Patel Badesha's bare feet slapped against the wet floor surrounding the pool, breaking the first of the rules painted on the wall, and her ebony braid fluttered behind her. Within the water, the other children and teenagers in the Lighthouse Agency program splashed happily at each other. Their instructors watched on carefully, vigilant for the abuse of powers or excess horseplay, but were otherwise indulgent of the youths who were excited about the break from their typical lessons of control and more contemporary. The young girl was no exception, and in her enthusiasm, she failed to note the pool noodle lying on the ground until it was suddenly stealing her footing. She blinked as she toppled over backwards, but she never hit the ground, instead feeling long fingers pressed against the small of her back and lifting her into the air.
"No running," rumbled the baritone voice, disrupted by the occasional squeak to embarrassingly remind everyone that he was still going through puberty. The boy who had once screamed for his dad as he threw about armored trucks like they were toys had grown was now tall and gawky teenager who struggled to fit into his rapidly-growing body. Soft brown hair still leapt from his head in erratic tufts that he attempted to control by keeping his hair short. Even as he held the similarly aged girl, who was admittedly just slightly over half his mass, aloft with only his fingers upon her back, he showed no strain in his broad shoulders or muscled arm. The atypical physical features of somebody his age in conjunction with his somber maturity led to numerous misunderstandings regarding his age, and even amongst the elders, he held a place of seniority as the longest residing, juvenile member of the Lighthouse Agency. She met his leaf green eyes and gave an apologetic chuckle as he righted her, never lifting from his seat upon the bench against the wall.
"Sorry, Hector," she apologized as he stretched to pick up the noodle, setting it beside him on the bench. She tilted her head curiously and wondered, "What are you doing over here?"
"Watching," Hector Ward offered in lieu of an actual answer.
"Ooh, sounds fun. I wanna join," she smirked as she plopped onto his other side, pressing close to share the moisture she had gathered from her swim.
"Close enough," he muttered though whether it was in response to her teasing or sudden proximity, she was unsure. Regardless, she didn't bother shifting away from him and he didn't even take note of her healthy weight leaning against him aside from the sensations it produced.
"I get that you're going for the whole brusque and badass thing, but can I get a response longer than three syllables?" she smiled sweetly, voice dripping honey.
"You keep bugging me, Pat, and I'll toss you in the pool. And we both know that if I want to, you aren't going to be able to stop me," he complied, giving her a small grin.
"There you go! Now was that so hard?"
"All right, in you go."
"Wait, wait, wait!" she protested, fighting back laughter as he lifted her over his head without any sort of preamble. "I'll stop, I'll stop!"
Giving a moment of consideration to her words, he shrugged, "I don't know. For some reason, I'm just not buying it."
She grabbed his wrist, stabilizing herself in the grip he was scared to tighten and protested, "I'll be good, I promise!"
"Fine," he sighed, "I believe you."
As she was returned to her seat, she released an exaggerated breath and socked the larger boy in the arm as he snickered at her.
"If you messed up my braid, you're putting it back in place," she threatened.
"Bah," he scoffed, slouching back against the bench. "I noticed that the snipers aren't after you today."
"It's not a sniper's dot. It's called a bindi," she corrected. "And I didn't want it getting washed away by the water. Though while we're on the subject, it looks like Alyx is scoping you out again."
His green eyes lifted as towards the abruptly turning away girl drifting by herself in a corner of the shallow end, most of her face submerged and her dark hair massing in the water. Patel's golden eyes sparkled as her friend groaned, "Yeah. I managed to not run screaming from her presence the other week when she was really pouring out the terror vibes."
"How'd you manage that?"
"I'm just that good," he rubbed his knuckles against his sternum, clearly smug.
"Or all that meditation stuff you do is paying off."
"Self-control exercises making you nigh-immune to fear? Seems a bit far-fetched, don't you think?"
"Right," she scoffed, leaning forward to set her elbows on her knees. "Because a girl who can heal people with a mere touch and a boy who could juggle aircraft carriers are so much more believable."
"You know compared to some of the other powers out there, those seem pretty basic. Every day, more and more Prometheans are being born with more awesome powers," he pointed out with obvious excitement.
"You've been reading too many comics," she noted sourly, setting her chin in her palms.
"There is absolutely nothing wrong with that."
"We're not having this conversation again."
"Because you know I'm right."
"Anyway," she interjected, " Why aren't you swimming with everybody else?"
"I'd end up trashing somebody," he grumbled, abruptly turning surly and causing her to roll her eyes.
"Then I'll just patch them up," she snapped, "So quit moping and come have fun with the rest of us. Or at least come side with me in the splash war. I'm getting massacred."
