title; prehensile (part one — fists).
summary; she's grabbing your hand.
wordcount; 3010.

"Nature started the fight for survival, and now she wants to quit because she's losing. Well, I say, 'hard cheese.' "

Bart

She's grabbing your hand, and you swear to Christ that it must be genetic; a sort of natal memory prowls in the back of your mind, of fingers, warm and slender, covering your own. Of a song, a voice, ghosting across your senses. Only these are more violent, confused, proud — the flickering shifts of emotion are enough to throw you into a tornado of confusion, and you shut off all feeling or accord, besides the harsh physical tap of Lisa's digits against your skin. She stretches each of them, thumb, index, middle, ring, pinky, searching with some kind of eldritch fascination for things that should be so fucking obvious.

"You're an idiot, you know that?" she's grumbling with reluctant admiration, flipping your wrist so she can look at your palm. Vaguely, you wonder why she's doing that, why you're letting her, there can't be a reason. The only thing she'll find are the warm edges of callouses, a few sticky trickles and drips of blood, and maybe a careless scar or three. It's your knuckles, you reflect, your knuckles which tell today's story, red and cut and bruised and probably stinging, though you're not too sure any more.

So maybe they're not saying much at all.

She must feel your disapproval, because your hand's turned over again. There's a breath — no, a sigh — and you feel the cool air of disappointment pulse across the atmosphere, an electric impression.

"I know," you say, your voice dull and insomnias. Lisa, clever thing that she is, turns her sharp regard upwards. You arch a scabbing brow at her, and she'll find nothing there either, except for more damage, nothing in your expression, no answers or explanations, or even any laughter. The latter is concerning enough that doubt expands in her eyes.

You snort, and that's when she gets angry.

She jerks your hand, and the rest of you, up the stairs. You hiss, but it's an instinctive reaction, a belated phantom pain. Her sideways glance reminds you that, when it comes to your sister, at least, you're a pretty shit liar.

You're not feeling much right now, and she knows it.

No point in pretending. You cut yourself off mid-spit.

Lisa throws herself, and then your hand, and then the rest of you into the bathroom, slamming the door shut. She pauses for a minute before harshly locking it, as though she'd rather be twisting something else. Without looking at you, because she's probably disgusted that your stupidity has managed to impress her again, she pads to the medicine cabinet below the sink, tightly silent. You take your seat on the counter, eyeing her, pretending you're unconcerned as she flinches away from the closeness, pretending worry isn't making you resurface early.

She's not scared of you, exactly. She's not scared for you, either. She's scared in that sort of nondescript way, the way that explodes tiny bits of shrapnel and spitfire rather than any gunmetal or danger. Concerned, maybe. She's explained this before, patiently, a long time ago, before the first lacerations settled on your virgin fists. You're terrifying when you get like this, she had confessed.

Which might be true, but you probably just startled her, anyway, because the house is really quiet right now and you're even quieter and maybe she didn't notice you hop up.

She can't honestly be scared.

(She could be, maybe. Cold anger is probably paralysing, you think. Dead eyes and dead limbs and dead fists. You're not entirely sure, since you're more prone to defiance.)

You're not taking in much right now, either, and she hates this about you; but only sometimes, you bite, when she's not grateful for it.

"You really did a number on yourself," she mutters, and it feels like finally. While your mind was up in space, she had taken the liberty of fishing out cream, cotton, some kind of bandage for your fingers and some other, smaller, kind for your face. Her voice, still a bit charged, somehow shocks you out on your reverie; you crash back down to Earth, and have the decency to look sheepish while you lie in the dirt.

"You should see the other guy," you tease, the corner of your lips pulling upwards in a crooked grin. Unamused, she practically throws a bottle of peroxide down on the tile counter-top. Your smile falls, slightly.

You shut your eyes against the onslaught of noise, leaning against the mirror, its coolness infecting your spine and sending a wave of relief throughout your anatomy. She's grabbed something else too, and is now pacing the length of the tiny room for whatever reason. It's not pointless, you know, since she does everything purposefully. You only hear her footsteps (which are fucking loud, but all that means is that Lisa is upset with you and she really wants you to know about it). You can hear your own breathing if you focus, which you do, in and out, in, out. You see nothing.

You feel sort of bad. Well, you feel downright awful right now, actually, uncomfortably warm in your stomach, but you keep this fact to yourself, because your sister would think she was horrible if she figured she was turning this incident into her problem. Except that she kind of is, because you pummelling the shit out of some kid by the back dumpsters and getting suspended for the third time this semester (and-one-more-toe-out-of-line-Simpson-I-mean-it!) really is no one else's issue but your own.

