Chapter 4: "Guinea Pig"

Back to the lab, now.

Elin stopped snarling when she saw Cody approaching her, simply staring up at him in shock. "Cody?"

Cody frowned her way for a moment before the recognition seemed to click, and he froze as well. "Elin?"

She frowned and looked him over more closely. "Has he had you this whole time?" she asked, though her tone wasn't as shocked as it had been to start — more building anger. "We thought you were dead. I found your body — we …" She turned toward Sinister and all but snarled through her teeth, doubling down on her rage. "I'm going to skin you alive when I get loose."

Sinister waved a hand at her. "If you cannot be civilized, I'll have Cody give you something to make you civilized."

"How dare you talk to me about civility?!" Elin snarled. "You kidnapped him! And planted a fake … you sick, twisted body snatcher."

"Enough." Sinister turned her way with a glare.

"What's wrong? Truth hurt? Sounds like a monster problem to me, you soulless sack of garbage."

Sinister glared at her again before she turned toward Cody. "I told you to take care of her," she said in an annoyed tone.

Cody paused for a moment as he looked Elin's way and then nodded slowly, heading toward one of the tables to load up one of the syringes there, not looking at Elin.

She waited until he was next to her before she looked up at him and said low, "She's got Chance on that table, little brother."

That finally got Cody to look up and meet her gaze, real fear flashing behind his gaze before he looked up at Sinister, and then past her to Chance. "No," he said quietly, his eyes widening.

"Yes," she said just as softly. "And she's going to kill him." Despite her best efforts, that was enough to get her to lose some of her control, and the tears started to flow.

Cody closed his eyes for a moment, his hands closing around the syringe he was holding before he seemed to make a decision and nodded to , to Elin's surprise, instead of blasting Sinister back, he threw out a hand, and Sinister slammed into the wall on the other end of a telekinetic shove.

"Leave my brother alone," Cody said, though it wasn't quite the usual heated, colorful tone that Elin was used to hearing from him when he'd gotten mad in the past. It was still clearly tempered by over a year stuck with Sinister following her orders.

Sinister was positively fuming as she picked herself up, and an instant later, she fired off a blast at Cody that he managed to duck.

"Let me up, Cody," Elin urged, hoping to get moving before Sinister could get to Chance.

Cody moved toward her, but there was still a second's hesitation — and that was all that Sinister needed, this time not bothering with a physical attack and instead sending Cody to his knees with a psychic blast before he could help Elin.

Sinister snapped out her orders for her Marauders to quickly restrain Cody as well. "I'll deal with you later," she promised the younger Summers in a venomous tone that had Cody closing his eyes again, almost wincing.

"What did you do to him?" Elin demanded.

"I've brought him under my careful tutelage," Sinister said. "He doesn't quite have the mind his father does, but he is an excellent specimen, perfect for improvement — and he is learning."

"So you're trying to turn him into a sociopath like you?" she said in disbelief. "He was fine before!"

Sinister shook her head at Elin before she simply turned her back on her and fixed her attention back to Chance. "He asked for my help, dear girl."

"Don't you 'dear girl' me, you bottom feeder," Elin snarled out. "I don't believe that for a second. There's no way — in any of even your wildest dreams — that any Summers would ask for your help."

"I did, though," Cody said quietly.

"Coercion," Elin said decisively, not even waiting to hear anything further.

"Not… really," Cody said.

But Elin wouldn't hear it, shaking her head stubbornly. "No."

Sinister chuckled lightly at her response, though she was only barely listening to the conversation as she started working on Chance. "Stubborn as your father," she said without looking her way, intent on her work. "And as eloquent as your mother."

"Thank you," Elin replied. "Now get your hands off my husband."

"He won't be for much longer," Sinister said. "Really, you should find someone much better suited next time if you plan to continue the family line. I'm getting tired of correcting these mistakes."

"He's not a mistake," she insisted. "But you are. That's why you keep augmenting yourself. You know you're not good enough."

