Foxtrot 3.1
Regardless of the wishes of our mysterious boss, healing injuries took time. Lisa had aggravated her fractured arm in the blast that had laid me out; Alec hadn't taken a small amount of the blast either. Her power said the bomb was meant to cause lingering pain, because the woman I'd killed had found it more entertaining than simple, quick collateral homicide.
It was a small solace that she was dead, in the face of the mess she'd wrought in her final fuck-you. My dreams were not peaceful things.
It took two days to be able to walk more than to and from the bathroom twice a day without risking my body failing me, twice that before I could move about enough to get up and down the stairs without aching in my bones. The doctor Lisa had arranged had me on oxycodone, but it wasn't enough on its own. Thankfully, Dad reluctantly had to return to the Dockworker's Association after the first day - with a sudden shortage of low-income workers and a lot of cleanup and repair work to do, he had lots of positions to fill and contracts to negotiate - so I could spend most of the day in the deepest throes of the music, weaving spider silk cordage and sheeting as a way to distract from the pain.
In all, my recovery took ten days from the night of the 14th of April, the night Brockton had grown Scars, as people had taken to calling the mess of quarantined areas where the less conventional payloads had mixed. Even then, I felt like shit, stiffer than I'd been in months, not as bad as the atrophy from my stay in the hospital but uncomfortable in my own skin in a way that had become unfamiliar.
I forced myself to go for a walk on the tenth day, because as much as I could see it from afar, or even send a bird out of range to wing over to the Scars, it just wasn't the same as being there. I wanted, no, needed, to see it in person.
The closest of the Scars was one of the less concentrated ones, and also one of the most tragic. Bakuda seemed to have gone door to door on that particular suburban road. Most of the Scars were impossibly dangerous messes, but here, the street was still clear, any bombs too clean of fallout or other effects to justify a proper barricade and the officers to man it. The detour sign and cones were suggestions, and it was clear from how they'd been pushed aside that I wasn't the first to ignore them.
The Scars, each formerly a home, were each uniquely ruined. Some, it wasn't obvious; in one house, a figure still lounged on their couch, holding a slice of pizza to their mouths, all organic molecules in their vicinity turned to something like marble, paint already flaking off old formerly-wood siding in a circle on the front porch wall. In others, it was more horrible. A building had been torn apart as if by a tornado, except the shrapnel still moved in lazy circles around the still-intact bathtub at the epicenter. Another showed a macabre scene, a family of three and a half- the half, probably the father, had his head and legs outside the radius of the bubble, and had a quick death. The things happening to the older sister and mother had likely killed them as well, golden streamers tearing from one while the other glowed from the inside of her skull.
The younger daughter had likely been the epicenter; her eyes were rolled back in her head, her mouth forever frozen in a scream. Whether she'd actually survived the bomb's initial activation, I couldn't say; I hoped it had killed her, for her sake.
This was the cost of slaying a monster. I could have chosen to go along with Bakuda's proposal to join, bought time. Tattletale might've discovered the deadman's switch with that time. I'd acted thoughtlessly, only thinking I would have to sacrifice to see a monster dead.
I wasn't likely to have to kill a monster again. I was just a small-time villain trying to keep her head down, because standing too tall might see the offending neck chopped. Still, if I ever had reason to kill another monster, I'd learned a valuable lesson.
When you fight a hydra, be sure to prune and burn before the telling blow.
"We're going out," Lisa declared when I got to the Loft. "No arguments. Alec, get your shoes on."
I groaned. "Lisa, I just got here, at least give me a minute to rest."
She pouted. I couldn't recall ever seeing her pout before, and she was surprisingly bad at the whole puppy dog eyes thing. I was pretty suspicious of that, personally.
As if prompted by the attempt, Elton John chimed in from my headphones.
Blue jean baby, L.A. lady. Seamstress for the band. Pretty eyed, pirate smile…
I sighed. "Fifteen minutes, to catch my breath and stretch. You know I'm still sore."
Her pout evaporated into a smug grin. "Granted," she said. "I'll go freshen up."
I walked past the couches, stopping when I noticed that Alec wasn't playing a game. It took me a second to place the show, but I snorted when I did. "The Young and the Restless?"
Turning back, she just laughs… the Boulevard is not so bad…
Alec glanced at me, his body language giving nothing away. "I like my soaps," he said, not defensive, just factual. "How's the recovery, Dancing Queen?"
"Felt like my muscles staged a mutiny and set my nerves on fire to cripple the establishment, but I'm on my feet again," I replied sullenly. "How about yours?"
"My ribs finally feel like they aren't made of twigs, and I can use my powers without backfires again," he replied, shrugging.
"You want to join me on the mat? I need to work out some stiff spots after my walk, and I could show you some stretches to get back in shape?"
"Aren't you supposed to do those before working out?" Alec asked, eyes back on the TV. "And I was never in shape, why bother?"
I didn't have the energy to argue; my legs felt like knotted ropes. I just walked to the barbell table, used it to lower myself to the ground, and started with toe-touches on the right leg.
Oh how it feels so real, lying here, with no-one near, only you! And you can hear me…
My hamstrings were screaming as I leaned into the stretch, pulling my toes towards my head and my forehead towards my knees. I pushed through, completing ten reps, then moved on to the left.
