#oh gisele...poor gisele...

Its cheek stung. There was blood between its teeth.

They waited until Ms. Ann was out of sight to run their hand over it and spit out the blood, soothing the swollen skin.

They had come home as quickly as they could—no, you didn’t, their conscience accused—being careful to neither break their eggs or soak the groceries. But it wasn’t enough, so her handler punched her in the gut and slapped her face. Ms. Ann had sighed after brushing her temples and told Espa to hand the groceries for “the housegirl” to store.

Gisele merely watched everything from the corner, it noticed. She flinched when Ms. Ann took the halls towards her office, rushing to get out of the way.

Espa looked down, biting its lip. They tasted more blood.

--

“Hey,” she said to the kid, putting a lock of hair behind her ear. “Do you want me to treat that?”

Espada looked up at her. She had a vacant look on her face. There was a bit of red dripping from her broken lip and her cheek was an ugly shade of crimson, blood where someone’s sharp nails had scratched it.

“It’s fine,” she dismissed, looking away. “Don’t waste medicine on it.”

Gisele recoiled a bit. She didn’t like these responses. It wasn’t a matter of waste. She was probably the one in this house who got hurt the most. If not use the med kit for her, then what was it even worth?

“Just something to numb the pain,” Gi insisted, crossing her arms. Espada just continued unpacking the billions and billions of stuff she’d brought in her little shopping trip. She didn’t answer.

She sighed.

“Here,” she brushed her knuckles on her cheek, ever so light, but she could feel the kid tensing up. “It hurts, doesn’t it?” Espa still didn’t look in her direction. Gi gulped down. “C’mon. It’ll just be a bit, ‘kay? You’ll feel better.”

The kid definitely didn’t look like she wanted to let her do it, but nodded anyway. Gisele tried to force a smile at her and went to the laundry room to grab the medicine box.

The girl was careful to watch the corridor first, lest she bump into Ann, the handler. That was the last thing she wanted. Sure, it might be inevitable, eventually, but the less she was under that woman’s watch during this... “mission”, whatever it entailed, the better. She wasn’t the cruelest nor worst handler, as far as Gi had seen, but that did not mean the bar was high at all. Yes, she very much appreciated not running into Ann. She could do with at least that much luck in her life.

Thankfully, the woman seemed to still be at her office. Gi sighed in relief, crossing the hall. God knows what the hell she was even doing there, but it wasn’t like she cared. As long as it wasn’t beating up them both, it was fine by her.

She successfully grabbed the medicine kit from the slightly-too-high shelf, but the world spun when she climbed down the little bench. Ugh. Gi reached her hand out to hold onto the nearest thing, trying to catch her balance. She was getting used to it, in a sense, but there was always this weakness eating away at her bones. Everything was sore all the time, and they didn’t let her have enough time to sleep. She was the one who made them all their food, but couldn’t get much of it to herself without the handlers noticing and berating her for it. It was a careful balance between not being noticed and not going hungry.

A frown fell over her face as she held the white box in her hands. Sometimes, she wished she could just poison that woman and set both her and the kid free. Shouldn’t be that hard, right? Just grind some medicine together and pour it into her food. She wouldn’t even notice. Eventually, some chemical would have to kill her. Gi gripped tight on the kit.

She knew she couldn’t do that.

A heavy sigh left her lips. The damn thing in her neck wouldn’t allow it. She remembered, a bit of a while ago when they first got her, when they showed what lengths they would go to if a handler died under her watch. That man’s eyes rolling to the back of his skull, body spasming from the shocks until his muscles locked up and didn’t move again—it’d never left her memory. She bit her lip, eyes burning. Nevermind it wasn’t even fucking fair.

Nothing here was.

And there wasn’t anywhere she could go to. Wherever this city was in, it was too far away from home. Gi didn’t have money. Didn’t even have enough strength in her body to walk around looking for help. She’d be out like a light in under an hour, even if her nerves weren’t fried to death at the handler’s unlikely demise. And then, not too long after, someone would come and pick her up. Well, maybe, if she tried, she could find a way around it but...

