"They were close enough he could have kissed her, and for the briefest moment, his eyes fluttered shut, body willing him to do just that. Intentional or not he wasn't sure, but either way, her hand landing lightly on his knee as her other thumb stroked over the bandages she'd finished placing on his face sent a rolling heat past his navel and a cold clarity to his mind."

Warning: Chapter contains mild sexual content

If he slowed the whole thing down in his mind he could almost manage to understand what had happened. First, he'd grabbed her arm - an incredibly stupid mistake on his part. So much for "genius." That was the easiest part. He was fairly certain that next her leg had swung against the back of his knees, and he'd been falling backward. That was where things got confusing, but the more he focused on it (and he had to focus on it, so he wouldn't focus on her) the more he thought he'd figured it out.

Falling back hadn't made much sense, at first, because he'd landed with a sharp pain in his chin and stinging palms - that was to say, he'd fallen forward. If he was right that the soreness in his shoulder wasn't just because of falling, then he could assume that at some point in the momentary blur of movement she'd grabbed his arm, twisting it to redirect his weight so he was flung face-first toward the ground at skin-breaking speed.

Ignoring her curious glance as she gingerly wrapped a bandage over his palm, he snickered to himself. The term beaten path really took on a whole new meaning when one was thrown down on it with such force.

Unfortunately for his face, his arms, or rather arm, had been extended in the wrong direction. So his chin hit the sidewalk first, with that sharp, warm sort of pain and he knew there'd be blood even before he risked opening his eyes. He didn't know when or why she let go of his arm but she must have because both of his hands flung around the sides of his body as face met floor. Well, ground but he liked when words did the thing - what was it called? He liked it when words… Nngh! He liked when words started with the same sounds! He was sure there was a word for that. She would know it. He wasn't going to ask her.

He had known his hands were bleeding, almost before his failed attempt to catch himself, and his stomach had churned a bit at the idea of having to look at blood, even if it was his own. But then, as he lay on the sidewalk not yet processing what had happened enough to even realize the wind had been knocked out of him, he heard her curse under her breath. His name flowing from her lips next shouldn't have made him feel like he was laying at the feet of an angel, and yet… Did angels have feet? They tended to look human, right? Could Shea fly? Or was her plasmic gift her only power?

Being hoisted to his knees by the back of his shirt, mildly choking him in the process, should have been embarrassing but he was too busy pulling oxygen into stunned-stiff lungs to experience emotions much beyond… ouch. And then she was ducking down, putting her face altogether too close to his, and yet, not close enough by half, and once again embarrassment was not an emotion he was capable of feeling.

It had finally settled in as they reached the apartment and he had realized it was the second time in as many days that she'd had to walk him, too shocked to function by himself, back home. His insistence that he could see to his injuries on his own went ignored. Which he was incapable of being annoyed about because he still hadn't managed to look at himself, and he could feel blood dripping off his fingertips, and the collar of his shirt was so wet it stuck to his skin, and to be perfectly honest he didn't want to look at all.

So he sat - in a chair since he was a person and not a cat who felt a need to take up what little counter space he had - and let her tend to his wounds. All the while he tried to make himself focus on piecing together what had happened so that he wouldn't focus on how close she was, or how warm her fingers were on his skin, or how she smelled like—

No, no, no! Not again!

"Drew!" Shea said, voice surprisingly insistent as green-tinted fingers snapped in front of his eyes.

He managed some sort of curious sound in response. One he wasn't sure he'd ever heard from a human being before. At least she seemed to get that he was trying to ask what she wanted, or what she said that he had clearly managed to miss by trying to keep his brain from remembering she was standing so close.

"Look up," she instructed, with a patient tone he thought sounded a little forced. He was pretty sure she had said at some point while she was digging through his first-aid kit that it was impressively well-stocked (a near-compliment he'd tried not to get too flustered about) and explained that first-aid was something she'd been required to learn as a hero. Forced patience wouldn't be that surprising, he supposed, since she clearly wanted to distance herself from her past life.

