._Twintastic's Raevan

[Twintastic]

The afternoon was windy and overcast as Genie left the backseat of a Buick. She shook out her wrists before going around the other side to let Basil out. On the way there'd been a lot of roadwork, tearing up the asphalt for several miles. Genie had been gripping Basil's wings by the stalks so they wouldn't shred the leather upholstery, having to compensate for every bounce and jerk in the road. It’d been a looong few miles.

Laura Valdez, the real estate broker, waited patiently for them in the driveway of a mud-splattered snouthouse. As Genie stood by to massage her tendons Basil looked it over curiously. The garage took up nearly the entire streetfront, the lived-in part of the house shrinking back from the curb like a suspicious old widow with a mattress full of cash. A basketball hoop with a moldy net was nailed over the garage door, a birds-nest built into the crevices.

The small rectangular lawn was patchy, with telling yellow spots near the sidewalk that suggested it was popular with the neighborhood dogs. A green plastic bench with splintered legs could be seen skulking on the front porch, heaped with outdoorsy toys that looked like they hadn’t been played with for many summers. Somewhere inside a TV screeched a score of strings, like someone was about to realize the call was coming from inside the house.

Despite all signs pointing to the residence being occupied, Basil gestured with his head, “This it?”

“No, bub.” Genie turned his attention to a battered mailbox that read The Gilchrists. Up close he noticed the post was cemented into the ground.

She tugged his arm, “We’re further down. C'mon.”

They were on a curvy little road called Baldwin Street, which Basil liked already because the presence of the B and the L in his name meant it could be pleasantly alliterative. Basil on Baldwin. The neighborhood was a mix of working and lower middle-class, with chain-link fences around scrappy lawns. There was no sidewalk, and property-lines seemed to end wherever you felt like. Somewhere they could hear a garbage truck shifting gears. A flag snapping in the wind.

Basil shivered and retreated inside a puff-jacket that swished when he moved his arms. He sensed it would rain soon. He could smell ozone rising up from the trees, their tops swaying in anticipation of a light shower.

They followed on the heels of Mrs. Valdez, a stern older Hispanic woman with a bulky houndstooth jacket pulled tightly over her red realtor’s blazer. She carried a travel umbrella close to her side, riding the incline of the street with the sure and strong-legged gait of a mountain-goat.

Further down the road was an intersection, where they passed a brick chapel with no distinguishing features whatsoever. One of those interfaith churches with all the usual symptoms. Red double doors, a white steeple, a set of stairs covered in that Astroturf-y green carpet. And a marquee board with a half-baked bid for salvation. Basil stole a look at the sign. This week it read:

TO BE NEARLY SAVED IS TO BE LOST COMPLETELY

Genie and Mrs. Valdez walked twenty more paces before realizing he was no longer with them, only because they no longer heard the swishing of his jacket.

"Bub?"

He read the message again, thinking of how those bold block letters had such an absoluteness to them. A conviction that was strangely... personal?

"Basil?"

He blinked and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “Why does every church have red doors?”

Genie did a three-point glance at Basil, the church, and the sign. Then she smiled uneasily, taking his shoulder and urging him forward. “Means they paid off the mortgage.”

Mrs. Valdez sucked her teeth, but out of some strain of professionalism said nothing. A brisk walk later they arrived in front of a different house. Genie came close to his ear, her drive-thru coffee-breath uncomfortably warm against his cheek. “Here it is!”

It was the grayish-green color of wet newspapers, sitting away from the street where it practically seemed to blend into the treeline behind it. They were greeted out front by a plastic sign with Mrs. Valdez's phone number and the name of her realty company. A small framed picture of her face took up residence in the corner, not unlike the yearbook portrait of your elementary school principal, with her own special kind of dignity and esteem above the lunchladies.

The porch was the same color as the house, but a darker swampier shade. It had a pitched roof supported by two white columns set apart like goal-posts. It was this feature that led Basil to notice something… odd.

The front door.

He framed his fingers like a snapshot. It was clearly off-center by at least a foot. Misaligned like an optical illusion, the lines of the architecture drawing your eye one way, but met instead with a blatant and almost offensive lack of symmetry.

He didn’t know why, but it bugged him. Or maybe it only bothered The Other and he was confusing the feeling for his own. Either way, it made one—or both of them—very uncomfortable. Looking closer, he could see there was a depression in the side of the house, painted over the same color. He squinted.

“Interesting.” Genie said, her voice breaking his focus.

“Huh?”

“I wondered if you’d notice it too.”

“What?” Basil said, inviting explanation.

“That other door.”

A fleck of rain struck the tip of his nose, and Genie briskly ushered them onto the porch.

The night before she’d made a special trip at 3AM to scout out the neighborhood. Her dad always said you should never buy a house before you've seen the street at night.

She was out there a while. Rubbing her hands and listening to the staticy rift between radio stations to keep from falling asleep. Peering through the jaundiced streetlight for God knows what. If there were dangers around, she couldn't say she noticed them. No gunfire. Nobody tapping on her windows or lurking on street-corners.

Somewhere in the vicinity she did hear a bloodhound. Or a coonhound. Some type of hound. Bred to produce that very special kind of howl that only belongs in the moodscape of moonshiners on a duck-hunt, inmates escaping through rural Kentucky, or detective novels set in Victorian England. Not the shoebox diorama of suburban living.

When the sun came up she wasn't sure what impression she got, or what to make of her findings. But in the absence of immediate and obvious danger, Genie decided to give Baldwin Street a go.

She turned to Mrs. Valdez as she produced a ring of keys from her coat pocket. “Did you find out what the deal is? Why there's two front doors?”

Mrs. Valdez looped keys around and around, holding them close to her face to read the labels, as though maybe she needed glasses.

"Well, I asked around the office for you and got some theories. Some said it's just a design choice. You know, for symmetry. Some say it's for ventilation. A few old-timers said that years and years ago there used to be one door for regular company and one for special occasions."

More looping and squinting. "I don't know myself, but according to the blueprints that door is supposed to open onto another bedroom."

Basil looked at the hidden door up close. It wasn’t the same make or style. Probably the original. Abandoned cobwebs were strung in the corners, specked with decade-old insect husks. The paint-job was quick and sloppy with clear brush-strokes. There was no knob.

Genie tilted her head. "Supposed to?"

"That's just it. It's bricked off or something. They cemented the keyhole and there's no way to get into it from inside the house."

Genie frowned. "Well, what's in there?"

"Your guess is as good as mine."

"What did the seller say?"

"No sellers. It was repossessed by the bank from a relative. Some cousin or something who fell back on the payments. It used to belong to a nice married couple. Lived together on this street twenty-five years.” She added the last part reverently, transitioning seamlessly into affected sympathy, “The wife passed away in hospice last year, and her husband went in his sleep about a month after."

Genie pulled a face, "Oh. Did he…?

"In the house?" She hastened to reassure her, "Oh nonono, he was with some friends at the time. They were having a cookout or something,” she gestured with her head, “Right up the street, actually. Someone said he complained of being too hot, he went inside to lay on the couch, and—"

They both jumped at an ear-splitting screech.

RRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Basil was holding his finger on the doorbell.

Genie shot him a look. He smiled pleasantly back at her. He was very snacky today.

The screeching drained away. Once it had gone and Basil seemed sated, Genie took his wrist and tugged it away, leaving Mrs. Valdez with a very tight expression that threatened to snap her face down the middle.

"Anyway,” she punctuated as Genie mouthed the word ‘sorry’, “They had two daughters. Nice girls, living in Barton now. They both grew up here, but when I tried to ask them about it they seemed surprised. Like they never noticed it before."

"And they didn't ask to have it opened? They weren't curious?"

Mrs. Valdez slid the key into the lock, turning it over, "Not really. Mostly they just seemed pissed about having to share a bedroom growing up."

(“You don't say.”)

---

The staging was evident. Genie could smell freshly Windexed windows and deodorized carpeting.

“Let there be light.” Mrs. Valdez declared flatly as she flipped the light-switch, turning on one of those unfortunate dome fixtures with the screws in the center. What people in Mrs. Valdez's occupation called a boob-light.

The walls were sheet paneling, the kind with about as much wood in them as a picnic fork. Its dark color and the lack of natural light made the room seem confining and cave-like. The perfect place to get drunk with all the lights off, or wait for your unfaithful spouse with a loaded pistol. The carpeting was bath-mat shag in a shade of orangey-brown that made it look filthy at its cleanest. There was an electric fireplace to add that homey touch, complete with fake logs and mantel.

Despite visible vacuum tracks in the carpet Genie could still see dents in the floor where the old furniture had been. There a couch, a chair, a china cabinet—She could practically envision the previous occupants sitting around in front of the tube with their salisbury steak TV dinners. A large slider window faced the street, shaded with those annoying vertical blinds of plastic noodles that clatter when you draw them.

There was no getting around it. One's first impression of the house was that it was not just dated, but painfully ugly. Fortunately for Mrs. Valdez, her new clients weren’t the “entertaining” types and would probably never renovate. Comfort was what mattered to them, and Genie and Basil had both made peace with the fact that true comfort was very often in conflict with good taste.

At this time Genie made no overtures, and Mrs. Valdez didn't spring into her tired pitch on the house's various rooms and features, starting with its "good bones" and ending with its original fixtures. Since Genie was the only one who'd put in an offer in six months, already knowing what it looked like, her role at this point was mainly supervisory. Once a few things were squared away the house was as good as theirs.

At first Basil's eyes did that camera-shutter thing, flickering between human and reptile until he was comfortable with the darkness. Mrs. Valdez's expression didn't change but her fingers began picking at her coat in a way that seemed unnecessary, because there was no lint there.

"So, what do you think?" Genie prodded.

Basil shrugged, not seeming to have a strong opinion one way or the other. Genie chalked up his lack of enthusiasm to being out in the cold for so long. His only decisive action was finding the wall that was adjacent to the mystery room. He put his ear to it.

Mrs. Valdez talked through a yawn, "What's he doing?”

“Listening, I guess.”

“For what?”

Genie shrugged, “Beats me.”

The most exciting thing he heard was a loud-ish bang on the other side of the house. The kind of noise that houses make when the weather turns, make people force their spouse to check for burglars. When he listened more closely he also detected some scuffling, but nothing aberrant or spooky. Smart money was on spiders, maybe silverfish.

Genie came and took his elbow. “Come on, bub. I want to show you where your new room is gonna go.”

"Mmk."

He followed her past a set of stairs into a tight hallway. They passed a closet and a bathroom, stopping at a pair of doors opposite each other. Genie gestured, “Okay, these are both up for grabs, but I thought you should have the left one. It’s bigger and got more closet-space.”

Basil frowned, grasping the knob, “You don’t want the bigger one?”

“Please. I’m an expert at bending the laws of physics. You could fill three houses with all the crap I’ve got stored in our apartment, you just never knew it. I figured you could use the extra room for your instruments.”

Mrs. Valdez seemed to materialize behind them. “You’re a musician?”

Genie answered for him, “He plays and sings a little.”

“What do you play?”

Genie and Basil visually consulted each other before Genie answered again. “A little of everything, I guess. He—"

Basil jumped in, “Piano, guitar, steel guitar, bass guitar, electric guitar, lute, accordion, ukulele, dulcimer, vibraphone, xylophone, flute, harmonica, keytar, harp, auto-harp, banjo, harpsichord, ocarina, kazoo, jaw harp, jammer keyboard, snare drum, steel drum, thumb piano, panflute, glass harp, clarinet, theremin, and I beatbox and whistle.”

