Cherry Part 2
Sam couldn’t remember a time she wasn’t in pain. She could remember there was a time when she wasn’t in pain, but she can’t conjure the memories of the time. It was probably better that way, like how you are never warm in winter, and never cold in summer, so you forget whet it feels like. The memory is there, but it is not painful.
When Sam met the man whose words were written on her chest, she was twenty-three, a year away from her Master’s Degree and financially stable. When his words disappeared, she was twenty-six, graduated with no job, and over two hundred thousand dollars in debt to a section of the Italian mob in Queens.
Since then, Sam has never been quite sure if it was men she didn’t trust or if it was soulmarks, but being homeless in New York meant that she didn’t have a lot of energy to devote to psychoanalyzing herself. She got up in the mornings, took some Prozac, and then spent the rest of the day doing small jobs, trying to make enough money to chip away at the debt and still get her medicine.
It wasn’t enough, so when Robin died (soft hands rubbing her back as she detoxed, voice smiling as they discussed books and college, the smell of vanilla in the air) there was no reason to stay. Instead of paying on her debt, she bought a bus ticket. She planned to go south, where it was warm and relatively inexpensive. Her family was in the south, but they didn’t take up the entirety of it.
She got sick in the bathroom, moments before she had to leave. There was nothing for her in New York. Queens was actively trying to kill her. Her breathing felt like it was being punched out of her and her chest felt tight. She didn’t have a lot in her stomach to spare, but she threw it all up anyway.
By the time she picked herself off of the grimy white floors and walked back to the bus- it was long gone. She looked up at the night sky, wishing for some stars, but only seeing the night lights, when the phone rang.
Her phone, a cracked thing that was about four years past its expiration, didn’t ring. It could vibrate, but its speakers had gone out during an unfortunate episode with a shower and a car battery. The electrician had been able to program it so the phone would vibrate at different frequencies depending on who called.
The four short buzzes followed by one long buzz let her know it was one of Robin’s people (Too many, a crowded funeral of too many tears. She wore shoes that pinched and grabbed a shower at Robin’s aunts. She let Robin’s grandmother play with her hair while they waited for the car to take them to the service. She was too numb to appreciate the food and the drinks afterwards, but it was probably the only good meal she had in years,) . Sam moved into an alley to answer the call.
“Hello?” (The taste of pizza rolls and popcorn filled her mouth and she could feel her mouth fill with saliva.)
“Hugh?” Sam asked, leaning against a brick wall so her hands wouldn’t shake.
“Thank God. Are you still in the state?” The tinny voice was high and reedy. Sam was not overly concerned. Hugh Campbell Sr. was a nervous man. (He had held the ladder or a flashlight every time she had come over to the apartment. He slipped twenty dollars into her bag, along with a bag of almonds. He would come up with more and more conversation topics until she agreed to sleep on the pull out couch.)
“Yeah, accidently missed my bus this morning. Is everything all right?” (Hughie hadn’t moved during the funeral. He was the only soulmate that hadn’t cried. He had been shell shocked, mouth thin, eye’s unblinking.)
“Is Hughie with you?”
“No,” She adjusted her grip on the phone so she wasn’t poked by the broken edges of the screen. “Is he missing?”
“Someone ran a car through the window of the store last night. Hughie is nowhere to be found and there was a lot of blood at the scene.” (Sam could see the shop in her mind and could taste the blood in the air. Her heartbeat sped up as she considered possibilities. Start with the basics.)
“Have they checked the cameras? It’s a damn A/V store, surely they have security.”
“They won’t let me see it. They’re just telling me he’s missing.” Hugh’s voice was deeply worried, cracking at random moments. “I saw this dateline on human trafficking-“
“If his phone is still with him, I can track him.” Sam said. As long as he wasn’t in Queen’s, she could find him.
“I forgot about the incident at the club. You need to show me how to do that.“
“I’ll show you how to do it after I find Hughie, alright?” Sam shifted, legs going numb. “I’ll call you once I find him, yeah?”
“Good, Good, yeah.”
“Call me if he comes home, yeah? I don’t want to be looking for him if he’s at home sleeping off a hangover.”
“I will. I’m going to call some hospitals.”
