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Eight

Rika

I was good on my threat. I didn't wear clothing in the suite. Leon wore pants more often than not, but he went shirtless almost always. It drove me nuts, especially considering I don't think he knew what it did to me. Leon wasn't a muscular guy like Patrice, but that didn't mean he wasn't a snack.

The wardrobe and dressers were filled with clothing of all kinds: pantaloons, leggings, dresses, skirts, very small tops, very small shorts, kind of long shorts, poofy blouses, those weird strap things Agnes had been wearing sized just for my chest, funny little triangles of cloth with three holes in them. I ignored all of them. The only things I wore were simple linen blouse and pants, and those only into and out of the Yard. And of course, more days than not, I didn't have them on very long when I was there. I'd missed being naked--Agnes had told me we were to wear clothes in the Spike, but I hated them. It felt weird, constricting. I'd gone thirteen years without clothes, I was fine without them now.

Leon and I had difficulty sleeping alone. We'd done it for months now, but now that we were right across the hallway from each other, we couldn't do it. Either I wound up crawling into his bed or he crawled into mine, and we snuggled each other to sleep. I tried to get him to big-spoon me and prod me with his sleep-boner, but he kept waking up just enough to turn onto his back so he wasn't poking me anymore. Gods help me, I wanted to mount that sleep-boner so bad, but I was scared he'd wake up. He wasn't completely avoiding me, even after all the weird sexual shit I'd put him through. If he wasn't attracted to me, he deserved an award for being the most patient and understanding twin brother in the history of Gaia.

Leon still wasn't eating like he should have, and he picked a terrible time to lose his appetite. The food that was brought to the suite was unlike anything we'd ever eaten. We'd had vegetables, leafy greens, of course we had. But they had been old and wilted, barely edible things that were bitter with the start of rot. The food they brought us at the suite was... well, not fresh, exactly, but better preserved. And our greens came in a bowl, with some kind of oily sauce on top that tasted mouth-puckeringly tart. When they brought carrots, they were peeled and seasoned with something sweet. Mornings were cereal. Cereal! Piping hot with milk and brown sugar. I will not lie, the first time I ate cereal I screamed. I mean, I'd literally never put anything that hot in my mouth before, I panicked okay? And yet, despite how delicious it all was, Leon barely touched any of it.

While we were finally getting more comfortable around each other again, Leon's mental health corroded. Every day I'd find him in some new corner of the den, crying quietly and whispering her name. It hurt for so many reasons, not all of them selfless. Would he have wept like that for me?

I told myself that was stupid. Of course he would. I was his sister, and his only family. He would be just as heartbroken if he lost me as I would him. Right? Although... he wanted to start a new family, with Rika. He'd tried. What if he didn't need me anymore when they were finally successful?

Gods, I was a mess. I don't know why I didn't just talk to him about it. Maybe I thought he'd misinterpret it, or be angry at me and stop talking to me again. Maybe I was overthinking the whole dang thing. Probably that.

After almost a week of Leon refusing to leave the suite and go to the Yard, I'd had enough. I had to do something. So when Agnes came to fetch me for my daily exam (she came herself, with no guards, which was new) I pulled her into the suite. "Agnes," I said, quiet enough that Leon wouldn't hear me out in the den, "I need your help."

She frowned at me. "What's going on, sweetie?"

"It's Leon. He's... he's not eating like he should. He's sleeping bad, and he cries a lot."

Agnes looked uncomfortable. "Well there's nothing wrong with him physically. I don't know what I can do to help."

I bit my lip. Telling her could be a risk. The Warden could hold this over us. But... something told me we had more bargaining power with the Warden than was immediately obvious. The way he just gave us this suite... none of the other Anthropa in the experiment had suites, I'd asked them.

Well, he needed this. I knew he did. We were going to have to risk it. "I already know why." Agnes raised her eyebrows at me. "It's... he had a mate. In the Pit. Her name is Rika, a Vulpin. Rika... Ari... Armor... Ahriman! Rika Ahriman. She was alive when Tanya was in the Pit a few months ago, hopefully she still is. I... I was hoping you would ask the Warden to bring her into the experiment?"

