« Thread Started on Oct 14, 2005, 0:32 »

Apartments were easy to come by in Rhy'din. The basic government structure wasn't at all the same as it was on Earth, if there even was a government at all. On this world, anonymity was easy to achieve as well. Lucas Reign and his brother had escaped to Rhy'din recently and set up a base of operations so intricately secret that hardly anyone even knew they existed. People had been exposed to Lucas, but never Samuel. The older brother never left the house.

The lease was in Sam's name, or rather, it was in the false name he'd fashioned for himself despite their safer circumstances. It was a rent-to-own ranch house that was closer to the tech sector. Despite the small town euphoric atmosphere of ages past that most of Rhy'din consisted of, the Reign brothers preferred the luxuries of electricity and modern plumbing. Rhy'din was a strange place, but easy enough to adjust to.

Lucas spent most of his time getting to know the locale, meeting people and going places. He ran reconnaissance while Sam stayed at home and made himself useful by running a private healing business. Healers were common in Rhy'din. He discovered that much to his dismay, but it was the only thing he knew how to do. He also preferred not to discuss the nature of their other business, how they actually got the money to pay their bills. But desperate men did what needed to be done, what had to be done, to survive. So he didn't argue it much.

There was one person in particular that both Sam and Lucas were extremely fascinated in. Sam had been suspicious and told Lucas to do some homework. Truth to tell, neither of them very much liked what they had uncovered. While Sam ranted and raved at his younger brother about how stupid he was for playing this ridiculous game of his with the girl, Lucas was intrigued. He continued to reassure his brother that there wasn't anything to worry about. Though, he knew that there actually was quite a lot to worry about.

"I found it," Lucas announced when he threw open the door and stepped into front room. "Easy as pie. She didn't even know I was following her."

Samuel was in the back room, the den that branched off from the kitchen and dining room. There the brothers had a computer network setup with all manner of scientific devices. Some known and some invented from their own haphazard skills in technology. The den also posed as an examination room for Sam's healing business. "You sure you weren't noticed?" he called back.

Lucas rolled his eyes and shook his head with an impatient sigh. Tossing his coat up on the hook by the door, he dodged furniture and wandered his way through the other rooms toward the den. "Positive," he replied. "I rode the wires again. There's no way she could've noticed."

"Lucas!" He should have seen that coming. Naturally, Sam was scolding him and overflowing with worry. "You know how dangerous that is!"

"Yeah, yeah. Look. I'm fine." So saying, he stepped into the den and held out his arms. The blonde even turned a circle to show his brother that he was perfectly intact.

It was typical of Samuel to push up out of his chair and step over to fully examine his younger brother. When the blonde turned, he walked a circle around him. He wasn't satisfied until he was one hundred percent certain that what Lucas said was true. That was to be expected. Afterall, Sam had been a doctor once, a surgeon.

"I'm fiiine, Sam. Jesus. Will you quit coddling me? You're going to make me nervous with all your scrutiny."

That was more than enough warning. Sam knew what his younger brother was capable of, particularly when he was nervous. "All right," he said. With a resigned sigh he stepped back over to the computer he'd been working on earlier and reclaimed his seat in front of it. "So tell me what you found out."

Lucas looked around at all the equipment and decided to lean against the wall by the door. Medical equipment, computers, all manner of electronics. It wasn't safe for him to get too close to them most of the time. "Everything we uncovered in the databases is true," he began. "Her mother lives around here. I checked out the house. She doesn't stay there often. Mostly she stays in an apartment on Earth. I found the gateway that leads there. Easy as pie. Just a step through a gate and into a field. I haven't stepped through yet."

"Good," Samuel said. He nodded. That was good news. "You shouldn't yet anyway. Not until we have all our facts straight. You need to jump back into the systems and make sure we're nonexistent."

"Yeah, yeah." Lucas waved the notion aside with a tired sigh and paused to yawn. "Can it wait for tomorrow? I'm beat."

Sam turned on his chair and looked his brother over, again with a doctor's intense scrutiny. "You're going to kill yourself one of these days riding the wires, Lucas. Or worse, you're going to get stuck."

"Give it a rest, will you? I'm fine. No permanent damage done." He pushed away from the wall and turned to step into the dining room.

"Just be careful, Lucas," his brother called back, concerned.