You don't care that you did it, because you've never cared much about that sort of thing, but Lisa's absolutely furious, and that's the only thing that's registering with you right now.

Besides, you totally won that fight, so the temporary expulsion was completely worth it.

The notice is in your back pocket, actually, and if you wiggle your ass you can hear the crinkle of the thick paper. There's going to be hell to pay when Homer gets home, but you have a feeling that something will be confirmed, that that something'll hurt worse than a man's choke-hold, that your mother's familiar fingers will rub against your fists again, partially soothing and mostly disturbed, that you'll retreat inside yourself so you don't have to deal. This might make her tear up, in a confusing, half-mad-half-something-else way, but it won't matter, she'll be upset more than anything, and she's quiet when she's upset.

With you. At you. Whatever.

It is genetic, has to be, because you can never tell with either Lisa or Marge what exactly they're feeling.

It's just a lot. Too much for any of them, no matter what end they're on.

There's a sudden flash of thick cloth against your eyebrow. The peroxide is cold, and your eyes snap open — Lisa's rubbing a swab over the cut, and she looks calmer, if not happier.

"Does it hurt?" she asks, but you don't answer, because the honest one would be something she doesn't want to hear. Lisa understands, anyway, and her strokes get a bit more confident; the epinephrine that's still in your blood prevents the nerves from sparking, or maybe you're still shut down.

"How'd you get that?" she wonders, and you can tell by the focus and the intensity of her swipes that she's honestly curious.

"Asshole got a cheap-shot in," you shrug. The memories of the fight are starting to settle, reachable.

She talks to herself, "that might scar," but you're silent again.

No reason. It just wasn't a question.

She's done, and she takes a look at the cotton before tossing it out. Which was a mistake, apparently, because she makes a funny, disgusted face at the sanguine tint to it. Despite yourself, amusement and relief flood your body; your shoulders relax, and there's a familiar looseness to your movements now, feeling more and more like the languid dog you're suppose to be. Lisa looks more like herself, too, though you can tell she's still annoyed.

You have that effect on her. You've always been able to piss her off like no one else. Sometimes it's a game, but mostly it's a talent.

She turns to your hands, next, and the same hesitantly awestruck expression flashes across her face. "Jesus," she breathes, and it's a sharp sound; her body stills, a tiny bit, cloth pausing in the air. You look down, try to see what she's seeing, but it's just — crimson and drying and sticky familiarity, by now, so you remain unimpressed. She's dabbing at it, much more hesitant than before, which is odd, since she's not particularly squeamish.

Your focus narrows. She's too... tense, coiled, prepared like something is about to strike her. Or, perhaps, like she's about to strike something else; her face is pale, wane, and that's not something you're entirely used to. "You okay?" you ask, tilting your head.

She looks incredulous, but not at you, still focused on all the blood, so you only get a side-view. This would be hysterical if it weren't so confusing. "Are you?"

Definitely confusing.

You're not answering, again, because seriously, what the hell kind of question is that? You're not the one about to puke inside an open wound. You're not the one with too-white skin and too-thin wrists and too-dark eyes. Come to think of it, she's been acting weird for a while. It makes you look harder at her, maybe a little too hard.

Her anger's completely melted under the weight of your what-the-actual-fuck stare, and she seems sick and smart. Inwardly, you groan; you can practically see the wheels turning in her head, things considered, discarded, pieced together, or put away. You don't like to think about Lisa thinking (it's a bit too much like depth for you) so you look down at your hands, where your sister is rubbing some kind of cream around the swelling, being careful about the cuts.

She notices. "Does this hurt?" She jostles your fist, hard, but you're shaking your head at her. "Jesus."

It really doesn't. Your head hurts, a little, because your sister's talent is making you go cross-eyed, but that's nothing a few hours of listlessness can't fix.

She's angry again, but this time it's because you're not really talking with her. "You really are an idiot. You're lucky this doesn't need stitches, you ass."

Angry, concerned. Whatever.

You never can tell, but it leads to the same thing.

You start to get a little paranoid and desperate, though, because when you're confused silence starts to weigh a fuckton. This isn't the first time, nor is it the last, and it's the one rhythm you can't really flow with, the one rut you can't burrow beneath. The question is poised, why would you do this? and you can tell she really wants to ask it, but... won't.