“Sure, Sure. Talk to you later.” Sam pressed her head against the brick wall. Her head hurt. Her shoes were worn at the sides and her jacket had more holes than swiss cheese. (She didn’t need to do everything at once, one step at a time.) She wandered a bit, until she found an open wifi network from a small bar. She huddled next to the wall as she opened her tracking app. After the incident in the club, Sam made sure to keep track of all of Robin’s soulmates. There probably wasn’t a need for it anymore, but she couldn’t quite make herself delete the app.
“Hughie, Hughie, Hughie,” She murmured to herself. “Where the fuck are you.” She had to adjust the screen several times so she could locate him through the cracks in her screen.
Jersey City.
Damn it, Hughie. She thought, shoving the phone in her pocket. She had a long walk in front of her, and she had to jump the subway afterwards. She was cold and tired and she hadn’t slept well since Robin died. She should probably just go find a place to sleep before she tried to track Hughie down.
(But she remembered how happy Robin was when she looked up different apartments with her, pointing out the different places she could set up with Hughie. It was going to be a surprise. The way Robin’s eyes would shine when he watched him talking about Billy Joel (who Robin hated) and the way his hands would intertwine with Robin’s hands as they walked down the street. Sam could taste Malboro’s on her tongue.)
Damn it, Robin. Sam thought.
---
This, Billy thought, was a problem.
He recognized her, of course. The Sparky from that bruhaha six or seven years age. Her blond hair had brown roots, now. Her face was a bit gaunter, there were deep wrinkles around her eyes. Her mouth, which had once looked like it was always smiling, now looked like the action was unfamiliar to her. She was still tall, her back was straight, but she looked-
She looked less. And isn’t that a shitty way to think about a soulmate.
She didn’t look angry though. She just looked resigned. Billy resisted the urge to seek out any more information. The electrician couldn’t stay here. (She needed a good meal and a better coat. Her shoes, damn. Last time he had seen her she was wearing steel toed boots and now she was wearing worn through sneakers.) And, seeing as Hughie didn’t seem the type to let someone go hungry, not the type that would accept charity. The Sparky had been royally fucked from the looks of it, and Billy was not going to let her go down the same route as Hughie and him if he could help it.
Hughie, however, looked panicked. He was pushing himself between the two of them.
Why was he doing that? Billy took a moment to wonder before the reality of the situation came slamming back into him. He laid the gun down on the floor, holding up his hands. He didn’t mean anyone here any harm and this situation needed to be resolved quickly, with minimum fuss. Since the Sparky looked like a stiff wind could blow her over, Billy didn’t think that would be too difficult.
It was good that he had an ace up his sleeve. She had said his words, but he hadn’t said a damn word to her. If they were mutual soulmates, seventy-five percent chance, that, then all he had to do was say some words and he would have a few seconds to disarm her. And, in the slight chance it came down to it, it would probably make sure she wouldn’t try and kill him.
“Easy love, there is no need to get violent.” Billy said.
Worked like a charm. Her finger slid from the button and the cattle prod wavered in the air. Billy lurched forward and grabbed the cattle prod and tossed it aside. He didn’t touch her, but put his hands back up and tried to herd her backwards. She didn’t move.
“Take one more step towards me and I will punch you.” His soulmate said, voice determined, if not a little monotone.
Billy stopped for a moment and put his hands down. Without looking behind him, he called out to Hughie.
“Lad, could you tell the Sparky that I am not about to do whatever she thinks I am about to do.”
There was a beat of silence.
And another.
The silence lasted long enough to get awkward when Hughie spoke.
“I thought you were on your way to Florida.” Hughie said. His voice cracked in the middle.
Was he scared of her? Billy thought, glancing at him. Hughie was nervous, sure. He wasn’t cowering though. He looked like-
Ah. Billy resisted the urge to laugh. Hughie looked like a kid whose mom had caught him with his hand in the cookie tin. She wasn’t a threat to Hughie. Billy felt something in him relax a bit.
“I missed my bus.” The voice was back to monotone again. “Good thing, too. I don’t know who your dad would have called after me. You need to call him before we leave. He’s a bit panicked.” Her eyes didn’t really meet Billy’s or Hughie’s , just sort of stared into nothing.
