Valentine's Day

Lisa Wilbourn/Tattletale

February 17th, 2013

“...do you understand?” I ask the boy in my arms, trying my best to keep my voice calm and steady.

We’re laying on his bed together, his back pressed flush against my front and with my arms wrapped around his waist. Squeezing him against me only serves to remind me of how small he’s gotten, how long he was deprived of something so basic. He's not allowed to have any solid foods yet but he seemed happy enough with the apple sauce we gave him.

He’s so cold, I know Amy’s given him a clean bill of health but I can’t help but think she’s wrong. He doesn’t feel warm enough and even with two comforters laying on us, his shivering hasn’t gotten all that much better.

He wriggles a bit in my arms, his waist making half aborted attempts to turn before I catch on to what he wants. I help him turn in my arms, my hands finding each other behind his shoulder blades as he looks up at me, his pale blue eyes staring up into mine with a quiet inquisitiveness.

He gives me a small nod and I bite my lip.

I know talking won’t come back to him all at once, I know that he’s still got a long road to recover but I want to hear him more than anything. I just spilt it all, every last detail from when we moved in to Fullstop to now, all of it and after such a long ramble… I need him to break the silence. 

Luckily, Alec catches on to what I need and even as selfish as it is, my heart sings in joy to hear him speak for the first time today.

“Yes,” he says, giving another tiny nod. “I understand, my father… he hurt you. The day we moved in, we ended up giving him a sightline to use his power. He… he made you hate me. He made the others hate me too but he didn’t do it in a way I’d see, he made it like a slope… a tiny, tiny slope that made you all hate me, that made you kick me out, that made Brian hit me and you… made you say those things down at the pier.”

The echo of what I said last summer rings like a gunshot down an alley, the reverberations still loud enough that I can almost make it out even months after having said it. Remembering what I said, how I implied Alec’s power was his way of perverting another’s body I… I remember saying it and I remember feeling proud when the words slipped off my tongue.

I remember how he flinched just as bad as when Brian struck him, I remember thinking that what I was saying to him was good, I remember likening it to the barbs I threw at the Empire and…

I pull Alec just a bit closer and nod into his hair.

“Right,” I say, the ebony curls tickling my chin, “But last month—”

“Last month you all went to a meeting with Director Winthro— sorry, Director Lionheart— and a new hero ended up clipping you guys with her power. Something fucky started happening with your brains and… what my dad did to you didn’t stick. She cured you”

“That’s right,” I confirm and then wince. “I don’t think cure is the right word but yes. Fullstop managed to purge his influence and… things are going to be okay now. He can’t do that to us again and… we’re going to be okay.”

Alec hums and the vibrations of his voice send pleasant tingle up my throat as the silence starts to rein itself in again, like fog creeping down a mountain. The silence assets itself and its heavy presence starts to scratch at the edge of my mind. I don’t care for quiet moments, not usually. Most of the time people decide to be quiet, it’s because they don’t have any words to say and it’s rare that I have the same lack of ammo.

But still, I don’t even know if I should break the quiet.

Alec is still so weak. After everything that’s happened to him, all the pain he’s endured, I don’t want to put anymore stress on him, especially given how… fragile his mental state probably is. All I know for certain is that he needs to be held and I’m always going to be willing to give that to him.

The quiet lasts for a long while, the early morning light changing hues from blue, to orange, to gold, as Alec and I lay there together. He falls asleep at some point but I don’t. Everytime his breathe puffs against my neck, everytime I feel his heartbeat pulse against my fingers, my brain lights up with a staggering relief, the kind that would bring me to my knees if I were standing.

He’s here.

He’s really here and he’s safe and it’s been three days since we came back to the Bay but I can’t imagine this relief fading even three years from now. His sleep is mostly restful and anytime he gives something that might be a whimper or might be a fit, I pet his hair and coo into his ear that everything’s going to be okay and he calms down.

Having him back means everything.

It means that for once in my life, I haven’t fucked up and let someone die just because I decided to not look. He’s here and he’s a testament that we survived, that we went through the most subtle form of hell and we still came out the otherside whole.

It’s about noon or so when he wakes for the final time, his eyes blinking blearily at the harsh light when I lift a hand to solve the problem, the sensors in the windows catching the motion I make and dimming accordingly.

“Good morning,” I greet again, twice in the same day to the same person. He doesn’t reply immediately, instead just giving me a soft whine as he pulls back the slightest bit, his nose scrunching as his eyes squint, the long black lashes catching my attention as he takes me in.

“M’rning” he replies, completely forgoing vowels as he presses his face back into my neck, rubbing his cheek against my skin as he stretches.

“How’d you sleep?” I ask, my hands rubbing up and down the fabric of his sleep shirt, bunching up the silken fabric as he yawns.

“Good,” he replies, “I… when did I go to sleep?”

I hum, thinking of the answer.

“I honestly don’t know,” I reply, a bit of a giggle in my voice. “A while ago I think.”

“And you were just laying here with me?” He asks, a grin in his tone and a laugh in the back of his throat.

“Where else would I be?” I return his question with one of my own and wince as he pulls back, a flash of something in his eyes as he rolls a bit, almost turning around before he decides to settle on his back, pinning my left arm between him and the bed.

He stares up at the ceiling with eyes that threaten to glaze over and I’m kicking myself for the blunder. 

My power told me what I should’ve done but I ignored it. All yesterday it was telling me how best to navigate Alec’s situation and here I am disregarding it. I know what he wants, I know he wants us to fall back into some semblance of what we had before Heartbreaker came for us but… I don’t think I can do that.

What we had before… it was nice. One of— no.It was the nicest experience I’ve ever had, watching movies together, talking with each other, the casual contact getting more and more pronounced, it was amazing but to say that is to acknowledge something and with the door open already, turning our backs and saying it isn’t there won’t help. We need to—

“Can I ask you a question?” Alec cuts my thoughts off, his blue eyes still fixed on the ceiling as I acknowledge him, pulling my arm out from under him and resting my head on hand as I lean up.

“Of course,” I nod and tuck a stray bang behind my ear, the unruly lock still slipping out. “Anything.”

“I know that Fullstop… made you… I know she helped.” He settles on the clunky wording and darts his eyes over to me in a brief glance as he licks his lips. “But why did you come back for me?”

“I’m sorry?” I answer, sitting up a bit straighter. “Do you not understand? Fullstop, she didn’t just help, she—”

“I know,” he interrupts and this time his eyes look away from me, towards the other edge of the bed. “She got rid of it, but why… why did you guys come and get me?”

“Alec…” my voice cracks a bit and when I move to scooch closer to him, my heart chips at the expression he flashes me. It’s faint, barely there for a fraction of an instance but I saw it, pure, unadulterated fear.

