A Late Night

Guavato sat at the edge of their bed, staring into their pajama-clad lap.

They still saw it sometimes. Felt the metaphysical claws piercing into their eyes, tasting and smelling the viscous, green, almost glue-like ooze that had leaked into their mouth and nose. The rage from back then bubbled up once more in their gut, but they shook their head and squeezed their eyes closed.

The thought crossed their mind to call Daybreak, but they’d just called him yesterday. For the same night terror, no less. No, their sibling deserved his rest. They couldn’t disrupt him every night.

They pushed themself up. Trying to go back to sleep like this would prove futile; they might as well do something productive if they were going to be awake. Swapping their pajamas for their grease-stained coveralls, they headed out to the garage. But before they could flick on a light, their wrist buzzed, and they blinked down at the bracelet–evidently they’d forgotten to take it off last night–and puzzled at the name on the caller ID.

They tapped the glowing center button of their wristbell, and the hard-light screen expanded, showing the cyan-tinted version of a familiar mask-furred face. Rossco grinned at them, somehow equal parts arrogant and apologetic.

“Oh, so since you’re not messing around with Daybreak anymore, you decide to pester me in the middle of the night?” they said, though they couldn’t help the smile of familiarity that curled their lips. She’d been a nightmare to deal with while they served in the war–she hadn’t dropped the gremlin behavior from back then, but she’d stopped being downright insulting. The hour at which she was calling didn’t factor in her favor, however.

“I mean, it looks like you’re already awake,” she pointed out, her arm bent as if putting a hand on her hip. “Seriously, though, I’m sorry for calling so late, but–”

“The rear ionic repulsor went out!” called a voice from behind her. Snowflake, it sounded like.

Guavato straightened. “Oh, so you’re calling for a real audhe emergency,” they said. They leaned against the wall, observing the embarrassment in the way Rossco set her jaw. “What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything!” she protested.

“Didn’t do anything?! You ran over a hoodoo!” said another voice–probably the Sciftan in their band.

Guavato frowned. Physical damage from one of the rocky outcroppings in the desert…That meant they were close to the canyon. The drive would be at least two hours, one way. They glanced into the dark garage at the looming shadow of their towing tædhe. The thing was wheeled; most vehicles nowadays were audhe, which were hovercraft, but Guavato had a thing for the big, old, clunky ones that smelled of coffee and stale nepeta smoke.

“Don’t know if I can fix it until I see it, either way,” they said. “I’ll be there fast as I can. Send me your coordinates.”

As they hung up, they headed back to the bedrooms. They’d left their own light on, but the other was still dark, the light snoring of a young kit emanating from within. Feulin, a young orange tom, was not theirs by blood; rather, they’d rescued him shortly before the war had started, and upon finding no living relatives had offered to take him in. Sometimes they wondered whether he remembered anything from The Falling, but considering the fact that he’d been an infant, it was unlikely.

They carefully tiptoed in and put a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, kitto. Wake up.”

Feulin snorted in surprise, emerald eyes blinking blearily up at them. “Muh…Fi’ mo’ minu’s,” he slurred, then closed his eyes again.

Guavato chuckled. “Sorry, bud. We gotta go.”

He screwed his eyes closed in protest. “I c’n be here by myself.”

“No, you can’t. You can sleep in the tow, but I’m not leaving you home alone for four hours.”

“Muh,” he said again, tail thumping the mattress beneath the covers. Then he relented, shunting the covers off and reaching up for them to pick him up.

And pick him up they did. It was kind of funny–anyone else, even Guavato’s own sibling, would be told off for even thinking of touching them. No hugs, few handshakes, perhaps a clasp here and there with Daybreak and Daybreak alone, but no carrying, no arm around the shoulders, nothing. And yet Feulin they hoisted up against them, the weight reassuring in their arms. The first time they’d held him like this, they were defending him against a rabid monster.

Maybe that had something to do with it.

He purred, a crackling noise in the back of his throat, as Guavato took him to the tow. They put him in his safety seat, missing the vibration of the purr against their heart almost instantly, then took the wheel.

Two hours to while away. Whiling them behind the control console of their tædhe was better than whiling them in bed trying to fight off the night terrors, though. They popped an energy gum into their mouth and started the engine.

Golden eyes scanned the empty road. The streets of Tsaurre were quiet at night, unlike the bustle of the day. Ortuxans were more active in the tween hours of the morning and evening, but despite ancient times when they were nocturnal, society had normalized a more diurnal circadian rhythm. Which was just fine for Guavato. They liked the night, they liked the silence. They liked the lack of people. A cool crispness swirled around them as they sped out of town, kicking up red sand in the transition from city to desert.

They found their eyes locked onto the green lights of their indicators, and they pursed their lips. After the war, green was their least favorite color. If they could change the lights from green to, like, orange or something–

You would still never be rid of me.

They hauled on the brake, the clunky tædhe juddering thick trenches into the sand as it slowed to a halt. Their claws dug into the steering grips, breath caught in their throat, fur spiked like a cactus. Their eyes remained fixed on those green indicators, where they could swear they saw a pair of eyes.