Agnes frowned. "I can't, honey. The experiment requires Gifted Anthropa."

Dammit. Stupid experiment. "Can't you make an exception?" I asked. "He needs her. He's falling apart. Please, Agnes. I'm scared for him."

Agnes looked pained. "Oh, honey, I wish I could, but the Warden was real strict about that. No Anthropa who ain't Gifted--"

"She's Gifted," a voice said from the end of the hall. I nearly jumped out of my fur, whipping around to look at Leon. He leaned heavily against the wall. His face was sunken, his ribs showed through his fur. He looked beautiful, because he always did, but now he also looked tragic, like the old paintings I read about sometimes in our new books. Victims of old age or pox or a broken heart. They all looked deflated, like a fluid sac that had just been drained. He had splotches of blue and white in his fur from where he'd been painting. (He, uh... wasn't very good yet. But he remained diligent, so here was hoping.)

"She's Gifted," he repeated, his voice hungry and excited. With his sunken eyes and frail frame, the look on his face was frightening. "She is."

"I know you want her to be, sweetie," Agnes said dubiously, "but I doubt that very much. Gifts are rare--"

"Faidh," he said. "She has Faidh."

"Faith isn't a Gift," I reluctantly admitted. "But maybe--" My words died in my throat when I saw Agnes's face. She looked shocked.

"Really?" the Mender whispered.

Leon nodded.

"I'll inform the Warden right away!" Agnes said excitedly. "Looks like you're in luck, Leon."

"She stays here," Leon said vehemently. Agnes blinked. "In the suite."

I just barely caught myself before I could groan. Of course he wanted her here. Dammit. Whether Agnes felt my pain or was just being practical, she piped up. "The suite's designed for two, honey. Might feel crowded."

Leon shook his head. "This place is huge compared to what we're used to. She stays here."

"But the bedroom situation--" she started.

Leon rolled his eyes. "You could fit three comfortably in one of these beds."

My ears pretty much vibrated at the statement. Three was, erm... specific. What was he implying? But he didn't even look me in the eye. I sighed--there was no escaping it. He'd been separated from his mate for over a year. He wasn't going to stay separated from her a minute longer. I turned to Agnes. "I don't think he's gonna budge, Mender. And... I'm okay with it. We'll make it work. Tell the Warden... tell him, if he does this, we'll talk him up to the Captain when she gets here. Seemed to be important to him."

Agnes looked a little queasy. "Alright, honey. I hope you know what you're doing."

I shrugged. "I'm saving my brother," I muttered, hopefully low enough that Leon couldn't hear me.

Agnes nodded. "Okay, well. Come on. You still got exams to do." Leon and I followed her out. When he caught up to me in the corridor, he grabbed my hand and squeezed, hard. I flinched and looked at him. He was on the verge of tears and shaking.

"Thank you," he whispered.

I kissed him. He didn't pull away. "Anytime," I replied.

* * *

Two days later, we had maybe the most eventful exams yet. We received new injections, and there was about a five-minute period of extreme discomfort--our veins burned and once Leon sneezed a little bit of that dark oily stuff (that scared the hell outta me) but after a thorough examination, Agnes said we were clear of any worse reactions, though I wasn't entirely sure I trusted her professional opinion at the moment.

Before we left, she held us up, pointing at Leon with a grin on her face. "You. Sit." Leon looked a little alarmed but did as he was told. She vanished into the room with the stasis pods and came out with a long box. She set it on Leon's lap. "Open it," she said. She was practically jumping up and down. It was adorable. It also made my chest tighten. "It's your birthday present."

We both stared at her uncomprehendingly. Agnes frowned. "Your... it's your birthdays today. To celebrate the day you were born? July third. You turn fifteen today."

Leon tried to work his mouth, but couldn't find the words. For once, I had them. "Fifteen...? I thought we were fourteen..."

Agnes shook her head. "We keep decent records here. You were born July 3rd, 1201."

