AXIS

SINNER PARTY

One day, she's going to break and it's going to be your fault.

"Cyprian isn't here yet?" Calypso asks.

Nikolai shakes his head, unable to force words out of his mouth. Averykievs are not fidgety people. In fact, they stand like statues and look like them, all sculpted perfection. But they also have a way with emotions, at least those of people they are blood related to, and Calypso's skills seem to be especially honed. Which is why Calypso smiles reassuringly, her lips all easy curves and planes.

"Hey, it's fine. He always comes, even if you don't call." A laugh ghosts out from her lips. "I swear, sometimes I wonder if it's magic."

Nikolai grunts in something akin to agreement, and he spares his sister a tilt of his lips that are not quite a smile.

Just then, muted footsteps sound from down the hall, and the twins twist their heads for a glance in unison. The image they are rewarded with is a man (boy?) dressed in a suit and a slightly downturned mouth in the place of his usual smirk.

Calypso smiles at Nikolai again, just as Cyprian reaches them. "See?"

Nikolai ignores her, choosing to focus on Cyprian and trying to get his sister into the car he likely has waiting in the front. He catches Cyprian's eyes, and as light eyes stare into even lighter ones, they come to an agreement that today will not be the day.

Calypso pushes herself off of the wall gently and walks away first, either oblivious to Nikolai and Cyprian's moment or choosing to ignore it.

The two of them follow after her, but Nikolai allows himself to fall back a few paces. Even though Cyprian is here now, the knot of anxiousness in his stomach refuses to unravel itself, and he releases a long breath.

♟

They end up at some hotel, one whose name Nikolai does not bother catching (but plaques and cards here and there read: PRAETORIUM). As Cyprian leads them towards the elevators, Nikolai follows in a dream-like stance. He feels like he is drunk; he feels like he is full; he feels like he is empty. Drunk on tales of the night; full on air, full because of air; empty because of sins, not of them. (God knows how much he has of those. He would need a whole arsenal to keep them, little weapons glistening in starlight.)

Cyprian walks past the elevators, so Calypso does too, and so Nikolai does also.

They arrive at a singular one tucked into a crevice in the hallway. It does not differ from the other elevators though, not in grandiose or efficiency, and so the three of them step in. Cyprian's stride is sure and steady (much like the person himself), Calypso's is ever so delicate, even when she is decaying, and Nikolai's is as it always is - robotic as if it has been trained into him.

But though it may seem to others like he is unaffected, the air around him is churning something dark and deep and dangerous. Calypso feels it as she usually does - maybe because they are twins, Averykievs, or maybe because of her natural heightened intuition - but she spares Nikolai a mercy and does not mention it.

Cyprian reaches forward to press the button next to the Roman numeral 'C' which Nikolai finds impossible because from the outside, the hotel rises thirty to forty floors into the sky at the most. Yet, as he opens his mouth to question the numbering of the elevator buttons, a ding sounds around them and the doors open to a room. Or rather a suite. One larger than any he has been in before, and he has been in many.