Gi stopped her train of thought, knowing it wasn’t going anywhere. She didn’t have it in her to try.

Carrying the medicine kit, Gi walked back to the kitchen, a tiny little bit surprised at finding the kid sitting over the counter, just waiting for her. She had to admit she had half expected Espa to just run away and go about her day just to ignore her.

Gisele groaned when she climbed over it at the kid’s left—yeah, the room definitely swayed with that one. She had to take a second to recover her composure—Espada turning sideways to face her as she did.

There was, as always, no expression whatsoever in her face. Gi was finding it really difficult to get used to that. It was uncanny.

She grabbed something from the box that she thought would help and applied it into a little cotton ball. “Here,” she said, moving it near Espa’s face. The girl turned to give her easier access, and Gisele bit down her nervousness and applied it on the ugly lines in her cheek. She was completely still under her hand.

“Thank you,” she said in that soft voice. Gi sighed.

“Don’t you get mad at her for slapping you around like that?”

“It was my fault,” the kid looked down. “I should’ve paid more attention and come earlier.”

Her eye twitched.

“Your fault or not, it doesn’t excuse that.” She crossed her arms. She hated it here. She hated that handler. She hated all of them, actually.

Something that sounded between a giggle and a scoff came from Espa’s mouth. It was barely audible.

“What?”

“Nothing, sorry.” It was gone as soon as it had come. Gi squinted her eyes. So, Espada had some emotion hidden down there.

It wasn’t very pleasing that said emotion seemed to be mockery towards Gisele, but oh, well.

“Whatever, you go do your stuff now. I’ll get around lunch lest I be the next one slapped in the face,” she said. She wondered how the kid felt about that, too. There was never lunch for her. Gi was always told to just get a weird blob of...whatever that was for her to eat. It looked disgusting. But the kid never seemed to complain.

She never seemed to complain about anything, actually. Gi’s stomach curled and she gripped tight on the box in her hands.

Espa nodded, undressing her yellow cape and mumbling another thank you before vanishing to whatever-was-it-that-she-had-to-do.

Gisele waited until she was out of sight to try and start her graceless attempt to climb down the balcony without falling face first on the floor.

--

That night, Espa didn’t manage to fall asleep right away.

It just stared at the ceiling, hands idly resting in the mattress. It couldn’t get its mind to shut up and let it sleep.

The first part of the day wouldn’t stop replaying over her mind.

Espa groaned and turned in the bed.

Ciça’s voice—her strange words, her weird smiles and half-assed attempts to lie and offer them some grace when they got caught—the awfully remarkable taste of the sweet bread and her willingness to put up with Espa’s disaster of a shopping trip, all of her naive lines.

“Would you want to visit me any of these days?”

It shoved the pillow over its face.

They hated this.

“I’ll be there if you need me.”

They hated this.

“Or if you just feel like it?”

The weapon sighed on its bed, releasing its vice grip on the pillow case at last.

She had sorta liked being around Ciça too. It was a dangerous thing to admit. It shouldn’t even have met her this many times, much less “like” it, but...

The woman was weird. Though sorta nice. She had a... sort of serene aura about her that, after the first moment of tension, allowed the weapon to relax. Cunning much. And she’d even helped. They’d met, she wasted an entire morning with it, and then she was gone again. It was very weird, to say the least, and not something Espa could give themself the luxury of getting used to, but it was... it was—

It shook its head, groaning.

Silly musings. That was against the rules. It’d broken enough of them already. Do you seriously want that bad to be a traitor?

“I believe in you. I won’t ask.”

She bit her lip. Something strange, way more than dangerous was starting to take form in its chest.

They warded away the thoughts and turned towards the window, driving their attention to the faint moonlight peeking under the shut curtains.