Lucas shook his head and wandered through the rooms toward the hall. He didn't bother to respond to his brother's chiding.

"If she finds out where we are, she could ruin everything!"

"Give it a rest, Sam! She's harmless!" With that said, he pushed into his bedroom and closed the door with another tired sigh. "Jesus," he muttered to himself.

"It's bad enough she knows who you are!"

He heard his brother yell that last bit faintly. It reverberated through the walls, muffled but clear. "Yeah," he said to himself. "She knows, but she hasn't said a word." He opened the door and called back into the hall, letting his voice carry. "But she doesn't know that we know!" That time he let the door slam when he closed it, irritated by his brother's paranoia. He could hear Sam grumbling to himself and could imagine half of it as if he were actually hearing the precise words.

Lucas didn't want to dwell on it. He only wanted to sleep. He was exhausted. Riding the wires was an exhausting effort all around, but he was getting better at it. Sam just needed to have a little more faith in his capabilities, and worry more about himself. The blonde kicked off his shoes and dropped onto his bed. "We're fine," he said to the ceiling. "So long as she keeps thinking I don't know, we'll be fine. Nothing to worry about."

Though he couldn't help but worry himself. She had been acting rather strange tonight. Stranger than usual. Chocolate, he thought. She likes chocolate. I'll stop by and drop off a gift tomorrow. Maybe that'll put her mind at ease. Afterall, girls like chocolate and gifts, right?

« Reply #1 on Oct 29, 2005, 2:26 »

The gift of chocolate hadn't worked as well as Lucas had imagined it would. For days afterward he hadn't heard a thing from Thean. She hadn't called and he hadn't seen her around town. Maybe it had been because he had forgotten to leave a note. But recently he found out, when mentioning it to the girl earlier that evening, that she hadn't had any of the chocolate at all. Ah well. Better luck next time.

That night at the tavern, things hadn't gone as well as he would have preferred either. Thean avoided him, gave him the cold shoulder, even hinted at not wanting to be in his presence. So he played the smooth tactice of feigning that he didn't care and stepped out for a smoke. He counted the seconds down to the expected explosion to follow. He knew well enough that girls had a tendency to track a man down and scream at him until they'd had the last word. Or until proven wrong.

They had talked. They had come to an agreement. Though Sam wouldn't have liked the agreement made, Lucas didn't care. In a way it actually kind of bothered him that he cared what this girl thought of him. Maybe it was just Sam's paranoia rubbing off on him? He hoped it was only that. Despite everything he knew, had learned, about Thean Roma, for some reason he felt an overwhelming compulsion to get her to like him and not think bad of him. That's why he had invited her over to meet his brother. Tomorrow.

Samuel had forced a cellphone on his younger brother that evening, even though they both knew that an electronic device was no good in his possession. As suspected, the phone had shorted out when it rang and he tried to answer it, but a little tinkering around with minor electrical currents and speaking to the thing got it to work temporarily once more. Sam had ranted at him on the phone for no reason in particular. Lucas suspected that he was feeling the effects of another healing job gone bad.

He didn't know how right he was until he got home that evening...

"Sam?" His voice carried through mostly empty house when he pushed open the door and slipped inside. By habit he turned to close and lock the door, as well as set the deadbolt. He heard no answer from his older brother. That was not a good sign. "Sam? I'm home." Still no answer.

Shit. Now was not a good time to panic, but over the years his brother's pessimism had rubbed off on him. Tossing his keys aside on the kitchen table when he passed from living room to dining room, he hurried into the den where he suspected his brother to be. The cordless wasn't on its base. "Sam?" Again there was no answer, and instantly he saw why.

The older Reign brother was laying on the floor in the den, crumpled into a fetal position and still clutching the phone in his hand. Lucas hurried to his side, electricity crackling along his fingertips and through his hair, and he dropped to his knees. "Sam!" He was urgent that time, but cautious. Touching his brother could be fatal in situations like this, where his nerves were overpowered and his ability uncontrolled.

His brother groaned and his fingers twitched.

Lucas hissed an unintelligible expletive and silently said to hell with caution. Electrified fingers reached to touch Sam's shoulder, and he rolled his brother over onto his back. "Sam, can you hear me? Fuck all. What is it this time?" In turning his brother over onto his back, he noticed that his nose had been bleeding. "Shit. Sam. Did you take another heart patient today?" He was used to this. Sometimes his brother was too damn generous with the people he treated.

