SAVE THE EARTH SIBS AU

[wises]

[ this world is earth as we know it in modern days, but some people here were once upon a time elsewhere. in different worlds, as different people, with different lives. they were all reborn here for vague reasons as of yet unknown, souls tied to new lives and new bodies, but the core of them all remains. and sometimes there are echoes. the first memory always comes with the numbers. a string of random code that, when written on any surface, opens a network of people like you. people who are remembering lives that once were. people who are getting echoes of that past.

echoes come in many flavors. the color your hair used to be. what your name was. how to speak a language you forgot. a skill you never had in this life, but had in the other. a memory. there's no telling what it will be, although they tend to be tied to what you experience, what triggers them. seeing a face from a past life might bring a memory of that person. someone saying something they once said might bring that memory. doing something you once did might bring back a skill in full force. after the first echo, they all come. sometimes more of them come when Weird Shit happens, when they have to fight against the mysterious forces gathering.

before anything occurs, annabeth clarke lives a perfectly average life by anyone's standards. she has a mother and a father. she has an older brother. they have a dog. at school she gets straight a's and she's on the track team. she has friends, although she'd call her brother luke her best friend, older or no. her childhood was an ordinary if happy affair, and she wants nothing more than to graduate high school and attend a college near enough to visit her family when she pleases.

it changes when she gets her first echo. the first thing that doesn't quite fit, overlaid with the rest of it. there's a boy named percy who's on the swim team for another school and she's there for a friend and she meets his eyes and it clicks. she's seen those eyes before.

he drools in his sleep.

it's not a guess but a memory, a memory of something she doesn't and couldn't know, and it's baffling as anything, as are the numbers. she ditches the meet as quickly as she can and tries not to think about them. but other things keep coming back, in different ways and at different times. a spider crawls up her leg and she remembers them covering her entirely in webs, crawling over her skin, and spiders hate annabeth from that moment on. her brother's girlfriend tosses her a college pamphlet and she remembers different pamphlets that were meant for thalia that made no sense. luke ruffles her hair and she finds an orange shirt in the back of her closet that she never bought. they have a fencing day in gym and annabeth suddenly knows how to use a sword.

she goes to another swim meet in another town and sees that boy again. this time he has a shock of gray in his hair and she remembers her brother - different, but it's luke - being crushed beneath the weight of something, remembers taking it willingly and then there was nothing but pain and a weight she couldn't bear, but had to.

annabeth ditches the meet again, sending an apology text to her friend. by the time she's home it's dark and she goes up to luke's room. she hasn't said a word about the echoes, has only watched the network of people with disjointed memories and skills off and on, but this time she goes straight to her brother's room. opens the door, drops onto his bed and punches him in the shoulder. ]

Luke? [ a memory where luke walked away makes her think she's going crazy. she's been thinking that forever, though. so annabeth, now with a streak of gray in her hair, just wants the comfort of her dumb older brother being his usual self. at...late at night. but he can put up with it because he loves her, right? ]

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[chiseler]

[Life was weird. Life was always a little weird for Luke but it he always assumed that was just how life was. It wasn't that his life was bad by any means. He has a loving family including a little sister who's brighter than he is most days and one of his most trusted confidants, a decent future ahead with the idle idea of maybe becoming a teacher, a girlfriend he'd been with for several years, friends as far as the eye could see and a part-time job teaching kids how to fence. The world's in the palm of his hand and there's nothing more he could ask for.

But, life has a weird way of working out. Even if there's nothing more he could ask for, he finds himself receiving more in ways he doesn't understand. The first echo happens years ago when he's fourteen and he and Thalia are goofing off at a petting zoo at a local fair, a date they'd settled on for no reason at all. At first it seems as though it's a normal goat, but Luke looks again and suddenly he realizes he and Thalia have chased a goat before. It makes no sense to him because it's not possible for a goat to really exist with its curlicue horns and glowing wispy fur. He says nothing but tightens his grip on Thalia's hand, a sense of dread settling into his stomach as he pulls her away.