Sinister ignored her as she continued her work, clearly deciding that it wasn't worth the effort of engaging with Elin when she had an experiment to run.

As Sinister kept going, both Elin and Cody were clearly panicking from where they were stuck, though Elin's panic was tempered with far more fury than Cody's. Cody… was almost begging, shoulders slumped, a red tinge around his eyes that Sinister flat out wouldn't let him use as an optic blast, not when he had been controlling Cody's every move for so long.

Sinister didn't pay either of them any more attention other than simply to make sure that Cody couldn't use his powers against her to stop the progress, instead carrying on with whatever it was she was doing to Chance, making little notations as she kept going, muttering to herself the whole while.

It seemed to take hours, and of course, she didn't let Elin or Cody leave the room. It was clear she wanted them both there, and it was also clear that the psychological torture was working. Both of them were panicking and furious, and neither one of them could keep a handle on it as it stretched into hours of surgery.

Finally, Sinister stepped back from Chance and then looked up at Cody. She smirked to herself as she stepped around the table to wash her hands — though Cody's gaze was locked onto Chance. The monitors showed that his brother was still alive. Still alive. He was breathing. He was pale and bloody, but he was still alive.

Elin's gaze was locked onto Chance, practically taking every breath with him as she watched him. By that time, she had long since healed from what Sinister had done to her, but she was also incredibly pale — and not from the healing.

As Sinister finished washing her hands, she finally broke her silence, still drying her hands as she turned toward Cody. "You see, my boy," she said in a measured, even tone, "I can make you stronger, faster, more durable — but the one thing I cannot do yet is make you unkillable." She set the towel down and strode toward Cody, stopping in front of him, though instead of glaring at her, Elin watched as Cody dropped his gaze, looking pained.

"Unfortunately, I have found that smaller minds than mine cannot handle being augmented with healing abilities," Sinister continued. "Previous attempts have been… lackluster, to say the least. And after all the work I've put into you, do you really think I would risk losing your mind to the process?"

Cody didn't shrug off the hand that Sinister put on his shoulder, but he did finally look up at her — and then over at Chance as the understanding started to dawn on him. "No," he finally said softly.

Sinister let out a disappointed sigh. "You weren't listening, my boy," Sinister said, and tutted to complete the picture of disappointment on her face. "For as frustrating as your brother's genetic insufficiencies are, it's precisely that family tie that makes him the perfect test subject before we move on to augmenting you."

Cody strained against the Marauders, narrowing his eyes, trying to force an optic blast — to do something — but of course, he couldn't get his powers to work. "Let him go," Cody said.

"Really, Cody, I thought we'd moved past backtalk and insolence," Sinister chided.

"He's my big brother."

"Yes, I'm aware of the unfortunate connection," Sinister said. "But that, my boy, is exactly why he's still alive."

"You can't … you can't use him for a guinea pig," Elin said breathlessly.

"Of course I can," Sinister said in an almost irritated tone. "It's the only use he has."

Elin couldn't help but simply start growling at that, once again shaking in rage. "Makes you pretty damn useless then, doesn't it? Now that your boss is gone?"

Sinister shook her head at Elin as she stepped back from Cody to give Elin her full attention. "If you must know, my 'boss', as you so eloquently put it, was never that. I have kept him from gaining power for decades. If you had even an ounce of your brother's intelligence, you would have realized that, you simple girl."

"I was trying to be tactful. I should have called it for what it was. He wasn't your boss, I know," Elin said, and Sinister let out a breath, seemingly pleased that she was paying attention. "He was your master."

Sinister's eyes flashed, and she simply reached out to project psychic pain into Elin's mind. "Insolent. You're lucky you and your miserable family still have a use."

She had her teeth gritted as she tried not to react with a scream or tears. "So that's your code when you know someone else is right. Dad'll be glad to hear it."

Sinister sneered at her but then shook her head, pointedly turning her attention to her notes as she checked some of the leads and monitors on Chance. "Think what you will. I have work to do."

"Which implies that you don't know what you're doing. If you were any good at this, you wouldn't have to work on it. You'd know," Elin said, still reeling from the psychic hit.