But that was ridiculous, right? It couldn’t be back.

They forced themself to take a deep breath. Then another. Then another. They heard a light rustling as Feulin stirred in their seat, and that sound dispelled the intensity of the moment. It didn’t matter if it was back or not. It wasn’t going to take them again. Not as long as Feulin was this close.

Their fur mostly flat again, they teased the tædhe back into motion, glancing in the mirror to make sure Feulin remained asleep.

I’m imagining things.

*

It was relatively easy to pick out Rossco’s broken-down audhe in the brightening golden light before dawn, though her waving her arms around like a maniac also helped. She raced toward Guavato’s tædhe as they approached, and they rolled their eyes and thumped on the horn to tell her off.

The noise jolted Feulin into wakefulness and, cranky, the young kit made a hiccuping sound–the sound that happened right before he was about to burst into tears.

“Sorry, bud. Didn’t mean to scare you. Ross, get out of the way!” they yelled out the window.

That didn’t help, either. The hiccuping grew louder and Feulin let out a short wail. Guavato sighed and stopped the vehicle, then kicked the door open, holding up a hand to stop whatever Rossco was about to say, and headed to Feulin’s door.

“Hey, you’re okay. We’re here. You wanna keep sleeping, or do you wanna play in the sand a little while I get this audhe on the rollback?”

“You brought Feulin?” Rossco said, forgetting the meaning of the term “personal space” as she unapologetically ran up behind them.

They spun, teeth bared in a grimace. “Back up.” 

The look on her face instantly dropped their hackles. Chauts, they thought as they took another deep breath.

“Sorry. Just…space. Please.”

“Whoa, dude, you okay?” To the credit of Rossco’s two companions, they’d given the big vehicle a wide berth. Snowflake was a big point-colored tom that had the build of the tædhe and the heart of a marshmallow, and he stepped forward, just close enough to put a hand on Rossco’s comparatively tiny shoulder and just far enough to be out of range of Guavato’s claws.

“I’m fine.” They tried not to think about the implications of Snowflake staying so far away from them, though the guilt still settled in their gut with the weight of a collapsed star. “Just tired. So, let’s get this thing hitched up and get you back into town. You guys were out in New Sciftania playing some big event, right? How’d that go?”

Rossco was still silent, but Snowflake nodded, relief crossing the big guy’s face. “It went great! We basically ran out of merch!”

“We still have a couple shirts, though, if you want one. You know, as thanks for coming out at this un-Wau-ly hour,” said the third member of the band. He was almost as big as Snowflake, but a different species entirely. While Guavato’s Earthan stepdad would call Ortuxans “cats”, the Sciftans looked more like what he called “dogs”. This one, though, Owen had called a “raccoon”, with his dense gray-brown fur and black “mask”. He sat in his wheelchair–a thing unsuited for the desert sands–a respectful distance away, holding a big black trunk that probably housed band equipment in his lap.

Guavato shook their head. “I was up anyway. Hop on in, I’ll get this thing close enough to hitch it up.”

They tried not to look too hard at the Sciftan as they buckled Feulin, who had begun yawning again, into his seat. Then they got to work, driving up in front of the audhe–which, to Rossco’s credit, seemed in relatively good shape despite the hoodoo–and hitching it onto the back of the tædhe to roll it onto the bed. They were as efficient as they could be, but by the time they’d activated the guard rails to keep the vehicle from swaying too much, the red sun of Wau’s Eye began to crest the distant shard of ocean.

At least with their hands this busy they couldn’t think too hard, but when they ushered everyone into the tædhe to begin the drive back to Tsaurre, glimmers of green had crept back into their vision.

The trio had been quiet the whole time Guavato was working, but as they kicked the vehicle back on, they heard the hissing of hushed conversation. They twitched a brow whisker in the rearview mirror at them, then sighed, frowning at the tracks they were following back to town.

“If Feulin’s awake you guys can talk normally,” they said.

The looks on their faces told Guavato that it wasn’t Feulin they were worried about. They pursed their lips and let out a long breath through their nose.

“Look, I’m sorry for snapping. But you shouldn’t just walk up behind me like that. You know how I am with–”

“Guavato, you don’t look like you’ve slept,” Snowflake interrupted.

They snapped their mouth closed, feeling the divots in the steering grips where they’d dug their claws in. “Well, obviously. I came to get you three,” they said at length.

“You said you were up already,” Rossco pointed out.

They felt the anxious twitch of their tail squirming beside them. “Insomnia.”

They had their eyes on the three in the mirror. Snowflake and the Sciftan shared a look, and Rossco frowned right back at them, snowy whiskers flicking downward. “You can’t sleep because of what happened back then, can you?”

Guavato opened their mouth, then closed it, then glowered at the road. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Yes, you do. You weren’t unconscious for that, Guav.”

“I can’t–” Guavato took a deep, shaky breath. They might have closed their eyes to take a break from existing in that thin line between sight and sightless. “I can’t say it.”

