues weren't about Emre (to his relief), and his concern immediately rose for her, despite himself. Thoughts of 'jinn' flew from his mind; this was Melody, and something was wrong. Kaz asked the questions; Melody nodded with Ani, reaching over to her.

"Oh no, is it happening to you too sweetheart? Emmy, help us! I'm not ready - I like - I like being here. Even if you're a complete twat, I - I don't want to go."

"I don't want you to go, baby." It was just so easy to say words to Melody, so easy to adore her. Bloody little Ani whimpered, like a last breath. The Tower. Fuck - "Right. The teleports! Fucking hell, Kaz-"

Kaz, even in spite of his wild-eyed non-expression when he looked at his sister (was he letting himself see, or was Ani letting him see?) was already making decisions - on his own, of course - and Emre refuted.

"We're all going, together. Kaz, I've got to tell you: I met up with Amelia and her ghost yesterday. Had a Tower shift so I invited Ames along." Emre encouraged Melody as she spat and staticked. "Come on Melz, there's my darling girl." He kept marching towards the Tower, pretty sure what lay ahead.

"Ames and her ghost got through a teleport. Tings happened there and...can't quite describe it, but when Ames came through again, her ghost was gone. Remained in the teleport, I reckon."

When they reached the Tower, and Emre ushered Melody towards the Teleport room - but he also reached out for Kaz's hand. "Is that where I've got to go too, Emmy?" Melody meeped. Emre nodded, pointing to one of the flickering teleports that seemed to match Melody's own uneven glimmer. "I don't want to, luv. I want to stay here with you." But her gaze slid from Emre, to Kaz. "Are you...happy here, Emmy?"

"Yeah luv," was Emre's immediate answer, as he met her flickering gaze. "Should've been you what ended up here, Melz. This place...it makes you a better person. But you was always brilliant innit."

"Shut it," Melody laughed like a buzz, not a bell. "Ani, sweetheart, you make things right, girl. Even if your brother's too bleedin' stubborn to allow it. And you, fit-man, Mister Gorgeous. You look after yourself and my Emmy, right? He can be such a daft cunt about things."