"If you must know, healing powers can be vastly different from one person to the next, down to a cellular level. The difference between your parents is wildly far apart — even though they seem to have identical power sets. With that in mind, even using you as the source, your healing abilities will differ from those of other healing abilities in your own family. That will show up in a transfer of abilities as well. To do this properly, I need to know how wide the gap is. I need to know if this new transfer method is complete or if I need more adjustments before I move on from the test subject to the patient." She paused as she shot a pointed look Cody's way and added. "No reason to do half a job, after all. Trial and error can be frustrating when it's a subject you want to keep."

"Is that your way of admitting I'm right?" Elin said, glaring her way. "Is that part of your genetic insufficiency?"

Sinister laughed as she moved back to where Chance was still tied down, smiling to herself when she saw that the incision wounds from the surgery had healed completely, though the older wounds, like the scars from his branding, were still there. "Hardly. Any scientist will tell you that the best of plans will never match up to lab results. There are too many variables."

"Then what makes you think if it works on one that it'd do the same for the other?" Elin asked. "Clearly, they're different enough it's a concern."

Sinister waved a hand her way. "Cody is an excellent test subject. He responds well to every change. In fact, I could augment him right now, but I need to understand how healing, specifically, would affect him first so that I can adjust. Their helixes are incredibly close — not exact, obviously, but close enough that the effects should be the same. I've worked too hard to nurture his mind, temper him, train him … I won't lose him to your more… animalistic tendencies." She shook her head. "My concern is not physical, not entirely. This new method should safeguard against the madness others have succumbed to, but it is still new, untested. I want to see the aftereffects before I allow Cody to undergo the process. Perhaps a slow immersion into healing will prevent mental breaks at the outset. Small injuries to start and work our way up."

By that time, Chance was starting to stir as well, at first unconsciously pulling against the straps the second he felt them and then more urgently. If he hadn't been tied down as tightly as he was, he might have been thrashing. He hadn't even fully opened his eyes yet before he said, "Elin," very softly, and then a bit louder as he finally opened his eyes and looked her way.

"I'm here," she called out.

His gaze found hers in an instant, and he looked scared to death until he saw that Sinister wasn't by Elin, though considering Sinister was taking note of his conscious reactions, that wasn't too helpful either. "You okay?" he asked, obviously trying to get a handle on things — and latching onto his concern for her to push back the rest of it.

"Just peachy," she said, trying not to growl for him. "How bad is it?"

He shook his head. "I dunno, El. Feels weird," he muttered, closing his eyes again for a moment as he tried to get a handle on the panic. Though when he opened his eyes again and saw Cody between the Marauders, his heart rate shot through the roof, and he outright swore — sure at that point that he was dying if he was seeing his dead brother.

"Sinister kidnapped your brother, and the jackass body thief left someone else that looked like him for us," Elin said with a little tremor to her voice. "It's him. I swear it."

Chance stared at Cody in obvious shock as Cody strained against the Marauders again, clearly trying to go see his brother now that he was awake. "Cody?"

"Hey, Chance," Cody said in a quiet tone. "I'm really glad to see you alive."

"Right back at you," Chance almost breathed out, still clearly shocked and staring at Cody.

Sinister was ignoring them entirely as she simply turned the monitors on both Chance and Elin so that they were easily read regardless of who she was working on. "Enough chit-chat," Sinister said. "Who's first? Do I have a noble volunteer, or a selfless one?"

"How about you start with yourself," Elin suggested, though she was a bit more subdued than moments before. She had been there when Chance completely shut down with grief for his brother; seeing this reunion now… she felt like she'd failed them. Failed her husband.

"She's the type," Chance smirked her way, drawing her out of her thoughts, though it was plain to see that both of them were more or less joking with each other just to keep each other sane. "Not exactly noble or selfless, though."

"Ugly. Poor dresser, too," Elin said, straight-faced.