Mrs. Valdez tried to look unimpressed but her overplucked eyebrows betrayed her. She noticed that eerily, he did not need to pause for breath at any point during that recitation. “You play all of those?”

Basil wiggled his hand, “Well, at least once. I can play Clair de Lune on most of them. That’s my personal test.” He shrugged, “You know, that or Jesse’s Girl. Whichever. People seem to recognize Jesse’s Girl a lot faster.” In a deadpan and unaugmented voice he performed the dreaded chord of the karaoke veteran on an invisible guitar.

Duh nuh nuh nuh nuh. (duh dun dun)

Mrs. Valdez smiled. It was genuine and disarmingly warm. “You should think about asking down at the church sometime. They’re always looking for people to perform at their functions. My sister caters for them and they’re real sweet people, I’m sure they’d love you. You play any rock n’ roll?”

"Yes ma'am.”

He startled as a tan finger appeared in his face, the nail a blood-red chip. “Well not after 8PM, you don’t. Got it?”

He threw up his hands, mock saluting with one, “Yes ma'am!”

Both bedrooms were sufficiently bedroom-like and featured four walls and a floor. Since they were alone, Basil took the opportunity to step out so The Other could have a look around. In the absence of furniture he first remarked on a water-stain on their ceiling. A Rorschach blob. The rest of his time was spent fawning over their giant closet, perfumey with the smell of some kind of indoor insecticide. Probably for the silverfish.

As long as Basil could remember The Other had a very acute, very intense need for privacy. Or at least, what little of it they could manage in a situation like theirs. He protected what shelves, drawers, and floorspace he'd claimed in their shared bedroom so viciously Basil swore when The Other wasn't around he could actually feel a heat when he strayed near them. A figurative heat, but hot nonetheless, with all the painful promise of a glowing red stovetop.

He didn't know when he'd put it together that The Other did this sort of thing out of fear, and not some inherent distrust of Basil as he'd previously assumed. That was happening to him a lot lately. These abrupt, but startlingly simple observations that gave the life he shared with his (Friend? Figment? Brother?) a deeper meaning. More color and context than what had previously been allowed in his dim little world.

The fear was the only constant. A landmark looming in the distance that brought new challenges to describe and orient it on their horizon. A new destination to make for, knowing for all the walking in the world it would never come sharper into focus. Fear for instance, that if their belongings were interchangeable, it might suggest to an observer that they themselves were interchangeable. Which bothered The Other the way it would bother any normal twin who'd outgrown their "invent-our-own-language-and-dress-the-same-on-picture-day" phase.

The problem was, they were supposed to be indistinguishable. Because The Other had insisted their safety depended on the illusion of one-ness. As frustrating as it was for him to be lumped in with Basil all the time, he'd go nuclear if anyone could actually spot the difference.

It wasn't hard for Basil to see now The Other was increasingly worried about losing himself in the performance. Forgetting where it started and he began. Four years of training himself to respond to things how Basil might, say things that he might say, think like he might think. And burying himself alive in the process.

Letting the guy have a few hangers in the closet and a poster on the wall seemed like the least he could do. For now.
---

The kitchen was done in the same paneling as the living-room, on all the cabinets, counters, and doors. The linoleum was a pale urine yellow that even struck Genie as offensive. The counters had all been wiped clean and smelled faintly of distilled white vinegar. There was a sizable pantry and just enough room for a four-person dinette set.

For the first time Genie noticed a black rubber mat by the sink that looked suspiciously new. When she nudged it aside, she saw a worn spot in the tile that made her sort of uneasy. Two white-ish ovals, like someone had spent a lot of time standing barefoot in this spot. She put the mat back over it.

A screen door opened onto an interesting feature. “Hey Baz, c’mere!”

He joined her out in a room that seemed to have been slapped onto the exterior of the house as an afterthought. Both Basil’s bedroom window and the privacy window in the bathroom looked onto this space. Although they were standing on concrete it did appear to have electricity. Genie could spy several grounded outlets and a dingy yellow fixture peered down at them from the ceiling. To Basil, it looked like a very short wide hallway with too many windows.

Having acclimated to the house’s gloomy interior, the cold bright light magnified the tilt-o-whirl feeling he had from switching back so quickly. “What's this?”

“This,” Genie began, gesturing around her with great ceremony, “is a sunporch!”

If Basil was meant to be impressed, he didn’t see why.

“What’s it for?”

“Nothing! That’s the beauty of it. You just come out here to enjoy the weather.”

Outside it had begun sprinkling, with the muffled, amniotic sound of wind rolling across the trees.

There sure was weather happening out there. And yet, he was strangely underwhelmed.

“This is what clinched it for me. You like napping in front of that big window in the apartment, right? I thought during the summer I could put an old couch out here and you could sun yourself all you want.”

He scratched his nose in a considering sort of way. “Summer’s not for a while.” He said without inflection.

“Mm.” She said. They stared out onto the lawn for a minute. They were sitting on about a quarter-acre, although most of it was bramble and cape-ivy. There was a jagged stone path that went to nowhere. A bit of woods further back. She was pleased to know it was already fenced in.

Genie threw an arm around his shoulders, yoking his neck like a sleazy car salesman trying to create a rapport with a skeptical customer, “Okay, I can tell this is a tough sell, but I’ve still got one last ace up my sleeve.”

---

A bare lightbulb flickered to life as they descended three creaky steps into the garage. There was (more) paneling, but here it seemed to give the space a friendly carousing atmosphere, like the neighborhood dive-bar. The old man was obviously a gearhead. There was the moldy outline of a toolboard on the wall. A rubber trash bin full of oily newspapers. Mounted on a support beam was a row of rusty license plates, all Durem.

Basil’s eyes landed on the room’s dominating feature. A bulky shape covered with a black tarp that reminded him of the kind they spread over playgrounds, underneath the woodchips. Genie went to it and grabbed two handfuls, sending up a plume of dust. “Ta-da!”

Basil tilted his head and squinted in the dark brown light. He didn’t know what he was looking at.

At first glance it looked like a jukebox, except it was enormous and had a twenty-four inch screen mounted on top. The demarcation between head and body made it look like a slumbering robot from a fifties movie. There was an angled interface with twelve push-buttons that lit up, book-ended by speaker panels covered in that soft sproingy material like women’s pantyhose. It reeked of cigarette smoke.

“Okay, I give.”

“This—oh don’t!” Her hand went up as he pressed one of the buttons with a hard chunk, locking his selection. She sighed and grabbed a screwdriver off the floor, popping it back up.

“This,” she repeated, eyes tweezing his face, “is a Scopitone! I remember these from when I was a kid. They used to have them in bars and amusement parks and stuff.”

“What’s it do?”

She twirled the screwdriver, “Uhh, it’s like a jukebox, except it plays music videos. The cool thing is they used to make videos just for the Scopitones you wouldn’t see anywhere else.” She gave him a satisfactory nod, “We inherited a real piece of history here.”

“Well hopefully the old man won’t come back looking for it…” He said.

“I’ll plug it in.”

She went around the back and half-coaxed-half-forced the enormous plug into a power strip. Various mechanisms sighed to life and they were made aware of a smell like burning dust. It obviously took a lot of juice because the lightbulb dimmed and began intermittently flickering. The screen gave no sign of activity, but the machine itself had now started to produce a warm droning hum like a refrigerator. Basil pressed his hand against the side, thrilling as it vibrated gently into his palm.

With the lightbulb strobing above him, he threw back his head and announced in his best Gene Wilder, "IT’S A-LIIIIIVE!”

Genie jostled him with her body. “Stifle, Victor. I just plugged it in. Let’s see if there’s film in it.”

There was a coin slot that asked for “one token”, or twenty-five cents, which Genie remembered at one time being fairly expensive for a commodity like this. It almost gave her whiplash thinking of the dollar fifty she’d spent on a black coffee from the drive-thru.

She started rummaging through her pockets but Basil was faster, pulling a scummy quarter from the marsupial pouch of his jacket. He didn’t need any prompting to slip the coin into the slot, which clanked noisily all the way down. The buttons on the panel lit up like a carnival.

Genie rapped her knuckle on the console. “Okay, moment of truth. Pick something.”

Basil’s finger roamed over the buttons. They were labeled with curling yellow scotch-tape and written over with marker, the ink either smudged and illegible from once-frequent use, or bled with age. He picked something at random. They took a step back and waited, Genie crossing her fingers. The suspense in the room was palpable, and it showed in Genie and Basil’s translucent reflections on the back-screen, their faces wide-eyed and glassy.

Suddenly, appearing from the void, a bikini-clad bottom began shaking spastically in the middle of the screen. They jumped back.

“Whoah.”

The presence of palm trees suggested they were in some warm desert state like Nevada or Arizona, but the grainy technicolor of the footage made it impossible to tell what time of day it was. The women all had medicated expressions and giant bouffants, hours of ratting and back-combing held in place by the miracle of Aqua Net. They were small-breasted and small-eyed with tassled bikinis. PCP was the hallucinogen of choice at the time.

It cut away to show a five-piece band playing something jazzy and uptempo, but the phalanx of gyrating bimbos made the selling point clear. Genie was only now remembering through the fog of her nostalgia that most of these music videos were basically softcore porn. Sixties softcore porn. It even took place in the pool of a dingy motel.

The camera kept changing angles around the girls. Up-shots, down-shots. Any guy not playing an instrument was in dolphin shorts doing the Hully Gully. It was like a fever dream and Basil was spellbound. The filament in the lightbulb over their head began flickering louder and more erratically, like morse code. Tink tink tink. Tink tink.

A tiny spider dropped down from the ceiling and ziplined across the room, a silvery thread passing over the screen. Its trajectory was nowhere near her, but Genie swiped her shoulder anyway. Basil mistook it for a shimmy and thought they were imitating the video. He started doing The Twist but he had no legs, so it was just him pivoting in the air like a bad green-screen effect.

Genie briefly wondered if this is what madness felt like, but then she gave in and started teaching him The Watusi.

It was at this point Mrs. Valdez walked in on them, standing at the top of the steps with arms crossed and feet apart, like someone’s mother about to break up a game of spin-the-bottle.

They froze in place with their elbows out, their faces turned up at her. Then, most auspiciously, the circuit blew out with a snap, leaving them stunned in musty darkness. The Scopitone and its bevy of boogying babes were gone in a hum of light and sound. A long pause unrolled between the three of them like a runaway roll of toilet paper. Basil was the first to break the silence.

“…So, when can we move in?”

Points: 24

 

[Twintastic]

It took five hours for Genie, Basil, and Mickey to unload all their furniture from the back of the moving trailer. Lionel was supposed to have pitched in but when two o’ clock rolled around and they hadn’t heard from him they knew better than to wait. Mickey was buying burgers after, so instead of giving Lionel a hard time about it later he settled on taking spiteful satisfaction in shorting the slacker a free meal.

Mickey left to return the U-Haul. Sweaty and sore, Genie spread out on the couch with an arm over her face, the other hanging limply over the side. Her fingers tweezed and twisted a string of carpet. Basil, more sweaty than Genie but less spent, hung around the livingroom and blotted his neck with the hood of his sweatshirt. It was kind of surreal to see all the furniture someplace other than the apartment.

At this point he had come to the same realization Genie had while she was hauling in the couch. Their furniture was barely enough to make the place look inhabited. He commented on the abundance of space in the form of standing in the middle of the floor and flapping his arms.

