Chapter 4
?
I need a sad boy montage.
Kyran
Lying awake is nothing new for me.
On a good night, I’m out in thirty minutes, welcoming the nightmares with a level of apathy that might make the darkness tremble.
On a bad night, I’m here for hours—staring at the ceiling, feeling my heart race as anxiety builds, battling the sensation of rest even though I am exhausted.
On those bad nights, my brain just refuses to turn off.
Sleep hates me.
Which is…fine. Normally. Even if I only get roughly four broken hours within a twenty-four-hour period, my lifestyle allows me to plan my own hours and work around streams or content production, so I’m not overly irritable or losing my mind.
I can commit two-hour slices of time to napping.
I can stay in bed—tossing and turning—through breakfast. I can manage.
The worst part is the anxiety, probably. The nightmares. The genuine fear of sleep even while my body screams for it.
My best sleep usually happens between sunrise and noon.
Something about knowing that the sun is up keeps the shadows from creeping into my brain quite as violently.
It’s like hiding under a blanket to protect me from monsters, even though the biggest monsters I’ve dealt with weren’t swayed by blankets.
Sometimes stories help me fall asleep.
I’ll dream up new ideas for projects and videos, new lore, new merch drops.
Sometimes work-related stories do more harm than good, though, either reminding me of a time when my worth entirely relied on my work or sending me trudging next door to my gaming room to start on the plans instead of drifting off.
Lately, I’ve gotten into the habit of imagining stories with Morana in them.
They’re not…always…romantic.
Sometimes she’s a shopkeep in a medieval village, selling her wares to the peasants that come by. They have riveting tales to tell, but she doesn’t really care about any of them, rolling her eyes before asking if they’re gonna buy something or not.
I like when she’s an herbalist, going on adventures in magical forests.
Or when she’s a mermaid, exploring the ocean floor for forgotten treasure.
Sometimes I will stop by her shop…and we’ll fall madly in love. Or, other times, a beast will attack her in the woods, I’ll swoop in to save her…and we’ll fall madly in love. But, only occasionally, do I almost drown while she’s a mermaid.
And she saves me Little Mermaid style.
Before falling madly in love with me.
Okay, fine. They’re always romantic.
My depraved, tired brain weaves petty soliloquies of love in the thinning, stretching, endless hours of the night. When I’m very, very lucky, such elaborate fantasies develop into peaceful dreams that block out the horrors that so love to play on repeat.
I’m not often lucky.
But I am often stubbornly hopeful.
Last week, I had a dream where Morana and I lived in this odd, sand-bathed landscape.
Buildings dotted the red desert, jutting up like gray bones in the wasteland.
The dystopian undercurrent never quite escaped me, but unlike most nights where that unease would take over and plunge my mind into terrors, that night all I cared about was seeing Morana.
I found her, perched at her window in one of those odd bone-like homes, so I scaled the building to reach her before I scooped her up in my arms. We stole away into the moonlit dunes, racing clouds hand-in-hand, until there were only stars and her.
My dreams have always been vivid, plaguing, consuming.
I have never before been grateful for them.
It’s hard to be grateful when you wake from wandering in a haunted manor made of flesh to find out that the distinct sensation of walking on sinew and muscle lingers beneath your bare feet.
But the more dreams Morana infiltrates, the more I’m considering gratitude for their depth of reality.
Her weight in my arms and the warmth of her palm in my hand linger, even now.
When I close my eyes, I can almost go back to that fantasy world my brain concocted for us.
I try to.
I spend hours trying to.
But I can’t quite make it there.
Whether or not I find any sleep in the cracks before sunrise is anyone’s guess. All I know is that I’m too tired to stand come morning, so I cover my face with a pillow and scrape as much rest as I can out of the dawn.
?
Clara is my favorite sister.
Standing at the fridge around two in the afternoon with Ender circling my legs, I stare at the sandwich she’s made and wrapped up for me. Whenever I don’t come out for breakfast, she makes me a sandwich, marks it For Kyran, and leaves it in the fridge.
Maelin is sweet. Crisis and Crimson would destroy anyone who wrongs their little brothers. But Clara is where it’s at.
Retrieving my sandwich—a turkey and cheese today—I settle in on the floor, dodge Ender’s attempt to steal the turkey off my bread, and obtain the notepad I’ve started keeping hidden in the lower cabinet beside me.
Battling my feral cat off with my foot to its forehead, I scribble my gratitude for the food, doodling a happy tearful puppy alongside the words.
