sirowsky-stories

[sirowsky-stories]

The Flowers Always Know

Chapter 23 - Surprises

Description: Coming back home after your self-imposed isolation was not without difficulty, leading to a few tough conversations. But also to fully reuniting with your man, finally.

**Beware! Author chooses NOT to display warnings on the individual chapters of this story. Read at your own risk!**

Author's Note: This was one of the chapters I was most looking forward to updating, adding so much more depth and a much more accurate characterization to the decisions both Marcus and Hermosa are faced with.

Rating: Mature 18+ONLY Word Count: 9809 (5442 words added) Masterlist (this story)

   It was late afternoon by the time Marcus parked the car outside the house. The sun was sitting low, creating a pink and golden shimmer to the air and it all felt a bit more magical than it probably was. But you were so happy to be home again, your own heart was probably adding a layer of sparkle to the whole scene.    He’d turned the engine off and unhooked his seatbelt before your partner realized that you weren’t moving.

   “Hey, are you okay? You’re not having second thoughts, are you?” he asked, and he sounded almost panicked at the mere thought.

   “Not at all,” you reassured him, still looking at the seemingly otherworldly view outside the front window.

   “Oh, thank goodness. Don’t scare me like that,” he replied with a sharp exhale, as though the fear had made him hold his breath.

   “Sorry. I was just thinking that it’s time I sold my house,” you explained, too lost in your own thoughts to notice how he visibly flinched. “I don’t even know why I haven’t done it sooner, but I guess I just never got around to it. I feel like it’s been one crazy week after the other for so long now.”

   His silence finally broke through your slightly mesmerized gaze, and you turned your head to look at him, surprised to find him staring teary-eyed at you.

   “What is it, honey?”

   “It’s just…” he started, but then had to pause just to breathe for a moment. “You have no idea how long I’ve waited to hear you say that.”

   “That I wanna get rid of the house? Why? I haven’t even set foot in there since our first night together.”

   “Well, at first, I figured you kept it as a failsafe, in case we didn’t… work out. Which made total sense, it was just rational thinking.    But then, after… the prison… I thought maybe you still wanted to keep it because you worried that I might push you away again. And it broke my heart to think I made you feel like you needed a safe place to get away from me.”

   You unbuckled yourself and turned in your seat so you could fully meet his eyes, and took his hands in yours, gripping them tightly to let him have the physical support if he needed it.

   “That whole mess was a stepping-stone. For both of us. But we managed to step over it together, and we’re on the other side now, so we get to walk away and leave it behind us.    I trust you, not because I have to, but because I want to. Okay?” you posed, and he nodded but he was still fighting tears, so you kept going. “These past weeks, where I’ve been the one staying away, those were another stone of ours, and thanks to you, we got past this one too.”

   Realizing the truth behind your words, he finally smiled and leaned forwards, letting go of your hands to hold you instead, and you held him in return with all your strength.

   “I love you, Marcus. So much.”

   “I love you, hermosa.”

   When he loosened his grip, you pulled back and kissed him once. Any more than that and you wouldn’t be leaving the car any time soon. And he knew it too, smiling with recognition as he saw the familiar heat in your eyes before you turned away and reached for the doorhandle.    He waited for you to round the car so he could take your hand for the short walk around the garage, and as you approached the front door, he huffed a small laugh.

   “Oh right, I should probably tell you; Missy doesn’t know you’re coming home today.”

   His mirth made sense then, because she was bound to be overjoyed, and she tended to get a bit hyper in those circumstances.

   “Ah. Good to know,” you smiled back, mentally preparing for lots of screaming and hugging, just in case.

   He walked in first, noting that no one was in the living room, from which the front hall was fully visible, then stepped out of his shoes and approached the kitchen, while you lingered in the hallway, out of sight for a bit longer.    In your fear of hurting her, you’d asked Missy to keep her distance, and not visit you every day or for very long. Circumstances had then led to it being almost two weeks since you’d last seen her, and you felt a little unsure of how she’d take it. If she was angry with you, you’d certainly understand.

   “Hi, dad. Did you talk to her today?” was the first thing she said after hearing her father greet her, and it tore at your chest to hear the mixture of hope and sadness in her voice.

   “I did. That’s why I’m late.”

   “And? When is she coming home?”

   For a few seconds, you were frozen in the shadowy space among the shoes and jackets, because in those few words, you heard the echoes of entire conversations the two of them must’ve had concerning you.    How they must’ve sat together and worried, trying to come up with strategies for how to convince you to come home, and the realization left you struggling to breathe for a while.    They both truly loved you, so much more than you’d ever dared to believe.

   “How about now?” you asked, allowing the gratitude for their affection to give you strength as you quietly emerged from the hallway, and saw her entire face light up before she was already running at you.

   “Hermosa!” she squealed and ran the short distance to jump into your arms, without a hint of fear or anger.

   Ever since she’d found you in the grass at Anita’s place that day, and used her father’s favourite nickname for you, you’d noticed she’d started using it more regularly. You hadn’t questioned it or asked her why, but hearing it now, when she was so reactive, you wondered if it had simply become your name to her.    Her father had certainly used it enough to make it plausible.    She hugged you so tightly and laughed while she cried and tried to tell you how much she’d missed you, all at the same time.

   “Hey, no need to rush, kiddo, I’m sticking around,” you giggled at her chaotic welcome, and she pulled back to look at you.

   “Really?” Her question wasn’t disbelieving, but it was unsure enough that it made you feel terrible about having stayed away from her for so long.

   “Really, really. I missed you too, angel.”

   She stayed close to you while you cooked that evening. You’d asked to have the honour of cooking by yourself on your first day back, because you hadn’t done any cooking for so long, and you still felt like you could taste those disgusting early supplements in the back of your throat, so you wanted to make something you knew would chase those tastes away.    The food provided to you while you’d been locked up hadn’t been bad, but you longed for something spicier, richer in flavour than what you’d been served there.

   “Are you sure those things were actually for consumption? Cause I saw one of them, and it sure didn’t look like it,” Missy asked when you explained your desire to cook while taking out all the pots and pans you’d be needing, and you had to laugh.

   “Oh, trust me, it didn’t taste like it either. But they did manage to come up with one that works, finally. They’re still working on the flavours, but at least it doesn’t taste like cardboard, and does what it’s supposed to.”

   “And what is that, exactly?”

   “Well, if and when I get drained of energy, if I eat one of those bars, it’s the equivalent of eating about three full meals.”

   “That sounds… unhealthy,” she settled on, looking a bit like someone smelling a bad fart.

   “It really does,” you chuckled at her expression, “but it might save my life, so don’t knock it. And don’t ever let me leave the house without at least one.”

   “Make that three,” Marcus chipped in from the dinner table, where he was busy setting the plates and cutlery.

   He shot you a hard look under his brows as he waited to hear you agree, and while you might’ve felt it was a bit over the top, you weren’t gonna argue. Certainly not after just telling his daughter the damned things could save your life.

   “Fine.”

   The three of you had dinner together for the first time in a very long time, and it was so relaxed and comfortable. It seemed almost like you could’ve actually been in prison in comparison to what this felt like.    After the table had been cleared, Missy wanted to play a board-game, so you went to find it in the cabinet in the hallway to the bedrooms, and of course, the one she wanted was on the bottom shelf.    You bent down to get it, and when you stood up again, there was suddenly a figure next to you, and you leapt sideways while you felt your energy react.

   “Anita, for fucks sake!!” you full-on yelled at her. “What is wrong with you?! I could have flung you into the neighbour’s yard! What the hell were you thinking?!”

   You’d only just managed to restrain yourself long enough to realize that it was her. Just.

   “Well, you were worried about blowing up the house. If you can keep from instinctively throwing out a perceived threat, then I think you can rest easy,” she shrugged, completely unbothered by the danger she’d just placed everyone in.

   “Wha-… Are you serious?!” you kept screaming, still trembling with the remnants of fear she’d made your body leap to, making you furious that she’d take such a risk for no reason.

   But she merely smiled and walked past Marcus, who had come to see what you were screaming about, and it pissed you off to no end that she wasn’t even taking the threat you posed seriously enough to acknowledge that what she’d just done was absolutely idiotic.

   “You are completely fucking crazy! Do that again, and I’ll throw you to the other end of the god damned neighbourhood, let’s see if you’re still smiling then!”

   She left without another word, and Marcus came to stand beside you, shoving his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants. He didn’t even look worried.    You closed your eyes to try and focus on just breathing to get your heart to slow down, and leaned against the wall, holding a hand up towards him to indicate a tiny measurement in between your fingers.

   “I was this close, babe… My skin is crawling.”

   His current washed over you, helping your body to settle down, but he wasn’t at all concerned about what had just happened, and that truly worried you.

   “Look, I get that you have this unbelievable faith in me and I’m very grateful for it. But how the hell can you stand there so calmly right now? You know what I can do…” you questioned, still fighting the pounding of your own pulse with every breath.

   If it had just been the startle, you would’ve settled down in no time, but because the shock of it had activated your powers, all the fears you had about how destructive you could be, entirely without meaning to, had come along with it. And that was a lot harder to quell.

   “Yes, I do know what you’re capable of, but I also know how far you’ll go for the people you love,” he answered simply, but there was a depth to his eyes which spoke of strong emotions lurking under the surface. “You died to protect us, and however much I hate it… I know you’d rather die than let any harm come to us.”

   He took his hands out of his pockets and came to take your hands instead, and even with the trails of despair you saw in his face, he still looked so calm.

   “Yes, you came close, and no, she shouldn’t have done that, but you have nothing to fear,” he reiterated, letting more of his current roll through you to take the final edges of shock out of your system.

   “How can you be so sure, so confident? When all it takes is one jump-scare for me to devolve.” It really was unfathomable to you that he wasn’t reacting at all to something so serious, but his mind was apparently very clear on this matter.

   “Because you’re here. You took the step to come here, and you can tell yourself it was because you finally believed it was gonna be safe, but I think the truth is much simpler than that. I think it’s because this is where you truly want to be.    Crazy though she may be, even mamá is one of the people you want to be around, to have around you. Because we’re the ones who make you strong, who give you confidence, just like you do for us.    If she had been a burglar, you would’ve dispatched her to the neighbour’s yard, without hesitation. Do you really expect me to be upset about that?”

   “No, but I expect you to react when something dangerous happens in your own home,” you pleaded, feeling your mind sink into a dark and terrible place you never ever wanted to get trapped in fully. But you had to make sure Marcus was aware of its existence. “I need to know that if it comes to it… you’ll protect them from me.”

   He didn’t flinch or look stunned to hear you say it, which told you he already knew about this side of you. Which wasn’t surprising, given your actions in the past.    But there was a difference between being willing to give your life for others, to recognizing that you had the capacity to also take life from them, given the right trigger.    He hadn’t been there when you’d killed the errand boy. And even if he had seen the video, it wouldn’t have been able to show him how easy it had been. How truly insignificant the energy you’d sent at the kid had been.

   Of course, you wanted to believe you could never harm anyone, and especially not your family. But in the core of your being, there was a lot of darkness, none of which Marcus had ever seen.    You’d always used the pain of your past to feed the positive sides of yourself, letting it remind you that your life since then had been good, that the problems you’d faced had been nothing in comparison.    But underneath all that, the hatred and injustice was still alive. And if something ever happened to draw those things up to the surface, there was no telling how much darkness you could inflict upon the world.

   “No,” he finally said, with a slight shake of his head. “I won’t agree to that.”

   “Marcus…”

   “No. Don’t ever ask me that again.” He sounded almost angry suddenly, which made no sense to you, and when he saw the confusion in your eyes, he let go of your hands and turned away from you for a beat. Frustration rocked his frame when he came back, stepping even closer, crowding you against the wall. “I love you, do you understand that?    I love you so much that for the past two months, I haven’t slept more than an hour at a time, because I kept waking up, hoping you’d be there. And every time I reached over to find your side of the bed cold and empty, I cried for hours.”

   Stunned, you couldn’t do anything but stare at him. He had never mentioned any of this in all the time you’d been apart. He’d mentioned having trouble sleeping without you on several occasions, but you had no idea it had been this severe.

   “I abandoned you at the prison. I left you when you needed me, and I will never forgive myself for it.    But you left me too,” he accused, and he was getting increasingly sad now. “You chose to stay away, and I respected that because I knew you were still mine. I could see you and know you were okay.    But I wasn’t. Every day has been torturous to me, and I was never gonna tell you about it, because I knew you only did what you needed to do, and I was fine with it. I would suffer through anything for you.”

   He paused then, closing his eyes and slowly lifting his hands to place them on the wall on either side of your shoulders, as if he suddenly needed the support.

   “But not this,” he tremblingly continued, opening his eyes to reveal the absolute horror which filled them at the mere thought of what he was saying. “You don’t get to ask me to fight you. To stand between the people that I can’t live without and keep them apart. To look at you and see an enemy… I can never do that.    I’d rather die.”

   The final sentence was little more than a whisper, strangled by the unbearable truth behind them, and you finally understood.    Life had taught you everything about fear and survival, about despair and desperation. But things like friendship, joy, security and trust, respect and emotional intelligence, you’d had to figure out on your own, much later in life.

   Which was why, you’d never contemplated on the potential existence of a person who could love you so completely that even the risk you posed to his child would never be enough to tear him from you.    Those were the plotlines of impossibly romantic fantasies. You’d never seen any proof, at any stage of your life, to suggest it could ever be real.

   And yet, it was staring you in the face, right now. As real and devastating as every harsh word you’d been made to endure, as if the universe was trying to show you that everything truly does have an equal counterpart. That if such catastrophic and destructive things as your mother existed, then so too must her opposite.    For a long moment, you just stared at the man before you, still resisting the notion that such a creature could’ve stepped out of the pages of books and movies, much less that he could ever fall for you.

   “How… How are you real?” you heard yourself ask, and his features softened but he kept meeting your gaze with unchanged intensity, and after a few seconds, he seemed to realize why you’d asked such a thing.

   “You’ve never known someone could love a person this much… have you?”

   Shaking your head, you never broke away from his eyes, still barely able to fathom that this was the real world and not some dream you’d made up for yourself.    He leaned closer, until his face was mere inches from yours.

   “Well, I do. And even if you don’t know it yet, you’re exactly the same.    Remember, hermosa, I know you. So, when I say that I know Missy’s always gonna be safe with you, it’s not wishful thinking.    I’ve told you before, you have good instincts, so trust yourself. Your body knows when you’re really in danger, so trust it.”

   He held your focus until he saw you give in, so attuned to your every expression that he noticed the moment your resolve began to falter, and you started to allow yourself to believe that this man and his unbelievably enormous heart, was indeed real. ��  Leaning back, he let his hands slide off the wall and rubbed them over his face, as if trying to scrub the intensity of the conversation you’d just had, out of his frame.

   “I’ll try,” you replied, which seemed like a hopelessly inadequate response, and much too delayed to even relate to what he’d said, but it was all you could think of.

   He sighed into a slight smile, letting his hands fall to his sides.

   “Do. Or do not. There is no try.”

   Gaping like a damned fish for a beat, you pushed off the wall while your brain scrambled to get out of the incredulous haze he’d put it in.

   “Wow… Now? This felt like a Yoda-moment to you?” you questioned, unable to keep from grinning slightly at the sheer ridiculousness of the quote in this setting.

   “Hey, it made you smile.”

   Huffing lightly, you let your head fall forwards and saw the game you’d dropped on the floor when Anita had startled you.

   “Right. Well, I guess it’s playtime.”

   You walked past him to pick it up, but when you bent over, he grabbed your hips and pulled your ass back against his groin. The unexpected action caused you to abruptly right yourself again with a loud gasp, clutching the box to your abdomen as he leaned into your back and kissed your neck, quickly but passionately, before whispering in your ear.

   “Oh no, that comes later, sexy. And I promise to keep Yoda out of it,” he whispered, low and gravelly, knowing that voice would move through you like the vibrations of a drum.

   He deliberately bucked into your ass just a little, before letting you go, because the fucker knew it would make you soil your panties. It seemed he was intent on not only keeping you distracted tonight, but on making good use of the fact that he’d finally have you back in his bed tonight, and you couldn’t really blame him.    Grabbing the game, he sauntered off to the living room while you grunted and went to the bedroom to change underwear. Which was when you remembered something from months back, when you’d been on a shopping spree with the twins.

   When you re-joined the family in the living room, shooting Anita a harsh glare, they’d already set the game up and were playing rock-paper-scissors to determine who’d get to start, so you took your seat and fell into the comfortable familiarity of just being with these people.    It didn’t take long before you’d let go of the tense minutes in the hallway earlier, letting the light-hearted energy at the table infect you until you couldn’t even remember what you’d been so upset about.

   You’d put on a knitted dress, which you’d used to wear a lot while you’d lived alone but had never worn in front of Marcus.    It wasn’t really anything special. Light grey and snugly fitting, with a big open neck that naturally fell off both shoulders. It had long sleeves, and came down to about mid-thigh, which meant your legs were mostly bare, since you’d opted not to wear any leggings underneath.

   But there was something about the softness of the wool, and the way it hugged your form. It made you look really cute and sweet for some reason, while it also unapologetically showed off your curves, which was why you’d never worn it in front of anyone else before. The strange contradiction of the garment had always made you a bit self-conscious.    Although, you’d had the satisfaction of watching Marcus’ eyes widen for a second, as he’d taken you in, before clearing his throat and returning to battling for starting positions, which had boosted your confidence immensely.

   While you all played, you decided to test yourself on the accuracy of your abilities, since the only way you’d ever get comfortable using your powers around the family, was by practicing, and the game offered a perfect distraction.    During your training, you’d learned how to use your energy for very specific tasks, such as threading a needle through a small opening, or lifting a feather past a table fan, so you’d gotten good at shifting the flow of energy very precisely. Your trainers had also made sure there was always a distraction present, to force you to learn how to focus even when your mind was drawn elsewhere.

   So, as the game progressed, you amused yourself with trying to move things around the room without letting on that you were doing it. Not within the game, that would’ve been cheating, but at one point, you made a fairly large candle holder move from one side of a shelf behind Marcus, to the other, without anyone noticing.    Emboldened, you moved on to the people, shifting a few strands of hair, or lifting a corner of a shirt. Just enough to make them turn and look, wondering if they’d imagined it.

   About halfway through the game, you decided to up the ante, and bumped Anita’s foot under the table, just as she took the lead. And because of how you were all positioned around the table, the only one that could’ve physically reached her was Missy.

   “Hey, it’s rude to kick the elderly.”

   “Which is why I don’t,” the girl immediately shot back, unaware what her grandmother was talking about, but always ready to defend herself. “I might steal your lucky earring, though.”

   “You wouldn’t dare.”

   “Just you wait, Abuela.”

   Ten minutes later, Missy smugly reclaimed the lead, and keeping up with their banter, Anita reached towards her right ear, just to make sure her luck hadn’t been stolen.

   “Well, I’ll be damned. How’d you do that, you little rascal?” she smiled, but the girl was of course only confused.

   “Do what?”

   “Give me back my lucky earring, you thief. What are they teaching you at that super’s school?”

   “What?! I didn’t actually take it, that was just a joke.”

   “Mhm. I’ll get it back, don’t you worry.”

   Missy just shrugged and kept playing, and the two of them were locked in a battle for first position all the way towards the end, which was why no one noticed you racing up behind them, taking the lead at the last second and winning the game.    Predictably, your partner was a good loser, his daughter was disappointed she’d been too distracted to see you coming, while Anita was the sore loser.    So, when she glowered at you, you lifted your left hand from the table and dangled her earring between your fingers.

   “Hm. Guess it really is lucky,” you grinned, watching all three of them stare at the piece of jewellery with comically stunned expressions.

   “How did you…?” Marcus was the one who tried to ask, but you just winked at him.

   “Trade-secret.”

   You shot him a bright smile, before leaning over the table to hand Anita her earring back. And he seemed to realize that your happiness wasn’t at all about winning the game, but that something about stealing the earring had to do with you trusting your powers, and although he didn’t know what exactly, you could tell he shared the joy of your triumph.    The four of you played another game after that, but without interference from you, as you were reserving your strength for the promised adult playtime.    Anita left around nine, and while Marcus cleaned up the living room, you tucked Missy in for the night.

   “How’d you do it? The earring?” she wondered after you’d pulled the covers up to her waist, and instead of answering her, you picked up her headphones from the bedside table and handed them to her, without moving your hands. “Wow! Do you have telekinesis too?”

   “No. I’ve just learned how to use my energy to manipulate things.”

   “How does that work? I thought your energy was like a shield.”

   “It can be. That’s sort of the thing, I can make it into pretty much anything I need. From a huge shield to a tiny speck, just enough to hold a grain of sand in the air.    But the really mindboggling thing is how I can do these things without anyone being able to detect the energy, even when it touches them, and I can chose if I want the energy to be solid and heavy, or let objects pass through it completely unaffected.”

   “That’s so cool, though! It’s like the ultimate sneak attack weapon.”

   “Yeah, I guess it is. Although, I’m hoping I won’t have to use it as a weapon at all.”

   “HQ hasn’t asked you to join the Heroics?” she wondered, and she looked a bit confused, which was understandable since she couldn’t wait to be part of the team herself.

   “They have, but I don’t really feel like that’s my place.”

   “Because your powers didn’t come naturally?”

   “Partly. But also, just because I’ve never been a part of that world.    You might not have any powers, but you were still raised within this atmosphere, connected to it through your father, so it’s always been part of your everyday life in some way. Whereas for me, the first time I encountered this world was when I met Marcus, so I just don’t feel like it’s my path.    Does that make sense?”

   “Kinda. But you should do whatever makes you happy, anyway.”

   “Thank you, sweetie. It means a lot to me that you care about my happiness,” you smiled at her, and she smiled back but there was something deeper behind her expression.

   “I’m so glad you’re home,” she said, and even though she tried to hide it, you heard the slight tremor in her voice, telling you how scared she’d been that you wouldn’t come back.

   “Where else would I be? This is my family,” you assured her, and felt a bit of wetness bother your eyes when you leaned down to give her a hug, so immeasurably grateful to feel her arms hold you so tightly in return. “You put those headphones on now, okay?”

   She smiled even wider as you let each other go, and grabbed the device, preparing to put it in place over her head.

   “Go easy on him.”

   “Never,” you winked, to which she huffed a laugh, shook her head at you and then turned the music on as you stepped out and closed the door.

   You walked back out into the living room, and found your partner sweeping popcorn off the floor, so you plopped down on the sofa to watch him work, enjoying the play of muscles in his arms.

   “So, you’ve learned more than I thought in your training,” he quietly stated while reaching the broom underneath the dinner table.

   “I assume you’re referring to my borrowing a certain earring?”

   “I didn’t know you could do things that detailed. You never gave me access to your records during your training,” he reminded you, and some of your good mood faded a bit, because you knew he struggled to understand why you’d kept him at a distance concerning your abilities.

   “One of things that helped the most in my training was when I realized I could decide how much energy I want to bring into this dimension, how to control where it goes and how to manipulate it so that it actually becomes useful to me.    The thing that took the longest to learn was how to use it to move really small or light things around, and I figured tonight was a good chance to practice and maybe get more comfortable using my powers around the family.”

   “Okay,” was all he said, turning his back to you while he emptied the dustpan into a trashcan.

   “Honey,” you sighed, realizing he hadn’t brought it up because he was looking for clarification on the extent of your capabilities, but rather because he was still disappointed you’d kept him out of the loop. “If there’s something you wanna air out, please do.”

<><><><><> 

   He put the broom away and came over to the couch, taking a seat on the coffee table, opposite you.

   “I just thought that…” he started, but then paused, looking for the right way to phrase this so it wouldn’t sound like he was angry with you. “I’ve been with you every step of the way. You’ve allowed me to help you heal, to be your crutch and your soundboard, talked to me about everything you’ve struggled with.    So, I just don’t understand why you won’t let me help you with your powers.”

   “It has nothing to do with what I want, Marcus,” you surprised him by saying, but he stayed quiet to let you explain. “If there was a way for me to get what I want, I wouldn’t have these powers at all.    I chose not to keep leaning on you with this because I realized that at some point, I was gonna have to stand on my own two feet. That so long as I kept you as my crutch, I was never gonna trust myself to be strong enough to handle it without you.”

   Your logic was sound, he couldn’t argue against it. But somewhere in his chest, it was a bit painful to accept that he wasn’t needed as much anymore.    It was a good thing for you to want to be strong on your own, to not be reliant on anyone else, but throughout your relationship, he had been the one you’d always turned to for help, and he just wasn’t sure how to accept that he might not have that role in your life anymore.

   “So, does this mean I’m permanently excluded from your records?”

   “Why does it matter so much to you that I didn’t give you spousal privileges to my files with Research? What do you think you could learn from reading them?”

   “It’s not that I wanna read them, really… it just feels like you don’t trust me.”

   “Oh, my god,” you sighed, shaking your head in what appeared to be disbelief before you fixed him with your piercing eyes. “You are literally the only person in the world I trust, and if you don’t know that by now, then I don’t know what else to do.”

   “Then why?” he persisted, truly perplexed as to your reasoning for letting him have access to literally everything about you, except for this. “You lied to me about the healing.”

   He hadn’t meant to say that last part, but it slipped out anyway, revealing the real reason why this mattered so much to him. But he regretted it the moment he saw your expression, because you looked so hurt.

   “So, this has nothing to do with me trusting you, after all. This is about you not trusting me.”

   “No, it’s about me being terrified of the fact that your own abilities can kill you. Do you know how rare that is? No other super is capable of that,” he tried to argue, but even he could hear how poor of an excuse it was.

   “Which isn’t that surprising, since technically, I’m not a super. I’m a compilation of fifty different ones, so when you think about it, it’s actually kinda miraculous that I don’t have dozens of different abilities, which considering how much I’ve struggled just to manage the two I do have, would probably have been wholly disastrous.    Now, stop sidestepping the issue and tell me the truth. Do you think I’m keeping something from you?”

   You didn’t sound angry at all, only disappointed, which was so much harder to hear.

   “No,” he truthfully admitted. “But I’m not sure you’d tell me if something else came up, regarding your powers. I feel like you’re keeping me out so that if something happens, you’ll have the freedom to decide how much to tell me, even if it’s something that might affect me negatively.”

   “You mean like you’re keeping your past away from me?”

   The question took him completely off guard, and he found himself just staring dumbly at you.

   “I haven’t pried, even though there have been plenty of opportunities, but your mother, Amaire, doctor Kane and even you yourself have hinted at something you did in your youth that you’re carrying with you to this day. But you’ve chosen not to share that with me even though it’s clearly something important, and maybe even defining to your character.    So, maybe you should take a hard look at yourself before you start talking about keeping people out.”

   Mildly stunned, he just kept looking into your eyes, wondering how he could’ve been stupid enough to think you hadn’t pieced together what little clues he’d inadvertently let slip in conversation.    You were a survivor. A hyper independent woman. Of course, you noticed and remembered everything.

   “I’m sorry,” he offered, but he wasn’t ready to talk about this yet. “You’re right, and I’m sorry.”

   “Are you ever gonna tell me about it?” you asked, correctly deducing that his apology was also a deflection.

   “Yes. I promise I will, but it’s… It’s something I spent a long time overcoming, and I couldn’t have done it without… Sarah.”

   He ducked his head at the mention of his wife, not because he thought you wouldn’t wanna hear about her, but because it pained him to remember.    You leaned forwards in the sofa and put your hands on his clasped ones, urging him to look at you, so he did.

   “Okay,” you said, nodding softly. “Then I promise I will tell you if anything happens with my powers.”

   As comforting as that was to hear, he didn’t miss the fact that you still hadn’t agreed to let him have access to your records, meaning you still wanted the freedom of getting to choose how much he knew.    On the other hand, you had no access at all to anything regarding him, medical or otherwise, so perhaps he was being overly intrusive.

   “Thank you, hermosa.”

   You stood up then, and since he was sitting right across from you, that meant your hips were at his eye-level, just inches from his face, when you rose to your full length and stretched, causing your knitted dress to rise up just high enough for him to see what underwear you were wearing.    Sucking in a sharp breath, he let his hands slide up your thighs, moving the knitted hem further out of the way so he could see more of it.

   “You’ve been wearing that underneath this dress all evening?” he breathlessly wondered, having already forgotten all about difficult conversations and past mistakes.

   “Call it a welcome home gift,” you smiled looking down on him, while letting your hands drop to his shoulders and gently massage them.

   “I’m the one that’s supposed to give you a welcome home gift,” he objected, but half-heartedly at best, since he was already dreaming up things to do with this unexpected turn of events.

   “Oh, I fully expect you to. So much so, that I told Missy to put her headphones on,” you heatedly grinned, and he had to take a moment to remind himself that this was even really happening, because you’d been so unsure about being with him in the cell earlier that day.

   But it seemed you’d made the decision to not let your fears control you. Maybe coming home and being around your favourite people again had given you the final push of motivation you needed, to make sure you’d be able to stay with them.    The thought pleased him greatly, and he swallowed hard while letting his grip tighten on your hips, before he ducked his head and kissed your mound on top of the underwear. Then he got up, hoisted you up onto his hips and carried you to the bedroom.

   He set you down on the floor at the foot of the bed and noticed that his hands were actually trembling as he reached up to hold your face while he kissed you slowly. He wanted this to last, because even though you’d made love only hours earlier, this was different.    You were home, finally. After so long he finally got to have you for a whole night, in a soft bed with no visitation hours or monitoring equipment to consider.    It was just the two of you, together, exactly as you both wanted.

   You reached for the hem of his t-shirt and pulled it off, but not heatedly, having picked up on his lack of a rush. Once it was on the floor, you let your hands caress the curves of his arms and shoulders, trace the edges of his collarbones and the dip between them.    He sighed contentedly at your touch, and then kissed you again before he reached down to pull your dress over your head.

   You were wearing a dark violet strapless balconette teddy in lace, with the bra and panties connected only by two strips of lace crossing each other over your abdomen on the front, and by thin golden chains in a diamond pattern over your back.    Both parts of it was transparent, since the lace was of the less densely embroidered kind, and it was somehow more enticing that he could see what was underneath it, since it meant he could enjoy your body without having to remove the seductive garment.

   “When did you get this?” he asked, letting his voice drop to that husky whisper you loved, while he spun you around so he could admire every angle of it.

   “During one of my shopping-days with the twins a while back. We had a lot of fun that day, trying on all kinds of bustiers and corsets, giving comments and critiquing each other based on what we thought our partners would like.”

   “Hmmm… And who suggested I would like this?” he wondered, letting his hands trace the path of one of the chains over your back.  

   “Both of them,” you replied with heavy breaths, letting him know how much you enjoyed his scrutiny. “Claire’s husband loves anything on her, so long as it’s red, but Amanda’s wife is very specific. Only silk, no lace at all, and nothing black or too strappy.    But they both agreed that this one was perfect for you the moment they saw it on me.”

   You’d turned so that your front was to his again by the time you fell silent, so he pulled you forwards by the hips, pressing his groin into yours and moving his hands to squeeze your ass.

   “Well, they were absolutely right. For the first time since I met you, I’ve come across an article of clothing that I really don’t wanna rip off you.”

   “In that case, I should have gone for the crotchless one,” you purred, and he smiled.

   “Oh, don’t worry. I’m sure I can modify this to my satisfaction.”

   He had his eyes on your breasts, their roundness perfectly hugged by the soft lace, but when you moaned in anticipation, he kissed you again, more heatedly this time, pulling you closer against him so he could feel your tits against his chest.

   “Honey… you can do whatever you want with this teddy, as long as I get to feel you stretch and fill me the way only you can,” you whispered in his ear after breaking the kiss, and he couldn’t help but growl in response.

   To keep his desires from overtaking his senses, he dropped his forehead against yours and just stood there breathing calmly for a moment, moving his hands to hold you around the waist instead.    You mirrored him, holding him to you while you patiently waited for him to be ready to keep going.

   Slowly, he moved against you, pushing you backwards towards the bed, but he didn’t ask you to climb onto it yet. Instead, he took a step back and started removing the remainder of his clothes, before coming back to you.    He saw your gaze drop to his cock, hard and thick and so ready for you, and suddenly a whimper escaped you, which utterly stunned him.    You never whimpered. Moaned, yes, but never whimpered.

   Spurred by your apparently almost unbearable need for him in that moment, he stepped closer again and reached down to stroke you through the lace of your panties, only to find them absolutely drenched in your juices.

   “Oh, god… Don’t worry, my love, I’m gonna take such good care of you,” he huskily promised, before kissing your neck and then continuing to kiss his way down your chest, over your abdomen, until he was kneeling in front of you.

   Carefully pulling the crotch of your panties away from your flesh, he ripped a hole in the fabric, large enough that he’d fit through it when he entered you later. But for now, his aim was simply to ease the pressure within you.    You were so overcharged with arousal that just his fingers gently caressing your folds was enough to bring you over, and unsurprisingly, the overload made your power flare, shaking the whole room while you unravelled over his hand.

   But it didn’t worry him. He’d always known you wouldn’t let anything happen to him, no matter how lost in ecstasy you might be, so he just watched you, utterly amazed at your sensitivity and how unashamedly you got lost in your pleasure.    It wasn’t until you started to lose balance that he helped you lay down on the bed, before settling himself on top of you.

   You sighed happily at the feel of his weight on you. You’d told him so many times how you loved it, and as much as he enjoyed watching you ride him now and then, your pleasure was always greater when he had you underneath him, and he wouldn’t argue against that.    Lowering himself just enough that he could kiss your breasts and let his hands play with the exposed skin along your sides, pretty soon he had you panting again.

   “Please…” he heard you mutter in between strained breaths, and he looked up at you in stunned silence.

   You never begged. If there was something you needed from him, you asked for it, or just took it, knowing he would never stop you. But this was a nearly desperate plea, and it almost made him worried.

   “Hermosa?”

   “Please, babe… I need you inside me.” You actually strained to get the words out, and he wondered if you could be capable of such amounts of arousal that it reached a point of nearly getting painful for you.

   He moved himself up again, settling in his usual position over you, cradling you into him so that as much as possible of your bodies was touching one another.    And when he began pushing into you, it looked as though you actually felt a sense of relief. As though the friction of his cock against your walls somehow satisfied you even without the need for a climax.    He felt it when your powers activated again, and for a moment you tensed up, until you felt his current respond.

   “Don’t be afraid, mi amor. Let it flow with you, with me. Trust your body,” he whispered, driving into you a little harder to make sure your focus remained on the pleasure, drawing you further away from fear, and it worked.

   He could tell how you gradually relaxed into it, and suddenly surges of pleasure were moving through you both, melding your powers so seamlessly that there was no telling what was your pleasure and what was his own.    Like that time in the med-chamber, your skin started to shine slightly when you connected to each other like this, and when he glanced at his own arm, he noticed that the same thing was going on with him.

   Surprisingly, the energies you were creating together somehow seemed to prolong everything. Not by holding you back, but by levelling you both out before you started sprinting towards the peak. Usually, you just leapt to that edge, almost immediately, unable to stop yourselves, but when the energies combined like this, entirely without restraint, they seemed to create a kind of temporary lull, before the inevitable storm hit you.    But when it did, it was even stronger than usual.

   You got there a few seconds before him this time, and the veritable explosion of sensations was indescribable. He could feel everything you felt, which extended and deepened the act, as you shared in his peak as well, the satisfaction you both experienced well beyond the simple physicality of sex.    As the climax slowly settled in your bodies, he thought about how he wanted to tell you so many things. How proud he was of you, how much he loved you, how amazing you were.

   But he was too tired to say a word, and before he drifted off into deep sleep, he thought how it was good he hadn’t said any of it out loud. Because those words wouldn’t make much difference to you, you already knew how he felt and what he thought about you.    And he realized that the reason he wanted to keep telling you these things, was to make sure you knew that he was serious. That there would be no doubt in your mind of where the question came from or why he asked it, when he did.

<><><><><> 

   You couldn’t remember Marcus climbing off you or pulling the covers over you, but when you woke up, you were on your side, snuggly cuddled up to his chest, with a bright sun coming in through the window, making his golden skin almost appear to shimmer.    Your last thought before you’d succumbed to subconsciousness had been how relieved you were to be back home, and to have made love to your man without breaking anything, which had to have been some kind of record or milepost for the two of you.

   Raising your head a bit, you found your partner watching you, also lying on his side but with a peculiar little smile on his face.    Pulling back just a tad, so you could lie comfortably while you met his gaze, you settled yourself opposite him, mirroring his posture, and just looked at him. Drank in his features while wondering how you could have ever been lucky enough to have this in your life.    You saw something change in his expression, and even though you couldn’t tell what it was, you could see the moment that he decided to speak his mind.

   “Marry me.”

   Having expected something more along the lines of “Good morning” or “I love you”, it took you a solid moment to realize what he’d actually said, and then even longer to absorb it.

   “W-what…?” you eventually croaked, and while his expression remained largely unreadable, you could see a smidgeon of fear creep into the corners of his eyes.

   “Will you marry me?” he asked in full.

   His voice was low and soft, but there was no hesitation or self-doubt in him. He was sure about this. Which meant he’d thought about it, thoroughly and probably repeatedly.    But you hadn’t.    Sure, you’d envisioned being with him long term, but only in an abstract sort of way. You hadn’t been daydreaming about what your wedding would look like or practiced writing your married name in the backs of your notebooks.

   Yesterday had been a strange and emotional day, revealing not only the true depths of your boyfriend’s love for you, in his utter refusal to ever let any barriers exist between you, but also just how completely he knew you, in how expertly he’d managed to keep you balanced, despite the emotional turmoil you’d suffered.    And while all that was comforting to know, what truly settled your mind on the question, was the realization that he wouldn’t have been able to become this person to you, if you hadn’t let him. If you hadn’t wanted him to.

