For a moment, imagine yourself in Mithrun's brother shoes.
Your brother - stronger, prettier, more charismatic, but also distrustful and disdainful of everyone especially you - is to be sent to the Canaries. It is the rule, it is the duty of all noble houses. But you know what goes on there, Mithrun knows what happens there. Yet you see him off, bidding a temporary farewell as you do, because someone from the House has to go and it won't be definitely you. Mithrun knows this, you know this. And you wonder, very briefly, if Mithrun hates you now more than he does already.
Your brother - powerful, agile, a good soldier just as he is as an heir, if he could only be an heir - suddenly disappears. The unit he belonged to suddenly disappeared. And you're speechless because - how? why? No one wants to answer you; they will instead try to bring back a body, they promise to you. But that is not what you want. You grieve for your brother. but your own family doesn't grieve with you. Wasn't Mithrun family too?
Then you found out: MIthrun is alive.
Your brother - now weak, despondent, his eyes always looking for something that is not here nor there - is to be sent home where people can take care of him. It is not your first choice, you want him home. But he is - sick. Not quite there. He needs someone who can look after him and you look at yourself - your gait, your constitution - and you know it can't be you. So, you follow the advice of your family and pour out all your resources to find him the best of healers and caretakers. You ask yourself, almost daily, if Mithrun would ever return to who he once was.
Your brother - strong, pretty, uninterested of anything and anyone else aside from what he calls 'the demon' - is now better. He can walk on his own now, eats without throwing up on himself. The color on his skin is back and the scars of his injuries have faded into thick bumps and discolored skin. But he still isn't quite there; still needs help and probably will for the rest of his life. And you can live with that. You can provide that. Just as long as he comes home.
But doesn't. Your brother - now a husk of his former self, and you hate thinking of him that way, but you can't help yourself, the Mithrun you knew is gone - runs straight back to the Canaries. His mission is not over, he says. He doesn't care how long it takes, he says. And you see him off, again, because someone from the House has to go and it still can't be you. Mithrun knows this, you know this, and you can't help but wish, very briefly, if things would've been different if you went instead of him.
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Richarlyson is still here. It is only that knowledge that drives Pac from bed in the morning, shoving a knife he remembers Mike sharpening where his wrench should go, and his axe over his back. He has already lost Mike; he will not also loose their son.
It should be Cellbit's turn to take care of Richars; Pac should tell him what happened last night.
Pac is not sure that he can.
Cellbit - Cell - without Mike present... Pac will not use their child as a shield. He will be brave, he will be strong, he will deal with the ache in his missing leg and the tension in his spine if it will save his companion.
But that is for later. First, he must feed Richarlyson. He does not think he himself can stomach food, but that is no reason for his son to go without.
At every noise his fingers trace the knife, more than ready to fling it into the first sign of danger, the first thing that might take what little is left away from him.
The noise is only his son, sprinting downstairs after he saw the empty bed, and clinging to Pac's legs.
"I'm sorry, Richars," he manages to say. "I didn't mean to scare you."
The shake of Richarlyson makes could mean many things; Pac pats the top of his hat, and goes back to measuring out a glass of juice.
There is no need to be exact when measuring a glass of juice.
Pac finds comfort in it anyway.
Food is placed down for Richarlyson, who continues to look expectantly at Pac.
"Yes?" he asks, knowing too well how much is wrong - there's no need to ask that.
Mike isn't here, Mike is gone, he should be out there looking, searching, fighting for him just as Mike surely did for him, but-
But the only lead Pac has is to the void. And Mike would never forgive him if he threw himself recklessly in.
So what he needs instead is someone he trusts, and a very long rope.
(Who would he trust enough for that? Not Cellbit, perhaps Forever but then Mike was worried..., Felps? Wouldn't be there. Fit? Would Fit even care?)
Richarlyson hits Pac's leg, jarring him back to the present. He is pointed to look at a sign, in his dear son's blue.
'Where is your breakfast?' it asks.
Pac cannot say he is not eating, he cannot do it to the egg, he cannot scare him even more than he must be scared. Pac must be strong for Mike, for Richarlyson - once Cellbit has their son he can worry about these things, for now... For now he must make sure that Richars will stay okay.
"I'll just go get it," Pac says. "We got up a little late, so I wanted to make sure you'd have yours in time for Cellbit to pick you up."
It's a weak lie, and they both know it.
Pac escapes to fetch himself something before he can be called out on it.
He hears the sound of someone entering the labs and tenses. He abandons the fruit knife in favour of his weapons waiting one moment, and a second, before hearing Cellbit call out a greeting from a few rooms away.
"Just having breakfast!" Pac calls.
He abandons the rest of the fruit - he does not think he could eat it anyway - and darts back to join Richarlyson on the sofa.
As soon as he sits down his son shuffles into his side, clinging tight, pressing close. Pac puts his fruit bowl on his lap, and uses his freed up hand to hold his boy.
They have a minute, maybe two, in which Pac manages half of a slice of apple and three raisins, while Richarlyson finishes his juice but not his food, before Cellbit finds them.
"Pac, Richars!" he calls. "Good morning!"
Neither of them answer; Pac's fingers just tighten around Richarlyson.
He sees Cellbit pause, reassess, look at Pac's fingers, his weapons, his eyes, and watches his expression fall.
And then he watches Cellbit glance around the room, looking for someone they all already know he won't find.
"Pac? Where's Mike?"
Richarlyson's bowl of fruit falls to the floor, splintering into a hundred parts; Pac dives to catch it, and only succeeds in dislodging his too.
The angles are all wrong; his prosthetic gives beneath him and Pac, too, is left sat in a pile of broken crockery and ruined fruit. He knows Cellbit is saying something, and that Richarlyson is panicking, but all he can do is look at the floor and see the blood slowly leaking from his hands, his leg, his-
Hands touch him.
Pac slaps them away, taking a shaking breath, and then another. He refuses the hands as he pulls himself up, not quite finding strength to stand, but managing to get himself back onto the sofa none the less.
"Pac...?" Cellbit is now holding Richarlyson.
It does not help the panic, but Pac swallows it none the less.
"Richars?" Cellbit says instead. "Go find Roier, please. Let him know what's happening, and stay with him today, okay? He should be at the castle."
Richarlyson hesitates, even after Pac nods his agreement to the plan. Roier is not stupid. He will understand.
Cellbit waits for Richarlyson to have left before he turns on Pac. There is a clear struggle in his eyes.
"They took him, didn't they?"
It did not look like a Federation building, but Cellbit will see that for himself soon enough; Pac nods.
"... I'll go get a broom and some bandages."
And then Cellbit, too, is gone.
Pac knows he only has a few moments to collect himself, and knows this is the best plan: Cellbit has proven time and again that he can be trusted with them, and so too has he proven himself the best to deal with the strange problems of the island.
All Pac has to do is trust him.
And for Mike? There is nothing that Pac would not do.
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