I opened my eyes and stared at the person who was lying in front of me, facing me. Half of her black hair was fanned out underneath her and the other half of her hair obscured most of her face. The hair that was on her face fluttered back and fourth as she breathed in and out. Her right arm covered her eyes and her left arm was folded underneath her head. 'Talon, thank you. Thank you for taking me from Doctor's grasp. Thank you for showing me that you cared enough to run after me, that people can still care. Thank you for bringing me here, so that I won't be alone again…as long as you can trust me enough and don't find out why I was in there in the first place.'
I sat up, putting most of my weight on my hands and looked at the other people in the room. I looked to my left, I saw it was Zero who was sleeping on the mattress beside mine. His long (for a boy) brown hair framed his face and he was sort of curled up in a foetal position underneath the covers. Wait a minute, covers? When did Zero get a cov…hey! Who put this cover on top of me? I wondered.
I pushed the cover off me and stood up. Looking around, I saw everyone was still asleep. No, that wasn't right. There was a spare mattress beside Zero, which I take for assumed must've been Geode's because Blaze was beside Talon.
Shaking my head and grinning slightly at how innocent they looked, I walked down the stairs to see if I could find Geode and/or something to eat. As I reached the bottom of the stairs I saw something green flying towards my head in the corner of my eye. Catching it deftly in my right hand, I studied what had been thrown at me.
It was an apple.
"Nice reflexes." I heard someone comment. Turning around I saw it was Geode. His dirty blonde was lying flat on his head and his chocolate brown eyes were gazing into mine with a mixture of bemusement and mild surprise. I looked down from his gaze as I had been used to doing but I don't think he noticed. "Normally when I do that, the apple has already hit them and are on the ground before they even realize it." I lifted my head up, cocked my head and looked questionably at him. When he saw that, he chuckled. "You don't like talkin' much do you? Yeah, you can eat it." he said, answering my mute question.
I took a bite with a crunch and licked the succulent juices before it dripped onto the hand that was holding it. While I was savouring the taste of something long forgotten, Geode leaned on one of the walls.
"Charlie, come here wouldja?" I walked up to him and took another bite of the apple. "Charlie, since you're new the gang I'm going to set out the rules for you Okay?" I nodded. "First things first, I'm the leader here so you follow my orders." Again, I nodded. Sounded reasonable enough. ""Next, when you talk to me, you don't look at me and call me Sir, got that?" there was a seriousness in his voice that I wasn't really paying attention and was about to nod just out of habit. When that sunk in however, I felt something retching in my heart. I nearly chocked on the piece of apple that I was chewing on. It couldn't be happening again! It couldn't! I nearly started to shake physically and I shook my head. I thought I was safe. I thought I wouldn't be ordered what to do again. But I guess I was wrong. I would never be safe. Somebody would always be commanding what happened in my life.
Always.
I looked at my toes and whispered, "Yes Sir." In my line of sight, I saw Geode's feet shift as if he was uncomfortable. But that couldn't be right, these kind of people loved bossing people around.
"Shadow?" Geode sounded uncertain about something. Maybe he didn't think that I would have submitted so quickly. "Shadow, look at me." it was a direct order so I had to follow it but why would he suddenly contradict himself? What I saw when I did surprised me but I quenched my look of surprise because it was probably a test. It was something that Doctor used to do now and then, if I showed any emotion, he would have enjoyed, "teaching" me not to show any. The look on Geode's face was of concern and worry. "Shadow, I was jokin' when I said those things, you do realize that? I didn't mean any of those things!" he was… joking? He didn't mean any of it? I let out the breath I didn't know that I was holding inside of me and felt a smile of relief creep onto my face. "Now, I think the other guys have had enough of a sleep in today. Couldya go upstairs and wake them up? Well, you can try with Talon but I doubt you'll be able to do anything with her." I walked up the stairs to wake the others and thought about how to wake them up politely.