   “Yes.”

   You’d barely gotten through the little word before you were already throwing yourself at him, kissing him like it was your first time all over again, a full-on assault on his face. But he just laughed heartily into the kiss and pulled you in close.    The teddy unfortunately didn’t survive his morning hunger, but you promised him you’d go shopping for a few new ones at your earliest convenience.

   You bounced into the kitchen half an hour later, humming and dancing to your own tune in a pair of worn old sleep shorts and an oversized t-shirt with a picture of Lightning McQueen over the chest.    Missy had just dug into a bowl of cereal, and she eyed you suspiciously after you’d startled her with your energetic entry.

   “Who are you, and what have you done with grumpy morning-hermosa? I rely on her for my daily dose of reality-check.”

   “I’m just happy,” you chirped, grabbing the kettle before pirouetting over to the tap to fill it up.

   “Yeah, I can tell, and frankly, it’s unnerving.”

   “Oh, come on, live a little,” you giggled, before sending a little flicker of energy to ruffle her hair, making her flinch so hard she dropped her spoon on the floor.

   “Okay, seriously, what is going on with you?” she grumbled while retrieving it, but before you could answer, Marcus walked into the kitchen.

   “Morning, sweetheart. How’d you sleep?” he also chirped, but that was normal for him in the mornings, so she didn’t react to it.

   “Like a rock, I suspect thanks to someone’s warning about the headphones,” she deadpanned, but then seemed to think of something. “Is that what this is about?”

   “What what’s about?” her father wondered, having heard nothing about her suspicion towards your joyous disposition.

   She gestured to you, where you now stood by the toaster, humming Proud Mary and rolling your hips to the rhythm.

   “It’s 7am and she’s singing and dancing. Is that a sex-thing?”

   Profoundly stunned by hearing his daughter even utter that word, Marcus missed the button on the coffeemaker and hit his thumb against the wall next to it instead, so hard that he cracked one of the tiles.    You decided to rescue him from having to answer, since this was clearly a topic he had no idea how to even approach. Also, the question did concern you more than him.

   “No, sweetie, it’s just a happiness thing. Although the sex does help with that, when it’s good.”

   His coffee-cup hit the floor when he apparently missed the counter as he turned sharply to stare at you with shock and disbelief, obviously not at all comfortable with how openly you talked about this.    You ignored his embarrassment, however, since you believed his daughter’s questions should be answered rather than dismissed. And Missy just kept going.

   “And what about when it’s not good?” she wondered, at which point, Marcus just gave up and slowly bent down to pick up the pieces of his broken cup, looking about as flustered as you imagined him capable of.

   “Then it just makes you tired and disappointed,” you happily shared, entirely unaffected by your partner’s embarrassment.

   “Okay… But wait, I’m confused,” Missy pondered, and you were kinda proud to see her approach the subject so relaxed and openly curious. “So, the sex was good, but that’s not why you’re happy?    Then why?”

   You were about to say something generic but truthful, like it had just been a generally wonderful morning, and you were just so happy to be back home. But right then, Marcus popped back up like a human-sized jack in the box.

   “I asked her to marry me this morning!” he all but screamed, so desperate to change the subject that he blurted it out without the two of you having had a chance to discuss how to approach her with it.

   You and Missy both just stared at him, momentarily frozen in your respective spots.

   “Sorry. That came out a little forced,” he sheepishly admitted, nervously scratching his neck when neither of you moved.

   “Are you serious?” his daughter eventually questioned, suddenly sounding terribly unsure. “Cause you can’t joke about something like that, dad.”

   “I’m completely serious,” he assured her, at which point she turned her firm eyes at you.

   “Please tell me you said yes?”

   For the smallest moment, you were stunned into silence, because there was real fear in her eyes while she waited for your reply, as if she truly believed there was a chance you wouldn’t wanna be with them for the rest of your life.

   “Oh, sweetie… Of course I did, why do you think I’m so happy?” you grinned at her, and when she scrambled out of her seat, you went to meet her, pulling her into a tight hug while you both cried with joy.

   The three of you had breakfast together and caught each other up on everything you’d missed while you’d been locked away at HQ, while you constantly had to get up to refill your plate with eggs, bacon, toast and muffins. Until you eventually just gave up and rummaged through the fridge for some left-over pizza.    You’d forgone the energy bar that morning, because it was just so nice to sit and eat with your family again, in comfortable familiarity and leisure.

   Once you were full, and the conversations began to ebb out, Marcus set about cleaning up and you went outside to pick up the paper. While you were out there, you stood for a moment just basking in the warmth of the sun, enjoying how it felt on your skin.    But just as you turned and started walking back towards the front door, a voice spoke behind you. A voice you hadn’t heard in a very long time, but one that turned your blood to ice in an instant.

   “Hey, sis. You look good.”

   You had to force your body to actually turn towards him, as it threatened to shut down at the traumatic memories of everything he’d done to you.    But the moment you laid eyes on him, it woke up with a fury which had the entire neighbourhood shaking under the pressure of the massive amounts of energy which poured from you in your instinct to shield yourself and everyone you cared about.

   You heard your partner call out your name from inside the house when he realized the tremors he felt weren’t caused by an earthquake, but you didn’t answer, because your full focus was on the man in front of you.    The brother who became the monster. The family that became the enemy.    And only one thought existed in your mind: He was not going to touch your family. Ever.

   “Danny. I’m gonna give you one chance to save yourself.”

   You could only just hold yourself together enough to even speak to him, as each time you opened your mouth, all you wanted was to scream.    Clenching your hands into fists in a feeble attempt to control how much energy was still pouring from you, only resulted in the driveway cracking like a biscuit underneath him, and you caught yourself thinking that you probably wouldn’t even regret it, if the ground split and swallowed him whole.

   “Leave…” you growled, with pure hatred saturating every syllable. “And never come back.”

[sirowsky-stories]

The Flowers Always Know

Chapter 22 - Safety Not Guaranteed

Description: Although you were finally learning more about your new abilities, you were far from carefree. But Marcus wasn't about to let you hide away forever.

**Beware! Author chooses NOT to display warnings on the individual chapters of this story. Read at your own risk!**

Rating: Mature 18+ONLY Word Count: 6322 (5056 words added) Masterlist (this story)

   He didn’t say a word during the walk from Research, which was apparently housed on the deepest of the subterranean levels, up to the cells which were still underground but only just. He was tense and worried, though, so you knew once you got there, he’d need to try and sort through everything you’d both learned today.    You just hoped you’d both manage to stay calm for this conversation, since you were already on edge and risked losing control if you got too emotional.

   When you reached your accommodations, there was a guard posted outside your cell, and Marcus stopped in front of him before taking you inside.

   “Turn off all surveillance to this room immediately,” he ordered, and the guard relayed the command to what you assumed was a control center somewhere nearby.

   Then your partner escorted you in and closed the door behind the two of you, but he still checked that the cameras and microphones really were off before he started talking.    It looked to you as though he merely glanced at them, but you knew he could tell if there was still power running to them, which there wouldn’t be if his orders had been obeyed.    Nothing fried during his scrutiny, so it seemed they had respected his authority on this matter.

   “What did you learn about your powers, hermosa?” he finally asked, and he sounded very calm, if a bit tired, which put you at ease as well.

   “You didn’t hear? I thought you’d been there the whole time,” you wondered, but he shook his head.

   “I didn’t even know they’d brought you in for testing until I felt the entire building shake and learned that it came from Research, so I went to see if I could help.    It was no small shock to walk in there and find you sitting in The Diametric, or what was left of it, talking about how you’d healed the entire team in Florida.”

   Oh. He’d only heard that last part. Well, you were done with lying and keeping secrets, so you sighed and sat down on the bed, preparing for what was clearly going to be a long conversation.

   “Alright, first I need to apologize for keeping you in the dark. I’m so sorry for not telling you about the healing, it was never about me not trusting you.”

   “No, I know. You were trying to shield me from the inevitable moral conflict that comes with it. But I do hope you know you were wrong to do that.”

   “I knew the moment I made the decision not to share it, that it was wrong. I guess a part of me was hoping it would turn out to be a temporary thing, or at least something I could never repeat. The circumstances in Florida were so extreme, I genuinely didn’t know if the healing was something I conjured up out of desperation or if it was actually a part of my abilities.    But then that kid today…” you trailed off, and he stepped closer, suddenly looking very worried.

   “What kid?” he asked, and you realized he hadn’t been told about anything which had happened that day.

   “One of the kids who runs errands for Science. He’s been here a half dozen times to deliver food cubes, but this afternoon I lost my temper seeing him again, and I… killed him,” you explained, watching Marcus’ face turn pale and disbelieving as he kneeled in front of you. “Obviously I didn’t mean to. I was just trying to shove him back out the door, but I sent him flying headfirst into the wall instead.”

   You looked towards the wall in question, which seemed oddly unaffected by what had been so traumatic to you.    There hadn’t been any blood as the damage to the boy had been internal, but you’d never forget the sounds of his bones being crushed.

   “So, that’s what prompted Research to start testing, even though it was ahead of schedule.”

   “Yeah. I passed out after healing him, and when I woke up, I was under the dome.”

   “I wondered if you were the one who’d convinced them to skip ahead, but I guess it makes sense they’d feel pressured to assess you after something like that.”

   “I would’ve told you if I’d decided to take the risk of doing the tests early, honey. I know I’ve given you reason not to trust me where my powers are concerned, but that’s only because they scare the shit out of me. And you’re the one who makes me feel safe,” you assured him, and you could see in his eyes that he believed you.

   “Is the kid okay?”

   “Apparently, he’s even better than before. It seems I healed more than just the broken neck and skull, I took care of every little kink along the way as well.”

   “Hm. You’ll need to work on that, if this ability is gonna be safe for you to use going forwards.”

   “Yeah, I’ve thought about that,” you agreed, so relieved to finally be able to talk openly about this. “I can’t seem to decide what injury I wanna correct in a person, which obviously means I can’t choose how much energy I expend on them, but if I could learn to just take care of one problem, I could help people without it being so destructive to me.”

   “The problem there is how to train yourself to do that without risking your life each time. But we’ll get back to that.    What did you learn about the shield?”

   “Ugh, that it’s scarier than anything I could’ve imagined,” you said with an unpleasant shiver travelling down your spine at the memory.

   “How so?” he prompted while getting up and taking a seat beside you on the bed, taking your hand to help give you strength, which you sorely needed.

   “It comes from another dimension,” you explained, and he apparently didn’t know what to say to that, so you soldiered on. “I was trying to trace the energy back inside myself, looking for its origin or at least a way to better understand what the hell it is. But instead, I found myself somewhere else.    Somehow, my body has a direct line to this other place, where there’s no light or life. But it’s full of this massive energy that I can’t even describe, much less understand. And it feels kind of… alive.”

   “Alive?” he echoed with a sceptical brow. “You mean alive like a sentient being or more like bacteria?”

   “I don’t know. That’s what makes it so scary. If I could say for certain that it was some evil force or entity, then at least I’d know to steer clear of it.    But whatever this is, it’s so different, so other, that I can’t say I understand the first thing about it. It could be something malevolent, or it could just be my own fear making me misinterpret a mindless energy for the monster under the bed.    Kane thinks it’s just drawn to me because I act like a power cord, giving it an outlet into this reality, and frankly, that’s as good a theory as anything.”

   “You have good instincts, querida. If it feels dangerous then I’m sure you have good reason for sensing that. But I also think that this is a part of you now. And anything that connects to you is under your spell, not the other way around. Trust me on that.”

   “You’re sweet, but just because you’re powerless against my charms doesn’t mean everything in existence is,” you reminded him, while tiredly bumping his shoulder, but he remained steadfast.

   “Maybe not, but I know how powerful you were long before you had any supernatural abilities, and I don’t doubt for a single second that you can bend even the unknown energy of another reality to your wishes,” he replied, and you were about to argue that he shouldn’t joke about something this serious, when he made you realize he wasn’t trying to be funny at all. “I don’t think you need to fear it, so much as yourself.”

   That made you pause for a moment, trying to see his reasoning, but you drew a blank.

   “I don’t know what you mean by that?”

   “I mean how you’ve always doubted yourself,” he started, and you were a bit struck by how clear and resolute his thoughts were on this. He must’ve thought a lot about what he’d learned of your past recently, to come to such strong conclusions so quickly. “Even when you were fighting for your life against your own family, it wasn’t their cruelty that made you feel small. It was your belief in your own insignificance which held you down.    For years it was beaten into your bones, giving you no choice but to believe you were weak and inadequate, and even though you managed to prove them wrong, a part of you still believes them.”

   He paused then, giving you the chance to object in case he’d missed the mark.    You couldn’t think of a single thing to say, so he carried on.

   “But you’re wrong. You were never weak. And you’re stronger now than you’ve ever been before, not because of any powers you possess, but because you’ve dared to share yourself with me.    Love doesn’t cut you into pieces, hermosa. Bad people do. When love is reciprocated in equal measure it both roots you and makes you grow. And the more you share of yourself the bigger you become, just like the crown and roots of a tree living in its ideal conditions.”

   You couldn’t help but smile at the image he was painting. But you also couldn’t stop yourself from wondering if he, like so many artists, had embellished this picture in order to make it fit with the image inside his mind.

   “I know you don’t see yourself like that, and that’s precisely why you are your own worst enemy… You keep holding on to the person who fled the violence of your youth, because to your mind, that’s the strongest you ever were or ever will be.    You don’t see how much you’ve grown. How far your roots have spread, letting you stand tall and secure even against the toughest hurricanes.    But I do. So, please believe me when I tell you that you can and will control this energy, no matter where it comes from.”

   It was hard not to believe him when he talked like this, sounding so sure, but you were still scared, and that wasn’t going to magically sort itself out.    He was right about you holding on to parts of your younger self, though, which was something you hadn’t really realized before, and hearing him say it made you reevaluate your recent choices.

   “I really wish I could see myself the way you do. You make it sound like I’m invincible,” you smiled, not even joking, but he merely waited, knowing you’d have some objection or other. “I just… I’m so scared. Because even though I’ve spent my entire life fighting, which you might think would make me tough and strong, I’ve always felt like all I ever did was scrape by. Barely strong enough to save myself, each time I was forced to try.    And now suddenly I have all this power.”

   You looked into his eyes, letting him see the very real fear which was haunting you, and a concerned wrinkle appeared in his brow, as if this was the first time it occurred to him that you could be this fragile, but he kept quiet as he could see you weren’t done.

   “I don’t doubt that I have the strength necessary to wield it, I’ve always managed to somehow find just enough strength to keep going. What terrifies me is that I won’t know how or when to stop, when the day finally comes when I’m faced with something that really could break me.    Because for all my roots and however much I’ve grown… you have to see that all it would take to tear me down would be for someone to threaten the very same love that helps me grow.    If something happened to you or Missy, no matter how much control I ever managed to master, it would all disappear in the face of that loss. You must know that.”

   He did. You could see it in the lines on his face. The fear he couldn’t hide, even under such a massive faith and confidence as he still had in you.

   “I know,” he admitted, but his voice was still strong, showing no trace of the fear he clearly felt. “I’ve had those same thoughts myself, long ago, when my power was new and scary. And I made mistakes that I’ll have to live with for the rest of my life, so I’m the last person to promise you it won’t be difficult or that you won’t screw up.    All I can say is, you’re not alone. I’ll be here to help you, in any way I can. And if that day does come when the strength of your roots is tested… I’m sorry to say you won’t know what that’ll do to you until you’re in that situation. There is no preparing for it.    The best you can hope for is that you’ll remain true to yourself. To the core of who you are and what you believe in.”

   Once again, you wondered what those mistakes of his were, but you hesitated to ask, and not just because he hadn’t volunteered any details. Suddenly you wondered if you really wanted to know.    Because if someone as purehearted as this man had faltered so completely that he’d hurt someone… what hope was there for you to avoid doing the same?    Shivering at the thought, you decided to change tracks.

   “It’s getting late. You should go home to Missy, I’m sure she’s worried.”

   “Yeah. But I want you to know I’m gonna be here every day to help you.”

   “I know you will, but don’t forget about the rest of the world. They need you too,” you reminded him, but he shook his head at that.

   “The team can manage without me until we’ve sorted this out.”

   “Do you really believe that, or are you trying to convince yourself of it?”

   He sighed in a disapproving sort of way, but he didn’t argue.

   “I suppose we’ll find out,” he suggested, and then kissed you lightly before he stood to leave, and he abruptly looked completely exhausted, sliding a heavy palm over his face and rubbing at his neck. “I’ll come by before work tomorrow.”

   “No,” you protested firmly. “You’re dead on your feet, honey. You need to sleep, or you won’t be any good to anyone.”

   “I don’t sleep well without you anymore, no matter what’s going on,” he admitted, doing his best not to look sad, but he didn’t quite succeed.

   You couldn’t do anything about that, so you got up and hugged him instead, and he held you so tightly in return, almost as if he feared you’d disappear if he let you go.    But he had to. Tomorrow would be the start of a new challenge for you both, and he’d be back to supervised visits only. It would undoubtedly be a hard time, and there was no telling for how long it would last, so you both lingered in this moment, hoping to extend it into eternity so you wouldn’t have to face the coming day, and all the trying days to follow.

-=¤=-

   “Hermosa…” he sighed exasperatedly, after you’d changed the subject for the third time when you noticed what he was trying to steer the conversation towards.

   “Yes, okay, I know we’re overdo for that talk,” you snapped back, a little harsher than intended, but it had been a bad day overall and you’d hoped that his visit would be nothing but a bright spot, free of all difficult subjects.

   “You can’t avoid it forever.”

   “I know that, Marcus, but it’s not like I don’t have enough to stress about already.”

   “And this isn’t something you should ever feel stressed about.”

   “Well, I’m sorry but that’s just not possible for me,” you almost growled with frustration. “Besides, I’m no clearer on what I want now than I was two months ago.”

   “All the more reason to talk it through,” he persisted, and he wasn’t wrong. “My feelings haven’t changed.”

   “I didn’t expect they would have.”

   “Did you hope they would have?” He posed the question without a hint of accusation, and yet, you somehow felt provoked.

   Which was why, rather than answer while you were still reacting to his query, you folded your arms over your chest and started slowly walking along the edges of the cell, while you tried to take an honest look at yourself and what you felt.    Your history with your own family had always been in the way, somehow, but now that Marcus knew about it, things were different and you needed to try and see them in this new light, even though it scared you.    The idea of becoming a mother was still entirely perplexing to you.

   “I would never wish for any part of you to change, and especially not your love of family,” you eventually answered him.

   “I appreciate that,” he simply remarked, waiting patiently for you to come to the real issue in your own time.

   He was standing in the middle of the room while you kept circling slowly, using the motion to keep your mind in a forward-thinking mode.

   “Tell me something… Would you be terribly disappointed if it turned out I can’t conceive at all?” you started, although you were unsure of why you needed him to clarify his feelings before you felt like you could get started on yours.

   “No. I’d be sad, but I wouldn’t be devastated. We’re still a family, whether we grow or not.”

   “And what about… if I asked for us to not even try?”

   That made him turn to face you, as your trudging had placed you to his left when you delivered the question.    You stopped moving when his gaze connected with yours, held in place by the indecipherable expression in his entire body.

   “I would want to know why. Why you would deny yourself the possibility when I know how much love you have to give,” he suggested, and by then, you’d figured out what it was you were hesitating to tell him.

   “Growing up, I saw so many families around the neighbourhood. People who looked so happy together. Children who smiled and laughed with their parents, without a worry in the world.    They were so fortunate, and yet they had no idea, because they’d never known anything else. And I would sit in the kitchen window and watch them, wondering if their mothers tucked them in at night. If she read to them… sang lullabies…    I envied them, sure. But most of all I wished they would never lose that security. That they’d never learn what it feels like to have no safe place in the entire world to run to.”

   He didn’t say anything, and neither of you had moved. But there was a pain, or perhaps sorrow, growing in the depths of his eyes while he listened.    Your eyes were already filled with tears, knowing where you were going with this.

   “When I was dying on the kitchen floor after Danny had stabbed me, I remember thinking that we must’ve been mistakes. That we could never have been meant to exist. Because how could any mother want children… only to end up hating them?”

   Your voice faltered at the end, and Marcus instantly knew why.    He was right in front of you less than a second later, taking your face between his palms and staring at you with a mixture of incredulity and shock.

   “No… No, sweetheart. You’re not capable of doing that.”

   “If you’d seen her before dad died, you might’ve said the same thing about her,” you fully cried now, finally able to admit to yourself that what you feared about motherhood was that you knew everything about the worst possible sides of it, yet almost nothing about the good.

   And without that, how could you hope to imbue a child with anything but darkness?    It was different with Missy, because she’d already been her own person when you’d come into her life. Her birthparents had already solidified her character and made her the strong and clever person she’d been from the moment you’d first met her.    But an infant? A blank slate, genetically hardwired to imprint on its mother…

   “Listen to me,” he broke through your internal self-criticism, pulling you even closer to his own face until all you could see were his eyes. “You get teary-eyed when you see a child in the supermarket find their lost toy. You laugh at kids playing hopscotch in the street or arguing about who won the latest round of tag…    You are not capable of ever hating an innocent baby.”

   “I can harm someone without hating them-…” you tried to argue but he cut you off.

   “No. Not like that. What she did to you and your brother requires a complete lack of empathy, a total inability to feel compassion, and a heart incapable of feeling love.    So, unless you’re about to tell me you’ve been fooling me into thinking you love me all this time, this idiotic argument is over.    If you don’t want to have kids, then we won’t. But that’s the only reasoning I’ll accept. Anything else is irrelevant.”

   You had to close your eyes against the clarity in his, because it was almost too much to bear. He was so sure. So absolutely confident in the accuracy of his assessment. And despite all the years you’d spent believing in your own inadequacy, this unwavering faith he had in you was enough to shift your belief.    As if all you’d needed all those years was just for someone to prove to you that you were wrong.

   “Yes…” you whispered, before opening your eyes again, finding his still just as clear before you. “I want to.”

   A quiet surprise came over him as he realized what you meant, as though he really hadn’t thought you’d manage to come to an answer already. Or perhaps just not that one. But it made him very happy.    He was trying to downplay it, probably so you wouldn’t think he would’ve been devastated after all if your answer had been the opposite, but you could see the joy radiate from him even so.    And honestly, it was a relief, because his happiness made it feel right.

   He moved so softly when he leaned in to kiss you, as if your decision had finally allowed him to relax some major muscle which had kept him unknowingly tense until now. And the kiss itself was also soft. Tender and loving to the point that it awoke a new kind of passion in you. Not heated and craving, but something deeper, moving slowly and gradually through your body, sparking a kind of desire you’d never felt.

   It wasn’t until his kiss intensified, slowly growing more wanton as the familiar heat started to blossom, that you began to understand what you were experiencing. It was the primal desire to be bred, something you’d never understood before, but which was now quickly becoming almost suffocating, it was so strong.    He was suddenly feeling so good you heard yourself moan out loud in between kisses, somehow not at all bothered by the fact that there were cameras and microphones trained on you.

   But when he decided to act on your increasingly intense need for him, grabbing your waist to try and move you over to the bed, you felt his shoulders slump before he unexpectedly broke away from your lips and released a deep sigh.

   “Hermosa… will you please remove the barrier you just placed between us?” he patiently asked, though not without a hint of irritation.

   He still couldn’t feel your shield, but he could tell when you wrapped yourself in it if he touched your skin, because it wouldn’t allow him to actually feel you. And although there was no real reason for it, realizing that you’d instinctively decided to block his access to you was enough to kill the mood.

   “Sorry…” you offered, but even though you dropped the shield, he could tell the heat had dissipated within you, and a frustration you’d begun to become familiar with settled into his frame.

   “Please stop doing this, you know you’re not gonna hurt me,” he practically begged, but you couldn’t just shut off your instinct to protect him, even from yourself. “You’ve been here for almost two months now, even though you’ve been cleared by everyone to come back home already. Why are you hiding?”

   It made you feel guilty when he phrased it like that, but you weren’t going to risk accidentally hurting someone again, and especially not him.

   “You know why. We’ve had this conversation before.”

   “And you’re still not convincing me. I understand your need to have better control over what you can do before you’ll feel it’s safe to come home, but you crossed that hurdle weeks ago. You haven’t failed a single test since your first week of training, everyone involved with your assessment have been amazed at how quickly you’ve mastered your abilities, so that excuse just isn’t gonna fly anymore.”

   “A single nightmare is all it takes for me to accidentally turn our home into a pile of dust, and yet you’re somehow just fine with having that kind of threat sleeping next to your daughter… Explain that to me,” you questioned, to which he stepped back and turned in a little circle, mumbling something to himself in Spanish.

   You didn’t know what it meant but you understood the tone just fine. He was tired of having this conversation.

   “You’re not going to do that. You love both of us far too much, you’d instinctively shield us before anything like that could happen.    I mean, the one thing about our relationship that’s always been out of your control has been how you’ve reacted to me when I’ve touched you, and now look at you. You just stopped me from touching you while I was kissing you.”

   “It’s not good enough,” you persisted, and he almost growled with frustration, so you tried to explain better. “Yes, I can stop myself from getting lost in the sensation, at the start of it. But you know how easily we both get lost in the rapture, neither of us aware of our surroundings or even what our powers are doing when we come apart for each other.”

   “So what? We should just never make love to one another again?” he posed, but it felt much sharper than he’d probably intended, and he could see you recoil slightly, which made him change tracks. “Sweetheart, this is the safest place you could possible be. If there’s anything that’s gonna survive us taking a test run, it’s gonna be this cell.    So, if you’re really worried about losing control, test yourself. Use me as your provocation, let me throw every trick I have at you, and if you can keep from tearing the walls down, you’ll know for sure that it’s safe for you to come home.”

   You actually hadn’t considered that, oddly enough. But he was right. This was the most optimal place you’d ever find, even if you were fairly certain you could bring it down if you really had to. The Diametric was proof of that.    Still, this was the one argument you hadn’t gotten past in terms of feeling okay with returning home, despite how positively surprised you’d been yourself at your rate of success once the training had started.

   The Research Division had helped you understand exactly how the dimensional energy was distributed through your body, the path it took and how you could direct it to achieve different intensities in how it flowed from you, and where it went once it left you.    This meant you’d quickly been able to learn how to regulate and not drain yourself during training, enabling you to work for hours on end, getting familiar with every nuance of the energy, which had helped to soothe your fear of it.

   What had also helped tremendously, was that Science had finally managed to create the nutritional supplements a couple of weeks into your powered workouts, meaning you didn’t have to constantly pause to eat, or fear passing out if you happened to lose control for a second.    They’d made them in the same format as regular energy bars for you, and they tasted largely similar as well, although you could still tell that the flavours were entirely artificial.

   You’d been given entire boxes of them and encouraged to eat at least three a day regardless of how much regular food you enjoyed, and it had made a world of difference.    Not that it mattered much to your current predicament. You just caught yourself briefly considering whether you should chew one down before copulating, or if it might be better to wait until after.    Which meant you’d already decided to go for it.

   “Zap the fucking cameras and mic’s already…” you ordered, immediately feeling the desire build again, knowing you were about to be thoroughly satisfied for the first time in months.

   He smiled wickedly, and you felt his current pass through you on its way to short-circuit all the electronics in the cell, including the lights.    There were no windows in the cells, so when the lights died, the darkness was complete, leaving you blind. But you still knew where he was and where the walls and the bed were, because you could sense his current reverberate off them.

   You knew he was approaching and opened your arms to welcome him. His hands found your back without any fumbling, and he squeezed you to him while he dug his face into your neck and kissed the base of your throat before moving up to your jaw.    Tearing at his long-sleeved t-shirt, you felt him move back just enough to let you pull it over his head, and then he immediately started tugging the bottom of your top up to let his hands find your warm skin.

   You’d missed him so much, and the feel of him close to you again was intoxicating, which did scare you but was also exactly what you hoped for, since the whole point of this was to test yourself under mind-numbing circumstances. And as always, the more of his skin connected to yours, the more lost in him you became.    He started pulling you towards the bed without breaking away from you a single inch, even when he slipped your top and bra off. And when you reached it, he sat down, still holding you close, leaving you straddling him.

   There was something like a hum within him. A quiet vibration you could only just detect, whispering about how much he needed you and how torturous it had been for him to not get to be with you all this time.    Feeling it made your determination to not lose control so much more solid, compressing all the warring elements within you, summarizing them until you were left with just the base emotions behind them: fear and love.

   And out of those two, you already knew which was stronger.

   Allowing yourself to lean into your love for him, you stopped trying to control every aspect of what you’d become, trusting your heart to never willingly harm him, as you kissed him with every grain of passion you possessed.    He felt the shift in you, the surrender, and responded by letting his own barriers fall away, diving headfirst into his own pool of desire.

   You managed to tear away from him and get up from his lap to remove the rest of your clothes just before he turned feral, holding nothing back in his need to feel and claim you, once again. And like every other time you’d been with him, you were amazed at how deep his passion really went. How he could keep craving you even when he was fully embedded inside you.

   His current hit you with full force the moment he felt you clamp down on him, forcing him to inch his way inside, as if you required an entry-fee of excess sensation before you’d let him settle, and you felt your own power immediately respond, twisting and melding with his, wanting to dance to his unique tone. And it was remarkably pleasing when you felt his power accept the invitation and begin to twirl with yours.

   Still, nothing cracked. No mass of energy filled the room or threatened to tear the fabric of space apart.    Even now, when you were lost in ecstasy and even more lost in your man, the only direction your power went, was towards him. All you wanted was to feel more of him, to be closer to him, in any way you could.

   And as always, he somehow knew exactly what you craved.    Lifting you up, he turned you both to the side and set you down on the mattress underneath him, never letting you slip even a hair’s breadth away from him, and then he started driving into you, as much and as hard as your pussy would let him.    Each hit was accompanied by a jolt of energy, although if it was primarily coming from him or you, you couldn’t possibly determine. You couldn’t even tell where your power ended and his began.

   You felt yourself close in on your peak, and somewhere in the part of your brain which was still able to formulate thoughts, you knew this was the moment when you might truly loose it. But against the purity of this kind of pleasure, there was nothing you could do.    The climax was entirely physical. All thoughts seized to exist as the explosion of hyper-sensation rocked through your body again and again, completely unaware that the rest of the world even existed in those few moments.

   But you were more deeply connected to Marcus than ever before, so you felt him come with you, felt his current sparkle like actual fireworks against yours, and you delighted in the warmth of his seed as it spilled into you in thick ropes, already wishing it would take hold.    His strong arms around you shuddered with the force of his release, and yet somehow, he found a rhythm with yours. Your bodies so attuned to one another that you both effortlessly followed the other, even when there was no rhyme or reason to what you were doing.

   Collapsed and exhausted, you just laid there together, breathing heavily in perfect sync without a care in the world, even though anyone could walk in at any moment.    Your mind was still in shambles, but you could feel every inch of your body. Where it was pleasantly smothered by his, where the pearls of sweat had accumulated, where his release was dripping down onto the sheets as he softened with relaxation.

   And you could feel his current recede, slowly untangling itself from yours and then both powers fading away, leaving a strange kind of softness behind, as if the very air had been laced with both the gentleness and fierceness of your shared love.    You were probably imagining that last part, but it didn’t matter.

   Gradually regaining your ability to think and reason, you were happy to note that the room was still in one piece, as evident by the fact it was still pitch black in there. Had there been even a crack made to one of the walls, light would’ve filtered through, as the holding rooms really were cells, standing separate from the larger space they occupied, so that the destruction of one, however unlikely, wouldn’t damage the structural integrity of the entire floor.

   “I told you,” your partner breathlessly whispered in your ear, before dragging his head closer to yours so he could kiss your cheek.

   “You did,” you smiled in return, turning your head so you could meet his lips with yours.

   “Are you ready to trust yourself now?” he asked, and there was such hopefulness in his voice, but you also heard the slight trepidation.

   The fear that you still might not wanna put yourself to the test of leaving this safe place.

   “A lot more than before, yes. But this doesn’t mean I have complete control. I still don’t know what’ll happen if I get angry, or terribly sad,” you admitted, needing to keep things real for your own sake.

   “And I’m telling you, this proves you can handle it. I know because when I turned away from you out of fear of my power, it was finally letting myself lean on you, believe in our shared strength, that I was able to handle it.    So, lean on me. Because even if I’m not there beside you, I’m always in your heart. With what our relationship has already overcome, you have to know by now you can trust that much to be true.”

   He sounded nearly desperate towards the end, and you were once again reminded how hard it must’ve been for him to be separated from you, not due to any outside force, but because you’d chosen to stay away.

   “Please, hermosa, tell me this means you’re coming home. I miss you so much,” he full on begged now. “Please, come home so I can sleep again.”

   You tightened your arms around him while whispering your response in his ear, and felt him react with the purest relief and gratitude anyone could be capable of feeling.

   “Okay.”

[sirowsky-stories]

The Flowers Always Know

Chapter 21 - Powers

Description: A mistake which almost saw you do the unforgivable finally landed you in the hands of the powers-experts. Although, what you learned there was as informative as it was terrifying.

**Beware! Author chooses NOT to display warnings on the individual chapters of this story. Read at your own risk!**

Rating: Mature 18+ONLY Word Count: 8356 (5671 words added) Masterlist (this story)

   The next morning you woke up in a secure room. Apparently, they didn’t trust you with med-chambers anymore. Which was probably about time.    Tuesday. You knew it was a Tuesday, sighing heavily as you wondered just how long it would take before you’d inevitably mess up the days again. But for now, it was easy to keep track since there was a strict schedule to things in here.

   You already missed waking up to Amaire’s brisk and energetic “Good morning, champ”, as they’d always greeted whenever you’d been trapped in the medical bay. They were so good at using just the right level of enthusiasm to give you a boost, without stepping over into overly energetic, or annoyingly chipper.    Maybe that was just a testament to how well they knew you and your morning mood.

   In any case, there were no lovable nurses at all here, just sensors in the walls which continuously scanned you for any dangerously sharp changes in your energy-levels. No doctors barged in every hour on the hour to demand updates, and visitation was even more strictly controlled. Two hours a day, between five and seven pm.    It was a prison cell, more or less, and while that might sound harsh, you welcomed it.

   Because at least in here, you couldn’t hurt anyone if you lost control. These rooms were purpose-built specifically to contain supers, so in theory, nothing you did could result in any major destruction.    Unfortunately, though, the science division had been kept up to date on your move, and within five minutes of you waking up on this Tuesday morning, the door opened, and another piece of experimental cardboard was shoved in your face.

   “Seriously?” you groaned, still raspy with sleep and just as cheerful as usual at the crack of dawn, which a quick peek at the clock on the wall confirmed it to be. “When do you people sleep? It’s not even 6am yet…”

   “We sleep in shifts, miss. This is important, we wanna get you that assessment as soon as possible,” the kid enthusiastically declared, seemingly unbothered by your snarky attitude, which then made you feel bad about it.

   “How thoughtful of you…” you grumbled, only further annoyed with the added guilt on top of your already crabby mood. “And what about making this shit edible? Any ideas on how soon that might become a priority?”

   “Uh… sorry, miss. It’s a process.”

   “Really? I hadn’t noticed,” you deadpanned, before snagging the cube off the little tray and entirely un-enthusiastically began to chew it. “Ugh… Does the recipe even change at all? Because it still tastes like something between paper and dirt, no matter how many times I eat it.”

   “It does, but they actually remove as much flavour as they can, since it’s so full of synthetic materials,” the boy explained while studying you closely.

   “Sorry I fucking asked,” you mumbled through the distasteful bite, lowering your eyebrows at him in a clear expression of malcontent, before swallowing the synthetic piece of crap.

   He squirmed a little where he stood, probably uncomfortable with either your language or the generally unpleasant way you responded to everything. But in your defence, you were pretty sure he’d been waiting right outside the door for you to wake up, and then not even had the decency to wait until you’d been to the bathroom before he’d barged in.    So, you didn’t really give a fuck about his feelings right then. If he wanted you to be kind, he’d have to at least show you some common courtesy first.

   “What?” you questioned when he kept staring at you as though he was expecting something from you.

   “Sorry, I just have to ask if you feel any sense of fullness?”

   “I’ve barely swallowed it…”

   “I know, it’s just that the effect should be pretty instantaneous.”

   “Well, then this one didn’t work either. Like the last three dozen you people have made me eat for no goddamned reason.    So, can I go and do my morning bathroom now, or do you have to accompany me when I take a dump too?” you spat, and he all but ran from the room.

   You did feel a tiny little bit bad for him at that point, but they really should know better than to bother you first thing in the morning by now. Especially with nervous tweens.    Although you suspected they intentionally sent their youngest staff on these tasks specifically because they knew you wouldn’t be happy about it, but also much less likely to hurt a kid, physically or otherwise.

   While you went to the bathroom you thought about how you’d never expected to actually miss the med-chambers. But compared to these rooms, which were literally just empty squares, the hospital wing suddenly seemed cozy and warm.    This room was cold, in every way a space could be. The bed was a slab of metal which had been built out of the wall, making it nearly impossible to break, and the same was true for the one little table at the foot of it, making the bed double as the only available seat.

   The entire cells were made of a dark copper-coloured powers-proof material, or as close to one as you could get. There wasn’t any material which was guaranteed to be a hundred percent proof against powers, but some metal alloys combined with force-fields could withstand incredible amounts of supernatural forces.    And one in particular had proven especially successful, because it generated vibrations which could repel almost any force.

   It was only your status as the head of a relevant department which had afforded you the privilege to know about this alloy. It was a very closely guarded secret, for obvious reasons.    Only Marcus had thus far been able to break one of these cells, back when he’d been a teenager, before he’d learned to control the electromagnetic side of his abilities. Which did say a lot about just how powerful he was, seeing as not even Crushing Low had managed to do more than dent the walls.