The echoes continue to occasionally plague him as he gets older, haunting him in various places. A clear picture of the Panama Canal in his head that he accurately describes in class one day despite never seeing it or being near it. For that matter, knowing how to steer a boat at all which surprises him because he isn't really a fan of water. One day he looks at himself in the mirror and jumps in shock as his eyes seem to glint gold at him, but by the time he blinks they're back to their normal blue again. He's in the hallway at school and a blue plastic hairbrush soars through the air as one girl tosses it to another, and despite being on the far end of the hall he flinches and covers an eye. It's little things like that that almost seem normal but he knows are out of place and rooted in irrational knowledge.

That's not counting the fact that on his sixteenth birthday he was able to steal a car off of the lot without notice and no one ever caught him for that. He came up with a quick lie about where it came from but even that was something he knows was unusual enough.

The worst part, Luke thinks, is the dreams. He hears a voice in his nightmares that he doesn't recognize but he does know it's familiar, knows not to listen to it this time because the last time he had it lead to something bad. He doesn't quite know what, but the visions in his nightmares are familiar. He's learned to stop screaming in terror as to not worry people.

Maybe that isn't the worst part. There's something else, something from a different dream tonight but he's afraid to look if it's really true. It's late, maybe in the morning it'll go away. It's a little dark in his room and even if it's late he's awake because of said-dreams keeping him up. He's laying on his side in bed and when he feels Annabeth punch his shoulder he reaches up to wrap a hand around her wrist to stop her.]

You couldn't say my name before punching me? I'm already up. [He's not lifting his head from his pillow but he raises an eyebrow.] Did you just get home? [That's how the Clarke siblings handle things. They don't ask "what's wrong" but they talk around the subject.]

[wises]

I went to Sophie's swim meet, remember? [ and then she drove around in a haze for a bit. but it was far enough away to while down the time, though not by how much it took her to get back. so it's not the best answer, even if it's an answer of sorts.

annabeth twists her hand in luke's grip, freeing her wrist just to clasp his hand with her own. she won't ask him to tell her it's okay out loud, because that's not a thing she ever does, but it's easier to shove weird memories of her brother being not himself to the back of her mind when he's right there. ]

And I punched you first because I didn't know you were up. [ because punching people in the shoulder is the best way to wake them up. never change, annabeth. ] You're usually asleep this late.

[ did you have bad dreams, she doesn't ask. ]

[chiseler]

Yeah. [It's a reactive answer. Consciously, yes he remembers. He makes it a point to always know where Annabeth is, and it's become especially bad over the last couple of years when he recalled a time they weren't together and he'd been...begging her to run away with him? In a house that wasn't theirs with a family that he didn't recognize, he had appeared on her doorstep and begged and she'd turned him away.

He didn't want to lose her. It's for that reason he also holds her hand, grip firm and assuring and also using it to ground himself to reality. He knows what's true. What's true is that his younger sister is sometimes brutal and wants to talk and she had friends and a life and a plan and wouldn't disappear.]

You're lucky I didn't punch back. [It's grumbled and an idle threat but they both know he would never hurt her. He wouldn't be able to live with himself if he ever hit her at all. He thinks about lying, thinks about spinning a story that would satisfy her, but he also knows that she'd see through said-lie, too.] Woke up, no big deal. [So yes. An answer unspoken for a question unasked.] Gonna tell me why you were checking if I was up in the first place?

[wises]

[ the answer to why she's checking is i think i might possibly be going mad. it's one thing if she can ignore it, which she's been doing, but if she pays attention to the echoes or that weird string of numbers, if she acknowledges any of it, if she isn't crazy -

but the only answer is that she's going crazy. because none of it can be real. because there is absolutely no way luke would walk away if she were in trouble. ever. ]

I was just checking. [ that's not an answer. but she doesn't know how to say it, exactly. ] And I don't want to go to my room, anyway, so let me stay in yours.

[ the spiders come in greater numbers when she's alone. ]

[chiseler]

[There's a long pause. He doesn't say anything, doesn't exactly move either and he's not exactly considering it but he's weighing his decision. He would never turn her away. That's not even coming close to his mind. He's thinking of the possibilities of the evening. He's thinking what may occur before the sun comes up with monsters in the dark spaces of his mind and the newfound throbbing pain in the side of his face. He's managed to quell it with the cool fabric of his pillow, but he's afraid to lift his head and see what might be there.

