headache of the year // cae&wren

[fox]

W   R   E   N

Cae's sis died and we're celebrating I guess. I mean, I get it – I've always wanted to be an only child too. I took the imported bottles of gin my dad wrote off as a business expense from the cellar, stuffing them into my backpack along with my last clean bong because what are friends for.

Making a pit stop, I buy a packet of gummies shaped like worms at the corner store. Same place, but it's a new person working the counter, some freckled blonde with a hazy gaze. There's this thick glass barrier between us, still shiny and new, and I wonder if it's because Holland dragged the old cashier across by the collar, threw him on the ground, and then gave him a concussion.

Sucks for him.

I have a sticker of prez Snow's urn in my jacket pocket I got two weeks ago from some girl selling them under the bleachers at school, harping about the anti-establishment until someone ratted her out and she got her ass dragged by peacekeepers during fourth period. The picture's already faded from being scratched by my keys. So I peel it, slap it on the clean glass, and smile at the cashier.

Putting my change in the tip jar, the coins are still clattering when I say "Bye!"

Outside, a lady's selling toys on a tarp. There's a little mutt that crashes its cymbals together as it walks from side to side, a gun shooting out bubbles illuminated by changing lights, a stuffed dog that barks mechanically every few seconds. And there's this black ball with the number eight painted on it in the pile of stuff, looking all mysterious and shit when the bubble gun's pink light hits it like a beam from heaven. I pick it up, turning it over in my hands until a circular window faces me.

"What's it do?"

She looks kinda pissed off, reclining back in her fold-up chair before answering, "It's a magic eight ball. You ask it a question and it tells you the answer when you shake it. Are you gonna buy it or can you put it back?"

Sis, chill.

I give it a whirl.

"Should I buy you?"

Shaking the ball, gazing into the mystical, inky depths of plastic, the blue triangle materializes from the void with the words "All signs point to yes."

Oh, sick. God in a ball has spoken I guess.

Across the commercial district, Cae lives in like a mcMansion. He's got enough siblings and the house is big enough that I've never even seen all of them in the flesh. Shit, Sutton's dead so I guess the closest I'll get are the bones now.

They're super rich and my dad loves that. He's got a Victor sis so even better. My mom somehow thinks he's a good influence, and I let her believe what she wants. My brother hates him and that sparks joy in me.

That's friend material alright.

It takes forever for someone to get the door – just mcMansion things or something. I'm a third through eating the pack of gummy worms, thinking about cracking open a bottle, before it swings open, half a Caelum peeking out, looking like he just woke up at nine p.m. and I usually don't ask questions.

The green and red worm in my hand snaps in half. I chew. "Dude, took you long enough."

I unzip my backpack as I enter and show the insides to him, glass clinking against more glass against homework I still haven't done and I wonder if we're good enough friends that he'd kill my math teacher for me if I asked. "Got the goods and–"

I reach in, then toss him the magic messiah ball, "Got you a gift."

WELCOME TO CHILIS BITCH.

[calla]

C   A   E   L   U   M
M       A        E

Everyone went home together after the funeral - like one big family! Kiss my ass right? It only took one-and-a-half of us to die to make it happen.

And that's fine I guess? I know Dante's probably trashing my place while I'm here snoring away in my childhood bedroom, but that's just life. Lysander got out of it easier because Dad doesn't care about her, she just ran off to some bar and we all watched her leave like she was going off to war.

I smacked Wolf in the back of the head when he tried to go too.

Kid needs to toughen up, but not like that.

Staying in the house for a while ain't too bad anyways. I left all the good shit behind in the bathroom here, so aces for me. Adeline's case is still in the medicine cabinet, there's a nice line up of little vials and the needles are all still sharp and yeah, I'm gettin' a good sleep tonight.

It's like clockwork - tourniquet, jab, pass out under the covers for 16 hours.

Life's good.

What's not good is the jackass at the door trying to split my skull in half. The doorbell rings and it interrupts the dream I was right in the middle of - a real nice one; Wis, a meadow, the whole jazz. I bury my head under the pillow to get the echoing to stop but it just keeps going. Is the hell? Did I die instead of Sutton? I chuck the bedside clock at the wall, it breaks into six separate pieces and the noise still doesn't stop.

I hate this fucking house.

"STERLING, GET THE DOOR!"

Literally silent.

Except for that bell.

The fuck? Do I have to do everything around here? Blanket around my shoulders, gun in my waistband, somebody better be dying.

When I finally fumble the deadbolt open I gotta squint for like ten seconds before I can tell it's Wren. I wonder if Dad'd give me shit for getting blood on the porch again.

"Dude, took you long enough."

"Don't be an ass, I'm in mourning."

I think I'm just hungover but I let him in anyways, kick open the door and wander back to the kitchen. There's a carton of OJ in the fridge with my name on it, fuck this dude for waking me up. It's kinda like a juxtaposition, the juice's way too sweet and I'm just itching to wreck someone. I remember last week when Dante tried to wake me up because he couldn't find the penthouse key and I tried to throw him off the balcony.

Keyword tried.

He's fine, alright? We didn't even make it outside, I just lunged at him and then crashed into the wall and then we made 5am margaritas.

Anyways.

Wren throws something and I drop the carton to catch his shit because I'm a good friend. The juice hits the edge of the marble, drips off the counter onto the floor and makes a big sticky puddle but I look at it for quick sec and then decide that it's not my problem.