Fear of you, fear of what you might say, fear of what your power will tell you, fear that you’ll expose his feelings to others, to himself, fear that you will find more secrets, secrets pertaining to his feelings on you, feelings pertaining to what Heartbreaker did to him, about how he dirtied—

I cut off the flood of information like chopping off the head of a venomous snake, my lips screwing up into a near cry as my chest twists again, sympathy scorching my insides as I take a deep breath.

“Alec,” I say again, my voice steadier but gentle, almost whispery soft as I lean closer to him, my movement a lot more gradual and slow as I move to put my arms around him again. “We would never let you stay there. The moment we were ourselves again, we decided to rescue you, to make sure what happened would never happen again because… you’re our friend. You know that right?”

Alec doesn’t move to hug me back, instead his arms just lay at his sides as he looks up at me, his eyes glassy and unaware.

“I know,” he replies.

Is lying to you, doesn’t feel like your friend, doesn’t believe he can have you as a friend, is sure he can’t have you as a friend, wants to be your friend, wants to be more, doesn’t want to be more, doesn’t feel worthy to—

“Alec,” I speak up, getting his attention when I slowly place my hands on either side of his face, my palms cupping his delicate cheekbones as awareness starts to clear the fog in his eyes. “You are my friend. I consider you a friend, Taylor considers you a friend, Aisha, Brian, Rachel, all the others, they all know you for who you are, everything you’ve done and you know what? They’re your friends and not a one of them was going to leave you up there with that monster, do you understand?”

“I…” he gulps and the same disconnected fog tries to take hold when he bites his lip, hard enough that the soft plush of them swells into a darker pink. “I understand but… that’s not how that works.”

“What do you—”

“I mean, it works, don’t get me wrong, it’s a good enough reason if we were rescuing Parian or Foil. They’re our friends and after all the shit we went through with them, Coil, the Nine, Gesellschaft and all that crap, I would’ve done the same for them but… they didn’t rescue me. You did. You and Brian, Rachel, and Taylor and… why?”

“The others would’ve—”

“I know they would’ve helped out eventually, once things here in Brockton evened out but you guys didn’t. You risked it all, your standing in the city, your standing with the rest of the Undersiders and…why? Why risk all that for me?”

“How do you…” I gulp and squint at him, “How do you know that? We haven’t told you about the Elite or— how do you know things in Brockton needed evening out?”

Alec hums and tilts his head at me, his blue eyes filling with a dull confusion as he squints. I don’t understand, he’s only been lucid for a day now and in the time that we haven’t been by his side, there’s no way anyone—

Alec giggles, the sharp, tinkling sound dispelling my fear as he speaks up.

“It’s funny… I don’t remember.” 

I groan at his joke and his giggles rise up again, almost becoming a genuine laugh. Leave it to Aisha to spill everything to her best friend the moment she’s able to sneak it in.

“Okay…” I reply, my own chuckles starting up before I choke them down, swallowing as I put my mind in order for what I need to say. “There’s a lot of reasons we went to get you when the others couldn’t and…I guess you could say the most prominent one is… that I— that we—” damnit Lisa, just say it. Ordering myself doesn’t give me as much of a push as I need but staring into his eyes and watching that ocean of quiet blue dance in the dim light gives me the courage to say how I feel. “We love you.”

I shut my eyes tight as the declaration leaves my lips, my face taking on a hot crimson hue as I bite my lip. I know this isn’t the best time to say it, I know that I’ve barely gotten it all figured out and that Alec needs more time to adjust but… I have to be honest with him. He’s here to stay and I need to be open with him, we all do and… I don’t regret it and as the boy in front of me goes limp and my eyes creak open, I see that I don’t need to.

Alec’s mouth is open ever so slightly as he looks up at me, his soft lips smacking closed for just a second as his throat bobs, his features caught in a mixture of awe and disbelief as his eyes stare up at me, blown wide like he’s staring up at a star filled sky.

Realizing that he’s staring up at me like this… it’s nice and I can’t help but let out something between a gasp and a laugh as I stroke his hair away from his eyes, doing my best to tuck the unruly curls away.

“I love you,” I repeat, my left hand going back to its place on his back as he inhales sharply, his lips curling up the slightest bit and his eyes dilating, like my love is something he can get high off of. “I love you so damn much, I didn’t realize it for the longest time but back when we first met, there was a moment where… I’ll be honest, I thought you were an asshole.”

Alec snorts at my non sequitur and I continue onward, my hand lightly stroking over his spine.

“But there was a day in that first week where I was crying and I had to get water and I didn’t know you were awake and… you asked me if I wanted to play video games. At first I was upset, I didn’t know you were literally just offering me something mindless to do but… you were just as trapped as I was, right?”

Alec’s smile dims at my question, his eyes drooping a little as he nods, a shaky inhale sucked down his throat.

“I think that’s when it started… when I started thinking of you as… maybe something more. I didn’t know it then of course, I mean, my power would occasionally— that doesn’t matter.” I clear my throat as best I can, my eyes darting away from Alec’s soft, delicate face and flicking to the ceiling. “The point is… I’ve loved you for a long time and I know that… the others do too.”

The silence sticks like mud, thick, uneven, and uncomfortable, my admission hanging between us like a bad smell and fuck, why the fuck did I say anything, why the fuck didn’t I—

“They…” 

My eyes snap open and dart back down to the boy I’m holding, his lips raised into something anyone would call a grin as he swallows, his eyes staring off into nothing as he lets out a huff. “They— you— they— you all I mean, it… love?” he swallows and the manic joy leaks out like air from a balloon as he fixes his gaze on me. “You’re sure?”

“Yes,” I confirm, almost giggling but halting myself. This is a tender moment and the last thing I want is to damage it by letting my usual smug out. “We’re sure, I’m sure, Rachel is sure, so is Taylor and even Brian, we love you Alec. We love you more than—” I stop myself again, realizing how bad the expression ‘more than you can ever know’ is when dealing with Alec. “Yes, we love you. And we’ll say it as many times as you need to hear it.”

“I…” Alec pulls back for half a second before pushing himself forward, his nose poking against my throat again as he takes a deep breath, mumbling something I can’t quite hear?

“I’m sorry?” I ask, jostling him the slightest bit to get his attention. “I didn’t quite catch that.”

“I said…” again he starts to mumble, the syllables smothered by the close contact and the blanket almost covering his lips.

“One more time?” I ask and just as my power gets sick of the not knowing, Alec finds his tongue.

“Again,” he asks, my power whispering an echo of the soft order and this time I can’t help but giggle.

“I love you.” I do as commanded and almost giggle again as he forces his face into my neck, a soft noise, almost like purring rising up his throat as he mumbles again. I still don’t catch the exact words but I know what he wants and I’m more than happy to give it to him. “I love you.”

He shivers in my arms but it isn’t the cold attacking him, he’s just… so happy it can’t fit inside anymore.

