Noah Langford - January 2121
We sit around the fire Finn built earlier, the flames folding around the logs in slow, unpredictable patterns while sparks lift into the night air and disappear into the dark.
The cold is sharp enough that it registers on skin instantly, but the heat from the fire and the weight of the blanket over my lap creates a contained pocket of warmth that is almost efficient in its simplicity.
"Are you sure you're not too cold?" Finn asks as he passes behind my chair.
He hands me a beer before stepping away again.
"I am fine," I reply.
I take the bottle without breaking focus from the fire long enough to register his movements properly. Finn tightens his jacket as he returns to the firepit and crouches to adjust one of the logs, ensuring the airflow is correct before settling back into the chair beside mine.
The houses behind us are dark and quiet.
Kai and Ethan went to their room after dinner and have not come back down. Given Ethan's pattern of behaviour around Kai, the probability is high that neither of them will reappear for some time. The thought is not disruptive. If anything, it is stabilising. Kai being rested, calm, and anchored in something consistent is preferable to most alternatives.
I lower my gaze to the notebook resting on my knee and continue writing.
The pages are already filled with fragmented equations, structural diagrams, and partial theories that appeared throughout the day without invitation. I do not filter them. Filtering slows processing, and unnecessary ideas can always be discarded later.
"Didn't we agree on no work?" Finn asks.
My eyes remain on the page.
"This is not work. It is external processing."
Finn gives a short laugh. "Right."
The tone indicates disagreement, but not hostility. Finn rarely challenges the function itself. He understands it too well for that.
I continue writing.
The truth is that my brain never stops moving. The moment I stop focusing on something, another dozen thoughts rush in to take its place. Ideas build on other ideas until they become impossible to keep track of. Writing them down isn't about productivity. It's about creating enough space in my head to think clearly.
Finn has never needed that explained to him. He already knows.
The silence that follows is comfortable rather than awkward. The fire crackles steadily while a cold breeze occasionally brushes through the trees surrounding the house. I continue writing while Finn nurses his drink beside me, both of us content to simply exist in the same space.
Eventually, he speaks.
"Have you spoken to Kai yet?"
My pen stops mid-line. For several seconds, I stare at the unfinished sentence in front of me before finally closing the notebook.
"It has not been the correct time."
Finn leans back slightly in his chair. "Will it be?"
A short pause follows. I evaluate the question, run it through available variables, and find no stable answer set.
"Probably not."
The response is not ideal, but it is accurate.
I place the notebook beside me and adjust the blanket around my shoulders. The firelight shifts across the ground, breaking into unstable patterns that I do not attempt to analyse further.
"What if it triggers him again?" I ask.
The question has been sitting in the back of my mind for weeks.
Finn is quiet for a moment while he adjusts the fire with a stick, ensuring it burns evenly before setting the tool aside.
"He's been fine since that day," he says. "And honestly, knowing Kai, he's probably already knows that something is off."
I let out a quiet breath through my nose. Kai has always been annoyingly observant.
Where most people interpret behaviour in broad categories, Kai identifies deviation at a granular level. Subtle changes in timing, tone, routine. He notices what others discard.
Growing up, he could tell when I was upset before I even understood what I was feeling. He noticed things nobody else paid attention to. A change in my routine. A slight hesitation before answering a question. The fact I was spending more time in my room than usual.
That capability has not diminished with time. Which means avoidance is not a good strategy.
The problem is not that Kai is unaware.
The problem is that he is waiting.
I stare into the fire and rotate the bottle slightly between my fingers, focusing on the physical sensation to maintain stability in my thought flow.
Finn speaks quieter than before.
"You always do that, you know?"
I glance at him. "Do what?"
"Decide the consequences are too big before anything's even happened."
There's no judgement in it. Just observation. The kind he delivers like he's reading a weather report rather than dissecting my entire thought process.
I let out a slow breath and look back at the fire. "That is not inaccurate."
"It also doesn't make it right," he says.
I don't respond immediately, because arguing would be easy and pointless at the same time. Finn has known me long enough to recognise when I am avoiding something and long enough not to let me get away with it entirely.