“I’m fine here.” Hughie said, though not particularly convincingly. “Look, I’ve already talked to my dad. You don’t need to worry about me. Do you need money for another bus ticket?”
That got a reaction from her. Her eyes looked hungry for half a second, before the hunger turned into a deep rage. She didn’t take kindly to bribery then, Noted. Billy could almost feel the regret coming off Hughie. He had cocked it up and he knew it.
“Hughie.” Sam’s voice turned pleasant. “What the fuck is going on?” She pulled out her phone. It was an old cracked thing. Pieces of the screen had completely fallen off and there was electrical tape wrapped around the top and bottom of the phone. “If you don’t give me a good answer, right now, I am calling the police.”
Billy knew that she probably couldn’t dial quickly with that phone, but he couldn’t take any chances. He snatched the phone out of her hand and threw it against the wall.
There wasn’t much phone left to shatter, but the phone came apart, pieces only held together by tape.
Billy had no idea what hit him.
Sam had leapt towards him, hand stretched out into a claw, as she tried to scratch his eyes out. Billy was able to duck and grab her hands, holding them together as she struggled. Then her eyes went into slits as she smiled.
It was a very pretty smile.
It also preceded a knee to his balls.
----
“She wasn’t actually going to call the police.” Hughie said quietly. Butcher and him were sitting down in the kitchen as Frenchie acted like a mad genius, jumping from one part of the kitchen to another. Hughie wasn‘t quite sure what to call it. Sam was handcuffed across the room from them, watching the Frenchman bounce about like his activities made sense to her.
Butcher raised an eyebrow, which Hughie understood to mean, “You know this how?”.
“First off,” Hughie said. “She doesn’t like the police. As in, wouldn’t spit on them if they were on fire, dislike. Robin once had to pick her up from a precinct because she had accidently fallen asleep on a bench- which I understand was the latest in a long line of offenses. Secondly, you are actually her soulmate. She would give you the benefit of the doubt.”
Butcher looked, Hughie couldn’t quite figure out the right descriptor. Guilty? Startled? Unsurprised? Resigned? All of them at once? Hughie had no idea. What Hughie could see, through the glasses of hindsight, was Butcher considering whether or not to lie to Hughie again.
“Please don’t lie to me again.” Hughie said, still keeping his voice down. “Robin told me we probably share a few soulmates- or we know people with remarkably similar handwriting. Also, you have been rubbing at your shoulder for the past hour. I am pretty sure she kicked you in the balls.” Hughie tried for a smile, but felt it fade into nothing.
“Lad,” Butcher said, putting on a mildly inconvenienced tone. “If you haven’t noticed, we have a bit more to worry about than your soulmate’s soulmate’s feelings. I don’t have the time to let her feel me up in an alley.”
That hit a little below the belt. But then again, Hughie was slowly starting to understand that Butcher didn’t have a lot of lines he wouldn’t cross. “You should at least talk to her.” Hughie ignored Butcher’s point, operating under the assumption that there wasn’t much they could actually do while Frenchie was doing….. whatever he was doing.
Butcher scratched his beard for a moment.
“Translucent hasn’t seen her.” Butcher said. “Could she keep her mouth shut?”
Hughie nodded. He remembered Robin curled around her phone on a winter’s night asking where Sam was and if she had a place to sleep- and getting no answer. Hughie conjured the memory of Sam covered in ash and oil and shaking as Robin helped her into the shower, water sluicing away the dirt that covered her soulmate marks. The way her lips would thin as Robin asked if she needed medical attention. He remembered that night at the club, when he and Robin had been held and Sam had come to get them out. How she cradled her jaw for days afterwards and brushed her teeth until her gums bled.
“Yeah, keeping her mouth shut isn’t a real problem with her.” Hughie said.
“So, if I dropped her off somewhere, she wouldn’t go directly to the police or the Seven?” Butcher asked. He was rubbing his shoulder again, like it pained him.
“Where would you drop her off?” Hughie asked.
“Where does she normally stay?” Butcher replied and Hughie looked at him like he was an idiot.
While she wasn’t wearing her backpack (which she probably stashed somewhere) Hughie didn’t know how much more obvious it could be that she was homeless. Her shoes were worn through, her hair was stringy, her nails filthy. She wore three layers of clothes- even though it was relatively warm.