“I….” he gasps, a sudden energy filling him as he lifts his head up, not quite pulling back but making his words clearer. “I love you too, all of you I mean and I… that was the worst thing y’know? I didn’t know what I was really feeling but a year ago, I just remember how much it hurt hearing what you and the others were saying and…can I be honest for a sec?”

“Of course,” I reply, squeezing him just a bit tighter as the atmosphere turns heavy, the tension promising whatever admission he gives is going to be something I need to be careful about.

“I’m not sure honestly. I want to say I loved you— that I love you and everyone else but… there’s a part of me that wasn’t fucked up enough, a part of me that I think is a bit more objective about this. I don’t think I can love you, I think whatever part of my brain is in charge of that whole deal got burnt up a long time ago.”

I don’t know how to reply to that but my mouth is still opening regardless when he continues, talking over me.

“I know I’m not… how people are supposed to be and… I think I might be a bit worse than I was before all this shit but I… I know I still want things. I might not love things how you do but I can want them and for a while I thought that was good enough, that maybe, if I just want to love you enough… that could count.”

Loves you, loves you as much as he’s able, loves you a lot, cannot be quantified, an unquantifiable concept, loves you, loves the others too, believes it to be some kind of imitation, doesn’t believe it to—

“I think it counts,” I reply, nodding into his hair again and letting my fingers play with the longer curls that drape over his neck. “Love is a kind of want anyway and… I want you too. I want you to stay here, I want you to be able to laugh with us and talk with us and… I want you to be happy Alec.”

“I want you to be happy too Lis… I…” he yawns, the sound soft and quiet, my hands already lulling him back to sleep as a similar exhaustion starts to tug at my eyes. That’s all we’ve done today… sleep.

I roll my eyes to myself, wondering idly what the other Undersiders think I’m doing. Parian, Foil, and Imp almost definitely know I’m up here, keeping Alec company but I imagine the others think I’m doing what the ‘top dogs’ are supposed to do.

It makes sense I suppose, Skitter is down town, making the Horsemen that tried to flee into the city regret their actions, Rachel was in Boston last night, using her new Changer form to rip up the Chain Gang’s frontline, and Grue was… well, with Grue it’s a little different. With Skitter or Bitch, they actually have to be there, using their powers, being seen but the horror stories we’ve pushed about Brian… It's funny.

He likes it, equates it to some comic book character he used to read about as a kid, someone that made people afraid of the dark, that made crooks fear the night. In a very similar way, capes from here to Orlando try to run away down the main streets, afraid of the dark alleys and the shadows inside them.

And that’s what let Brian spend the night here, this morning, right before I started explaining everything to Alec, the Shaker was right on the other side, sandwiching our recently rescued teammate.

He’d probably still be here if Glory Girl wasn’t blowing up his phone. It’s annoying honestly, we get the city in working order, keep it safe and even make it fucking prosperous and after all that work, Lionheart decides to grow a spine and thinks of himself as the new Piggot.

Actually, we’d all be here if we could, the second everything gets stabilized, I don’t doubt we’ll hang up the capes for a little bit and just… get comfortable with each other. Thinking about that future makes me feel even more tired and even knowing she’s probably hours away from coming home, I can almost feel Rachel at my back, holding me and with her strong hands on my hips.

That phantom feeling is almost enough to lull me asleep when Alec pulls away suddenly, his hands rising up to my shoulders and weakly helping him push back. My eyes blink open blearily, half awake when I spot his expression, his lower lip held between his teeth as he tilts his head.

Copies expressions unconsciously, is trying to solve a problem, problem pertains to you, is copying your expression, you bite your lip when solving a—

“Alec?” I ask, trying to get his attention and having to shake him a little when he doesn’t look up at me. “Are you okay?”

“M’fine,” he replies, his hand leaving my shoulder to scrub at his eye. “I… would it be okay if I tried something? Something with… my power? I know I did something the other day with it and… it wants out I think.”

Needs to use power, is considering using his power on you, wants explicit consent before using his power, works as an all or nothing effect on humans

Hearing what my power tells me puts an interesting kind of twist in my chest, on the one hand, Alec needs to use his power and unless I want it to build into another bug parade, I should give him the opportunity to burn it off. But on the other hand… I trust him, I trust him with my life and though I know he’d never hurt me, it’s like looking down the barrel of a gun.

It doesn’t matter if it isn’t loaded, it doesn’t matter if he intends to load it, a gun is a gun no matter who uses it and…

“Me?” I ask, just for clarifications sake and when the boy in front of me nods, his smile is a hundred times more brittle. 

Feels like he’s made a misstep, is scared you’ll yell at him, you’ll push him away, you’ll—

“Of course it’s okay,” I cut off his thinking with the gentlest tone I can make and the relief that fills his eyes makes me wonder, does that darkness inside of him hurt? Does he feel it growing constantly, does it turn to bile inside of him? I don’t know and right now I don’t think I can ask.

“Thank you,” he mutters, laying back against the bed as the dark starts to rise out of his skin, coalescing into a loose ball of black over his heart, the whites of his eyes consuming his pale blue pupils as more of him is pushed outside of his body.

I won’t lie, seeing his consciousness leak out of him, literally feeling it as his body goes limp in my grip, it’s a terrifying thing to witness and the only reason I manage to keep from gulping is that little reminder in the back of my head. Sometimes, powers are weird. Sometimes, you’re able to fly and shoot exploding glitter, sometimes you control bugs, they’re weird and often creepy and as that dark starts to push into me, into my skin, I have to tell myself things are going to be alright.

Feeling it enter me is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced, probably unlike anything anyone has experienced, it’s like that feeling of entering a warm bath, with the heat encroaching as you sink into it but deeper. Instead of my muscles, the dark feels like it’s searching for something more, something primordial.

It’s actually… not as bad as I would’ve thought. When I first saw Alec take over Cherie, I thought it was going to be forceful, that my body was going to be taken from me in an instant but… something about this feels gentle. The way the dark moves into me, slow but everpresently pushing, it feels almost like an embrace.

No, it is an embrace. A strange but lovely, crushing but comforting, presence.

A sigh escapes my lips and unconsciously, I pull Alec closer to me, the gradually shrinking ball of dark between us pushes further into me, accelerating its pace as I squash the distance between us.

I let out another sound as the darkness pushes even faster and to be honest I can’t really put a label to the noise I make, caught halfway between a sigh, a whine, and… maybe a groan or something similar.

It takes the dark a little while longer to fill me and my power whispers that it’s because Alec is trying to be gentle, both with me and with his own nerves. The reminder gets me to nod to myself, I remember how he was like when he first possessed the new Butcher, the way his whole body squeezed itself up, the pain coursing through him. I don’t want that to happen again and just as another… noise leaves my lips, I speak up.

