Mordecai, however, did not fall asleep. He watched his brother, with his head nestled up on his twisted spine. He looked peaceful despite himself, and he knew that their thoughts while slithering under the rib cage were the same. They were not normal.

Even Kerberos, the one with three heads, was different from them. His heads acted like one, while he knew that he and Henry were vastly different. His heads tended to agree with each other, while he would often snap at his own brother for senseless reasons. Kerberos' heads shared the same name, while voices whispered in their heads two different names.

Mordecai. Heinrich.

He had began to feel disgust just hearing the words, those names. They were different, not just from other gembounds, but from each other. And he hated it. He could stand it if they each had their own body, but some twisted and barbaric joke had decided that they would never have the freedom nor privacy to keep to themselves, to go different places and meet different people.

Even now, as his brother slept, he would so much rather go somewhere else and see other things - but even if he did have the ability to do that, it was cut short by the orbs shutting off and leaving him surrounded by a silent darkness.

Slowly, Mordecai lowered his head onto his spine next to Henry, and closed his eyes. It didn't matter, now. Nothing did. He was too tired to hate any longer.

When Henry opened his eyes, the lights were still off. At first, he didn't move, but he was content. His belly was full and he felt comfortably drowsy. Mordecai was still asleep. He wasn't sure what to do today, or if Mordecai even knew what to do today - he hadn't announced any plans before they went to sleep.

Henry began to think, as much as he could. He wanted to bond with his brother; show him he appreciated him more than anything in the world. A game, perhaps? The right head looked over his sleeping brother consideringly.

A game would work! He just had to think up of one first! Surely, it couldn't be that hard. And so, Henry began thinking of a game. A minute later, he was still thinking of a game.

Two minutes. Nothing.
Three minutes. Nothing.
Four.
Five.
Ten.
Fifteen.
Half an hour. Nothing.

Clearly, this was going to be harder than Henry initally thought. It lead the head to begin looking around Canis for answers - though to no avail. He felt defeated as he flopped back onto his spine with a soft and tired sigh. He could nap, and then maybe he'd come up with the Greatest Game Ever.

Mordecai was awoken by a familiar voice. "Morty! Morty, wake up!"

Blinking the sleep away, Mordecai groaned quietly. His head hurt, but his stomach was full from the rat him and Heinrich had managed to capture and eat minutes before they fell asleep. At length, the left head glanced at his brother, before he jerked in alarm.

Was something wrong? Is this why Heinrich sounded so desperate? The head shot up, wide-eyed. His inital instinct was to look up and down his brother's neck and face, before he turned to inspect the rest of their body. "Henry? Henry, are you alright?"

They were uninjured. Nothing had happened. The next worry Mordecai had was if Henry had a nightmare, but before he could flood his brother with more questions he was interrupted. "Morty! We should play a game together!"

This resulted in Mordecai thumping his head back down onto his back with a soft and tired groan. "Go back to sleep, Heinrich," grumbled the head. "Now is not the time for... 'games.'"

He did not lift his head up afterwards, nor did he turn to look at his brother again. He wanted to sleep and he wasn't going to waste time on stupid made up games.

Morty was a lot less enthusiastic than Henry thought. He didn't think of what to say if his brother had rejected the idea of playing a game together - the idea was seamless, flawless! How could it have gone wrong?

He wasn't shouting, or seemed to be particularly angry. He just seemed tired. Why did he want to sleep all the time, anyway? Henry began to nudge Mordecai's head gently, trying to get his head lifted up. "M-Morty! I came up with the game all by myself! It'll be fun! Come on!"

The tired grunt of Mordecai came from the other snake's throat, followed by the drained tone of someone who couldn't wait any longer for the cold, albeit sweet embrace of death to take them away. "I do not want to play a game, Heinrich."

Henry almost gave up then and there, whimpering at his brother's reluctance to bond, but he couldn't! His relationship with his brother depended on this! Henry began nudging the dozing head at a more rapid rate, and Mordecai could do nothing but lie there until he entered a state of submission.

But clearly Mordecai would not give up so easily. He simply lay there, as if paralysed, ignoring Henry's taunting.

Mordecai liked to think of himself as a horribly patient little reptile, but the constant jabbing of Heinrich's snout against his neck could get old and it could get old fast. With a scowl, the head lifted itself up, glaring holes into his head mate. "What do you want?" the snake hissed, almost demanding an explaination from his brother.

Heinrich paused. "A game," he said, abruptly cautious. "We should play a game together, and I thought of a game we could play and it'd be fun and you'd be happy." Mordecai winced at the soft features of his brothers, his stupidly big and round eyes belonged on a pup's face rather than a snake.

Disgusting. Surely this was Heinrich's way of guilt tripping him into doing what he wanted. The left head mulled over the idea of playing a 'game' with what he considered to be his little brother (as he had stuck his head out first) and, after peering over Heinrich once or twice again, the head slowly hissed out a sigh, shaking his head.

"Alright," Mordecai said slowly, hesitant. His head tilted, and he seemingly allowed the words to spill out before he could regret it "We can play your game. What is it?"

He'd done it! Morty agreed to playing!

Henry opened his mouth, and then shut it again. He paused, staring at Morty for a moment, until a moment turned into a solid minute. "..Henry?" his brother asked softly, but Henry didn't reply. He was lost in thought.

"I,..." the head began, peering at the judgemental and piercing eyes of Mordecai. He hesitated, voice quiet and hissing. "I.. forgot what the... game was."

The next three minutes were nothing but yelling and whimpering. Henry didn't quite understand why it wasn't usually a normal thing to wake someone from their sleep and then half-immediately forget why you woke them up, but Mordecai didn't seem to fully understand that Henry didn't come with completely ill intentions. Both of their intentions were, and always will be, the exact same; to look out for each other.

But neither of them seem to know how to do it correctly. Henry had stretched far away from Mordecai, who had went right back to sleep after spitting pure venom at his brother. He didn't want to bother him, and so he sat and carefully waited until Mordecai woke up once more so he could decide what to do instead.

Mordecai, just like the night before, couldn't sleep. His head was flopped on his spine once again, eyes held tightly shut. He wasn't sure how long it would take for him to drift off into slumber, or how long it would take for the adreniline to leave his body after the horrible thought of something harming Heinrich, but he hoped it would be soon.

Perhaps this was the fatality Mordecai was mildly afraid of; the spear in his relationship with his brother. Guilt boiled in his throat, but he didn't dare move or open his eyes. He kept his tongue held tightly in his mouth. He knew he would have to make it up to his brother at some point, but Mordecai simply just didn't know how. If his brother was his polar opposite, perhaps he'd like the things he hated?

But, strangely enough, he couldn't think of what he hated. He could only imagine himself drowning in thick black filth, that got in his mouth, his ears, his eyes. It burned like acid, melting pieces of his scales away. Festering, perhaps that was the word to describe this thought?

Possibly not. Mordecai only tried to push these thoughts away and go to sleep, relatively unsuccessfully - especially with his brother simply watching over him.

End thread