Chapter 1, Episode 13

This chapter describes a sexual assault. Not not read it you can't handle it.

Then there was his job. Jobs. Terrorist attacks all the way over in New York, economic crashes, the CEO suddenly dying on him, a sex scandal that had nothing to do with him, more economic crashes—the man, who was excellent at his work, had miraculously gone through so many jobs that he was, from his resume, entirely un-hirable. Which, when it drove him to the occasional porn gig to pay the electric bill, the world probably judged him. He was to be forgiven for is numerous bouts of paranoia and misanthropy. Brent was, in fact, a perfect example of “it being beaten out of you.”

            Needless to say, the man just could not catch a break. But through it all, he still managed to put on a brave face. It wasn’t until much later everything came crashing down.

            Somebody upped the ante.

            It was the subject no one talked about. It’s possible that he actually snapped. Who wouldn't?  And how can you console the inconsolable?

            Afterwards, he simple gave up. No more. He walked away from every possession he ever had, and most of his friends. He turned his back on everybody else, becoming, in effect, a hermit. Being gifted with the power to absorb, and be absorbed by, stone and metal, he found a boulder in a park and took up residence in it. If there was the occasional call to house-sit, he was able to “fly” through stone as well: he simply sunk into the bedrock, up the walls of Stephanie’s building, and stepped out of the exposed brick of her walls. He couldn’t take his clothes with him when he did this—there had been a few awkward moments over the years—but it clearly did not bother him. If he was thrown into a police car, he simply absorbed into the metal of the vehicle until the coast was clear. To boot, his body absorbed the minerals it needed from the rock directly. He almost never ate real food.

            But Omri and Stephanie weren’t thinking of all of the past disasters a la Brent. It was a future one that, not surprisingly, Brent found.

            Or rather, found him.

            It was before he had “gone boulder.” Right before. The very second before. He was at a club, smack in the middle of that part of the night that where the crowd divvies up into the “look how hot I am as I ignore you forever” crowd on one side and the “look how hot I am as I judge you forever” on the other. Not surprisingly, Brent managed to be the civilian on the field between both armies when the hottest man there did not, in fact, ignore him or judge him. He all but slung Brent over his shoulder.

He was tall, a staggering 6’5’’ (Brent was “only” 6’1’’) and built like a brick shithouse. Unlike the trimmed, shaven pretty boys, he was actually rather hairy. Which was truly a thing to see, since he was a platinum blond. He looked like an Icelandic truck driver—or a trank driver. And when he came up to Brent and introduced himself, Brent could not believe his luck.

            Which should have made him suspicious.

Chapter 1, Part 4, Episode 12

JUST A REMINDER. THIS CHAPTER WILL FEATURE A VIOLENT SEXUAL ASSAULT. IF YOU DON'T HAVE THE STOMACH, SKIP.

“Thanks for letting me keep my stuff here,” Brent replied.

            Stephanie waved it off. “It’s a big place. I was so intent on buying a showpiece I didn’t think of what I was going to do with all the space.”

            Omri sat back. Stephanie could have drifted right off a Vargas painting. She looked exactly like a 1940’s pin-up girl. Instead of sharp angles and alien-looking features, she was curves and bosoms and long, long, legs, with a small, pert mouth and large, doe-like eyes. Put her in some thigh-highs with the seam up the back and she’d be every World War II soldier’s wet dream (the straight ones), exuding an innocent, but constant, eroticism. She was the next Betty Page. Only better.

            That she was a dyke was supremely ironic.

            Although, by her own words, she was a “futch”—a “femme butch.” No dresses, minimal make-up, short bob of a hair-do. Unless she was on a catwalk, in which case, all bets were off.

            “So tell me,” Omri said at length. “What are we celebrating again?”

            “You shitting me?” Stephanie asked.

            Brent was matter-of-fact: “Good riddance to Vagabond. We can now get on with our lives! Whoopee!” He took a swig of Barolo.

            “Says us,” Omri replied.

            “What are you talking about?” Stephanie put her bottle down.

            “Come on. Can’t you feel it?”

            “Feel what?”

            “Vagabond isn’t in our heads anymore.”

            “And that’s a good thing.”