“It’s okay…” I mumble, “Just… take your—” my legs jolt out, something warm running through the muscles and making me squeak. “—t-time.”

Alec just hums at my reminder, giving the smallest nod as the final tail end of his dark pushes into me, that warm, electric feeling dissipating as I start to pant, slowly acclimating to the fullness overlaying my soul.

For an instant, I’m unsure what that actually accomplished. I raise my hand up to my face and slowly have my fingers curl and stretch. All of them, all of my muscles still belong to me so what—

My perspective explodes.

Power has been enhanced, power has been enhanced beyond initial parameters, power has been pushed beyond initial limitation, power has not undergone realignment, power has not grown secondary attachment or undergone [COMMUNION], [COMMUNION: UNNECESSARY} {SHARD: NEGOTIA—}

“Oww,” I whimper, a sudden spike of agony digging right into my brain, like a spade digging into a grave, trying to pull something out. What did I just hear? Communion? SHard, what the hell did Alec— what did, my brian— I can’t—

I blink.

I blink again.

I hit my chest with the flat of my fist, the small amount of movement just enough to get my heart started and my breath moving as I start to cough, turning just enough that I don’t aim it at Alec. What the hell just happened? Did I black out? Last thing I remember… Alec was possessing me and… I don’t know what.

Power has been enhanced, power is stronger, power was too strong, power gave a flood of information, power gave information to quickly, created a sporadic Thinker migraine, blacked out from pain, blacked out from stress caused to the hippocampus, power—

Okay then, I don’t want that to happen again. I reach for my power’s leash, ready to yank it back when I find… something else has already done the job for me.

My eyes widen as my power seems to completely leave me, the ever present pain of its whispers fading away as my mouth goes dry. I try to clear my throat but it does next to nothing as I get the words out.

“Alec?” I ask, turning my head back to the boy in my arms and startling at the empty white gaze of his pupiless eyes. “That’s you, right?”

“...yeah,” Alec whispers, his lips barely moving enough to enunciate the words, his perfectly white eyes staring up at me with the smallest smile I’ve ever seen, faint enough that I almost think it isn’t there. “...are you…” he inhales deeply, the two words making him pant, “okay?”

“Yes,” I nod when I reply, gulping a bit when I feel that the leash around my power is still held in an iron grip. “You’re doing that?” I ask again, “Making my power stop, right?”

“Yes,” my mouth speaks with a voice that both is and isn’t my own, my bright alto mixed with the ever so slightly lower timber of Alec’s. “I could tell you were worried—” I pull my hand up to my mouth but barely stop myself from clamping it over my lips. “—I don’t want your head to hurt, I can… keep it quiet if you want.”

There’s a second of silence where my tongue patrols my mouth, my mind demanding I look for the intruder that took control even when I consciously know it was Alec. I move my jaw around subtly, keeping my lips closed as I look back down, confident that I’m still the one in control when I speak.

“That… I appreciate it, not having to deal with the headaches will be nice but… do you think you could give it back? Not to where it was before of course, but maybe back to the baseline… please?”

The plea almost physically stings my tongue, but I can’t help it. I’ve never had to bargain for something so essential to who I am and to have it ripped away from me like this is… it’s tough. I know Alec will give it back, I know if I ask, he’ll leave my body in an instant but knowing that does nothing to quiet the fear just lurking under the surface.

“Of course,” Alec mumbles from his own body and then continues the sentence with my mouth, “Just pull on it, I only have as much control as you’re willing to give.”

That… that can’t be right, I saw what Alec did to his sister and even before his power changed, I saw what he did to Shadow Stalker. Master powers don’t work like what he’s talking about, they aren’t consensual.

But still, he wouldn’t lie to me, not after all the shit I put him through and fuck if that’s not a morbid thought. That my friend won’t even tell me a white lie, too afraid of what I’d do if—

Thoughts for later.

I gulp and reach for my power again, sure the grip on my power won’t budge even a fraction when my eyes widen. He’s telling the truth, he has control over it but that control is beneath my own, it yields to me without even the slightest push back and slowly, I raise the dial on my power, the whispers of information starting small and gradually picking up to their usual pace.

Power has changed, Alec’s power has changed, more complex than initially perceived, relies on taking control of living nervous tissue, power is meant to take control, power can be used to enhance powers, can moderately enhance powers of those possessed, can greatly increase the powers of those willingly giving control, can—

I cut the information off, digesting what it’s told me and also making note of the strange sensation happening just behind my eyes. My power is supposed to hurt, ever since I triggered, I’ve found myself with more headaches than not and that’s just because every single whisper scrapes at my head like a chisel.

But now… now it feels like my mind is stronger. The whispers still hurt of course, it would be too much of a blessing if they didn’t, but the pain they bring now is just an echo of what I felt before, it’s—

“Amazing,” I mumble, my voice breathless as my power continues to badger on and for the first time in forever, I don’t feel the need to cut it off. It could explain the mechanics of the heated floor for another hour and I doubt I’d feel any pain. “You’re power, it makes mine better, it— this is really amazing, you know that right?”

“Yeah…” Alec answers with both his mouth and mine and it’s honestly a little strange to watch his otherwise ghostly complexion break as a pink dusting coasts over his nose. Of course, knowing the reason is something as mundane as a compliment is actually… really cute. “I always felt it could… do that, just… it… I never… got the chance to… use it… like…”

His own mouth lags behind mine and the stress of talking with his own vocal cords is making his breath come out in short, hoarse gasps, tight enough that his voice squeaks at the end of each word.

“Y’know,” I start, cutting off both him and in a strange way, myself as I reach my arms around him, turning the slightest bit and pulling him to rest on my chest. “If you need to talk through me, I understand, I won’t be mad.”

“I…” he starts and then my own throat bobs, gulping as my mouth finishes, “You’re sure?”

“Positive,” I reply, lifting him up onto me fully and making a mental note of how light he is as my hands rest between his shoulder blades, rubbing up and down his spine as we let out twin sighs.

This… feels amazing. Holding him like this, having him with me, in both senses… it’s wonderful. Feeling him in my arms, his weight on top of me and his chest pressing against mine with each breath, it almost beats out the other feeling.

His power, that darkness that’s now inside of me, it’s… it’s so warm and soft and heavy and it’s… the security of it, of having him with me at all times— words completely fail this feeling, this contentedness

I close my eyes, trying to soak in this feeling as best I can when Alec suddenly chuckles through me, the corners of my lips raising up like boats in high tide..

“What is it?” I ask him, already sure it’s going to be a pun or innuendo.

“Nothing,” he replies, my lips moving for him. “I… I’m getting some feedback from your power and I think it… it doesn’t say words exactly, more the idea of words and it—” My nose rises up in a snort. “It said ‘filling.’”

I sigh at his immaturity and both my and his shoulders shake in muted snickering.