Butcher sighed and looked over at her. She had her head back against the sink, with her eyes closed.
“Is there a shelter, or-“
Hughie shook his head. “I don’t know why, but she can’t go to a lot of the shelters, even if there wasn’t a long ass line to get in. I would say she could stay with my dad, except she-“
“Would just hop right back over here.” Sam’s voice rasped out from across the room. Frenchie, who had headphones on, did not pause from his work. “Do you think you have the time to switch hiding spots?”
“Bit academic, innit?” Billy said. “Either he’ll be dead or we’ll be dead by that point.”
Hughie felt the muscles in Billy’s thighs bunch and relax and his arms tremble. He could hear his teeth grind. However unconcerned Billy seemed about Sam, Hughie was almost completely sure it was an act.
“How were you able to capture him?” Sam twisted her neck a bit, trying to make it crack.
“Hughie stuck him a cable.” Billy said, voice cautious. Sam tilted her head in the other direction and Hughie heard her neck pop.
“Why did you capture him?” Sam asked, pulling on her handcuff to pull herself up into a better sitting position.
“He was attacking Hughie.” Butcher said.
Sam took a deep breath in through her nose and looked at Hughie.
Hughie didn’t like having the full breadth of Sam’s attention on him. It was uncomfortable. She didn’t look at a person like they were scum or like she was mentally undressing them or anything like that. Sam looking at Hughie made Hughie deal with whatever emotion Sam was feeling. Sam’s eyes told Hughie if she was upset or hungry or happy or disappointed or interested. It was too much information, too much intimacy, for a person to be sharing with the public.
And right then, Sam looked exhausted. She looked like she was just waiting for someone to kill her. Robin, when she was alive, used to cry sometimes, after Sam would visit and Hughie had never understood why until the moment Sam looked him in the eye across from a dirty kitchen in Jersey City.
Hughie felt something burning in his chest. The anger and the fear had given way to the deep feeling of grief that seemed to overwhelm him. Sam was a part of Robin’s soul. Sam wasn’t a leech or an unwelcome burden, she was an integral part of what had made Robin, Robin. She had come over late at night to help tutor Robin. She had helped Robin fill out scholarship applications and had shown her how to file her taxes. She had driven Robin to the hospital when her appendix burst. She had also rescued Robin’s credit score (somehow) when one of Robin’s other soulmates had tried to commit identity fraud. She had made Robin laugh and had come to find Hughie with a cattle prod….
And Hughie hadn’t cared. A part of Robin was exhausted, dead on her feet- he didn’t know if she had eaten recently- and he- hadn’t- cared. It felt like he had swallowed fire. He felt tears rise and his throat close up for a moment.
So Hughie started talking. He told her about going to Seven Tower and the bug and Translucent coming after him at work.
Sam sat quietly for the story then let her head hit the sink with a thud. She didn’t say anything after that. She just swallowed and nodded. Butcher was looking at him oddly.
“What?” Hughie asked.
“An invisible supe comes at you with a flatscreen and I’m an uber driver, but this one can just look at you and you spill the beans?”
Hughie shrugged, suddenly embarrassed.
Luckily, that was when Frenchie finished up the round.
----
They were out of options. Sam had seen desperation in men’s eyes before. (She remembers cleaning up blood while it was still pouring out of them. The smell of bleach stinging her eyes as she tried to pretend that the man sitting in the chair wasn’t one of the living dead.). Frenchie, the man with the goggles and the beautiful understanding of chemistry, was hunched over the table, cradling a phone as he called, who Sam assumed, were his soulmates. Her soulmate was talking in low tones to Hughie.
They touched each other like it was necessary for breath. It was like one of those Regency novels. Sam, pre-addiction and who had less than half as much debt (all of which was owed to accredited organizations) would have found it unbearably sweet. Current Sam, who couldn’t afford a cup of coffee, let alone a new phone, found it plain unbearable. Sam remembered those days, though. Her first soulmate (who was no longer her soulmate) would take the back of his hand and caress her arm down to her hand, before taking her hand and running his thumb down each of her metacarpal bones. It was his catch all for winning an argument. There was nothing more calming to Sam, than that touch from her soulmate. (She didn’t let Robin touch her for three years and even that was accidental.)