The picture is terrible, because I was not the brother abused into cultivating artistic prowess, but I think it at least looks like a dog…or an animal. Of some kind. “Maybe a cat,” I mutter, a bit spitefully.
Ender is unbothered by my slight.
Continuing to ward off the beast, I slip the note into the fridge where my sandwich was, then I pull my legs up against my chest for protection, curl up in the corner of cabinets by the fridge, and settle in to eat on the floor.
At some point amid the battle for turkey, Ender perks—signaling the approach of someone—and darts, leaving me in peace for my love to find me.
Morana’s step hitches when she sees me munching away, then she rolls her eyes to the ceiling and marches toward the sink in front of me. Bending there, she opens the cabinets and retrieves some trash bags.
I enjoy the scrumptious view while I munch away on my turkey and cheese.
“Brothers don’t ogle their sister’s backsides, Kyran.”
I swallow. “Wild. Almost like I’m not your brother then, isn’t it, mistress?”
She turns, shaking out a plastic bag and looking like she’d be more than willing to suffocate me with it. “I’d appreciate it if you’d stop addressing me like I’m a dominatrix.”
“I’d appreciate it if you’d start acting more like one.”
“You’re disgusting.”
“Depraved, too.” Also, tired. And have a stream tonight, I’m pretty sure. Even though I am less sure what day it is. “Insult me more, please. Humiliation is my favorite flirting game.”
“I will not encourage this.” Wittle nose scrunch. “As a good sister, it’s my job to sign you up for therapy.”
“That is also something a good lover would do.” I finish one half of my sandwich. “I think the problem is you’re not annoying enough to be a sister.”
“I can be plenty annoying. I am plenty annoying. I nag you constantly.”
“Like a wife.”
Her face tinges red. “No.”
“Yes. You nag me to pick up after myself and help you around the house. Like a wife. A sister is more likely to barge into my room, mess with my stuff, then leave the door open when she’s done.
” A horrible idea hits me, and I add, “A sister lives in the same house with her brothers. You come and go. Because you’re the maid, whom I am in love with, not my sister at all. ”
“Grown sisters can live elsewhere, Kyran. That’s not a very stable argument.” Her arms cross, tucking her trash bag in the crook of her elbow.
First, are any of my arguments particularly stable? Second, why does she have to be so cute?
Obliging, I provide her with some truly stable stuff.
“I’m just saying it’s really hard to think of you as a sister if I’ve never seen you in pajamas and you’ve never come into my room after dark purely to turn off my light then leave.
If you’ve never broken any of my toys or stolen any of my clothes, how will I know we’re related? ”
Her eyes narrow, slivers of green glass. “I don’t think sisters take their brother’s clothes.”
“Are you sure? You’d be more likely to take my clothes than you would be to take Maelin’s.”
She scans me in my loose-fit shirt and pants. “That’s fair enough.”
“E-girl.”
She bristles. “Rude.”
I begin humming “Rainbow Girl” while I finish up my sandwich.
Morana hasn’t moved by the time I’m done. She says, “You have no stuff to mess with.”
“I have tons of stuff to mess with in my gaming room.”
Her nose wrinkles—yet again. “I can’t break fan gifts. That would be horrible. And I can’t interrupt you in your gaming room. What if you’re recording and I ruin the shot? No matter how much it looks like you’re just playing games from the outside, that’s your work.”
It sure is. “No problem. If I’m recording, I can edit it out. If I’m streaming, I can just tell everyone you’re my girlfriend.”
She regards me, down the sweet tip of her little nose, with all the dryness of the Sahara Desert. “Oh yes, because what I really want is for the world to think I’m your girlfriend. That’s the goal here.”
It really, truly is. My usual scowl softens, and there might be a twinkle in my eye when I say, “I knew you’d come around.”
“You’re hopeless.” She turns on her heel.
Since I’ve nothing better to do until Enigma and Endeavor get back to me about the collab I think is happening tonight, or…at least sometime today, I set my plate on the sink counter and follow Morana.
“I know you didn’t just leave an unwashed plate by the sink.”
“It’s okay. The maid we’re paying to clean here will take care of it.” I tuck my fingers in my pockets. “You know who I’d never pay to wash my dishes or dirty underwear?”
If looks could kill.
I say, “My sister.”
“This is hurtful. Rejecting my sisterly affections every single day is hurtful. I may have to quit.”