I’m tempted to keep laying here with him, basking in this bliss like I have been all morning but just as I make that decision for us, my stomach let out a long gurgle.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I sigh as Alec let’s out another giggle, turning the sound of exasperation into an uncanny shake.

“Go get something to eat,” Alec says through me, “It has to taste better than the crap Amy is making me down.”

I hum as I rub at his back. I hadn’t thought of that actually. Through me, he’d be able to actually enjoy food without the risk of his stomach going into shock… although…

“I don’t know if I’m comfortable leaving your body up here,” I point out, hugging him closer to me and rubbing at his scalp with my chin. That’s going to be a nonstarter, even with Alec’s mind overlaying my own, he’s proven that he has some limited mobility when he’s controlling another human and…

It’s something Amy said to me yesterday, when Alec was asleep.

Some of the marks on his skin… weren’t from Heartbreaker or his clients.

They came from himself.

Alec sighs through me and for a moment, I think he’s somehow picked up what I was thinking about when he speaks.

“That’s fair,” he lifts his head up as much as he can, his pupiless eyes staring up at me as his lips settle into an almost imperceptible smile. “You could take me with you, if you want.”

That’s… not exactly impossible. Rachel, Brian, and even Taylor managed it once or twice on the drive back here but they’re… a bit more physically adept than I am. That isn’t to say I’m scrawny or anything but the proof’s kind’ve evident on first glance, I’m a Thinker, the most physically demanding thing most Thinkers have to do is squeeze a trigger.

Still, I should be able to at least make it downstairs, Brian should be in the kitchen or maybe in the den and worst comes to worst, he can take Alec off my hands if I need him too.

“Alright,” I acquiesce, shifting him as best I can as I start to sit up, flipping him around onto his back as my hands glide down. It takes a good minute or so of shifting but I’ve got him laying on the bed and my feet off as I stand over him, mentally bracing myself. “You ready?”

He gives me a slight nod and without further ado, I hook my hands around the back of his knees and just under his ribcage and I heave—

And nearly throw him up in the air.

His lightness is one thing but what I wasn’t expecting was the sudden strength filling my limbs. Even as light as he is, this shouldn’t feel so easy and after a brief moment of panicking I resettle my grip on him and take a step back, replanting my feet as both of us let out long and deep breaths.

“Are you—” I gulp past my sudden dry mouth, thankful that his hands slowly rise up to wrap around my neck. “Okay?”

“Y-yeah,” he stutters, adrenaline flowing through him as well. “Just… you’re strong.”

“No I’m not,” I deny, looking down at my arms and wondering where my sudden strength has come from. “I don’t think I’m supposed to be able to do this, I—”

Musculature has been enhanced alongside power, strength is similar to how Rachel enhances her hounds, strength is dissimilar to how Rachel enhances her hounds, enhancement derived from Rachel but not 1 to 1, strength—

“Oh,” I nod along with what my power’s told me as I turn around, Alec still firmly in my arms as I make my way to the door. “It’s your power,” I tell him, “It’s—”

“Mimicking Rachel’s,” he completes for me and when I look down to see if he really just did that, end an explanation for me, my shoulders shrug. “I’m getting the same kind of info you are Lis’, not my fault.”

There’s a distinct smugness that comes from my mouth and even though it sounds achingly familiar to my own, there’s a sharpness to it that makes it distinct.

I roll my eyes at the display and he smiles with both of our mouths. It’s a weird feeling, giving him such complete control over me but if I’m being honest, it’s not a bad feeling. I might even get used to it one day.

Still, there are some questions I’d like to know the answer to.

“So…” I start, mindful of his head as I walk out into the hall. “What do you actually know about your power? Like, what can it do?”

My shoulders shrug in time with his own and when he answers me, he turns his head away.

“I don’t know,” he admits. “I haven’t had it for that long a time and… he never really gave me a chance to use it after I fucked up at the ball.”

“You didn’t—” I want to tell him that that’s bullshit, that he didn’t fuck up anything, that what his father wanted him to do was fucking ludicrous but… that’s a conversation for a later time, when things are more stable. “Well… we know some things, you can boost the effects of powers.”

“And strength,” he chimes in, the dissonance of me using my mouth and him using it barely audible to my ears. If it weren’t for the sudden override of my own nerves, I don’t think I would’ve noticed it. “There’s no way you can carry me normally, right? You’ve got noodle arms.”

“I don’t have noodle arms,” I protest, “Taylor can’t carry you for a long time either.”

“Maybe when she first joined up,” Alec argues, “but she’s gotten a lot stronger since then, you on the other hand…”

He trails off and I can’t help but shake my head in fondness. I’ve missed this so much and I hadn’t even known it until I finally had him back in my arms.

Holding him, talking with him, just being able to look at him is like healing some part of me I didn’t even know had been torn up, like a balm applied to a burn I’d just gotten used to having.

“I love you,”

I nearly stumble but Alec manages to get my feet steady as I gulp, cursing my tongue for just letting something like that slip out. As I stand up straighter, having almost turned the corner with Alec in my arms, I find him staring up at me, his blue eyes just as wide as when I first declared it.

“What?” I ask, trying to play it nonchalantly even though it made me stumble as well. “I said it earlier and I’ll probably say it a few million times after, okay? Get used to it.”

The bravado is fake as hell but even if I wanted to muster up a good performance, it wouldn’t matter. Alec might not have lived with us for most of last year but the time we did spend together had knocked down so many walls, I would be surprised if there’s any lie of mine he can’t see through.

He continues to stare up at me, mesmerized like I’ve got the whole world in my eyes and son of a bitch, I’m supposed to be a stone cold Thinker, the girl that killed Accord and tamed Brockton Bay but fuck, I’m about to lose it, he’s so fucking cute!

I squeeze him closer to me, his chest flush against mine and I don’t care why he does it but I nearly squeak when he forces his head underneath my chin, burrowing into my neck as I make my way for the stairs.

We can both hear Brian below us, sighing into a phone call as someone screams on the other side of the line, loud enough that I can almost make out the words.

“I understand,” he tries to cut the other person off but she just keeps yelling and after a few more steps, i can make her out now. Aisha’s got a very particular way of talking, especially when she’s talking with her brother.

“Clearly you fucking don’t,” she says, wind in the background of the call. “I want to talk to Alec and I’m not leaving this fucking city until I do… actually, I’m not leaving this city fucking ever again, you got that? You can tell blondie to take her reconnaissance game and shove it right up her—”

“Damnit Aisha,” Brian’s sigh threatens to turn into a frustrated growl but he just barely tamps it down as I head for the stairs, my steps measured even knowing that these ones don’t squeak. “I don’t want to fight you on this, okay? I do get it, I really do, I know you want to talk to Alec, I know you didn’t have enough time yesterday but—”

“Exactly so just fucking—”

“But,” Brian stresses, cutting his sister off again as he starts to pace, his steps loud and hurried. “He’s not… Alec is still recovering, okay? He’s hurt and he’s barely eating and… we just want to take things slow, alright? I know it’s hard on you, okay I know, but he… we’re trying to be careful here. The second Diane gives us the green light, you can come back and talk to him, I know he didn’t say a lot yesterday but Lisa thinks he enjoyed it.”

