His back hurt and his fingers ached. He'd spent too much time bent over, working with Ed, Sloan and Charlie Parker on the design and production of the cure they'd needed. But the task he'd taken on helped him focus his mind and his energy. At least, he thought, focus them away from Cass.
The focus he'd achieved also allowed him to steer his senses, so that he didn't sense the pain, the worry felt by everybody who was working alongside him. When he had to think clearly, like then, it was a distraction he didn't need.
All of a sudden, there was nothing to touch, nothing to see below him. "Got it!" was the shout. He whirled quickly, faster than he'd moved before in mixed...human and dominant company.
"What?" he asked although he knew what had happened. "Are we ready, Dr. Tate?"
"The...cure...the ..." breathed Sarah from her perch on a lab table not far from where they worked.
Ed smiled as he held up the gloves they'd spent who knows how many hours on. Chris could sense his pride in their work "Combined with this particular cloth which has been covered in a serum designed to null and cure the effects of PABA exposure…"
Sarah nodded, and Chris saw determination in her eyes. "Good. So we have them if we need them." But he didn't like the nerves he saw evidenced in Sloan's.
"They'll be ok," Sloan ventured. "Alright...I mean...."
Ed nodded, and Chris sensed a confidence that barely held back strong fear, concern. "Yeah. They'll be fine." He smirked, trying to catch Sarah's eye. "I pity the ....."
Chris didn't know why Ed had stopped talking but in the silence, the door to the lab they'd been in slid open. "Sir," he heard Charlie Parker say in a voice full of deference. "Is there a problem?"
Sloan and Sarah gasped at once, and Chris felt himself grabbing on to the table for support. Overwhelmed by the unleashed nerves and fear which combined and echoed his own, rocking him to the core. At the moment he felt he couldn't hold on anymore, he realized he could feel someone's breath on his neck. "I don't know what's wrong with you, but tell me you're ok...scratch that. I don't care what's wrong...I..."
He let out a sigh of relief he'd never understood before, her concern washing over him, and nodded against her. "I'm fine," he breathed. "Everybody's so tense and I..."
He felt her grip tighten around him, her muscles tense under him. Her concern increasing to the point where it hurt him, right above his ears. "You what?" she asked, her tone mired in inquiry and disbelief. "You..."
He blinked, tried to open his senses to her completely. Tried to figure if she'd understand. And decided he didn't care...she needed to know. "I sense it all...it effects me... the emotions...."
Confusion. "I don't understand..."
He somehow righted himself and grabbed her hands. "I'm one of them...the homo dominant...the new species." And then he let them go. "I'm human but not. Organic but..."
"Yeah," she replied dismissively, a bite in her voice. "I know my taxonomy."
She turned her attention away from him, towards Charlie, and Chris could sense the practiced command in movements, from within her. He sensed everybody else and how they calmed down, relaxed, almost instantly. "At ease officer," she bellowed before grinning. "If there was a reason to flip out, you'd have it."
Charlie nodded and turned back to the work bench. He, Chris noted, at least was calm. "Cass!" he called.
She turned back towards him and raised her eyebrows. "What do you want? I can't waste my time if you..."
Betrayal. It stung his senses and he pulled back. "I don't know how to deal with this," he managed. "I never cared about telling anybody. But now I do...that's why I ..."
"What? Waited this long? What the hell do you think of me?"
"It doesn't matter what I think." Chris stepped away, sensing the full painful brunt of her anger and choosing not to stand within her reach. "Because from this point on, no matter what I say, you'll try to tell me that I had a motive other than inexperience. That I was trying to mislead you. And..."
"Chris..."
"What?" he shot back. "Pity now?" The pain of her emotions stung his senses more than he was willing to admit. "Thanks. Really. I lay my guts..."
"Will you stop it!" Her voice was barely a growl but he could tell it hid a great deal of pain. "For someone who says he can sense emotions, you are completely stupid. Maybe you're lost or clueless. I'm not sure. But you're acting like a sanctimonious asshole who can't see past the edge of his own nose."
He raised his eyebrows. "You have no right..."
"Never assume." She growled at him and before he could do anything, her lips were on his and he lost his mind. Groping at her hair, holding her for dear life. Minutes seemed like an eternity. She pulled back and smiled, breathless as he fought for control. "Now if you say another word I swear to god I'll shut you up."
He found it difficult to say anything, and so, this time, he did. Shut up.
She smiled, satisfaction in her motions, in her emotions. "I like you just the way you are. As long as you're mine, I don't care." And he, of course, didn't either.