Sam was never quite sure what to think of Hughie, but she knew Robin had wanted them to get along. Hughie had always seemed vaguely polite, but he also seemed a little creeped out by her. (Awkward glances, fidgeting hands, and he stutters as he tries to make conversation for the first year. ). Which, you know, was offensive and didn’t help the development of a decent relationship. Sam thought it was particularly offensive now that she saw their other mutual soulmate.
The beard and the awful clothes couldn’t hide the good boots and the fact he was carrying. He had powder burns on his hands, bruises on his knuckles, and he was not sweating. The Frenchman and Hughie had a sheen of sweat on them, but the soulmate? His hands and face were mostly dry. He was exactly the type of person she would have warned Robin to stay away from. It didn’t help that Hughie looked like he had been badly used. If it was Robin….
It wasn’t Robin, though. It was Hughie. Hughie who looked like he had been jolted out of whatever numbness he had and was now standing on a tightrope between fear and rage. Robin didn’t matter anymore, really. She was dead. Hughie and Sam and the soulmate and the Frenchman were dead too. They were walking and talking, but they were dead. She closed her eyes and tried to sleep. If she was lucky, she wouldn’t wake up when the Seven came.
Then she felt a hand on her cheek. It was electrifying. The bumps and callouses, all the normal parts of human hands, pressed against her cheeks in just the correct way to set her nerves on fire. The warmth overwhelmed her for a moment. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been truly warm. She was about to die and this was a comfort unlooked for and so very, very needed.
“Please don’t touch me.” Sam said, trying to keep her voice level as she opened her eyes to look into her soulmate’s eyes. The hand trembled for a moment before dropping.
“Translucent hasn’t seen you.” Her soulmate said, voice rough. “We need to get you out of here.”
Sam felt the handcuff on her wrist tugging as she tried to sit up straighter. She would have pushed him back if it wouldn’t have sent them both into another spiral.
“I don’t leave unless Hughie does.” Sam said. “If I have to face my best friend in the afterlife, I am not going to tell her I let her boyfriend spiral into a violent death alone.”
A huff of air was blown on her cheekbone as her soulmate reached up and unlocked the handcuff. She could almost taste the coffee on his breath.
She didn’t like the look in her soulmate’s eyes as he looked at her. It was too accessing, Sam took a moment to watch the tumblers in his mind click together before he put on a fake ass smile and said,
“Got an idea. Long shot, but it might help. You’re coming with me.” He stood and offered his hand. Sam looked at him and remained sitting. They stared at each other for a moment. Sam had to break eye contact first. She looked away staring at the freezer door.
He reached down and wrapped a hand around her bicep. That was the wrong move.
Sam’s leg jerked, hitting Butcher in the shin. It wouldn’t have been enough force to take him down if he was fully standing, but crouching as he was, it put him on his face. His hand left her bicep and Sam felt like she could breathe again. His words, which she had worn all her life, went icy cold.
“I asked you to not touch me.” Sam watched as her soulmate stood up and saw a dark rage in his face. His chest was heaving. Sam could suddenly taste gasoline in the air. She would have been frightened, but she had met people who was regularly violent with women and she knew her soulmate was not one of them. He hadn’t been pushed that far. He was close, though. He wouldn’t be violent out of anger. He would do it for her. He was one of the bastards who would think the ends justified the means. If it saved her life, he would do it. He would knock her out and leave her somewhere. Sam was pretty sure he would put cash in her pocket as well. Sam considered that for a moment.
Then she jumped up and stuck her face in the freezer window.
-----
Billy could not describe his rage. No wonder his words would disappear. He was going to get both of his remaining soulmates killed at once. A voice in the back of his head pointed out that they were throwing themselves into danger and both of them may be suicidal. Billy couldn’t think about that, though. Billy didn’t know what to do. He had hesitated, he had fucking hesitated, he shouldn’t have done that. The moment that bullet ricocheted instead of killing Translucent, he should have knocked out the Sparky (Sam, her name was Sam) and went to drop her off with MM. He couldn’t save Hughie. He couldn’t have saved Hughie from the beginning. Hughie was on the edge of doing something stupid since the moment Robin had died. He could have saved her though.