* * *
Geode's P.o.V
I remembered something that Blaze had told me about Shadow just as I was walking away and decided to test it out. I closed my eyes and listened and when I didn't hear anything I opened them again thinking that he had stopped walking for some reason. When I did though, he wasn't anywhere in sight. She was right, Shadow never made a sound when he moved, even up those stairs which always squeaked whenever someone else trod on them. I could easily see why his nickname was Shadow now, for his size, he was so quiet when he moved you just never knew where he was. He also barely said anything so he could have been right behind you and you wouldn't have noticed anything. What worried me though, was the way Shadow just yielded to me. He didn't argue about it or anything he just… did what he was told. When he hung in his head I thought he was playing around but then he started speaking… there was no playfulness in his voice and he sounded so, I don't know how to describe it, broken, I guess would best suit it. After Shadow lifted his head, what I saw in his eyes was wariness and fear. The only time I had seen someone's eyes hold that kind of fear, was when we had found Zero. What happened to him was that his foster parents had beaten him because he wasn't doing that well in school and then chucked him out of the house when his grades dropped even further. I instantly felt guilty that I had done that little trick.
Above my head, I heard a sort of commotion. I grinned at that. It was easy to tell what it was about. Shadow must've tried to wake Talon, honestly! She's like a bear in hibernation when she's sleeping and when she's awake she's like a playful puppy! I heard the familiar squeak of someone stepping on the stairs. Looking up, I saw it was Blaze who was walking down first and she looked like she was going to burst out laughing at any given moment. The next person who walked down was Zero and for some reason he had a grin on his face and was shaking his head. It was obviously Shadow who walked down next, he didn't show it in his face but his eyes showed he was pleased about something. I raised my eyebrow to Blaze when she caught me looking at her, waiting for an explanation.
She shook her head but said, "Wait and see." Wait and see? Wait for what? Talon? But she's-
I heard someone stomp down the stairs this time and walked sullenly beside Blaze. Well this was definitely a surprise. "Talon?" I said uncertainly. "I didn't think you'd be up now." When she heard me, she shot Shadow what could only be said as a death glare. Shadow had shifted uncomfortably (but still had that little smile in his eyes) when I said that so he didn't see Talon glaring at him. "Since no-one can normally wake up Talon in the morning, I take that it was you Shadow who woke her up. Can you tell me how you did it?"
"A person's got to breathe." And he didn't say anything else to add to that.
^A person's got to breathe? I've got another good nickname for ya, Shadow, how about Enigma? You don't say much and when you do…Hmm, a person's got to breathe. Well that's obvious, but what's that go to do with…ooooh!^ I could now see why everyone was laughing. When I figured it out I gave a little snort.
"Geode!" Talon said indignantly "It's not funny!"
"Well now we know how to get you up in the mornings now!" I said with a cheeky grin.
"Yeah well…let's see how you like it when someone does it you!"
I laughed at that. "Like you would be able to wake up before me. You can barely get up two hours after me, so what makes you think you can wake up before me?" I said calmly.
"Um…. well. Uh." She flustered.
In the corner of my eye I saw Zero glance up to Shadow and when Shadow looked back his eyes were purple again. ^That's it. That proves it. He is soooo gay. ^ Zero took a half step back, Shadow blinked and the glow disappeared. Pushing this to the back of my mind, I tuned back into what was Talon saying and what she was going to do to me when/if she caught me asleep.
* * *
Charlie's/Shadow's P.o.V
I had just finished talking to Trilox about how he thought Talon was so troublesome (as in trying to wake her up) when I caught Zero looking at me. As soon as I stared back he took a half step back with the same look I had seen on his face when I first "met" him when he was staring at me whilst the others were deciding what to do with me. After (for some reason I felt like it) I blinked, he looked relieved and seemed more relaxed, as he always seemed to have a hint of fear in his eyes. I figured it must have meant my eyes had gone back to normal. But what was normal for me? It might have had something to do with my eyes suddenly changing colour but his eyes reminded me of something. I then recognized where I had seen that look before. I had seen it in my own face. The trace of fear showed that you were always afraid of something, I knew what I was afraid of, and that was being hurt mentally by my "peace offering" which was given to me by Doctor. 'I wonder what's happened to him to make him have such apprehension in his eyes?'
* * *
Zero's P.o.V
After Shadow's eyes had gone back to normal I felt myself relax and I started to look into his eyes more closely. I know that I had been staring at him before, but only at the strange colour of his eyes so I didn't look past them and tried to see what was physically there. What I saw in there was the contentment of waking up Talon, the constant anxiety of…of being hurt. Of being hurt? Looking even more closely, I saw what I knew would have been there the second I saw his anxiety.