   You did see the wisdom of keeping you in here, but the prison-like feeling of it made you anxious. You weren’t even sure why, if it had more to do with the lack of freedom or the lack of faith everyone around you clearly had, but either way, it made you feel isolated and fragile. Both of which were dangerous feelings for someone who was trying to understand herself.

   One of the only things keeping you calm was thinking about your partner. He’d been verbally reprimanded for taking you to the in-house restaurant after your memory melt-down, where he’d sat you down among dozens of other guests, risking their lives in order to get you fed as quickly as possible.    But in these circumstances that was like getting a slap on the wrist. Primarily because you hadn’t really been in any state to be able to harm anyone, since he’d practically had to carry you there.

   He’d made the judgement call that getting nutrition into you was more important than keeping you isolated, and it wasn’t like anyone was gonna argue against him. By now, everyone in the building knew exactly what you meant to him and just how far he would go to keep you safe.    Also, it wasn’t like he’d sat you down and then left you there. He’d been right there with you while you’d gone through the equivalent of about six dinners, continually refilling your plate as you emptied it, until you’d finally had enough and fallen asleep at the table.

   That was the last thing you remembered before waking up here this morning, but you weren’t surprised at the change in housing. Too much had happened yesterday for management to just look the other way.    Marcus wouldn’t be allowed to visit outside of the regular visitation hours, which meant you had no reason to expect any company until then, so you prepared yourself for a long and dull morning, probably accompanied by nothing but the fucking science division.

   So, when the door opened for the fourth time just before lunch that morning, you had no reason to suspect it would be anyone but another runner with another inedible cube, and as it had the previous three times, the visit immediately robbed you of all pleasantness.    You were just completing your eight set of push-ups, burpees and handstands when you heard the loud rumble of the locking bars being pulled back, and surrendered to the understanding that today was just gonna be one of those days when your morning mood turned into your overall mood.

   You were pushing yourself physically as a way of keeping yourself calm and balanced, despite the boredom and interjecting annoyances, but it hadn’t quite worked. So, you’d doubled your efforts, trying to drain yourself of enough energy that you at least wouldn’t have the strength to attack anyone, should you reach a level of irritation strong enough to push you over the edge.

   “Did these idiots give you coffee?” the unexpected and soberingly sharp voice of Anita Moreno carried across the room, and to your surprise, hearing it actually warmed your heart.

   You let your legs drop from your last handstand and turned around while righting yourself up, to see her magnificent scowl peering back at you.

   “I wouldn’t put it past them,” you smiled, for the first time that day feeling anything other than negative.

   “Well, sit down before you pass out,” she suggested, while making no move to do the same herself.

   “I’d rather stand. I have a little too much energy at the moment,” you offered, to which she merely raised her brows.

   “I find that hard to believe given the state of you.”

   “Covered in sweat or not, I’m sure you’d be less inclined to visit if I was at full capacity, Mrs. M.”

   “How insulting,” she shot back, seemingly calm but you suspected she wasn’t nearly as at ease as she made it seem.

   “Wasn’t meant to be. You know better than anyone how dangerous an untrained super is,” you replied softly, meaning every word, even taking a step further away from her to emphasize your point.

   “And still, here I am,” she countered, with that unwavering confidence of hers.

   “Indeed. Outside of the regular visitation hours, no less. So, to what do I owe the privilege of the big boss throwing her weight around just to see me?” you questioned, not at all surprised she could circumvent any rules she might want to.

   “Checking on you for Marcus’ sake. He’s a bit worried after yesterday,” she offered without hesitation, and you crossed your arms over your waist and started pacing around the other end of the room.

   Of course, she wouldn’t be there for you. Her son would always be the one she’d worry over first, it was only natural.    So, why did it hurt your feelings?

   “Yeah… that wasn’t a very good day, either. I don’t seem to have a lot of those lately.    But you could’ve checked on me using the cameras. Why come in at all?” you challenged, truly hoping she’d offer some sign of genuine care for you.

   It wasn’t that you questioned whether she did care, you knew she did. You just wished she’d understand how much it would mean to you, now when you were feeling so vulnerable and alone, to hear her confirm it.    After all, there was a huge difference between knowing it, and feeling it.

   “You really think he would accept anything less? You know him well enough by now to know he’d take my head off if I tried to suggest you were fine without actually seeing you.”

   “Sure,” you agreed, it was true after all. “I guess I was hoping you might’ve wanted to cheer me up. Just for me. But I suppose it’s too much to ask for you to show me that kind of care on a live feed.”

   She looked mildly offended, but glanced up towards the cameras and then seemed to re-center, as if she’d been about to say something but changed her mind.

   “It’s fine. I know better than to expect more from you,” you continued when she didn’t reply. “So, tell my better half I’m doing my best to stay sane and keep from slamming the door in the faces of all the runners from science, and that I can’t wait to see him, but I’d prefer he didn’t bring Missy.”

   She took a second to absorb, but her face was unreadable, so if you’d hurt her feelings with that remark about your expectations, she was keeping it to herself.

   “You’re not a threat to Missy, mujer.”

   “Yes, I am. And you know it,” you protested, suddenly realizing there was another reason she’d come to see you before Marcus did. “That’s why you’re really here, isn’t it?    Obviously, I don’t know how much he told you about what happened yesterday, but I know he never would’ve let them put me in here unless he has doubts. Unless there’s something about me that scares him now.”

   “No,” she protested, and there was a deep strength behind the one little word. “He understands you now, which makes him look at things differently, but he doesn’t doubt you, he never has.    The only thing that scares him is the fact that you doubt yourself so easily. That you are so ready to believe in your own flaws, real or imagined.”

   “I can destroy people without them even knowing it’s about to happen, leaving even the most powerful person defenceless against me,” you argued, working hard to keep the deeper emotions in check so your energy wouldn’t flare. “He was right there with me, Anita… I sent him flying across the room.    Even he can’t stop me, because even he can’t sense when my powers flood the available space. And yes, of course I want to believe I could never harm either of them, but the truth is, I don’t know that for sure.”

   “That’s the whole point,” she sighed, dipping her chin in that way which said she felt you should already know this. “It’s not about what you know, it’s about having faith in yourself. Without that, you’ll never be able to trust yourself, with or without Marcus.”

   “And just how am I supposed to have faith in myself when I know that my powers come from hundreds of slaughtered children?” you almost spat, feeling the dam begin to break within you, and the energy start seeping into the cell. “How am I supposed to feel safe, ever again, knowing that in the end, I’ll always be his creation?”

   You were trembling by the end, and tears had gathered in your eyes while you tried desperately to calm yourself and stop your powers from growing.    But it didn’t work, and soon the squared room was flooded to the brim.

   “You need to leave… I’m losing hold of it,” you cautioned, doing your best to direct the bulk of the energy towards the wall behind you, opposite the entrance where she was still standing.

   “No, I have faith in you, my dear,” she rebutted, entirely undeterred. “It’ll get better because every time you lose control teaches you more about how to manage it.    All supers struggle after discovering their powers, if anyone is proof of that, it’s my son. What ultimately protects both them and the public is not total control, but rather a lack of fear against themselves. Which can only be achieved by making mistakes and learning from them.    The only difference between you and all the rest of them, is that you’re going through this as an adult, with your character and sense of self already established, which makes it harder for you to adapt to this new element.”

   For the first time, you felt your powers fade away on their own, as her logic solidified in your mind, giving you a perspective which allowed you to be kinder to yourself.    And she could see it in your eyes.

   “But you will. Like all those who have come before you, you will adapt. And in time, you’ll see that it doesn’t matter where your power comes from… only what you decide to do with it.”

   She was right, of course. It was somehow so easy to believe her when she spoke like this, and not for the first time, you wondered if it had something to do with her mysterious abilities.

   “Did the flowers tell you that?” you asked, mostly just to break the tension which lingered in the room even after your energy had vacated back to wherever the hell it came from.

   “They didn’t need to. It’s a universal truth. Frankly, I’m surprised it’s escaped you for so long, it’s only the moral of about a thousand movies already.”

   “Yeah… silly me.”

   It was quiet for a minute while she let you calm yourself completely, to the point where you felt confident enough to approach her, stopping just a few steps away.

   “You know I kinda love you,” you admitted, to which she didn’t quite manage to conceal her initial reaction, but soon covered whatever it was with a scoff.

   “You’re welcome, by the way,” she said, short and curt, while starting to turn away.

   “Oh, really? I’m supposed to be grateful for your refusal to admit you care about me?” you tiredly sighed, wondering why you still expected her to respond at all, and yet, finding it reassuring that she remained steadfast in her ways.

   “No. But if you looked in a mirror right now, you’d know exactly what you should be grateful for.”

   She didn’t even look back as she said it, walking out and leaving you to ponder what she’d meant. But you figured it out before the door had even begun to close behind her, when you felt the slight smile in your features.    It lingered on your face for a good few minutes after she’d left.

   You gave up on trying to exercise your stress away, after your arms gave out and you fell on your face halfway through your fifteenth set of handstands.    By then, your lunch had arrived, and you decided to replenish what reserves you’d managed to deplete, since Anita had left you slightly less scared of yourself and what you might do at full strength.

   There was an actual bathroom with a shower connected to the room. But it was an adjoining space which could be detached from the actual cell, if anyone feared you might try to use the toilet as a battering-ram for some reason.    If you showed the slightest hint of aggression towards someone, a thick kind of blast door would lower, and the bathroom would slide back to allow for a complete seal, making that wall as tough as all the others.

   Once you’d finished the food, you took a long and soothing shower, letting the soap wash away the sweat and grime, but also some of the nervousness which seemed to live in your skin. You even took some time to take care of your nails and put on creams and blow-dry your hair.    Which was the first time in weeks you’d taken the opportunity to really groom yourself, and it somehow made you feel better. Less chaotic and messy.

   However, when you stepped out of the bathroom, the errand-boy from science was back, and whatever good mood you’d managed to accumulate, evaporated in an instant.    You were so sick of these kids coming in here, risking their lives just to test a damned theory which no one even knew if it would turn out to be possible, that you just wanted to shove him back out through the door and never let him come back.

   “Oh, for the love of fucking Hades, will you just leave me alone, already!” you didn’t quite scream, allowing a small puff of energy out, just to push him back.

   But you completely misjudged how strong it would turn out to be, watching in horror as it flung the scrawny little boy up and into the wall above the door, hitting it head-first.    All the pent up anger and irritation inside you instantly morphed into a lump of ice in your heart, as he collapsed into a broken pile on the floor, right before your eyes.    Suddenly the only thing that mattered was that you’d done the unforgiveable.

   For one second, you’d believed you had at least a modicum of control over what you could do, and within the space of that second, you’d killed an innocent person.    You ran over to him, hearing the blast door lower behind you when the bathroom was sealed away, and picked him up into your arms, holding him tightly as you pushed your energy around him and felt the complete lack of activity within his body.    Wanting to make it right, to make him whole again, you allowed that thing you still didn’t have a name for, to leave you, and felt it bond with him.

   Like a benevolent parasite, coursing through him at the speed of light, setting right all the wrongs within him, whether caused by you or something else. Then the second passed, and he twitched back to life.    Your energy drained as his was restored, but even though your arms suddenly ached with the strain of carrying his weight, you kept holding him.

   “I’m sorry, I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to, I swear, I didn’t mean to, I’m so sorry,” you rambled through the tears of relief and the simultaneous disgust at yourself.

   “Uh… it’s okay, miss. I’m fine,” he nervously responded, but you had to know for sure.

   You let him go just enough that you could grab his face and look into his eyes.

   “Nothing hurts? Nothing feels bad, or weird?” you demanded, watching him quickly check himself.

   “I feel… great. My shoulder’s been killing me after a baseball accident last week, but it’s all better now.    How’d you do that?” he questioned, and he sounded so impressed.

   Hearing that made you feel sick. You couldn’t believe he would ever admire you for what you’d just done, and if he did, he needed to understand how wrong he was to do so.    It terrified you beyond measure to realize how easily and effortlessly you’d hurt this boy, even when you’d actually tried to be gentle. He could never be allowed to think you were anything but a monster.

   “Go. Get out of here,” you ordered, starting to feel yourself begin to doze off, so you hurried to crawl away from him. “Don’t come back! Don’t let anyone come back in… Stay away from me.”

   You managed to crawl all the way to the opposite wall before the fatigue overpowered you, and you passed out still mumbling about keeping everyone away from you.

-=¤=-

   When you came to, you’d been moved. And wherever they’d brought you, it was a place you’d never been before, and waking up in an unfamiliar environment filled with people and sounds you didn’t recognize, was enough to make you instinctively try to protect yourself.    Your shield burst from you in a powerful flare, but to your surprise, it was contained before it could spread around the room.

   Confused, but also more awake, you began to understand where you were. Everyone around you were in blue coats, the signature colour of the Science Department, and you were on a hard bed of some sort, with an elliptic-shaped, transparent dome covering most of your torso. You suspected that was the reason why your energy wasn’t able to spread further, although you had no idea how the dome could accomplish it when it just looked like a piece of glass. There weren’t even any wires attached to it.

   There was to you, though. A sharp pinch in your skin when you tried to move made you look down, where you found two thin tubes leading into each one of your arms, and another two into each leg.    IV-tubes, as evident by the eight banana bags of maybe three gallons each which they were attached to, and which were all half-empty already.

   “Welcome back, miss. You had us worried there for a minute,” an unknown voice spoke from right next to you, and you turned your head to find an ebony-black woman smiling at you.

   “Who are you?”

   “My name is Doctor Emily Kane, and you’re currently in my care at the Research Division of the Science Department. Given the events in your cell earlier today, we decided to go ahead with your assessment, despite our concerns about your difficulty in sustaining yourself. Hence the medical staff.”

   You hadn’t noticed the white coats among the blue in your nearly frantic look around the room, but sure enough, there were at least five of them in there, some of whom you had seen before. Although Amaire wasn’t among them, which worried you.

   “There’s no need to be concerned about our wellbeing while you’re here, these instruments and machines have been calibrated to absorb your energy, you can’t hurt us as long as they’re active,” she continued, and you found her voice incredibly soothing, comfortably firm without feeling forced.

   “How… can you calibrate to absorb something you don’t even know the nature of?” you asked, truly confounded that the dome was still holding your shield contained to just a few inches outside of your skin.

   “This device,” she pointed to the large clear ellipse above you, “is called The Diametric. It has the ability to counteract almost anything it comes into contact with, no matter how obscure. And by scanning it while it does this, we can extrapolate whatever force or energy it’s countering, and how strong that force is.”

   “Doctor Kane, we have a problem…” another voice further away called out, drawing the doctor’s attention.

   “What is it?”

   “Her shield is blocking the IV fluids on all eight ports. We can’t keep her sustained through the test,” the other person explained, and Kane left your side to go and look at his data.

   “Damn… It’s protecting her on a cellular level, which means we can’t do anything but read the energy data while her powers are active.”

   “What do you mean? What’s happening to me?” you asked, already starting to feel the slight drain on your strength even though you were trying to stop your shield from being generated.

   Kane came back to your side where you could see her face clearly before she started to explain.

   “It seems you have a very unique type of ability. Usually, whenever we encounter someone with the ability to generate energy barriers, the actual shield sits outside of their body, protecting them by keeping any threat at a distance.    But in your case, the barrier seems to sit around each one of your cells, as well as in the air around you, which is probably why it drains you so quickly.”

   “Because it takes more energy to protect billions of cells instead of just one body…” you deduced, and she nodded.

   “Precisely. But it also means your protection is impenetrable, even from other types of energy powers.”

   “Which would explain why I could touch the cages when my shield was up,” you realized, and right then, you were finally able to turn your energy off.

   And as it died out, the dome gave off a strange tone, deep and vibrating but lasting only a moment before it faded.    There was a beep you recognized then, as the machines connected to the IV fluids registered the flow picking up again, and now that you were aware of it, you could feel the liquid being pumped into your veins, which was a strange and uncomfortable feeling.

   “We’ll let you get back to full strength before the next test,” Kane reassured you, and turned to leave your side, but there was something else you needed to know.

   “Is… Is the boy alright?” you asked, and she stopped turning.

   “He’s absolutely fine.”

   “But I killed him.” You closed your eyes, remembering the sight of his lifeless body on the floor. “His neck was broken, and his head cracked… I threw him into the wall like he was a paper airplane… like he was nothing.”

   “And then you saved him.    It was an accident, and I understand that it frightens you, but the key to controlling your powers in the future, is precisely by not being afraid of them. And the best way to reach that point, is to understand as much about them as you can.”

   “Yeah, Mrs. Moreno told me pretty much the same thing,” you recalled, and she smiled.

   “Well, she would know.”

   For a second, you saw something in her eyes you identified as a recollection of a troubling memory, and you wanted to ask her about it, but decided not to.    You wondered if it had anything to do with the thing Amaire had referred to a few days ago, which Marcus had reacted so strongly to. Whatever it was, it had to do with his powers, so odds were, some of these people would’ve been involved.    But you didn’t wanna hear about it from someone else. Either your partner wanted you to know, or he didn’t.    For now, your focus had to be on yourself and your own problems.

   “Will you be able to tell if my shield and my healing power are connected?” you asked after a while, knowing Kane was still close by since you could hear her somewhere behind you.

   “It’s too soon to tell,” she replied, coming into view again just a moment later. “Most supers have only one actual power but learn to use it in different ways to achieve different results. Marcus is one of the few exceptions, having two separate powers which can also function as one.”

   “The electromagnetism and metal manipulation. But aren’t those pretty closely related?” you pondered, trying to remember what little you could from your physics lessons at college.

   “Not really. Electromagnetism is a unified fundamental force which combines the aspects of electricity and magnetism. It’s created by the movements of charged particles, which we mostly perceive as light. Fire or lightning, for example.    What’s unique about your partner’s two abilities is that he can chose to use them independently of one another, but also at the same time. Just like he can choose to combine them to generate his own electromagnetic fields, in the same way that we can by using a battery and an iron nail. Although, obviously what he does is on a much larger scale.”

   “Wait, so… he can actually create lightning, all by himself?” you asked, truly astounded since you knew that even Red Lightning could only manipulate existing atmospheric conditions, not generate them herself.

   “Indeed. It’s the only reason you’re alive,” Kane replied, silencing your thoughts. “The electricity he sent through you wasn’t nearly as strong as the kind of lightning you see during a thunderstorm, which was fortunate since that would’ve melted your insides.    He moved the iron in your blood, using it a bit like a whisk to simulate normal blood flow, while also shifting the metal in your body to make it more concentrated around your spine.    The charge he sent though you became more precisely focused there, and it was just strong enough to kickstart the blood cell production in your bone marrow, which in turn prompted your heart to start beating.”

   “Then I really did die.”

   “Yeah. I’m afraid so,” she nodded, and for a moment, you recalled Marcus’ despair after you’d woken up.

   He’d said that he had entire minutes of memories of holding your lifeless body, but you hadn’t really absorbed those words. You hadn’t understood just how real your death had been, and it was jarring to realize you hadn’t just brushed past the gates of the afterlife, but actually gone there for a while.    Meanwhile, the nurses in the room had exchanged your now empty fluid bags with brimming ones, meaning it was time to go to work.

   “Alright, I think we’re ready to let you have another go at the dome,” the doctor announced, noticing your attention shifting, “and this time, I want you to give it everything you’ve got for just a couple of seconds. Can you do that?”

   “I honestly don’t know. I haven’t been able to control the energy even once since I first realized I had it. It’s all been either reactive or intentional but chaotic.”

   “Well, that’s sort of the point of all this. You can’t hurt anyone here, so there’s no need to worry about control. Let things happen as they happen, and we’ll try and gather as much data as we can in the meantime.”

   You nodded, although you felt anything but reassured. You wanted answers as badly as they did, and you believed her when she said the dome would protect them, but you were still scared for yourself.    For what these powers would turn out to be and what it might mean for you and your life, going forward.    Still, understanding all this better was the only way you’d ever be able to relax again.

   Taking a deep breath, you did your best to settle the nervousness in your stomach before trying to activate your energy.    It responded so easily that it made you flinch in surprise. It seemed almost overeager to be used, as if it was a trapped animal finally set free into the wild, bucking and jumping with excitement.    No wonder you’d flung the kid through the room. You had no idea just how readily your body kept all this power.

   “Amazing…” Kane’s voice broke into your concentration.

   She’d moved further away to study the results as they were displayed on a larger screen somewhere to your right, but you could still see her when you turned your head.

   “What is it?” you asked, feeling the energy lessen with your concern.

   “No, keep going. Try and give it all you’ve got,” she spurred, and she looked almost as excited as your power felt.

   The dome was working, so you decided this might be the only chance you’d ever get to truly test yourself, and you needed to give it an honest attempt, for your own sake.    You closed your eyes and tried to look inside of yourself. To find the source of the energy, the root of it, exploring the function and reaction it had to various efforts of manipulation.    But what you found was so frightening, it completely backfired.

   Because it was as though there was a black hole inside you. Tracing the energy into your body led you to something you could only describe as an endless nothingness, yet one filled with something unseen, thick and plentiful, but impossible to see, hear, or touch.    And despite all this… it responded to you. Sought you. It was drawn to you, and it felt so enormous that for a moment, you could’ve sworn it was the entire universe.

   Fear made you pull back so violently that it felt like you’d been hit by a bus, and upon returning to the room and opening your eyes, you might very well have been.    It was complete mayhem.    There was smoke billowing towards the ceiling, which had cracked and broken in several places, and at least one wall had collapsed. Alarms were going off and sprinklers were already spewing a fire-suppressing gas through the room, but one which was harmless to both humans and machinery.

   Shocked and confused, you instinctively tried to move, and discovered that you could, because the dome had been cut in half and fallen to either side of the slab you were laying on.    The dome which was supposedly indestructible.    You rolled to your side and tried to sit up, slightly hindered by the tubes and needles which were still embedded into your skin, so to keep from tearing at them, you adjusted until you could sit upright without tugging at them.

   You noticed that all eight IV bags were completely empty, which probably explained why you hadn’t passed out from exhaustion already. But it also made you wonder why it seemed like you’d been totally disconnected from reality for what was apparently at least twenty minutes, because that was the fastest the fluids could possibly be administered.    It had felt like mere seconds to you.

   “Oh, my god… Is everyone alright? What the hell happened?” you asked no one in particular, but it was Kane who answered you, still with an excited smile on her face.

   “No one was hurt, don’t worry. As for what happened, well… Apparently your energy seems to come from one or more alternate dimensions. But how you’re able to tap into them or draw such vast amounts of energy from them, we still don’t know.”

   “Other dimensions?” you echoed, tasting the words in an attempt to better grasp them. “Is that what I felt?”

   “What do you mean?” she asked, intrigued enough to abandon the screens, which had thankfully survived the mayhem, and come stand directly in front of you.

   “I tried to find the power inside myself, to feel where it comes from and how it works, and when I did… it was like I wasn’t here anymore. I couldn’t even feel myself. Just… emptiness.”

   “Interesting,” she mumbled, before starting to pace slowly beside you, just a few steps in either direction, while she pondered. “Most people think of alternate realities and dimensions as being largely similar to this one, but there’s no scientific basis for that assumption. An alternate reality could be a mirror opposite to our own, sure, but it could just as easily be something we can’t even imagine in our wildest dreams.”

   “It felt vast. But it also felt like it was… alive. Or at least reactive. I could’ve sworn it wanted to come to me,” you recalled with a shiver, but the doctor had a different perspective to offer.

   “I suppose it’s possible, but I would say the more likely explanation in this case, is that this dimension is indeed empty of everything except this energy, and that when you tap into it, your body becomes a kind of sinkhole, or magnet, drawing the energy to the only outlet in its existence.”

   “So, basically you’re saying the other dimension is a battery, and I’m the only power-cord in the world who has the correct socket?”

   “Precisely!” she cheerfully agreed, but you were anything but happy right then.

   “Great. And how the fuck am I supposed to figure out how to regulate a practically endless source of power, strong enough to destroy the indestructible, without dying in the process?”

   “Give us time,” she soothed, letting the mirth settle into a soft smile instead. “We have a ton of data here and it’s gonna take a while to sift through it all, but it will help us understand how to help you.”

   “And in the meantime, I have to live in a cell and eat for ten people every day, and just hope that nothing irritates me enough that I accidentally tear a rift through the spacetime continuum…” you grumbled, already certain that you wouldn’t be able to keep yourself in check every minute of every day.

   “I’m sorry, that’s the best we can do.”

   You weren’t happy about it, but you did understand that something like this couldn’t be solved by the snap of a finger. It was just that, the other dimension had really scared you, and now you were worried that if you kept tapping into it, something else might eventually slither through along with it. Something dark and malicious.    It might very well just be your own fear talking, but it really had felt like there was something else over there.

   “What about the healing?” you suddenly recalled. “How does that fit into all this?”

   “I’ve been thinking about that, and I wanted to ask you something. When you heal someone, does it feel different than when you use your shield?”

   “Um… yeah. It feels like something leaves me. Like, I wanna make it right, and then something inside me makes that thought real. I’m sorry, I don’t know how to explain it.”

   “No, that’s okay. What I’m getting at is, I don’t think it’s the dimensional energy which accomplishes the healing. I think you do that, using a completely separate ability.”

   You were a bit stumped, hearing that. It wasn’t at all what you’d expected, but it somehow sounded right.

   “If I was able to use the energy for healing, it shouldn’t weaken me to the extent that it does, should it?” you wondered, and she nodded approvingly.

   “Exactly. For whatever reason, you’re only able to give of yourself in order to heal, so you need to be very careful, because as you’ve already proven, your willingness to help others overrides even your own survival instincts.”

   “I’ve never considered my own life to be worth more than anyone else’s,” you shrugged, and for the first time since you’d met this woman earlier today, her childlike excitement completely faded away and she stopped pacing.

   “I can assure you that Marcus and Missy wholeheartedly disagree with you there. Your life isn’t just your own anymore, you need to remember that,” she admonished, and you knew she was right, of course, but it was also something you’d never had to consider before. “Have you talked to him about any of this yet?”

   “No,” you admitted, feeling ashamed of the lie you’d continued to keep from everyone but Anita. “He doesn’t even know that I was the one who healed the team.”

   “I suspected it was you,” she said while crossing her arms over her waist. “We knew it was unlikely they’d managed to recover that quickly from such a catastrophic cell-manipulation, but none of them could recall anything about their recovery, so we couldn’t be sure it wasn’t some spontaneous colliquefaction.    But how on earth did you manage to save all of them before you clocked out, when one kid was enough to bring you to the brink of another coma?”

   “I don’t know. All I know is that I needed them to live, and I made it happen. I was angry and desperate and even though each one left me impossibly drained, I just kept going.    It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Which, with the life I’ve lived… is saying something.”

   “But why keep it from us?”

   “Because I knew that as soon as Science found out, it would spread. And once Marcus knows what I can do, and what it costs me to do it, how is he supposed to feel about the fact that he knows I would sacrifice myself for him or Missy or Anita without hesitation?    Should he be thankful even when it means I might die in the process? Should he be angry, even though it means I can protect his daughter from death itself?” you posed, feeling increasingly disheartened with each question.

   “What I feel…” a much too familiar voice spoke from behind you, and your heart sunk as you turned to see him walk around the head of the slab, looking almost comically proper among all the destruction, “is a terrible sadness that you didn’t feel like you could talk to me about something this important.”

   “I did wanna tell you, Marcus, I’ve felt so bad lying about it…”

   “Then why did you?”

   “I just wanted to have some answers for you before I dropped it on you. Something which might offer us both some hope that this won’t be the thing that kills me since I can’t simply stand by and watch good people get hurt. Not after what I’ve been through.”

   “Am I not a good person?” he shocked you by asking, because it sounded like he genuinely thought you might not believe he was.

   “Of course you are, honey. Why would you even ask that?”

   “Because you’re apparently willing to hurt me,” he calmly suggested, although the pain in his eyes was unmistakeable. “Not because you want to, I know that. But because your way of thinking excludes me from the equation every time you put your life on the line for other people.”

   You couldn’t keep meeting his honest eyes, so full of heartache as he detailed just how fully he understood you, so you let your head fall forwards, doing your best not to cry.

   “You can’t ask me to stand by and watch people suffer and die when I know you’d do everything you could to save them too,” you argued, knowing full well you were sidestepping the real point of his argument.

   “We’re not talking about you healing someone from a potentially fatal injury or illness. We’re talking about you bringing ten people back from the brink of death, with no regard for your own life, at all. Even though you must know by now what it would do to me if I lost you…”

   His voice faltered then, and he stepped closer so he could take your hand, needing to feel how alive and strong you were, no doubt reliving those minutes on the beach, which had to have been so horrific for him.

   “I didn’t know what it would do to me then,” you started, thinking back to that awful day and what had been going through your head throughout your confrontation with the Inventor. “All I knew was that I’d been scared out of my mind for days, and then I found you, only to not be able to help you, and I needed it to stop.    I needed those kids to see their parents again. I needed Missy to get to keep her dad… like I’d promised.    That’s all I was thinking about.”

   “And I need you to understand that it’s not enough,” he argued, although just as tremblingly as you, and you looked up to meet his eyes then, because a part of you couldn’t fathom how you could possibly have done more. “You need to think further than that from now on. You have to consider everything, including the consequences to the people who love you, even it means hesitating for a second that might mean the difference between someone living or dying.    That’s the price you have to be willing to pay if you want to be a part of a family.”

   You didn’t know what to say. Part of you wanted to object, another part wanted to apologize, and yet another part just wanted to scream about how unfair this whole mess was.    Like him, you hadn’t been given a choice as to what your powers would turn out to be. All you could do was try and use them for good, and beyond that… you’d have to rely on hope and determination.

   “On the subject of family…” Kane carefully rejoined the conversation, having stepped aside once Marcus had revealed himself, “there’s something you both might wanna know concerning healing abilities.”

   “What is it?” you asked, and she clasped her hands together in front of her body in a way you felt was meant to convey the same type of professional care that medical doctors were so adept at.

   “We don’t know why, despite many years of study on the phenomenon, but it seems that all forms of healing abilities in supers result in either partial or complete infertility.”

   Neither you nor your partner had any response to that, so she kept going.

   “Obviously, I don’t know if this is something you’ve discussed, but I feel you should know either way.”

   “What do you mean by partial?” you finally asked, not at all sure how you felt about any of this.

   “I mean that when it’s men who have the healing ability, the infertility is usually caused by a decrease in viable sperm, making it more difficult but not impossible to conceive.    However… when women have any sort of healing power, it’s as though our bodies end up locked in a fight with ourselves. Whether it has to do with the bleeding in our cycles or the hormones responsible, we still don’t know. But the result is always the same.”

   “So, even though I can’t heal myself, my body is in conflict with my abilities?”

   “As far as we can tell, yes,” she confirmed, and you glanced at Marcus, worried he wouldn’t take this well considering his feelings about your family growing.

   He met your uncertain gaze, but whatever he was thinking or feeling, he wasn’t sharing with you yet, because his features revealed nothing but his normal quiet concern for you.

   “That being said,” Kane continued after seeing you exchange the indecipherable look, “couples have defied medical science for as long as it’s existed. So, if this is something you want, don’t let the facts get in the way.”

   “Thank you, doctor,” your partner nodded, politely letting her know she could leave the subject.

   Then he shot you another glance, and this one you could read very clearly. It told you he wanted to talk more about it, but not right here and now.

   “I assume the tests are done for now, given the state of the room, so I’d like to escort my girlfriend back to her room,” he stated then, not really asking for permission even though Kane could certainly deny him on the basis of protecting the rest of the building.

   She didn’t, though.

   “We’ll need to repair the dome before we can try again, but we have plenty of data to go over in the meantime. I’ll keep you updated on our progress.”

   She shifted her focus to you on that last part, as Marcus wasn’t actually privy to either your medical or scientific information without your approval, which you’d given to the twins in terms of keeping him in the loop on your health. But you hadn’t given him those privileges here, and it didn’t escape his notice that you neglected to do so this time as well.

[sirowsky-stories]

The Flowers Always Know

Chapter 18 - The Real Hero

Description: Marcus came face to face with his worst fear, as the consequences of your actions to save him came to fruition.

**Beware! Author chooses NOT to display warnings on the individual chapters of this story. Read at your own risk!**

Rating: Mature 18+ONLY Word Count: 6497 (3554 words added) Masterlist (this story)

   The Inventor was quickly dealt with once all the Heroics had somehow been freed and restored to full health. The only reason he’d been able to trap them in the first place, was because he’d had the element of surprise, along with what Marcus had to admit were really clever inventions, including a device on his belt which effectively shielded the man from his enemies’ powers.    An impressive feat, considering the magnitude of power they all collectively possessed.

   They’d been sent there after a string of gruesome murders had left the town’s folk desperate for help, but once they’d arrived, everyone had acted very strange.    Later, they’d learn it was because The Inventor had revealed himself to be the murderer before the local community, and threatened everything they held dear if they didn’t help him. And to make sure they believed him, he’d demonstrated just how clever some of his inventions were, by not only managing to keep track of everyone, but even frighten and harming them from afar.    So, they’d done as he’d instructed, leading the team into a trap and then covering it up.

   He’d been in contact with HQ from the start, attempting to bargain using the supers as leverage, all the while never planning on releasing them, despite the promises he’d made to the Heroics organization.    The only part of all this Marcus couldn’t understand, was you. How you’d found them, how you’d gotten anyone to tell you where the team was being held, and most especially, how you’d freed them?

   Being better prepared for what they were facing this time, as more of them joined the fight once they were freed, working together in the crowded space where The Inventor had nowhere to run or hide, they soon had him shackled and his protection destroyed.    And once he was neutralized, Moreno had only one focus.    He’d seen glimpses of you while battling, crawling along the floor, somehow breaking the cages open, but he’d had no idea what you’d actually been doing, or how you’d done it.

   When he’d first woken up, he’d seen you hold your enemy off without touching him, so clearly, something had changed, but he didn’t really care about that in the moment. He just needed to make sure you were okay, so as soon as he felt it was safe, he turned from the captured foe and went to find you.    It didn’t take long in the bright lighting of the room. But once he located you, for one infinite moment, he froze as his heart nearly stopped.

   He’d seen this before, that first day at the hospital, when he’d questioned how anyone could still be alive looking the way you had. The image had haunted his dreams for months, and now, he was staring right at it in real life, once again.    The nightmare had come true. His worst fear brought back and realized, and it shocked his system so completely that he lost all contact with his own senses beyond what he could see.

   Sickly pale, almost to the point of transparency, just like then. Too heavy in your limpness, as though nothing was alive within you anymore. Lying on the floor between two of the nearest cages to the exit, fallen where you’d broken the final lock.    Terrified of touching you, feeling certain you’d be as cold and lifeless as you looked, like a moth to a flame, he was still relentlessly drawn to you. Needing to know, no matter how bad it was.

   Kneeling, he tremblingly reached for your wrist, looking for your pulse as his superior hearing wouldn’t let him search for the beating of your heart.    Clinging to even the smallest of hopes, it offered him a grain of relief to find you warm to the touch… but it was crushed when he couldn’t find what he sought.    Nothing fluttered against his fingers, and suddenly his hearing came back, needing to disprove what his touch was telling him.

   Somewhere in his mind he registered someone talking, but he blocked it out, searching for any sound coming from you. Anything.    His heart seemed to drop to somewhere so deep within him he couldn’t tell where it was, and he felt desperation begin to cloud out everything else. Because there was nothing.    There was nothing he could do. Rationally, he knew that. But he still washed his current over you, needing to believe he could somehow save you.

   He was vaguely aware of the team slowly gathering around the two of you while he grabbed your other hand as well, trying again and again, hitting you harder each time.    Marcus had the ability to sense electricity in others, even the faint charge of thoughts and memories being carried through the brain. But there was nothing.    You were gone.    Truly gone, because you’d wanted to save him. To save them all.

   And abruptly, he was furious with you for wasting your own life on someone as undeserving as him. Marcus might be considered a hero, but to himself, he was nothing but a giant failure. Unable to save his wife, unable to truly lead this team, unable to let his daughter fulfil her potential because he was just so fucking scared of how quickly she was growing up and how soon she wouldn’t need him anymore.

   Firm but kind hands were being placed on his shoulders. His friends and coworkers trying to tell him they’d be there to help him, just as they had been after Sarah.    Like him, they could hear the silence of your heart, as well as the screams of his own, trying so hard to deny what he was facing.    But their touch was instead what made him rage against the truth. Made him want to rip the world apart if it even attempted to take you from him.

   Allowing his anger to take over, he snatched you off the floor and held you to his chest while he dug deep inside of himself, separating the two parts of his powers, the electromagnetism and the metal manipulation, so that he could control them both individually.    He did this all the time whenever he was playing around with different metals, but he’d never attempted to do anything as delicate as what he was about to try.

   Reaching into your body, he located every grain of iron and started to move them into specific parts of your blood so that they’d carry the electricity of his current to where he needed it to be most concentrated.    It took such focus that it sent a raging headache through his brain within a matter of seconds, but he kept going. Even as that ache turned into blinding, searing pain, so intense it had him screaming at the top of his lungs.

   Not until it threatened to knock him out did he finally let the rage within his heated blood send one final current through you, easily a hundred times stronger than anything he’d tried before.    Actual lightning erupted between his body and yours, so bright that all the others shied away, even Red Lightning Fury herself, while the sheer force of it sent all the cages crashing into the walls, distorting and twisting the metal in them until they were flat and unrecognizable.

   Abruptly terrified that so much electricity would’ve burned your insides, he felt the rage fade away and fear bleed into its place as he slumped over you, drained and trembling while he waited for the migraine to let up so he could see again.    The only burn he could detect was on your right hand, but he’d felt that before electrocuting you, so it had to be from earlier.