            “Yeah, but he’s not shielding us anymore. We’re in the open.”

            It was the one thing Stephanie had gone out of her way not to think about. Omri, however, always one to think too much and enjoy too little, was just the man for the job of Official Buzzkill. Both of them shot a look to Brent.

            Brent Xenos was actually one of the best people they knew. He was thoughtful of others, generous when he could be, the most non-judgmental person on the planet. If there was a wounded bird to shelter, an old lady to help cross the street, or a cry for help in the darkness, Brent was the man who came running. That he got used every single time didn’t at all dent his eternal optimism in his fellow man. For a time.

            But why the man even set foot into daylight was beyond anyone. He was, without question, absolutely, 100%, a complete loser. Which was perhaps a harsh thing to say (if only Brent wasn’t the first one to admit it) if it wasn’t for the fact that the man was a bull’s eye for disaster. His professional life, his personal life, everything about the man was a pile-up of tragedy, each more bewildering than the next. No matter how much effort he but into something, no matter his commitment, no matter the credit to his name, it was simply never enough. God loved to torture him. Period. And it was much too fun a show to stop.

            Boyfriends? He actually got the lines, “I love you but I love somebody else more” and “You’re too normal in a weird sort of way.” Getting dumped by text? Brent. E-mail? Brent. The fade-away game? Brent. Catching his BF in a mass orgy? Brent. Finding out that the boyfriend who espoused monogamy to the point of a cult was actually addicted to both sex and meth? Brent. Getting blacklisted as poz because he didn’t want to bareback a guy who was already poz? Being good enough to fuck but not good enough to commit to? Brent, Brent, Brent, and Brent-in-spades.

            And, when he decided to have a go at bodybuilding contests and devoted himself to hard 6 months at the gym—he had already been impressive at that point, just not competition grade—and could NOT come running at the drop of a hat like he used to, he was dumped cold for being selfish.

Chapter 1, Part 4, Episode 11

**OK, FOLKS: HERE IS THE SCARY PASSAGE. I WILL DEPICT, AS THIS CHAPTER PROGRESSES, A VERY BRUTAL SEXUAL ASSAULT. SKIP THIS IF YOU'RE NOT UP TO IT.

            

VAGABOND

The water wasn’t even that cold, but the shock of feeling it without the filters of his energies nearly knocked him out.

            As the water coursed down his body, the man watched as the riverlets ran and criss-crossed his skin. Matching the feeling of the water to the sight of it. It looked like trying to observe something from very far away. Or through a fog. Something you hadn’t seen for so long that you found yourself reminding yourself that, yes, that was what it was supposed to look like. Like this. Yes. Like this.

            His hair flopped forward in a black mass of coils and tendrils, and for a second, he felt ridiculous.

            No more need for this, I guess.

            He had decided he no longer needed his powers. Not now, not after they were all dead. Because, oh, yes, he killed them all. Every last one.

            But as one promises never to do something, and then suddenly finds where they need to do that self-forbidden thing, he opened the gates of his mind, and with far more relief that he would have ever admitted, he let the Lights out.

            Its surged over the strands of his hair, in a surging flair, the dye was ripped off, and what had gone into the shower as a black-haired man, emerged, shakily still, a radiant, Apollo-blond. The Lights were gone. Again, he did not need them, but he was glad they were always there.

            Drying, he caught himself in a mirror. I look appalling. And that man is still screaming. “Shut up, already!”

            The world shook and shattered.

           

            “There you go,” Brent said, pouring the last of the wine.

            “I got more,” Stephanie assured them all.

            “Anybody care which kind I get? Red, white?” Omri called out from the kitchen.

            “Nope!”

            “Let the photographer decide,” Stephanie said grandly.

            Omri came out with three bottles. “One for each?”

            “Me likey,” Brent said.

            “Gimme,” Stephanie said, fumbling with the corkscrew.

            Omri plunked himself down. “You sure you don’t mind us all drinking through your wine supply?”

            “I hardly ever use it,” Stephanie said. “I’m hardly ever here to use it.”

            Must be fun being employed, the perennially unemployed Brent thought.

            “It’s, what, Paris, then Rome?” Omri asked the model.