His voice tapers off towards the end, coming out softer and while the effect objectively worked well enough to hide his feelings, it didn’t fool me and it definitely didn’t fool his sister. 

“I…” Aisha tries to pick up steam as Alec and I reach the bottom of the stairs, the black haired boy clinging tighter to me as we slowly turn the corner. “Okay, I don’t get it but I get that this is… touchy. I’ll back off but… look, I trust you, you know I trust you but…”

I wait by the steps as Aisha trails off, her unspoken words still echoing despite their quiet. She doesn’t have to say it for me and Brian to understand. She trusts us, she trusts who we are at our cores but… she doesn’t trust who we used to be. Who we used to be just a month ago.

I can’t blame her, she can’t blame us. That’s one of the worst parts about it, you can’t blame us anymore than you can blame the victim of an earthquake. Heartbreaker snuck into our city, killed the people we were and replaced us with puppets. Puppets so close to who we were that even Aisha didn’t see that her brother, the man who held Alec for days after Behemoth, was gone.

She can’t blame us but she can’t just pretend that none of this ever happened, she can’t just say the past year and a half didn’t matter. Because of us— because of Heartbreaker, she thought her best friend had left her behind.

I wouldn’t blame her if she couldn’t move past that.

“I’m gonna be there tomorrow,” she says, steel in her voice, unwavering. “And there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

There’s a good few seconds where I’m worried the argument isn’t over, that Brian isn’t going to give up, but he surprises me.

“Okay,” he replies, voice resigned and heavy with exhaustion. “Okay, just… shoot us a text first, alright?”

“Will do,” and with that, the Stranger hangs up, leaving our home strangely quiet as I step out from around the corner.

Brian turns to look at us as soon as I clear my throat and the wisps of dark that rise from his shoulders nearly makes me flinch. He’s been like this ever since he killed that rat bastard, jumpy and startled at even the slightest noise.

“Hey…” he greets, doing his best to be nonchalant as he walks towards us, his arms out, half ready to hug half ready to take Alec from me. He somewhat manages it, his voice turning gentle and near whispery as he smiles, “Is he asleep or—”

“No,” Alec and I speak up at the same time and my power can’t tell if I’m the one who really moved my lips or if Alec and I are that in sync. “He’s using his power on me,” I explain, smiling gently when Brian’s eyes widen, “Don’t worry, he meant to do it, this is… think of it like physical therapy—” my lips contort then and then I add, several degrees more monotonously, “only weirder.”

“Uh,” Brian clears his throat, his arms rising up when mine are suddenly pulled forward, Alec deciding that he’d rather be in the Shaker’s hold than mine. “Okay, um, what exactly are you doing with…” he resettles his grip as the handoff is finished, his charge mumbling something that sounds like a ‘wee.’ “All this?”

“Not sure yet,” I answer truthfully, “Alec just felt like he needed to do this and… I’m gonna see it through, alright?”

“That’s…” Brian clears his throat again, clearly just trying to buy time as he thinks of what to say. “Okay, so, right now, I’m talking to… both of you, right?”

“More or less,” I answer, shrugging when I notice his eyes, the subtle squint of them and even more subtle twitch as he darts between my and Alec’s face. “What are you looking at?”

Looking at your face, looking at your eyes, something has changed on your face, something you haven’t noticed, something you wouldn’t notice, change isn’t physical, change is more subtle, something that hasn’t changed the actual topography of your face

Just like before, the stab of information feels alien as it injects into my brain, the sensation nearly exactly the same as before, minus the pain. It kinda feels like going to the dentist and getting a shot of novacaine to numb you down, when you can feel the scrape of knives against your gums, can feel the sharpness of them but the pain only feels cold.

It’s uncanny and even if it doesn’t hurt, it isn’t great either, if anything the absence of pain is its own kind of uncomfortable.

“It’s your eyes,” Brian says and I nod in agreement, his statement coinciding with my power’s intuition. “They’re… blue.”

I blink at his declaration and for some reason, my mouth goes dry like a desert, whatever remark I had at the ready falling apart as my throat goes still. I can’t speak but it’s not me, I can speak, it’s my throat that can’t.

“They’re… what?” Alec asks, his voice strained and weak as he struggles in Brian’s arms, trying to roll over with muscles that can barely move. He’s like a puppet with frayed strings, every gesture, no matter how slight, threatens to take the movement away forever.

“It’s okay,” Brian tries to soothe, holding Alec closer even as my hands start to rise up to my face, my fingers mapping my features as if they haven’t always been a part of me. “It’s nothing, okay? It’s nothing, just—”

“I…” Alec sucks in another breath and my chest spasms as he tries again to move, his limbs somehow even slower. “Let… me… see.”

Trying to breathe feels wrong, like my windpipe is too wide, like the breath comes too easy and too cold and too refreshing, like it’s drowning me in how sharp and apparent and everywhere it is. My chest hurts and my vision is swimming even as I start to hyperventilate, even as I suck in more and more air.

“It’s okay, it’s…” Brian tries to reassure but when he looks up at me and sees my face, he suddenly goes pale, his face slacking at whatever he sees in me. I don’t know what it is and I don’t care, I can’t talk, my chest feels like it’s on fire, and my power sounds like it’s trapped behind a wall, muffled and fuzzy. 

Without anything else to do, I lean forward, my feet somehow staying perfectly anchored to the spot as I grab for Alec’s face, his skin cool but clammy against my palms. My vision focuses as I slowly turn him to look at me, my body feeling more like my own as I take in another breath, my chest still too big for it as his pupiless eyes look into mine.

For a fraction of an instant, my perspective changes, I’m looking up and staring into my own face, my skin shining with sweat and my blonde hair clinging to my temples as I watch my own eyes flicker, changing between bottle glass green and arctic blue a million times a second.

For a fraction of an instant, I am neither Alec Vasil or Lisa Wilbourn but somehow, I am somewhere in the middle, I remember breaking my ankle when I was nine and my brother kissing it better and I remember my dad scolding me when I forgot to take out the trash. I remember leaving this tower and going to Quebec, I remember seeing my dad and being so damn afraid.

I remember feeling like shit when I used my powers on my friends, I remember feeling like I’d stolen something from them, something they could never really get back. Looking into those blue green eyes, that same feeling stabs at me a hundred fold. The pain it brings is icy and crushing, I can’t do this to someone else, I shouldn’t be allowed this power, I’m hurting her. I’m hurting him, I’m hurting myself and my friends and I—

Two pairs of lungs suck in shaking breaths, two pairs of eyes stare down into each other, two pairs of hands wrap around faces and for a single agonizing instant, I am aware.