It wasn’t very bright. There must still be clouds in the sky by now.

Sighing as it remembered the sudden weather from earlier when it was still with Ciça, it wondered if it would rain tomorrow, too.

--

Ciça was warned by the hissing outside.

To be honest, she took quite a while to actually notice it—the TV was up quite loudly—but when she did, she didn’t even bother turning off the soap opera before rushing to the backyard.

Her laundry was gonna get absolutely soaked.

The woman cursed to herself as she hurried to grab down all the clothes that had been put to dry earlier. Fuck, she should’ve hung them inside. The sun was up now, but now that winter was over, spring had come and brought with it the warm seasons’ rains. She groaned.

Mission failed, Ciça only managed to gather a few bedsheets, a pair of overalls and some underwear before everything else was soaking wet. All that for having to dry everything again.

As she turned to take inside the clothes she had saved before going back to take the others out of the danger zone as well, her attention was grabbed by a joyful white t-shirt filled with paint slobs, completely soaked under the rain.

Oh.

She didn’t remember putting this one to wash. Ciça smiled fondly at the colorful patterns—shaped like little childrens’ messy fingers, surrounded by the larger and steadier brushes of a grown-up—before taking the clothes inside.

Denise must’ve found it laid idly around the house yesterday and put it in the machine thinking it was dirty. Ciça hadn’t worn that one shirt in years.

She’d thought she’d lost it.

--

Espa’s attention drifted in and out as she poked the fork in the eggs, salad and cassava flour in the plate in front of her, not more than two bites having been taken from it. If Ms. Ann saw that, they’d get beaten for playing with their food. But Ann wasn’t home. Apparently, it had messed up and bought some products wrong yesterday, so she had gone out to get them. It was raining again.

Gisele wasn’t in the kitchen. She was swooping the floors with a wet cloth, probably around the living room. The smell of detergent, though new at the house, was a familiar one. They couldn’t steady their nerves at the scent of it—they didn’t like the memories it was bringing up. They should’ve listened to Ciça and grabbed another brand. 

Ciça.

There, again, the thought they’d been trying to avoid all morning came rushing back to them. The weapon groaned and buried its face in the tablecloth.

“Kid?”

It looked up. Gisele had suddenly appeared into her field of vision. Espa tensed, pushing back whatever unruly expression had surely taken over their face.

“Hm?”

“Are you okay?”

“Yes,” it repressed a sigh. Ciça. Ciça’s house. Ciça’s grocery trip. Ciça’s bakery dreams. Ciça’s onions biscuits.

They almost groaned again. It hated this.

The servant looked a tad bit worried—its lips could almost have curled up with how funny her expression was—but went back to resuming her own activities. Espa looked back down at its food.

She took a bite.

It was cold.

By lunchtime, Ms. Ann had already come back. She was still busy working things through in the new laptop she seemed to have gotten herself. Espa could overhear from the other room how annoyed she was at it. It wasn’t connecting to the old camera they had put back at the Shia office. Guilt tugged at her conscience. The weapon bit its lip.

If they hadn’t been so careless that day, this wouldn’t have happened. The mission wouldn’t be as stagnated as it was right now. Ms. Ann wouldn’t be this irritated.

Ciça wouldn’t have gotten in their way as many times as she did.

The weapon paced around the house. I believe in you, I won’t ask, their mind tempted. But that was, obviously, a ridiculous thought. Really, they shouldn’t even be getting that worked up about it! Just ignore it. Ignore it.

Ciça wasn’t that nice. She was just a little odd. It would be doomed if it pawed at any stranger just because they gave it a little food. She ate just fine, it wasn’t like she was starving. They were just spoiled. And either way, so what? Mr. Juste was nice, too. He also gave them treats when they behaved. Their siblings—their fellow weapons—were nice too. Ciça was an outsider.

Unlike them, Ciça was dangerous.