            “And then Berlin and Stockholm after that,” Stephanie added. “Thanks,” she said to Brent, “for house-sitting.”

            “Better than my usual digs,” Brent replied, easing back into the chair.

            Omri blinked. “Isn’t your ‘usual digs’ a boulder?”

            “’Rent-free boulder,” Brent corrected. He tipped the wine bottle back.

            “Has you there,” Stephanie snickered. It was so easy to forget how shattered he was.

Chapter 1, Part 4, Episode 10

Would you have killed him

“You saw what he did to Tug-of-War. To Pitch Black and Paine,” Alastair said quietly. It was now Justify Killing Vagabond Time. “And what he did to us. All of us. You, me, Danilo, Romeesha. He didn’t just highjack our lives. He hijacked us. Kidnapped us off to the desert and force us to fight him. Not to make us better, but to get him ready for whatever could be thrown at him. We were just steps…”

“Steeled.”

That didn’t make any sense. “What?”

“The man’s face. I figured it out. He was steeled.”

Alastair blinked. “We’re back at the drawing again?”

“He was steeled. It’s not over. When he defeated Vagabond. It was just the first step. You said it. ‘Just steps.’”

“You’re me freaking out, man.”

Finn hurriedly sketched in the man’s face. Eyes, nose, mouth, brows. Falling out of the air, rising up from the page, the man’s face materialized. Finn’s whole body was suddenly into the effort, as much as his mind already was. It was only, from Alastair’s perspective, a few strokes of the pencil, and yet there Finn was, leaning in close the surface of the paper, his eyes on fire, focused and alight. He was in the zone, where nothing and nobody, save artist and canvas, existed.

And then he stopped.

Finn always knew, creepily, when to finish. Still in Alastair’s arms, his body relaxed.

Alastair’s head tilted in wonder. It was spot on. Actually, it was uncanny. Vagabond and the…man, whom they only knew as “Unicorn.”

Finn inhaled, as if to speak.

Alastair was quiet. Something was coming.

“I would have killed him, too.”

The other man winced. For someone like Finn to come to a conclusion like that, the man who remembered with fresh guilt killing a bee for fun (he was convinced it was trying talking to him when he did that) as a child, it was a catastrophic step. Alastair hugged his love closer.

That night, they made an all-consuming love, frantic, as if they were trying to run away from something. Or gain something that had been lost, and the memory was so pure, so sweet and fresh, it was as if it—whatever “it” was—was still there. They reached out to each other, these two men, throwing down all the walls, all the shields, until no protection was left. They reached out, gave each other their fires and dreams, and for one universal moment, they were the gods of each other.

Later, when Finn wearily retired to the basement, Alastair followed, and lingered on the basement steps, out side the scorch zone. It took longer this time, but where it had not been before, suddenly there was a great orb of prismatic, opalescent light around the man, as scintillating as a mirrorball. It was beautiful. 

Chapter 1, Part 4, Episode 9

“Oof! Al!” And it was about then that Finn noticed the entire neighborhood was watching this little spat unfold. He laughed weakly. “I..uh. We…um. I…know him. Really!” Oh, I am going to be on the news… He picked up the stone-drunk surfer and hauled him bodily into his house, kicking the door shut.

It was very slow, the following morning. Alastair woke up and for the first hour wished he hadn’t. The shades had all been drawn, the fragments of pitcher cleaned up, the floor mopped. The smell of margaritas and ammonia lingered in the air.

“You’re up.”

Alastair jumped. Finn. “Fuck you.”

“I made some coffee.”

“Fuck your coffee.”

“And some eggs.”

“Fuck your eggs.”

“The dog died.”

“Fuck your do—stop that.”

“Just checking.”

Alastair took the coffee. He was naked still. Had been for a week of in-house drinking. At this stage of the game, he really, REALLY needed a shower. “Fuck your checking.” But he said it with a smirk. “You were here the whole night?”

“No.”

“You left me like that?”

Finn sighed. “I can’t sleep here.”

“Yeah. Got that. Prick.” No smirk there.

“I can’t sleep here because I’d burn your house down if I did.”