Genie moved her forearm, “If you’re trying to take off, you might want to go outside and get a running start first.”

“It’s too open.”

It was true. Living in their tiny apartment there was a flow to the house they'd never known before. Channels of air and sound and energy that felt... wrong.

“We need more stuff.”

---

Before the closing Genie arranged through Mrs. Valdez to purchase some of the furniture left behind by the previous owners, whom she learned were the Rayburns, Eva and Franklin. She, a retired airline stewardess turned homemaker, he, a security technician at the Lucky Rabbit casino and part-time mechanic. There was probably a cute story there.

The aunt-or-cousin-or-whatever was Midge. An eighty-three year old tennis instructor, long retired. Midge lived with her son's family in the city so she could get to her physical therapy appointments. Over the phone she was more than happy to delegate much of what was in the storage unit, probably because she was struggling to keep on top of the monthly fees. Genie’s heart went out to her. Burying two people within a month of each other had to be expensive.

Genie considered questioning her about the mystery room, but thought better of it when Midge explained she only knew the Rayburns in a peripheral sense. She'd gone to their wedding and both their daughters' christenings, but saw them less and less as the years went on. A few Thanksgivings and Easters. Babies and funerals. When the couple passed away she was the only one willing to handle their earthly affairs, and arrange for them to be buried in the family plot. A perfunctory close to a perfunctory relationship.

It didn't seem likely that if Aunt Midge even knew the room existed, she'd know what was inside or why it was closed off.

They made a trip to the neighboring town of Mares Leg. For the entire drive Genie was trying to think of why it sounded so familiar, and then she realized Mare’s Leg was the name of Steve McQueen’s gun in Wanted: Dead Or Alive, one of her dad's favorite TV shows. In what she assumed was an effort to make it more family-friendly, the town had chosen to appropriate horse imagery rather than the Winchester they'd use to drop one with a broken leg.

There were signs advertising a barbecue house called The Bit. A dress-shop called The Show Pony. The storage yard they were driving to was called The Stable. Their high school mascot? A bulldog. Go figure.

Without looking from the window, Basil whistled the score from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly as they sailed down main street, which was almost completely deserted. The kind of town where the only thing that passes through is the wind.

---

The Stable was ten acres of long buildings divided into garage-like spaces, the compound surrounded at all sides by a high hurricane fence with rolled barbed wire. Genie showed her license to a mulish middle-aged woman wearing sneakers and matching gray sweats. Before she could drive through the woman waved Genie back, then motioned for her to roll down the window.

“Uh, can he step out for a minute?”

Genie and Basil exchanged nervous glances. Hopefully his wings weren't a security risk. She didn’t have a backup plan if he wasn’t allowed inside. Genie gave him a reassuring nod and he climbed out of the passenger seat. The woman bustled around the car to get a look at him.

“What the hell?”

She waved a hand horizontal to his torso, between the spaces of his ribbon. She checked his expression to find him staring at her, unfazed.

“How’s he doin' that?”

He shook his head helplessly. As though he had any insight into his own propulsion system.

Genie watched them through the open passenger door, her engine idling. The temperature outside was in the forties, so she knew Basil had to be uncomfortable in the chill. The woman visually conferred with Genie, gesturing to his wings. "Can these come off?"

"They're attached." She said with an edge.

She could see Sweatpants looking at the perforations in Basil's overcoat, trying to see how far the stalks went. If she wanted Basil to strip down in this weather to prove it to her they were gonna tangle.

Basil was rubbing his arms now.

"Can we go through now, please?"

"Oh! Sure, lady. Go ahead. I just..." She trailed off, dismissing the rest of her thought with a gesture. She opened up the gates and returned to her station, a greasy paper sack from The Bit sitting on her console.

---

Under the supervision of a security camera they stood together outside the roll-top door of unit forty-eight. The aisles were spaced wide apart so people could pull their vehicles up. She used the key Mrs. Valdez had given her on the two padlocks, then enlisted Basil to help her lift up the bottom. When the door came up, the smell of mold and old cardboard rolled out like a tsunami. Luckily it was temperature controlled so Basil wouldn't be languishing in the cold.

They stepped inside and Genie was gripped by a guilty feeling, like a trespasser. Before these places had reminded Genie of divorce and failure. Visited upon by broken men looking for a dry place to store toys, dishes, hard-won furniture sets, and whatever else was left of their good intentions.

Now she couldn't help but think of the Rayburns' two daughters, now orphans. How the entire existence of two people could be summed up by their spotty mattresses propped against the wall. A lifetime of memories into the towering piles of boxes, garbage bags, and dry-cleaning sleeves bearing down on them. In its own crappy way it was like walking into a mausoleum. A place where you spoke softly and took your hat off.

She sympathized with those girls, thinking of her own father, who had more years behind him than ahead of him. It made her wonder if he would someday take the Rayburns' place in this unit. Just the thought of another set of strangers picking and sorting through his brown suits and back-issues of Nugget made her skin crawl.

Basil stood beside her, waiting for instruction. She wondered what he was thinking about just now, and if those thoughts ran parallel to hers. If maybe he were wondering what Genie's unit might look like. If he’d be making this trip again someday. He screwed up his face with what looked like profound emotion.

She stared up at him, preparing something meaningful to say, until he turned and issued a wet sneeze in the direction of a cloth-covered table-set.

She released a breath, smiled, and squeezed his arm. “Let’s do this.”

She set a few ground-rules, just to make the experience seem slightly more palatable than grave-robbing.

___1) All items were to pass Genie’s inspection before approval.

___2) No sheets or dishes. They weren’t sleeping on a dead person’s linens or eating off their plates.

___3) No jewelry or other valuables. Obviously.

___4) No clothes, unless they were too awesome to pass up.

________○ Addendum: Presenting tacky items for ridicule was acceptable.

___5) Genie reserved the right to say no to anything for any reason. Whining or sulking would not be tolerated.

There was more here than Genie expected. She didn’t know much about furniture, but she did know they’d stopped making most of this stuff in their respective decades. She found two metal TV-tray tables behind a bureau and scratched her head.

“Man, I must be psychic.”

She wondered if Eva must have made the same stupid joke night after night about “putting your tray in the full upright position”, and if Frank was still humoring her twenty years later.

She definitely sensed these people had a flair for the romantic, or at least Eva did. There were sequined fringe lamps in powdery colors. Giant glass seashells. Porcelain clocks with tiny cherubs. Gilded picture-frames.

She located a box of books by the yellow mildewy smell emanating from its corner of the unit. She began picking through it, disturbing the feasting silverfish. Most of them were travel texts to places like Bora Bora and Croatia, with lots of dog-eared pages and highlighted passages. Nursery rhymes and classic works of fiction—Chaucer, Twain, and Dickens. A well-used dictionary and thesaurus.

Damn, Eva.

There was more. Underneath a print of Tom Sawyer was an assortment of pulpy paperbacks with such colorful titles as Scourge Of The Blood Cult and Sin On Wheels, detailing the sordid adventures of girls with unlikely waistlines named Lenore and Veronica.

Damn, Frank.

She strummed through the glue-bound pages of Death-Mates For The Lust-Lost!, sighing over her shoulder, “Baz, when are you gonna meet a nice girl?”

“When are you?” he sassed.

Didn't miss a beat.

Naturally he'd be the one to stumble on a mildly impressive vinyl collection. Billy Fury’s The Sound Of Fury. Eddie Cochran’s Never To Be Forgotten. Ritchie Valens’ La Bamba. Even The Other approved of some of the contents. There were a couple of Christmas albums. Some Doors and Beatles. Some novelties from the girls’ childhood.

Basil invited Genie to have a look, but she tilted her head at him, noticing the box was suspiciously full. “I dunno, bub. We should probably let the girls look through it and we’ll take what they don’t want. We've got to think of them first.”

His response had her swiftly refer him to rule five.

Points: 11

 

[Twintastic]

Basil carded out laundry from a cardboard box, tossing his clothes lamely into one of two piles on the bed. He’d been doing this for what felt like hours. The tune he'd been humming in his head was starting to sound like elevator music.

(“Wait, that was mine.”)

He raised his hands. “What was?”

(“The gray henley.”)

He stared dumbly at the right-hand pile. There were three gray shirts there, four if you didn’t count the darker one as black. His hand hovered over them before he picked up a sleeveless item at random.

“This is my Cobra Commander shirt, dude." He brushed his thumb over the faded insignia. He’d had it a long time. "I mean, you’re welcome to it if you really want but—”

(“The one. With. The buttons.”)

A burst of heat went to his face. “Oh.”

He fixed the mistake and kept on. More carefully this time.

Sweatshirt. T-shirt. T-shirt. Dress shirt. Parka. Sweatshirt. Blazer.

When did they get so much stuff?

He was starting to think Genie wasn’t kidding. The house was pulling things out of thin air, and it would just be a matter of time before the whole place would be like an overstuffed suitcase you had to sit on to close. He'd seen this kind of thing on TV. Every closet and pantry would be an avalanche hazard. They’d be limited to dry goods like cereal and pop-tarts when the stove and fridge were blocked off. Genie would have to park on the street when the garage started overflowing.

And the house wouldn’t stop until it was satisfied. As if to compensate for the one void it didn’t have the power to fill.

That empty room they couldn’t open.

Man. He just gave himself chills.

He wondered if anyone had ever written a book like that. He entertained the thought of writing it down. He was usually more coherent on paper. Maybe he could turn it into something interesting. He squeezed a flannel nightshirt, then tossed it on his pile.

Nah. If it was really anything good, he’d find some way to turn it into garbage.

Maybe he could find somebody smart to write it down for him. Maybe The Other, if he ever found the time or interest.

Then, as if summoned, (“Oh. My. God. Could you be any slower?”)

Basil dropped his head, then pitched a windbreaker back into the box. “Why am I even doing this? I don’t care if my stuff mixes up with yours.”

(“I do.”)

“Yeah, I know.” Basil rubbed his hands over his face, then spun and fell back onto his bed. He looked at the two piles, held up an item from each, then tossed them back with a groan. “I just don’t get it. Whether I wear your clothes or you wear mine—we're both technically wearing it anyway, right? So what’s the difference?”

Sputtering. (“What’s the—!?”)

A brief, uncomfortable moment followed where Basil was just staring at the water-stain on their ceiling, unsure of what to do. He knew The Other was working up a check to Basil’s attitude. Something scathing, no doubt. But instead there was an internal relief of pressure. Like a valve releasing. Resignation, maybe?

(“Just get in here. I’ll do it. Might as well unpack the whole room while I’m out.”)

Basil forced all the breath in his body into one sentence, his voice high and childish. “Ijustaskedaquestion!”

(“I just don’t see why it’s so hard for you to give a damn sometimes.”)

He sat up. He wished there was some kind of pause button, so he could figure out what just happened here. “About what? Clothes?”

(“Me. My things. What I want.”)

“I do give a—“ He stopped, rephrasing, “I do care. Just not about this.”

(“I want out. Switch with me.”) The command was petty and put-upon. Like those movies where a woman demands her date to stop the car and let her out on the street. Even though it had been his idea, Basil could tell The Other was still a little resentful about having to ask before a switch instead of forcing one whenever he felt like it.

"You're sure?"

("Yes." )

Basil opened his mouth and shut it again. He didn’t feel right about letting The Other do all the heavy work, but he didn’t have the patience to argue with him. It occurred to him that maybe a cleaning-jag would put The Other in a better mood. He seemed to find organization very soothing, and as if he didn't need more of a hint, Basil had a feeling he’d just be in the way.