Ciça had seen it in bad shape once. No, twice? Once. That was risky. Well, uh, sure, nothing had happened then—the memory of that nap arose within them along with a red warmth up their cheeks—but still. She was on thin fucking ice. A brink from drawing too much attention. They had met what, three? Three times. That was a dangerous line to thread.

And it was unnecessary. Espa sat on the floor and stared up at the ceiling, squinting their eyes.

They shouldn’t even be getting that worked up about it.

Maybe an hour had gone by, and the boredom—god, why didn’t Ms. Ann have anything for it to do?—was proving itself very proficient in clouding her mind with unruly thoughts. With nothing to occupy their mind, Espa couldn’t help but to ruminate over and over the words of that woman and her weird behavior and try to make sense of it, a million possibilities going over their mind and not a single one of them something they should be thinking about.

Bad weapon, bad weapon, bad weapon, it slammed into its skull. Had Espa not known better, she’d have shoved her face into her hands and whined out loud.

This was a waste of time. That’s what happened when they were left to their own devices without anything to do. She should train earlier again. Try and clear its head. Or, should they...? No, no, it needed to stop messing up its schedule. But its mind was a mess. She needed something to focus on. She paced again.

Training was a good call, they thought. But instead of going to the garage, they found themself wandering to the laundry room. Hm. Gisele was here again. Espa ended up sitting with their back to the wall and decided to just watch her.

The servant, however, didn’t seem too fond of their company. She glanced at it from the corner of her eye, not bothering to turn around. They could see a frown on her face before she went back to her chore.

After a while of what was probably a bit of an uncomfortable silence—Espa didn’t really mind it, though—, the woman rubbing the cloths in the tin with ever-growing harshness in her movements, she snapped.

“What?” She turned to it, gripping on the sopping wet floor cloth she was washing so hard it dripped on the floor. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” it said, looking away.

Gisele did not go back to her duties.

“You know what,” she left it in the sink, abandoning the cleaning. Crossed arms, a scowl in her face. Espa did not flinch. It was okay, they told themself. She—she didn’t seem that mad. “That’s it. Drop it. You’ve been like that all day. Are you sick?”

All day? They felt their cheeks warming up, embarrassed. “I’m okay.”

Her eye twitched.

“That’s not big coming from you.”

Espa did not know what she meant by that.

Okay, she had not expected this reaction. Usually, the servants didn’t mind it if they just followed them around when they had nothing to do.

Gisele was truly a little odd.

“What?” She asked again. Ah, Espa was staring. It looked down.

“It’s nothing,” they repeated.

“Nope, I will not have that. Speak.”

It tensed up, ever so slightly, before forcing its muscles to relax.

“I’m just thinking,” they mumbled.

Gisele raised an eyebrow from the corner of its eye.

Espa ignored it.

A big, loud sigh came from her.

“Listen, Espada, you—”

A sound coming in from the hall froze both of them up. The servant shut her mouth.

“Stop this noise! What is it?”

Oh, shit. It felt ice running down its spine.

The house was completely silent for two, three loud beats against their ribcage, before Ms. Ann’s tsk cut through it.

“You better fucking shut it, are you hearing me? I’m not in a good mood today, and if you make this worse, neither will be you.”

The moments that followed were quiet enough that the handler didn’t seem to be coming. Espa put its hand over its chest, breathing in and out to avoid the trembling. Don’t. Stop it.

It glanced up at Gisele. She looked shaken.

Like that one time. As if she’d panic.

Oh.

The weapon got up, slow steps, to approach her. She took a better look at her face. Her pupils were blown wide and her breathing was heavy.

She was really sensitive, wasn’t she.

“Hey,” it murmured. “Miss isn’t mad yet. It was just a warning.” She let the silence stretch, emphasizing the lack of steps coming their way. It tilted its head. “See?”

“I’m—I’m okay,” she sunk under her shoulders, lip trembling. “It-it—okay. Thanks. Sorry.”