Lay me down in sheets of linen… You had a busy day today…
The cramp came on slowly but inexorably, building in the calf in that horrible way where it seemed like it could be averted, but it would still happen no matter how I tried to relax it. I groaned, then grit my teeth as the position I was stuck in made my thighs start threatening to cramp too. I tried to lean back, but that just made things worse, and despite myself, I let out a pained gasp.
Ballerina, you must've seen her… dancing in the sand!
I distantly felt Alec turn his head at that, and then he was off the couch, cursing. I tried to wave him off, but the motion made my back seize up, drawing a hiss from me and making him wince.
Tiny dancer in my hand…
"Told you not to stretch," he said, plopping down on the weight bench. "You wanna keep being stubborn, or you want some help with that?"
I screwed my eyes shut, clutching at my calf and trying to put away the pain.. "Please," I forced out.
Alec raised his hands, not like his usual flicks and twitches, but more smooth, like a piano player dancing across the keys or a theremin master at work. I almost gasped in relief as he undid the knot of twitching muscles in my back.
"...seriously screwed yourself up, you know?" he was saying, still pulling apart the knots in my legs. "You could have asked me or Lisa, either one of us could've told you your body needed another day or two."
I huffed, still catching my breath as he forced my muscles to start working again. "I couldn't stand it anymore," I told him. "I had to get out. Had to see things for myself."
Hold me closer, tiny dancer! Count the headlights on the highway! Lay me down in sheets of linen… you had a busy day toda-ay!
Elton sang himself out as I waited for him to fight me, refute me. Alec stayed quiet, fingers playing a melody even I couldn't hear, only feel in the cords of muscle twitching and relaxing with little pins-and-needles sensations.
"I couldn't decide if you were right or not," I admitted quietly, his silence forcing it out of me. "Whether it was my fault or not. I kept telling myself there was something I could have done, some way she didn't die before everyone was out of the line of fire. I had to see it."
He sighed, dropping his hands into his lap. "You know something, dweeb? I learned a lesson a long time ago, that you can't always save people while you're a victim. Sometimes, you gotta focus on your own survival, because that's the only way to get powerful enough to change anything." He frowned, glancing at me, then back to the floor. "Then again, pretty sure I fucked that up already."
I tried to get up, and he flicked his wrist, making me put myself back down.
"I wasn't done. Your nerves are a mess, moron. Let me get it right, before you collapse again where Lisa can see it."
He started working again, prickling sensations racing down from my spine to my extremities like little dancing spiders.
"Alec," I ventured, "What happened to you? You've mentioned it a few times, but you never seemed ready to share. You said it yourself, you didn't sign up for this heart-to-heart stuff, but I can listen if you need to tell someone. I might even be willing to help."
He didn't reply for a solid minute, plucking at invisible strings. Finally, he motioned for me to climb to my feet, and laid down on the bench as I worked my way up. In a voice drained of emotion, with someone's imagination of nonchalance poured into the void left behind, he finally spoke.
"Sure, fuck it, why not. You wanna know why I think you're being stupid? Lemme tell you about my old man."
"I leave you two alone for fifteen minutes and what do I get? I swear to Christ," Lisa commiserated next to me, as we all sat waiting for milkshakes an hour later.
Alec snorted. I stayed silent.
Heartbreaker. When you thought of the villain, you thought of a nomadic scumbag who was beyond the reach of the law, who mind controlled people to undying devotion and had secret sleeper agents to keep even his most vile excesses from being punished. A serial kidnapper and rapist, a hedonist of the worst kind.
Somehow, it never really occurred to me that the serial rapist would have children. Certainly not so many. If I'd ever thought of it before, I would have expected it to be a situation much like a monarchy, his children allowed every excess, favored and cultivated.
According to Alec, that was closer to the truth than was comfortable. Royal blood meant succession, and with powers needing trauma…
I shuddered again, turning up my music a notch. Alec had been so cold, talking about the first time he'd annoyed his father. I had been that way myself, in the weeks of inpatient care at the hospital. I knew those echoing voids, where emotions fell forever and nothing mattered. I'd found music filled mine well enough, hadn't gone without it since.
What was Alec's equivalent? My power provided my solution, but his… oh god, did he have to choose to enslave people or feel that terrible emptiness?
"Taylor!" Lisa snapped her fingers in front of my eyes insistently. "Earth to Tay, come in?"
"Sorry, just thinking," I said, looking down.
"Uh-uh. That's my job. Your job is- no!"
I mentally slammed the newly accelerating train of thought into a brick wall, looking guiltily at her.
"I am begging you, as a friend, to stop doing that. Alec, please tell her she's being stupid."
"You're being stupid," Alec said lazily, pulling out his phone.
"Thank you." She leaned forward, half-standing across the table, and stared straight into my eyes, uncomfortably close. "You are part of a team, but you're also part of a group of friends, got it? Friends help each other through shitty circumstances." She leaned back, then playfully poked at me with a foot. "Friends also forgive friends for being stupid sometimes. Now, stop carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders for an hour or two, and enjoy a nice day on the town with us, please?"
I sighed. "Right, sorry. Just a lot to process. I'm sorry if you took it the wrong way, Alec."
He waved me off. "Not a big deal. This shit's why I haven't told Brian yet, nobody's a big fan of the paternal unit. Just easier to be Alec, you get me?"
I nodded, trying not to worry about the bit where our team's leader didn't know about the mind controller who might be coming to collect his prodigal son. It was a problem to solve later.
Lisa sighed, glancing away. "Oh good, here's our shakes," she said tiredly. "Took them long enough."