   However, as his senses returned, he could barely believe his own ears when a small thud reached him, seemingly from inside you.    Holding his breath, he waited, not daring to hope he might hear another one. But there it was. And then another.    It took a minute, but slowly your heart came back to a steady rhythm, albeit weak, and Marcus had never felt such relief in his entire life.

   But at the same time, he was still drowning in fear, because you weren’t safe yet. You were barely even alive and there was no telling what his blunt treatment of your systems might’ve damaged.    Without a word, Crimson came to his side and started helping him get you up the ladder and out into the daylight above, making sure you weren’t jostled in the process. And before long, the entire team was involved in your rescue, wanting to pay you back for what you’d done for them all.

   As soon as they re-emerged from the underground bunker, each of their comms started working again, coming alive with a slight click in their ears, and there was immediately someone on the other end, wanting an update.    Obviously, all channels had been continuously monitored for the mere possibility that someone might break free of their captor and make contact.

   Since he was their leader, no one else responded to the request from HQ, but while Marcus stepped to the side to take care of it, the rest of them made sure you were gently placed on the warm sand while they took up defensive positions around you.    Crushing Low was the only one keeping to the side, since he’d taken charge of the prisoner, and decided that the best way to detain him was for the Heroic to simply plop down on his back, once more earning his name as he slowly crushed The Inventor deeper into the ground.

   “HQ, this is Team Leader, reading you loud and clear,” Moreno replied into the comms.

   “Glad to hear it TL. What’s your status?” the operator cheerfully responded, but Marcus found himself feeling increasingly weakened, to the point that he had to drop to his knees to keep from falling over.

   “We need med-evac ASAP,” he tremblingly said, suddenly struggling to even speak.

   “Copy that Team Leader, med-evac activated, homing in on your signal. Are all team members accounted for?”

   “Affirmative. Plus two.”

   “Civilians?”

   “Negative,” he whispered, well and truly unable to find any more strength. “One hostile… and one family.”

   He started crying at the word family, wondering if he’d ever get to have that with you, or if it would all be snatched away from him before it had even truly begun.

   “Copy that. Med-evac ETA is 18 minutes,” the operator announced, giving no indication he’d noticed Marcus’ ever more emotional replies, even though there was no way he’d missed the change.

   Returning to you, he sat beside you terrified that every second might be your last, and that even if he could somehow muster enough strength to repeat what he’d done earlier, his powers wouldn’t be enough to bring you back a second time.    The others remained in a protective circle around you both, with their backs to you, the chain only broken when Miracle twisted around to speak to him.

   “I could fly her home, Mo. It would be quicker. I promise, I wouldn’t take any detours.”

   “Thanks, Guy,” Marcus hoarsely returned, not taking his eyes off you, “but she needs doctors, and the closest ones are on that plane.”

   “Yeah, you’re right. I just…” he tried, but Miracle wasn’t used to expressing his feelings in front of the team, so he couldn’t find the words.

   “I know, you just wanna help.”

   “She saved all of us,” the blonde quietly responded, and he sounded genuinely awed.

   The leader didn’t know what to say to that, so he just allowed the words to sit there, floating in the air between them where their truth seemed only to grow stronger.

   The plane was a modified plus-sized heavy jet, capable of vertical landing and take-off, with the tail end of the passenger section converted into a simplified med-bay for emergency treatments. There was always one doctor and one nurse on board, and whether the team was using it or not, the plane was always kept close to them, just in case.    While it was rare for any of them to sustain serious injuries, it did happen. They might be super, but they weren’t invincible, or immortal.

   Once it arrived, Marcus was surprised to see the entire team boarding. Normally, those who could fly always did, to get away from the usual post-mission-bickering. But this time they were unified in their worry over you, so no one even spoke.    Without so much as a single comment about the mission or each other’s performances, they all just took their seats, anxiously looking at you while waiting for the doctor’s assessment.

   The flight back to Los Angeles would take four and a half hours, so he prepared himself for the possibility that they would be the longest hours of his life. Not that there was much he could do in terms of preparation, save repeatedly reminding himself that you were the strongest person he’d ever met.    It took half an hour before the doctor finally came to the seated area to inform him of your condition, and by then, he was covered in cold sweat and feeling horribly nauseous.

   “Well, I can’t say that I’ve ever come across something like this before, so making any kind of statement as to her future condition would be rash,” the doctor said, after quickly greeting the team as a whole.

   But they still remained silent, turning to your partner out of respect for your relationship.

   “What do you mean? What’s wrong with her?” he asked, about ready to throw up and beginning to feel a seriously disconcerting crawling under his skin.

   “She’s… projecting some kind of energy which makes it impossible for our instruments to examine her. All we’ve been able to get is her pulse and blood-pressure, neither of which are desirable, but not indicative of anything acutely life-threatening.”

   It wasn’t anything close to what he’d hoped to hear, but it was also nowhere near the worst scenarios he’d envisioned.

   “So, she’s not dying?” he tentatively asked.

   “Not as far as we can tell,” the doctor gently shook his head, and Marcus breathed a small sigh of relief.

   That was as much as he dared to give himself, though, just in case things took a turn for the worse. Four and a half hours was a long time.

   “Can I sit with her?”

   “I don’t see why not, there isn’t much more we can do. Perhaps your presence will help her more than ours.”

   “Thank you, doctor,” he whispered while getting up, somewhere in the back of his mind registering that someone gave him a reassuring squeeze over his lower arm as he left the group, but too distracted to notice who it was.

   He sat with you for the rest of the flight, holding your hand and praying to the stars that whatever power you had also made you stronger physically, like it had with everyone on the team, accelerating their healing and making them more resilient to viruses and bacteria.    But as the pilot eventually announced that you were only half an hour away from landing, he suddenly remembered Missy.

   You wouldn’t have left her without making sure Anita would take care of her while you were gone, so he knew she’d be okay. But since his daughter had already managed to cultivate a very earnest and open relationship with you, he suspected you might’ve also clued her in to what you’d set out to do, in which case, she would be terribly worried.    He called her through his comms unit, and she picked up on the first signal.

   “Dad!”

   “Hey, sweetheart,” he shakily answered, somehow feeling both better and worse hearing her voice.

   “Oh, thank goodness… Abuela, it’s dad!” he heard her shout away from the receiver, and he heard his mother reply something in Spanish in the background.

   “You’re okay, right?” Missy asked, and she still sounded so stressed.

   It broke his heart to realize he had to make it worse, but he knew better than to lie to her or try and sugarcoat anything.

   “Um… yeah… I am,” he said, and heard her breath catch as she registered the way he made sure to emphasize only himself, knowing she’d understand exactly what that meant.

   “No…” she exhaled sharply. “No, dad, don’t tell me she’s-…”

   “She’s alive,” he cut her off, hurrying to ease her pain, although he couldn’t free her of it. “But she’s hurt.”

   “How bad?” she wondered, and he could hear how hard she was fighting not to fall apart.

   He wanted nothing dearer than to tell her she had nothing to worry about, that she wasn’t going to lose another mother. But he couldn’t even convince himself of such a thing.    The best he could do was keep her informed and hope that her strength would see her through this.

   “They don’t know. She… has powers now, and they’re messing with the instruments.”

   “Oh…” was all she responded.

   And really, what else could she say?      But listening to his daughter’s reaction made Marcus realize just how much he stood to lose here, and although he wanted to believe everything would be okay in the end, life had taught him not to expect miracles.    You’d already pulled off the impossible in freeing the team and allowing them to restore their strength, so how much more could he really hope for?

   “She saved us. All of us. If she doesn’t make it… it’ll be my fault…” he confessed, needing someone to know how responsible he felt that you’d had to literally give your life to save him.

   His voice broke as the tears finally began to fall, and he squeezed your undamaged hand tightly, trying to draw some comfort from the fact that you were still warm.    Perhaps it wasn’t the best idea, attempting to unburden himself to someone so young and fragile as Missy, but she was also the one person he’d always leaned on, and even now, she turned out to be the one who brought him out of the guilt and reminded him that your choices were your own.

   “No, dad! She did what she had to do. She told me something had happened to you, and that she was gonna raise hell to get you back.    She would’ve done anything, dad. That’s how much she loves you.”

   There were no words to describe how impressed he was by her courage in the face of the most difficult circumstances anyone could find themselves in. But this time, his own fear turned out to be even stronger than her hope.

   “…I can’t lose her, too…” he croaked, damned near choking on the words, because the truth within them was so heavy in that moment.

   “I know. I feel the same,” she admitted, and in her voice, he heard the same unbearable fear as he felt inside himself. She paused, and when she spoke again, he understood why. “I love her so much, dad. I never thought I’d love anyone like I did mom, but I do.    So, you bring her home. Bring her home so I can tell her that.”

<><><><><> 

   You woke up with a bit of a jolt and sat up in what was apparently a bed, somehow aware that you were in a different time than what you last remembered, but also unclear as to what that meant.    Because looking around, you could’ve easily travelled back in time. Or just dreamed up the past six months, since you were in a med-chamber which looked exactly like the one you’d been in before. Although, if memory served, you’d had more machines around you then.

   The room was only dimly lit, and there was no nurse present, suggesting it was nighttime. You wondered if Amaire would be there in the morning. If Marcus would visit you. But then you remembered that you could move and from there, the rest of what had happened came flooding back to you.    Marcus… the bunker, the team, The Inventor…

   Throwing the blanket off and swinging your legs over the side of the bed you intended to go and find out what had happened to him, but when you tried to stand, your legs gave out from under you, and you crashed to the floor with a hard bang.

   “Hermosa!?” you suddenly heard his voice from within the room, and in the next moment he was right there beside you.

   Even more perplexed, but also relieved to see him look perfectly fine, you just stared at him at first, reaching out to touch his cheek just to make sure he was really there.

   “Marcus…? Where did you come from?” you said with a smile, but he didn’t reciprocate, and only then did you notice how stressed and tired he looked.

   “Amanda and Claire brought us beds so we could sleep here with you, after they realized we weren’t gonna leave no matter how many times they tried to send us home.”

   “Oh… Us?” you asked, noting his use of plural, even though you hadn’t seen anyone else there.

   But then Missy appeared behind her father, looking teary-eyed but happy. And behind her, you could see two cots pushed against the wall, so they wouldn’t be in the way had the medical staff needed to move quickly to help you.    It told you that you must’ve been there a while, but you felt fine, so you chose not to focus on that for the moment.

   “Hey, sweetie. Well, at least this proves I didn’t dream up the last six months,” you chuckled, trying to break through the tension in the room. “This is all a little too familiar.”

   But Marcus remained unamused, picking you up and sitting you down on the side of the bed with a hard set to his jaw and something uneasy within his frame.

   “Where were you going?” he asked, mildly accusing, which made you a bit defensive.

   “To look for you, obviously. The last thing I remember was seeing you fight that Inventor guy,” you recalled, and then another thought hit you. “Wait… did everyone get out? Please tell me you beat that guy, cause he was a fucking nightmare.”

   “Barely,” was all the reply you got, and there was something dark in his features as he said it.

   But since he didn’t elaborate, you chose to try and keep the mood light, which turned out to be a mistake.

   “Hey, a win is a win. So long as he’s locked up for good-…”

   “This wasn’t a fucking win!” he cut you off, and he was suddenly angry enough to make you flinch and pull away from him a bit, which he didn’t even seem to notice. “Don’t you see where you are right now? Don’t you realize what this means?”

   “Yeah, it means I got hurt,” you quietly admitted, feeling small next to the anger emanating from him.

   “No. No, querida. You died,” he almost growled, and for a few seconds all you could do was stare back at him.

   Something inside of you turned icy at those words. As though your body remembered the coldness of death.    And unsurprisingly, so did Marcus.

   “You saved all of us, the entire team… by sacrificing yourself. And no one even knows how.    I was only just able to bring you back with my powers, but I have minutes of memories of holding your dead body in my arms, so don’t fucking tell me we won.”

   It wasn’t anger you saw in him. It was despair. And while you did understand why he reacted like this, you also knew that if your roles had been reversed, he would’ve done the exact same thing to save you.    Still, reminding him of that wouldn’t help this situation, he was too raw. So, you tried a different approach.

   “Honey… I’m so sorry. I never meant to make you go through something like that,” you said earnestly, hoping your remorse would calm him.

   “But you did. You made that choice for both of us,” he objected, entirely unaffected by your apology.

   However, this time, his perspective was way off, and you couldn’t let him continue to believe something so skewed.

   “No. It was never a choice,” you firmly stated, and saw a slight confusion seep into his expression, so you pressed on. “Do you really think I went looking for you on the other side of the country, all alone, with no weapons or back-up, because I felt an abundance of options?    I did what my gut told me to do, because the alternative was to sit here and wait to find out that you’d died, while I’d done nothing to help you. Do you think I could’ve lived with myself if I’d done that?    I could never have looked your daughter in the eye and told her that I’d done everything I could to help you, unless I actually had. So, however much you wanna blame me for how things turned out, don’t ever tell me that I had a choice.”

   He just stared at you while you spoke, gradually allowing the true despair to emerge the longer he listened. And by the time you finished, all you could see in him was pain.

   “I don’t blame you,” he finally said, after a long deliberating pause, but you could tell there was something he wasn’t sharing with you.

   Something big and frightening he was keeping away from you, and as much as you wanted to know what it was, you trusted he had his reasons for not revealing it right now.

   “Okay. Then, if we could possibly move past my death for a minute,” you paused when you saw him flinch at the blunt phrasing, throwing him an apologetic glance before continuing, “can you please tell me how long I’ve been recovering?”

   He swallowed hard a couple of times, clearly trying to dislodge a lump in his throat.

   “Eleven days.”

   “Alright,” you nodded, relieved to know it wasn’t worse. “Not as bad as I thought, but I get it must’ve really stressed you both out.”

   “Yeah,” Missy finally joined the conversation, although keeping a little distance, remaining behind her father closer to the foot of the bed. “You had us so worried when no one could tell if you were even improving.”

   That only confused you further, so you turned back to Marcus, since he’d been there.

   “What happened? I mean… What did I do, exactly?”

   “Actually, we were hoping you could tell us,” he replied, raising a brow at you. “All I know is that you somehow freed the entire team from cages no one could even touch. And all the doctors have been able to work out is that you have some kind of shield around you which completely blocks every instrument in their arsenal.    Which, considering these are the people who research abilities in supers, says a lot about how powerful you are.”

   So, they hadn’t realized you’d also healed each member of the team individually. They must’ve thought the cages being disrupted had simply allowed them to recover naturally.    But this left you with a dilemma.    On the one hand, it was a massive comfort to you, knowing you could protect the people you cared about. But on the other… you knew that Marcus would never see it that way. Not when your ability to heal came at the cost of your own strength.    Which left you conflicted about how much to tell him.

   “I just remember feeling like I was in water. Or something denser than air, anyway,” you recalled, doing your best to find a way to describe the strange barrier you’d managed to conjure up. “I could push it around, if I focused hard enough. And everything it touched… it was like it was my skin touching it.”

   “I couldn’t feel it at all,” your partner explained. “I mean, I guess I was inside of it at some point, but I couldn’t sense it at all, not even with my powers.”

   “Huh…” you breathed, giving yourself a second to think back. “I could feel you, though. And I think your current kind of recognized me. Does that make any sense?”

   “I doubt there’s any part of me that doesn’t recognize you,” he shot back, probably not thinking anything of it, but Missy clearly heard a different meaning behind it.

   “OKAY, and that’s the end of that line of thought, as long as the kid’s present,” she loudly protested, before finally rounding her father and coming to hug you. “I promised myself that if you ever woke up again, I’d tell you how I feel, so here it is: I love you so much!”

   “Oh, sweetie…” you sighed, holding her back as tightly as you dared without hurting her.

   It was rattling to realize just how deeply her declaration affected you. You’d known from the moment you first met her that you loved her, but you hadn’t really given yourself permission to believe she could ever feel the same for you.

   “I love you too. And I’m so sorry I scared you.”

   “You did. But you also kept your word,” she said while pulling out of the hug so she could meet your eyes. “I’ll owe you for that forever.”

   “Hey, you made me a promise in return, remember?” you asked her, glancing at Marcus, and she couldn’t help but smile in response.

   “I do, and I kept it,” she proudly announced, before both of you giggled slightly.

   “Then I’m pretty sure we’re even,” you winked at her, because even though her promise to you might’ve had slightly less life-altering consequences attached to it, it was something that bound the two of you together.

   Not in chains created by heavy commitments, but simply in the love you both had for this family, and the understanding of what each of you would be willing to sacrifice for it.    And despite her age, you knew in your heart that she understood exactly what you were saying.    Meanwhile, Marcus was just about to ask what the two of you were giggling about, when Anita walked in to the med-chamber.

   “Well, look who decided to wake up, finally. I’ve never known a real-life Sleeping Beauty before,” she grumbled, as always concealing the depth of emotion she was truly feeling about seeing her family all together and healthy.

   “Aww… Did you just call me beautiful, Mrs. M?” you joked, feeling lighter at heart thanks to Missy.

   “It’s a character, loco, don’t read too much into it,” her grandmother huffed, but you ignored her false impassiveness.

   “I most certainly will, thank you,” you chirped, flashing her a brilliant smile, to which she merely winced dramatically.

   “So, what brings you here in the middle of the night, mom?” Marcus cut in, as always trying to protect you from his mother’s sharper edges.

   “Ay, hijo, haven’t you even looked at the time? It’s past 7 am,” she replied, tapping her wristwatch meaningfully, as though that time should hold some significance to her son, but if it did, it completely passed him by. “Don’t you have an internal inquiry in an hour?”

   “Oh, right… damned it,” he grumbled, before turning back to you and kissing you on the forehead. “Sorry, I have to go, but I’ll be back as soon as it’s done.”

   “Wow, wow, wow, wait a minute, what internal inquiry?” you demanded, taking his hand to keep him from rushing off.

   “Uh, well…” he started, but Anita cut him off.

   “Don’t worry, I’ll fill her in. You get Missy to school.”

   He looked a bit apprehensive, but if he was gonna get back to HQ in time for the meeting, he really didn’t have a minute to spare.    With a reassuring squeeze of your hand, he headed for the door with his daughter in tow, who shot you a little wave before they both disappeared through the double doors.

   “Well now,” the older woman started the moment they’d left. “Apparently, you assaulted not one, but two security guards here almost two weeks ago.    Now, they haven’t pursued any legal actions, but with such a serious incident, there will be an internal review. And since those take time, management decided to get started on the process as best they can until you’re well enough to participate. They want to talk to Marcus simply because they know about your relationship, which means he can provide insight into your character.    You’ll be called to give your own statement, once you’ve been medically cleared.”

   “Oh…” was all you could say.

   You hadn’t even reflected on your actions here that day, but now that you did, you suddenly felt horrible, which Anita could see in your face without even trying.

   “It’ll be fine. You singlehandedly saved the entire team, it’s not like they can throw you in jail for some minor injuries. I doubt if they could even fire you, at this point,” she stated without a hint of uncertainty, but you weren’t primarily concerned with any practical repercussions.

   “I didn’t even recognize my actions as faulty or wrong. I just took them out, as though they were nothing but obstacles in my way. Like they didn’t matter at all,” you recalled, truly frightened by how callously you’d acted, not to mention how perfectly justified you’d felt in the moment.

   “The heart doesn’t hear reason, and especially not when it is hurting.”

   “That doesn’t make it right.”

   “No, it doesn’t. But you’ll have plenty of opportunities to make amends, if that’s what you want,” Anita calmly reminded you, while casually straightening out your blanket at the foot of the bed.

   “Yeah, I guess,” you pondered, thinking back on everything you’d done that day, which brought back your conversation with her on the phone before you’d left for the airport. “I’m surprised you haven’t given me an `I told you so´ yet.”

   “Hm? About what?”

   “You warned me not to do anything rash…”

   You’d expected her to scoff or hit you with some Mama Moreno wisdom, so you were both stunned and confused when she cocked her head to the side, and that same strange expression you saw in Marcus’ face sometimes, but still couldn’t decipher, crept into her features instead.

   “I’m forever indebted to you, loco, for the very reason that you didn’t listen to me. If you had, my son would not have been brought back alive,” she told you, and her expression shifted into something very soft and loving, just for a moment, before she started turning to leave.

   But halfway through the room, she stopped. She only turned to the side when she spoke next, and you got the impression it was out of respect. Maybe to let you react without her piercing eyes on you.

   “The shield is surprising… but the healing? That I understand completely.”

   For a second you didn’t know what to say. You didn’t think anyone had figured out it was you who had restored the team to health, since it seemed plausible Marcus would’ve been told about it if that was the case.    But this wasn’t just anyone talking to you. Whether it was due to some power involving flowers or just her knack for putting even the most longshot clues together, she always knew more than anyone else, and you suspected denying it wouldn’t do you any good here.

   “Should I even ask how you know?”

   “Honestly, I’m surprised no one else has figured it out yet. Granted, the cages were destroyed, and the team’s memories of your actions are hazy and fractured, since they had to step out of their cages straight into battle.    But I don’t see how anyone could have survived coming that close to death, without help. Even supers can’t heal themselves of everything.”

   “No… that much I’ve learned. They were minutes away from dying by the time I got to them,” you recalled, feeling a chill travel down your spine at the memory, and you tried to shake it off but with little success. “Why do you say it doesn’t surprise you?”

   This time, she did turn all the way around before answering, so she could look at you.

   “Simple. It’s who you are.    You tried to heal your family, even when you knew it was impossible. You tried to heal your friend Jean, despite the many times she took advantage of your kindness. And then, when I offered you this job, you set about trying to fix everything that’s wrong with this place, another form of healing.    And lastly, you’ve been trying to heal this family too, ever since you met us.”

   You’d never thought of it that way. Never seen yourself as any kind of healer, but hearing her say it, you realized it did make a lot of sense.

   “It is a bit ironic, though,” she continued after letting you absorb her perspective.

   “What?”

   “That you should be granted the power to save others, while the person who is most in need of healing, is beyond your reach,” she cryptically answered, but then pointed to your right hand.

   You hadn’t even noticed it was bandaged, but now that you saw it, you remembered. Electrical burns on the insides of your fingers and palm. It had been dressed with a special burn-gel and thin plastic foil, so the damage was fully visible. It wasn’t too bad, but it would leave scars, and you’d probably have some loss of sensation in your skin.

   “Yeah well, it doesn’t matter,” you noted, honestly unbothered since it wasn’t yourself you were concerned about. “If I can protect the people I love, that’s more than enough.”

   “I know. And that’s precisely why you deserve more. Because you never would’ve asked for it, much less expected it.”

   “I never asked for any of this, remember?”

   “True. But if none of it had happened, you and Marcus never would have met,” she cautioned, before waving a dismissive hand through the air. “Of course, I’m not saying what’s been done to you is a good thing, but… I would be lying if I said I was disappointed in the outcome.”

   You wanted to tell her how grateful you were for the role she’d played in making sure you and her son had found each other, but you knew she’d dismiss something that sappy, so you opted for a different truth.

   “If I could go back and do it all again, I wouldn’t change it. I wouldn’t trade anything for this family, no matter how much pain it’s caused me.”

   “I realize what it means to you, after how you grew up. But please remember… Marcus and Missy are counting on you to be there. Not just to protect them, but to actually be there. For many years to come.”

   With those sobering words, spoken with precise clarity, she turned and stepped out of the room, leaving you jarred in a way you couldn’t quite describe.

[sirowsky-stories]

For The Love Of A Grump

Summary: Pero reflects on how you made his birthday the best it possibly could've been.

Requested by @chaoticfestninja

Rating: General/Everyone Warnings: Pero Tovar x female reader, but told from Pero's pov. As always, my Pero has issues with self-worth, but this story is a positive one, focused on his perspective of being loved. Word Count: 900

   He’d asked you to keep it small, and you had. But you’d also made it enormous, somehow managing to incorporate the entire world into the intimate celebration, and for the life of him, he’s never known how you do those things.

   Dragging him out of bed first thing in the morning, almost before the sun had even risen, he’d grumbled at you, truly feeling upset that you hadn’t let him sleep in, or even wished him happy birthday before ordering him to get dressed and hauling him out to the car.

   The drive had been long and listening to your upbeat sing-along with your favorite pop music radio station, had eventually worn him down and made him laugh.    He’d never been able to resist your joyous energy and the way you seemed so unaffected by his general grumpiness.

   It was exactly what had eventually convinced him he’d already fallen for you, that day in the pouring rain two years ago, when he’d gotten angry with you for not even letting the autumn weather get to you. As if that could ever be a bad thing.

   That was the moment it had dawned on him, the only reason he would’ve been so upset was if he hadn’t wanted your positivity to infect him. But it already had, and he was already lost in it by then, craving it so badly it had frightened him into trying to scare you away.

   You’d been immune to his mood swings from the start, never backing down no matter how terribly he’d treated you, and so impossibly elated whenever he’d showed you even a hint of happiness, that your very skin had seemed to shine with your joy.

   He’d loved you long before he’d been able to understand it, but you’d known from the moment you’d met him, and you’d been determined to help him see it.

   He trusts you beyond all reason, which was why he’d kept his mouth shut that morning in the car, not letting himself gripe at you. He knows better. You had a plan, and whatever it was, he’d be stupid to interfere with it.

   The beach had been deserted that time in the morning, the ocean calm and pink in the first light of the day. Growing up far from the coast, he’d always been enchanted by the sea, drawn to it and calmed by it, so you’d brought him there to start the day off in the best possible way.

   Breakfast on a blanket in the sand, followed by soothing cuddles and soft kisses, while the waves had begun to gently roll against the land. You’d let him doze off in your arms, giving him back the desired sleep-in you’d robbed him of earlier.

   Getting back in car, you hadn’t brought him home, but instead taken him on a remembrance tour of your relationship, driving past all the places where you could recall something significant happening between you, and it had amazed him how much you’d held onto. Especially all the bad, which you somehow managed to see the positives of.

   The next stop had been his favorite lunch diner, where you’d made sure the staff had treated him to their birthday special, complete with a song and dance routine which had left him laughing with equal parts embarrassment and delight.

   But it was the afternoon which had really taken him to a sense of wonder, as you’d borrowed a pair of horses and taken him on a cross-country ride which had lasted until nightfall, over giant plains, mountains, rivers, and which had seen the two of you cook dinner over an open fire.

   And even though you’d been all alone, not seeing another person for the duration of the journey, the vast sky above you, as well as the wonder of the natural features you’d navigated, had spoken to his heart about the connectivity of all things. From the distant sun, to the little bird which had taken refuge on his shoulder, under the brim of his hat, to escape the afternoon heat for a minute.

   Out there, he had been reminded of how small he is, but at the same time, how wonderous it is that one little person could’ve found his soulmate at all, within this chaotic and artfully crafted world.

   The evening had been spent among the sheets, where you’d allowed him to show you every nuance of his affection and desire for you, and it was only when his strength had finally run out and he’d tugged you into his arms to feel your stubbornly stoic and unfathomably kind heart beat against his ribs, that you’d finally wished him a happy birthday.

   Because you’d known, the same way you always know these things, that he would only hear the truth of your words once you’d already expressed them in every other way possible.

   Not because he doesn’t believe what you say, but simply because that’s how little he thinks of himself.

   You are the only proof he’s ever had, that his life and existence has any meaning. He lives for you and the joy he somehow gives you by merely being there.

   And as he falls asleep with you safely tucked against him, he thinks that one day he might be able to deserve your love. If he keeps letting you guide him.

   If he keeps letting your unbridled positivity infect him.

   Forever.

THE END

[sirowsky-stories]

Forward Luxation

Summary: You're recovering from a dislocated shoulder and have to go to a physical therapist. But getting there, you find nothing at all is what you'd expected, least of all the man in charge of your training.

Requested by @bilibiche

Rating: Mature 18+ONLY Warnings: Marcus Moreno x female reader, reader is not described at all, and yes, we're taking liberties with the fact that any visit to an expert in human functionality requires one to take their clothes off. Lots of sexual tension here. Word Count: 2750

   The waiting room is surprisingly cozy for a physical therapist’s office. Although you’ve never been to one before, so you don’t really have anything to compare it to. You’d just sort of imagined it being a bit like a dentist’s office, with the cheap magazines, plastic plants, beige curtains which haven’t been changed in five years, uncomfortable chairs and squeaky linoleum floors.    But this is nothing like that.

   You’re sitting in one of the four available really nice armchairs, each with a little coffee-table to the side, on top of which are no magazines but instead a selection of pamphlets with useful information about the most common muscle injuries and treatments, and phone numbers and websites to other reputable establishments where people can find help for all manner of problems, from yoga studios to psychologists.

   The wallpaper is cream white with a discreet floral pattern in the same color, but glossy against the matte base, and the curtains are a deep green which together with the wallpaper somehow gives the impression that you’re sitting in a park. Especially since the chairs have exposed wood along with the soft cushions, which are the same color green, with embroidered flowers in pale yellow. And you’re pretty sure they’re made entirely of silk.

   Even the coffee is fucking excellent.

   If not for the fact that you had to sign in at the front desk, confirming your appointment and even having to show your ID, before being shown in here, you would’ve thought for sure you were in the wrong place.    This all seems so much more expensive than what you could ever afford. You’re here courtesy of your insurance, so you don’t need to worry about the cost, but it still feels way too fancy for you.

   “Good morning,” a soft and pleasant voice interrupts your thoughts, and you turn your head to find a tall, fit, brown-eyed, ridiculously gorgeous man smiling at you.

   “Uh… g-good morning,” is all you manage in response, because he’s literally taken your breath away by just standing there.

   “My name’s Marcus, welcome to my rehabilitation center. If you’ll please follow me, we’ll get started with a quick exam,” he continues, giving no indication he’s noticed your flustered reaction as he politely steps to the side to indicate which direction you’ll be heading.

   Air floods back into your lungs when you start to move, getting up from the chair and falling in behind him, at which point, your brain starts working again.

   “You own this place?” you ask, jumping at the first topic to come to mind.

   “I do. I started this business eight years ago,” he replies, before reaching a room with a door already standing open, where he stops just outside and beckons for you to enter. “Does that surprise you?”

   “Well, no. I’m just a bit confused overall,” you admit.

   “Oh? How come?”

   “It’s just… My insurance company made it seem like it was a big deal to even get a spot here. That this is like, the best physical rehab center in the country. And then I get here and the only person I’ve seen is the receptionist.”

   “I see. You thought that such a prestigious establishment would have thirty employees and patients constantly coming and going?” he guesses, and you nod, feeling slightly embarrassed.

   But he’s smiling when he gestures for you to take a seat on the large examination table in the middle of the room, while he closes the door and then takes a seat on a mobile stool in front of you.    You note that the temperature in here is higher, and a moment later you realize that it’s probably because people need to undress for him to examine them properly, and suddenly you’re flustered again.

   “The reason why we’re considered one of the best, is precisely because we don’t take on more patients than what we can effectively handle, both from a managerial standpoint, and from a practical one.    Since it’s just me and David here, that means our slots are usually limited to five people per day. Obviously, I’m in charge of the actual therapy, while David handles the charts, bookings, contact with hospitals, insurance and so on.    These limitations enable us to work entirely stress-free with our patients, allowing each session to take almost however much time it requires, whether due to physical restrictions, or mental ones.”

   “Mental ones?” you repeat, getting slightly caught on the notion, since it seems misplaced to you.

   This is physical therapy, not psychological, right?

   “Bodily injuries often result in emotional distress, most of which only comes out when people are confronted with the consequences, which is essentially the heart of what we do here.”

   “So, you’re like a jack-of-all-trades kind of therapist, then?”

   “I suppose I am,” he agrees with a small chuckle. “Now, if you’re satisfied with our business model, we should get started.”

   “Sure,” you say entirely without confidence, feeling the hairs on your arms prickle with nervousness at the mere thought of potentially having to undress in front of this man.

   “Dislocated right shoulder. Forward luxation, if I remember correctly,” he recalls without looking at any charts or notes. “May I ask how it happened?”

   “Oh, I have horses,” you sigh, knowing he’s probably not gonna need much more explanation than that.

   And sure enough, he mirrors your sigh.

   “Ah, yes. That’ll do it. So, how long did you wait before calling for help?” he asks, crossing his arms over his waist with a knowing, although friendly, glare in his eyes.

   “About an hour.”

   His eyebrows shoot up at that, but he can’t seem to find the words at first. And as always, the moment you feel the slightest bit judged for your passion for horses, you get defensive.

   “I couldn’t just drop everything, I had two horses who were panicking because of a fucking snake, I had to get them into the stables.”

   “Yeah, okay, fair enough. How long did that take?” he prods, and you hesitate.

   Because you’ve had both of your horses since they were foals and you’ve trained them well enough that they always trust you, even when they’re scared, which is why it had only taken you a couple of minutes to get them into the stables that day.

   “I don’t have anyone who can help me,” you quietly explain. “I had to make sure they’d be okay if I had to be in hospital for a few days.”

   His expression softens then, but he’s not done investigating.

   “So, you went around hauling hay, probably some buckets of water, checking fences and gates… I assume you also made sure to get rid of the snake, only calling for help once you’d double-checked that you hadn’t missed anything.”

   “I didn’t call. I drove myself to the hospital,” you conclude, at which point Marcus seems to give up any notion that you’re a reasonable human being.

   “As impressive as it is that you were able to endure that kind of pain for so long, you do realize by delaying getting this injury corrected, you probably added another month to the rehab you’re gonna need? Which is only gonna keep you from working with your horses that much longer,” he admonishes, but he sounds concerned more than anything, which tugs at your heart because no one ever concerns themselves about you.

   “I know, but I was… scared,” you admit, surprising yourself, since you haven’t even admitted this to yourself yet. “I’ve never been seriously injured before, and I hate hospitals. I knew I had to go, I just… had to convince myself of it.”

   Unexpectedly, he smiles at you then.

   “Thank you. For being honest with me. That’s always a good start.” He looks so grateful and earnest as he meets your gaze, you struggle not to look away.

   “I know it might not seem like it, but I do want help. I’m just really crappy at asking for it or accepting it.”

   “Well then, you’ll be happy to know I’m stubborn as hell, and I don’t take no for an answer when I know I’m right.    Chances are, you’re gonna get amazingly irritated and sick of me before we’re done, but if you can trust me despite all that, I’ll get you well again,” he offers, and you struggle to believe you could ever get sick of such a wonderful person.

   “I’m not great with trusting people. But I’ll try.”

   “That’s all I can ask for.    Now, I’m gonna need you to take your shirt off so I can assess the mobility of your shoulder.”

   Well, that went from sweet to nerve-wracking in one fucking sentence…    Suddenly your pulse is pounding in your ears, but it’s not like you can refuse. At least, not if you want to regain full mobility.    Internally cursing yourself for wearing a t-shirt and not a top with thin straps of some sort, you start fumbling with the fabric, trying to get it off without causing yourself too much pain.

   He notices that you’re having a bit of trouble and steps around behind you to lift the shirt at the back, which is nice of him. Except that when his warm fingers brush against the bare skin of your neck, you involuntarily shiver, which he of course also notices.

   “Is it too cold in here?” he wonders. “I try to keep it warmer than the rest of the building, but if you need me to turn it up further-…”

   “No, no, I’m fine,” you interrupt him, feeling absolutely ridiculous at how strongly his mere presence affects you.

   “Alright, but just so you know, it’s no trouble. If there’s anything I can do to make this more comfortable for you, don’t hesitate to tell me,” he says, as he carefully starts to prod and examine your shoulder now that the shirt is off, and you’re abruptly having trouble breathing again with the sensation of his skin exploring yours.

   “Oh, you don’t want me to do that…” you think to yourself, while doing your best not to be self-conscious about your choice of bra for the day.

   “Why is that?”

   His mildly bemused and curious question makes you freeze, and as the realization hits you that you’d actually spoken out loud just now, panic floods your every cell in no time flat.    Wishing the ground would open and swallow you, or that lightning would hit you right now, you let your torso fall forwards and then brace your good elbow against your knee so that your hand can catch your head as it drops so heavily into your open palm that it feels like you’ve just slapped yourself.

   “I am so sorry,” you mumble, seriously wondering what the fuck is wrong with you, you don’t even know if the man’s single. “Please ignore me, I don’t get out much.”

   He’s quiet for a moment then, and in that short space of time, you manage to imagine several scenarios for how he’s probably about to scold you for behaving inappropriately.

   “Ah… You didn’t mean to say that out loud, did you?” he finally replies, and he still sounds only bemused, but it does nothing to rid you of your shame.

   “I’m sorry,” is all you can think to say, because that’s how you feel.

   “Hey, don’t feel bad, you haven’t done anything wrong. You’re allowed to think whatever you want.”

   “Even if it’s totally objectifying and unethical?” you counter, and there’s another pause before you hear a low chuckle behind you.

   “Okay, now I’m really curious. What were you thinking?”

   “Never mind, just… continue your exam,” you hurriedly try to deflect, even more mortified by the prospect of having to own up to your completely premature infatuation with him.

   But instead of leaving it alone, he rounds the table until he’s in front of you again, taking a seat on his stool so he’s at your eye-level.

   “As previously discussed, I’ve got time. So, please, do tell me what you think would make you feel the most comfortable with me,” he grins, clearly fully aware that it’s gonna be something juicy, and almost childishly excited to know what it is.

   For the most part, humiliation runs off you relatively easily. But that’s also because you rarely stray out of your comfort zone, which revolves around horses, dogs, driving tractors and using power tools.    Still, on the rare occasions when you do manage to get yourself cornered, you generally suffer for a minute and then you find a way to shake it off.

   And on the super-rare occasions, such as this one, when you’re so far beyond mortified that you don’t even know how to get out of it, something else happens.    You become kinda angry and a bit feral.    The last time it had happened you’d ended up spending a night in jail, and you hadn’t even been drunk.