Becca, what the fuck do I do? Billy asked the empty air, like he always did. Becca’s words smarted and stung in his skin. He felt like such a cunt, asking the bleeding air.
“Frenchie, I’ll be back.” He didn’t address anyone else in the room. He couldn’t look at either of them. He just left, feeling his will solidify. He would just have to get them out. All he had to do was kill one supe. A supe that had to have a weakness.
The Mallory files would be the best, he thought as he climbed into his car. He would have to go to Raynor. Fuck it.
Raynor curled her letters the same way letters used to curl around his thigh. She signed her name with the same slant and her voice rounded out words in a phrase like the mark used too. That mark had left him years ago and he was never quite sure Raynor had ever had one that corresponded- not with the way she would look at him sometimes- as if he was the worst thing to ever exist. Billy, for all he had ignored two soulmates and failed all of them, couldn’t imagine hating any of them. He couldn’t really see Raynor as a psycho who would hate someone for it either. Her hatred was too intense, her dislike too obvious.
It made the sex fantastic, but the taste of her would curdle in his mouth like gone off cream. The last time they had fucked they had been at her wedding. He had held her hair back while she puked, then gave her a mint, an orgasm, and her underwear. Then she went to go get married to a fucking prick whose idea of a good time was to torture fish for his own amusement.
Fucker.
Her alarm code changed every three days, but she would have an override that would have the Tom Petty’s birthday somewhere in there.
He got it in three tries, went in, and set the alarm off.
For all the history between them Raynor was still a fucking cunt. She didn’t hold back anything but her distain, which she let drip off her tongue like poisoned honey. It came to a boiling point when-
“Susan, I’ve got two soulmates on the line right now-“
“You fucking shouldn’t have dragged them into this mess-“
Billy took her by the throat and shoved her against the wall. Then he leaned down and whispered in her ear.
“I don’t give a fuck about what you do to me, Susan. I’m a cunt and I know I am a cunt. But if my soulmates die because you were being a petty bitch and I happen to live, you best believe you will be one of the first people I call on, after I fuck your husband with a knife, eh?”
“You really did find some more of your soulmates then, huh?” Raynor said. She had her hand wrapped around his wrist and her heel in his instep. Her heartbeat was steady in his ear. Butcher tightened his grip slightly. Her heartbeat didn’t change.
“Two of them.” She looked completive for a moment. “I can’t get you the files in any sort of time. We’ve got too many rats running about.”
Billy released her. “Whadda mean, rats?”
“Any other files, sure.” Mallory said. “But the director would know the second I opened the Mallory files and the resulting chaos would make its way down the ladder within minutes.”
“And back to Vought.” Billy said. “Fuck.” It wouldn’t do any good.
Fuck.
----
“It’s a bad idea.” Sam said. She didn’t have a handcuff on anymore. It dangled from her wrist like a BDSM accessory. Hughie tried not to think what that meant for Sam and Butcher’s future relationship, but he could almost hear Robin’s ghost speculating in the background. Not every soulmate pairing was romantic, but Hughie could almost taste the tension in the air when Butcher touched her skin.
Hughie would like to think he was being ridiculous, but he did actually know what Butcher looked like when he was horny. Hughie and Sam might need to work out a schedule. He wasn’t quite sure if he could have a threesome with Sam included. She was just a bit.
Intimidating.
“Yeah, well.” Hughie replied back to Sam, “Do you have a better idea?”
“We could wait for our death without having to deal with whatever shit the supe is going to pour on us.” Sam’s voice was sarcastic, but well meaning.
“Ah, yes, but the question is, can he fuck us up anymore than we already are.” Hughie brought up this point like it was reasonable. Maybe, in this sort of life, it was.
“True enough.” Sam sighed. She started cracking her knuckles, which made Hughie glare at her. He hated that sound. Frenchie and her had been talking since Butcher left, some sort of conversation about electrical currents and energy distribution and Hughie hadn’t really cared. But when Frenchie went upstairs, Sam had stayed with Hughie.