"This..." I puffed out a breath. "I mean, we know what birthdays are. We've just never known what _our_birthdays are. We're still trying to grasp the whole... calendar... numbered days... thing. So our birthday wasn't really something we thought about. Like, ever."

The Minoan huffed. "Well on birthdays we give gifts. Go ahead, open it."

"Where's my gift, then?" I tried not to sound jealous.

"Yours is special," Agnes said with a wink. "It's coming later today. You'll know it when you see it."

Leon pulled open the box with a shaky hand. Inside, some crinkly thin paper barred him from its contents. He impatiently pushed the paper aside, and gasped. His eyes went wide as saucers, and he turned to me with a whispered, "Look."

I bent over him and checked out what Agnes had given him. Inside was an arm made of polished plates of some sturdy metal. Not steel, just a little too matte for steel, but something solid and light that seemed to gleam dully. An alloy, maybe. The plates were segmented and overlapping, giving the arm an almost chitinous appearance. It was lean, like Leon, and had some kind of bulbous plate at the top where it would attach to his shoulder.

"Let me show you how to put it on!" Agnes said with a clap of her hands. She was absolutely giddy. "Lift the flap. See this spike-like protrusion? It looks scary but it won't hurt much. It's designed to enter the flesh and attach on its own. Little alchemical invention I cooked up. You just twist here--yeah, like that--and voila!" Leon hissed in sudden pain as the thin protrusion jabbed him in the puckered scar at his arm's stump. It seemed to come alive for a moment, spreading in little suctioned plates across his stump and shoulder. After a moment's discomfort, the bulbous plate at the top clamped down and hissed as a little puff of air vented out from the cracks.

Leon slowly lifted the arm. It looked seamless. He turned it palm up, and for the first time in a year, Leon Hart made a fist with his right hand.

I hugged him and squealed. Like, embarrassingly loud. Leon laughed. It sounded kinda hysterical, but I mean, could you blame him? He turned the hand this way and that, flexing and unflexing the fingers. They looked weird, kind of twitchy, but they functioned. "Should have some decent grip strength with it," Agnes added, beaming as she crossed her arms. "Maybe not enough to crush a steel beam, but you could, say, catch yourself when falling." She winked at him, and Leon chuckled. "If you lift the top plate just here" she pointed to a small snap at the top of his shoulder "and twist the spike in the opposite direction, you can detach it. I suggest taking it off at night, at least until you're more used to it. Might be uncomfortable."

"C'mere, sis," Leon said, standing up. I didn't at first, stopping to appreciate him, shirtless and now with a metal arm. It fit him perfectly. My brother looked... complete. I didn't quite start crying but I may have sniffled a few times. I finally stepped into his arms and he hugged me with two arms. It felt so right that I just stayed there, holding him, for as long as he'd let me.

Turned out to be a long time. Long enough that Mender Agnes cleared her throat uncomfortably. "You two better skedaddle to the Yard, it's past time. You too, Leon," she said, wagging a finger at him. "No more moping. I better hear you're eating right from your sister, got it?"

Leon's ear twitched. "Yeah..."

She hustled us off down the corridor and into the Yard.

Unsurprisingly, his new arm was all anyone could talk about. Sexy times were forgotten momentarily as Patrice practically yanked the new limb out of its socket in order to look it up and down. "So shiny!" he drooled. "Man, now I wanna chop my arm off and get one of these."

"Wow!" Kiba breathed, caressing the segmented plates with her little rat-claws. "This is Meridian steel!"

"Meridian steel?" Leon and I asked at the same time.

Kiba nodded. "It's a composite steel alloy. Lighter than steel, immune to rust. Though M-steel joints need special lubricants because they tend to have more surface grip than most alloys. Feel this." We ran our hands along the surface, and she was right. It felt rough, kind of bumpy. "Makes for great climbing gear, which is one of its primary uses. But it's also sturdy as heck. I bet you could punch your way through a stone pillar, given enough time, and hardly so much as a scuff on the paint job!" I wondered how Kiba knew so much about alloys, growing up on the street, but I decided not to pry.