He obeyed her command, just as she let out an annoyed sigh, his brain finally catching up to… well, other parts of his brain. Her hands on his cheeks, made his whole body ache with a warm sort of desire. Not - he realized with the faintest glimmer of hope - for anything necessarily sexual or wrong, but to hug her, to hold her close and protect her and let the feeling of safety he felt just by being near her take over entirely.

Still, it was a desire he shouldn't have wanted and two very different thoughts crashed together in his mind. One that reminded him he was meant to talk to her, especially now that she'd been putting herself in danger by leaving on her own, and another that despite its absurdity managed to be what he blurted out. Not that he could blame himself when her face was so close to his as she worked at cleaning the cut on his chin that he could damn near taste her minty breath, and strands of her hair were tickling his cheeks, and he could feel how warm she was, and her hands kept straying to the back of his neck, and—

"There's karaoke at the Click-Clack Club on Fridays!" His voice squeaked, not too unlike the high-pitched voice that comes alongside inhaling helium. Unfortunate that there was no such thing around except her presence for him to blame.

She blinked at him, quirked an eyebrow, and in a low voice that made his insides squirm, merely responded, "Oh. Okay," before asking, "Feeling any better?"

They were close enough he could have kissed her, and for the briefest moment, his eyes fluttered shut, body willing him to do just that. Intentional or not he wasn't sure, but either way, her hand landing lightly on his knee as her other thumb stroked over the bandages she'd finished placing on his face sent a rolling heat past his navel and a cold clarity to his mind.

"Yeah, it's fine, thanks. I– I gotta go."

It was his turn to ignore her as she protested through the bathroom door that his bandages were going to have to be changed after he turned the shower on. Mentally begging her to stop talking so he could focus on something that wasn't her he wrestled out of his clothes - gagging when he saw his stained shirt - and all but fell into the stream of water. Icy cold water. He almost yelped, despite having been well aware that he'd set the temperature so low.

He had really hoped that the whole "cold shower" trick would work for him but after more time than he'd ever wasted in a shower before, the frigid water had proven to do nothing more than make his teeth chatter and convince him that his skin was turning blue. And, like Shea had warned him, made the fresh bandages she'd just painstakingly applied curl and slip off. Still, the throbbing warmth between his legs was unaffected.

Frustrated in more ways than one, Drew practically slapped the faucet into the red. It was his bathroom, and it wasn't like anybody was going to burst in and catch him, and– and– and what did it matter, anyway?

As steam fogged the bathroom, obscuring his vision even more, something new - guilt? shame? - began coiling in his stomach, even before he gave into some primal desire and wrapped his hand around himself. The sting was easy enough to ignore when what he was doing otherwise felt so relieving.

With his forehead pressed to the damp wall of the shower, water and sweat mixing together to drip down his back, he panted like a dog, twisting the shower curtain in his fist as a wave of pure, mortifying bliss coursed through him. Sooner than expected, he was grabbing for the soap, needing to scrub himself clean for the second time in one shower.

He didn't know how his body could feel so… so good after what he'd just done, how his muscles could feel relaxed when he feared his guilt would leave him with his head in the toilet for the next hour. Worse still, he couldn't believe how easy it was to force himself to swallow his shame and re-dress like he hadn't just masturbated because of the girl living in his spare bedroom.

The act, he tried to justify to himself, was completely natural - healthy, even! Nearly every pubescent human being masturbates! In fact, other animals were known to do so as well! His justifications didn't change the fact that his reasoning was disgusting, and the awful feelings burrowed their way back into his tummy quickly enough.

Staring at himself in a fogged-up mirror, through (miraculously unbroken) fogged-up lenses, he could barely recognize his reflection. Good. He didn't deserve to be recognizably human.

The door handle was abnormally cold in his cut-up hand, and he almost wanted to believe that it was meant to be a warning for him to not go back outside the bathroom. But he knew he couldn't lock himself away for much longer, so he pushed open the door, wincing at the squeak of the hinges.