Alastair blinked blearily. His Mohawk leaned way over to one side like he was caught in a gale. “…what?”

“My…light-show. It’s not just lights,” Finn said. “Anything caught in it that can burn, does. Once I caught a lizard in it. I cooked the thing from the inside out. Almost instantly. I’ve set fire to trees, asphalt roads, carpets, you name it. Anything combustable.”

“People?”

“Never tried. Probably.”

“…wow.”

“And I can’t control it.”

Alastair shook his head. “You’re controlling it now, dickwad.”

Finn wobbled his head. “I can’t control it all the time, I mean. It’s…it’s my body’s natural state. When I fall asleep, it turns on. I can turn it off when I am awake, but not when I am asleep. Or unconscious. Or dead drunk.”

“That’s why you never drink?”

“That’s why I never drink too much.”

“So that’s why you never stay the night.”

“I’d fry your body the minute I konked out. I can’t let that happen. I’ve tried everything. Directive dreaming. Hypnosis. Yoga. Nothing works. As soon as I fall asleep, the magic begins.” Finn snapped his fingers for effect.

“…wow,” Alastair mumbled, wincing. Then he remembered something. “That thing in your basement. That’s your bed.”

“Yes.”

“Made out of cement?”

“Yes.”

“Because cement doesn’t burn.” But it scorches.

“You win the prize!”

“Don’t shout.”

“Oops.”

“How far out does it go?”

“The field? About ten feet. All directions. Perfect sphere. Even through walls and floors.”

“That’s why your basement is so deep.”

“It took me ages to find a place with that deep a basement.”

“What about when you were growing up?”

“Slept outside in the summer. Never had to worry about mosquitoes. In the winter, I was in an adobe hut with a very tall ceiling.” Finn was quiet. “Now. You.”

Alastair, hung over as he was, didn’t even argue. “I was around 13, I guess. Blew up a lamp. Same day as I got my first boner. That’s how I remember. But I’ve always been able to do shit like that. Wasn’t until puberty that I got like what I am now. Powerful, I mean.”

“Mm. Radios and computers always got weird around me as a kid.”

“Mm.”

“Do you know what it is?”

“Some sort of magnetism shit,” Alastair muttered. “Compasses and magnets go gnarly when I fire something off. But who cares? I blow shit to pieces.”

Finn was quiet again. “You tried to hit me last night.”

“I know. You had it coming.”

“And the neighbors are probably wondering what the hell happened. I’m really surprised they didn’t call the police.”

“Eh. Think you’re the first guy I’ve sworn at on my doorstep naked?”

“…I guess not.”

“Yeah,” Alastair snapped. He sipped the coffee. It was very, very black. “I guess I should have told you I knew who you were. But if it was the first thing outta my mouth, you’da done what you did and throw me out.”

“Probably.”

“I didn’t want that to happen.”

Finn nodded.

“’Cuz I’m in love with you.”

Chapter 1, Part 4, Episode 8

It was the first time Alastair had ever mentioned that he knew. “Yeah. Know all about it. There. Now you’re listening,” Alastair reached into his pocket. “I’m going to give you something. Tell me what it is.” He jammed a small…something…in the artist’s hands. “Now. What is that.”

Finn, furious, looked down. “…it’s a…ping-pong ball.”

“Very good. In all that stupidity there is actually some intelligence.”

Now Finn was just plain pissed off. “You have 5 seconds. 5—“

Alastair took the ping-pong ball, threw it with one hand; with the other, unleashed a beam of firework-like energy that looked as if he held a Roman candle up his sleeve. It hit the ping-pong ball, which flashed, and with a deep, sharp sound—like a glacier cracking—the ball exploded with a loud bang.

Finn didn’t even get to the “R” in “four.” He got as far as “foh.”

“Anything with more mass than a ping-pong ball and I do some real damage,” Alastair said off-handedly. “Shapnel.”

            Finn just stared at the cloud of ping-pong-ball dust hanging in the air. If it weren’t for the fact they were connected to him, his eyes would have fallen out of his head.

            “Now,” the punk-surfer said, doing his best Grandmother Abercrombie voice, “you can get mad it me for not telling you I could do that. You can get mad at me for knowing who you are and what you can do and never saying so. But it’s not like you were ever forthcoming, and the minute I stumbled across a clue, you threw me out.”