Sinister shook her head at the pair of them. "We'll start with the control, then," she said simply, crossing the span to where Elin was to cut into her — nothing fatal or even too deep, but long and painful all the same — before she stepped back to do the same to Chance.

And while it was clear that Chance was furious over Elin being hurt, he couldn't help but pause when he realized that there was a sort of … buzzing after Sinister cut into him, and he glanced down at his own arm to see that the long cut was starting to knit itself back together.

His eyes widened, and the monitor picked up the very obvious uptick in his heart rate as he glanced up at Elin. "Oh…" he whispered.

Sinister still had her back to Elin as she turned her head Chance's way and mouthed out 'I'm sorry'.

He stared at her for a second, still in a clear state of shock, before he lightly shook his head at her and looked up at Sinister with a solid glare. "Let her go," he demanded. "You got what you wanted—" He tipped his head down as much as he could at his arm. "—so let her go."

Sinister shook her head lightly, looking almost amused. "I'm not nearly finished," she said.

"It worked," Elin growled out. "You should be proud of yourself."

"Yes, it did work. But … there's a slight delay," she said, sounding a bit annoyed. "And if that's the case with something as simple as a cut…"

"You shouldn't be surprised by that if you're as smart as you think you are," Elin very nearly snarled. "No one's been able to do a perfect transfer — and you know it."

"No," Sinister said, sounding almost disappointed. "But it will be informative all the same. I know you are nearly impossible to kill. What is his tipping point?" With that, she reached down and snapped Elin's leg.

There was just a heartbeat of a delay from the snap when it was crystal clear how positively ill the break had made Elin, and after that, the pain rushed in — and she simply couldn't hold back the scream that went with it. Both of the Summers boys were clearly upset. Cody was almost pleading, but Chance was repeating "leave her alone" in an almost frantic tone that fell silent when Sinister crossed over to where he was strapped down.

Sinister was very nearly smirking when she saw Chance try to distance himself and close his eyes, though she completely ignored Elin's shouted "no!" just before she did the same thing to Chance, snapping his leg in the same place and earning a scream as well.

"This isn't for science, it's torture!" Elin snarled out, once again struggling hard to find a way out of it.

"Believe what you will," Sinister said, her gaze on the monitors and a thoughtful frown on her face. She let out a 'hmm' of displeasure when she saw the delay in healing was growing at a nonlinear rate to the severity of the injury. If that continued, she was concerned a more fatal wound wouldn't heal at all. And that simply wasn't good enough for her protege.

In a flash, she crossed the room to gather a few more supplies, this time staying by Chance for the setup as all three of the others in the lab looked openly panicked. The surgical tools she was placing out had all of them worried, though she halfway smirked to herself as she loaded up a shot for Chance. If she hadn't been trying to gauge how best to prevent madness, she wouldn't have cared about putting him under, but an open surgery like that would skew her experiment, and she wasn't quite through with it.

"We'll see how long this lasts," she said in an almost interested sort of tone before she pushed the needle into his arm — and it wasn't long at all before he was out again, his panicked heartbeat pushing the drug through faster.

After that, she got down to work. It would be simple enough to remove a portion of his liver, something he could live without, but she was more interested in seeing if it regenerated — and how quickly.

She was almost pleased to see that it did, eventually — though much slower than she would have liked to see, and the drugs were still affecting him — even if they were wearing off fast — whereas they did absolutely nothing for Elin. Still, the fact that there was regenerative healing was a good sign, and she stepped back to let the rest of it heal and to let the drugs work out of his system, since she did need a conscious subject.

"Cody, talk to him," Elin ground out from between clenched teeth.

"What?" Cody stared at her like she'd gone insane.

"Just … don't let him look over here," she said, her voice shaking slightly as Sinister prepared to cut into her for comparison. "Distract him."

Cody frowned at that, but he wasn't about to argue. It was clear when Chance started to come out of the drugs that he was hurting and in a bad way mentally, almost shaking, scared out of his mind, and still half-drugged. Elin, for her part, managed not to scream, but she was beyond words as she healed after Sinister was done — so she'd been right to ask Cody to step in.