I am not hurting her, I am not hurting him. Using my power like this is not hurting anyone because I do not intend for it to hurt.

An infinity happens in the span of a second, my eyes staring into his and hers, both of mine and both of them not and as I breathe, I release that tension held inside both of them. They let go of their fears, their anxieties and worries and I let go, becoming two again, becoming him and becoming her.

I nearly collapse against Brian as my lungs stutter, my eyes suddenly feeling heavy and itchy and awake as I cough.

“Lisa?!” Brian sounds distraught as I lean against him, my legs still mostly jelly as I close my eyes tight. What the fuck just happened?

Power interaction, Alec’s power interacts with powers in unforeseen ways, affect more obvious with proximity, affects more obvious with consent, unstable when consent feels unstable, instability necessitates power interaction, necessitates reestablishment of consent

What the fuck is… any of that supposed to mean? I said that he could use my body, I gave him express permission and even if I didn’t Master powers don’t need consent to fuction, they, out of all the different kinds of power classifications especially don’t need consent.

Consent important to power’s function, consent important to Alec, very important to Alec, needed—

I cut my power off and wince, on second thought, why exactly it needed consent should’ve been pretty fucking obvious.

“I—” I suck in a breath and raise my arms up to Brian’s shoulders, using his immovable mass to push myself up to him. “It’s okay, we’re just— it’s fine. Just a… power thing.”

Even true, the explanation is weak and my power doesn’t miss the chance to tell me that Brian thinks so. I open my eyes and stare into his, the concern in them thick and powerful, he’s afraid that something’s wrong with Alec, that something’s wrong with me but… if anything, we’re evrn better than we were before.

“It’s okay,” I repeat, lifting a hand up and patting his cheek, surprised at how cool his skin feels as I smile. “We’re okay, just some… recalibrating is all.”

“You’re sure?” He asks again, not at all calmed by my display. I can’t say I blame him, after all, I’m still out of breath and nearly panting.

“Positive,” I nod as I answer, stepping away from him and glad that my legs feel solid under me. “Just a little hungry,” I chance a glance down to the bundle in his arms, Alec’s already skinny form made all the skinnier by his poor diet. “You’ll watch him, right? Keep him warm?”

“I—” Brian shifts his grip on Alec, gently jostling him as our teammate looks up at us with pupiless eyes. “Yeah, I’ve got him, go get some food.”

And with that, the three of us break apart, Brian almost tiptoeing his way back to the couch and my legs feeling just a little bit more steady as I head for the kitchen. Walking away from the duo, I can… hear Brian whisper to Alec but the feeling is off.

I’m recognizing the sound of someone talking, I know it’s Brian saying the words but I can’t quite make them out. It’s almost like—

Not hearing with your ears, hearing with Alec’s ears, hearing phantom feedback, feedback one-way, feedback two-way, feedback incomplete

Of course there’d be something creepy about it, what else was I expecting? We’re Undersiders, we have ugly powers.

Walking into the kitchen, I head for the fridge, my hand already on the handle and pulling when I notice something in my reflection. In the cool gray of the metal, I can make out myself and most of the kitchen.

And in my reflection, I see something that I was already aware of.

My eyes aren’t mine, instead of my mother’s bottle glass green, they’re… blue.

Bright blue, pale as a ghost, nearly white at the edges and brilliant. They’re… they’re Alec’s. I knew they were going to be there, I knew that but… actually seeing them… it feels like when you’re standing over a jewelry display and there’s that one thing that you need to look at and hold.

Looking at them, I almost become lost. They’re so—

My hand pulls the door open against my will, the fridge blasting me with cold air as I look over its contents. I snort and shake my head fondly, it seems like Alec is in a hurry to eat… or, well, to experience proper eating I guess.

Even having been back these past few days, the fridge still isn’t as stocked as we usually keep it, there’s some pizza from a few weeks ago that I probably need to get rid of, a to go ramen cup that’s probably just as bad, a jar of peanut butter (I will never understand why Taylor keeps that in the fridge), and… there we go.

A couple of premade sandwiches, none too extravagant but honestly I could go for some simpler cooking. Ever since Brian managed to take down Victor, he’s been experimenting a bit too much with his new found culinary skills. Most of the time what he makes is pretty good but there’s times when something simple beats something that has to simmer for twenty hours.

On instinct I reach for my favorite, a plain old turkey sandwich, but as my fingers graze the plastic wrapping, my hand slides further down, ignoring what I chose and going for one of the others. I pull my hand back a little but doing so feels strange, not difficult or painful but definitely strange, like pushing the same ends of a magnet together.

Instead of resisting it, I lean into the feeling, letting Alec’s want guide my hand as I close my eyes, focusing on the half words I can barely hear.

“Are you…” a voice starts, deep and low and smooth and definitely Brian’s, “okay?”

My hand wraps around a sandwich slowly and I tilt my head, trying to crane my ears in a way that I can hear the living room better. Logically, I know it’s fruitless, the two of them are whispering and at this distance, I shouldn’t be able to pick anything up. I try it anyway as my hand pulls back.

“Yeah,” Alec answers, my own lips moving with his ever so slightly. “I’m… fine… just… not too talkative… right now.” 

He ends his sentence with a snort, the sound starting in his throat and ending with mine as I take a step back. It’s a little weird moving like this, completely blind but with all my muscles relaxed, Alec wouldn’t hurt me and knowing that somehow makes me feel safe enough to move blind.

The refrigerator door closes with a heavy thunk and when I open my eyes and look down at the sandwich I’m holding, something bright enters my gasp.

A tuna fish sandwich, something I personally don’t care for but know Alec does.

My blue eyed teammate isn’t someone who genuinely has favorite… well, anything really. No favorite foods, no favorite animals, no favorite colors even. It’s something that, on the surface, might seem bland or boring but the truth is a lot more complex.

He doesn’t have favorites not because he’s boring but because he genuinely doesn’t have the capacity to have them. To him, all foods are about the same, the texture, the smell, the taste, all of it might as well be a net neutral to him, not any one thing sparking more enjoyment than another.

That pattern holds for damn near everything arbitrary and for a while I assumed that was just because he was depressed.

But then that pattern kept sticking, like a social chameleon, Alec would pick based off whatever we did. At a restaurant, he would order last, either ordering randomly or copying off one of us. Whenever we asked him what his favorite color was, he would cycle between purple, black, green, and red.

I expected to deal with that the rest of our lives, that Alec was always going to be a shadow of everyone he ever met but then… this happened.

Tuna fish.

It’s stupid I know, to get excited over something as stupid as fucking tunafish but it’s something he… well, maybe he doesn’t like it the same way I like something but he likes it nonetheless. Whenever we ate out, it was something that he would see on the menu and while I couldn’t actually tell he was excited based on his facial expressions, I could feel it.