He shut his eyes, lay back, and let the mattress suck him down like quicksand.

---

When he came back it was darker than he expected.

He was still lying on their bed, so he sat up. When he did, something in his void of a stomach slopped over. A hand flew to his mouth. It tasted like acid coffee. He could smell sweat souring in his pits. A twinge of panic. Did he lose the whole day?

He turned his eyes on the window and realized why it was so dark. A blanket was over it, filtering the room in a reddish hue that was suggestive of dusk. It was draped over the curtain-rod and pinned at the corners with chip-clips to discourage the nosy. He pulled back the blanket and looked outside, past the back porch. The sunlight pierced his eyes. They felt raw and peeled. He acclimated slowly, blinking through the moisture.

When they cleared, he was relieved to know he hadn’t lost as much time as he’d thought. The sun had changed position in the sky but there was plenty of daylight. If he had to hazard a guess it hadn’t been more than three hours, which he confirmed with the plastic wristwatch he'd started wearing specifically for this reason. He'd once suggested keeping some kind of logbook, like checking in and out of a hotel, but The Other wouldn’t hear of it. The evidence would be too damning.

Basil let the blanket fall back.

The laundry and hangers were missing from the bed, and so was the box. Aside from his imprint in the coverlet, everything on the bed had been fitted and smoothed with obsessive care. The pillow cases were drum-tight. Hospital corners. Aside from the coverlet being folded back you'd think The Other planned on sending their bed to be on display in a museum. Basil flipped it back the way it was, then sat on the edge.

Their belongings were unpacked and distributed around the room in a manner that was openly biased. Anything of Basil’s was stored away on a shelf or (he assumed) in a drawer, out of plain sight: His records, his spoons, his magazines, so on. Things belonging exclusively to The Other: His books, rock tumbler, and most recently some kind of digital navigation device that worked by reading satellite signals, were left out in the open, as if anticipating their regular use.

The only thing of Basil's left out was a jar he used for holding guitar picks. A plastic flower was stuck in it. He got the impression that this was somehow intended to offend him, but he wasn't sure why or how.

Everywhere he looked he saw little messages like that. Little aggressions. The Other could be like that. Sometimes you didn't feel his ire toward you obviously and transparently, like a horse-head in the bed or a cross burning on the lawn. He could be very, very petty. Influence you in ways he could deny later. Make it seem like Basil was just making his own assumptions.

And the sick part was, it usually worked. It was working now.

Maybe The Other didn't know where Basil would want his things. Maybe he thought a flower would brighten up the place. Maybe he put the blanket over the window because he knew Basil would be sensitive to light when he switched in. And where did Basil get off being so critical anyway? It’s not like he had to lift a finger.

Not that he could ask any of those questions. The flies were quiet, and he didn't sense The Other listening or watching. Gone off to whatever little corner of the mind he retreated to. A place Basil could frustratingly never reach. Even in his absence, Basil felt a tension between them. He hated not knowing when an argument was over, so you can imagine he liked it even less when he didn't know what an argument was about in the first place.

The Other was generally a malcontent and a neurotic. That was just part of his charm. If it were just about getting some clothes mixed up, that would have made almost too much sense. But Basil couldn't help thinking there had been something different about him in the moment. He'd sounded so truly hurt at the idea that Basil didn't care…

There were signs that he’d left the room at least once. The cardboard boxes were gone. An empty coffee mug was sitting on the bureau with a sticky ring in the bottom. It was one of The Other’s novelty mugs, which he collected. Most of them read some confrontational remark about needing coffee and wanting to be left alone. This one said in spiky black letters “Shut The Front Door”.

He mouthed it a few times before a smile spasmed over his lips. And not just because of the obvious.

Front door.

Which one?

Funny.

He was getting ready to find Genie and tell her he was finished unpacking, but a few moments passed of him staring at that coffee mug. Unable to move. Just on a hunch, Basil lifted it up. When he did, a folded piece of paper sprang up at him.

Of course.

It read like a telegram. Impersonal.

"They're in the closet. (stop) You're welcome. (stop) We need to talk. (stop) Later. (stop)"

Basil's eyes crawled over The Other's neat script and tight letters, his lovely penmanship always ruined by the smudge of a southpaw. Basil looked at the ink stains on the blade of his own left hand. An effort had been made to scrub them off, but a shade of blue still remained. The Other just couldn't win for losing. Neither of them could.

He smoothed his hair back from his head, a little disoriented because one of his hunches had actually been right.

What the hell was supposed to be in the closet?

He spared a look in that direction, then inhaled sharply, crunching the note in his fist.

There were footsteps coming up the driveway.

Points: 10

 

[Twintastic]

Genie was unwinding with a Whiskey Ginger and one of Frank’s I-Was-A-Teenage-Bimbo books. She was rewarding herself with a “five-minute” break from unpacking and thought she’d skim through it for a laugh. Before she knew it she’d gone halfway through the book and her drink, too invested into both to get anything done with the house.

Suddenly she sensed a change in the room and looked up to see Basil in the hallway. She marked her place and sat up. “Oh, you scared me, bub.”

He said nothing.

She combed her fingers through her hair. “You still grumpy or did’joo take a lil’ nap?”

She hadn’t heard her own voice in hours and was embarrassed at how slurry it was. Basil didn’t seem to notice, staring fixedly at the front door. Her knowing sigh filled the room. Sure enough the doorbell emitted a screech. She hated when he did that. It reminded her too much of those animals that stiffen when they feel an earthquake coming. A sure forewarning of disaster.

She threw a look at him, as if he were responsible, then stumbled off the couch, grabbing the arm for purchase. Just now the shag felt snaggy around her toes, like weeds.

There was another screech. Short, but not insistent.

“I’m comin’!”

She paused, ("Comin'...?" )

She closed her eyes and put a hand to her throat, enunciating.

“Come-ing. I’m coming.”

She took a moment to straighten her clothes, then opened the door to find a man standing on her porch, dressed in black. Her eyes zeroed in on the white collar fastened to his neck. Her face felt as hot as the sun.

The man smiled.

“Hi, are you Genevieve?”

There was a half-second delay between her brain and her mouth. Both were gummy.

“Yeah,” She said lamely. “Uh, Genie.”

“Let me introduce myself,” he put out his hand, which was dark-skinned and unnaturally smooth. She went to accept it but was thrown off because he’d introduced the left hand, not his right. She re-calibrated, but sensing her confusion the man offered his right. This went on a few more times, until they looked like a couple of Rock ‘Em Sock 'Em Robots in a row.

Finally he caught her with the right, his left clapping over her hand and holding it securely in both his own. They were very warm.

“I’m pastor Heck Warner.”

Flustered, Genie nodded more enthusiastically than necessary. “Oh. You must preach at that church up the road, huh?”

“I surely do, ma’am."

“Well, uh, would you like to come in?”

---

Basil wasn’t in the living-room. Before the pastor would have time to see it Genie whisked away her glass and went into the kitchen. He wasn’t there either. The fact that she didn’t know where he was made her nervous. He wasn't hard to miss but he definitely had a way of popping up where you least expected, kind of like a housecat.

“Uh, can I get you anything?” She called.

“Oh, whatever you have.”

s**t.

She rifled through the cabinets. She couldn’t find a single glass that didn’t have a cartoon character or a wine-stem on it. She settled on Flintstones. Only because time had worn Dino down to a purple smear that could plausibly be mistaken for flowers.

She didn’t know why she asked him inside. She wasn’t ready for guests. Sometimes she felt like a big pez-dispenser, spitting out sound-bytes to give people the impression she knew what she was doing. And movies and television insisted this was Good Neighbor 101. When the pastor comes by, you let him in and make small talk.

She filled the glass with tap-water and plodded back into the room. Somehow her footsteps sounded loud even on carpeting. The pastor had elected to sit in her armchair, not the couch. Handing the glass to him meant leaning over the coffee table. When she did, the neck of her shirt flopped down. It wasn't a particularly low-cut shirt, but it was big and baggy. The kind she did housework in. For a flash (pardon), her business was in his direct line of sight.

She scooped up the fabric quickly and prayed he didn’t notice, not that she could manage the eye contact to be sure. A combination of being buzzed and embarrassed made the distance between her behind and the couch feel a mile long. When she found it, she was overwhelmed by the wideness of the cushion. The abundance of space.

The pastor held his glass but didn’t drink. His expression was pleasant, but neutral.

Genie picked at her cuticles.

“So..." More silence. "Heck.”

He smirked. “Yes, you can imagine the ribbing I took in divinity school. I can show you my driver’s license.”

She raised a hand, “That's alright."

He had a sense of humor at least, but it did nothing for the total lack of rapport. The quiet in the house was deafening. Would it be rude to turn on the TV? Did he expect to be entertained?

"Soooo," She croaked, "what made you want to drop by?"

The pastor's eyes traveled the room.

"Well, I know it’s old-fashioned, but I always like to welcome new neighbors personally. You know, get to know their names and learn a little something about them. This has always been a very close neighborhood, I hope that doesn't frighten you."

Her stomach squeezed.

"No. Why should it?"

So. This wasn't just a social call.

People in these little neighborhoods always knew each other's business. They exchanged gossip like currency, shaming and exposing each other for juicier and better gossip. Making sure no one family was really any better off than another. You were only as respectable as your worst offense. Your schlubbiest family member.

Which meant, she realized with a sinking feeling, that there was no way of keeping a lid on her own situation for very long. No way of shading their neighbors from Basil's... indiscretions.

It would only take that first person who caught him roaming in the early hours, or setting off car alarms, or rooting through their trash like a raccoon. There was a school-bus stop at the end of their street. It would only take one shifty-eyed mother to see him sitting on the front porch with that lazy look about him. That incriminating lack of alertness and faculty.

They were talking about her right this minute. All those hours she spent unloading furniture from the trucks, they were huddled near the windows, peeking through the curtains. They were looking at the car she drove, the clothes she wore. Quietly judging. How big was her TV? How new was her sofa?

God. Forgetting about Basil. What about her indiscretions? Here she was, already half-tight in front of the local pastor during the daytime. Everybody knew clergymen were the worst gossips of all. She was well and totally screwed.

She could see that she’d been quiet for too long. The Pastor was looking at her in a prying sort of way now. Or maybe the muscles of his face just naturally arranged themselves into that mask of wholesome concern meant to draw out confession. She quickly changed the subject.

"So, I'm guessing you knew the Rayburns then?"

Something passed through his expression, but he must have thought better of speaking it aloud.

"Oh. Yes." He frowned. "I was so sad to hear about Franklin's passing. And so soon after Eva. I saw her often while she was in hospice... I used to bring her chrysanthemums for her room, from my own garden. Those were her favorites. Some people have taken to leaving them on the porch, you know, to pay their respects. I'm sure they won't do that anymore now that you've moved in, but if you happen to see any, well, you understand."

She nodded, “Of course.”

Just then she noticed something that made her heart stop.

The paperback was still on the coffee table, its cracked cover facing up. On it, a half-naked tart posed dramatically in the foreground, surrounded by tall menacing figures in dark robes. Over the past hour she’d learned more about that girl and those figures than she was sure she needed to. Mostly the location of birthmarks.

She'd brought the pastor’s attention to it, looking on in horror as he went to reach for it, almost in slow-motion.

He picked up on it instantly, making a vaguely reassuring gesture with his hand.