The only one who didn't join in the excitement was Tanya. Not only did she avoid looking at the arm, she seemed perturbed by it. "Don't you wanna touch it?" I asked. "Feel it, it's cool."

"I don't like it," she said flatly. Leon tried not to look hurt, but he failed.

"Um, Tanya, would you do it for Leon?" I asked. That seemed to get through to her. She looked at Leon and then looked down.

"Sorry. I like you. Just not your arm. It's..." She couldn't seem to put it into words. "New." She said the word like curse.

Leon said, "It's okay. You don't have to touch it."

"Can I still touch you?" she asked sheepishly.

I thought Leon was going to die of embarrassment. "Uh. Yes. Absolutely."

I _snerked_behind my hand. "You two are adorable."

Leon scowled at me, but Tanya smiled a little and I found myself grinning back at her.

The time in the Yard remained quiet and sex-free for the rest of the afternoon. Kiba and Tanya played their game, while Patrice and I spotted Leon on the weights. His new arm was significantly stronger than his left arm, but he seemed determined to even them out. We were so engrossed in his workout that none of us noticed the gate to the Yard open up, and a copper-colored blur erupt from the doorway and tackle Leon right off the bench. Patrice and I had to catch the bar as its lifter vanished suddenly from under it and I suddenly realized what my birthday gift was.

Despite the fact that she was easily two and a half feet shorter than Leon, Rika Ahriman had him pinned to the ground, big bushy tail up in the air, little hands clasped to his cheeks, frantic and sobbing as she kissed him all over. Leon took a second to realize what was happening, then wrapped his arms around her and held tight, shaking uncontrollably with each breath.

I felt like a creep watching them, like I was looking at something not meant for me. I set down the weight bar and moved to the side, rubbing my arm awkwardly until they were finished. Rika was not nearly as busty and curvaceous as she had been when I last saw her. Time in the Pit had withered away most of her fat, leaving her lean and gaunt. The only remaining feature that stayed somewhat thick was her chest, but even that had been reduced by malnutrition.

The two stayed on the ground, holding each other and kissing and sobbing, for a long time. It felt like an hour, at least. I mean, it's not like I blamed them. It just started to feel kind of weird being around it. That sense of voyeurism just got worse. Even the others started looking away and rubbing their necks awkwardly.

Finally, she scrambled off him and he got to his feet. She kissed his belly and held his metal hand, kissing that too. "I prayed," she whispered hoarsely, face a mess of snot and tears. "I prayed every day to the Nine Spirits that they'd bring me to you. Every day was like losing you in the Maw over and over again. I thought I'd die."

"I did die," Leon replied, gently stroking her ears. "A lot. Mender Agnes brought me back from the brink. But every day without you was like dying all over again."

Okay, the mushy stuff was driving me nuts. I cleared my throat. Maybe a little too forcefully. "Hey, Rika."

To my shock, Rika ran over and threw her arms around my waist, squeezing tightly. "The Warden told me it was you who got me in here. Thank you so much." There were so many reasons I got her in here, and a shamefully large portion of them were selfish. I looked away from her, ear spasming guiltily.

Leon went around and made introductions. Rika was especially happy to see Tanya again--their greeting was... enthusiastic. Leon stared with a growing erection tenting his pants as he watched his mate make out with the albino Lontramar for a good two or three minutes. When they finally pulled apart, I coughed. "Damn, Tanya. When you said Rika was nice to you, you meant, like... nice."

"Yes," Tanya said with her flat affect. "Rika was kind. She tastes good, too."

Rika snickered and batted her arm. "Flatterer."

Well, at least the dynamic in the Spike was going to stay interesting. I looked to the gates into the Yard and frowned. Soon we'd be heading upstairs to the suite, and we'd have to figure out... arrangements. Won't that be fun, I thought miserably. I suppose I should have been thankful to Mender Agnes. She'd given me my brother's mental health, which was pretty much the best present I could ask for, but she'd also given me exactly what I'd asked for--my brother's mate invading our lives. What had I gotten myself into?