It actually made Hughie feel, if not good, pleased. Sam seemed to get along with about everyone, even his dad, without trying. Butcher was the first person, other than Hughie himself, that she did not immediately take too. The fact she stayed with him made him feel like he had her approval (and maybe Robin’s).
Sam stepped behind the door with the cattle prod (Hughie had given it back to her after Butcher left. She was unlikely to use it on anyone but Butcher and Translucent.)
It took a few false starts, but he got Translucent to start talking. Sam was right, there was some major mindfuckery in what Translucent said. But in the end, one of them was in an electric cage with two psychos planning their murder and the other one of them could actually leave.
“What do you think?” Hughie asked Sam.
“He’s overconfident.” Sam said. Her fingers were tapping on the metal table. “And he’s an ass. Being a voyeur doesn’t mean shit when it comes to knowing who someone is.”
“How do you know who someone is, then?” Hughie asked, curious as to what their answer would be.
“What they choose.” Sam said, but didn’t elaborate. She liked to mindfuck him, though. It was probably how she knew what Translucent was going to do.
Murder, though. Hughie thought, finding a place to sit and think. That is what they were doing. Hughie was sitting and talking with people who were actively seeking to kill someone. Translucent wasn’t attacking them. He was a threat. He had tried to kill Hughie.
Shit, a superhero had tried to kill him. He hadn’t even really thought about that. He had been scared shitless, of course. He hadn’t really thought of himself as a hero or a villain in this story. He had planted a bug, a superhero had tried to kill him, he had helped his soulmate kidnap him.
Soulmates. Hughie looked up to see that stupid sign.
KEEP YOUR HANDS CLEAN.
Sam was playing with the handcuff on her wrist.
KEEP YOUR HANDS CLEAN.
Robin deserves justice. Hughie thought. He was sure of that . But would he be able to dirty his hands to get Robin that justice? He didn’t know.
KEEP YOUR HANDS CLEAN.
Butcher was right, though, that he didn’t even think of giving Butcher up to Translucent. He couldn’t put Butcher in danger with his life on the line. He doubted he could do it if someone else’s life was on the line.
KEEP YOUR HANDS CLEAN.
Yeah. Hughie thought to himself. I could do it.
----
“Vous effrayez l’instable.” Sam said as Frenchie burst back into the room, angrily throwing shit about. The drill hadn't worked. It was one in a long line of failures.
Frenchie glared at her, but she let it roll off of her back. This was a stressful situation and tempers were high. She did like Frenchie, though. He took one look at her and offered her drugs, free of charge. Three hours ago she would have accepted.
He was also an extraordinary chemist. She was enjoying watching him work. All of his ideas would have been difficult to reproduce in a lab. Half of her graduating class would have refused to even try in conditions like these.
Rich Bastards.
But Frenchie, he was competent, focused, and he didn’t make mistakes.
Also he was the first person she was able to have an intellectual conversation with in over three years.
“What is this?” Hughie asked, looking at the pill like it was poison.
Only if we were so lucky. Sam thought. She had asked Frenchie about some of the contents of his bag, and she knew he had enough morphine to kill a man. She would like to think she wasn’t contemplating what she was contemplating, but she knew she was.
If the Seven appeared, if Homelander appeared, Sam could do one last thing for Robin. She could give Hughie a clean death. Frenchie had already filled the needle for her. Robin ignored the rest of the conversation between Frenchie and Hughie when she caught the smell of weed.
She couldn’t stand it. She went to the top of the stairs and sat down so her legs went across the stairwell. She hadn’t sat down for more than a minute when her soulmate appeared. The circles under his eyes were large and his hands, Sam was sure, wanted to shake like hers.
“Sparky.” He said, casually, like it was everyday that they were holed up in an abandoned restaurant waiting for death. She looked up at him and squinted, the light of the downstairs only vaguely allowing her to see. It had been years since she had been able to afford glasses. He sat her backpack next to her and she nodded. She hadn’t wanted to leave the restaurant to go get it. He leaned against the doorframe, looking down at the stairs.
“Any luck?” Sam asked. Her voice, to her surprise, was mellowing. It had been years since she had felt relaxed enough for her accent to come through.
Her soulmate tilted his head towards her, eyes shining in the dark.
“None whatsoever.” He said, casually.
