Author's Note

I do not own The Gifted.

Second entry to this fic. This one was based on Lovers on the Sun by David Guetta.

They clasp hands. For the first time in decades, the golden glow of the Fenris force lights up the air, illuminating the cell around them.

It feels good. They are power made human, flames and force and fury. These humans are going to pay for daring to imprison them, and this scientist is going to pay for daring to try and give them orders.

They are all going to pay.

They would make sure of it.

And then there's nothing but pain and they are screaming and on the floor, but they can't lose each other, not again.

Not ever.

These humans are going to pay.

He snarls at the screen.

"Incredible," says the scientist.

As if they could measure their power with science.

X X X

Esme and her sisters might have freed them from imprisonment, but they had no right to stand there giving them orders.

'Time to go boys and girls' indeed!

She accepts her brother's hand.

They could tear down buildings like this, destroy festivals and those that thought they could stop them.

No one could stop them.

Bit by bit, everything around them is ripped apart into non-being. It seems slower than she felt it should be, as though the process is being delayed. The bus disintegrates into pale ash, the effect creeping out to the nearby guard buildings and tearing into the mutants closest to them.

Some of them are screaming.

They are collateral, unfortunate, but between them and their target.

Esme and her sisters flee.

And then something slams into their backs, a heavy weight that breaks their hands apart and throws them forwards into woodland instead of cracked concrete like they expected.

Something in him lapses back into non-being.

"Clarice!" comes a man's voice. She reaches for him again but he pulls away – why would he do that why? - and another woman somewhere is screaming 'Don't let them touch!'

It lapses in her too.

They stare at each other.

X X X

When things went wrong at Fairburn they reach for each other as the power wakes under their skin, hungry, craving, roaring and furious. She's only angrier when he's knocked unconscious, and for a moment she remembers laying in his arms as he lays in hers, bleeding from her chest as he bleeds from his head.

They'll pay.

X X X

The power craves.

The power craves as they talk, the power craves as they resist it, the power craves as they remember and desire and crave.

And when the time comes they exchange looks and know each other well enough to know the decision the other one has made.

"Maybe we can do some good this time round."

The power craves.

They crave.

They can't go on alone.

X X X

They flee unseen amongst the ashes to join their parents and go on to the Way Station.

That's where Polaris and Esme find them a week later.

They're rebuilding the Hellfire Club.

They smile and stand to join them amidst the protests from those around them.

They're sated.

For now, anyway.

Soon enough they will be craving again, though not as badly as when they were without each other.

That was like hell on Earth.

X X X

As always, the Club has found some big fancy building to make into their Headquarters.

It's much better than the Underground, though they can remember living in forests and fields, diving into the tiniest piece of shelter for some reprieve from the rain.

They shower together in their private bathroom and take turns spraying each other with the shower head as though they are six years old.

They were burning up.

They were alight with power, awash with the golden light.

They had a way out, an escape, and they took it. Their enemies crumbled to dust and the building came apart around them.

They woke in the morning, twined in each other, limbs tangled together, but they had each other and that was all they needed. She gazed into his eyes and he gazed into hers, remembering that terrible power and the sensation of being one being, two melded into one.

X X X

Choices stretched out in front of them.

They could have given up, they could have given in, they could have slipped up and been shot.

They could have succumbed to the elements, fallen asleep and never woken up.

(what a change that would have made to the future, butterly wings echoing throughout the decades)

They made their choice.

They kept moving, fleeing the devastation behind them.

History would remember their names.

X X X

When the Club found them a year and a half later, ragged and filthy, they vowed never to have to run like that again.

They would practise, and they would train, and they would stand and fight.

Which was exactly what they did six weeks later, and those that had once hurt them, hunted them, were ash beneath their feet.

They could have done a thousand other things, but they did this instead, because if the humans refused to accept them, hunted them down like animals, they would turn the tables and wipe them off the the face of the planet.

The days and the sunlight hours, those belonged to the Club and their desires, do this, don't do that, no it's not fun to slaughter fifty people damn spoilsports-

But the nights…

The nights were theirs, and theirs alone.

The best feeling of all was being wrapped in each others' arms while the golden light danced around them and roared out to destroy their enemies. It was war on the battlefield during the day and war in the bedroom at night. And yet when their limbs intertwined they saw through the same eyes, breathed with the same lungs, thought with the same mind, loved with the same heart.

It was said they weren't team players, that they'd turn coat eventually, that the only thing they truly cared about was each other, and even then it was out of necessity and not love.

Two of those things were true.

One was false.

X X X

It felt good.

They hadn't felt it – or hadn't noticed - the first time, too busy panicking, but the more they used it the more they wanted to use it. The golden light flooded up their arm, roaring under their skin, roaring and destructive.

Every time they linked hands they hated letting go.

They had to keep on fighting.

They had more power in one finger than these puny humans had in their entire bodies.

They were going to crush them.

The battle went on, and all they could do was cling to each other and enjoy the ride.

One day this world would belong to them.

(and if not theirs, his, the baby that slept in his cradle in the next room, the symbol of their legacy)

They spend their days training, against dummies and brick walls, with each other, with Polaris and Bulk and Fade, but the nights, the nights are theirs, and they have a city to own and explore and a private bedroom to play in.

They're underage – it's been a long time since they were that – but the Club gets them IDs that say they're older, old enough, and she takes him clubbing. It's his first time – here, anyway – but she's been before, sneaking out with friends and a false ID back in what they used to call home.

They get hammered, enough just to forget, just for a bit, and fall in and out of a taxi to get back to Headquarters, laughing and tripping over their own feet.

Reeva isn't impressed.

Damn spoilsport.

X X X

Almost all their hours are allocated to training, to getting stronger, until at last they reduce the training room to rubble three months in and collapsing, panting, in a heap as Sage gapes at them from the observation deck. They roll apart, arms wrapped together, laughing like the world is ending.

Reeva sends them on their first mission the next day, to attack a prison transport of mutants, to free them and incite a riot.

Just like the good old days, he jokes, and then she tells them she wants minimal casualties.

You're no fun, she complains, and he laughs as they leave the room.

X X X

They tear into the van convoy and there are men screaming and mutants screaming and bullets flying and one of them comes painfully close to her.

She shields it and he rips his head off.

(they give her her minimal casualities)

X X X

The Frosts drive the truck back and they lie over the back bench, tangled in each other's arms, her hands in his hair and his under her shirt, absent-mindedly checking for any hidden injuries.

She tells him she's fine, but he won't believe it until he's seen every inch of her and knows neither of them is going to be left alone again.

X X X

Reeva's not happy – Reeva's never fucking happy – and tells them off like children when they arrive back, falling from the truck like they're drunk again.

You got your minimal casualities, he tells her, his sister's arm wrapped around his shoulders.

Reeva huffs.

She didn't know what she was letting herself in for.

X X X

The power craves.

They sleep twined together that night, and it pulses, golden bright, in their chests.