"And, suddenly, it all becomes clear with the reveal of her true intentions," he chuckled, earning another punch in his muscular arm, which had the same negligible effect as before, from the shorter girl. She pouted and crossed her arms over her chest as her large friend continued chortling. Finally, he sighed, clapped his hands on his knees, and stood, scooping up Patel in a swift movement and springing into the air. He grinned as they sailed close to the ceiling, his captive flinging her arms around his neck as she shrieked, drawing the attention of everybody. Before any telekinetics or similarly powered individuals could stop their descent, the pair splashed into the deep end, sending up a spray that reached for the ceiling. Bubbles foamed about him and he grinned as she kicked out of his arms. With a slight twitch of his toes, he propelled himself towards the surface, nearly shooting out of it before he bobbed in time with his treading. Removing his shirt, he lobbed it back towards the bench before swinging his arms through the water, creating a man-powered wave pool.
The other occupants were caught in the motion, releasing whooping cries or shouts of surprise at the sudden surge that crashed against the far wall, flooding the floor. As his peers at the Lighthouse Agency turned towards him and their instructors frowned, starting to close in about the pool, the splash war began in earnest. Hector created rain showers, smashing his fists into the pool to send the water about him shooting skyward. His friends in the shallow end retaliated in turn and while none could muster the same force behind his assault, they had greater versatility. He found himself assaulted by sudden deluges dropped from telekinetic bubbles over his head, his vision blocked by a boy who coalesced the water moisture in the air into fog, or the find of a sudden weight on his shoulders as a teleporter appeared behind him, trying to dunk him. When he found Hector immovable, he would pop back to his side of the pool and gather his comrades to assist him, collecting more after each failure.
Eventually the instructors reigned in the youths and the water that had splashed out was shunted back in as they called it to be time for the races, dragging the lines into the water to create the lanes. As Hector clambered from the pool, a light body slammed against him, trying to push him back into the water, but only bringing a grin to his face as he looked down into the golden glare.
"Jerk," Patel spat. "You were supposed to side with me."
"Oh, come on. That would've been totally unfair. We would've wiped the floor with them!" he shouted the last part loud enough for a number of his friends to hear. They answered with a chorus of boisterous challenges or scoffs of dismissal at his assertion as he climbed the rest of the way out of his water.
"I'm not arguing that," she grumbled as she stepped back and he shook out his limbs, sending droplets of water scattering about. "I'm just saying would it really have been so bad if we had done so?"
"Eh," he shrugged before heading back towards the bench and picking up his soaked shirt from where it had slipped onto the floor. As he hung it on the back of the bench, he turned to sit and was once again subjected to Patel's disapproving stare. He flopped back, accidentally bending the back of the metal seat, and demanded, "What now?"
"Come take part in the races. You were complaining about how you couldn't interact cause you'd 'trash' somebody? Well, you don't have to worry about that here. Besides, there's a bag of gummy fish as a prize, and you owe me."
"For what?"
"That jump you did."
". . . Okay. Yeah, I could see that. All right then, one bag of gummy fish coming right up."
He pushed himself to his feet once again and shuffled with a quickness that just barely kept him in the guidelines of the 'No Running' rule as he hustled over to the crowd who were entering themselves in the race.
Moments later he found himself posed on one of the diving blocks, the tips of his fingers touching the white plastic as his toes curled about the edge. The onlookers were already hollering for their favored champions, urging them to victory and he took the minute as the timers made their way to the other end of the pool to glance to either side of him. He internalized a groan as he caught sight of Erika, a marginally older Promethean girl who could breathe just as well in water as out of it. A self-assured smile graced her lips and she sent a wink towards Hector when she caught sight of his gaze. Whipping his head forward, he bunched his legs slightly and set his sight on the far end of the pool. The buzzer sounded and he shot forward with enough force that it tore his diving block from the ground and sent it careening into the wall behind him. Powered by his jump, he rocketed through the water, one arm outstretched as he felt that his victory was assured. He saw the rapidly approaching wall and his next sensation was near overwhelming pain as the water suddenly turned a cloudy crimson.
Spectators looked on in horror at the blood spreading through the pool and the mangled wreck of the arm that had smashed into the wall. Bone tore from his skin and as he stood, he stared at it dumbly for a moment, seemingly confused before the pain signals finally reached his brain. As instructors dashed forward, ignoring the rules they had set up, a bellow that shook the metal beams overhead rose from his mouth.
Hector rested in the medical wing, hazy from the medication, with a heavy metallic cast, past evidence assured them that he could break the plaster one's without thinking, encasing the limb that the resident doctors had somehow managed to fix. The television in the corner played a show that he could only make out in jumbled words with a mess of colors through the fog in his mind, and his eyes drifted lazily about the lonely room. After his incident, pool actives had been summarily cancelled and in the hours following his release from the emergency room, visitors had been fairly steady as his friends arrived to check up on him. Even Alyx had made an appearance, albeit on her own, fidgeting anxiously as she tried to say something before simply leaving behind the fluttery, pink flower she had purchased and darting away. More often than not, he was asleep when the guests came and was only aware of their presence by the steadily growing pile of 'Get Well' cards.