A familiar voice captured his attention and all at once everything that had just happened was pushed to the back of his mind. Wandering over, he rested his elbows on the back of the couch, then hissed when he went to rest his chin on his hands.

"I have to actually watch this now, don't I?" Shea grumbled, and he could hear the roll of her eyes in her tone.

He nodded though he was hardly paying attention to her.

"What is the world's largest volcano?" the host of Trivia Tonight asked.

He blurted out the answer, "Mauna Loa!" even before any of the contestants could then was ridiculously relieved he was right. Although he hadn't expected to be wrong, he had realized that it would have been embarrassing to be wrong in front of Shea.

"You know, it erupted in April," he informed her, to which he received no response. "It has an elevation of—"

"Are you going to sit down or not?" she snipped at him. Startled, he realized he'd avoided making eye contact with her since joining her in watching the show. He'd even resorted to reciting useless facts - a nervous habit that had gotten him beaten up more often than was fair when he was younger. It was a little nice to know that, despite his bandaged palms and face... she didn't actually want to hurt him. It was a little too nice to know that she had been the one to take care of him.

Forcing his focus back to the show he squeaked out a response he knew wasn't understandable and meandered around the side of the couch. He sank onto the cushion further from her. Something nagged at the back of his mind - something he was meant to talk about - but he ignored it in favor of listening to the next question.

"What popular home computer was introduced in January of 1982?"

"Commodore 64!" Drew answered, perhaps a little too readily, then added in a wistful sigh, "They're really neat. I wish I could afford one."

"Yeah," Shea murmured, and there was something about that that made him glance over. If he'd hoped to understand any emotion she was feeling it didn't work. Her face looked blank from the side, and she wasn't looking at him anymore. A part of him snickered at the thought that his dyslexia made even emotions unreadable. He had enough awareness not to laugh out loud, not sure how he would explain his laughter if she asked.

A swell of pride bloomed in his chest - a welcome change from the emotions that had been living within him all day - as he correctly answered a third and fourth question in a row. Eagerly leaning forward as the category shifted from technology and science to movies from the 70's he was confident he'd manage to do just as well. He wondered if Shea was impressed, though he still found himself too nervous to look at her. A moment later he shook that thought from his mind, reminding himself he shouldn't be trying to impress her.

As intent on answering the questions as he was, he'd all but forgotten Shea's presence beside him until he felt the subtle shift of the couch cushion as she scooched closer. Alarm bells blared in his head, and he very nearly began babbling about rules when her feather-light touch on his fingers choked off any coherent thought. Again.

"Told you so," she mocked, with a nod to his disintegrating bandages, though he assumed she was only half-joking.

Despite managing to roll his eyes, he couldn't muster up any sort of teasing response and instead offered a meek apology.

She scoffed, looking disgusted and he almost winced. Would have, too, if it weren't for her quickly muttered, "You're not the one who should be sorry."

All at once, her words from the night before bothered him immensely more than they had when she'd said them. "You are scared, aren't you?" He stood by the fact that he wasn't afraid of her, even if she had given him a somewhat painful lesson into why he ought to be. But he'd had far worse injuries given to him by people with far more malicious intentions. At least she didn't break his glasses.

"I'd call it even," he joked, worrying he sounded too nervous for it to have come across quite right. "For– For burning your hands."

She only scoffed again, and he was sure she wouldn't agree that what he'd very quickly understood as an impulsive defensive reaction on her part, was at all the same as a mistake made in the kitchen that she protected him from. It was fairly relieving, given that train of thought, that she told him she was going to rebandage his hands before he could make the mistake of trying to… well, comfort her, he supposed.

Drew barely managed to peel his eyes away from her as she walked off to collect the first-aid kit again, insisting to himself that he had not been looking at her so much as just… being distracted by movement. He really wasn't a very good liar.

"What alliterative 1974 movie musical featured a 'planet-hopping' journey?"

