Nearly ten years later, Iggy was still a runt. Blind. Disabled. Weak. Some would say that runts are high maintenance with little pay off, but Baine kept him anyways.
Iggy sat on the sofa inside of Baine's private office balancing a two foot book across his Indian crossed knees. It was about the world's greatest artworks. It had large pictures and fonts and it was one of few that Iggy had read more than a thousand times, since his reading options didn't reflect his seeing ability. It didn't matter to him, though. He knew that he was lucky enough to have at least one book that he was able to read, and especially fortunate that it was about art. He didn't care much about reading, not like Baine did anyway. Art was his love. His companion. His endless obsession.
He closed one eye and peered up at Baine who stood in front of his massive bookshelf, the one that towered over him and covered the entire wall, plucking out pages of journals like hairs and sifting through them. Research was typically how he spent most of his time. Afterwards, he'd position each page and journal back in order, always a little bit sloppier than they had been, but in order nonetheless.
On this night, Iggy squirmed restlessly. "What are you reading about?" he daringly inquired. Although Iggy had gone through a delayed puberty during the past two years, he still had a higher voice than an otherwise healthy post pubescent man. It was hard to respect him at times.
Baine didn't even look up from the pages in his hand. Rather than converse, he shook his head and turned his shoulder so that his back faced him. Iggy sighed and put his chin in his hand. He leant over the armrest and gazed at Baine's large back. Most of his features Iggy remembered from when his vision wasn't so poor, but as each day went by, he saw less and less. Baine had very warm dark brown hair that was meticulously clean cut. His skin was on the cooler side, white with just a slight hint of beige, and he looked around twenty seven.
A few minutes passed and Baine could feel the hot arrow in his back. "What is it, Iggy?" he grumbled. "I can feel you staring at me."
Iggy reopened the book across his lap with his able right hand and looked down. "I'm having a hard time seeing," he complained. "I think my vision is getting worse every time I open my eyes."
Baine pressed his back against the bookshelf and he rolled his eyes to look over at Iggy. His jawline was hard etched. "Try closing your left eye," he proposed, attending back to the pages in his hands.
Iggy tossed the cover to the back with a clap and laid it on the couch next to him. He rested his hand over the title. "It doesn't help."
Genuinely unconcerned, Baine replied in his lowest voice, "when's the last time you ate, then?" The corners of Iggy's lips pulled back anxiously, and he glared down at the back of his pale hand. Baine sighed loudly and shoved the pages back into the wall. He walked over and sat next to him. His eyebrows lifted and he tilted his head. "Well?"
"I don't remember," Iggy whispered. Then he shook his head and regained volume. "I don't want to eat. I don't feel hungry."
Baine pressed his elbows into the tops of his thighs and leaned forward. His eyes dug into him. "I haven't seen you eat in days. Just because we don't eat, doesn't mean that you don't have to. You're a weak seventeen year old. You need all the nourishment you can get."
Blood rushed through Iggy's cheeks and heated his chest. "But my food gets thrown away," he justified. "Every time I make something, it's gone before I can eat it all. It's too hard to eat around here, because everyone hates it so much that they sabotage me!"
Baine turned his head back and furrowed his eyebrows. "No one is sabotaging you…" he stated. He leaned back, breaking eye contact, and exhaled through pursed lips. "Food just smells bad. We try not to be around it." He relaxed and pushed himself forward again. "Look, cook only what you can finish. Then, it won't disappear before you can get back to it again, because you'll already have eaten it."
Feeling insecure, Iggy folded his right arm over his left and hugged his pale, left, deformed hand into his ribs. His deformity was a very sensitive place. He never even allowed Baine to look at it, let alone touch it. He shifted his chin to the side, not even pretending to look back at him. "What's the point of boiling a single potato?" he mumbled. "Never mind that," he continued, now looking in Baine's general direction. "I don't feel hungry, so I don't care. Instead, let's go outside. The summer flowers opened. I want to get some and bring them inside. Whenever I see them at night, I can't tell the difference between the yellow ones and the blue ones…"
"Flowers?"
"And I really want to use them for a project tomorrow. If I get them tonight, they'll be dried by-"
"No."
"But-"
Baine shook his head and stood up from the couch. "It's almost morning. Ask Nansen to take you out tomorrow." He circled around the couch and plopped down behind his desk. He picked up a page from the desktop and scanned it. The document was an incomplete message sent from the nearest house located forty miles away that was similar to theirs. The house belonged to the Silgrias, and all that was written was, Emi... Silgria Family.
Iggy sunk back into the cushions with his arms still tightly crossed over. He grasped another idea, and tossed himself half over the back of the couch and smiled. "How about I go out alone?" he proposed. "It won't be long. I would be back inside in no time."
Baine glared at him indignantly. "You can't be serious," he said. "You know the rules. You can't go anywhere without me or Nansen. We are here to protect you. What can we do if you go outside in the sunlight and have a seizure or something? We'd burn alive trying to save you. Could you live with that?"
All of Iggy's enthusiasm drained out. He swallowed loudly, drew his hand down into his lap, and turned back around. "Alright… I'll ask him tomorrow," he gave in.
"Forget it!" Baine stood and circled the desk. "Just for entertaining the thought, I want you to stay inside tomorrow and the next night." Iggy dug his fingers into his forearm and lowered his chin quietly defiant. "The idea itself is reckless enough to make me second guess my trust in you. Now-" he dropped his voice "-go into the kitchen, and eat something. You're disappearing right before my eyes."
A half of a bowl of boiled carrots later, and Iggy and Baine were marching along the upstairs hallway toward the last bedroom. A few other house members were also retiring for the morning, but the majority of the twenty some residents were already fast asleep, and the hallways were deathly quiet, until Nansen crossed their path.
Regardless of the dark smudges in the corners of his eyes that resembled exhaustion, Nansen smiled wide, and glided through the two, patting them on their backs as they passed each other. "Have good daydreams, boys!" he teased.
"I'll switch with you!" Baine called after him as he distanced himself further down the hall.
"No way in hell! Twenty four hours shifts were your idea, remember?!" Nansen twirled with a mischievous grin, just before he dashed through the door of his bedroom located at the top of the stairs.
Baine peered down at the old cot sitting outside of Iggy's bedroom door. A decrepit thing, layered with blankets to make it a tad bit more comfortable. Baine growled at the sight of it. "I'm getting to the point where the floor looks more inviting," he declared.
Iggy rounded the corner to his own bedroom and halted at the threshold. "You can always sleep in my bed with me," he offered.
"With you?" he laughed in mockery. "I think not."
"Well… Your choice then."