Turning his head restlessly, he suddenly found that the chair next to his bed was occupied. Patel had understandably changed from her swimsuit into a simple white shirt and jeans, and her bindi was evident even if she hung her head. Her features were contorted with grief and her nails were stabbing into pale with enough force that he wondered for a second as to how she hadn't drawn blood yet. She bit at her lip and closed her eyes before offering a mantra in a language that Hector didn't understand though whether because of the mental fog or it being a language actually other than English, he was unsure. His cast clanged against the rail along the bed and her head snapped up as he stirred.
"'Sup?" he croaked as he levered himself up.
Tears brimmed in her eyes and she buried her face in her hands as sobs wracked her shoulders, bewildering the youth who scoured the room for something that could get her to stop when her voice broke through.
"I-it's m-m-my f-fault. I-I t-told you to e-e-enter that stupid r-race, a-and look a-a-a-at what happened," she sputtered, raising her eyes again and he realized that this wasn't her first breakdown since the incident. Before he could attempt to console her, she continued, "A-a-and I-I s-sh-shoulda healed you th-there, b-b-but I couldn't! All I c-could do was s-s-stand th-there! Useless!"
As she snarled at herself, he shifted his shoulder and managed to swing his cast over the edge. Reaching down, he captured one of her hands, applying minimal pressure to avoid hurting her even in his weakened state, and interrupted, "Stop that. I got hurt by my own stupidity. If you can't accept that, I'll . . . well, whatever pain-killers they've got me on makes it hard to be creative. So just stop blaming yourself."
"I should've healed you," she protested before staring at the strong fingers gripping her own. Reversing the hold, she pressed her lips to his palm and he squirmed slightly at the sensation that he likened to ants crawling through his limb. Fortunately it was over in a second and Patel sat up, finally smiling as she released a happy sigh.
"There. All better."
He arched a brow as he lifted the arm, curling his fingers as the last of the tingling feelings dissipated before suddenly clenching the muscles in his forearm, ripping through the metal without effort. Setting it aside as to not attract attention of anybody making their rounds, he studied the network of scars where his bones had splintered through his skin. Gingerly testing the limb, he smiled as no pain suddenly roared through his nerves or anything worse happened and he gave a short laugh as he swung his arm to scoop Patel into the cot, pressing an excited kiss to her cheek as she flushed. She attempted to squirm out of his grasp but quickly recognized the futility of her quest and merely settled against his shoulder, watching with a soft smile as he continued to test out his healed limb.
"I swear, I could kiss you on the sniper spot if I weren't so scared that I'd swallow it!" he exalted.
"Let's avoid that," she agreed before giving a soft gasp and wriggling from the arm he had wrapped about her. He frowned as she leaned over the edge, next to the seat she'd been inhabiting, and he prevented her from slipping over with a finger against her heel.
"What are you doing now?"
"Gummy fish," she announced as she pulled herself back up, lifting the family-sized bag of candy with her. She struggled with the bag, attempting to rip it open and Hector rolled his eyes.
"Suddenly, the reason I wasn't immediately healed is truly revealed. Somebody was using the confusion to snag the treat."
"Don't make me hit you," she threatened as the bag suddenly tore open, showering the pair of them with the fish that leapt from the opening. Hector shook with laughter as he tried to respond.
"You – ha – you c-cant hit – hahah – me. I'm – he – I'm injured," he argued. "I really wish I could – eheh – come up with something witty about fish right now."
"Oh, shut up," she grumbled as she flopped back against him and plugged his mouth with one of the gummy fish plucked from the sheets.
It was well beyond visiting hours and curfew when one of the nurses who staffed the medical wing peered into the room to find their patient without his cast and nuzzling a short girl curled up in his arms, both of them showered with gummy fish. Her first instinct was to wake and separate them, but she was stopped by a third figure occupying a chair in the corner who pressed her finger to her lips. She nodded and ducked from the room, and Sherri Caldwell waited a moment longer before standing and moving quietly to the side of the bed. She sighed contentedly as she stared down at the young pair, softly brushing Hector's forehead until he began to stir. He settled after she retracted her hand and his grip about Patel became slightly more possessive yet even in his sleep, he refrained from any sort of force that would harm her. The Lighthouse Agent began to collect the scattered gummy fish, sliding the largely emptied bag from the girl's fingers. After she had completed the task and set it amongst the cards and flower, she leaned down to press a short kiss to the forehead of the boy she had been watching over for the past decade.
"Sorry I wasn't there today, Hector. But it looks like you managed without me."
The boy from the last chapter has been named. And maimed.
Even if we put them through horrific ordeals, they are our characters. Ira has a belt sander and other assorted nastiness for those who steal them. Not that there are enough readers for this story to bother menacing.
Enjoy and review!