Instead of words, he shifts to allow her space next to him on his bed and uses his foot to grab a spare blanket for her. Fine, whatever. They're absolutely Fine.]

Whatever. [That seems to settle that but he's patiently waiting anyway.] Don't get me up at 5am though okay? [He's pretty much assuming she's staying the whole night. The words are mostly to keep talking, but the way the sentence ends suggests he wants to say more. He's unsure how to phrase it though.]

[wises]

[ annabeth doesn't bother to speak through the pause. she's never felt the need to chatter through silence before, and she doesn't feel the need to press luke about it, either. asking is exactly how far she's willing to go towards being clingy. anything further and luke would get really worried, because annabeth doesn't beg for anything and asking more than once would qualify for her.

when he shifts, though, she scoots closer to lie down and lets him give her a foot blanket. ew. annabeth doesn't even complain. ]

I promise not to get you up at 5am. [ she does not make any promises about 5:01am. but the devil is in the details. annabeth curls up on her side facing luke, and tries to figure out what he's not saying, or doesn't know how to say.

the idea that he's going crazy (or not) too floats in the back of her mind, but how does she even begin to bring that up? ]

Do you think mom and dad would hire an exterminator?

[ it's the first thing to come to mind. she immediately mentally kicks herself because it sounds dumb and why wouldn't they? but they don't have that big a spider problem, unless annabeth is alone. ]

[chiseler]

[Annabeth has always been the more independent of the two of them. Where Luke has a tendency to ask for things and whittle things out of their parents and even moreso out of Thalia with a little effort, Annabeth has always been straightforward and free. He's worried as it is, but not enough to call her on it. He loosely drapes the blanket over her and surprisingly (or maybe not, really) keeps holding onto her hand. There's a soft snort when she makes that promise but he doesn't think much beyond it. His free hand comes up and picks up the gray strand in her hair, frowning as he idly twirls it.

Where this came from, he doesn't know. Annabeth hasn't acknowledged it so maybe it's just something she's trying out. He smushes his face further into his pillow but he appears thoughtful at the question.]

Probably if I tell them I've been finding bugs in the back of my closet. [He doesn't have a problem lying to their parents now, a habit he's developed on his own. His lips draw into a line though.] They've been following you? [The question even surprises him. He knows Annabeth isn't fond of spiders and has noticed they seem to appear around her, but he has no reason to think that spiders are truly sentient enough to genuinely pinpoint Annabeth over other members of the family...right?] We can ask them in the morning. I, um. [An awkward pause.] ...got a few things I might need to ask them, too.

[wises]

[ she'll acknowledge it when she knows it's there. it's the first physical proof of these echoes, if one doesn't count a shirt she'd never bought or owned at all. which annabeth doesn't. it's still shoved in the back of her closet, because she hadn't wanted anything to do with it and the too-familiar unfamiliar logo on the front. annabeth doesn't complain when her brother plays with her hair, because he's allowed as long as he doesn't yank it.

but she goes still when he says following you because it sounds so stupid but it's true. and it's not a thing anyone should be asking her, because it's crazy. spiders aren't out to get people. you can joke about it, but they don't really care about people and she's imagining it, how they start to crowd her.

except she knows she isn't.

luke hesitates, and annabeth watches him, careful. ]

What do you need to ask them? [ what's going on with you? is it what's going on with me? they suck at this and she almost asks but instead she just squeezes his hand. ]

[chiseler]

[The last thing he wanted to do was scare her. He's older, more responsible and Annabeth has always been his priority. It's always been his job to protect her even in the places he knows she can protect herself, but how can you do that when you're not sure how to protect yourself? It's a question that's kept him awake on nights like these.

He allows the gray strand to wind around his finger and his mind is scarily blank. Spiders following young girls, the scent of a bonfire on the wind that he associated with a summer camp he's never been to, things that follow him out of dreams.

Luke hates to lie to Annabeth, but he can bend the truth a little as to not worry her too much even as he grasps her fingers.]

I want to see about making a doctor's appointment to get a prescription for something to help me sleep. I don't want to do melatonin...heard it makes people dream up some pretty weird shit. [It's a start? It's kind of a start.] I bet we can get an exterminator out here tomorrow afternoon if they call first thing in the morning.