I saw fear.
But it was so well hidden, so deep inside of him that I knew that it would take quite a while before he opened up to us. The only reason I knew that it was there was because it would have taken someone who had the same experience as him or new someone who'd had that experience and gotten to now them to notice it.
I suddenly felt like I would be able to talk to him as I felt we had something in common. It wasn't exactly the same, but something similar.
"Well I could get Shadow to wake me up so I can wake you up!"
* * *
Charlie's/ Shadow's P.o.V
When I heard my name I broke eye contact, which in turn seemed to break the spell that we were under as we studied each other. "Wha' abou' me?" I said turning around to look at Talon.
"What I just said. You wake me up early so I can wake up Geode."
I cocked my head to the left with a lopsided grin. "Ah thought you werny (A.N Translation=were not) talkin' to me. And can you remember what the conversation started off with?"
It took Talon about two seconds to remember and when she did she started to scowl at me again. I saw Geode shake his head with his eyes closed and chuckled. "Talon, don't be too angry with him. I told him to wake up you guys so he did. So don't blame him."
"And you didn't tell him to NOT wake me up?"
"Well, I said that he would try with you but I didn't think that he would be able to wake you up."
" * Sigh * Okay, Okay. I forgive you for doing that Shad." She said, flashing me a grin.
I blinked, getting really confused by Talon's sudden change in personality. One minute she looked like she wanted to kill me, the next minute, she was grinning like a Cheshire cat and giving me a shorter version of my nickname that is supposed to be a shortening of you real name! I saw Geode grinning at my confusion and walked up to me.
"Don't worry about her fast changing moods." His voice dropped down to a whisper "It's her time of the month."
"GEODE! THAT IS SOOOO NOT TRUE!" I winced as my ear pretty much got the full blast of her shout. "Oh! Sorry Shadow, anyways, he's lyin' about that." She said, now transferring her death glare to Geode. But Geode just shook off her look.
"Told ya."
I stared at the two as they continued with their friendly bickering and glanced down to Zero who was also watching this with apparent amusement so they must do this quite a lot.
"Ah take it they do this of'en then." I whispered into Zero's ear.
"Yeah, they do, but it normally doesn't happen until later, we normally poke fun at her when she first wakes up and she just grunts in return." He whispered in return.
"So what do you guys do while they work things out?" I said, eyeing Blaze because she was starting to look annoyed as this "argument" had already been going on for about ten minutes already.
Zero shrugged at my question. "The only thing that we can do. We wait." He said settling down to get into a comfortable position.
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That's me finito. ^__^ Heh. Sorry if you guys got all confused with all the swapping of the P.o.Vs. Believe me, later on when I start switching P.o.Vs it'll get pretty confusing…but that's later on. Am I just blabbering in the fic now and do you guys want to get some action? Hopefully there will be a bit more action in the next chapter. And sorry for no usage of Charlie's/Shadow's power and Trilox in this chapter as well. So what do you think what Charlie/Shadow did to wake up Talon? I'm not that sure on what should happen next so…do you want to tell me what you might want to happen? Oh yeah…GAH! Why won't the italics stick in my chapters???? What should have happened in the last chapter was that the part in between the =+=+=+=+=+= bit was all supposed in italics and not just the start of it. I also think that there was waaay too many references to the word "looking". You have no idea how many times I had to go to the thesaurus to get a more interesting word than "looking". Now that I've had my little rant, I can now thank my reviewers;
Dudems: Yikes! I'd like, only just posted the new chapter about two minutes before you had reviewed! * Starts chewing on marshmallows * Aw man! By the time I finish this fic (or series) I'm gonna be HUGE! Everyone keeps on giving my cookies and all that! Yeah, Shad has Doctor on his mind, small wonder though…
Wingcanine: Hmm, I'm not saying if you're right or wrong. 'coz if I do, I might end up giving it away. I know how you feel about being busy. I have the stinking prelims to worry about…- um, I don't really know if my chapters will be getting any longer but, I don't know if I'm aiming for that either…
Please review!
Dark Ice Dragon