   You can feel that anger take control of your brain and you know you’re about to say something ill-advised, but there’s no stopping it.    Raising your head, you lock gazes with him and see him flinch at the abrupt shift in your expression.

   “Basically any scenario in which you’re butt naked and in my bed,” you hear yourself almost snarl, and somehow, there’s no shame accompanying the words.

   As crude and inappropriate as they are, it’s the truth, and it wipes the sweetly crooked little smile off his face in a hurry. Although his eyes remain alight and curious.

   “Somehow that’s not what I was expecting you to say,” he slowly observes, and you can’t help how your face falls, hearing that.

   “You and me both, darlin’,” you exhale, feeling the anger fade as the air leaves your lungs, and in its wake, only regret remains. “Maybe I should just go.”

   Standing, you reach for your shirt at the top of the table, but he stops you with a hand on yours, and when you turn to see what he’s doing, he’s suddenly very close.

   “I told you that if you can trust me, I’ll help you.    It might’ve been unintentional, but you were honest with me just now, even though you didn’t want to be, which is a good sign.”

   “Not really,” you protest, starting to feel smaller against his large frame, “I get like that sometimes, when I’m overwhelmed. I blurt things out with no filter, it’s not a choice.”

   “It was still the truth, wasn’t it?” he persists, and you can’t deny it, so you nod. “Okay then, we have a baseline, so let’s build on it rather than abandon it.    I suggest we start with today’s session, and when we’re done, we make dinner reservations for this weekend.”

   You’re so unprepared for that last part, your mouth falls open and your mind goes completely blank for way too long. Like a damned fish, you just stand there, staring at him while his hand still holds yours, gently prying your shirt from it before he motions for you to take your seat again.    Grateful to be guided, since you still can’t think for yourself, you follow his directions and before long, the exam is done and he’s helping you get dressed.

   From there, he shows you out into the gym where he meticulously instructs you on which exercises to do and how often, making you swear not to overdo them.    And you might be imagining it, but you feel like he jumps on any excuse to touch you, holding your waist to make sure your core musculature doesn’t move when it’s not supposed to, or physically redirecting your hips when you’ve unknowingly turned them, even though he could’ve just told you to correct it yourself.

   When you’re done for the day, he takes you back to the exam room where he makes a few notes about how the session went and what you’ve agreed on.

   “Again, no lifting hay, grain, or heavy buckets,” he reiterates for what has to be the tenth time, and you can’t help but roll your eyes at him.

   “I heard you the first nine times.”

   “And you’re still not gonna listen to me, are you?”

   “I live alone with two horses and two dogs, I make no promises, one way or the other.”

   “I’m just gonna have to tie you to the bed then,” he says without a hint of a joke in his voice, before he reaches for a calendar on his desk. “But, dinner first.    How does six o’clock on Friday sound?”

THE END

[sirowsky-stories]

Lingerie For Beginners

Summary: Pero wants to give his new lady a present, but he's not exactly at home in the underwear store.

Requested by @suttonspuds

Rating: Mature 18+ONLY Warnings: Pero Tovar x OFC, the images are just for aesthetics, female character is not described beyond being a B-cup, no overt sexual themes but plenty of mentions of breasts and overall mature content. Word Count: 1200

   His hands are already clammy with nervous sweat as he walks into the store, certain he’s about to embarrass himself, but also determined to leave with what he hopes will be an outfit exactly as the one he pictures in his head.    Calling it that might be an overstatement, however, as he stops and looks around a few feet into the establishment, seeing nothing concealing enough to be referred to as a complete outfit.    Lots of it looks fun, though. While some of it looks downright scary.

   “Can I help you, sir?” a silky voice says to his right, and he looks over to find a middle-aged woman, wearing a polka dot dress in 60’s style with matching makeup and hat, all of which somehow suits her perfectly.

   “Yes, well…” he tries, but the words die on his tongue when he realizes he doesn’t quite know how to describe what he wants.

   “First time in a lingerie store?” the woman guesses, and there’s no judgement or even curiosity in her voice, which sets him at ease.

   He nods while feeling his shoulders relax somewhat, and she smiles in response.

   “Alright, no problem. My name is Wendy, now let me just work out what we’re dealing with here.    Are you looking for something for a new relationship or something to spice up an older one?”

   “New. Three months.”

   “Aw, congratulations,” she offers sincerely. “That means it’s not an anniversary, though. Birthday?”

   “No. She has been feeling down lately, because of her job. It makes her feel ugly sometimes,” he tries to explain, and she immediately gets it.

   “So, you wanna remind her that’s not how she looks to you, and maybe help boost her self-image a bit?”

   “Yes, exactly this.”

   “Honey, that’s precisely what sexy lingerie is supposed to be about. You’ve got the right idea, now let’s see if we can find a good fit for you, and for her, of course.    I assume you have her sizes?”

   “Uh… I know she has a B-cup,” he offers, feeling stupid for not remembering to check more than that, but in fairness, he’s never done this before.

   “Don’t worry, I’m sure we can figure it out. Can you show me by hand-measurement how wide her back or hips are?”

   This he knows without hesitation, because he loves to watch her when she struts around naked or just in her underwear in the apartment. And she’s been trapped beneath him both from the front and the back many times, so he knows her size compared to him very well.    Using his hands, he gives the saleswoman as accurate a representation as he can, and she leads him off down the aisles.

   “Okay, first off: which color did you have in mind?”

   “She looks especially good in white. And I like the lace that you can just almost see through,” he admits, feeling a bit vulnerable revealing his preferences to someone he isn’t intimately involved with.

   “And what about style? What type of bra do you think would best show off her bust?”

   This question he feels genuinely unwilling to answer, simply because discussing his woman’s private parts with a complete stranger seems utterly indecent.    She’s come to a stop in one of the aisles and is perusing a variety of white bra’s, some with lace, others with silk, but she pauses when she notices him turning away and displaying general discomfort.

   “I’m sorry, I know this can feel somewhat invasive. I’m just trying to help you visualize so that you can get the perfect set for your woman, and for yourself.”

   “I understand this, I just… don’t feel good about describing her in such detail.”

   “Well, maybe you don’t have to,” she suggests, and then picks out a cute little bra, holding it up to his scrutiny. “For example, this is a balconette. See how the cups form a straight line when they’re filled? It usually gives the breasts a bit of a bounce and rounds them off really nicely.    Whereas this one is called a plunge, because the triangular shape of the cup means that you don’t conceal any skin between the breasts.    And then there’s the cage-bra, which is really sexy with different kinds of straps, either over the breasts, shoulders, or across the back.”

   As she describes them, she holds each of them up and demonstrates their features, then she emphasizes that each of the different styles come in all sorts of fabrics, so there’s no limit to which one he can pick, if he wants lace.    But all this does, is confusing him even more. He really has no idea what his date might look best in. Hell, he didn’t even know there were so many different types of bras.

   “I don’t like the cage one,” he finally manages to work out. “Too complicated.”

   “Good, now we’re getting somewhere.”

   “Which would you recommend?” he asks then, conceding that he is talking to an expert on the matter and might as well trust her judgement better than his own ignorance.

   “Hmmm… Having only a basic sense of your girl’s body-type, I think I would go for the balconette. It generally makes any bosom look good, provided it’s a good quality piece.    And actually, come to think of it, we have a gorgeous lace version, with a satin/lace hipster panty to go with it.    Let me get it for you, and see what you think.”

   She darts off before he’s had a chance to respond, so he stands there awkwardly while he waits for her to return, idly looking at some of the choices available in the nearest aisles, some of which he can’t even work out how a person’s supposed to get into.    But he also spots something interesting. A teddy made almost entirely from glass crystals, strung together into the shape of a bra which connects to a tiny pair of panties, only the crotch of which is made of fabric, but still see-through lace.    It’s not at all what he thought he might be drawn to, but he can almost see how good it would look on the body he most desires, and he just can’t take his eyes off it.

   “That one’s not as expensive as it looks,” Wendy promptly informs him when she sees where his gaze has gotten stuck.

   “Really?” he hears himself ask before he manages to reel in his racing thoughts. “Uh, but it’s not what I was looking for. It is nice, though.”

   “Maybe next time,” she suggests, and he shrugs, so she proceeds to show him the piece she’s gotten for him.

   “Oh… this is perfect,” he whispers, not sure how his bumbling efforts of explanations enabled her to find exactly what he’d envisioned.

   “Excellent! I had a feeling you’d like it. But just so you know, if you keep the receipt, you can exchange it if your girl doesn’t like it.”

   He pays for the gift while she wraps it for him, in what has to be the most beautiful package he’s ever seen, and before he leaves, he throws one last glance at the crystal teddy, glinting at him from the back half of the store.

   “Next time. Definitely.”

THE END

[sirowsky-stories]

Bird Men

Summary: You've entered a cooking competition and your competitors are all intimidating, but also secretly sweet, men.

Requested by @bilibiche

Rating: General/Everyone Warnings: Multiple Pedro Characters (Joel Miller, Javi Gutierrez, Marcus Pike, Frankie Morales, and Jack Daniels), two mild bad words, obviously a bit of competition stress, but overall this is just lighthearted fun. Word Count: 1790

   You’ve all been tasked with making the perfect roast chicken, something you’ve never really gotten right before, so you’re nervous as you run back and forth in your little kitchen, trying to keep the timeframe you’ve set up for yourself within the one hour and forty-five-minute deadline.    Filets are easy, you can do those perfect with your eyes closed, but an entire bird for whatever reason is your weak point. It never comes out just juicy enough.    And to add to your stress, all five of your competitors seem perfectly at ease.

   It’s not a professional competition, you’re all amateur cooks, but it’s high profile enough that there are cameras present, and a rather large crowd gathered around the outdoor competition area.    Part of a local festival, the cook-off is one of dozens of different contests which will take place over a weekend, and the entire town is in attendance.

   You entered because of a dare you lost on a particularly wet night at the pub, most of which you can’t remember that clearly, but you do remember the promise to enter the cook-off if you lost a game of pool.    So, here you are, entirely out of your league and yet too damned stubborn not to at least try to win.

   The other competitors are all men, which is already enough to make you wanna beat them, but even more annoying is the fact that they’re all amazingly good-looking, but somehow, you’ve never seen any one of them before.    In a city this small, that seems impossible. Still, you all had to give your addresses when you signed up, at which point you took the liberty of reading theirs, and they’re all locals.

   Once you’ve got the chicken in the oven, you set to work with the sides, and after about a minute, the guy in the kitchen behind you says something to you, but you’re not expecting anyone to talk, so you don’t catch it.

   “Huh?” you ask, glancing over your shoulder at him.

   His name’s Javi and he has the most gorgeous hair you’ve ever seen on a guy. He’s tanned and wearing a silky soft shirt in pale pink, which suits him perfectly.

   “You forgot to start the timer,” he repeats with a smile and a tiny wink, and you’re momentarily distracted by how lovely his eyes are.

   “Oh, crap… Thanks,” you throw back, suddenly feeling terribly disheveled in your already stained blue t-shirt with a glittery silver unicorn on the front, and your hair tangled in the little beads of sweat around your face.

   “No problem. You got this, chica,” he whispers encouragingly, and for whatever reason, his words really move you.

   All at once, breathing gets a little easier and the worst of your stress seems to evaporate.

   You’ve been squaring up against guys for most of your life, being the kid who stood up for your friends at school, fighting the bullies that they never dared to even talk back to, or having to play football with the boys because there weren’t enough girls for a team of your own.    But not once in your life can you recall ever getting support or encouragement from any guy. Well, except for your dad, who is arguably your biggest supporter in all things.

   Feeling a smile spread across your cheeks, you set the timer and then continue with the potatoes, carrots and broccoli, soon disappearing into your own little world as your focus narrows with the task.    A sudden clanging draws your attention to the left, where another contestant, you believe his name is Jack, has just dropped a big bowl of homemade mayonnaise on the floor, and is staring at the mess with raised brows.

   “Well, that w’nt part o’ the plan…” he drawls in a deep Texan accent, before he shrugs and carries on like nothing happened, cleaning up the mess in no time and setting to work on making a new batch.

   And since you’re still grateful for the encouragement from Javi, you decide to pay it forward.

   “Don’t worry about it, Jack. There’s plenty of time,” you say, smiling at him when he looks up at you.

   “Why, thank you, sweetheart,” he replies with a nod and respectful touch to the brim of his bespoke cowboy hat.

   Then, as if the few polite comments at the three kitchens in the front have unlocked the tense silence you’ve all submitted to, despite there being no rules against talking, the remaining three contestants begin to join in as well.

   “Am I the only one sweating like I’m running a marathon?” the guy behind Jack says, and a peek at his nametag reminds you his name’s Frankie.

   “Not used to competing?” one of the two at the back, Marcus, asks, and he does look perfectly calm as he cleans off a few tools in between tasks.

   “Nope,” Frankie replies. “But I’m guessing you are.”

   “I’m a cop,” Marcus explains, and the rest of you all groan, because if anyone’s gonna hold up under pressure, it’ll be the law-enforcer.

   While you’re turned back, you take a moment to observe the men, noting that the other guy at the back, you didn’t catch his name and you can’t see his tag, is having trouble with a blender.

   “Hey, need a hand with that?” you ask, and after a moment he looks up, realizing you’re talking to him.

   “Uh… Never used one of these before,” he admits, and before you’ve had a chance to step in, Javi turns around from his position between you.

   “Yeah, these are a bit complicated. Ignore all those buttons with the funny symbols and just use the power one. Here,” he quickly shows the man, and when he turns back to his kitchen, you see that the other man’s name is Joel.

   “How stupid are we, helpin’ out the competition,” Jack chuckles from the front, but his grin is of the heartfelt kind, clearly enjoying the lighter mood which has developed with the lack of silence.

   “More fun to win an even fight,” Marcus chips in.

   “Easy for the stress-free dumbass to say,” Frankie grumbles, making everyone laugh.

   “How does being stress-free make me a dumbass?”

   “Oh, you know, the same way that being a cop makes you more attractive. It’s all in the eyes of the beholder.”

   “So, in other words, because you think I look like an ass, I am an ass.”

   “Bingo!” Frankie concludes, clicking his tongue in approval, and Marcus just huffs bemusedly and continues working.

   It’s quiet for about three seconds after that, and then a deep rumbling voice sounds from the third kitchen on your side, just as you’re taking a bite of your potatoes to make sure the seasoning turned out right.

   “By that logic, I’d say Frankie’s a dick,” Joel summarizes without even looking up from his cutting board, and the bite you were chewing comes flying out of your mouth with how hard you cackle.

   All six of you end up giggling for a good while after that, and so does most of the crowd.    But then the bell rings, signaling you’ve only got thirty minutes left, and suddenly you’re all back to sharp focus.    It is still a contest after all.

   You can’t sample the chicken before it’s served, so all you can do is try and present it as appetizingly as possible, and you’re quite pleased with the presentation you’ve come up with.    But as all six birds are put next to each other on the display table before the judges, your confidence wavers. All the boys have an eye for esthetics, it seems.

   As always, the ruling takes forever, since every judge has to cleanse their pallet before trying the next dish, and of course, take lots of dramatic pauses to extend the spectacle as long as possible for the waiting crowd.    But in the end, the cowboy takes the prize. You guess there’s just no competing with the deep appreciation of meat and its preparation in the south, where Jack obviously grew up.

   Surprisingly though, he’s a much humbler winner than you’d expected, and quietly suggests you should all celebrate together at a local bar, on his treat, since the prize is five hundred dollars in cash.    Having nothing better to do, and no reason to turn down free drinks, you all agree, and head off to the city center together as soon as the cameras are done with you.

   And to your absolute delight, the moment the pressure’s gone and there’s no rivalry between you anymore, all the guys turn out to be real sweethearts.    Not once during the course of the evening do you feel in any way unsafe around them. Contrarily, they actually protect you from the other drunks, even after they’ve all gotten plenty inebriated themselves, which just makes you laugh.

   “You know, it was a bet I lost over a game of pool that made me enter the contest,” you explain to Javi after having lost a game to Marcus and turning down a rematch, which the attractive cop had wanted to bet on.

   “Really?” Javi smiles, and then raises his glass to you. “In that case, I’d like to propose a toast to whomever bet against you, because without them, we would never have met you and this evening would have been a lot less wonderful.”

   “Javi… are you hitting on me?” you say with an unserious accusation in your tone, and yet he immediately puts his hands up in surrender.

   “Not at all. You’re just a lovely person, and I’m happy to get to know you.”

   Before you can answer that, Jack turns up with a fresh round of drinks, this time an expensive whiskey for each of you.

   “Are you sure you wanna spend the entire winnings on booze?” Joel asks while smelling the liquid with an appreciative set to his jaw.

   “Well, partner,” the cowboy starts, somehow sounding even more steadfast and reliable the drunker he gets. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this life, it’s that good friends are way more valuable than cash.    And I gotta say, as easy and comfortable as this evenin’s felt, I’m hopin’ it means I’ve gained some good ones.”

   No one says anything in response, you just look at each other with soft little smiles on your faces, then you raise your glasses and tip your heads at each other, silently agreeing that this day is only the beginning of what will likely become lifelong relationships.    Who would’ve thought when you’d gotten out of bed that morning, moaning about how you didn’t even wanna go, you’d end up having the best day of your life, all thanks to some grilled fucking chicken.

THE END

[sirowsky-stories]

The Regulars

Summary: Marcus and Missy befriend a waitress at their favorite diner.

Requested by @yourstrulylightstar283

Rating: General/Everyone Warnings: Marcus Moreno x OFC named Evey, father/daughter banter, mention of stressful working environment, otherwise just fluff and cuteness. Word Count: 1175

   ”Again, dad?” Missy asks when he puts the menu down, already knowing what he’s picked, even though he hasn’t said anything.

   “What?” he lovingly gripes in return, smiling as he knows where this is going.

   “There’s so much delicious food in this diner, and yet, every time we come here you order the same thing: the cheeseburger with fries. Are you scared of stepping out of your food comfort zone, or something?”

   “I’m not scared,” he huffs, “this is just the best burger in town.”

   “Alright, I didn’t wanna do this, but you’ve left me no choice,” she counters, and her tone clearly suggests she’s about to change his mind, whether he likes it or not.

   He loves when she gets all smart like this, so he leans back and feels a smile grow behind his cheeks as he watches her close her menu deliberately slowly before clasping her hands together and leaning her forearms on the table.

   “Dad, you’re a public figure,” she begins, very seriously, “which means that people pay attention to you. And what they’re seeing every time we come here, is that not only does Marcus Moreno support the meat-industry, which we all know is fubar, but that he’s also entirely unconcerned with his own health.”

   Suddenly, he doesn’t feel the smile in his cheeks anymore. Instead, he feels mildly nauseous, especially after he hears the next part of her reasoning.

   “Now, if you were a member of the public, which the Heroics are tasked with protecting, would you feel safe knowing that your supposed guardian doesn’t even take good care of himself?”

   He knows that she’s being deliberately manipulating, testing herself in how good she is at persuading others, but she’s also not wrong about anything she’s saying, and it’s surprisingly jarring to hear.    Before he’s had a chance to recover, however, the waitress comes to take their orders, and he feels a creeping panic at the back of his neck, realizing he doesn’t know what to do.

   “Hello, my name is Evey, I’ll be taking your orders today,” she says with a prize-winning smile which isn’t fake or overdone or disingenuous at all, and he’s momentarily distracted by the fact that he hasn’t seen this woman before.

   “Hi, I’m Missy, and this is my dad, Marcus,” his daughter responds, saving him from having to speak through the befuddled mess that is his brain right now.

   “Nice to meet you both,” Evey nods politely at them in turn, “what will it be today?”

   His daughter confidently asks for an omelet with a side of salad instead of potato fries, and then immediately turns the attention back to him, fully aware he hasn’t made up his mind yet.

   “Uh…” is all he says, before ripping the folded two-page menu open once again and scanning the options way too fast to actually make out what they are.

   He glances at Missy over the top of the pages, hoping she’ll start talking and give him a moment to think, but she just smiles knowingly at him while she calmly waits for him to make a fool of himself.

   “I can give you some options, if you prefer, sir,” the waitress suddenly offers him a lifeline, and he dives at it like he’s drowning.

   “Please, do. I’m sorry, I’m a bit distracted today,” he tries to explain, hoping not to look like a complete moron, although that ship has probably already sailed.

   “No problem, that’s why I’m here,” she smiles again, and then proceeds to list the entire dinner menu from memory, highlighting the nutritional benefits of each dish, as well as giving him a general idea of the flavor sensation associated with the various options.

   Marcus has been at five-star restaurants with lesser service than this, leaving him staring dumbly at Evey once she’s finished, trying to comprehend what such a talented server is doing in such a simple establishment.

   “You’re new here, aren’t you?” Missy pipes up after a moment of stunned silence.

   “Yes, it’s my first week,” the waitress confirms, and the Moreno’s exchange a look of impressed bewilderment before both turn back to stare at her.

   “I’m guessing you’ve been somewhere a bit more… demanding than this place before,” Marcus suggests, finally freed of the confusion his daughter had inflicted on him.

   “Demanding is the right word for it, indeed, sir,” she replies, and while the smile is still warm and genuine, there’s a hint of something heavy in her eyes for a moment as she says it.

   He knows that many prestigious restaurants can be hell to work at, no matter how skilled or experienced a person might be, so if she’s been at a place like that, he could understand if she needed to seek out a less stressful environment.    A small corner diner might not seem like a desired workplace for someone used to the glamour of the top tier in her field, but there are benefits to be found in the simplicity and quaintness of smaller businesses.

   “Well, I hope you’ll like it here,” he smiles back at her. “It’s not too crowded most of the time, and the regulars are pretty decent.”

   Missy rolls her eyes at him in embarrassment over the last part, which Evey notices, and an adorable giggle crosses her lips.

   “I take it you’re the regulars in question, then?”

   “Oh, he’s a regular alright. A regular cheeseburger abuser,” his daughter shoots, paying him back for her embarrassment by making him look like an idiot in front of this lovely woman.

   “Am not!” he desperately fires back, succeeding only in sounding childish on top of stupid.

   “Am too! And apparently also dishonest, since you won’t even own up to it,” she counters, and he doesn’t have a good comeback for that, so he ends up just sitting there scowling for a beat, before finally closing the menu and setting it down on the table.

   “Fine. I’ll have the damned burger.”

   He expects the waitress to politely excuse herself then, as this little tiff has probably left her feeling uncomfortable.    But when she’s still by the table after a few seconds, he looks up to find out what she’s doing, only to discover her grinning at him with her head cocked to the side, looking as sweet as a labrador waiting for ear-scritches.

   “Good choice,” she says with a wink. “It’s the best burger in town.”

   Missy’s head hits the tabletop with an audible bonk, followed by her exacerbated groan of disapproval, now directed at both the adults, as her masterful plan to manipulate her father has been ruined.    Marcus, on the other hand, can’t help but laugh, and when Evey joins in even though she has both their orders and doesn’t need to stay there any longer, he feels like a friendship has just begun, and it sends a nice warmth through his abdomen.

   “I’ll be right back with your dinners,” she giggles, and then right before she turns away, she adds: “I think I’m gonna like the regulars here.”

THE END

[sirowsky-stories]

Well, here we go. A belated and slightly rushed birthday challenge, as I hadn't even planned on writing anything for this year's celebration. But at the last minute I had a change of heart, and I'm very glad for that, because these little stories were truly balms to my soul.

Huge thanks to those of you who managed to get a few requests in! You're amazing and I love you :)

This first post isn't a story, though. It's a kind of poem, I guess. A very real look at how my head works and probably the most personal thing I've ever posted here. That said, if this should speak to you or perhaps help you put your own perspectives into words, feel free to save it and use it however you please.

   If I tell you about my pains, the scars which have long since settled in my heart and mind, don’t worry about how to react or respond.    If I tell you about the worst things to have ever happened to me, it’s not because I’m looking for pity or even comfort.    If I tell you about those difficult things, it’s only ever because I want you to know me.

   So please, don’t try to help or fix me, as neither is possible anymore.

   I simply want you to understand that when I’m quiet and down, it’s not because of you.    I want you to know why I am the way I am and behave the way I do, so that you might have a chance to recognize why I sometimes pull away from you.    I tell you about my history, only in the feeble hopes that you might be there in my future.    I would never tell you these things unless I was hoping to be able to trust you.

   So, if you dismiss me when I try to share these things with you, understand that I will never trust you with anything.

   Know that if you punish my emotional honesty, my willingness to be vulnerable with you, I will forever doubt your ability to be honest, respectful, or compassionate.    Know that the warrior this world has turned me into, has no more understanding or love to give, to those I can already see will not comprehend its worth.    Know that I have become comfortable alone, only because everyone has let me down.

   So, if I tell you about my pains, just listen.    And recognize that to me, you are important enough to know them.

[sirowsky-stories]

@bilibiche It was all the bedroom we got with these two, so it needed to be a little special 😊

Poor Gillian indeed... All she wanted was to help.

Only one chapter left, of course there'd be a cliffhanger, don't you know me by now? 😆

Aw, thank you so much. I do love to write a bit of action amidst all the complicated relationships and deep emotions! 😁

Hope you'll like the finale! And thank you, as always, for sharing 😘

Collision

Part 8

Description: Making their way through the woods turns out to be the easier part of their escape, as the group soon learns that even The Big Apple isn't safe.

Warnings: Pero Tovar x OFC, no reader insert, Pero's pov, conspiracy, cursing, angst, mentions of graphic violence, friends to lovers, hurt/comfort, secret identity, AU fic, smut. Rating: Mature/Explicit 18+ONLY Word Count: 8074 Series Masterlist

Author's Note: It's been over a month since I last updated this, but you're getting a huge chapter instead. And the first smut of this series, which might sadly also be the last, since I might be heading towards an ending for this story. I don't know for sure, but I have an idea of where this might go, and sadly, it's not a lengthy plot. We'll see. Thank you for your unfailing patience :´)

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   They move slowly, since being quiet is more important than being fast right now. They must assume that their enemies are equipped with some form of vision enhancement, either in the infrared or thermal spectrums, which would mean that their only hope of slipping past them, is if they can hear them coming.    Thankfully, the hunters have no reason to believe that their prey have left the safety of the house, and likely aren’t expecting to find them out here.

   Niki does okay with the effort of moving, but her damaged lung makes her breathing harder than the others, and therefor noisier, so Pero uses her as a gauge for when they need to take a break or when he unintentionally speeds up too much.    But it works. They make progress, slow and steady.    It takes almost two hours before they run into trouble.

   He feels it somehow, several seconds before the guy even registers to his other senses, and instinctively stops behind a large trunk of a fallen tree, crouching down and signaling to the others to do the same.    Their eyes have adjusted to the dark well enough that they can see it when he raises a cautionary hand and then ducks.

   The guy is approaching fast, so they can hear him long before he comes into view. And just like Pero predicted, they’re wearing night vision goggles of some sort, enabling them to run at full speeds in the dark, should they need to, but also leaving them careless of the noises they’re making.    Although, it also tells him that they’re not expecting to run into anyone out here.    For the time being, staying hidden is more important than fighting back, so the soldier is allowed to pass without being attacked.

   It’s a tense wait, though, because they can’t know if he sees their body heat or just has an enhanced view of the pitch-black woods. So, when he jumps over the downed log and then carries on without spotting them where they crouch in some underbrush, they all breathe a sigh of relief.    But it’s a brief one, because the soldier’s presence also indicates that there’s likely more of them nearby. The fact that he’s alone means that he’s probably a scout, checking things out in preparation for the teams that follow.

   They wait until he’s out of earshot before they get up and carry on, moving even more carefully now.    Still, it only takes fifteen minutes before the next troubling sound reaches Pero’s ears, this time in what seems to be more than one person coming towards them in the dark. And of course, it happens where there’s virtually nothing to hide behind.

   He stops the group and listens intently, trying to work out exactly where the soldiers are.    They’re practically out in the open, crossing a large flat area where the trees aren’t so tightly positioned and there are no shrubs or bushes to use for cover.    He doesn’t have time to deliberate, so only moments after they’ve stopped, Tovar signals for everyone to lay down flat on the ground, and without even checking that they follow his instructions, he darts off to the left.

   Finding an older tree with a thicker stem to hide behind, he stops and waits for the soldiers to approach the group, counting on their surprise at finding their quarry all the way out here, to give him the slight advantage he needs to deal with them both.    The second they spot the three unexpected shapes on the ground, the two men close ranks and angle their weapons up, aiming at the group. But before they’ve even had a chance to start barking orders at the helpless trio, Pero has already circled around them, coming at them from behind.

   He snaps the neck of the guy on the right, and then stabs what’s apparently a woman to his left, under her arm where the Kevlar vest can’t protect her, severing a major artery.    An enemy is an enemy regardless of gender, and he’s never much cared which kind he might have to harm in order to protect himself or others. But tonight, it all seems so pointless.

   These soldiers probably don’t even know who Niki is or why they’ve been ordered to capture or eliminate her. And while he doesn’t feel bad about killing them, since he’s of the mind that people are generally awful anyway, he does wonder if these people truly deserve to die for a cause that isn’t their own.    Pero has never intentionally harmed anyone that he didn’t personally target because of their lack of humanity or compassion, but he doesn’t know who these soldiers are underneath their armor.

   These two could’ve been best friends. They could’ve been good people. Or horrible people. It’s the fact that he doesn’t know either way that bothers him.    Not nearly enough to stop him, though. Because in the end, it’s the three people he protects that he does know, and what he knows is that they’ve all earned his protection. Not by being perfect, but simply by being kind when they could’ve been selfish.

   Once both enemies have fallen, he drops to one knee and freezes, motioning for the others to stay still and quiet while he waits for the sounds of death to fade, making sure that no one else seems to have noticed the brief commotion, before he beckons for the group to get up and follow again.    But Niki’s struggling now.

   Her body has barely even begun its rehabilitation, she’s only just started walking around and now she’s suddenly not just trekking through the wilderness, but performing quick movements that require a lot of tension and agility.    Most people don’t even realize how many muscles have to be active, nor how hard they have to work, just to enable a person to drop to their knee and then stand up again. It’s only when one is hurt and those muscles can’t perform their function without pain, that one becomes aware of just how much effort it takes.

   Add serious damage to several internal organs on top of that, and it’s a miracle that she’s even managed this first hour without collapsing.    As she tries to stand, her strength falters and she drops to her hands and knees in the wet moss. Gillian is right behind her, and she reacts right away, moving up alongside Niki to check how affected she really is.

   With the silent sign for death, a few fingers cutting her own throat, the nurse signals to Pero that her patient might die if she’s forced to keep going like this.    Thankfully, they’re less than half an hour from the car if nothing more happens to slow them down, so he crouches with his back to Nikita and signals for her to climb on, trying not to panic at the realization that it takes longer than it should for her to move even that little.

   He hates how thin she feels, even through her layers of clothing, as she hitches her legs over his hips and her arms around his shoulders, but there isn’t time to worry about that now.    Even if the dead soldiers won’t be able to set off any alarms by themselves, they’ll soon be discovered anyway. Because these kinds of teams doing these kinds of jobs keep in regular contact with each other, and when those two inevitably fail to check in, someone’s gonna go looking for them.

   So, with the most wanted woman in the world on his back, he sets a new pace, almost running through the woods now.    It doesn’t take long before his arms begin to ache with the effort of helping her keep her legs around him, but he ignores it. He’ll keep holding on to her until his arms are torn from their sockets, if that’s what it’ll take to get her to safety.

   Mercifully, they reach the hidden vehicle without any more incidents, and he sets his human backpack down before he starts to unveil it, since the others can’t even see it underneath the specialized tarp, specifically designed to obscure large structures in these types of woods.    Contrary to what most people would expect out here, it isn’t an all-terrain vehicle or SUV that’s waiting for them, but rather a BMW sedan of a sportier model, but which also boasts outstanding suspension and off-road capabilities for the more adventurous driver.

   It’s one of those cars that you have to know what’s underneath of to understand the hefty price-tag, since the outside looks like literally any other car, and that’s precisely why Pero chose it. Because it won’t stick out on a country road, a fast highway, or in a city like New York. It’s a chameleon, but it’s also a car with a lot of engine, so should it become necessary to evade a pursuing party, it’s got the power to get the job done.

   Quietly, they all get in and buckle up, the women taking the backseat so that Gillian can tend to Niki as well as possible under these circumstances, and then he starts the engine.    It’s a hybrid, capable of running for up to an hour on battery-power alone, then automatically recharges itself with the petrol engine, so there’s no sound beyond what the wheels produce as he starts rolling along the dirt road.

   It isn’t until they leave the dirt road and come onto the main highway that anyone speaks, even though they’ve technically been able to whisper to each other ever since they got in the car.

   “Fuck me, that was tense…” Will breathes, pinching the bridge of his nose before nervously running a hand over his forehead.

   “You did good, all of you,” Pero compliments, because he really hadn’t thought that they’d get through the woods as easily as they did.

   “How’s Nikita doing?” Garin asks then, turning in his seat so that he can see the women in the back.

   “She’s exhausted,” Gillian answers. “She passed out shortly after we got going.”

   “We’ll stop somewhere out of sight to try and get some fluids and nutrition into her, but not yet. I wanna be absolutely sure that we’re not being followed,” Tovar replies, glancing in the rearview mirror so that he can see if the nurse seems to object.

   It doesn’t look like she does, but she looks worried. Which is understandable for a number of reasons, but perhaps mostly because she’s getting ready to leave them to their fates and try and restore her own life as best she can.    She’s taking a huge risk. There’s every chance that their enemies know about her involvement and may try to use her to find out what they’re planning, in which case, she could end up tortured to death in the pursuit of information.

   But this is the choice she’s made, and she has certainly earned the right to make her own decisions, even though they could end up damaging the entire group.    Somehow though, Pero doubts that the stoic young nurse would divulge anything to anyone that tried to force her. There’s a quiet strength to her, and while her experiences at the safe house have tested her limits and brought her to a breaking point, she has still demonstrated a tremendous resolve and loyalty, even to complete strangers.

   No. She won’t give up just because some asshole might try and make her.    And when the inevitable goodbye finally comes, she departs from the group with equal parts sorrow and relief, hugging Niki for a good minute while offering well-wishes and good fortunes, adding the promise that should someone come for her, she will take responsibility for her own actions and not let any blame fall upon the group.    They all believe her.

-=¤=-

   The apartment is nice and the view leaves little to be desired. If not for the constant threat of capture and death, they might’ve enjoyed their stay in The Big Apple a bit more. As it is, no matter where they are, the threat remains the same, so their lives continue to be on hold while they search for a way to set themselves free.    Pero is the only one who leaves their new accommodations for any lengths of time, and only when he must.

   He’s doing what he can to stay up to date with their enemies’ movements, and to that end, his network of spies has proven invaluable, since Will is having trouble keeping his activities online hidden.    It’s only been nine days and Garin has repeatedly stated that to do what he needs to do in a safe way, he first needs to establish unbreakable encryptions and massive firewalls to his systems, and that that takes time.

   So, they find themselves at an impasse. Unable to act for lack of information, and slowly going insane due to isolation and imprisonment.    In that regard, Pero and Will are doing much better than Niki, since the former does get to leave the apartment now and then, and the latter mostly doesn’t want to, being the hermit that he is.

   But the unfortunate Miss Morse is used to working around a huge warehouse, both indoors and out, regardless of weather. She’s used to working with her body and having the satisfying physical fatigue at the end of each day, to help lull her to sleep.    And now that her body is beginning to regain its former strength, the lack of activity is leaving her more than just restless. It’s begun to eat away at her mind as well.

   The curtains are always drawn shut over the windows, as an added precaution, and she spends hours every day standing by the door to the balcony, peering out over the city through the tiny gap between the two lengths of fabric which obscure her view.    Each day, her desire to simply step through that door and just stand outside where there aren’t any walls around her, grows stronger. And today, she seems especially hounded by her own detrimental circumstances.

   “Careful, sweetheart,” Pero gently admonishes when she tugs on the edge of the curtain, not enough to open it further, but clearly wanting to.

   She doesn’t respond verbally, but when she lets go of the fabric, she brings her arms up to cross them over her waist and demonstratively steps away from the window. As if she can only barely keep from screaming at him, using motion to try and quell the negative impulse.

   “It’s not worth it,” he reminds her, knowing that she remembers the lives that have been lost in the name of protecting her, and that any unnecessary risk on her part would be the same as saying that those deaths were meaningless.

   “I know that, Torkie. I’m not gonna jeopardize anything, but this incessant inactivity is making my skin crawl.”

   “It’s the same for all of us, Niki,” he reminds her, and she sighs and takes a completely unnecessary walk around the living room while she responds.

   “Sure, but where the two of you would lay around in a couch or work on your extracurricular activities in the evenings, I’m used to walking in the woods, or at least among streets lined with trees and bushes and wonderful gardens in people’s yards.    I’ve never lived in a concrete jungle specifically because I need the living greenery of the world in my everyday life. I get more than enough of steel, iron and concrete at work.    At least the safehouse had a wood interior and was huddled by the most amazing forest I’ve ever seen. But this… this just feels like one giant prison,” she elaborates, and he does understand.

   He knows that she’s lived in the quiet and small suburban area just outside of their hometown for as long as she’s worked at OffSup, and he’s been to her house several times. Her own yard is big enough to house a badminton tournament and the neighbors are far enough away that she doesn’t need to worry about them spying through her windows.    It’s a beautiful area, populated only with people who love nature and have no trouble sacrificing a few modern comforts to be closer to the wilderness.

   “Well, with any luck, I’ll have our security in place by tomorrow, so keep your chin up,” William encourages. “Once I’m certain that it’s safe, I’ll be able to see anyone who tries to access the surveillance and traffic cameras around the building remotely, and as long as no one does, I think we can be fairly certain that we’re safe to go to the corner store at least.”