“Why not?” Rossco asked, and her voice was surprisingly gentle.

“Look, just drop it. I’m already talkin’ to Daybreak about it, you guys don’t have to worry. I’m fine.”

Snowflake and Rossco looked at each other, but said nothing. Guavato drove in silence for a while, and for a while they could pretend no one was there. Feulin had settled back into slumber, his head lolling back against the seat and his mouth hanging open. The rusty light of the sun sparkled on the distant city of Tsaurre, and Guavato couldn’t help but be grateful that the looming spaceship the Sciftans had crashed in on had been disassembled and removed. The skyline was returning to normal.

And yet, everything was still so different. 

“So, where’s your next show?” they asked, deciding that the lengthening silence was dangerous.

“I was gonna ask Dayface if he had any art shows coming up,” Rossco said. “Apart from that, I don’t know, there are a few bars around we can ask for gigs.”

“We should do a world tour,” the Sciftan said, grinning. “I heard they have good wheel-friendly infrastructure in the Chiñaufu forests.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that, Yono,” Snowflake said. His gray thumbs twiddled together. I’ve never been outside of Waumærr.”

“Come on, you can handle a few trees,” Rossco said with a nudge to his shoulder.

“Hey, if he’s nervous about it, you’re not gonna persuade him properly by pushin' him into it.” Guavato’s tone was sharper than they meant it, and they instantly felt guilty as Rossco’s ears flattened. “Sorry.”

“No, you’re right.” Rossco reached over to scratch Feulin between the ears. The kit began his gravelly purr. “Guavato, seriously, you can talk to us if you need to. We’re friends.”

They regretted talking. The silence would have been better.

“Are we?”

Rossco’s ears remained flat. “Well, you’re not our commander anymore, so I think so.”

“I put both of you in the hospital.”

The silence from the backseat thundered in their ears. They remembered it clearly, if from behind a foggy wall of translucent green. They remembered the lightning. The blood. The sharp sounds of erasers going off. The screams of pain. They pulled the brakes, letting the tædhe coast into a stop as they took deep, shuddering breaths. The three in the backseat remained silent, and Guavato could imagine them sitting awkwardly as they tried to figure out what to do. It wasn’t as though Guavato could help them puzzle that out, either; even before what had happened, they tended to deck people that tried to comfort them through touch. 

It was the soft tones of an instrument playing that broke the silence. Opening eyes that they hadn’t realized they’d closed, they looked back at Snowflake, who smiled back up at them and resumed piping into his flute.

Rossco beamed, getting the hint, and hummed the melody along with him before breaking into lyrics.

Strike like thunder, let it out

Strike like lightning, let it out

Strike like a hammer, pierce through the void

And strike your rage to death!

There were a few more stanzas structured much the same way, and Guavato got the inkling that it probably sounded better when Rossco was on her kitær and Yono was drumming on something besides the door of a tow vehicle. They turned to look at them, intending to fix Rossco with a flat look, but then they caught sight of Feulin. The orange kit was clapping happily, babbling along with Rossco with made-up words. Rossco had to stop singing from laughing at the kit, and the rest of the impromptu jam session–if one could call it that–devolved into laughter. Guavato couldn’t help but smile, though they weren’t really up for laughing just then.

“‘Strike your rage to death’?” they asked incredulously as the group calmed down.

Rossco wiped a mirthful tear from her eye, and to her credit tried to look a little more serious as she explained. “It’s supposed to be about you. You know, how you defeated…it.”

“After I tried to kill you.”

“Everyone knows that wasn’t you, Guavato,” Snowflake said.

“You were in a full body-cast for at least a year.”

“Longer,” he said with a nod. “But that was because of Hæts. Not you. We were hoping that if we sang about it, kinda making you the hero, it’d help.”

“Also because it’s a pretty badass story, if you think about it. ‘In the midst of a war, a soldier taken by the physical manifestation of fury and violent rage, defeats the monster and banishes it to the void!’ It’d make a cool movie or something.”

“I didn’t–” Guavato glowered at the steering console. “I couldn’t do that by myself.”

“Then why are you making yourself do this by yourself?”

They took a deep breath, then released the brake, heading toward the scrapyard. “Because you’ve all got your own issues.”

“They’re pretty similar,” Snowflake pointed out. “Just on opposite ends.”

“Look, will you let up if I say I’ll think about it?”

“I’ll think about it,” Rossco said cheekily.

Guavato rolled their eyes. Their eyes flicked over to the Sciftan, Yono, who’d remained silent for a while now. He’d been one of the few Sciftans that didn’t participate in the war–having been injured too badly in the crash and forced into the wheelchair–and seemed like a decent enough person despite the species’ rocky beginnings on the planet. Their eyes trailed down to his hand, clasped with one of Rossco’s, and they sighed.

“You three can crash at my place until you get a ride back to town. Just don’t blame me if I keep you up. I work weird hours.”

“And talking to people?” Snowflake insisted.

They sighed again, finding their eyes focused on the green indicators of their dashboard, less visible now as the sun illuminated the interior. “I’ll try.”