"Please! It’s okay. I'm the one who stopped by unannounced. And as I said," He turned it over to peek at the summary, shaking his head, "I knew the Rayburns a long, long time.” He glanced up at her in a way that suggested he often did so from above the lenses of spectacles. “I guess now I can finally say I never much cared for the man's taste in literature."

All the tension rushed out of Genie's body with the force of a landslide. A hand flew to her chest, but she had a limited control of her extremities. Her wrist was floppy, she smacked herself in the teeth. She couldn't help laughing it off in a way that sounded just a bit delirious. “Oh God, I had no idea what you were gonna think. I swear I'm not some kinda pervert.”

The pastor waved the book at her and set it back down. “I think you’ll find I’m not one to take myself so seriously. You can relax."

Somehow his saying that felt like permission granted. She settled into the couch, softening her up for his next lowball.

“So, is it only you here? Are you married?"

She managed a smile. “Is that an offer?”

He presented his left hand. “Afraid I’m spoken for. Any children?”

She pressed her lips together. Oh. How to answer that…

“Um, he’s around here somewhere, I just saw him…”

Just then, they both heard the sound of a door.

Never had Genie witnessed a holy man come closer to using the Lord’s name in vain than in the moment Pastor Warner set his eyes on Basil.

Once he'd come into the light Genie could tell he was in one of his states. His eyes were puffy and unfocused, his hair a snarl of bedhead. In one hand he had a cup they kept in the bathroom, and in the other he had some Tylenol. At least that explained where he'd spooked off to.

"There you are." It was awkward with him standing there so she beckoned him over, making room for him on the couch. "Uh, come meet the pastor, bub."

Basil looked at the pastor, then at Genie. He seemed agitated in an urgent kind of way. Like she was keeping him from somewhere important. Genie pulled at him with her eyes. His face glazed with grudging resignation as he dropped down beside her.

Right away Pastor Warner’s eyes went bouncing between them.

It was the same kind of look she used to get from her grandmother on one of her "weekend visits", which were often unannounced, thoroughly unpleasant, and longer than even the most casual definition of weekend. Genie could still feel those hard, tiny eyes moving over the six of them, lined up on the couch from biggest to smallest like unpacked nesting dolls. Then turning on their mother, curled nearby in her favorite chair like a snake in a sleeping-bag. Ashing gently into the carpet, long past caring.

Trying to see the resemblance.

At first she had to suppress the urge to laugh. It was a good impulse to have. She could tell it meant to be loud and sharp.

But he couldn't be serious, could he?

Her? And Basil?

She watched as he tossed back the aspirin and slurped from the bathroom-cup. The light was bad and her head was fuzzy, but in the moment she supposed he did sort of look like her. In the way two people begin to resemble each other when they've spent enough time in close quarters. Kind of like married people. Or cell-mates.

He had her dark hair and so-so complexion from staying indoors. The same shapeless clothes and bad posture. His features were foreign and blade-sharp, but only as sharp as if if they'd been cut from the feminine softness of Genie's own face, with her pinched nose and pointy chin. They had the same dark bags under their eyes. The same weariness about them of dealing with each other, themselves, and the world at large.

And it wasn't just physically. There was no question of her influence on him. In his faces and gestures. How he phrased certain things just the way she might, all their little inside jokes. He even hissed the same swears when he banged his elbow off a doorframe. Whatever her feelings in the matter, she was as much a part of him as the snake and the glass. And he was a part of her.

So okay. Whether she thought of him as her son or not was irrelevant. That was a ball of worms she’d untangle some other time. But just now she realized she was fine with letting people think that he was. She was fine with Pastor Warner thinking that. And somehow that felt like an important thing to know about herself.

Pastor Warner on the other hand was totally at a loss. He'd shrank back from them, his legs close together and clutching the Dino glass like there was an ejection button on it.

“Was it... a very difficult delivery?”

She caught his eyes going to Basil’s jagged wings.

“Much as I’d like to take credit,” She began, steering her mind away from images best unmentioned, “I guess you’d say he’s adopted." She swatted Basil's shoulder good-naturedly, to no reaction. "Difficult everything-else though.”

The pastor nodded like he understood, but Genie could tell he was more clueless than ever.

"It's a weird situation. See, he's a Raevan."

"Raven..."

"No," She drew the letters in the air with her finger. "R-a-e-v-a-n."

"Raevan."

"Yeah, that's it."

Well, he was making a better effort than most did by this point.

She went on, slowly, wondering how any man of faith would reconcile what she was getting ready to explain. She had to be careful. Nobody wanted to think they were living down the street from a modern-day Frankenstein.

"He was born in Durem, in a Lab. That's where they come from."

"Uh huh. And is he...?"

Genie squinted.

"Is he... what?" She blinked at the realization, "Oh, human! Is he human?"

The Pastor glanced away sheepishly.

She touched her mouth, "Well, uh. No. Not exactly... He can understand you if that's what you mean." She gestured in a left-ish direction. "Since he's here 'n' all..."

Could she make this any more awkward?

"Is that right." He murmured.

For the first time he looked at Basil dead-on.

Basil looked back at him.

The Pastor gathered himself, speaking slowly and carefully.

“So, Basil."

Basil frowned. He only heard his name drawn out like that when a situation was going poorly.

"How are you liking the neighborhood?”

He shrugged. “S’fine.”

The pastor's eyebrows arched. Like he wasn't expecting the response to be so casual. Maybe he expected him to talk like a caveman or something. In the third person, dropping prepositions.

He tried again.

“You go to school?”

“No.”

“I teach him.” Genie interrupted.

The pastor smiled patiently. “Oh, well that’s nice. You have a... job?”

“No.”

“I see…" There was a shade of discouragement in his voice. He was running out of soft questions. "Well that’s alright. You have any friends around here?”

Basil sighed loudly and looked away, bringing a close to the interrogation session. Genie wasn't sure who looked more defeated. She squeezed Basil's arm but he tugged it away.

Those were pretty much all the touchstones of an interesting and inhabited life, and in all of them Basil had a fat lot of nothing. He went nowhere and saw nobody. Always nice to be reminded.

Genie had to rescue this somehow. If she didn't, Basil would take the first chance to run.

He'd become so skittish since he'd come back from the jungle just a few weeks ago. She'd given some serious thought to putting off the move until his demeanor improved. She didn't know what he had seen or what he was going through, but whatever it was, she knew that leaving him alone to cope with it wasn't an option. Basil liked to isolate when he was troubled, and when he isolated, he dissolved.

Left unchecked, Basil would go as far inside himself as he could go. And the deeper he went, the harder it was to dig him back out. She couldn't let that happen again. She had to take a new approach. She decided what he needed was some momentum. A distraction. A project he could throw himself into. Any reason to stay active and engaged with the real world. Not that he looked either of those things in the moment.

She startled to hear him speak up.

"So, this is great but," He rolled his hand, "I need to..." He glanced at the hallway, "There's something I..."

He looked at the pastor, making a vague gesture near his head. Then dropped the pretense completely with a sigh.

"Bye."

Pastor Warner waved awkwardly, "Oh! Bye. Nice meeting you."

"Sure."

He lifted off the couch, taking the bathroom cup with him. Genie winced at the sound of his door shutting. She'd lost him.

A moment passed in chilly silence. In the corner of her eye she saw the Pastor begin to stand. She stood up with him. "I'm so sorry. He's not usually like that to guests. We've been going through some stuff, and with the move and everything—"

The Pastor waved his hand to cut her off. "No no, don't apologize. I can read a room, and I think I should just give you folks some privacy. Sorry to have interrupted your day."

Genie frowned.

The Pastor moved quickly now. "You've been a lovely host. I look forward to seeing you two around the neighborhood."

Genie followed him to the front door, doing everything but grabbing his arm to keep him there. She'd dreaded bringing him inside at first, but now she didn't want him to leave. Not like this.

"Well uh, feel free to drop by another time! You know, after we've had some time to settle in. We'll have dinner or something."

The Pastor stepped out into the autumn daylight and tipped his chin at her. "Of course."

Genie leaned in the doorway, watching him go. Across the street, she was sure she saw some curtains moving.

Points: 17

 

[Twintastic]

Genie had the thermostat cranked up high for their first night in the new house. They were experiencing an unseasonal cold snap and she'd heard on the radio that the Nag's Head River was expected to freeze tonight.

Around 10PM they heard a gassy whooshing sound, followed by an audible click. The house was heated by an old and temperamental oil furnace, set to a timer that automatically lowered between midnight and morning. This was not that. Genie stood on the couch and held her hand up to the nearest vent. It was still putting out heat, but the current was sluggish.

She threw a glance at Basil, who had stopped weaving a tune on his theremin. (A nicer, newer one than what had been destroyed in the jungle.)

“Uh oh.”

“That’s not good.”

“I’m on it.”

The furnace was in the hall closet. Genie checked the levels twice, even though Mrs. Valdez had assured her the reserve had been topped off a week ago. After letting it sit a few minutes she touched the switch, the furnace roaring to life again, only to peter out with another click. She tried this a few more times, then came back to the livingroom, where Basil read the bad news from the little wrinkle in her forehead.

She checked the time on her phone. It was already pretty late and an hour-ish drive back to Durem. Their old apartment hadn’t been leased out yet, so they were free to stay there tonight if they had to, but she’d been fighting off yawns since dinnertime and wasn't sure she could stay alert on the highway.

Worst-case scenario they could rent a hotel, but out of a mixture of laziness and cheapness she decided against it. The house would be cold for Basil, but only uncomfortably so. He certainly wouldn't be thrilled, but they still had electricity, and plenty of things to keep warm. He'd survive.

She realized his heavy bedding wouldn't work for him, since his body didn't give off enough heat to insulate him. They agreed he could take the electric blanket, and she could layer up with some of their thicker quilts.

They retired at 11-ish where they said their good-nights, and she went across the hall to her room, where the brass doorknob was cold enough to burn.

This room had belonged to the daughters and had an antiquity about it that was charming in the daytime, but majorly creepy at night. The walls were papered with florals, the pattern raised somewhat and giving the vines and tendrils a shadowed, veiny appearance in the dimness. She hated the carpet, which was a grotesque shade of skinned-knee pink. There was a track up the center of the room where it was worn down to the canvas matting, as though many feet had paced that particular stretch of floor. She could tell it once designated the place between where two frilly beds had been. Now it poked from under her twin mattress like an obscene white tongue.

With some lacy curtains and a rocking chair it was the ideal décor for two little girls, but much too small and babyish for the teenagers they'd become. Much less a woman in her late thirties. To add a more adult influence she’d transplanted two night-tables from the Rayburns' bedroom set, both made of a dark and oily wood. Half-crescents from a coffee-mug were bitten into the varnish. Looking at them made Genie feel strange. For a flash of an instant, she could have sworn the Rayburns were still in the house. It wasn’t a scary or violating feeling, like ghosts. More like some residual affect of them lingering in the walls.

The room felt more foreign by the second. Displacing. Like she was a distant troubled cousin whose parents had shipped her off to live with Eva and Frank until the rumors died down in her hometown. Now it was that queer part of the evening when everyone has said goodnight and the Rayburns were leaving her alone to get settled. She could practically hear Eva crooning through a crack in the door, “We’ll be right down the hall if you need anything. Sleep tight.” Then later they’d lie in bed together and discuss her situation in sympathetic tones she could eavesdrop on if she stayed very still.

She startled when she realized she was doing exactly that.

She shook her head. The papers were drawn and the ink was dry. This was her house now. There was nobody else here but Basil and the silverfish.