“You knew who I was?”

Alastair rolled his eyes. “Here we go.”

“And that’s why you came up to me? That time on the beach?”

“Actually, I came up to you because you were so tall, and the closer I got, hot. And that funky beard of yours. It wasn’t until I was a foot from your face that I recognized you,” Alastair replied. “But I woulda done you even if you weren’t Light-Show Boy.” He paused. “I just wouldn’t have kept you around as along as I did.”

“It’s not a light show.”

“No shit.”

Finn looked at him. Clearly he was thinking about it. “I have to set up.”

“You do that.”

Alastair spent the week fuming. At Finn. At himself. He didn’t even surf, which was a clarion call to his friends that something was wrong. He didn’t answer the door or phone. He did, however, drink himself silly on margaritas. And it was when he was lit up to the tip of his Mohawk that he heard a loud banging on the door.

“Fuck off!”

“It’s me! It’s Finn.”

“Fuck the bloody hell off!”

“Will you open the door? Please?”

“This is me imiday…imitatee…being you!”

“I don’t get drunk.”

The loud crash of the pitcher (margaritas) against the door let Finn know what Alastair thought of that. Also the storm of epithets that would have split the Red Sea. “Look, OK, I’m sorry. You freaked me out.”

“You threw me out!”

Arg, this was not going to work. “Yes! Yes I did! But look at it from my perspective! I didn’t know you knew who I was! It was a perfect logical reaction!”

“Fuckyouasshleohe!...hole!”

“You must really be plastered.”

“Yep! Feels great! Icanshoutatashehails!”

“’Assholes.’”

“Them too!”

“Open the door before I fry it off.” He actually couldn’t do that…

            Like a true Abercrombie, the threat of property damage actually did the trick. He threw open the door, naked as a jaybird, cursed the air blue, took a swing at Finn, missed by a mile, hit the door jam, cursed some more, and promptly fainted into Finn’s arms. It took all of 5 seconds.

Chapter 1, Part 4, Episode 7

And was on the phone all of 5 minutes of stepping out the door.

Message.

Message.

Message.

Nuts, Alastair thought. He tried going back the next day, but the door was locked, the curtains drawn, and there was no sign of life. Before the police were called, the man kicked the dirt, swore until the paint peeled, and left.

That, it seemed, was that, but Alastair was an Abercrombie, and when he wanted something, defeat didn’t even cross his mind. He did, however, have to form a different battle plan.

In the time they had been dating, Finn spilled the beans enough for Alastair to have some idea of the man’s schedule, and when the New York comic convention came up, Alastair was the first one on the plane.

“You gotta be kidding,” one of his friends said at the plan. The initial plan.

“What?” Alastair asked, huffy.

“You’re just going to show up in the middle of a comic convention and plead your case? After following him across the country? Stalker!”

“It’s romantic!”

“It’s freaky!”

Alastair fumed. “Shut up.”

“Stop being Abercrombie and start being Al.”

Bitch. “Fine. What would you do?”

It was stalker-y; just showing up and declaring undying love like a…well, a stalker. So Alastair ditched the idea of having an audience. It wasn’t hard sneaking into the Jacob Javits Center through the loading bays. He got there as the con was being set up, and with his muscled build and phantasmagoria of ink, Alastair easily passed himself off as a construction worker for one of the crews. (And like this wasn’t sooooooo stalker) He even helped set up a pavilion. No one recognized him as the world’s premier surfer. Which left him a little pissed.

He finally spotted Finn. He was setting up his paints, and what looked like a mini-studio-slash-watch the painter paint thingee.

“We’re talking,” Alastair growled, sweeping by Finn, taking the bigger man by the arm and all but throwing him through a side exit. The only way Alastair pulled it off was because Finn, although so much bigger, was in complete shock. “Alastair? What are you doing here? Let me go, you damn stalker!”

“Shut up.”

They were in one of the side corridors that riddled the building.

“What are you doing here? You followed me? Get your hands off me before I—“

“Go all light-showy on me?” Alastair finished.

That shut him up.