The silence stretches again, but it isn't heavy. It never is with him. Finn has a way of making silence feel structured, like it still has purpose even when nothing is being said.
He shifts in his chair slightly and nudges my foot with his boot.
"Come here," he says.
I look at him. "What?"
He tilts his head toward his chair, then back at mine. "You're doing the thing where you sit like you're trying to hold your own spine together. Swap with me for a bit."
"I am sitting normally."
Finn raises an eyebrow.
I stare at him for a moment longer, then exhale and stand. He does the same at the exact same time, like it has been rehearsed a hundred times before, and we trade places without further debate.
He helps pick up the blankets from the ground and wraps them around me as I sit down.
His chair is warmer than mine, shaped slightly differently from years of someone slouching in it, and I settle into it reluctantly.
Finn drops into my seat and immediately stretches out his legs like he has reclaimed territory.
"Yep, I was right. This one's broken in by overthinking," he says, patting the armrest.
"It is not broken."
"Nope, I'm pretty sure it is. I can already feel my mind beginning to buzz"
I huff a quiet laugh before I can stop myself.
Finn notices. Of course he does.
"That's better," he says, softer now. "You've been quieter than usual."
"I am always quiet."
"No," he replies, watching me properly now. "You go distant. There is a difference."
The fire pops again, and for a moment neither of us speaks. The night air presses in around us, but the space between us stays warm.
We remain outside for a while longer. The fire burns steadily between us, the occasional pop of wood breaking through the quiet. Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howls, the sound carrying across the woods before fading back into the stillness of the night.
Then I hear the back door open.
I turn instinctively.
Kai steps outside alone.
The door closes softly behind him, and he heads in the opposite direction without glancing at us. He pulls a cigarette from his pocket, lights it with practiced ease, and takes a long drag as he walks toward the edge of the garden.
I watch him in silence.
The glow of the cigarette briefly illuminates his face before he exhales smoke into the cold air. He seems relaxed, but I know better than most how deceptive appearances can be. Kai smiles when he's worried, deflects when he's afraid, and hides his pain behind an easy confidence that fools almost everyone.
Almost.
Finn notices my attention shift entirely to Kai and he nudges my arm lightly.
"Maybe now is the right time to talk to him."
I don't answer immediately.
Instead, I continue watching Kai, trying to calculate how this conversation will go and coming up with too many possibilities and not enough certainty.
"I'm not sure," I admit.
Finn lets out a quiet sigh.
"You've been saying that for weeks."
I know.
Every time I decide I am going to talk to Kai, I find another reason to delay it. The timing isn't right. He's finally doing better. Ethan is helping him heal. Bringing it up now might reopen wounds.
But beneath all those reasons is a far simpler truth.
The conclusion is irritatingly obvious. The risk is not that Kai will hate me. The risk is that I will hurt him.
For most of my life, I have relied on logic. Problems can be solved if you have enough information. Outcomes can be predicted if you understand the variables. Even in dangerous situations, there are usually patterns to follow and decisions to make.
But emotions do not behave like equations.
Kai certainly doesn't.
He is my brother. My twin. One of the few people whose wellbeing has always mattered more to me than my own. And that makes this infinitely more harder.
"If you don't do it now," Finn says quietly, "you'll just keep finding reasons not to."
I look down at the beer bottle in my hands. The irritating part is that he's right.
I have been postponing this conversation because uncertainty is easier to tolerate than potentially causing Kai pain. But avoidance has never actually solved anything. It only delays the inevitable while making me obsess over it in the meantime.
My mind has been circling this problem for weeks without reaching a solution. And I am tired of carrying it alone.
I let out a slow breath, place the bottle on the ground beside my chair, and pull the blanket from my lap.
The cold hits me immediately as I stand.
Finn remains seated by the fire, but I can feel his gaze on me.
Not pushing.
Not judging.
Just there, as he always is.
I slip my hands into my pockets and begin walking towards Kai. He hears me approaching before I say anything.
Of course he does.
He glances at me from the corner of his eye, takes another drag from his cigarette, and gives me a small smile.
I stop beside him.
For someone who can explain the most complicated theories without hesitation, I suddenly find myself at a complete loss for words.