She jerked back the covers on her bed. The sheets were glaring white, as cold and smooth as a slab of marble. The exact opposite of inviting. She braced herself, but before she could slide underneath there was an arctic gust of wind that battered the house, rattling the windowpanes.

Nopenopenope.

Basil’s mattress was a king. They’d share.

---

After they said their good-nights (again) Genie set an alarm on her phone, snapped off the lamp, and climbed in next to Basil where they lay back-to-back. Both pretended to tolerate the arrangement in a “circumstances demand” sort of way, but secretly they were grateful for the other’s company.

Basil had been in a friendlier, more conciliatory mood since the pastor had visited. They'd spent most of the evening together in a comfortable but conversation-less accord. Genie reading, Basil composing. Still, she'd noticed his music from earlier had a droning repetitiveness to it that told her his mind was wandering. Basil wasn't a deep thinker by any stretch, but he had a way of passing through every bad neighborhood in his brain if you let him. Landing him in exactly the sort of lukewarm and preoccupying condition he found himself in now. This vague angst that drove Genie nuts.

There was still something up with him. He'd just decided it wasn't directed at her anymore.

She was faintly cognizant of his dull weight beside her. Although her mind had a clear picture of Basil lying there, his body was cold and still enough to seem inanimate, and without looking at him felt less substantial than an entire person. More like a lazy student had left their backpack slumped over on the bed. The image summoned up memories from her own childhood, when she’d trudge up to her room and collapse on top of the covers after a defeating day of school. Weirdly, she kept having to fight the urge to reach across and push him onto the floor.

He hadn’t moved from a fetal position.

“Give it a minute.”

“Why’s it so cold?”

“I told you, the furnace is acting up. I have to wait until tomorrow to see if Mickey will come look at it.”

He fetched a long sigh. A whine couldn't be too far behind.

“We’ll be okay,” She soothed. “Just hang in there.”

Several minutes went by. She drew her knees up and sandwiched her hands between the thickest part of her thighs, trying to warm them up faster. Her knee found a ridge under his sheets, where the mattress ended and the duct-tape started. Basil was a light sleeper, and a fitful one. He was always rolling around and changing positions, ventilating his mattress in the process.

It still amazed her sometimes that anyone at the Lab could make that big of an oversight. That anyone could create this sensitive, complex creature—this marvel of magic and science—that couldn’t do something as basic as sleep in a bed or sit in a car without destroying it. He was like one of those frog-faced dogs that come from a flawless pedigree and sell for $1500 a puppy, but couldn't breathe through their own goddamn nose.

She hoped she was a safe distance away.

“I’m hungryyy.” He moaned.

“I told you to eat something while we were in town.”

“Nothing good. It’s too quiet out here.”

“Well yeah, we're not in the city anymore, bub."

After a beat of silence her eyes half-opened on the unfamiliar configuration of shadows in his room.

“Oh. Feeling homesick, huh?”

Basil said nothing, but there was a scratchy sound on his pillow. A nod. Possibly a shrug.

Sympathy curled in her chest. “I'm not surprised.” She turned her head slightly, acknowledging him over her shoulder, “I was so happy to finally leave that fleabag apartment, but you lived there your whole life."

Literally. His whole life. All four years of it.

"I keep forgetting you’re not actually all that old.” she added, more to herself.

Basil hawed at that, “Old enough.”

“Says you.”

Neither said anything else for a while, but both seemed to know the other hadn't fallen asleep. The blanket was starting to warm up now. Genie could finally unfurl her legs and take the pressure off her knees. Her feet were so frozen there was a pins-and-needles feeling as they started to thaw. Basil must have felt it too because he seemed to soften beside her, like butter reaching room-temperature.

“So, what’s next?” He finally asked, “Does this mean you’re buying a bigger house after this one someday?”

Genie felt like this question was important. Basil hadn't been against the move per say, but he hadn't shown an abundance of enthusiasm for it either. Mostly she got the impression he thought it'd been... unnecessary? He liked their apartment. He was comfortable there. Now he was wondering if he should let himself get comfortable here.

“Nah, I don’t think so." She tossed her eyes to the ceiling, considering the water stain. They'd have to see about painting that over. "I guess next would be for you to grow up and get a place of your own.” She sucked her teeth self-assuredly, a grin at the edges of her voice, “But we won’t have to worry about that.”

“Why not?” It came out so soft. Young-sounding in a way that made her heart utterly swell.

“Cause you’re not going anywhere if I have something to say about it.” She turned over, hissing in his ear, ”Never ever.”

His tone dropped, maturing instantly. “Genie.”

“I’m serious! I could wash your smelly old sweatshirts and duct-tape your bed until it’s time to fit me for dentures!” She prodded a spot between his shoulderblades, which she knew to be very ticklish. “Face it. You’re stuck with me, buster. Foreeever and ever.”

“Stop.”

A finger squiggled into the back of his armpit. “Oh, I’ll never stop.”

He flung the covers off, “Oh my God.”

He leapt out of bed, his wings swinging a bit with the effort and forcing Genie's offending fingers into retreat. She caught sight of his face in a bit of moonlight and saw he was grinning. He corrected too late, leveling a look of mock indignity at her that just came off constipated.

She propped up on her elbow, laughing, "Where you goin'?"

He picked a flannel nightshirt up off the floor and punched his arms through the sleeves, layering up a bit before going out into the cold hallway. "I'm actually am starving. Be right back."

"Okay. Be quick."

---

Out in the hallway Basil felt his smile drain away, replaced by a squirmier expression that hurt his mouth to make. He paused at a door to his right, wincing at the brightness as he stepped inside and turned on the light. The bathroom was a little more spacious than the one in their apartment, but not by much. All the fixtures were smooth and powder-pink, like they were carved out of soap. The bathtub was messily caulked around the edges, the soap-dish rusted into the wall. The sink was clean and unremarkable. The toilet was a toilet.

He chanced a look in the mirror on the medicine cabinet, hopeful, his own face staring back.

His face.

His flat fishy eyes. His thick brows, furrowed above them.

He stared that way a while until he was satisfied with whatever he found (or didn't find) there. He snapped off the light and went back into the hall toward the livingroom. He'd noodle around on his theremin a bit. He wasn't as hungry as he'd said. Restless more like. Stressed.

Snacking helped. It was a comfort.

He'd be insatiable if he ever got a proper stomach.

The Other had been laying low since their last argument. The one that was-or-wasn't about clothes. This wasn't the first time he'd hung back and left Basil in the lurch like this, but since they'd been separated in the jungle it made Basil increasingly anxious when it happened. He felt sort of stranded without him. Rudderless. Unsure of how to spend his time. Lonely in a way he wasn't used to.

He wondered idly if Genie would let him snuggle when he got back to his room. He'd sort of wanted to, for the warmth, but for some reason he'd been afraid to ask. They were pretty affectionate with one another, but cuddling in bed would be a first. It might be the thing that was finally too weird.

Even if it were, he knew Genie wouldn't tell him no.

She did love him. Truly.

He affirmed this with the new theremin she'd bought him, wiggling his hand experimentally between the antennae.

He supposed someone had to.

Points: 12

 

[Twintastic]

♬ War - Bruce Haack

“Where do you go?” he'd asked once.

(“When.” )

“When you... go." Basil iterated unhelpfully.

The Other said nothing, prompting him to try again.

"I can tell when you’re not watching me. It's like you’re in there, but not behind our eyes. And I can't really find you."

("Mm." ) The Other hummed. His hums were like perfume, layered, with discernible top notes and base notes that lingered in empty rooms and memories long after he'd gone. This one was fragrant. Coy, considering, and yet somehow a bit bored all at once.

"I’m just curious...”

(“I imagine," ) The Other began carefully, ("I go wherever it is you would go.” )

A petulant sniff.

(“If you ever took the time to visit.” )

---

After blowing off the pastor, the first thing Basil did was check the closet like The Other had told him to.

And... he'd been confused.

Well, not at first. First he was amazed. Then annoyed. Briefly terrified. Then... just confused.

Weirdly, and without needing to be told how or where or why, he knew to dig his fingers into a bit of carpeting near the back. A corner lifted easily, exposing hardwood underneath. The movement had been fluid and unhesitating, as though his hands held the memory of someone else doing this.

They'd never talked about it before, but Basil had always assumed The Other had one somewhere: a secret stash. He entertained it with all the unstudied humor of an urban legend. There'd be rubies and diamonds, gold coins of course. The skull of Jimmy Hoffa. The other glove. The second gunman. The fountain of youth. The ark of the covenant. The Pulp Fiction briefcase.

All that good stuff.

Actually seeing it though? Actually looking at it? It was more akin to seeing a cryptid or something. Surreal. Vaguely menacing. Decidedly the opposite of fun.

He'd gotten the part about the gold coins right. Sort of. A tidy stack of twenties held together in a clip. Basil didn't count them out—didn't dare touch them—but knew there had to be at least a hundred dollars there. Not a boggling amount, but certainly not nothing.

So The Other was hoarding money. Questions stuttered through his head, rapid-fire. (Since when? For what? And where the hell did it come from? He doubted very much The Other was working. Did he steal it? Was it Genie's?) He shook his head. Just when he thought he'd finally made sense of a thing, somewhere a door opened and out tumbled twenty things that defied any and all attempts at sense-makery. Story of his life.

There was a ring of keys. He didn't know enough to even guess at what they opened, though he paused at just how many there were. Basil couldn't think of a single person who would trust him enough to give him a key, or anything he owned so private or valuable he needed to lock it with one. And yet The Other probably had a dozen or so here. He was sure not all of them were given to him willingly, or knowingly.

Between this and the stack of cash he knew he should be concerned. Suspicious at the very least. But if he were being totally honest with himself (and in this unguarded moment he was), he actually found The Other's resourcefulness to be... weirdly comforting? Impressive? Glad a guy like that was on his side? Well, in the way they were always technically on each other's side by virtue of being lashed to each other since birth.

There was a stack of albums. This troubled him the least of anything he'd seen so far. Enough that he felt comfortable placing his hands on them. There'd been a time not that long ago when they'd kept their music together, on the same shelf. Until The Other had gotten fed up with Basil's sloppy organizing and rough handling that one day he just sort of announced he was moving his half of the collection somewhere Basil couldn't ruin it.

Baz's feelings were only a little hurt by that. Okay. Maybe a lot hurt.

He was nostalgic as he skimmed through the titles. He'd expanded. A lot of these he didn't recognize. Some he couldn't even pronounce. The Other had definitely stolen some of these from the Rayburns' storage unit. (So he wasn't above nicking s**t. Good to know.) Something uncomfortable passed through him at that but subsided quickly. Oh well. Dead people probably had better things to do than listen to Pete Seeger. Though, the more he thought about it, their presence may have baffled him more than the money did.

He didn't remember them switching out at any point. They had a system for that now. Or, they were supposed to. Was it possible he'd gone there after the fact, without Basil knowing? Where did he find the time? How did he get over the storm-fence? Did one of those keys belong to the unit?

Suddenly his blood ran cold (well, colder) at the thought of Genie finding out somehow. Far be it from Basil to judge The Other's machinations, being literally the sneakiest person he knew, but in the moment this struck him as a hilariously bad hiding place. Where had he hid this stuff before, in the apartment?

Oh, wait.

He'd had to move this before.

Right. Of course this wasn't his regular spot. Major duh. He only put this stuff here temporarily for Basil's sake. To show him... whatever he'd put in here to show him. The Other would definitely find a new hiding spot as soon as they switched out. He probably already had someplace in mind. Maybe several places. Maybe he rotated like a squirrel with a cache of acorns.