The younger Summers boy took a deep breath, clearly trying to think of something to say, especially when conversation hadn't really been something he'd done for well over a year. "Right. So, I… Chance…. if I come …. If I get home …" He paused, this time because 'home' hadn't been a consideration for so long that it felt weird to think about. "If I get home… and find out you and Elin had, like, a kid or something…." When that got a look of disbelief out of both Elin and Chance, he figured that was a good distraction, so he nodded to himself and kept going, gaining speed as he did so. "I mean... you probably had twins, right? That's just… it's got to be a thing. Just because…. I'd miss two kids, right? That's just how this works."

"Cody," Chance muttered out, lightly shaking his head.

"I get it. I do," Cody continued. "You thought I was dead…" He bit his lip and closed his eyes before he forced himself to keep going. "But when we get home, I need to meet them. One of each, right? Cutest kids ever. Total flirts..."

Elin blushed deeply for just an instant and was openly staring at him, no comment at all that she could come up with to go with the pure disbelief her expression was so plainly conveying.

But Cody looked almost sheepish. "You didn't specify a topic, and I just… panicked?"

"Oh my God, Cody ….that's just not … crap."

"I feel like it's a legitimate question, though; I mean... I've been gone long enough... and neither of you two is patient, and you carry on like you're … well. Your parents, sis. Or the Wagners."

"Could you just ... stop!" Elin said finally. "You … are putting images in my head that will never go away!"

"Images of tiny, tiny Chances? Because…" Cody grinned at her.

"Not what I meant," Elin said, closing her eyes tightly.

"Oh, so tiny yous."

"Cody."

"Now there's a pretty picture," Chance said softly, and Cody tipped his head to his brother wordlessly, but with a look that clearly said 'see?' And Cody looked outright relieved that it was working, even if it had been a pure word vomit of panic on his part.

"You're … ugh. So much like your mother, Cody," Elin said.

Cody grinned at that. "Yeah, well. Good genetics."

Sinister had been making notes, not necessarily ignoring the three of them, since, after all, Elin knew best how to deal with healing, and Sinister was noting the coping methods that Elin suggested. But as the conversation wore on, Sinister fell into a deep glare and finally snapped Cody's way at that last comment, then hit him hard enough with a psychic wave that he was halfway bent over and whimpering before she turned back to Elin. "We'll just count ourselves lucky there are no such mutts," she spit out.

"It's a little early to tell, don't you think?" Elin snarled her way, not thinking of what she was actually saying.

"I will not allow that to happen, young lady," Sinister told her with narrowed eyes and a venomous tone. "When we're through here, I'll make doubly sure of that as well."

Elin glared up at her, but beyond that, she kept her comments to herself, feeling guilty for even trying to shove that particular subject in Sinister's face.

I won't let her, Elin heard suddenly, in Cody's voice.

She looked his way but didn't project to him, more than a little paranoid that Sinister would be listening.

But Sinister was back to ignoring the three of them as she worked, studying the monitors and information coming in as well as making an inspection of both Elin and Chance as she frowned to herself and thought it over.

"What's wrong? Your curve not what you were hoping for?" Elin said in as venomous a tone as she could manage. "You must be missing something major."

Sinister glared Elin's way and stalked over to her, simply to slice open a major artery and watch with an almost disinterested expression as she bled out. "Mmm," she said thoughtfully, waiting until Elin had healed before she crossed the room to Chance.

Elin started to shake her head slowly, even before Sinister picked up the scalpel. "No," she muttered as loudly as she was able. "Please don't … he needs to refuel."

Sinister waved a hand at her. "When I'm through," she said.

Chance was plainly terrified as Sinister approached, though his gaze was back to Elin's even as his chest heaved from trying to keep from panicking. 'Don't watch,' he mouthed to her an instant before Sinister cut into him, letting him bleed out as she watched the monitors and looked annoyed when it wasn't apparent he was bouncing back like Elin had.