   She smiles at that, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. Her heart is heavy with more than just isolation, there’s grief and despair and so much guilt within her as well, none of which she can shed simply by wanting to.    The two unfortunate nurses who had died at the hospital garage that first morning weighs on her conscience most of all, even though she’d only just been put back together and was still unconscious at the time.

   It pains her because their sacrifice had been involuntary. They’d died simply because they hadn’t questioned Gillian when she’d ordered them to help. Because they’d been good and kind enough to accept her word that the unorthodox transfer had needed to take place.    And for that, they’d been gunned down in a parking garage while fleeing for their lives.    Gillian had at least been given every chance to leave and had chosen to stay for as long as she had.

   Pero can see all of this in Niki’s eyes and body language. How she carries the dead, lets them drag her down like ankers to a ship, like thousands of pounds of metal, threatening to drown her the moment she stops fighting.    Which is why she isn’t really fighting for herself anymore. She wants to live, that much is clear, but the need to avenge the innocent, which might include her own baby, has taken over from her need to save herself.

   So, that evening, when dinner’s been cleaned away and she steps into the shower which their bedroom is connected to, he follows her. Not into the bath, but into the room, where he changes the sheets of the bed, lights a few candles and then undresses and sits down on the edge of the bed to wait for her.    Whether she knows it or not, she needs to feel something good. She needs the mental and physical benefits of sexual satisfaction, and he intends to give it to her. If she’ll let him.

   They haven’t been together since before the car-crash, but they’ve since become closer in every other way, so there’s no reason to think that she wouldn’t want to be with him again.    Still, as he sits there and waits, he’s nervous.    It’s always been purely physical for them both. There’s never been so much at risk as there is now. So, even if she doesn’t reject this offer of closeness, things have and will continue to change with every shared moment between them.

   She emerges from the steamy heat of the bathroom wearing only a towel around her body, and then stops when she sees him sitting there without a thread on him.    Her eyes scan the room, seeing the candles and the fresh sheets, and her features soften as she realizes what he’s offering.    Smiling softly, but with a hint of worry in her frame, she steps closer and lets the towel fall to the floor.

   He’s seen her new scars before, but never like this. Never with the intent of touching them romantically, exploring and caressing them, and she clearly wonders what he’ll think and feel about her body now that it’s so different.    Eager to let her know that what he sees doesn’t repel him, or even diminish her appeal to him, he pulls her close, until she’s standing in between his knees and he can kiss the imperfections on her abdomen, before moving down to where his child is hopefully growing.

   “Why don’t you have any medical records?” he asks quietly, as he suddenly recalls his conversation with Dr. Jackson, while he was waiting for her to come out of surgery. “You told me about your earlier scars, the collarbone and the riding accident, but the hospital couldn’t find any records on you.”

   “They wouldn’t… because those were lies,” she admits, and she looks ashamed now.

   Their entire relationship was constructed upon the foundation of mutual honesty, which she has just confessed to be false, and she expects him to react to that. To be upset. And she’s trying to prepare herself to accept whatever that reaction might be.

   “Those injuries happened when I was working on the project, and they weren’t accidents.”

   “They were punishments,” he guesses, and she nods.

   “Not even for disobedience. A guard twisted my shoulder so violently that it snapped my collarbone in half, just to demonstrate how powerless we were to save ourself, should we get the idea to steal information or try to destroy any progress we made.    And this…” she gestures to the scar on her arm, from when it had been broken, “…this was my punishment for talking to another technician about something other than the work which I’d been assigned.”

   She looks so defeated as she talks about this, and he doesn’t like to see that. Lies or no lies, she hasn’t tried to deceive him, only protect herself.

   “I’m not angry with you, Niki. I understand that you had to keep that to yourself. Just like I never told you about Mr. Hood,” he reminds her, and she does look more comfortable then.

   “I would’ve understood if you had. I wouldn’t have found you less attractive for knowing that you can’t abide cruelty or falseness in people.”

   “Thank you. But that’s also easier to say in retrospect.”

   “Yeah… that’s probably true.    Still, our relationship was never meant to be that involving. We deliberately withheld things from each other to try and maintain that safe distance between us. To not get to know each other well enough that we risked falling in love,” she reminds him, and he feels like that must’ve been another life in another dimension, because he couldn’t keep her out of his heart now, no matter how hard he might try.

   “Mm. Look where that got us…” he observes, and she shrugs.

   “Again: hindsight makes everything clearer. It doesn’t mean we were wrong to make the choices that we did at the time.”

   “Maybe not, but now that I’ve let myself go there, loving you with all my heart, those years spent behind walls suddenly seem so useless and cowardly.”

   “You are many things, Pero, but not a coward. There are few people in this world who live as honestly as you do, and believe me, that takes courage.”

   “I shouldn’t have thrown you out that night. If I hadn’t been so selfish-…”

   “Don’t do that to yourself, honey,” she cuts him off, putting her hands on his cheeks to keep him from looking away. “They would’ve found a way to get to me anyway.    I know that because I went to see you on a whim that night, after the pregnancy test had come back positive. It wasn’t planned, I never mentioned it to anyone or even voiced my need to see you out loud, I just grabbed my purse and ran out, terrified that if I hesitated, I’d lose my nerve and decide not to talk to you about it at all.    So, they couldn’t have known that I’d be on that road on that particular evening at that specific time, unless they were already tracking my car.”

   He hears her, and he knows that she’s probably right, but he also knows that he hurt her that night. Badly.

   “I remember that look in your eyes… how completely I lost your trust in that moment. How scared and alone you felt. And I had no intention of helping you. I opened a bottle of whiskey and drank myself to sleep instead,” he admits, feeling almost sick to his stomach with the memory. “But getting that call… hearing that you’d been hit and that you were in critical condition… I’ve never felt that kind of bone-chilling terror in my life.”

   “I know. I could see that in your eyes when I first woke up, and it confused me more than not recognizing my surroundings did, because I’d never seen you afraid or even worried about anything before that moment.”

   “Because I hadn’t been, not for years at that point, since I hadn’t had anything to lose for over a decade. Then suddenly my entire world seemed to be falling apart, and I couldn’t even understand that it was because I already loved you.    But I do now. I understand so much more now.”

   He doesn’t tell her where his mind goes, following that thought. He doesn’t tell her about the threats he’s made and the horrific acts of violence that he has and will continue to commit, to ensure her safety.    That when he says that he will stop at nothing to protect her, he really does mean it.    With any luck, she won’t have to see him at his darkest before this comes to an end.

   Instead, he pulls her closer still, until she has to straddle him on the edge of the bed, at which point, he nuzzles his face into her breasts and hugs her body to his, letting the warmth of her skin chase away the darkness of his thoughts.    She wraps her arms around his head and shoulders, then pushes him back until he lays down flat. He lets his hands caress their way down her sides, until he reaches the swell of her ass, and pulls her down onto his hips.

   He doesn’t need to say that she still looks perfect to his eyes. The fact that his hands flow as comfortably over her scarred surface as they do over her soft tits or strong thighs, is all she needs to know that he doesn’t see flaws, but history. A life that’s been lived and the consequences of that life, for better or worse.    He wants to tell her how he longs to see the stretchmarks that their baby might cause. How much he wishes for that to be all she has to worry about.

   But he says nothing, because hopes are so unbearably fragile, and so easily crumbled.    Instead, he follows her lead. Lets her work herself on his hardening cock while his hands speak for him, praising her body, lingering on the little swelling between her hips which he hopes is more than just her normal weight coming back.    And she hears him, even without the words, just as he knows that she will.

   But her lung still isn’t back to form, so even the heavy breathing associated with arousal is enough to give her trouble, and she soon falls to the side, beckoning him to roll with her so that she can relax underneath him.    He knows her body almost as well as he knows his own. Her injuries might be new to him, but he still knows how she’ll react to everything he does, which is why he inches himself into her slowly, so she won’t gasp at the overload of sensation.

   She’s always loved that first push. The initial connection and the excitement of knowing that she’s about to be thoroughly pleasured.    But tonight, he needs her to be calm. To let him convince her body that it’ll get everything it wants, even though it’ll happen slowly and softly. To let him build the crescendo in a steady stream, rather than a raging river.

   And as though her body has forgotten that pleasure even exists, she responds so beautifully to his efforts that she comes for him after just a few minutes, so overwhelmed herself that she doesn’t manage to prepare for it.    Her muscles and nerves are still affected by the surgical scars, the damage underneath, and the weeks of bedrest, that when her body suddenly convulses with almost violent satisfaction, it makes her limbs cramp up, trying to shield her torso.

   “No… don’t stop,” she breathes through the spasms, clawing at his back to urge him to move, so he does.

   And as he does, the overstimulation seems to help her. Maybe because it sends blood rushing out into her limbs to try and disperse the heat from her core, or maybe just because it overloads her nerves system until it can’t lock in place anymore, but whatever the case, she quickly becomes pleasantly boneless underneath him.    He keeps going, hitting her harder now that her breathing is made easier by the increase of dopamine in her system.

   Knowing that she’s satiated, that he’s managed to please her despite the obstacles that her physique still poses, fills him with a primal sort of pride which leaves him breathless as he takes in the relaxed afterglow that’s already begun to spread across her features.    He keeps his movements soft and languid, helping her come down while beginning to work her again, knowing that she’s usually even easier to pleasure after her first orgasm.

   Once more, she responds perfectly. Losing herself in the rapture, she seems to forget that time and space even exists, softly clinging to his body with complete trust that he’ll give her everything she wants, no matter what state she’s in.    And when she comes again, less intensely but somehow even deeper, he unravels with her. He takes care to control his movements, not to hit her too hard when his body too begins spasming with the overload to his system, and she thankfully doesn’t seem bothered.

   Still, he rolls off her as soon as he’s in full control of his limbs again, knowing that she can’t carry the weight of him on top of her yet, and pulls the duvet over her so she won’t cool too quickly. She hasn’t worked up that much of a sweat, but the inner heat still affects her.    For a long while, she just lays there, breathing through the aftermath of her climaxes, and he lays right beside her, watching her without even blinking.

   He knows every line and burgeoning wrinkle, every facial muscle and how she uses them. Which faces she makes, and which expressions are her most common ones.    She smiles a lot. The laugh-lines around her eyes have begun to show even though she’s only in her mid-thirties, and even though she spent almost a decade living and working under the threat of pain and death.    Perhaps finding things to smile about was what had gotten her through it.

   In any case, he loves those lines. He loves what they say about her personality, just like he loves that her body is normally healthily thick. Not skinny nor fat, just normal. She has meat on her bones.    The way she looks now, after weeks of depleting her fat reserves in order to heal and survive, despite the stress and fear she’s been living with, appears sickly to his eyes.

   He can’t wait for her to come back to the fullness he’s used to feeling underneath her skin, whereas all he feels now is protruding ribs and hipbones. Her collarbones and jaw look unnaturally sharp, and even her fingers seem to have lost their softness.    But she’s alive, and recovering well, so with time these things will sort themselves out, if he can only keep the threats away from her.

   “Thank you,” she quietly says in the middle of his pondering. “I needed that.”

   “I know,” is all he replies, because it’s enough for her to hear everything behind the words as well.

   The affection he has for her, allowing him to recall every detail about her. Allowing him to know her like the pages of a favorite book, just like she undoubtedly knows him as well.    He helps her turn to her good side and then settles in behind her, kissing her neck and caressing her belly while she slowly drifts off to sleep.    But he doesn’t.

   This was a much-needed reprieve, but it was only temporary. Their circumstances haven’t improved, and while he always encourages her to relax and try not to worry, he’s incapable of following that advice himself.    Not until he knows that they’re safe.    So, an hour later, when she’s deep within the dreamlands of her subconscious, he gets up.

   He finds Will by the computer in his own room, as usual.

   “How are we looking?” he asks once he reaches the man, and Garin flinches slightly.

   “Fuck, man… Do you have to sneak around like that, you scared the shit outta me.”

   “Not intentionally.”

   “Yeah, right. Stealth is like your normal state, have you ever considered how screwed up that is?”

   “It shouldn’t be a problem for anyone who has nothing to hide,” Tovar chides, but more conversationally than accusatory.

   “Or people with no heart-problems…” William grumbles, which seems excessive.

   “Which you don’t have.”

   “Hey, post traumatic stress sufferer over here. My heart is as frail as they come, just maybe not physically.”

   Pero doesn’t have a comeback for that, and even if he did, he probably wouldn’t say it, because Will’s problem is no joke. The fact that he’s even bringing it up says a lot about how far he’s come in his discomfort with the subject.    He accepted the diagnosis right away, having struggled for years before he finally saw a specialist and had it confirmed, but his self-imposed isolation has made it difficult for him to talk about or even admit that he has mental problems around others.

   “Sorry,” he offers, and Garin shoots him a grateful nod.

   “About our security, I’ve just about sealed it shut. Another few lines of code and we should be good. I’ve double and triple-checked everything, so unless I’ve missed some major flaw, even a whole team of hackers would need several weeks, if not months, to crack it.”

   “Good. Because we need to start going on the offensive. I need a face to the threat, a new angle to push at, because right now, all my sources are coming up dry,” Pero says, to which the other man huffs a little.

   “I thought you had people at the highest levels looking into this.”

   “I do, but they can only do so much without being detected, and if they’re caught with their fingers in the cookie jar, I start losing assets that we can’t afford to lose. Because they’ve still got their eyes and ears open, and they’ll contact me if something new comes up.    But beyond that, you’re my best hope for new leads.”

   “Great, no pressure,” Garin mumbles, only half serious, but Tovar still decides to remind him of his value, because his confidence can’t begin to falter now.

   “You’ve got this, Will. I wouldn’t trust you with her life if I didn’t believe that,” he reminds the vet, who looks mildly stunned by the compliment.

   “I appreciate you saying that. Really.”

   “Just keep working,” he replies with a reassuring pat on Will’s shoulder, before he starts to leave the room. “I need to check if anyone’s got any new intel.”

   “Sure. How does that work, anyway? Do you have like, drop-boxes around the city, or something?”

   “No. If one of my sources has something, they leave a specific message at a specific location, either here in the city, in certain newspaper ads, or digitally, and then I contact them to find out what they know,” Pero explains, pausing by the door.

   “Ah. Old school,” the man nods approvingly.

   “And safe. For them and me.”

   “Right, well hopefully I’ll have this up and running by the time you get back.”

   “Good.”

   He leaves the apartment and follows his usual safety routine to make sure that no one knows exactly where he’s coming from or how he enters and exits the building, avoiding all the security cameras and emerging at different locations around the block, by utilizing the sub-basement levels.    The first thing he did before they even moved in there, was to copy a security card that gives him access to every locked door throughout the entire high-rise, including the maintenance levels and service tunnels.

   It’s around midnight when he steps out of a subway entrance on the other side of the street, and walks off down the block, intending to visit a corner store that he hasn’t been to in the last week.    He randomly switches the stores he uses so that no one can work out where he’ll go on any given occasion.

   Stepping inside, he locates the newspaper stand right away, but he browses the shelves for a while first, picking out random items to buy while discreetly observing all other customers to see if he recognizes any faces, before he grabs the two papers he needs on his way to the register.    He pays for the few items in cash and then leaves, stepping over to an all-night café at the other side of a four-way intersection, where he orders a cup of tea and sits down to read the papers, looking for all the world like a man who just can’t sleep and is passing the time.

   To keep up the appearance of being idle, he doesn’t just jump to the pages he needs to check, taking the time to peruse each page as though looking for something interesting, which does help him to stay aware of what’s going on in the city as well.    But tonight, one of the headlines catches his attention for all the worst reasons.

   Nurse found strangled in hospital basement

   It’s the correct hospital, the story making its way into a major New York paper because of the gruesomeness of the crime, despite being halfway across the country. And the details tell him that it is indeed Gillian who’s been tortured and murdered, even though no name has been released yet.    He closes the paper and rubs at his eyes, trying to keep the anger at bay.

   She was a good person. She deserved so much better, and he can’t help but feel responsible, even though the decisions had been her own.    But he only gives himself a few moments to grieve her, because this changes things.    Even though he wants to believe that she could’ve resisted their efforts to find out where Nikita was heading, he has to assume that she was made to reveal what little she knew, which also means that he has to assume that their enemy has already reached the city.

   And just as that thought has made a home for itself in his mind, the door to the café opens, and a woman walks in. A woman which he instantly knows is there to find him.    There’s nothing obvious in her demeanor to suggest it, but something about her poise and how she carries himself sets off all the alarm bells within him.    He remains in his seat, watching her scan the tables and the backs of the people sitting at the counter, before spotting him in the far-left corner.

   Once she’s seen that his entire focus is on her, she drops any pretenses she might’ve had, and approaches his table, apparently correctly assuming that trying to hide from him in plain sight won’t work.

   “Mr. Hood, I presume?” she asks once she’s reached him, taking a seat opposite him without invitation.

   He doesn’t engage in conversation right away because he can learn a lot more about her by simply watching her for a few minutes. He’s already discerned that she’s military, most likely special ops, possibly with a CIA background, all from how she speaks, moves and dresses.

   “Sorry to interrupt, but I think you and I have some business to work out,” she carries on, seemingly oblivious to how much she’s revealing about herself with each word spoken.

   When he still doesn’t respond, she takes it upon herself to launch into a description of how she found him, which beyond being a waste of time, is also incredibly informative for him.    She probably does it merely to boast, and make him realize what resources are at her disposal, but he already knows those things, so all she’s succeeding in doing, is revealing so much more detail than she thinks is possible for another person to learn in mere seconds.

   “I have a minor fleet of technicians working solely on finding you, so once we learned which city that you’re in, the camera surveillance made it easy,” she says, confirming that Gillian had indeed been made to tell them what little she could, and it makes the anger within him grow both deeper and hungrier. “So, now, all that remains is locating the lovely Miss Morse, and whether you want to or not, you’re gonna help me with that, Mr. Hood.”

   “No, actually, you’ve got that the wrong way around,” he says, finally joining the conversation but keeping his tone leveled and the depths of his fury well hidden.

   She smiles as though his participation means that she’s already won. But she couldn’t be more wrong, and the fact that she truly has no idea who she’s dealing with, gives him tremendous confidence.

   “How so?” she asks, sounding as though this was the most interesting conversation she’s had all year, and he stifles the urge to roll his eyes at her.

   “You’re the one that’s helping me, simply by walking in here. I already know that you work for General Hayword and that the technicians you’re talking about are in fact employed by the NSA. You’ve been given every resource available to locate Morse, which is why, failure to do so will end your entire career, and possibly even your life.”

   She doesn’t like hearing that, nor that he clearly has a much better grasp of his circumstances than she’d anticipated.

   “And how exactly does that help you?” she questions, trying to control her own response by not acknowledging the information that he already has.

   “Because it means that all I have to do to get you off our case is keep you chasing me, rather than her. Your own employer will do the work for me.”

   “Sure,” she tries to sound aloof, but he can see through it. “But then they’d just send someone else. A new face you don’t know and therefor can’t track.”

   “Which would still be to my benefit, because the more people are involved, the easier it is to extrapolate information,” he counters, and her mask breaks just a fraction, revealing a crack in her armor which she then quickly tries to close by sounding clever.

   “But that would mean leaving her alone for an unspecified amount of time, and if I know Nikita, she won’t do well on her own for very long. Especially not in a large city, since that’s not at all her element.”

   “You’d be surprised what people can get used to when there are evil conspiracies chasing them.”

   “I’m not evil,” she says with a grin that directly contrasts her own words, and in response, he allows his own mask to completely vanish as he replies.

   “Yes, you are. You might tell yourself that you’re doing this for your country and that one life is no price to pay compared to the risk of the information she possesses ending up in the wrong hands, but in fact… you’re just a murderer.    Years of being commended for all the atrocities you’ve committed has left you convinced that you’re doing the right thing, when the truth is that you take on these tasks with excitement. No matter how cruel or gruesome, you never shy away. Because you enjoy the carnage.    What you are, is the purest evil there is, and I will happily take my own life if that’s what it takes to keep you away from Niki. But I think I’ll start with taking your life, and then we’ll see what comes crawling out of the woodwork.”

   “See now you’re contradicting yourself, Mr. Hood. You just said that if you simply wait, my own employer will do that for you,” she smugly remarks, trying to sound superior.

   He leans forwards over the table slightly, fixing her with his dark eyes, which keeps her focus away from where his hands are slowly moving.

   “Precisely. I said if I wait. But the fact is that I currently have twelve links to the general, none of which passes through you, so even if I give in to this unadulterated loathing that I have for you and your obvious contempt for every other living thing, I’m pretty sure that I’ll be fine.”

   Leaning back again, with a flick of his wrist, almost too quick for the human eye to perceive, he sends a small blade into her brain via her nasal cavity. Not through the nostrils, though, the small throwing knife is heavy enough to penetrate bone if angled correctly, which is why almost all of it disappears into her skull, taking the bulk of her nose with it.    She dies instantly, falling forwards onto the table.

   To keep her head from banging against the hard wood, he catches it and sets it down, quickly but elegantly, before immediately rising and leaving the café.    It’s been a while since he last killed someone like that. In full view of the public and in such a brutal way, but it doesn’t faze him. His assessment of her character was on point, he’s absolutely certain of that, and he has no qualms about murdering bad people.

   No, what troubles him when he starts walking down the block in a leisurely pace, is the fact that he really can’t return to Niki now. Not until he’s certain that no one else is tracking his every step.    It’s unlikely that anyone will be able to work out where he was coming from based on where he turned up on the city surveillance tonight, but he can’t risk giving them more data to go on. Not around that building at least.

   He needs to make them believe that he’s trying to get to another apartment building, preferably not too far from the one they’re currently staying in, and he needs to do it without raising suspicions, either from his own party, or his enemies.    So, he strolls along the streets, feigning indifference as he makes his way to one of the neighboring houses, all the while feeling increasingly distraught with the idea that he might not be able to return to Niki and Will for some time.

   He wonders what they’ll think. Surely not that he’s abandoned them, they must know by now that he wouldn’t do that. But will that very fact make them think that he’s been taken or harmed? Because if so, there’s a risk that they might do something ill-advised to try and recover him.    He has no other choice but to trust that they’ll be smart enough to not do anything rash, since he can’t take a chance at sending them a message right now.

   Still, the thought that it could very well be days before he can see his beloved again, is quickly filling his heart with darkness and sorrow, but he can’t let that happen.    He needs to be sharp, he needs to work the problem to make it go away, not sit idly by and wait for it to sort itself out.    Which is why he starts to formulate a new plan.

   If it works, he might be able to crush their opponents from within, or at least cause them enough trouble that leaving Niki alone becomes the preferable solution.    But it’s a dangerous play, and one that means putting himself in a terrible position, which is why he hasn’t allowed himself to truly consider it before.    He has to, now though, because with this new development it’s only a matter of time before they find her.

   The best he can hope for, is that all three of them survive the coming week.    Whether they’ll still be able to be together… Well, that was never guaranteed to begin with, although it’s unfortunately starting to seem almost impossible now.

-=¤=-=¤=-=¤=-=¤=-=¤=-=¤=-

Part 9

Thank you for reading, and if you want to keep up to date with this story, follow @sirowsky-stories and turn on notifications. Or if you don't wanna do that for some reason, just ask nicely, and I will still tag you, just for this series :)

@pedrostories @harriedandharassed

[sirowsky-stories]

Help, I think the guy at the grocery store was flirting with me??? Like, excuse me sir?? I am awkward and shy as fuck. Why???

[sirowsky-stories]

Fanfic Writers: Director’s Cut

Reblog this if you want readers to come into your ask box and ask for the “director’s commentary” on a particular story, section of a story, or set of lines. 

Or, send in a ⭐star⭐  to have the author select a section they’ve been dying to talk about!

[sirowsky-stories]

And can we please take a moment further to appreciate the complete absence of slow-mo?

Seriously, I am beyond done with slow-mo fight scenes. I recently watched parts 1 & 2 of Rebel Moon, and I actually started playing with my phone whenever action scenes commenced, because whoever was in charge of those sequences must have had a hard-on ever since that shit started becoming popular. Which, if I remember correctly, was with "300", and that one came out in 2006, which means we've been forced to watch these super-slow shots for almost 20 years now....

Am I the only one who's just so done with that crap at this point?

Give me gritty, give me real, give me this piece of perfection right here ☝️and spare me the tedious process of having to watch every punch, every kick, every mildly cool jump or twirl take ten fucking seconds to pass the screen!

Beyond that, I fully agree with OP and many of you who have added detailed breakdowns of why this is one of the best action sequences ever 👏

goat fight. non-negotiable.

[sirowsky-stories]

The Flowers Always Know

Chapter 17 - The Inventor

Description: When a mission goes awry and none of the Heroics return, the organization chooses to keep you out of the loop, which due to your recent trauma, leads you to make a rash decision.

**Beware! Author chooses NOT to display warnings on the individual chapters of this story. Read at your own risk!**

Rating: Mature 18+ONLY Word Count: 7012 (3969 words added) Masterlist (this story)

   Things had been good for a few weeks after that assorted, but lovable, mess of a day. You’d managed to find a solid and balanced routine of work, family time and you-time, and it felt like your life was finally on a positive track.    You and Marcus had been able to work through and largely rebuild your broken trust, to the point where you’d even begun thinking about putting your own house up for sale. Although you hadn’t mentioned it to him yet.

   You’d reconnected with your former nurses, Amanda and Claire, building a real friendship with them, and the three of you now regularly hung out, doing “female” things. Like getting a manicure or a wax, shopping or just sitting at a café and gossiping.    They’d even invited you and the Moreno’s to dinner with their families, and you’d had the best time, watching your partner play with the kids, amazing them with little magnetic tricks which had had them bouncing with excitement.

   Missy had long since outgrown his sorcery, but she’d been happy to play along for the enjoyment of the much younger children of the Amaire households.    To them, seeing her father make things levitate, or bend in ways they shouldn’t be able to bend, meant he had to be a magic wizard, and it had made you laugh so much, thinking of him in a Gandalf-type outfit with a beard and a staff.    When they got older, they’d realize that it had worked because all the things he’d manipulated had been made of metal, and the magic would disappear. But for that evening at least, he was a wizard.

   The time you managed to carve out for yourself mostly consisted of exercise, and primarily running. And damned, how you’d missed it.    It still felt the same. You still got that slightly euphoric feeling of being able to move freely, every time you put on your running shoes and set off down the street, and it still made you feel so grateful to be alive at all.

   So, naturally, something had to go wrong. You couldn’t just be allowed to continue being happy and sailing smoothly across the ocean of existence.    That was apparently too easy.

   It all started with Marcus popping into your office one afternoon, to let you know he was going on a mission. He hadn’t been out there in a while, and every time he went, he felt guilty about leaving and wanted to explain himself. And perhaps get approval from his ladies before he was okay with going.    He and Missy did have an understanding, which was that he wouldn’t go unless he really felt like he had to. But even though this was one of those times, it still made him feel like he was betraying her.

   “I’ve called her a couple times, but she hasn’t answered or gotten back to me, so I guess she’s in class. Will you let her know for me?” he asked, and he sounded genuinely nervous about taking off without clearing it with her first.

   Which made you nervous. Because anytime he got uneasy like this, it generally meant he knew he was going into something dangerous.    He’d come to the side of your desk and was leaning his palms against it while he spoke to you, so you got up and went to put your arms around his waist, and he mirrored you.

   “Of course. Will you keep safe for us?” you asked in return, rather than add to his concerns by questioning the wisdom of whatever he was doing.

   Because again, if he was leaving, it was necessary. But you also knew Missy might not see it that way.

   “You know I’ll do my best,” he replied, and there was a soft confidence to his voice then, which put you at ease.

   Tugging you closer, he kissed you deeply, lingering on your lips even after the kiss ended.

   “I already miss you,” he murmured, before kissing you again, just as deeply.

   “Then get going so you can get that fine ass back here already,” you playfully shot back, wanting him to leave with a smile on his face, and not just because he was worried.

   You knew that somewhere in the back of his mind, he was also terrified that you’d feel like he was abandoning you again, leaving so soon after your relationship had begun to heal.    But this was different.    It didn’t feel like he was leaving you, it was his job to help his team. And you’d feel awful if he stayed behind and then had to live with the guilt of not going, if something unthinkable happened to them.

   “Yes, ma’am,” he nodded, and there was indeed a warm smile in his eyes as he turned and walked away, looking back over his shoulder once before he was out of sight.

   But he didn’t get back. Not the first day, nor the second.    The mission was top secret, and since you weren’t part of the Operations department, you weren’t involved in the missions at all, and no matter how many different people you asked, no one would tell you what was going on, or why they weren’t back yet.    Anita might’ve known, but if she did, she chose to keep it to herself, probably to shield her granddaughter from whatever bad shit had happened.

   All anyone would say on the matter was merely that they knew the team were alive. That was it. And by the fourth day you’d lost your patience with the entire Heroics organization.    You’d kept up appearances for Missy’s sake, but when you dropped her off at school that morning, she knew something was going on with you, and she didn’t need to guess the reason.

   “He’s in trouble, isn’t he?” she asked quietly once you’d stopped at the curb.

   “I think so, yeah,” you answered honestly, because you weren’t gonna keep her in the dark when things had gone this far, it would only scare her worse.

   “And what are you gonna do about it? Cause I know you’re about to do something.”

   She was keeping her eyes away from you, looking out the window or down on her own hands, and you could think of any number of reasons why she wouldn’t wanna look at you, each one more upsetting than the next.    But the worst one, and the one which most threatened to break your resolve, was the thought she might be afraid this could be the last time she ever saw you. And that by not looking at you, she could somehow change that fate.

   “I’m gonna raise hell on these motherfuckers for keeping us in the dark, and then I’m gonna go find my fucking man. That’s what I’m gonna do,” you responded, and your tone was strong and sure, fuelled by pure rage at both HQ and whatever asshole was keeping her father out of her reach.

   But then you remembered who was sitting next to you, and a twinge of regret at your choice of words made you frown, although it did nothing to deter you.

   “And after I get him back, you’re not gonna tell him or your grandmother you heard me say that,” you cautioned, and she huffed a sarcastic laugh, probably hearing Anita’s disapproving voice in her head just as clearly as you did.

   “Deal,” she said, but her voice broke on the one little word, and when she finally turned her head to meet your eyes, all you saw in hers was dread. “Please… stay safe.”

-=¤=-

   You walked into HQ fifteen minutes later, and by then you were boiling with anger.    Heading straight into Mission Control, for once thankful for your public relations responsibilities, since they meant you had access to all departments, without waiting for anyone to question your presence there, you grabbed the back of a chair and shoved an analyst out of the way to gain access to his computer.

   “Hey! You can’t do that!” the man shouted at you, but you didn’t bother wasting energy on answering him.

   Your focus was on determining the team’s location before anyone tried to forcibly remove you, and you’d just figure out which application would connect you to the correct system when two security officers walked into the room.

   “Step away from the desk, or I will remove you, miss,” a grim voice sounded from behind you, but you were running on days of pent-up anger and frustration, so no matter who might be coming at you, there was no chance in hell you’d back off now.

   “Try it,” you spat through tight jaws while your attention was still on the screen before you, having just triggered the locator beacon in Marcus’s suit, so all you needed was just a few more seconds to let the program determine his exact GPS position.

   But in your periphery, you saw an officer move towards you and reach for your shoulder.    Turning on a dime, you managed to punch him with full force right in his solar plexus, and he went down like a log, gasping for air and curling in on himself.    Once he was out, you immediately returned your attention to the screen. You could already see which state he was in, just one more second and you’d have the closest town.

   The other officer suddenly grabbed you and tried to pull you away from the station before you’d gotten your answer, and it made your anger graduate into red-hot fury.    Something unfamiliar and frightening stirred inside you with your rage, but you were too desperate to care about what it might mean, as you thrashed against the strong arms which tried to restrain you.

   You had to find Marcus. There was no other option, no other path available, he was too important, to you and to Missy. So, in that moment, all you cared about was that the fury narrowed your focus into a single straight line and seemed to double your strength.    You shot an elbow up behind you, aiming for the man’s ribs, but he was just moving to change his grip on you, and you ended up connecting to his head instead.

   He stumbled back and without hesitating, you turned and lifted your leg to kick your heel into his chest, and he staggered backwards and fell against the wall by the door.    You didn’t stop to reflect on it, returning to the computer and the final result, now blinking to indicate the exact position, but you were a bit disheartened to realize it only said “Last known location” rather than “Current position”.

   Just north of Suwannee, Florida, was the last place his beacon had pinged. It wasn’t what you’d hoped to find, but it was more than nothing, and it gave you a place to start.    Turning to leave, you saw that both security officers were still on the floor, disoriented and fumbling to regain their bearings, and as you moved through the room, you noticed how every other person in there was backing away from you.    Afraid of you.

   You knew you’d feel bad about it later, but it wasn’t important right then.    Sprinting through the building, you headed straight for the parking lot, completely focused and determined now that you at least had somewhere to go.    As you reached the car and got in, you called Anita. You hadn’t wanted to beforehand since she would’ve definitely tried to talk you out of doing this, but now you had to.

   “Hey,” you started the moment she picked up. “I know what you’re gonna say, but I’m going after Marcus, and I need you to look after Missy until we get back.”

   There was a moment of silence on the line, and then she sighed deeply.

   “Don’t do anything rash now, loco,” she admonished, and there was something in her tone which made you feel certain she did know more about this than what she’d told you.

   “Rash, stupid, crazy, it doesn’t matter. I have to. I can’t just sit here and wait when I know something terrible is going on, and none of you are doing anything!” you almost shouted by the end, but despair was taking over and you were on the verge of tears when you continued. “I can’t lose him, Anita. I can’t.”

   “And Missy can’t afford to lose you both,” she stated, simply but so poignantly, and for a moment you struggled to breathe.

   She was just as important as he was, but how could you ever look her in the eyes again if you didn’t even try and save her father?    Your gut was telling you to go. Something really was wrong, and somehow, you’d find a way to help him. You just had to get to him, and everything would work out.

   “We will be back. I don’t care what it takes, I’ll get us both back to her,” you assured Anita, not giving her a chance to reply as you immediately ended the call and threw the phone on the passenger seat.

   There was no reason to try and conceal where you were going, everyone in Mission Control already knew. So, you buckled up, turned the car on and started driving towards the airport.

-=¤=-

   Landing in Florida before lunch, you rented a car to drive out to the west coast, having no idea what you expected to find. But your mind was making up all sorts of scenarios, each one more horrible than the next, so you tried your best to just not think about it.    You could only tackle one problem at a time, and the first step was simply to find them. Whatever situation or condition they were in, would be the basis for step two, so there was no point in planning any further than that.

   When you reached the small town of Suwannee, you rolled down the window and stopped the first person you saw, to ask if they’d seen any Heroics around, but the woman just shook her head and kept walking. Which wouldn’t have raised any red flags for you, if not for the fact that you drove around for an hour asking everyone you could find the same question, getting the exact same response from every one of them.

   Something was very wrong here.    Not only was everyone acting too evasive, too purposely ignorant about all things Heroic, but they were just so gloomy. Like they all had their own personal cloud of doom hanging over them. It was eerie and off-putting, to the point where you kinda wanted to get outta town. Which you supposed might be the very reason they acted this way.    But you wouldn’t be chased away. Not when the man you loved might be here somewhere, unable to save himself.

   So, you looked for a place where people seemed to gather and ended up parking the car at the Salt Creek restaurant. Stepping inside, you found it was packed with lunch guests, and since you were pressed for time and not at all interested in being gaslighted by a community which obviously had something they collectively wanted or needed to hide, you headed for the center of the room, jumped up on a table and shouted loud enough for the entire establishment to hear you.

   “Okay, folks, listen up! Cause I’ve just about had it with your supposed ignorance!    I work for the Heroics Organization,” you declared, holding up your company ID so they’d know you were telling the truth. “And I’m looking for the team who came to this town four days ago, and whom haven’t been seen since! Now, you’re either the stupidest fucking people in this whole country, or you’re deliberately hiding something!    So, tell me where I can find them, or at least in which direction to look, or I’m gonna start making calls and putting this place under a magnifying glass!”

   There was a tense silence following your outburst, while you patiently waited for someone to decide they didn’t want the scrutiny of authorities.    You’d half expected them to laugh at you or try to suggest you couldn’t or wouldn’t follow through with a threat like that, in which case you’d happily prove them wrong. But instead, they just sort of shrunk deeper into their chairs, which told you they absolutely knew something bad was going on, but were too scared to speak up about it.

   Fear was a powerful motivator, you knew that. But so was compassion. If you could get even one person to feel your pain, they might find the strength to see past their fear.    Trying to still the rage in your chest and soften your voice, so they wouldn’t get stuck on the perspective of you as this raging bull coming stomping through their lunch, you let your own fear take over for a bit, showing them that the anger was just desperation.

   “Please. Please, if there’s anything you can tell me... The man I love is among them, and I won’t stop until I find him. Please, just point me in the right direction,” you begged, and saying those words out loud, putting a voice to the dread which haunted your heart, instantly brought tears to your eyes.

   You saw heads bow, probably trying to avoid having to see your pain, but still, no one spoke up.

   “His name is Marcus Moreno. He has a ten-year-old daughter,” you continued, while heavy blobs of tears now ran freely down your cheeks. “They all have kids… What would you do if they were your family?”

   It took another minute, but finally a voice sounded from the back of the room.

   “Bumblebee island,” it said, and you turned towards the voice, finding an elderly man, properly dressed but looking weary and worn out, as though a mere gust of wind could blow his soul away from his body. “You’ll find them all there. But if you go out there… you won’t come back.”