That was disappointing. He'd wanted this to be a sign The Other was starting to trust him more. Maybe it was for the best. Basil wasn't sure he could handle the pressure of knowing this was here. It had only been five minutes and already he felt like he was sweating bullets. It'd been nice to get a peek behind the curtain though. The Other had been very generous (in his way) to give him that.

The album he held in his hands now was called The Electric Lucifer. For some reason it had stuck out to him among the others. At a glance the art seemed like your typical psychedelia, which Basil liked, but had also consumed enough of to tell apart. The images weren't Tantric or vaguely Oriental like most. It wasn't your uncle's blacklight poster of wizards and topless women either.

A horned man stood in the center with a somewhat mournful expression, head haloed with sound-waves. Two sinister figures in orange that mirrored each other in silhouette and grimace. Flames licking up from the bottom into Boschian demons. A wingless, multi-headed dragon. A hand holding up four fingers, the thumb tucked in a gesture that seemed significant.

A sticky note attached to the back told him (in that same curt, telegrammy language) this had been what The Other had intended Basil to find from the beginning. Then the number 5, circled aggressively with sharpie. He checked the sleeve. Track 5 was just called War.

So, he just wanted him to listen to an album? His eyes narrowed. That... seemed like an incredibly benign request for all this sneaking around. Too benign.

He coaxed the record out of the dust jacket, and he felt the familiar heat of The Other on it. The kind that ordinarily said 'paws off' but in this instance seemed encouraging. A sheet of notebook paper fell out with it, and he blinked at what he saw.

Notes.

Not like, observations. Music notes.

Bars, ties, a time signature—holy s**t. He was studying this piece.

Until now he would have strained to describe The Other as much of an artist. He'd never shown any interest in helping Basil with his projects, and he shrugged off all of his attempts to collaborate. Even when he fed, it was with the perfunctory attitude of someone breathing or blinking. Just fuel. Basil wasn't sure he'd ever heard The Other sing—Wasn't even sure he could. But this? This was huge. ******** earth-shattering. The realization hit him like a brick.

The Other could read music.

Basil could barely read sheet music.

Oh he was listening to this right now.

He flipped the carpet back over The Other's holiest of holies, sparing one last glance before it was gone for good. Then it was straight to the turntable. In good light you could easily make out the little groove of silence between tracks and drop the needle on a specific song you wanted to play. He was tempted to listen to the whole album, but first he'd have to leave and make sure Genie didn't need him for the rest of the evening, and he was not going anywhere.

He stood by, rapt as it began. He identified each sound as they appeared. Vocoders. Synthesizers. Ethereal tones. (Was this all electronic?) About a minute in there was a weird transition into a boppy little tune. Goofy, but sort of martial. Creepy. (Was this really what The Other was into?)

Before he could form a solid opinion of the piece a child's voice sighed out to him, "I don't want to play anymore."

Then the carpet was hurtling toward his face.

Points: 9

 

[Twintastic]

Quote:

Wherever Basil was, it was white and infinite.

That word seemed to carry special emphasis. Infinite.

He was aware of his eyes before he was aware of the rest of him. He blinked. Over and over and over and over.

Quote:

He feared that maybe he had gone blind again, but that didn't seem correct. Before, it had all been dark and contained, and no matter where he was, his hearing was able to paint a picture of the place he might be. Blindness had just been a physical limiter on his ability to perceive the world around him. Here, there wasn't any world at all, and he had every ability to perceive it in its naked state.

One moment he was alone. And then he wasn't.

“Boo.”

The Other was there, appearing with all the suddenness of a dream and none of the whimsy. At Basil he raised his arm and made the gesture from the album. Four fingers pressed together into a paw. Thumb, artfully tucked.

“'In ye third place goeth ye Great Sign of Koth, which sealeth ye Gates and guardeth ye pathways.'” He recited with affected gravity and great ceremony.

Basil goggled at him.

“What the ******** the ******** Other shrugged, humor dropping from his expression. Reptilian indifference was left.

“I don't know. I think I'm going through a phase.”

Boy, was he ever.

He was wearing some kind of full-body garment that was oily and confining, like a catsuit. A little fruity for Basil’s tastes, although it did have a hood on it much like his own. At first he assumed it was black, but on closer inspection it felt less like a color produced by dyes and earthly manufacture, and more like a reaction of some kind. Not static, but a rejection of their environment. A wearable photo-negative.

Somehow, without needing to be told, Basil understood the odd choice of fashion. Preservation. Nothing his brother wanted touching him. Contaminating him. Here he was pure. Whole and self-realized.

Whoah and suddenly very close. Way-too-very-much close. Basil didn't remember him moving at all to close the distance between them.

Quote:

It was intimidating to travel in a limitless space. With no landmarks for reference. Nothing to suggest you had gone one step, or ten miles. No weather, no temperature. No light source, no shadows. He ventured a few steps. Little ones that soon gained in confidence. Was it possible to get lost when you were nowhere?

He'd started circling him now and Basil really wished he wouldn't because ******** that was disorienting. He'd been trying very hard up to this point not to move. He felt like he was tumbling in a spaceship, no gravity. No way to get his bearings. No way of knowing where was up or down.

The Other's eyes fastened onto his, and they held him there. Basil very distinctly felt snapped in place, like a seatbelt. "I know that look. You get used to it."

A bit late, Basil was struck by the realization that he could actually see The Other while they talked. And The Other could see him.

But wait, that's right. They'd seen each other before.

In the jungle.

Quote:

He couldn't help staring. This was the first clear look he'd ever had of The Other. The first truly accurate representation of the presence he shared his life with.

Although for all intents and purposes identical to Basil's, The Other's face had different lines and shadows in it. The way the same suit might look flattering on one man, and comically baggy on another. It was a bit thinner and more severe, with the motionless eyes of a painting. He had a high forehead that implied intelligence, and hair cropped closely to the scalp in a way that was vaguely regal. Like a young Caesar without his laurels.

Basil didn't know what he looked like, or how The Other saw him to be. For all he knew, he was just a brain on a stick, or a talking rabbit, or a nebulous cloud of gas.

Grasping the opportunity, Basil started looking The Other over as well. There weren't any new physical details he could make out, no surprises. But being this close to him he realized something was bothering him.

He was picking up an odor from The Other's clothes he wasn't sure he noticed the first time. Well, maybe it was an odor. (A feeling? A taste?) He was quickly discovering senses worked differently here. Wires were crossing and uncrossing, leaving everything synesthetic, phantosmic and lexical all at once.

This situation called for big unwieldy words like that. All of them. A whole dictionary's worth.

Olfactory fatigue. Basil was familiar with the concept, if not the term. The simple fact that people rarely knew what they smelled like to others because the brain automatically sifted out those details too redundant to bother with. It knew you had a scent, it just rarely made you aware of it. Here, he was. The smell was himself.

Honestly between the eggy sulfur of volcanic soil and their tendency to go unwashed, Basil was not charitable enough to have assumed they were not the stankiest of the stank. The absolute ripest. And yet The Other, ever contrary, was not. He was subtler than that. Natural. Something like skin and ash. Soothing, not because it was especially pleasant, but because it was so damn familiar.

He decided he liked it.

"Thank you." The Other replied flatly. He was touching his chin, like he was searching his thoughts for something. Apparently he'd found it because suddenly he clapped his hands, startling Basil out of whatever aromatic haze he'd wandered into.

“Well, I guess it works!” He announced, as if to himself.

"Wait, what works?"

--

Set change.

The space he found himself in wasn't the infinite whiteness of before, but he had trouble understanding the features that made it distinct from it.

Literally, he couldn't understand it.

There were walls and a floor now, and they were colors. Colors. Plural. It felt like his brain was inventing new ones on the fly, and they were alive and shifting. He got the impression of rich, monarchial hues. A shade he hazarded to call blurplereddish. He knew he was in a chair, but it was only his mind's approximation of what a chair felt like. Neither comfortable or uncomfortable. Just a shape holding his body into a sitting, upright position.

He must not have had a very clear idea of it because when he tried to turn around and look at it, his ability to perceive it sort of stuttered. Flickered out of the way, like trying to focus on a floater in his eye. The sensation was unbelievably frustrating, so he trained his eyes forward. He was at a table, or some similarly flat surface, and it was long. Miles and miles long, but in a way that felt manageable. Like it was really only a few feet. Like if he reached out his arm he could easily touch the other end.

Basil tried to find The Other's eyes across the sea of table. Something to ground him in this moment.

The Other was reduced to a floating head on the horizon, mounted on a bodily outline. The impression of movement. Basil realized then that the suit wasn’t black, white, or anything, but drew its color from its surroundings. He realized also, raising the hood would have rendered him completely invisible. For some reason that made Basil uneasy. Like there were hidden dangers here The Other felt the need to conceal himself from. He wanted to ask but it's not what came out.

“You did all this?” It was both a question and a statement.

The Other threw up an eyebrow, “Why, you want the name of my decorator?”

They didn't have to strain to hear each other. They had supernaturally good hearing of course, but for the length of the table Basil still would have felt a compulsion to shout. The fact that he didn't have to was humbling, but with a squirmy desperate edge, like the urge to rip a scream in a library.

Basil didn't have a response to that, but it confirmed a suspicion he'd been having since he got here. Wherever—whatever—this room was, it was of The Other's making. A space he'd put together himself for just this moment. An entertaining space, but also... a deciding space? Like they were two diplomats, discussing world affairs.

Holy s**t. He was sitting in his brother's war room.

Two things stuck out to him in this moment. First, the ease with which he found he could predict The Other's moods and motives. An extra, second intuition. Second, his increasing comfort with thinking of The Other as his brother. Decidedly a brother. Not something more abstract and elastic. Not friend, not presence, not spirit, not—

“I haven’t offered you a drink.”

“Huh?”

The Other snapped his fingers. Pay attention, please.

Without Basil realizing he had started nudging a goblet toward him, with just the tippiest-tips of his fingers. Naturally, it stopped right in front of him.

The Other settled comfortably back into his seat. (Why did Basil get the impression it was nicer than his?)

“A good host is attentive to the needs of his guests. You seem like you could use one.”

Basil stared at it like it held all the secrets of the universe. It didn't. It was just a cup. A fake weird imaginary brain cup. A chipped coffee mug at one angle, a heraldic chalice at another. A beautiful shade of goldishblackishreddish.

“Guest.” Basil repeated, like this was the first time he'd ever heard the word. Then he chuckled, because this was all becoming just too much. “I think you mean roomie, don't you?”

Grasping for any comfort, any stability at all, he threw his elbow on a side-table that appeared beside him. Each leg a miniature sculpture of Atlas hoisting the world above their shoulders. He couldn't help but roll his eyes at that. His brother, the ******** martyr.

He didn't have time to stop and wonder how he knew who Atlas was because The Other leveled a dark look at him that compelled him to remove it. Now.

“Oh no,” He ground out, “Not here."

Basil was lifting the goblet to his mouth. He didn't remember reaching to pick it up, but apparently he had. Maybe because he could tell The Other had been expecting him to?

Basil knew he had his own free will here, and yet... it seemed like whatever The Other wanted to happen was strangely easier to convince himself to do. A passive exchange of influence and autonomy that had always existed between them in some form, but now seemed to take on a whole new life.