In the same moment that the answer popped into his head, he exclaimed, "Alliteration!" so suddenly that he scarcely heard Shea snickering as she came back in.

"That's not what alliterative means, Doc," she informed him with that casual mocking tone that intrigued him as much as it frustrated him.

Waving a dismissive hand in her direction he replied, "The movies called The Puny Potentate," though he decided against explaining that he'd been incapable of thinking of the term earlier that evening. He wasn't sure he could explain why. He wasn't even sure he remembered why anymore.

Her silence was what brought his attention back to her. She didn't offer even a dismissive acknowledgment that he spoke, before or after his answer was confirmed correct. Risking a glance he saw her frowning at the screen.

Before he could ask if she was alright, she spoke. Her voice was surprisingly quiet as she said, "I remember that movie. I saw it in theaters." She'd gotten a dazed sort of look on her face. A look that concerned him, not because he was afraid she was hurt, but well— actually, yes concerned that she was hurt. Just not… physically.

"Did you?" he managed, thinking maybe… maybe she just needed to talk. Which he noted was quite contrary to his earlier relief at not having to try and comfort her.

"My older brothers and I saved up all the money we could doing odd jobs for the neighbors for weeks." She chuckled quietly to herself and added, "I got off easy enough, Heath's friend, Wren, paid me a nickel and dime a night to watch his parakeet, or whatever that squawking feathered demon was, while his family went on a weeklong bird-watching trip."

He rapidly became so focused on her words that he almost jumped out of his own skin when she snatched his hand and began re-applying the off-brand healing salve.

"We used it to treat our parents to a day at the movies, complete with a babysitter for Wendell and Westley, for their anniversary. It— It was the best thing we could think to give them." Her already quiet voice dropped to a near-silent whisper he had to strain to hear. "I had saved my birthday money for three months just to buy popcorn for us. That— that was the last Christmas before…"

Her glowing hand cast the room in a green-tinged light, that was as enchanting as every other time he'd seen it. Although part of him started to wonder if she was showing it off on purpose. Did she know how hypnotizing and - unfortunately for him - how much of an… an aphrodisiac he found it to be?.

For a blip in time, quickly stamped out by guilt gurgling in his belly, he was actually glad he'd done what he had while he was in the shower. He was too drained - not the right word to use! not the right word to use! - for any more unfortunate physical displays of arousal to occur within the lower regions of his body.

Then the glow went out and her fingers, still hot from her personal inferno, wrapped around his hand to bring it towards her chest. His breath caught in his throat and for a moment he feared he wasn't quite as drained - why would he use that word, again?! - as he'd hoped he was, but then she began to wrap bandages snugly around his hand, and warmth spread through him as it had when she'd first bandaged his wounds. That was to say, it spread from his head all the way to his toes, bringing him more relief than he thought possible at the fact that the heat didn't just pool around certain extremities.

His focus drifting away as he relaxed, he had a sudden thought that something about her story didn't quite make sense. If the movie had come out in '74 then… Hadn't she said that she'd been nine when the whole comet and weird glowing superpower thing happened? But then wouldn't she have…?

One look at her face, steely gaze shifting between his hands and the screen, he felt certain encouraging further conversation on the subject would be unwise. He was probably too tired to be attempting mental math from the little bits and pieces of her life she'd told him about, anyway, and the thought was abandoned almost as quickly as it popped into his head. He probably wasn't remembering right.

"What film, often accused of causing medical emergencies from heart attacks to miscarriages, was based on a true story?"

It was the first question in the episode he didn't know the answer to. Shea was happy to fill in the void, but when she cheerily proclaimed, "The Exorciser!" he thought he was going to be sick. Or cry.

"Please tell me you're kidding," he begged, through a series of strange stammered sounds. She shook her head, shooting him a smirk which he could only think of as… scary - and not in the scarily beautiful way he usually thought of her. Sure enough, the seconds passed and the host proclaimed the contestant who'd said the same horrific words Shea had, had gotten the answer right.