She's not scared though. Who would be scared of you?

She's. Something else.

But not scared.

"The guy was talking shit," you blurt, and she's quick to focus on your face. The role reversal sends shivers of deja-vu down your body. "About you, I mean."

She's got to know that, though, because she was there. Lisa looks stunned, but there's no way in hell that she missed it, missed the onslaught on fists. She was right there, because one of her friends had pried her away from her locker after school, chirping that her brother had gotten into another fight with someone, I wonder who it is? Is it Steve, I heard he was bugging him during lunch, is that right? The gaggle of laughing girls had been quick to push their way through the crowd, and dead centre was Lisa, looking horrified and still and so much older than the rest of them.

But not scared, really, and come on, Lis', are you gunna make me spell it?

You have a bit of a reputation, and that's this; you laugh, you prank, you're going nowhere, and, as your sister just pointed out, you could be a right ass, but you don't like to fight. You can, though, you're actually pretty good at it, and you do it a lot, even if you never start it.

You're also surprisingly protective, with a few berserk buttons, so when some prick began to hound you this morning, Nelson started taking bets on how long it would take for one of them to get pushed, and which one. It was a tough call, since it initially couldn't be decided which remark really set you off — the one where you're a cowardly, stupid bastard or the one where your sister is a dirty slut.

But Lisa didn't see that, she only saw the fight itself; she'd ducked outside the steel doors by the kitchens just in time to watch you jump the guy, wail on him hard enough to cut your knuckles on his teeth and still break his nose, work through the pain, pretend the slash on over your brow and the scarlet on your hand was nothing, smile in grim satisfaction at the kid's panicky expression, and ha, I bet that fucker isn't so smug now. She might've called out your name, you're not entirely sure, but she was definitely there when you grabbed your downed opponent by the throat, when you told him, deadly calm and ominous, the gathered crowd waiting in silent anticipation, that he was not to call his little sister a slut, a prostitute, a hooker, a whore, a call girl, a harlot, or anything else that he wanted to call it.

She was there when Sherry and Terry crowed victory, earning a pretty sum, because she gave them a look that was equally nasty and astonished. And when the Vice-Principle grabbed you by the scruff and drug a limp you into his office, too, because you caught the infinite sadness in her eyes, the familiar disappointed stare that, for your family at least, meant Bart fucked up again.

She was waiting for you when you left school, a slip in your pocket and apathy in your face, because she wrenched you by your bloodied hand on the front steps and drug your dumb ass home. She watched you, standing on the porch like you're an outsider, sucking on your knuckles and lesions until she gave you a good thwap around the head, threw you inside the house, and became angry.

She's gone all quiet again, so you continue, and you feel your heart; it's pace is not rapid, but dense, and it almost hurts, which is probably why the rest of you doesn't. "He's an idiot. And his sister actually is a wh-you know, so he was in no position to throw out names."

Lisa's looking at you like you're impossible, like she feels lighter and worse all at once. Then she just turns to your war wounds again, and exhales, "these are definitely going to scar."

You snort again, but in an entertained way rather than derisively. Like, oh, child, of course they're going to scar, what do you know about scars?

You know what will happen, because it's happened before — your unwillingness to fight for yourself, but to always fight for your family, turns you into some kind of bad habit. Your fingers will swell and bleed, and then the bruising will begin heal. Last, the imprints will fade over all the other ones, until you forget which cuts came from what's-his-name and which ones came from whoever-he-was.

You're not worried about yourself. You don't care about that.

You suddenly began to wonder when Lisa began to mind so much, why it felt like she had stopped minding, because she clearly never did.

She wraps your fingers (it's done a bit too professionally, she's been handling you too long), and takes a step back, putting some things back in the cabinet, throwing some others away. You slide off the counter and give a flex of your prehensile joints. She's quiet, again, but probably not angry, and definitely not scared, because you don't scare her, you just love her until it hurts, until there's nothing left for you to give.

You open your mouth and lightly suck on the bandages, even though you know it won't help your now-stinging fingers, won't do a thing at all, they're wrapped to well. Abruptly, which sort of feels like she's stealing your bit, she turns around and cocks her head at you. "How did it feel?"

"How did what feel?"

"How did your fists feel," she clarifies, "when you decked that guy?"

You grin around the bandage. "Ow."

Been a bit of interest in this series lately, for whatever reason. Here's something for those who still keep an eye or a bat on this half-dead horse.

- crowthorn

Last edited on July 27, 2014.