[ChicletPrime]

Chapter Six

This is still not a place of honor.

• So we somehow manage to get Caleb home but once in the bedroom, his weight collapses, taking us both down onto the bed. (awright!) (sorry, wrong moment)
  
• i hate Caleb pain noises
  
• "..my gaze is drawn to the crimson veins behind his ear." o rly now
  
• "Warning... Emotional fluctuations have surpassed the threshold limit." a HA! so the chip IS for emotional regulation / suppression.  "Amidst the deafening roars of thunder, he seems ensnared in a deep nightmare. In agony, he's pulling his collar apart."
  
• i swear to god, his evol has to be fucking with the atmosphere, calling lightning. the rain was lessening when he found us, and now we're back to full on storm by the time we get home.
  
• he's pleading in his dream for us. je-sus. 
  
• "The crimson veins beneath his skin branch out from behind his ear, extend to his shoulder, and flow down his tense right arm." 
  
• "Commencing chip activation process... executing mandatory erasure... "
  
• she searches with trembling hands for a reset button that might not even exist.
  
• oh crap, Caleb just woke up with a terrible anger on his face and suddenly i'm slammed to my back with his face dripping with sweat staring down at me. he.. he doesn't remember me, does he? 
  
• oh, that is a VERY hateful Caleb face. my wrists are yanked over my head. 
  
• this is heartbreaking.
  
• "Why are you struggling? Are you scared of me? Do I feel like a stranger to you?"
  
• oh, phew. he's not completely gone. 
  
• "Program... complete..."
  
• the depths of my hatred for Ever has descended into the Marianas Trench.
  
•  "How could you possibly understand... my guilt and sin...."
  
• And he's out cold again. but his right arm is still twitching rhythmically. 
  
• ... and now its later that night and i'm having a nightmare. which is quite frankly terrifying, of Caleb being restrained by vines in a jungle, poisoned and dying, feeding into the decay eating into him.
  
• oh! looks like we slept in the same bed that night because i reached for him when i woke up and he, of course, was not there. 
  
• oh. oh no. he in the living room, holding a picture with a confused look on his face. its the one from the card where he's graduated, and we're kissing his cheek out of excitement and congratulations. he woke up and saw us lying next to him. and we're in the photo.
  
• His cool touch strokes my cheek as if he's seeking an answer to some enigmatic question beneath my skin.
  
• "Who are you?"
  
• .
  
• .
  
• oh. oh my god. i knew it was coming and it still hits like a brick. holy shit. how often has he had to build himself back from scratch? how fucking much does he love her to keep finding his way back from being lost and unanchored in Deepspace? 
  
• "Caleb is sitting in front of me, yet he acts like a puppet stripped of its soul. Unlike Kevi, his memories haven't been altered. The Toring Chip has completely wiped them out."
  
• and girlfriend, may i point out at this juncture, that you fucking injected yourself with the chip too. i mean, if you want out of this particular rat race that is Caleb's unending desperation, that's definitely one way to accomplish it and i might even respect that choice if you'd known what you were even doing.  but you didn't and now you're both going to be brain wiped and in ten years you'll cross each other's paths in a mall and neither of you will even falter.
  
• He has no idea who I am, but he remembers how I make him feel. and he remembers we gave him the necklace. "Were we... close like this?"
  
• oh MY HEART
  
• It strikes me like lightning -- no matter what I say, he'll believe me.
  
• i REALLY wanna know what the cn translation has here for what we say to him.
  
• The pleasure from deceit and setting traps almost numbs my limbs. I tighten my hold on him and my lips brush against his earlobe.  "Caleb, can you promise me something? From now on, you won't go anywhere else. You'll always stay by my side."
  
• yeah. his freak is her freak. they are never going to unwind from each other. these two are glued together at the amygdala.
  
• aaaand he promises, pulling her against his body too tightly for shadows.