#I realized I forgot to do Old Cal like Old Solso now it's gonna be a thing lol

[writingfandomsandthings]

Dys and Tang have had odd dreams since they were small, but after the death of their mother and the growing chasm between them (and between Dys and everyone else) they have stopped talking about them.

Tang dreams of a lab grounded, a lab destroyed, a lab fraying at the edges and her spiraling with it.

(She also dreams of choking pollen and too many eyes and a System she does not understand)

Dys dreams of an open sky, and kind eyes he doesn't (but does, god he does) recognize, and sounds and smells he can never quite describe.

(He also dreams of shattered metal, and sobbing and yearning, and something irrevocably broken and mended)

Time passes. They grow and learn and start seeing the end of a young childhood. They are still children, but they are starting to feel grown up.

The Stratos gets closer and closer to Vertumna.

Tang inserts herself as Instance's apprentice and prodigy. Dys feels more and more alone, an outlier.

(They are cracking)

The Stratos approaches the wormhole.

(They know they are cracking)

When the Stratos begins its descent planetside the children are huddled together.

Dys and Tang are not worried, really. Probably.

Then the shaking begins and they crack their skulls together. They in a tangle of limbs, unconscious and held down by adults.

(Held to the dark and quiet like the womb, a rebirth)

When they wake on Vertumna, healing, their first major choice influenced under the eye of the wormhole arrives.

When Dys first wakes up he can ask:

"Where am I?"

"Where is Tang"

Tang when she first wakes up can ask:

"How injured was I?"

"Is Dys okay?"

(If they reach for each it colors all that follows...if only one reaches out something cracks...if neither reach out they kept to their orbits going further and further away even if some part of their heart aches)

If they reach for each other their orbits cross and diverge and cross again.

Dys searches for home and answers beyond the wall, and Tang is always there to help him with the puzzle.

Tang searches for meaning and more for the colony in science, in robotics, in all Instance can and cannot teach her and Dys brings her more and more and more to study and learn and grow from.

But if only one reached out and the other kept to their orbit? Heartbreak again and again and again.

Dys who keeps trying to show Tang their new homd, their new place but she won't look. She won't look at him.

Tang who catalogs and labels and learns and gives Dys knowledge - or tries. But he keep getting further and further from Stratos. Tang tries so hard to follow, but she is not built for field work like he is and he's leaving her behind.

Soon, though, it's a race to decipher their dreams. Dys realizes first that the dreams show the future, kind of, because he's not forgoing sleep the way Tang is.

They begin a dance to try to save the colony - or doom it - or doom Vertumna or unite or or or.

Dys always finds the Gardeners when he's able to get out, always bewitched and craving their acceptance. The sooner he pieces together his dreams, the sooner he falls into Sym's arms.

However, if Tang and him have fallen into a lockstep, he still has a foot in Stratos. He still lets his human heart beat.

(Except for the times they both ascend, to forgo mortal bodies into the embrace of the Garden)

And Tang does not listen to the cold heartbeat of science without ties, science without end.

Dys does not blow up the Stratos

Tang does not poison the planet.

They can orchestrate peace or a way to feel the chokehold of Helios. They find help ij the everyman Sol, who never doubts what they tell them - never doubts the oddities of Vertumna.

There is a coup and Sol heads the colony towards welcoming the Gardeners, brokering a deal.

(Dys realizes first that Sol knows some of the Gardeners - that Sol is the everyman of all of Vertumna)

Or a small group leaves the Helios driven colony to become something new. Human or Gardener or something in between.

(Sol stays behind, and Tamg leaves them a final solution if the military of Helios somehow survives the Gardener's final assault)

If the twins took different paths, they always destroy themselves or the colony.

In one life, Tang finds her own Gardener to be bewitched by, embittered at being left behind and ends the story with blood on her hands -

(Nem looks on in horror and asks "what did you do? what did you do?"

In another life Dys is angry and flailing and he finds out Tang is crafting a poison to ensure human supremacy.

(The wall blows and Dys is in the lab with blood on his hands and he's worse than their mother, goddammit he wants Tang to look away now but she can't, she can't, she can never close her eyes again)

They were lost and haunted on the Stratos, but only together could Dys and Tang make something happy out of the murk.

-

Cross-posted on pillowfort

#i was a teenage exocolonist #iwatex #dys (iwatex) #tang (iwatex) #fanfiction #my fanfiction #I realized I forgot to do Old Cal like Old Solso now it's gonna be a thing lol #also when I post it to ao3 I think I'm gonna have this version #and a revamped version basically #my commentary in tags #death cw