They bit their lip. Gisele had done that before. But she didn’t seem prone to completely spiraling out, so Espa just let it go.

When her breathing evened out, she stared up at Espada.

“So?” She mumbled, low and hoarse as to not let Ann hear it. The woman shot a glance to the hallway, still afraid, before locking her eyes back on Espa’s. “What’s on your mind?”

It pursed its lips. Yeah, it should just rush training.

“Oi, Espa,” she called. Espa pretended they didn’t hear it.

It heard Gisele sighing and not long after, clumsy steps following it through the corridor.

Uh. Yes, she was a little odd.

--

The phone rang once, twice, before Ciça got fed up with it and decided to pick it up. She still had a landline at home—ever since she moved, to be honest—but not many people knew its number these days. It was all “smartphone” this, and “smartphone” that, well, she was old, what about it? She still liked her old, antiquated landline. Besides, same bill as internet, wasn’t even that much of a toll.

Though she was completely sure whoever did use this number was bound to be phone company chargings or annoying promotions she did not care about nor want. But they were being very insistent this time. So she turned down the sound on the TV and got up with a sigh to grab it across the living room.

“Hello?” Ciça took the thing out of its base. For a few seconds, nothing was heard on the other side of the line, and she was starting to get annoyed, when a voice spoke up.

“Hello? Ciça?”

She almost dropped the phone on the ground.

“Radaça?” The shock seeped into her tone. It was definitely the girl’s voice. A bit different than what she remembered, though, well, it had indeed been quite a while. That was bound to change.

But... Radaça didn’t call. Why had she called? Ciça’s mind could only conjure up a few reasons for it, none of them good. “Has something happened? Is everything okay in there?”

Her mind wandered to the gang news on the radio a few days ago. Oh, no. What if something had happened to—

“Oh, no, no! Everything’s fine.” She sighed in relief as she heard the girl wet her lip. Oh, yeah. Ciça smiled to herself. She did always have that habit. “I’m just, uh, calling to catch up, I guess? How are you?”

“I’m doing fine,” she answered. “How about you? How’s school? And Sueny? Your siblings?” Ciça’s cheerful tone wavered a bit. “Your granny?”

“They’re all good,” Radaça dismissed. “Nothing new at school. Ah, I mean, Naian repeated a year, dunno if anybody’s gotten you catched up. Mom’s fine. I wanted to talk to you because, huh...”

Ah, she definitely didn’t seem to have called just to “catch up”. Something tugged on to her heart, the slightest bit heavy. This was unusual of her. As for anyone of her family in the capital, really. If Ciça had expected a call from Anaconda, she’d think Guy would be the one to do it. But he had her phone number. Not even the boy called by the landline. That was far more than unusual.

Someone said something on the other side of the line, but she couldn’t hear it.

“Oh, nobody!” Radaça answered to whoever it was. “Just talking to aunt Fransisca. She asked how you are.”

More incoherent background noise.

“...’kay, I’ll pass it down to her. Ah! And tell Nessa not to eat my dumplings! She’s already eaten hers!” And then, back at her: “It was mom,” she clarified. Oh, it did seem a bit like Sueny’s voice. “I’m using her phone ‘coz I didn’t have your number.”

She raised an eyebrow. Ciça might be wrong, but she was pretty sure she had called Radaça a few times ever since she got old enough to have her own phone.

“I mean,” she continued, “I used to have it, but... It wasn’t really working? I guess you had it changed.” ...That made sense. Her old smartphone did break a few years ago. The woman internally sighed when she realized she hadn’t updated her other grand-niblings about it. “To be honest, I sort of wondered if you had us all blocked.”

“Blocked? No, never! I’m always here for you all,” Ciça corrected, something burning behind her eyes. A tender smile formed on her face, even if the girl couldn’t see it. “I’m glad you’re doing okay. What was it that you wanted to talk with me?”

“...”

“Radaça?”