I don’t know why he likes them, why it’s something he’s willing to break routine for but… it’s a good sign.

I unwrap the sandwich and while again, I don’t care for it in the slightest, my mouth waters just a little bit looking at it. God, he’s such a dork.

The taste is… well, it’s definitely tuna fish. Salty, the mayonnaise is okay without being too oily, the toast is good at least but all around, I wouldn’t write home about it. Still, this isn’t about what I think about it.

Alec inhales the sandwich like it’s the most amazing thing he’s ever tasted and within half a minute of finishing the thing, I’m already opening the fridge, one hand grabbing a coke and the other another sandwich before I close the door with my hip.

Grabbing the additional snack is perfectly timed as when I start walking back to the main room, the elevator dings open, my power already telling me who’s on their way.

Taylor and Rachel

I smile as I enter the main room, a half report on the goings on outside abandoned as Taylor stops right on the cusp of entering. I turn my head to look at her, my smile pulled up and back a little bit by the shade inside of me.

Taylor stares at Alec like she’s looking at a ghost and as Brian gets up off the couch, careful to keep Alec situated, her jaw falls open a bit more, staring at the mop of black curls tucked into Brian’s shoulder.

“Is he—” she starts and then stops, her voice petering into a soft gasp as Alec lifts his head up just a little further. The two of them stare at each other for just a moment, brown eyes locking with the milky white void of his sclera and then, almost fast enough to warrant a Mover rating, Taylor surges forward.

Even with Brian’s sturdiness, the speed at which Taylor glomps on to the two of them is nearly enough to knock him over. They don’t fall of course, but they don’t exactly stay upright either. Rachel and I both start to head over as the three of them slowly timber back on to the couch.

There’s a good minute or two where we don’t say anything; probably where we don’t even think of anything. We just sit there, awkwardly, with Brian and Taylor on the couch, Rachel and I on the low table in front of it, and Alec in Brian’s lap. The arrangement is hardly all that comfortable but in the heat of our group embrace, we might as well be lounging in luxury.

The soft atmosphere rolls over us like a fog and before any of us can even think what we’re about to do, we start to move, as if on autopilot. 

Rachel and Taylor head upstairs, both of them grabbing for blankets, pillows, just about any soft and warm thing that isn’t nailed down. They return with bundles as big as they are and in a short few moments, they have the entire couch and most of the table covered in soft decadence, Taylor ties a sheet around Alec’s neck like a cape and kisses his forehead gently as she gets to work on a fort. Rachel does her best to help her but neither of them are particularly good at it.

While they’re doing that, I’m in the kitchen and raiding the pantry. I set about every piece of junk food we have on the counter and after several return trips, I get most of it back to the sofa. I thought that would be the end of it but my body is pulled by a phantom sensation and I head back to the kitchen, my hand reaching into my pocket and pulling out a cell phone.

I order from Uncle Fatim’s and given the laugh I hear on the other end of the line, I’m ninety percent sure the Armenian man that runs our favorite pizzeria knows exactly who we are. I even pay for the delivery this time, uncaring about what it might reveal.

I order the usual favorites, meat lover’s for Rachel, plain old cheese for Taylor, jalapeno, pepperoni, and olive for me, pepperoni and sausage for Brian, a thing of breadsticks and marinara for all of us and Alec nearly hangs up the phone before I can properly finish the order. I think I’ll just pretend that my voice isn’t wet when I ask for another cheese pizza, something just for Alec.

I know he won’t be able to eat it right now but that’s fine, I’ll do it for him until his body can hold down more.

With the order made, I head back into the living room and shake my head at the monstrosity Taylor and Rachel have made. The fort they’ve constructed is lopsided and precarious, with the roof threatening to sink in at any moment and… I’m a hundred percent sure Taylor is trying to suspend it using spidersilk.

I find a flap to enter in from and find that Brian’s taken to the most important job well.

Brian Laborn, Grue, the man who killed Heartbreaker and transformed the Bay into an economic powerhouse, is petting our Regent’s hair like his life depends on drawing soft noises from Alec’s lips and when he turns to look at me, a smile on his face, I can tell that he loves his job. I gotta say, I love it too, especially given the ever so slightly pink complexion on Alec’s face.

“You…” he breathes softly and while Taylor keeps trying to build our haven, she quirks an ear his way. “...could’ve… let… me… help.”

A chorus of ‘no’s’ answer the statement but our three teammates quiet down as I scoot closer to Alec, my hands cradling his soft face as I smile.

“You’ve already got a very important job,” I explain and reach for the bulge beneath the blankets, my hand pulling out the remote for our new tv and pushing it into his limp fingers. “Picking out what we’re going to watch.”

Somehow, even without pupils, Alec gives the impression of rolling his eyes as he taps away at the remote, pulling up some streaming service as we all settle into our spots.

Alec settles on some anime I couldn’t hope to pronounce and as we all sit there, watching it and eating bad food and just… just fucking basking in each other’s presences, it almost feels like— who the fuck am I kidding? It feels domestic.

That’s the exact word I’m looking for and… shit, I might actually be tearing up a little as I remember this isn’t the first time I’ve felt this way around them. We almost had it when we first moved in, almost, but then that bastard had to go and poison us.

It was close but it wasn’t quite like this, like what we had when we had the loft.

That time, however small it might’ve been, was maybe the happiest I ever got to be in this city. It was just like this, being able to live together and share space and talk and enjoy it all, we… we only really had that for a week.

And then Bakuda blew up and Coil framed us for the Empire leak and then Leviathan and this shit and… it’s kinda funny now that I’m really thinking about it. When it was all said and done, when the dust settled and there were no more enemies for us to beat, when we had all the power and money and time in the world, the first thing we did with it?

We built a tower and put ourselves at the top, not to look down on everyone below but just so that we could be alone together, just so we could snatch back all those weeks we should’ve had.

The elevator dings and when my power tells me what it’s for, I disentagle myself from the limbs holding me and leave the fort. I wipe my eyes with my sleeve and wave to the confused looking delivery boy, I should probably be worried he’s seen my face or knows where I live but I couldn’t give less of a damn.

I just take the pizzas from him and give him all the loose bills I have in my wallet. He lets himself out and I head back for the fort, eager to wrap myself back in that lovely cocoon we made.

We eat until we can’t eat anymore, we watch shows and movies until dawn, we laugh and joke and talk like we never left each other and it… it's wonderful.

I hold Alec close as the tv asks us if we’re still watching, I’m too tired to click either of the options it gives me and while I’m content to just fall asleep there, held in place by three pairs of arms, our returned teammate says something that splashes me wide awake.

“So…” he starts, a shit eating grin rising over his sleepy face. “Lisa said… you all love me?”