   You met his eyes and the gravity of his words hit you.    Turning to look around the room, you saw the same expression on everyone there, and realized that this was the cause for the gloom they all suffered from. Something or someone out there on that island was putting these people through hell.    But rather than deter you, this realization only stoked the fire inside you even more.

   “Yes, I will. You’d better damned well believe I will. Thank you, sir,” you said, and there was no tremor or uncertainty in your voice.

-=¤=-

   On the map, getting there seemed like it would require you to rent a boat. But once you got to the nearest mainland, you discovered it would actually be easier than that, since a prolonged drought had left the area between the mainland and the island completely dry.    Getting out of the car, you stood on the bank for a moment and tried to think strategically about what you were going to do. You had no weapons, aside from a tire-iron in the trunk, which wouldn’t do you much good unless your target was an invalid, because with your limited fighting skills, anything other than a firearm would be of no help to you.

   But what really did a number on your head was the knowledge that whoever had the team, had been able to subdue ten powered people. Whether they’d done it one by one or all at once, it didn’t mean great odds for you no matter what weapons you might’ve had.    Still, you’d come too far to turn back now, so you walked out onto the dried ocean floor doing your best to look casual, like a tourist out on a stroll to explore the exposed seabed.

   Despite your internal stress, you forced yourself to move slowly, stopping here and there to look at something, trying to make it seem like you weren’t heading straight for the island.    Meanwhile, you were constantly at risk of going crazy with fear, as your stupid brain kept conjuring up images of dead bodies with familiar faces but which were otherwise broken and unrecognizable.

   To remain sane, you told yourself they would’ve been found if they were already dead, since there was no reason to hold onto a lifeless body for this long. Unless, of course, it was to harvest parts of them.    No, you couldn’t think like that. They were alive and if you could just find them, they’d be able to save themselves with their powers.    That was as much of a plan as you had.    As you rounded the south end of the island, you saw a structure up ahead, right on the edge of the shoreline and cleverly concealed by mangrove trees. It was just a small dome with a honeycomb-shaped pattern, painted to blend into the environment, and a steel door on one side.    You walked up to it, since it seemed to you that a tourist would be curious about it, and when you couldn’t see any security cameras on or around it, you tried the handle.

   It was open. A bad sign if ever there was one.    But, in for a penny… in for a fucking pound. So, you stepped inside and discovered that the honeycomb plates were partly transparent, which meant most of the sunlight came through, unfortunately revealing nothing but a manhole in the ground and a ladder leading down.    Another bad sign.

   You climbed down the concrete cylinder, you estimated about twelve feet deep, and found yourself in a prison, for lack of a better word.    Embedded light fixtures along the ceiling and walls created the same crisp white light you saw in hospital corridors, or examination rooms, and no wires were visible, so this structure had been built by someone who knew what they were doing.

   There was no echo inside, despite the size of the room, but you suspected it had to do with the only interior design feature which were cages along each wall, in varying sizes and shapes, each one with a strange kind of padding on the tops, bottoms and back walls. Although whether it was to dampen sounds or just keep bodily fluids from splattering all over the place, you couldn’t have guessed.

   Hurrying down the center aisle, you took a quick headcount and was both relieved and terrified to find that the entire team was trapped, each one in their own little enclosure.    You assumed that these cages must’ve been designed specifically for each super’s abilities, since it would explain why they all looked different, and why none of the team had managed to break out. But they were more than just trapped.

   They looked… hollow. Pale and clammy and weaker than you would’ve believed any of them capable of being. And when you located Marcus at the far end of the left-hand side, finding him passed out like the rest of them and with the look of someone who’d had a stomach-flu for about a month, the fury inside of you gave way to pure ice moving through your veins in an instant.    He was barely breathing, and each little inhale sounded like it could’ve been his last.

   “Marcus… Honey, can you hear me?” you asked, but he didn’t react at all.

   Someone else did, though. A weak and crackling voice spoke from behind you, and you flung around to find Tech-No in the cage opposite.

   “Go… he’ll kill you…”

   “Tech,” you whispered, inching closer to him. “What’s happening? Who is he, what does he want?”

   “No time,” he exhaled, struggling to find enough strength to say another word. “Sensors… the entrance… Go…”

   You interpreted what he said to mean that their captor already knew you were there, which was good to know. But you still weren’t leaving without them.    Turned back to Marcus, you reached for the lock to the cage to see if you might be able to break it open, but the moment you touched it, a massive electrical charge went through you. It was so powerful it threw you backwards into the front of Tech’s cage.

   Trembling involuntarily as your body tried to recover from the shock, you tried to do a quick examination of your hand, unsurprisingly revealing it to be badly burnt. Thankfully however, it still hurt like hell, which meant the nerves were intact.    While you tried to get your breathing back under control and wait for the trembling to ease up, you looked at Marcus and then his cage. His powers were a mix of metal manipulation and electromagnetism, and you’d just been electrocuted.

   Also, you were leaned against Tech’s cage. His powers were completely restricted to the confines of his brain, able to understand and create technology other minds could only conceptually understand, and nothing was hurting you.    Then you looked at Lavagirl and her cage, which was right next to Tech. Still trembling a bit, you crawled closer to her, and carefully held your undamaged hand out towards it to see if it was warm. And it was.

   Somehow, their captor must’ve managed to construct cages which effectively sucked their abilities out of their bodies, accumulating and storing them in the frames of the cages themselves.    It would explain why they were so weak if their enhanced cells were being drained, probably even from their very bone-marrow.

   But by that logic, you should be able to get Tech out, and maybe once he was free, he’d begin to recover. Supers healed about five times faster than normal humans, so if you had enough time…    Just as you’d begun to look at the lock on the cage, you heard the door open above, and someone starting to climb down the ladder, which meant your time was up.

   There was only one way in or out, so with your enemy between you and the entrance, you were trapped down there. Not that you had any intention of leaving.    You got back on your feet just before the unknown man reached the floor and turned around, and you hoped that the continued trembles running through you wouldn’t make him think you were a scared little hare, because you needed him to engage with you, not write you off as uninteresting.

   He was tall, muscly but heavyset and broad-shouldered, with dark hair, dark eyes, and tanned skin, wearing simple black clothes he could’ve bought from anywhere.    The moment he turned around, he eyed you up and down like he was appraising jewellery, and for whatever reason, he seemed bemused by what he found.    Shoving his hands down the front pockets of his pants, he rocked back on his heels and smiled.

   “Well, well, well. A surprise visitor. And here I thought all the Heroics were already accounted for.    I must say it’s bold of Headquarters to try and trick me, when I still hold all the cards,” he mused, gesturing to his cages with a delighted glint in his eye.

   “I’m not a Heroic, and nobody sent me,” you firmly countered, mostly trying to keep him talking so you could learn more about him.

   “Oh, my. How intriguing.    In that case, you must tell me which one of these special beings is your beloved?” he rebutted, clearly showing off his skills in reading people’s behaviour and intent, and since you had no intention of being toyed with, you merely glared back at him, which he seemed to find mostly amusing. “Or, I could hurt them one by one until you show me who it is.”

   “…Moreno,” you finally admitted, since this guy was obviously good enough to catch a lie, and potentially screwed up enough to punish dishonesty with torture of some sort.

   “The leader. Of course. Good choice.”

   “It wasn’t a choice. And neither was coming here,” you argued, to which he huffed a humourless laugh.

   “Everything is a choice.”

   “Really? Then why don’t you tell me why you’re choosing to do this?”

   “Ah, but that doesn’t concern you.”

   “The fuck it doesn’t,” you spat, and he clearly didn’t like your tone, but he didn’t do anything about it, so you pressed on, searching for ways to get him talking. “Come on, you look like the bragging type. Let’s see if you can impress me.”

   He raised an eyebrow at you, but then the smile returned.

   “I like you. You’re a no bullshit type of person,” he grinned, to which you just cocked your head to the side and waited.

   Probably trying to get you off balance, he stood there for at least a minute, meeting your eyes in uncomfortable silence, but when you showed no sign of backing down, he pulled his hands from his pockets and crossed his arms over his chest instead.

   “Well, I suppose it’s really not that complicated.    I’m an inventor. A gifted one, as you can see. And many years ago, I tried to earn my seat in the Heroics community, but I was rejected.    They said my inventions were too violent and cruel, unfit for anything you might call heroic. And sure, looking around this room, most people would probably agree.”

   He paused then, and the smile faded into a look of pensive reflection. If you hadn’t already judged him as being largely incapable of it, you might’ve even identified the look as concern.

   “I tried to tell them sooner or later, powered people are gonna need an off switch,” he continued, and he sounded disappointed, of all things. “A way for the ordinaries to force them to comply, before someone comes along and decides to rule the world and make puppets of us all.    I mean, do you realize how lucky we’ve been so far? That none of them have turned out to be heartless?”

   Being someone who had always been sceptical of the supposed superiority of the superpowered people of the world, these thoughts had crossed your mind before. But to your way of looking at it, there was a very big difference between searching for a way to potentially supress individual abilities in order to prevent someone from becoming a dictator, and creating ways of completely stripping all super’s of their powers.

   “Because imagine if someone like Crushing Low here,” he went on, gesturing towards the man in question, who was unconscious in his cell directly to his captors left, “who can barely even be stopped once he builds up momentum, decides to become the ruler of the world. Who’s gonna stop him?    I don’t understand how anyone could ever think power like that shouldn’t be controlled?”

   “Their powers are a result of natural evolution. It was nature who made them superior to the rest of us, we have no right to take that away from them,” you argued, knowing you didn’t have a chance in hell of changing his perspective, so you chose a comment likely to spark further debate instead.

   But rather than get into the already much debated topic of whether supers really were naturally evolved, or the equally popular conspiracy theory of human made, he took the conversation in a completely unexpected direction.

   “Them? Surely you meant to say: us,” he questioned, catching you off guard and leaving you standing there stunned into silence.

   He couldn’t possibly know what Prince had done to you, or what the potential consequences might be, those details had never been publicized since it would’ve been like pouring gasoline on the entire super’s debate.    And no matter how much the mad doctor had believed it, there was still no evidence to support you having any supernatural abilities.

   “Yes, I can tell you have power. Lots of it, too. But I suppose it makes sense to hide it in an environment like this, where being special puts you in a cage.    Alas, I’m afraid I’ll have to see it before I’ll know what type of extraction medium you’ll need. And you should know I always strive not to use violence if I can help it, but given your level of self-restraint, it seems I’ll have no choice in the matter today.”

   You had no idea what damned restraint he was talking about, you’d felt like you’d been going off the rails all day.    It wasn’t the most important question of the hour, though, as he started walking towards you, pulling out a large knife from somewhere behind his back.    There was nowhere to run besides right past him, and there was no way in hell you’d manage that without either getting caught or seriously injured, so you just stood there.

   He closed in on you, but you already knew he wasn’t gonna kill you, since that wouldn’t require him to find out your supposed powers first, and if there was one thing you knew about yourself, it was how much pain you could tolerate.    You held your ground, convinced that no matter what he did to you, he wouldn’t find what he was looking for, which meant all you had to do was endure until you saw a chance to gain the upper hand.

   When he was only six feet away, he raised the knife, preparing to strike at you, and you decided you didn’t wanna see it coming, choosing to look at Marcus instead, in the hopes it would give you the strength to find a way to defeat this evil.    But then, just as your gaze fell on your partner’s pale and sickly features, he suddenly flinched and stirred, trying to open his eyes.

   “…He-mos…” he wheezed, too weak to even speak, but somehow still finding just enough energy to let you know he’d heard you and knew you were there.

   For one infinite moment, your heart faltered, and you wanted everything to stop, even if it meant having to die.    Then the moment passed and the same fury you’d felt at Mission Control returned, only a hundred times worse. From one second to the next, every inch of your body was boiling again, fuelled relentlessly by the need to protect your love.

   As though an entirely different being within you had emerged, your head seemed to turn on its own accord, so that your eyes could locate your enemy and fix him with a glare so filled with rage it should’ve killed him on contact.    Instead, it seemed to amuse him, and he lunged forwards the final few feet, cleaving the air with the blade on its way down towards your shoulder.

   But it never got there. About a foot from reaching your body, the knife hit a barrier which the inventor hadn’t expected. The force and weight of his attack was so strong that when the blade hit, it snapped off the handle with such a kick that he dropped it, and both pieces bounced away to other parts of the room.    Surprised, he took a step back and raised a hand to examine what seemed to be an invisible wall some ten inches in front of you.

   Instinctively, you knew it wasn’t as simple as a wall, but you also had no idea what it was.    You still felt like something else had taken control of you. Some dormant twin spirit, come to life to protect you from the evils beyond your normal strength. And yet, when your focus narrowed until you could only see the enemy before you, it was your choice to push him away. There was no other voice inside your head. Just you and this new power.

   It seemed to grow and expand at your will, effortlessly pushing the captor back towards the ladder. And as the energy filled more and more of the room, you noticed that without even thinking about it, you were enclosing the cages and the Heroics inside of it as well, trying to protect them.    However, you were a bit distracted to find that you could feel them once they became embedded inside the shielding bubble.

   They were so weak you could barely detect their heartbeats, but you could also sense their powers, trapped inside those metal rods. And it shocked you to realize how the energies were actually straining against their confines, fighting to get back to their bodies as though they had a sentience of their own.    You were pretty sure they didn’t, though. That what you felt was simply the result of an unnatural separation, but there was no question it would kill them all if it continued.

   You hadn’t moved from your position by Marcus’ cage, and there was something different about his current. As you became more aware it, it also seemed to recognize you. Like the familiar embrace of an old friend, it felt like it enveloped and welcomed your presence.    With one eye trained on the enemy, you reached for the lock again, finding no electricity zapping you this time, so perhaps it had been a defensive reaction.

   The lock was a strange kind of padlock unlike anything you’d seen before, and which you had no hope of undoing. But the energy your power released had a kind of weight to it, a heavier mass than the regular atmosphere, and the more you tested it, the more you convinced you became that it could be moulded to virtually whatever use you needed.    So, you tried concentrating it around the lock, which was tricky when you were also aware of the Inventor and all the other Heroics at once, but after a few attempts, the lock finally imploded and fell to the ground in pieces.

    The moment the cage’s frame was broken, whatever element made it capable of holding a person’s powers, was disrupted, and the stolen energy immediately began returning to its rightful place.    But it wasn’t enough. The damage which had been done to your partner’s body as the powers had been drained, was too much for his system to manage. And you could sense that even though the cells were gradually being restored, their energy didn’t just meld back into his being.

   It was as though the two entities were out of sync, or at different frequencies, leaving them incapable of communicating normally. And there was no indication this would sort itself out with time. If anything, it seemed more like the longer they were out of balance, the more disrupted they became.    You reached a hand into the cage, not sure what you were gonna do, or even what you could do, simply desperate to feel him and know that he was alive.

   But the moment your skin connected to his, something left you.    Something strong and determined flowed from your hand to his, and was immediately absorbed into his body, which seemed to welcome it, starting a flurry of activity in him.    His colour was almost instantly restored, and mere seconds later, he woke up with a start, just as you fell to your knees, severely weakened.

   Suddenly fighting just to keep your eyes open, with a body as heavy as if you’d been dead asleep just now, you felt your energy-field collapse, losing contact with all the Heroics, and Marcus, while your enemy saw his chance and immediately rushed back towards you.    Instinctively, you forced a barrier back up in front of you as the captor closed in, only just managing to stop him before he got to you, but you were so weak that even the pressure of his body against the energy field was enough to drain your reserves.

   “Hermosa…?” you heard a familiar voice, back to its usual soft tone, although seared through with worry and confusion now, while he scrambled to get out of the small opening to the cage.

   “I can’t hold him…” you said between tight jaws, doing everything you could to keep the barrier up until he could help you, but even though it only took him another moment, it was one moment too long.

   Dropping it again, the Inventor practically crashed over you with the sudden lack of resistance, and a heavy fist hit you in the head before Marcus was able to engage him.    Everything started spinning while your head pounded so harshly you couldn’t hear anything at all. Disoriented, you didn’t realize it had gone dark because you’d closed your eyes, and when you opened them, your vision was so blurred you could only just make out two figures moving together in your vicinity.

   You didn’t know if your partner was doing alright, if he was able to use his abilities against his attacker at all, but it felt like the fighting went on for a long time, which would seem to suggest that he didn’t have much of an advantage.    The days of worry and fear which had brought you to this point, abruptly hit you all at once, tapping into some hidden crevice of your primal self, digging up a fresh bout of strength so potent it felt like it set your skin on fire and made your blood boil.

   It had to end. Right now. You couldn’t take any more of this shit. You couldn’t lose Marcus.

   The sudden rush of fresh fuel turned your mind to a singular purpose, narrowing your focus so strictly, all you knew was that this would stop. Now.    You pushed your energy out across the room again, finding all the half-dead Heroics at once and directing all your power at the cages to break their locks, and it worked. With a rustling clang, all nine of the padlocks hit the floor in pieces, and the various energies flooded back into their hosts.

   But even though your strength was already fading, you knew it wasn’t enough.    Crawling on your hands and knees you went from one cage to the next, healing them one by one, getting impossibly weaker with each touch, until you simply couldn’t will your body to move another muscle.    You didn’t know how many you’d saved, you just hoped it would be enough.    Darkness crowded in on you as you fell away, and for the first time in a very long time, you welcomed it.

[sirowsky-stories]

The Flowers Always Know

Chapter 16 - Sexual Therapy?

Description: After the stress you'd both gone through lately, Marcus once again tried to distract you from your worries. But this time, it didn't work out quite the way he'd planned.

**Beware! Author chooses NOT to display warnings on the individual chapters of this story. Read at your own risk!**

Rating: Mature/Explicit 18+ONLY Word Count: 5833 (2807 words added) Masterlist (this story)

   Marcus was a man of his word, which was usually a good thing.    But when he dusted off every trick in the book to try and annoy you in his efforts of distracting you from how much shit you were still dealing with, it really wasn’t.    Everything from pinching your ass to wolf-whistling loudly while you were on the phone, to stealing and hiding your papers, to hiding himself and jumping out at you… He tried it all hoping to get you off balance.

   He even stole your left shoe and then not at all accidentally dropped it down a stairwell.    At one point you got so frustrated with him that you just swatted in his general direction, only to have him catch your hand and proceed to lick the length of your fingers, like a fucking six-year-old, all while you were on the phone with the CEO of one of the richest toy-companies in the world.

   “What? It’ll make it easier to turn the papers over,” he whispered when you fixed him with a glare which would’ve put Medusa herself to shame.

   He wisely backed off and let you finish the call unbothered, probably noticing you were truly done with him at that point.    You had actually gotten a nice large sofa for your office, after Marcus had suggested it, and he now sat down and made a show of toeing off his shoes and letting them fly about the room as he laid down flat on his back.    The sofa was just long enough for him. You’d checked before you’d bought it.

   “What is the matter with you?!” you went at him the moment you’d ended the call, succeeding only in making him grin. “For fuck’s sake, Marcus, it was Elliot Brady!”

   That caught his attention, making his eyebrows shoot up as he recognized the name and slowly sat up, turning so his feet came down to the floor again.

   “The Elliot Brady…?” he asked in an impressed tone while resting his elbows against his knees, but he knew you wouldn’t joke about someone so influential, so you ignored the question and pointed a firm index finger at him.

   “You are so lucky I was able to keep my cool. Because if you had messed up that call, you would have been responsible for losing the Heroics a $70 million deal.    And you’d better believe I’d have made sure to let the whole fucking building know,” you cautioned, and he did look mildly shocked at first, but then his playful mood once again took over and he grinned wickedly at you.

   “Oh, hermosa… I so love it when you take charge,” he said, letting his voice drop and turn husky while he leaned back on the sofa and spread his legs wide, pushing his hips forwards to show you the large bulge which was already straining against his jeans.

   The sight caught you off guard, and the sudden clench of your pussy, knowing how good that bulge felt inside you, made you lose track of what you were even thinking. And of course, the little bastard could tell.    He shot you a deeply satisfied smile as he took in your rapidly heating expression, because he knew once he got you to certain point, you wouldn’t be able to turn him down.

   You tried to tell yourself it wasn’t worth it. That all those noise-complaints which had been filed against the two of you after the last time he’d been “distracting” you, had been embarrassing enough to last you a lifetime.    But it was late afternoon on a Saturday, so the building was practically empty by now, and you were already soaking through your panties.    Also, you really wanted to wipe that smug smile off his face.

   Screw it.

   Getting up and rounding your desk, you approached him while opening your jeans and pulling them down, letting your underwear trail down with them. You’d already kicked off your shoes, something you liked to do whenever you knew you’d be by your desk for a bit.    Once the pants were off, you leaned over and placed your hands on his knees, and then you waited. He took the hint and opened his fly, starting to tug his pants down, but you didn’t move your hands, which forced him to stop at the knees.

   He looked up at you questioningly, and you smiled wickedly at him, before you dropped your head down and licked him, from hilt to tip.    He hissed and growled and his hands grabbed at your hair and shoulders, as if he didn’t know what to do with them, but had to do something, touch something. And every other part of you was out of his reach because of how you were standing.

   It was incredibly satisfying to hear and feel him lose control, because he was ordinarily very good at restraining himself, even when his desires were downright maddening.    You’d only ever gone down on each other for foreplay before, though, trying to prolong the act, since neither of you managed to last more than a minute or two after penetration. Still, you both preferred the intimacy of regular sex, even if these kinds of variations could be enormously fun.

   But this was different, and he knew it. You were playing with him, in a way you never had before, offering nothing in return while you took full advantage of him.    Licking him again, you then pulled his tip into your mouth and sucked hard on it for a couple of seconds, and were rewarded with seeing his abs clench down and his body tremble with the sensation.

   The satisfaction of knowing how much he craved you, and that you had complete control over him now, sent a fresh volley of wetness trickling down the insides of your thighs. You wanted him almost desperately, to the point where your core was crunching, but you ignored it.    Keeping your hands firmly planted on the tops of his knees, to keep his pants on so he couldn’t spread his legs any wider, you worked him hard using only your mouth.

   You sucked him in deeper, letting your tongue play along the back of his shaft, massaging him gently. Then you pulled back and let him slip completely out so that you could duck down further and play with his balls.    He was panting hard by then, and you could feel him struggle to keep his hands from just grabbing your shoulders and pulling you up to straddle him.

   But you also knew he really had meant it when he’d said he liked seeing you in charge, and it was obvious he was dying to know what you were gonna do next if he just left you to it.    Taking his length into your mouth again, you buried as much of him as you could take down your throat, swallowing around him to keep from gagging, which elicited a deep, guttural sound from him and made his trapped legs tremble under your hands as he tried to keep from bucking deeper into your throat.

   Starting to work back and forth, you quickly got used to feel of him, allowing you to take a little bit more each time, and it made him fucking feral, growling through each strained breath while he tried his damnedest not to interfere.    Meanwhile, the insides of your thighs were seriously wet at that point, and you were throbbing for him, but you weren’t going to stop. Instead, you moved your right hand from his knee to your sex and stroked yourself, making yourself moan on his cock.

   The sight of you pleasuring yourself, along with the vibrations in your throat, finally drove him wild enough to try and take over, and his hands were suddenly grasping at your upper arms, trying to pull you off him and up onto his lap so he could fill you.    But you looked up into is eyes and harshly swatted his hands away, before redoubling your efforts of stroking yourself, moaning again while you let him slip halfway out of your mouth before plunging down on him again.

   You could tell how close he was by the devastated look he gave you, and by the pulsing in his length, so you slid two fingers inside yourself and toppled over the edge almost immediately, keeping him deeply embedded inside you while you rode out the first waves.    He followed right after, the sight and feel of you way too much for him to be able to hold back, just as you’d known it would be.

   You were impressed by his self-control, though, as he kept his hands away from your head while he came down your throat, clearly not wanting to risk hurting you by holding you down onto him too hard or for too long.    He did buck up involuntarily, but since your head was free, you simply followed the movement and kept him only as deep as you could manage, sucking him until he was good and spent, seeing him all but collapse once you freed his cock from your mouth.

   When he’d completely stilled and was just laying there and panting hard, slumped so low on the sofa that only his shoulders and head were leaned against the backrest, you got up and went over to your desk.    Pulling out wet wipes from a drawer, you handed him a couple and then cleaned off your legs and chin, before pulling your jeans back on and tucking your soiled panties into your back pocket.

   “Wait…” he breathed, clearly perplexed by this turn of events. “That’s it? You’re not gonna let me have a go at you?”

   He looked so adorably confused where he sat with his pants still down by his knees, his soft but still swollen and saliva drenched member resting against his hip, his arms splayed to the sides, still breathing roughly while beads of sweat littered his temples and his neck.

   “Nope,” you simply replied, but your tone was firm.

   “Why not?” he pressed, sounding both disappointed and slightly offended, as though he worried you didn’t think he could get the job done.

   Contrarily, you knew he very much could, repeatedly and without much effort, which was exactly why you weren’t going to let him.    He’d made it a habit to use sex as a way of keeping you from thinking too hard about things, which had been helpful at times, you couldn’t deny that.    But this time, you knew he was also using these distractions and humour as a way of trying to scrub out the hurt, and you couldn’t let him do that.

   You wanted nothing more than to pretend none of it had happened, but it would never go away simply because you chose not to think about it. If anything, it would only come back worse if it was supressed for too long.    He might not get it yet, but you knew he would eventually, and you wanted him to reach that conclusion on his own, so you evaded the question for now.

   “Because,” was all you gave him, which understandably only frustrated him.

   “Because, what?”

   You merely smiled and sat back down at your desk, waking up your computer screen to send the last few emails and notifications needed to keep the right people in the loop on the deal you’d just made, seemingly oblivious to the declining mood of your partner.    But you knew exactly what he was feeling when he begrudgingly cleaned up, pulled his pants back on, and then sat there and scowled while you finished your work.

   The cogs in his brain were so loud you could almost hear them from across the office, as he no doubt worked tirelessly to figure out what your angle for not letting him pleasure you, could possibly be. You’d never turned him down or kept him at a distance before.    And that was precisely the clue you knew he’d figure out, because there was only one reason why that would’ve changed, and he was easily emotionally intelligent enough to realize it.    Once you were done, you switched the computer off and put your shoes on.

   “Okay, I’m ready to go home,” you announced then, meeting his eyes with a soft smile while you moved towards him.

   He had stopped looking at you by then, staring at his own hands instead while he puzzled over your behaviour, but once he heard you say the word home, his focus shifted.    There was no denying the significance of that word when it came from your lips, especially now when there was still so much tension within your relationship. But hearing it made his scowl evaporate and he smiled warmly at you as he stood up to take your outstretched hand.

   “When we get back, it’s my turn,” he grinned with a wink, but you shook your head at him.

   “Nope,” you sighed, a bit disappointed that he’d apparently not gotten anywhere in his pondering yet.

   “What? Seriously babe, why not?” he countered again, and for a moment you contemplated just handing him the answer.

   But you had more faith in him than that, so you opted to go with a believable alternative instead.

   “Missy,” you shrugged, which made him flinch.

   Clearly, he hadn’t thought about the fact she’d be home when you got there, but as he re-evaluated, something seemed to occur to him, and his smile returned.

   “So, you think I might make you scream, huh?” he wondered in a highly mischievous tone.

   “Oh, honey… I expect nothing less,” you shot back with a deep and suggestive voice, playing along to help keep his mood up.

   He almost stumbled over his own feet, hearing that, and had to let go of your hand when he stopped to regain his balance, so you gave him a heated look over your shoulder while continuing to walk leisurely away from him.    His responding expression quite clearly stated that had there been a contest between you, to see which of you was better at sexual manipulation, you’d already won.

-=¤=-

   You spent the drive talking about what to make for dinner, but when you got back, the rest of the little family was already cooking and the whole house smelled wonderful.    Missy shot you a nervous glance when you walked into the kitchen, but then she saw how comfortable you were with the house again, and her worry melted into a wide smile.    After her reaction to seeing you lethargic on the ground yesterday morning, you could imagine how every bump on the road to recovering your relationship with her father, must seem huge and frightening to her.

   There was no question she’d heard what had gone on in the master bathroom the evening before, she was way too sharp not to have pieced together the broad strokes of what that had been about, and you were certain it had made her very anxious.    In fact, you’d been surprised that she hadn’t mentioned it before leaving this morning. But seeing her face now, you knew she’d been worried sick about it.

   “Hey, sweetie. Did you have fun at the park?” you asked, trying to keep the energy light.

   “Yeah, the guys wanted me to tell you that the new powered-friendly playgrounds are awesome!” she answered, just a tad too enthusiastically.

   “Really? Oh, that’s great! I was hoping we got it right, but I wasn’t very confident, it was such a mess during development.”

   “Oh, you nailed it! It works for everyone, regardless of what their powers are, and it was still just as fun for me to use too.”

   “Well, I’m glad. But I hope you’re not being overly praising just because you know I’ve been feeling bad lately,” you pondered, hoping she wouldn’t feel put down, but also wanting to make sure she knew that she didn’t need to pretend everything was fine around you.

   “No, I’m not. You’re an awesome designer,” she declared, and yet, there was something in her voice which made you feel like there was more to it than that.

   “But…?” you pressed, and she sighed.

   “I just… I heard you. Last night,” she admitted, and wetness began to pool in her eyes. “And I thought that… you might never be okay.”

   She was crying by the time she finished and moved around the edge of the island while she reached for you. You wrapped your arms around her back and lifted her up to hug her, and she snaked her legs over your hips and hugged you back with all the strength she had.    As with all things concerning his daughter, you felt the need to make sure Marcus was alright with what you were doing, and finding him standing next to Anita, you were reassured to see him look only moved by the scene. Teary-eyed and moved.

   “I am okay, my darling,” you whispered to the girl, still holding her tightly against your chest. “And last night is why I’m okay. I just had to get that crap out, or it would’ve turned rotten and mean inside me.    I’m so sorry you had to hear it, but just because it sounded and felt terrible, doesn’t mean it was a bad thing. Because now that it’s out, I can replace it with good things. Do you understand?”

   “Yeah, I think so,” she snivelled, and she sounded so small when she allowed herself to be fragile like this. “I just don’t want you to leave. Please, tell me you won’t leave.”

   It was the first time you’d heard her voice any hint of the fear she must carry so deep within her heart, of losing another mother figure, and it left you feeling so torn.    On the one hand, it was proof of her very real affection for you, and her hope for a future where her family might be whole. But on the other, it was also a reminder of how easily broken this little girl’s heart really was, and how very carefully you would have to hold it.

   “I’m not going anywhere. I’m a fighter, remember? When things get tough, I get tough,” you reassured her, pulling back to give her a hopeful smile and a loving kiss to the cheek, which was finally enough to draw a small giggle from her and chase away whatever dread had tried to overtake her.

   But then Anita suddenly cleared her throat unnecessarily loudly.

   “If you two are done dancing around over there, dinner’s ready,” she announced, pulling a large pot off the stove and carrying it to the table.

   “Mooom, why would you do that?! They were having a moment,” Marcus whined, clearly upset that she’d interrupted a bonding opportunity, which he’d obviously been enjoying.

   “Hm, there’ll be plenty more, no need to waste good food over it,” his mother grumbled, but you saw through it without even trying.

   “Don’t let her fool you, honey,” you chuckled while you put Missy down. “She’s just trying to avoid crying in front of all of us. I mean, the fierce Mrs. Moreno has a reputation to live up to, right?”

   At first, it didn’t seem like she was gonna react to that at all. But then, once all the food was on the table, without a word, she picked up a slice of tomato, and then flung it at you.    It hit your shoulder before dropping to the floor with a wet little splat, and you slowly raised your head to meet her defiant glare.

   “Did you just…?” you trailed off, because you were too shocked to even say it out loud, while she merely raised her eyebrows at you in response.

   Oh, that was a challenge if ever you’d seen one.    Marcus saw your expression change and was about to say something when you grabbed a slice of cucumber from the table and chucked it at her head.    It hit her right on the nose, and that was it.    The food war was on.

-=¤=-

   You stepped out of the shower a couple of hours later, having finally gotten the smell of garlic and chili out of your hair after three bouts of shampoo.    Of course, she’d had to start a food war with fucking chilli stew, of all things.

   “I can’t believe that just happened,” Marcus shook his head where he stood by the closet, picking out a clean t-shirt to wear. “I haven’t been involved in a food-fight since high school.”

   In truth, he was a bit sour about it, because the kitchen really was a mess, even though you’d tried to tidy up the worst of it. But he’d also happily taken part in the chaos, so you weren’t sure if he was upset it had happened at all, or if he was simply disappointed in himself for participating rather than putting a stop to it.    You stood in the doorway to the bathroom with one towel around your body and another in your hands as you dried your hair.

   “Don’t worry, tomorrow’s Sunday, we can spend all day cleaning, if need be,” you reminded him, but he paused in the middle of pulling on his fresh shirt.

   “We?” he questioned, clearly referencing the fact that you’d been the catalyst for this particular incident, albeit unintentionally.

   “Yes,” you confidently countered, having no intention of being made the bad guy in this scenario. “It was your mother who started it, and then left just in time for clean-up.    And don’t even try to imply you didn’t take part, or that you didn’t enjoy the hell out of it.”

   Try as he might, he couldn’t deny it, because you’d all seen him laugh and squeal as he’d chucked handfuls of chilli at his family, giddy as a child with the unexpected turn of events, just like the rest of you.

   “It was kinda fun,” he sheepishly admitted, to which you grinned and shook your head, while you turned and went back into the bathroom to put some moisturiser on your face, hoping it would keep any ruddiness from the chilli at bay.

   Your partner had already showered and since the evening was still young, your plan was to get dressed and join Missy in the living room for a movie before bed.    But while you were still in the bathroom working the cream into your face, you heard his phone ring, and you could tell it was Miracle Guy from Marcus’s reaction. Miracle only ever called when he was upset about something and wanted team leader to fix it.

   You didn’t really pay much attention to the call, it was never anything important anyway, but hearing your partner sigh heavily brought back his reaction to your refusal to let him pleasure you earlier, and you wondered if he’d figured out why yet.    Deciding to find out, and help him understand if he still didn’t, you took the towels off and peered through the doorway into the bedroom.

   He was by the window on your side of the bed, with his back to it, his head bowed, and his eyes closed while he pinched the bridge of his nose. That was his classic Miracle-bullshit stance, and you intended to take full advantage of it.    Completely naked, you snuck across the room, and laid down on your back on the bed behind him.

   Watching the muscles in his arm play when he shifted poses, putting a hand on his hip, and the way his ass-cheek perked when he moved his weight to one leg, was enough to make you heat up for him. Raking your eyes over his muscular chest and snatched waist had you gushing for him a mere moment later.    You let your fingers find your folds and softly caressed yourself until your breathing deepened, keeping your eyes on his face when he turned towards the sound.

   It was worth it just for that. The shock and awe and utter lust in his eyes was enough to make you buck into your own hand.    He ended the call without another word and then let the phone hit the floor as he took you in, his eyes turning several shades darker before he managed to force himself to move and slowly approach the bed.

   He kneeled on the edge of it by your feet and put his hands on your knees, spreading your legs wide to give himself a better view.    You watched him closely as he drank in the sight of your glistening wet and swollen pussy before he leaned in and kissed the soft skin on the inside of your left thigh.    He was drunk on arousal, just as you’d intended, but you had an ulterior motive as well.

   “Have you figured it out yet?” you asked in a voice unintentionally husky with your own arousal, but the question still got his full attention.

   He paused his heated kisses leading the way up towards your centre, resting his cheek against the warm, tender flesh of your leg while he met your gaze.

   “Yeah… Sorry it took me all day, but hearing what you said to Missy finally made it click,” he whispered, then closed his eyes and rubbed his nose against your thigh, as though a particularly strong scent had just hit him, before he continued. “I have to let you get to those low points, no matter how badly I wanna protect you from them.”

   “And?” you pressed, needing to be certain he understood all of it.

   “And I can’t use sex as a universal cure for emotional pain. I know. I’m sorry,” he added, holding your gaze to let you see the honesty in his eyes.

   “Thank you,” you offered, to which he nodded and then turned his attention back to your body.

   “Can I eat you now?” he asked, moving to the other thigh and starting back up with the kisses, and when you took too long to answer, he bared his teeth and scraped them along your skin, just hard enough to make your hips roll involuntarily with the stimulation.

   “Yes,” you breathed, impressed that he hadn’t just taken over already.

   It seemed he really had meant it when he’d said he enjoyed seeing you in charge, to the point where he probably found it even more enticing to have to wait for your permission than to simply do what he wanted.    Some part of your brain registered that information as potentially useful, but then his lips reached your delicate center, and you lost the ability to think.

   At first, he kissed your folds ever so lightly, working his way up towards your clit. He used his nose to brush against it while he blew warm air over your sex, and it made you shiver with anticipation and delight.    Making his tongue wide, he licked a hot wet trail from your already gushing entrance to your clit, and then he stayed there, firmly massaging your nerves for a bit.

   You squirmed against his mouth, seeking more friction, but now that he was there, it seemed he wasn’t going to let you decide how he pleasured you.    A large hand came to rest on your lower belly and suddenly you were trapped against the mattress, unable to move under the firm pressure of his grip, and it somehow made you even more aroused.

   Keeping his mouth on your button, he brought his other hand up to your entrance, letting his thumb play with the little hole, but without slipping inside you at all, which drove your already blazing sex into a frenzy.      Acutely aware of the fact that you were not alone in the house, you bit your jaws together and forced yourself not to moan out loud, but he seemed to take that as a challenge.

   Without warning, he pushed two thick fingers into your swollen cunt and the delicious feeling finally made you lose control, releasing a guttural gasp which you had no hope of strangling.    But you were getting so lost in the pleasure that you couldn’t really remember why you should be quiet anymore.