But by that time, Elin wasn't waiting to see if he was coming back or not before she completely began to come unglued, clearly panicking and once again fighting to get free as she tried to call out to get a response from Chance with her hands balled up into fists. "Please, don't," she was saying through tears.

"Elin, come on," Cody said, his own voice strained and clearly terrified too. "Focus."

But there was simply no stopping the panic Elin was feeling, and she was still falling apart for several long minutes, even moreso when Sinister let out a sigh that wasn't disappointed in the least, shaking her head as she made a few notations and muttered a quiet, "Well, that is what tests are for," clearly moving on from that experiment to the next.

That was when Cody started to lose it too, slumping so badly that the Marauders were the only thing keeping him upright, pure terror apparent in his gaze — right up until the moment when, finally, Chance took a breath, and Elin fell apart again, this time in pure relief.

"El?" Chance muttered after a moment, sounding concerned for her as he opened his eyes to find her crying across the room.

But while Elin was gasping in sobs, Sinister looked smug again, writing a few notes to herself at the table before gathering her notes.

A pair of Marauders arrived at her orders to remove Chance and Elin, dragging each of them back to a cell, though while Elin was simply thrown in, the Marauder holding Chance wasn't nearly so kind, making sure to drag the still healing boy along and positively pitch him, hard enough that when he hit the wall, it was clear several things had broken with the collision.

Elin was torn — the desire to make sure Chance was alright was very nearly overridden by her desire to cut large chunks out of the Marauder — but … the look on Chance's face was more than enough to tip over her concern. "You're a dead man," Elin growled out toward the Marauder as she made her way over to Chance to try and help him. "Where does it hurt?"

He still had his eyes closed and was taking very shallow breaths when she got there, and it was all he could do to gesture with one hand to more or less his left side before he grabbed a hold of her arm, trying to hold on and ignore the fact that he was hurting. The truth was that both of them were just barely hanging onto each other to keep from losing it altogether.

She quickly shifted her position and slid over so that he could lay his head down in her lap and she could still hold his hand. She rested her free hand on his chest — lightly — afraid she'd jostle something to make it hurt more, and when she couldn't think of anything else to say to him that he didn't already know … she very quietly just started singing under her breath to him.

But of course, the lyrics were quickly changed when a few of the Marauders ambled by to peek in on them, and the little love song she was singing switched over to threats and detailed accounts of what she wanted to do to them, not that Chance knew what she was saying. But as soon as they'd passed, she went right back to her song, the way it was supposed to be, while she slowly ran her fingers through his hair.

"Tusen löften svor vi varann, och tusen löften ska vi hålla än. Vår kärlek varar än till solen går upp, går upp vid midnattsväkten."

It was apparent that it was helping, though, and after a long moment, Chance finally started to relax and let out a little breath. "I've got to learn Swedish," he muttered.

She couldn't help but smile at that but shook her head at him and ran her fingers through his hair. "Really? That's what you're concerned with right now?" she asked.

He smirked quietly, resting his head against her. "I mean… you've got a killer singing voice, El. Kinda want to return the favor," he whispered.

"I don't care if you ever learn a word," she told him quietly.

"Yeah, but I'd have you as a teacher, so…" He trailed off, winced, and resettled. "I'm sorry you got sucked into this. Viper's a bitch. I'm so sorry."

Elin paused, her hand stilling halfway through his hair. It was clear something was off with that, but she didn't know exactly how he'd gone off track. Not when Sinister had always been the boogeyman in the Summers' closet. "As true as that is … I can't blame her for that today," Elin said slowly, watching him as she tried to gauge what had gone wrong. "Look around, Chance; we're not anywhere close to Madripoor. This is Victorian. And Sinister. Though I'd rather it was Viper right now, to be perfectly honest."

"Right." Chance blinked and shook his head hard, frowning when he saw a Marauder down the hall. "Sorry, it's… I guess it's blurring together." He reached up and rubbed a spot in the center of his forehead. "Almost get murdered so many times it's routine, I guess," he said absently, obviously trying to ground himself again.