Basil tipped the goblet while he reflected on this, and felt a crispy sensation brush against his lips. A dry smell like mold and moss and old parchment. He knew what it was without looking. He flung the goblet away from him, revolted as a shower of dead flies tumbled out onto the not-floor.

Basil looked at The Other, beseeching.

His face was terrifyingly blank. “I didn’t do that.”

And Basil knew he was telling the truth.

Points: 9
(Adjusted for quotes)

 

[Twintastic]

Basil stirred to the sound of knocking.

His eyes creaked open and it was grainy-dark. Scratchy fibers. Pressure on his nose and cheek.

Ah. He was on the floor.

He braced his hands against the squishy carpet and attempted a push-up. His arms were strong and compliant, but his balance betrayed him. He felt spinny and barfy. He chanced a look around anyway, finding his depth perception was off too. Like everything was slightly to the left of where it was supposed to be. He actually knew what to do for this one. Experience taught him to find the tip of his nose with his eyes.

It worked, and things lined up again. Became solid and substantial again. All except for a fuzzy sound that was pouring from the turntable on his dresser. The record was still spinning, but only put out a haunted, ambient silence. He hated that sound. It tasted like the pauses of a conversation, hanging on the edges of sentences. With great effort he pulled himself upright and practically slapped the needle off.

What happened? How did he get on the floor?

More knocking. The sound chipped away at the bedrock, bit by bit. Like an archaeologist uncovering the fossilized, primordial thing that had turned into his brain. He touched a hand to his head, a slight rugburn on his temple stinging from the salt in his skin. (Honestly he should just start leaving cushions around.)

He'd just come back from somewhere.

He was remembering in fragments, but not easily, and not in any way he could retain or examine for longer than a moment. Had it all just been a dream? It had felt so much more certain than that, more intense. A mutant déjà vu that told him with absolute certainty he had lived through something he knew he hadn't. Something he had experienced in a fundamentally different way than he experienced—his hand groped for his dresser, finding meaningfulness in the cheap particleboard—this.

He realized The Other wasn't hastening to explain. This was usually about the time he chimed in to fill the gaps in his understanding, like his own private Clippy. Basil scanned the back of his eyes, searching. Finding nothing. Still, there was some remnant of him lingering in the air. The Electric Lucifer was there on the floor where he'd left it. It pulsed at him with an energy that felt distinctly cursed.

The Other had been there, in the maybe-not-a-dream. It wasn't unusual for him to be in Basil's dreams— in some fake-dream-form, he rushed to remind himself. No more than it was for Genie, or Mickey, or Lola, or any random stranger or Raevan to be there. But this version of The Other had felt so real. It had talked to him. Said something important. Very unlike a dream, it felt like there were repercussions and consequences that extended from it to his actual life.

He finally checked his watch. The trip had only taken maybe forty minutes. He hadn't even lost the whole hour.

He got the distinct impression he was missing something. Not unusual when you lost giant tracks of time on a regular basis like he did. In a way the confusion was comfortable, so that's where he finally settled. Into a smooth, tranquilizing ignorance. It was easier to navigate than the pangs of almost-knowing that had come before it.

At this time Genie opened his bedroom door, poking her head inside. "Hey, everything okay in here?"

Basil turned at her with a glassy, ambiguous expression.

"Uh huh." He didn't sound convinced.

"Okay well uh, I'm heading into town for lunch. I was going to try that barbecue place. The Feedbag or whatever."

"The Bit." Basil corrected, not sure where he'd pulled that particular bit of knowledge from. If you asked him he wasn't sure he could have told you his own name.

"Right, yeah." She looked apologetic. "Did you wanna come with or...?"

Basil looked up and studied the water stain for a moment. From this angle it kind of looked like a toad.

"Okay."

---

Genie poked at the gray meat in her pulled-pork slider. She'd sobered up since this afternoon but drinking always piqued her appetite. Gave her a craving for the sloppy and greasy, and The Bit did not disappoint on either front. She glanced across the booth at Basil, currently deflecting their waitress' attempts to bring him sweet tea or potato skins with all the finesse of someone dancing with a mop.

He kept gesturing at his lack of lower body like she'd get the hint, but couldn't seem to get his point across because now she was asking him if he wanted a booster seat. Maybe she thought he was disabled or something.

"Get him the tea." she injected. "And a placemat with the crayons."

He gave her a merciful expression.

Mealtimes with Basil were never boring. They could be comfortable, and calm, and homey, but they were never boring. Despite his disinclination for human food, he seemed to enjoy hanging around while she ate. Not just in front of the TV, where they talked and whooped and laughed at bad talk-shows, but even when she had "proper" meals in restaurants and at the table. He'd hear the microwave hum or the gas-stove clicking and there he was.

She chose to find it endearing, telling herself he just enjoyed her company. She knew it to be true, but sometimes she also saw what looked very close to appreciation in his eyes. Like he was fascinated by her wholeness. The foreign workings of her fully-formed body compared to his middling third. The way she actually had weight when she sat down in a chair. The rhythm of her footfalls, her obedience to gravity and balance. Even the slight pooch of her belly when she'd tucked into a big dinner and sprawled out on the couch to digest. All the things he could look forward to some day but for now could only guess at.

He had that scrutinizing look now, but it wasn't directed at her. Chewing, Genie followed his eyes over her shoulder and instantly went double-chinned.

The décor was shooting in the direction of southwestern and fell short somewhere between the Ohio River and a five-year-old's cowboy themed birthday party. Wagon wheels, ladderback chairs, too many cacti— You get the idea. There were taxidermy animals about. At the front was an armadillo clutching an empty bottle of Dos Equis. A polecat lurked near the bathrooms with a leering, walleyed expression. And of course, near their table, there just had to be a stuffed rattlesnake. Poised to strike.

Oh God. It had a little cowboy hat on.

There were a million reasons she should have turned back and expected to see dawning horror on his face. The promise of a long and awkward conversation on the drive home. She expected to see those things, but didn't. He seemed unfazed actually. Too much. She might have even seen a flicker of interest...

No.

No no no, a thousand times no.

There was a lot she put up with from him. Not just the usual Basil things, the weird and scary stuff. There was the rock tumbler. The clownish orchestra of zoops and zaps from his keyboard. The 4AM yodeling. She tolerated those things because they were tangentially related to his essence, and although she wasn't entirely convinced he needed to do all of them to survive, at least he was expressing himself.

She absolutely, unequivocally drew the line at dead things.

"Heysowhatareyouworkingon?" She asked on the edge of a scream.

That got his attention. His eyes swiveled back to her and he blinked, once.

"Oh. Uh, not much." He stole one of her dinner rolls and started pulling it apart. Tweezing off little chunks and rolling them between his fingers. Just something to do with his hands. "I finally got some good samples of Cash."

"Who?"

"That dog down the street from us? That's his name."

Oh, the bloodhound. For a split second she wondered how he could know that, but her mind filled in the blanks. He must have picked up their neighbor calling them inside for food. She grunted in the affirmative.

"Yeah. Anyway I've been listening real close and I think I could make him talk."

"What, like, throw your voice?" She leaned on an elbow. She wasn't usually this privy to his plans. Basil had a habit of prodding conversations along with nods and silences. Not to be unfriendly, but because he rarely seemed to think what he had to say was very important or interesting. Oddly, right now he seemed almost grateful for the opportunity.

"Nah, that stuff's easy."

She smiled. If you say so.

"So, you know I can do people impressions, but I think if I take the—" he rolled the roll in his hand in the general direction of words like 'pitch' and 'timbre' and 'tonality' (she was amazed he still didn't know the terms for things he had such an intimate grasp on)— "stuff in his bark, I could apply that to a human voice. Make him talk."

"Ohhh, I get it." He was saying he could take the qualities in Cash's howling and translate them to a human equivalent. What Cash would sound like if he were a person. "That's actually really clever. I bet you could charge for that. Make a mint."

She'd gone back to her slider, dousing it with vinegar. "You could record little personalized messages and stuff, charge by the word. People are weird as all-hell about their pets."

Basil shrugged, a little sheepishly. "I don't know about all that. I just thought it'd be fun to get it on an album." He threw up his eyebrows, "Just think. Me and Cash, dropping the next hot single. We could buy ten houses."

There was a pause, and inside of that pause Genie's expression went all watery, "An album? Baz, that's the first time you ever talked about an actual album."

It was true. Baz was a creative dynamo, prolific as a songwriter and artist. But he was also in a perpetual state of editing, and his own worst critic. He still made things, started things, but almost never finished them. Either losing interest or abandoning them when he inevitably convinced himself it would flop. Genie was a supportive guardian, but she was also realistic. Up until now the thought of him putting out an album had almost been like a joke between them. As likely and ambitious for him as building a skyscraper.

He looked stricken, round-eyed, like he'd admitted something he hadn't meant to. He panicked and stuffed the entire roll in his mouth. Not eating or chewing, just corking up his big stupid face.

Genie laughed and swatted at him, "Stooooop."

He colored a little, bending down and ejecting a moist wad of bread onto the table. Genie should have been more grossed out by it than she was. Should have at least pretended to look apologetic to the other restaurant patrons. But the list of things he could do to shock her seemed to get shorter every minute she spent with him. She dropped a napkin over it with fake solemnity, like she was covering a fallen outlaw's face with their hat.

"Well, cat's out of the bag now. I'm gonna expect to see something."

She leveled a severe expression at him, "Do y'know when you're gonna finish it?"

There was an undertone that wasn't lost on him. 'You are going to finish this one.'

At this time the sweet tea and the placemat apparated beside him, and he just sort of looked at them with the expression he probably should have reserved for the rattlesnake. He dropped his chin onto his forearms, defeated.

"I dunno. Maybe a month or two?"

---

A month or two. He'd pulled that figure out of somewhere. Not the usual place you pulled things from, for obvious reasons, but somewhere just as mysterious and improbable and ohgod he had to put an album out. Why the ******** did he say that?

Bringing us back to the livingroom.

He combed his fingers through the theremin, feeling more by the second like he was groping for change in the couch cushions. He was eating his mistakes. Absorbing every attempt into his body, hoping with each rinse through his rune it would pass back through his hands and into something useful. Something he could put to a sick backbeat.

He'd finally given up on anything original, falling back on his favorite pieces. It was colder out here and the cold both numbed and clarified. His watch said 1AM. Genie had never come out to check on him, so he assumed she'd fallen asleep. She'd been pretty dead on her feet since picking up extra shifts at the station. Almost unbidden, he thought of The Electric Lucifer.

His fingers twitched out the familiar melody. He'd only heard it the one time, and admittedly he hadn't been paying very close attention, but the tune was there like a word on the tip of his tongue. He didn't feel like he was alone. Under any other circumstance, in a new house, in the gloomy semi-dark of their livingroom, maybe after he'd watched a scary movie, he might have been frightened by this feeling. Felt skittish and ready to run.

Instead he felt... relaxed. Deeply, incredibly, paralytically relaxed.

He remembered this sensation from the seconds before he'd crashed onto the floor. It was the kind of relaxation that carried him to the very edge of his consciousness, led him to the lapping shores. Every note another stone in his pocket as he waded out into it, ready to dip under.

But the child's voice wasn't there this time to tip him over that edge. His world went runny. It had lost all its sharp edges but still existed in three-dimensions. Miraculously his hands were still playing, the airy tones of the theremin now reverberant and almost cathedral. He felt a second set of hands drop onto his shoulders and a voice burr against his mind's ear, simultaneously outside and inside.

And the voice asked what he knew about the 80's.

Points: 13

 

[Twintastic]

RESERVED