I stare at the juice, then at the ball in my hand, then at Wren.

Dude.

"The hell is this?"

[fox]

W   R   E   N

He shifts and the gun shifts with him, slipping an inch down his waistband and I look up to him, a man in mourning, as he says. "Dude, gun safety. Don't lose a ball."

He turns, kicks the door open, and retreats into the house in a shroud of eight hundred thread count.

I think he looks divorced.

Cae's got the kind of brick, marble, and eyesore house that Lionel’s got on his vision board. Saw that thing once when I was grounded. His room's next to the big oak tree and I was almost halfway out the window when I noticed the bulletin board.

He's funny like that. He's been nutting about a new book he’d got in the mail this morning, some semi-auto written by some Capitolite billionaire, but he swore this one was different and unique and special because the guy's trying to go to the moon.

I thought he meant that metaphorically, in a weird, poetic way.

But no, literally.

And then I thought sure, why not. It'd be nice if Lionel decided he wanted to go to the moon too and never come back. Manifest or whatever. Maybe I could ask the magic ball about it.

Cae drops the carton to catch my throw. It hits a counter and splatters into a puddle, little sunrise ponds all over the floor, and it's funny because I was going to drink that.

He inspects it and I look for another carton. I think a fridge really says a lot about a person. Like how ours at home is filled with Li's health shit and dad's gin and mom's wine and the maid's organizers with the dates on them. And how mom cooks on Sundays when the maid is off but I always eat at the diner and then smoke cloves out in the back because she only makes a gray meatloaf and then the leftovers stay in the fridge for a week until the maid trashes it.

I make myself a sandwich on the counter, cheese and ketchup – didn't know the upper echelons also kept ketchup – I think it says a lot about the Maes that they only have whole wheat though.

"The hell is this?" He's staring at it like it's fucking gum on shoe. In the refrigerator light, it looks a whole lot less magical, but I think Cae looks at most things like it's scum of the earth. It's just like his face.

With the other hand free, I take the ball from him.

"Look." I hold it at eye-level. "Is Caelum an asshole?" I shake it, blue triangle floating up lazily to the surface of the window.

Without a doubt.

It has me laughing my ass off.

WELCOME TO CHILIS BITCH.

[calla]

C   A   E   L   U   M
M       A        E

The juice hits the floor and I think it's telling that neither of us really flinch. Bigger fish to fry y'know, silver dollar spoons, we're busy people - "Someone else will get that."

Pat pat pat it goes against the tile.

I turn the ball over but it doesn't get any more interesting. It just looks like a too-big paperweight, or one of those weird sculptures that the new money families go nuts over. Y'know the ones, they start making a little coin and then go around parading themselves like they've somehow always been relevant since the Dark Days. It's almost cute the way they hike their britches up and buy their modern art and pretend like it makes them any more important.

Once, I convinced Dante to go halfsies with me on a giant painting that apparently some blind kid from the Capitol did, except I have no idea where the thing ended up because he was drunk and I was high and the nearest actually-responsible adult was face down on the keys of a grand piano.

The memory's all fuzzy but I'm pretty sure he was playing a waltz with his tongue.

Not a metaphor.

Wren starts eating our shit and I let him because I'm pretty sure he's poor or something. I haven't had anything since the mini tourtieres at the funeral, but I didn't even have those because was I nauseous and sweating through my shirt the whole time. One of the cousins on Mom's side kept making jokes about how we couldn't have an open casket because the sight of Sutton's brain matter would scare the brats, like we hadn't all seen it splatter across the tv screen last week.

I think the reenactment we did was the thing that scared them anyways.

"Is Caelum an asshole?" Wren says all mystically and I can feel my eye twitch but I think it's unrelated because it's been doing that for a long time.

He shakes the ball and loses his mind and so I yank it back from him, it's almost frightening the last thing I almost did to a guy that didn't let me in on the joke. Nowadays shit doesn't feel like a joke.

Is it a joke?

Without a doubt.

I scowl at the ball and then at Wren and then the ball again.

"This is garbage."

I don't even shake it, I'm just looking for a button or a seam or something, but the little triangle spins all on its own, disappearing and then reappearing.

Better not tell you now, it says.

And what the fuck is that?

"What?" I ask it, ask Wren, but it's more like a statement because this is a stupid and I'm not sinking low enough to demand things from a plastic ball. "What doesn't it want to tell me?"

And yet - there's something about curiosity and a cat and how that cat became king.

"Fine." I put the ball on the counter, draw the blanket around me like a fur cape, "We'll test it and then you can see how stupid this is."

Something obvious. A question that we both know the answer to so that when the ball says the wrong thing we can crock it up to a worthless hunk of junk and get rid of it.

A question that we both know the answer to.

The funeral's still fresh and apparently I'm an asshole so that's where I start.

I put my hands on either side of the ball, overdoing it because why the fuck not, I close my eyes and speak very seriously, the most serious I've ever been.

"Is Sutton dead?"

A one-two shake and

Don't count on it.

Not exactly what I was looking for. Not exactly the no that would've made me feel like shit or the yes that would've made me feel like even more shit. Ever since Lysander came back as a zombie everyone's had a little bit of what-if around the subject. The hair on the back of my neck stands up and I don't know why but I still grin at Wren, doesn't matter if it's a little shaky.

"See? The orange juice's soaked through my sock now. "Doesn't know what it's talking about."