“...Nothing. Nevermind. I shouldn’t bother you with it, it just—yeah, it wasn’t important. Nice to hear your voice, Ciça. See ya.”

Ciça deflated, but she tried not to let it on in her voice.

“‘kay,” she smiled sadly. “Bye, Radaça. Shall the Lord watch out for you,” she prayed. “Take care, yes? Be nice to your cousins. I’m always here if you need me.”

“Hm,” she hummed. “Bye, Ciça.”

The call was cut off before Ciça could put the phone down.

She sighed.

That was odd. She wondered what Radaça was on about. She would not know. The woman pursed her lip, brushing her eyes.

She should go back to her operas.

--

Espa had avoided Gisele through the whole house. Gisele, on the other hand, had followed Espa very much through the whole house.

It was impressive, really. She was skillfully minding to her tasks and finding something else to do in another room whenever Espa grabbed the blade sharpener and her daggers and went away. They finally reached the time of day for training, and during it, Gisele didn’t seem to have anything to do in the garage. Espa bet she wasn’t even allowed in there, almost grinning in triumph.

Either way, it wasn’t a second after coming inside, warm from the exercise, that the servant was over her again, and Espa was starting to get almost, the slightest and tiniest little bit fed up with it.

“I’m not telling,” they murmured at last, by Gisele’s thousandth repetition of the question. Truly, this was being a useful distraction from its own thoughts, but it was starting to get the weapon frustrated, if anything. She just wouldn’t quit.

“Oh, so there is something,” she muttered back. Ever since Ann’s outburst, she hadn’t raised her voice any more than that. “Why not?”

Because it’s dangerous.

Because it breaks the rules.

Because I shouldn’t even be thinking about it.

Espa ignored her.

Gisele sighed, a big, obnoxious and dramatic thing, before putting down the dishes she was washing and turning to them.

“Look,” she started. Espa pretended not to hear it, sharpening the edge of one of the smallest knives. There was no need to—they’d tested them a while ago—, but it wouldn’t hurt. “I get it you have your secrets, it’s normal and I’m not, like, your best friend or anything.” It tensed. They didn’t have secrets. “But you’ve been acting weird all day, and something’s worrying you. I don’t want to see you worried. I want to help.”

“You should reserve that determination in your chores,” they retorted, low. Gisele did not act like she’d heard it.

“Kid. Whatever it is, I promise I will not tell the handler. I won’t even talk about it near her. I won’t get you in trouble and I—” she interrupted herself, running her hand through her face. “Please, I can help you. I want to help.”

Espa stared at the hilt of the weapon in her hand.

“There’s no reason to. It’ll be fine.”

She did not take that as an answer.

“Then tell me what it is.”

Okay, that was starting to get them mildly annoyed.

“Nothing relevant,” it said, a bit harsher than it had intended to. “It will go away on its own. Just mindless ruminations.”

Gisele crossed her arms. “And what is it that you’re ruminating about?”

“You should get back to work,” it dodged. Those dishes weren’t gonna clean themselves. “Ms. Ann will punish us both if she sees you slacking off like this.”

That got her to shut up. Her glare towards Espa seemed to say this isn’t over, but she turned back to the sink. Satisfied, Espa resumed to her daggers.

It held one of them to the light. This much should do. Nice and sharp, just as new. They should check the guns in store, too. Polish them, maybe. Check the bullet supplies. That should kill some time.

It suppressed a sigh, wondering how long it’d be for this mission to be carried out. It had been its fault that it was like this, sure, but Espa wanted to have something to actually do, go outside.

Would you want to visit me any of these days? You can come by whenever you want, her mind yet again, unhelpfully, supplied.

She could’ve groaned. Were Espa a worse weapon, they could’ve said they were almost irritated now.

The smile on that woman’s face didn’t leave its mind, and neither did her soft hands or the gentle gifts. Espa bit her lip, head resting against the balcony. She shouldn’t see her again. She wouldn’t see her again.

But why did that thought make her feel like this?

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