Snagging his now fully bandaged hands away from her - how long had she just been holding his hand like that? Why had she just been holding his hand like that? - Drew grabbed at the blanket, throwing it over his head the moment he managed to pull it to him. He almost didn't realize he was quietly chanting, "No, no, no, no…" under his breath.

"You alright there, dork-boy?" Dork-boy. That was a new one.

He tried to answer. The fact that he only managed to continue his chant ever-so-slightly louder was sure to be answer enough. He thought he'd thrown in a "pest" somewhere in the middle of all that, though he really couldn't be totally sure of it.

"Hey," her voice called to him, so gentle it seemed almost ethereal, like her gossamery touch as her hand grazed his shoulder. At least, he assumed it was her hand. What if it wasn't? What if she was gone and something else was touching him, and it had hurt her, had taken her, and was coming for him too, just like he'd been sure the monster under his childhood bed used to try and get to him because there was nobody who knew how to keep the monsters out after—

He ripped the blanket off his head and grabbed tightly to her arm - which hurt, but was unimportant in the grand scheme of the horrifying paths his overactive imagination was already starting to take him down again.

"I… I'm sorry I made you watch that with me," she murmured at the same time he shakily demanded, "Why would you let me watch that if you knew?"

Her phrasing made him pause. She hadn't made him do anything. Sure, she'd teased him enough, challenged him enough, that he'd almost felt like he couldn't just say no, but she hadn't actually made him watch it. He could blame her for having the idea to bring that horrific movie into his apartment in the first place, but beyond that, he'd just… gone along with it.

James, who despite this event Drew still considered his closest friend, had once sat on Drew's freshman dorm bed with a bloody nose he wouldn't stop, therefore making him see a running stream of fresh blood, dripping off his chin, onto his shirt and Drew's own bedsheets.

He had thrown up almost immediately, and again when he mustered up the willpower to strip the sheets from the bed - sheets which were promptly thrown away, though the waste of money made him want to be sick for entirely different reasons. The nightmares lasted almost a month. It had taken a week of being woken up in the middle of the night by his screams before James said he was sorry he'd messed with him like that - though Drew still wasn't sure if he had been sorry for himself or for him.

That, Drew thought, was something that counted as making him see something horrifying. The teasing, though it made him feel an almost unignorable desire to prove himself, had still not been something he was physically incapable of avoiding. It helped that, for whatever reason, when Shea had teased him for being frightened it had almost seemed like she was deliberately helping to distract him from what was scaring him. James had offered no such courtesy within the constraints of his mockery.

A small hiccup escaped past his lips, and Drew coiled the blanket tight against his chest, willing the tears to stay away. Though his eyes didn't feel watery, Shea still shot him an apologetic looking smile.

It faded quickly as she chuckled, "You look like you need your childhood teddy bear back right now."

He shook his head. "I've never had a teddy bear," he confessed. It wasn't quite a lie or quite the truth. It was just that the idea of telling her about a childhood spent with decade-old hand-me-downs and toys that were little more than amalgamations of broken and discarded pieces of proper toys that other children in school had abandoned or thrown away wasn't one he was too thrilled at. He certainly didn't feel inclined to tell her that his favorite toy growing up had been called Mr. Cuddlesworth, and had been three different kinds of girls dolls taped and glued together with the head of a stuffed monkey sewn on top.

He thought he remembered having a teddy bear when he was young, but he wasn't sure what had happened to it - if it had existed at all. There had for sure been one that could have been passed down to him, but he'd never felt quite right about taking it, so Mr. Cuddlesworth with his soft monkey head was the closest he'd had to a comfort toy. He wondered if she'd had a teddy bear, but couldn't bring himself to ask. He doubted she had many childhood comforts left.

"Are– Are you gonna be okay?" she asked, that gentle tone returning and making him swoo— No! No, he was not swooning over her!