“Fuck.” Sam said, but with no real force behind it. She wished she had something to do with her hands.
“Bought sums it up, yeah.” He said.
Sam looked up at him for a moment. She didn’t really have anything to lose if she asked him and they were going to die anyway.
“Frenchie has enough heroin set aside for Hughie.” Sam said, looking at him. He didn’t flinch. “I can take care of him, but do you think you could take care of me?” Sam watched as her soulmate went still. Nothing was clenched; nothing was relaxed.
“I’ll make sure you don’t feel nothing.” Her soulmate finally said. “But don’t-“
He paused. “Don’t worry about it quite yet, yeah? Wait for me to give the signal.” He crouched down next to her and put his face close to hers.
“I need you to promise. You don’t do anything until I tell you.” There was a long tremble up and down his arms now. He reached forward to touch her, but she flinched away for a moment. He drew his hand back. They sat looking at each other for a moment.
“Yeah.” Sam said. “Do you have a cigarette?”
The next hour passed in a bit of a haze. She and Butcher passed a cigarette between them, saying nothing until there was only a butt. Then they finally went downstairs. Her soulmate didn’t help her up and she was glad he didn’t even try.
She was getting dizzy, though. She didn’t remember the last time she had slept a solid hour and she hadn’t eaten anything substantial. Her vision around the edges was slightly black, but she caught herself just before she blacked out. Her soulmate didn’t seem to notice.
Sam had waited for death before. She had been waiting for death since that fire in Queens. It would be nice for everything to be over.
-----
Billy was pretty sure he didn’t breathe after Sparky’s request until he saw Frenchie’s wide eyes, pupil’s dilated, in the light of a cattle prod.
He felt a visceral euphoric satisfaction when he understood what Frenchie was going to do. The taste of blood filled his mouth and he had to keep himself from celebrating too soon. But he could start making alternate plans.
As Sparky and Hughie helped pull Translucent into the correct position for Frenchie, Billy started making contingencies. He needed to get them out of there and fast. He, halfway, wanted to bring both of them to his place- but he knew that wouldn’t be enough to keep them safe, not really. He would put them with Frenchie and Cherie, except he wasn’t completely sold on dealing with either of them strung out of their minds.
He needed to figure out what to do soon, though. He would only have a small amount of time to leverage Hughie and Sparky into doing what he asked.
Still, future problems didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy the satisfaction of gloating to one of the Seven that they were about to die. The cunt had been gloating while he and Frenchie and Sparky and Hughie had sat waiting to die. Billy only wished he could draw out the understanding, the primal fear that came with knowing you were going to die. He had feared for the lives of his soulmates. He watched shadows gather under their eyes and their hands shake and he had to make a fucking suicide pact. Vindictive did not begin to cover it. Still he needed to get it over with quickly.
When Homelander appeared, Billy felt a sort of doom fall over him. He looked at Sparky and Hughie and knew he couldn’t hesitate this time. He reached for Sparky’s wrist where the handcuff dangled and quickly attached her to one of the sinks. Then he pressed the kill switch into Hughie’s hand, leaning forward to press his mouth against Hughie’s. He ended the kiss before Hughie responded- then he raced after Frenchie.
He considered kissing Sparky as well, but looking at her, he knew she would not find the gesture as fond as he did.
---
KEEP YOUR HANDS CLEAN.
Hughie was halfway to Sam, intending to release her, when Translucent walked out of the cage. Hughie tried to reason with the Supe, who was so sure that Hughie cared if he lived or died at that point. Hughie had three soulmates. One of them was dead and one of them was alive. He wasn’t going to let a damn supe take down his living soulmate. Outside of that, he wasn’t going to let Translucent kill the man who had given him a reason not to die. He wasn’t going to let the Seven get near any of Robin’s other soulmates.
KEEP YOUR HANDS CLEAN.
He wasn’t going to hesitate.
KEEP YOUR HANDS CLEAN.
Translucent walked towards the stairs, sure as could be. Then he started to disappear, as Hughie knew he would.
KEEP YOUR HANDS CLEAN.
He had to trust that Butcher could get Homelander out of the way. He wouldn’t hesitate, but he would give him as much time as he could.
KEEP YOUR HANDS CLEAN.
Hughie pressed the button.