Samuel groaned again, and the phone rolled out of his hand when he was turned. "Mitral... valve..." he managed to mutter. There wasn't much else that the elder brother could say at that point. He was still recovering from the numbness and dizzyness of the fainting spell he'd just been rolled out of.

"Damnit all, Sam. And you worry about me doing something risky. What're you going to do when your own heart can't take this shit anymore?" Though Lucas sounded angry, which he was in part, he was more worried than anything. They were both risk-takers in their own ways. Neither of them had decided who took the bigger risks, however. The younger brother took in a deep breath and tried to calm his own nerves before lifting his older brother up onto the diagnostic chair that they had set up in the middle of the den. Samuel groaned and babbled nonsense when he was resituated.

In reaching for a clean cloth out of the cabinet, his fingers brushed against a monitor and shorted the circuts of at least three of the systems set up in the room. He sighed and stepped back over to wipe up the mess on his brother's face. "Pull yourself together, Sammy. You need to stop doing this shit. You know? Sometimes people just need to die."

"No," Sam said, which was all he could really say as more of another groan than anything else.

"Yes, Sam." Lucas frowned and paused in his administrations to glare at his brother's face. "You aren't Christ reborn, you know. I'm pretty sure Jesus didn't have any problems with backlash like you do."

Samuel only grunted something as if to say that his brother's notions were preposterous.

The younger brother sighed and finished wiping away the blood under Sam's nose. "I think you're done for the week. First the girl with pneumonia. Then the lady with arthritis. Now some guy who was complaining about a pain in his left side, right?"

"Nngh," his brother replied. That was meant to be an affirmative.

Again Lucas sighed, and he tossed the rag aside. "If you hadn't called me and decided to bitch up a storm, you probably wouldn't have blacked out. You're stressing yourself way too much, and you're not going to be able to focus on your own cells to fix them if you keep this shit up." Funny. The younger brother was chiding the older brother? Lucas didn't seem to notice the irony in all that. He only slipped an arm under and around his brother's shoulders and helped him slide off the chair to his feet. "Come one. You're sleeping tonight."

Truth was, Samuel didn't sleep very often. With as overexcited as his own molecular structure was to be constantly active and repairing damaged tissues, he was afflicted with a case of chronic insomnia that rivaled most world records. Lucas had known him to stay awake for weeks, and sometimes months, at a time. Only at the worst of times, when he had healed too many people of their debilitating afflictions in too few a number of days, did he actually need to sleep.

Lucas helped him walk through the house and made a pitstop in the bathroom that he suspected would be necessary. His suspicions were proven valid when Samuel dropped instantly into a kneeling position over the toilet and regurgitated the contents of his stomach into the bowl. The younger brother sighed, helped Sam back up to his feet, and flushed the toilet. Then the trek continued into Sam's mostly unused bedroom. Sometimes they used it as a sickroom for the more troublesome patients.

"Thean's coming over tomorrow." While helping his brother out of his shoes and onto the bed, Lucas decided that it was as good a time as any to say that.

"Wha-!?" Sam almost shot back up to his feet to protest, but Lucas pushed him back down. He had always been the stronger of the two anyway.

"Thean. She's coming over. I told her she should meet you, and I think you should meet her. We need to get some things cleared up between all of us, and I don't want to hear you arguing about it, Sam!" His voice had raised halfway through that sentence into a tone of commanding authority. He could see that Samuel was preparing for another paranoid rant and instantly worked to jostle him out of it before he could only make himself more ill from the exerted effort.

Sam sighed, relented, and sank back onto the mattress. "Fine," he said, and that was all.

Lucas smiled. "Good," he said. He stepped away from the bed, touched his fingertip against the lightswitch, and that alone turned off the lights in the rooom. It took only a touch, a current of electricity that leapt from his own body and into the wiring of the walls. He spoke to the wires and convinced them effortlessly that it was the same as actually flipping the switch. "Good night, Sam. Yell if you need me for anything. I'm right across the hall."

Though it wasn't particularly necessary for him to say that. They both knew whose room was where. He only felt that he should remind his brother, in his weakened state, that he was nearby. With that said, he stepped across the hall into his own room and actually left the door open. "God," he breathed to the ceiling when he dropped back onto the mattress. "Tomorrow is going to be one hell of a day..."