Or maybe he was because it only took a half-second of looking into her eyes for every muscle in his body to uncoil, a feeling of safety he couldn't quite describe taking over. His head lulled into a nod, and he bit his tongue to resist the urge to say he'd be better if she stayed with him again. He had enough conscious awareness left, despite whatever spell she'd clearly put him under, to know sleeping on the couch together once had been bad enough. Let alone that it had happened multiple times.

He hadn't even realized he'd actually heard the question, "What 1977 film soundtrack stayed atop the album charts for twenty-four weeks straight?" until the answer, "Sunday Evening Temperature," was bubbling out of him. He could feel his ears turning pink as he saw her staring at him from the corner of his eye. Evidently biting his tongue could only help him shut up once per evening because he rambled on with more pride than his embarrassment should have allowed him, "There are seventeen songs in the album, and I've managed to sing every single one at karaoke at the Click-Clack Club."

"That sounds like something my brother would do," She laughed and he immediately relaxed properly, resting back against the couch and even letting the blanket lay lightly in his lap. "Although he would do it all in one night. But Merrick has always been… the kind of person who needs all eyes on him at all times."

Drew hummed, nodding. "Sometimes this one guy shows up, and I always hate it when he does. He's gimmicky, and a mic hog."

The mic hog always came in with what had to be paint covering every inch of skin, and no matter how many times Drew checked to make sure the guy wasn't heading toward the stage, he always seemed to pop out of thin air and snag the mic for another half-hour worth of singing. Calling it mediocre was generous.

"So, is reading the only thing you can't do, Doc?" she teased, though she seemed a little tense herself, suddenly.

A million thoughts about how he couldn't get her out of his brain bounced around inside his head. "I can't see, either," he joked back. "Without my glasses, I'm legally blind."

"You're blind and I'm deaf. As long as my implants don't get busted the same time your glasses do, we might make a good team." The laugh that came out of her was surprising, but soon he found he was laughing too.

For once, he decided, being a coward had worked out. He didn't want her to go, and he was thrilled he'd been too scared of having to say it to… well, talk to her at all.

"I can't wait to know you," he found himself whispering. If she knew what he'd said, she gave no indication beyond asking him to repeat himself - a request he avoided by asking instead, "Are you sure you don't want to go with me on Friday?"

She blinked and her surprised, "Oh," surprised him in turn. Had she not understood that he'd been trying to invite her?

"You'll be allowed in," he found himself assuring her. "They just won't let you drink." A nagging reminder that she couldn't drink because she was a teenager picked at his brain until his ears rang but he ignored it the best he could. He didn't invite her for any reason other than that he would perhaps like to be her friend.

"I… Yeah, okay. I'll go. But I'm not singing."

"Oh, I'll get you to sing someday," he promised. And somehow he was sure he would, even if that day would not be anytime soon.

"Good luck with that, dork."

"Zip it, pest!" she replied to herself in unison with him.

The audible sound of her stomach growling stopped him from sputtering out too many entirely incoherent syllables, instead announcing that she needed to eat and - after the episode of Trivia Tonight ended on an absurd bonus question that stumped them both - skittered off to the kitchen to scrounge up something for dinner. When she mockingly suggested that if he had any plans to burn a building down that night he knew where to find her, he joked that she could help by reading the multitude of chapters in his textbooks he had to read for classes the next day.

Cytoskeletal proteins and the potential applications of the concept to the future of robotics was even more fascinating, Drew secretly declared to himself, when she was the one reading the text to him.

When she slipped off to her room, shortly after winning the argument about whether or not he needed new bandages on his chin as well and seemingly unknowingly turning him to putty under the gentle warmth of her fingertips pressed lightly to his cheeks, he couldn't help but stare at her door for several minutes. Finally, he whispered again, "I can't wait to know you." And the knowledge that she was so close kept the nightmares he'd been sure he would have from finding their way to him.

His last thought before falling asleep was a somewhat amusing thought that Shea was quickly becoming the teddy bear he relied on for protection. Even if she had thrown him earlier. It really only served to make her more incredible, in his mind, feeling first-hand her effortless skill.

No. No, he didn't want her to go at all.