do i suffocate or let go? / letos.

He'd always been in no man's land: an area that was neither safe nor unsafe; here nor there. He was a place where Calypso's biting, unforgiving words were free to gnash down on the jugular. He was a place where Perdita could toss blame and fault and accusation: a filter that their hatred for one another always passed through to lessen the blow.

He knew what this would be from the moment she volunteered, chest heaving and falling. He was, in reality, probably getting too much air, but it still felt like his lungs were holding out on him. Perdita, runner at heart, had finally found a place to hide where she would never be found. And she was going to leave very soon headed straight for it, and she might not ever come back.

Arty was sure that for Calypso this was the product of a lifetime of omens. This was not the thunder warning of a storm incoming, but the rain she'd been waiting for. He wondered if maybe she'd practiced what she would say to their sister in the mirror, if she'd listed all the hurtful things she could say as a farewell, crossed out the ones with the least amount of venom.

For her, it was a storm she'd been waiting on. For Arty, it was the storm that had ruined their home all those years ago. It was the storm that kept coming back when he least expected it to break them all down and start them all over from scratch over and over and over again. Like a wave breaching the shore, it was always erased. Every step forward he managed to pull them, the tide sent them flying five feet back.

He was never ready, and as he followed Calypso in the the Justice Building, he had absolutely no idea what he would say. He wasn't as calculated as either of his sisters, and rarely was he in the know of what the hell was going on. When Calypso saw Brentley, she only looked pleased while Arty looked surprised.

He was the one who'd taken Perdita the first time: that final wedge that had separated her from them, and Arty resented him for it. But, on the other hand, at least when she was with him she wasn't here, doing this- no. Roland was good. Great, even. Arty had even spent the night a couple times, played board games with Giselle, felt genuinely warm because somehow, somehow Perdita had found the kind of happiness that could have lasted. That would have lasted if she'd only let it.

Once Calypso was done dragging Brentley through the mud, she'd walked on without ever looking back. Arty gave pause, lingered next to the boy. It's complicated, he thought, as if Brentley of all people wouldn't have known.

"I, uh-"

He tucked his hands behind himself, not realizing that he was mimicking Brentley's posture exactly.

"I'm sorry. About..." he looked over his shoulder to make sure Calypso wasn't waiting for him, but mostly to make sure she was too far to hear- "About both of them. You're... probably a good guy."

With that, he hustled to catch up with Caly, only a few moments after she entered the room where their sister was being kept.

"-cide. And he'd still follow you there. How pathetic."

He cleared his throat, assuming the position. This meant consciously putting himself between them. Not directly, but in a way that meant they were both closer to him than to each other. He willed them to, just this once, be sisters. To love while they had the chance. Just this once. But there was a part of himself- the largest part- that knew it was impossible. Sometimes the blood shared isn't enough to makeup for the blood shed. He kept his gaze cast downward and his mouth pinched shut, and waited for their home to be wrecked again so that he could start picking up the pieces.