"Hey. All you need to do right now is breathe and try to focus on not freaking out," Elin said. "Better cell mates than what you had with Viper … I hope."

"Um, yeah. I'll take you over bottle blonde every day," Chance agreed with a small smirk.

"Good," she said, reaching down to cover his hand with hers and wondering if he was going to notice the matching rings and get a little reminder or if he was really just mixed up. She wouldn't have been surprised at all if he was simply caught in a trauma response, considering the anxiety she still smelled on him every time he was in a medical setup ever since Jamie and Viper had grabbed him. She hoped whatever was going on was as simple as that, considering what Sinister was using Chance as a guinea pig for. "I'm going to hold you to that."

Chance nodded and relaxed into her. "We've gotta get out of here, El. Historically, this ends badly."

"We do," she agreed. "You got a hot date or are you just worried about a little freak time in the lab?"

"Ha ha you're hilarious," Chance said, rolling his eyes.

"I am. Answer the question, Mr. Summers," she said, sure that at least it would distract him. It always did. And it might help her gauge where he was, mentally.

"Well yeah, I mean, yeah, I'm freaked out about the lab, okay? A few seconds ago, I was living what happened with Viper, so you can imagine how that's playing in my head right now."

"Do you want me to help ease your mind or …"

"I feel like I should be easing yours but… okay…"

She shook her head, then shifted slightly to give him a very quick kiss. "I'm healed. No fuss, no muss. No … extreme case of Summers drama. Yet."

He couldn't help but smirk at her for that one. "Yet."

"It's still early," she said with a shrug. "And you're all … stressed out."

"Sorry." He leaned into her again.

"I thought you got over the Canadian business?" Elin teased.

He burst into a laugh. "I guess it got ingrained in me somehow. Comes out when evil women drag me to their lairs."

"Oh. Do I need to be evil now?" she said with a grin.

"If you want the Canadian me, apparently," he teased right back.

"Do you want the Canadian in you?"

He paused, then started to smirk. "Depends on the quality of your lair."

She looked around their current cell with a critical eye, frowning to herself. "If it was me picking the curtains, I'd probably have a better view to torture you with. Something with water and snow … and I'd keep your shoes from you so you couldn't escape."

"Sounds right. Scary Elin," he said, nodding along.

"What about you? What's your evil lair?" she asked, trying to get him distracted from the misery he'd been wallowing in already.

"Oh, well if it's you, then I start with a blonde dye job," he teased.

"For you or me?"

"Yes."

"Okay. Continue. Peroxide torture — check."

"And every horrible, sexist, no-good b-rated romance or chick power movie written by dudes with a thing for their actresses."

"So … you want me dressed in trash?"

"You wanted to take my shoes away."

"I know … I just didn't realize that was your kink."

"El." He started laughing harder. "The trashy movies are to break you down, you dork."

"Oh, I thought you were dressing me like the trashy movies. My bad."

"Don't have to play dress up, El. Show up in the uniform; you look great in it."

"Ah. Okay … that sounds more like it. A kink for authority figures. Got it. Check."

"Mmhmm that's me to a tee. Boss me around, El," he said, clearly enjoying himself now.

"You're making me wonder how far I can push it," she teased. "What's too far? I'll stop before then. Probably."

"If you start sounding like my dad, that's my limit."

"I don't think that's possible," she said.

"Authority figures," Chance whispered back.

"Don't make me hold you down," she replied, straight-faced.

"I'll just look very sad and vanquished and pathetic."

"So it'd make you sad if I pinned you and tried to force you into relaxing?"

"...no, but I'd fake it for the sake of the lair joke."

"Can I pin you down like this? Just … hold you down with one hand?" Elin said, shifting her hand over his chest while he still had his head in her lap.

He pulled off an almost-believable wide-eyed look. "Oh no!"

"That's what I thought. So, Sweet Summers … about that hot date." She shifted so she was looking directly down at him. "Start talking."

Translation from Swedish song:

We swore a thousand promises to each other, and we will keep a thousand promises. Our love will last until the sun goes up, goes up at midnight.