   Sliding his fingers in and out, slowly but firmly drawing them all the way out before working them in again, letting your walls relax in between each push so that it kept being a stretch every time, not allowing you to adjust to the girth, sent you into overstimulation of the sweetest kind and left you trembling against his restraining hand over your belly.    But it also kept you from reaching your peak, leaving you dangling on the precipice, ready to tumble, but held back by his slow and masterful manipulation of your senses.

   It wasn’t enough, and yet it was also too much to handle, and the desperate frustration left you begging, pleading for your fucking life as every breath threatened to strangle you.    He murmured heavily against your clit, reassuring you in between licks and kisses that he was almost ready for you, and somewhere in parts of your brain which were capable of having thoughts, you wondered what the hell he meant by that.

   But then he started thrusting his fingers into you, and the world fell away and all you could see were stars, all you could hear was the frantic beating of your own heart, the only feeling in existence an unbearable pleasure.    You could feel a scream building in your lungs, and you knew instinctively you’d never be able to silence it, so you threw an arm out towards the head of the bed, looking for a pillow, but you were too far away from it.

   As you neared the climax and felt your body begin to curl in on itself, a glimmer of reasoning sparked in your mind and you grabbed the duvet, shoving a fistful into your mouth on nothing but the blind hope it might be enough to keep you from being heard outside the room.    You only just managed to bite down on it in time.

   His fingers were still fully embedded within you when your torso lifted itself up, and the waves came crashing down over you.    A gush of slick pressed out around his digits, and you could feel how he ducked deeper between your legs to lick it off his fingers as he kept slipping them back and forth to help you ride out the high, before he refastened his mouth to your clit and worked it hard to wring every last spasm of satisfaction from you.

   Meanwhile, you were biting down so hard on the duvet that your jaws hurt, in your determination not to be heard outside the room, although you had no idea if it even worked. Your own body was just too damned loud.    But having to breathe through your nose with such a high pulse, meant you couldn’t get enough oxygen into your body fast enough, and suddenly you were getting light-headed and dizzy.

   You opened your eyes and found him lying on his side next to you, propped up on one elbow while he studied you closely, but there was a proud smile playing in the corners of his mouth, and a playful glint in his gaze.    It took you a few seconds to realize how he could’ve moved from the bottom of the bed to lying by your side in a mere instant, but then it dawned on you, and you groaned.

   “Okay, yes, I fainted, but that was because of the damned covers not allowing me enough oxygen,” you tried to explain, but his smile only grew wider.

   “Whatever you say, hermosa.”

   He was so fucking smug, and honestly, you had no comeback. You’d actually fainted, and while it was probably partly because of the comforter, it definitely wasn’t the only reason.    Not that you were ever gonna admit to it when he was gloating about it.

   “Shit. You’re never gonna let me live this down, are you?”

   “Never,” he grinned, but then he kissed you and rolled on top of you, and it was only then you realized that he’d also had time to shed his clothes while you’d been out of it. “But now I really do need to be inside you, or I might actually explode.”

   He wasn’t kidding about that, though. He really was achingly hard.

   “Oh yeah, we definitely need to take care of that,” you huffed a laugh, and then tried to pull your legs up around his hips, only to find them so weak still that all you could manage was to drag them slightly further apart underneath him to give his hips more room.

   “Are you gonna be able to stay awake this time?” he teased, while he lined himself up.

   You merely shook your head at him in a dismissive kinda way, misleading him into thinking you were gonna simply take on that on the chin, while you waited for him to push inside you, making sure to relax your now softened pelvic muscles to give him easier access.    But, once he was fully embedded and had begun to groan in pleasure, you clenched down on him with everything you had, and he literally yelped.

   “You tell me, babe. Do I feel awake to you?” you whispered in his ear, while he trembled between your thighs, trying to recover enough that he could at least move.

-=¤=-

   Amazingly, you did actually make it out of bed to join Missy for a movie on the sofa, later that evening, and you weren’t exactly surprised when she smiled at you as you walked in together.

   “Have fun?” she asked with the kind of raised eyebrows which suggested she knew something she shouldn’t.

   Marcus was absolutely mortified, frozen to the spot the moment he heard her, looking more uncomfortable than you’d ever seen him.    But you could tell from the way she presented her question, that this didn’t bother her, which instantly left you much less concerned.    So, you took his hand and tugged him with you down onto the couch.

   “Yes, actually. We did. Sorry,” you offered, and just as you’d predicted, she waved it off while reaching for the popcorn bowl.

   “Don’t worry, all I heard was dad scream. Which has never happened before, in any circumstance. So, whatever happened, I’m assuming you won.”

   “It’s not a competition,” you corrected, before grinning proudly at her. “But yes, I did.”

   You didn’t see it, but if you’d looked at your partner right then, you would’ve found him much less uncomfortable after hearing you claim victory in that day’s sexual games.    Not just because he wanted you to always win those kinds of playful battles between you, but also because within your pride, he heard a victory of a different kind. The kind which meant you’d won something much more important than a silly game.    You’d won your confidence in this relationship back. And that was truly a victory to be celebrated and cherished.

[sirowsky-stories]

The Flowers Always Know

Chapter 15 - Are You Still Broken?

Description: Marcus came to his senses eventually, but the two of you had a long way to go before you'd know if your relationship would truly recover.

**Beware! Author chooses NOT to display warnings on the individual chapters of this story. Read at your own risk!**

Rating: Mature/Explicit 18+ONLY Word Count: 7462 (3563 words added) Masterlist (this story)

   You didn’t manage to fall asleep that morning, despite the warmth and comfort of the man next to you. The things you’d learned about your trauma were too overwhelming for your head to turn off, no matter how hard you tried or how tired you were.    And it seemed that either Marcus was also too stressed to find any relaxation, or he’d simply decided he wasn’t going to sleep unless you did.

   He never stopped caressing you, tracing your arms and hands and face, and his lips ghosted over your hair and forehead every other minute. As though he couldn’t get enough of feeling your skin against his own.    You knew he’d hated feeling how cold you’d been before, but you’d warmed again now. And even started to feel a timid hope that things might be alright, if you were both willing to put in a lot of time and effort.

   It had been a few hours when there was a gentle tap on the door and then Missy carefully poked her head in.    The door was to the left of the bed, and her father was on his side to your left, so you couldn’t see her over his broad shoulder, but you knew it was her even before she spoke, because you recognized the knock. She’d used it at home as well, whenever she’d been unsure of what might be going on in her dad’s bedroom.

   “How is she?” she asked, and she sounded terribly unsure and nervous, as if she truly dreaded the answer.

   “I’m better, sweetie,” you answered before Marcus had a chance, to reassure her that you were improving.

   “Oh, thank goodness,” she breathed, obviously relieved, giving more strength to her voice when she continued. “Can I come in for a bit?”

   “Of course you can,” you offered, and felt her father begin to roll onto his back.

   It didn’t escape your notice that he only did so after hearing you ensure it was alright, making sure everything happened on your terms for now, which you appreciated.    She took Marcus’s other side, and he lifted his arm to put it around her shoulders, holding you both to his chest and kissing her head as well.    She reached over his chest for your hand, and you took it, loving how strongly she held on to you. It felt grounding and safe to have her care for you so openly displayed.

   “I was so scared. You looked… dead…” she said, and you remembered how desperately she’d begged her father for help.

   “I felt dead,” you explained, knowing that trying to brush this off or downplay how serious it really was, wouldn’t do either of you any good. “Or at least, I couldn’t feel anything other than pain, which is worse, I suppose.”

   She was quiet for a minute then, but in her eyes, you saw a burning question, held back by the fear of what she might learn, but ultimately too important not to ask.

   “What happened between you guys? I mean, you seemed so happy just a couple of days ago,” she almost whispered, and you felt your partner tense, closing his arm in tighter around you, as though he was worried you might pull away at the first mention of any friction between you.

   But that was the opposite of what you wanted. You loved this family more than you’d ever loved anything. All you wanted was to resolve this and move forward, and with each passing hour that outcome somehow felt more attainable.    Your hope grew the longer you were with them, but it wouldn’t keep growing unless you got rid of the underlying acid, or it would start to corrode this relationship from within.

   “You know the mad scientist, the one who hurt me before?” you started, and she nodded. “Well, a few days ago, he asked to meet me, and said that if I agreed, he would help the police close the case on him.”

   “What does that mean?”

   “It means he was willing to tell them more about the kids he killed. Where he hid their bodies.”

   “Oh… Yeah, I remember dad saying something about not all the victims being found, back in the beginning. But I guess I assumed they were eventually.”

   “Unfortunately, no. He was clever enough to spread out the places where he hid them, and if those bodies are never found, those families will never have closure,” you explained, and she seemed to realize what that had meant for you in these circumstances.

   “So, you went to see him? Even though he did all those horrible things to you?” she questioned sceptically, and you understood her perspective just as well as you’d understood her fathers.

   “Yes. But not really because of any promises he’d made, I never believed he’d keep them anyway.    I just needed to meet him. For my own sanity, if that makes any sense.”

   “Not really…”

   “I know it sounds strange, but…” you tried, looking for a way to explain which she might understand. “The thing is, I don’t remember him. He wiped my memories of everything he did to me, so all I’ve known all this time is just what I’ve been told.    And I know he tortured me and that I should probably stay as far away from him as I can, but it’s so weird to realize this one person could’ve had all this influence over my life and yet from my perspective, I’d never even met him. I had no face to put to all that information, and it made the whole thing feel like maybe it didn’t actually happen to me.    Or at least, I could fool myself into thinking as much.”

   She listened closely and then thought about everything you’d said for a good long while, and as you waited for her to digest, you noticed how Marcus was breathing harder.    And it struck you that maybe none of this had occurred to him either. Maybe he was learning all of this along with his daughter as well. It would explain a lot.

   “Okay. I think I understand,” Missy finally declared. “After all, it’s hard to learn about something unless you study it. And sometimes that means you have to study things that are really scary and difficult. Right?”

   “Exactly right,” you nodded, but she still looked like she was pondering something.

   “But then, what were you so angry about, dad?” she asked, and you felt her father swallow hard, clearly not quite ready to talk about his role in this mess just yet.

   Not to her, anyway. You suspected his instinct was still to shield her, especially until he’d had more time to work things out with you.    So, you decided to try and help him answer.

   “Unfortunately, it turns out that Prince actually hurt me a lot more than anyone knew.”

   “Yeah, I heard him say that to Abuela earlier when she came to the house. That it was actually three weeks, not just a couple of days.”

   “That’s right. And while it’s always hard to learn about painful things, what’s even harder is realizing those things have happened to someone you love. Because you can’t take that burden away from them or carry it for them. All you can do is stand beside them, support them, and hope they’ll be okay.    And sometimes… it’s just too much to cope with. Particularly for someone who spends his days saving people from pain and suffering.”

   “Is that why you got so angry, dad? Because you couldn’t really do anything?” she tried asking her father again, and this time he gave her a soft nod, but he was staring at the ceiling with fresh tears building in his eyes.

   Missy still didn’t look any less perplexed by all this, though. And sure enough, after another minute of quiet pondering, she continued.

   “But I still don’t understand one thing. Why would you not let her come home, just because you were angry?    You told grandma you were afraid you’d accidentally hurt her, but I know you’d never do that, any more than you’d ever hurt me.    I mean, it’s not like you even thought about making me leave.”

   It was a valid question, and one you didn’t have an answer for, so this time, you waited to hear what he’d say.    Glancing up at him, you saw how his eyes closed and the tears began to spill.

   “Because… I wanted to hurt someone,” he started, and he sounded so hoarse and strained. “It’s different with you, sweetheart, because I’ve been protecting you for ten years. You’re a part of my blood and my past, I’ve laughed and cried and feared for you since you were a helpless little bundle. Protecting you is instinctive and automatic, to the point where I don’t even have to think about doing it.    But Hermosa’s only been a part of my life for five months, even if it feels longer than that, and I didn’t know if I could trust myself to react the same.”

   “Oh…” she breathed, still sounding very sad and clearly looking for reassurance. “But it’s gonna be okay, right? You’re still together?”

   Marcus didn’t have the confidence to answer that question for the both of you yet, and once again, you noticed his breathing turn heavier, almost like he was fighting a sudden lack of oxygen.

   “Yes, sweetie. We’re still together and I think we’ll be okay,” you softly replied, feeling your partner’s breathing lighten once more. Still, you had to keep things real and not give either of them unrealistic expectations. “But you need to know it’s gonna take time and it’s not gonna be great or even good every day, so just try and have a little patience with us for a while. These things have a tendency to… linger.”

   “I’ll be alright so long as the two of you are. I love this family,” Missy added, and it broke your heart to hear how carefully she delivered that last part, as if she feared it was too soon to say something like that.

   “So do I,” you replied, letting a small smile find your eyes so she’d know you meant it.

   Your careful positivity seemed to calm Marcus significantly, letting the slight tension slip out of his frame while his arm slowly relaxed around your back.    He had his girls safely tucked into his embrace and you were both okay, albeit not unharmed. It was probably more than he’d dared to hope, after seeing you practically lifeless out in the garden.    But the affection hadn’t been damaged, so if only the trust could be mended, things would work out eventually.

-=¤=-

   The entire family had dinner together that evening, and even though it was a more sombre affair than usual, you still enjoyed it.    You didn’t quite have the strength to get involved with the cooking, but you liked sitting at the table, watching the rest of them as they moved around each other. So clearly used to one another that the cooking just sort-of happened, even though no one really seemed to be in charge.

   You still didn’t have your usual appetite, but you did enjoy the rich flavours of what little you managed to get down. It just felt like your stomach might jump up through your throat if you ate any more. All the stress had made it much more irritable and sensitive than usual.    Marcus frowned when he saw you already picking at the food after just a few slow bites, but you didn’t notice him. Nor did you see it when he and Missy exchanged a look across the table, with your partner silently telling his daughter that you’d get there. Things would get better. He had to believe that.

   Once dinner was all cleared away, Anita lovingly kicked you all out of her house and told you to go home.    She was quite obviously still furious with her son, and you suspected he’d get to hear about this for some time to come, but there was no doubt she was happy to see you together again, and determined to make sure you stayed that way.

   You left your car on her driveway, letting your partner drive the three of you back to the city. But when he pulled up to the house, it somehow looked colder than it had every other time you’d seen it.    Not because of anything that had been done to the house, of course, but simply because for the first time since Marcus had first brought you here, you felt like you didn’t belong.

   Even when he held the front door for you and Missy, and you stepped inside after her, everything looked a little different.    There was no actual difference, nothing had changed except for your perspective, but it somehow felt a bit like stepping into a stranger’s place.    And the ever so perceptive Missy noticed that something was off with you, as well as what the likely cause might be.

   “Um, yeah, dad was angry enough to make the whole house shake this morning, so things are a little out of place,” she said, starting to put stuff back in their places the moment she’d stepped out of her shoes.

   She clearly saw the discomfort in your features, and put it together with the knowledge that you hadn’t exhibited the same expression at Anita’s, which logically had to mean it was something about this place.    But you just didn’t know how to tell her it wouldn’t matter if she cleaned every millimetre of it, you’d still feel off being there because of everything that had happened.

   “I don’t think it’s the house that’s making her uncomfortable, sweetie,” Marcus suddenly interposed, surprising you. “Leave that stuff for the morning, we’ll take care of it after we’ve had some sleep.”

   You could tell he wasn’t entirely comfortable speaking for you, but he also noticed how you couldn’t quite bring yourself to try and explain to her what you were feeling, so he offered his perspective but left it at that.    His tone suggested she would have to wait for a more complete explanation until you could find your comfort here again.

   “I’d like to take a shower,” you announced flatly, not really sure where it came from, since you hadn’t thought about needing one at all.

   Although, once the words were out, you found yourself agreeing with your improvised decision, and started walking towards Marcus’s bedroom, giving Missy what you hoped would be a reassuring kind of squeeze at the elbow as you passed her.    Once in the bathroom, you closed the door but didn’t lock it before turning the shower on. There was a sense of unease in your stomach, but you didn’t really feel sick. More like there was something gnawing on the inside.

   You would’ve blamed it on your period, except you’d stopped bleeding right after the prison. As though the revelations and subsequent consequences just hadn’t left enough room for the normal bodily functions.    Whatever the reason, it certainly felt like nothing inside you had worked properly since then, and in the larger picture of everything which had happened, it seemed insignificant.

   You undressed and stepped under the spray, and as the warm water washed over you, the final hold of the strange numbness you’d struggled to break free of, suddenly vanished and you started to cry.    It was small and quiet at first, but still unrelenting, and before long, it escalated. You hadn’t cried at all since the prison, but now that the gates had opened, they wouldn’t shut.

   After a while, you dropped to your knees and doubled over, as your body crashed in on itself with pain, unresolved fear and anxiety, and you screamed at nothing and everything.    Marcus was there in what seemed like a mere instant, and irrationally, you fought him when he tried to put his arms around you, pounding your fists at his chest and trying to push away from him when he just ignored your efforts and locked your body against his own.

   You knew his superior strength meant there was no way you could actually force him away, but your body wasn’t hearing any rationality right then.    When he pinned your arms down, you started kicking with your legs instead, even though you couldn’t possibly reach him in that manner. And although sharp stabs of pain bothered your feet as they hit the walls and floor of the shower stall, you only thrashed harder.

   He didn’t admonish you or plead with you to stop. He just did what he could to try and keep you from hurting yourself, including washing his current over you. But for the first time, your body didn’t react to it.    You had no idea how long it went on for, only that once you stilled, you were immediately drained. Your entire body went limp, and it somehow felt like your chest was too small for your lungs.

   You were still under the shower-spray and Marcus was fully clothed, so when he picked you up and carried you to the bed, he left a dripping wet trail the whole way.    He pulled the covers back while still holding you, then he put you down, stripped his wet clothes off and discarded them on the floor by the bed before he climbed into bed with you, pulling the covers over you both.

   For some reason you felt freezing even though you were practically steaming from the hot water, and you wondered how he’d known you’d needed the covers without even asking.    It didn’t matter, though. He was still damp, but he felt warm and soft, which was soothing to your frayed nerves and exhausted mind. You were so tired you had no idea how you could still be awake, except for the fact that the uneasy feeling was still there underneath the surface. Lessened… but not gone.

   Gently, perhaps even cautiously, he kissed your lips and then pulled back to check your response. You couldn’t keep your eyes open, but you didn’t like it when he pulled away, so you inched your head forwards on the pillow, seeking his soft lips again.    You were immeasurably pleased when he kissed you in earnest, and you could feel the relief in his frame, finally being allowed to be close to you again.

   “Sleep, my love. Sleep and know you’re safe and loved and that I will be here when you wake up,” he whispered, and that was it.

   With those words he gave you what you’d been waiting for to be able to drift away into a beautiful, blissfully dreamless slumber.    You might not yet be able to trust him as readily as you had before the prison, but you knew how much he feared never earning that trust back, so you knew you could believe this promise. He probably wouldn’t dare break one for a long time to come.

-=¤=-

   You woke up to a room bathing in sunlight, feeling better than you could remember ever having done.    There was a harmony inside you the likes of which you’d never experienced, and it made you feel like the events of the past few days hadn’t been real, because you couldn’t possibly have felt that horrible.

   Marcus was already awake. You could tell from the small caresses of his fingers on your back and the way his breaths weren’t quite heavy enough for sleep.    You knew he would’ve noticed it when you woke up, but he didn’t disturb you, giving you the opportunity to decide if you wanted to stay in the slumber, or come back to reality.    And while you were comfortably drowsy, there was no putting off the inevitable. There were still tough conversations to be had, especially after your episode in the shower.

   “Good morning,” you said softly, to let him know you were awake.

   “Morning, hermosa. How do you feel today?” he asked in response, and his voice was deliberately level, as if he was trying not to reveal what he was feeling.

   Which you suspected meant he was worried.

   “Quite good, actually,” you replied, hoping he could hear the honesty in your tone.

   “Really?”

   “I know, I’m kinda surprised myself. But I feel… lighter. Less numb, you know? Which isn’t all that nice for my feet, come to think of it.”

   “Let me take a look,” he immediately offered, shifting to his knees and making his way to the foot of the bed. “You were thrashing pretty badly.”

   “I’m really sorry I hit you,” you offered, still unable to grasp how you could’ve done such a thing. “I don’t even know why it happened. I wasn’t angry, and certainly not with you.”

   But Marcus only shook his head, pausing his inspection of your feet and lower legs so he could meet your eyes.

   “Don’t apologize, sweetheart. I’ve been waiting for something like this, and I’m so glad you’ve finally started letting some of the shit you’ve been through out of your body and your soul. I’m only amazed it hasn’t happened sooner, because honestly, I don’t know how one person could ever carry all the crap that you have for so long,” he pondered, and you didn’t have any response to that, so he returned to his inspection before adding: “Besides, it’s not like you could ever actually harm me.”

   That perspective didn’t sit right with you, though.

   “Whether or not I can hurt you is beside the point.”

   “How so?”

   “I’m sure you know nothing about this subject, which is obviously a good thing, but when you raise your fists against your significant other, it’s called abuse. Harm or no harm, that’s what it is,” you acknowledged, feeling your positive energy drain as your guilt grew.

   Your partner, however, was of a different opinion.

   “Not when it’s literally out of your control. If you’d deliberately tried to beat the crap out of me, I might’ve taken offence, but you were completely lost in overwhelming emotions. I couldn’t hold that against you even if I’d wanted to.    If anything, I’d say I had it coming.”

   “Don’t say that…” you countered, but not harshly. “Whatever’s happened between us, I don’t ever wanna hear you say you deserve to be beaten. No one deserves such a thing.”

   He gave you a sweet little smile instead of answering, and you supposed it was meant to be reassuring, but to your eyes it mostly looked like he just didn’t want to let you know he disagreed, because he knew you wouldn’t like seeing him punish himself.    You didn’t wanna argue, though, so you let it go while he finished his careful examination of your feet, which revealed bad bruising and what was probably a sprain, based on how and where it hurt.

   “Sorry,” he grimaced after seeing you wince when he manipulated the joint, but you brushed it off, so he gently put the foot down on the mattress. “You’ll need to tread carefully for a few days, but you should be fine.”

   “Great. And here I was finally feeling so energetic,” you joked, chuckling at the absurdity of being concerned about a little sprain after everything you’d suffered.

   But you noticed how a glint appeared in Marcus’s eye when he saw your genuine smile, and it was the kind of heated glint you hadn’t seen in him since the day Anita had brought the news about Dr. Prince wanting to meet you.    Detecting your scrutiny, he quickly looked away again, and you got the impression he didn’t feel worthy of being with you yet, after having hurt you so badly.    But even though there were issues to be resolved, you did trust him with your body and your pleasure. More than you’d ever trusted anyone. And it was important to you that he knew that.

   “Hey. Come here,” you beckoned, and he obliged.

   He came back to lay down next to you again but settled on his back instead of cuddling up to you, although he was slightly angled towards you.    It seemed he was determined not to press his luck. Not to ask for even the smallest scrap of affection, for fear you might reject him or somehow not be ready for any real physical intimacy yet.

   “Close your eyes,” you asked, and he did.

   Then you kissed him. Really kissed him. And it felt unbelievably good.    It felt like you’d been celibate for years, rather than just a few days. Every inch of you tingled and heated instantly, and you climbed on top of him and started grinding your hips into his without a moment’s pause, already spilling your wetness all over him.    He was eager, but surprised, and seemed unsure of how much he was allowed to do, so you pulled back and met his gaze, leaving no room for uncertainty.

   “Honey… Make love to me,” you pleaded, and his demeanour shifted.

   No longer fearful, his hands traced your thighs, over your hips and up along your spine to your neck, hair and face, pulling you down against his chest. His touch was so soft it seemed to be touching your soul more than your skin.    He rocked his hips into yours as he kissed you deeply, and it made you tremble, feeling him already harden for you.

   You wanted to feel the comfort and security of his weight pushing you down into the mattress, and enveloping you in his warmth, so you pinned your thighs around his hips and rolled to the side.    As soon as he was over you, you wrapped your arms and legs around him, wanting to hold him as close to you as your bodies would allow, and he followed suit, snaking his arms under your shoulders so he could press you even tighter to him.

   He knew you wouldn’t last long when you were this heated, so he began pushing himself inside as soon as he’d settled you on your back, immediately trembling with the familiar, but still so overwhelming pressure inside you.    You gasped at the intense pleasure of feeling him stretch and fill you again. It was as though your body had been missing something crucial to its over-all function, and now that it had been restored, you were starting to work properly again.

   You felt him struggle to move like he always did when you clamped down on him, but this time, he surprised you by adding a feature of his own.    Suddenly, you felt the tingling in your nerves as his current washed over you. And in your present state of arousal, with your senses already on edge, it was as though he’d turned every inch of your body into an extension of your clit. You could feel that immeasurable pleasure everywhere, even in your hairline.

   Shaking underneath him, your pulse had to have hit 200 by then, as sweat broke out all over your body, and fresh bursts of slick seeped out of you with every one of his small movements.    You were practically hyperventilating, actually struggling to pull the air into your lungs because your body just couldn’t handle the multitude of sensations and functions and emotions which were erupting all at once.

   You didn’t fall over the edge with your orgasm this time. It was more like you were shot into the sky. And you relentlessly dragged him up with you, making him fill you, sending fresh bolts of lightning through you as you felt his seed pour into you.    The current didn’t die out the moment he’d ridden out his high, as you’d expected. Instead, it lingered, rolling through you in delicate waves as though it was trying to soothe the slight burn at the edges of your nerves. It calmed your breathing and slowed your heart and before long, you felt nothing but bliss.

   “I had no idea you could do that,” you whispered once you’d gotten your bearings back.

   “Neither did I,” he admitted. “I’ve never tried it before.”

   “Never?”

   “No one’s ever reacted to my current the way you do. Most people just feel like they’re being electrocuted.”

   “Really? I’ve never felt any kind of discomfort from it,” you pondered, and he was quiet for a moment.

   “Maybe that’s your power,” he suggested then, and your heart sank.

   You’d forgotten about that. Or maybe just supressed it.    He noticed your energy shift, getting nervous and anxious again, which clearly made him regret the comment.

   “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to ruin the moment.”

   “No, it’s not your fault. I just haven’t managed to process that part yet.    And, honestly, that’s because I don’t get it. I’ve never felt anything which could even hint at me having any special abilities,” you griped, but your partner merely hummed into a little chuckle at that.

   “Well… I know of one thing you can do that I suspect is somewhat unique. And it’s definitely powerful,” he reminded you, and then to emphasize his point, he jerked his hips forwards, making his soft cock slide deliciously against your swollen walls, tearing a sharp moan from your lips.

   “If anything, that’s another one of your superpowers,” you countered. “Because I’ve never felt anything like it with anyone else. Not even close enough to compare.”

   “Is it terribly arrogant of me to be seriously smug about that?” he grinned, and you finally felt like you were looking at your Marcus again.

   The playful but shy, endlessly humble superhuman, with just enough confidence to measure up to his self-doubts.

   “No. I am too,” you smiled back, but just as you did, your stomach growled like a fucking brown-bear, and your partner’s eyebrows shot up as he listened to it drag out for several seconds.

   “Holy shit,” he snickered. “Roger that, loud and clear, miss bear. Food is on the way.”

   He smiled and laughed as he rose to his knees and then tried to pull you up along with him, but you had to resist his urging to even sit up, because your body just wasn’t cooperating.    You were still raw from that amazing orgasm, so your muscles weren’t working properly.

   “I think you broke me,” you groaned, after falling back against the mattress.

   You said it light-heartedly, meant to be a compliment to his proficiency as a lover, but the moment you heard your own words, you knew you’d made a mistake.    Because he actually had broken you, and even though he was trying to make amends, you knew he was too kind a person to ever truly accept he could’ve done something so selfish. And you could see that very realization in his eyes when you said those words.

   “Fuck… Marcus, I’m sorry. That’s absolutely not what I meant,” you lamented, but even though he could see how clearly you read everything he was feeling, your apology offered him no relief.

   “I know, sweetheart. But it’s still true,” he replied quietly, and there was something so gut-wrenchingly desperate in his voice.

   It told you he wanted nothing dearer than to believe his actions could be forgiven, but also knew that even if you could find it in your heart to give him such a gift, he would never let himself off the hook.    What you heard wasn’t desperation for absolution, but rather the soul-crushing recognition of his own inability to forgive himself.

   He turned away from you then, in what you assumed was either shame of his own actions or simply because looking at you made it impossible to not also see his worst failure. But from your perspective, both possibilities were erroneous.    You willed your legs to carry you, and winced when you felt the pain in your feet and ankles as you climbed out of bed and limped around him, put your hands on either side of his neck and tried to get him to look at you.    He had his arms crossed over his chest and his head hung heavy against your palms while thick blobs of tears ran down your thumbs on their journey from his eyes.

   “Hey, don’t do that,” you urged, but he still wouldn’t meet your gaze. “Don’t turn your back on me now when we’ve just started coming back together.    I need you to face this just as much as I’m having to face it. No matter how badly it hurts. We’re gonna have to tackle this shit together if we’re ever gonna be able to leave it behind.    So please, don’t turn away from me. Turn to me.”

   That caught his attention, and he finally raised his head just enough that he could stare at you. And through the redness of his eyes and the troubled crease between his brows, you saw a spark.    Just a tiny glimpse, but it was hope. And as long as it was there, it would grow, which meant there was a chance he’d eventually be able to let this go.    As though the feeling had awoken some forgotten vein of atonement, he suddenly grabbed you and pulled you into a hug so tight you wondered if he was trying to absorb you.

   “I don’t deserve you,” he whispered against your shoulder, and you tried to pull back and protest, but he just held you in place and continued. “But you chose me. And by some miracle, you keep choosing me, even though I’ve practically put a knife in your back.    And I need you to know I’m not blind to that. I need you to know how unbelievable it is to me that you can even find the courage to try and forgive me.    I’m so grateful for every second you give me. I don’t know how you do it, but I’m so grateful. Do you even know how incredible you are, hermosa?”

   His voice got stronger and steadier the longer he spoke, as if he found strength in the simple fact, however unbelievable it might be, that you were still there.    On the other hand, you crumbled more and more with each sentence. Because his love was so raw and so real, it shook you to your core.    And for the first time, you felt like you got a glimpse of that fear which had made him run away from you. Something primal and defensive. And largely uncontrollable.

   “Oh, damned it, babe… Now I’m crying again, I’m so sick of crying!” you griped, mostly just to try and shake that highly unsettling feeling, but also because it was true. “Can we just go and have breakfast and not think about anything tearjerking for an hour?”

   He loosened his iron grip on you, and when he pulled back, he was smiling again. Seeing it made the disturbing feeling disappear, so when he kissed you, all you felt was warmth, and it was immensely reassuring.

   “Yes, mi amor. I like the sound of this. And I’m not just saying it because I’m terrified of the fucking bear which apparently lives in your stomach,” he said with a mildly bemused but equally confused brow, followed by a thought which seemed to occur to him right then. “Why is it that I’ve spent most of our relationship thus far, trying to get you to eat properly, when that thing clearly agrees with me?”

   Suddenly feeling outnumbered, you just swatted at his chest.

   “Shut up and make me some pancakes already.”

   He hummed a little laugh and then you both freshened up before going to the kitchen. Missy was nowhere to be seen, but it was after 9 am, so odds were, she’d already eaten and gotten her day started. She was the early bird of the family.    She must’ve been kind enough to step out and get the newspaper, because it was sitting on the kitchen counter when you walked in, and a glance at it told you it was Saturday.

   Ever since starting your job at HQ, you’d been working on weekends as well, trying to keep the shitstorm your predecessor had left behind, nicknamed The Mountain of Turner, from actually blocking out the sun.    But Marcus had put a stop to that once the two of you had begun dating for real, to ensure you got some rest and that he’d get some time with you as well, and you had no intention of breaking that cycle now.

   Anita had called you in sick for the entire week, and you intended to let it stand. Partly because you needed this time to work on your relationship with your man, but you also needed to find your way back to yourself.    So much had happened in just a few short days, you weren’t even surprised you couldn’t keep track of which weekday it was. You were honestly amazed you could even remember your own name.

   While your partner set about making those pancakes, you went to start the coffeemaker for him while you made your tea. But the coffee had already been brewed, which puzzled you since Missy never started the coffeemaker due to her intense dislike of the smell.    But the brew was fresh, even if the scent had ebbed out enough for you to not react to it when you’d first entered the kitchen.

   “Did you get up and start this earlier, before I woke up?” you asked him, pointing at the machine, but he shook his head and said no, which only further confused you. “But there’s already a full pot, so then who-…”

   “You didn’t really expect me to just sit at home and wait to see if you two idiots managed to get it together, did you?” Anita suddenly spoke from behind you, making you start and bump your hip against the counter.

   She came strolling in from the living room with her distinct aura of superiority, and you found yourself wondering if she even walked at all. You were beginning to think levitation was another power of hers.

   “Has it ever occurred to you to just say good morning, like any other decent person?” you griped, rubbing at your now sore hip.

   “Where’s the fun in that?” she scoffed, while snagging the paper and then taking a seat at the table.

   “Well, I’m glad my perpetually running minor heart-attack at your every appearance amuses you so much,” you shot back, mildly annoyed but also able to appreciate her salty demeanour in a different way, now that you’d seen how caring she really was underneath.

   And as if she could read your mind, she smiled at you. The kind of genuinely loving smile she only ever reserved for Missy, and occasionally Marcus, which made you feel slightly uncomfortable just because it was the first time she openly showed affection towards you.

   “I’m glad to see you back to your senses, loco,” she offered before letting the smile fade and turn her attention to the paper.

   “Thanks,” was all you managed in response, and then turned to start the kettle for your tea and begin preparing your breakfast.

   A minute later, Missy appeared from the inner hallway, carrying a bag and heading straight for her grandmother.

   “Okay, all set,” she announced, before noticing the two of you behind the island. “Oh, hey guys. Abuela’s taking me to Rooster Park to meet up with my friends. Is that okay?”

   “Of course it is, munchkin,” her father replied. “Have fun and say hi to everyone for me.”

   “Um… no. But thanks, dad.”

   “What? You don’t think your friends would like to get a greeting from me? That’s hurtful…” Marcus complained, feigning disappointment, but his daughter was unimpressed by the theatrics.

   “You’ll live. Let’s go, grandma,” she coolly responded.

   But before she left, she came over to you and hugged you around the waist. A real, long and tight hug, conveying so much more than words ever could. And you held her back, hoping she could feel the equal amount of love you had for her in return.    You glanced at Marcus, and he was staring at his daughter with what appeared to be pure gratitude. Then she darted off and they headed for the park, leaving you and him alone in the house all day.

   He made good on the pancakes, and you shoved them down one after another, with berries and honey, tea and milk, while he kept making more.    Once he was out of the second load of batter, your partner finished his own plate and then just sat and watched in awe at how much could actually fit into your stomach, happily running to the fridge when you ran out of berries, or refilling your glass whenever you’d emptied it.

   When you were finally full and satisfied, he ordered you to move over to the sofa and lay down while he cleaned everything away, and you weren’t going to argue with him.    And after he was done, he came over and lifted you up before laying down on his back and then placing you on top of him, as easily as if you weighed little more than a pillow, and not for the first time, you wondered just how strong he really was.

   “So, what are we doing today to make ourselves smile?” he asked after a few minutes of comfortable silence, and you were just about to answer him when you heard your phone start to ring from somewhere in the house.

   Only then did you remember you even had one, although you had no idea when or where you’d last seen or used it.

   “The shelf in the kitchen,” Marcus softly directed, and something in his tone made you realize that he’d been carrying it for you, probably ever since he’d found you at his mother’s house.

   It was such a small thing, but you felt so indebted to him for doing that. Because it showed that even then, when things had been at their worst, he’d still been thinking about the future. Short and long term.    You tried to convey your gratitude with a brief kiss, although it seemed insufficient, before you got up and limped on your sore feet to get the device.

   “Hello?” you answered, and discovered it to be a work-call, the very last thing you wanted on this particular Saturday.

   While you mentally scolded yourself for not checking the caller ID, the woman on the other end brought just about the worst problem imaginable for someone in your position, to your attention.

   “What?!” you all but screamed into the phone. “No, no, no… What are you talking about, I approved that last week!”

   It seemed you would not be catching any breaks for the foreseeable future, no matter how badly your life was already going.

   “Well, fuck, Izzy. That’s kind of a big problem,” you berated the woman, who was about ready to start crying on the other end, which wouldn’t solve anything.

   You really had to stop taking sick days…

   “No. Leave it be, I’m coming in to sort this shit out,” you declared before hanging up the phone and walking back into the living room, where you found Marcus sitting up in the sofa with a frown on his face.

   “Trouble?”

   “Oh, you know, just a department head who apparently can’t file paperwork properly,” you sighed, and started moving towards the bedroom to change into more work appropriate attire. “I’m sorry, but it looks like our day just got cancelled.”

   “Not necessarily,” he countered, getting up and following you through the body of the house. “I could come with you and help.”

   “You don’t need to do that. I know you wanna make amends, but taking on my job on top of everything else isn’t gonna make life easier for either of us,” you reasoned, but then you caught a glimpse of that mischievous smile of his, and suddenly you knew exactly what he’d meant by offering to help.

   “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten my methods and tactics already…” he mused, sitting down on the edge of the bed with a highly suggestive smile on his face, before letting his eyes rake over your form while you started to get changed.

   You did remember his idea of distracting you, and while it had been effective the last time, it was seriously not what you needed this time.    As if dealing with the multitude of angry people you were gonna have to bother on a Saturday wasn’t gonna be challenging enough without a horny Marcus on your tail.

   “Oh, no. That settles it. You are not coming,” you firmly declared, pointing a sharp index finger at him.

   But his smile only widened, and you groaned in defeat while turning back to the wardrobe.    This might turn out to be a very long day.