***ALEX***
The rest of the holiday weekend goes by without too many new and/or unwanted developments in my life. But not too many wanted ones, either. Of course, I can't really blame Juliet for not getting in touch with me, not when I'm not reaching out to her either. Meanwhile, after I helped get rid of the water louse infestation at Smythe and Darknell's, I wanted to hang out with Aron, but that never happened either. At least I got to have another basketball game with Luca, Gio, and Kyle...but even that wasn't as fun as it would've been with Paul, or Gabe. (Although Gio's gotten much better over time...and hey, since when did I start calling him "Gio?")
But still...I can't help but worry about Aron. I don't think it's helping him at all to have to stick with his parents. I don't think they're allowing him to grieve like he needs to. Not that I'm saying it's okay for him to want to subtract seven minutes of life for every cigarette he steals from Darknell and smokes, but-
"You say something, Alex?"
I look up, startled, then I realize I've been talking to Luca and not even realizing. What was I supposed to be doing...oh yeah, curating the Tuesday breakfast playlist for this week. Now that Luca and I are seniors and have successfully made ourselves the official music masters of the cafeteria, everyone else is signing up to fight back on Guest DJ Mondays with all the Shawn Mendes, 5 Seconds of Summer, and Justin Bieber I need to lose my appetite. (At least Kyle hosted this week's takeover and made it Lady Gaga Day just because he could.)
What even got me on the subject of Aron...oh yeah, my song choices. I've narrowed it down to half a dozen, with Panic! At The Disco's "Nicotine" on top. That's not gonna stay there for long, I don't think - too many F-bombs to be safe for work. But I love that song so much...Panic! was always mine and Gabe's thing. (If you're a grammar Nazi, or any other kind of Nazi, kindly fuck off right now.) Okay, if I gotta start with a catchy and clean cut off Too Weird To Live, I suppose I could start with "Vegas Lights." Or maybe "This Is Gospel." You know, "for the vagabonds, ne'er-do-wells, and insufferable bastards?"
"What the hell did you just call me?" Luca's got his eyes narrowed at me, and he's scratching his head. He pulls his fingers out of his curly hair with some difficulty.
"My favorite asshole, besides mine."
"Okay," Luca laughs, cracking his knuckles and sitting up on the edge of his bed. "Dude, I can't tell if you're being a dick or just plain mean."
"I'm already lean, so mean comes with the territory." Before he can add a "green" joke, I get in another comment of my own. "And by the way, your balls are showing."
Right away, he gets up to put on his Warriors-colored basketball shorts over his boxers, even though he knows I was just yanking his chain. "You must have a good reason to be worried about Aron," he says. "Can't stop thinking about him, huh?"
"Might as well tell him I love him and ask him out."
He snickers into his hands, like Stefon from SNL. "Damn, I just realized how...yeah, sometimes it's easy to forget you're the straight Snow Bro." He sits down, manspreading all over again. "You think he's gonna try and hurt himself or something?"
I turn away, not wanting him to hear my thoughts. "I wanna help," I mutter to myself. Then I say it again, projecting my voice a bit more. "I wanna help, but...but I'm the guy who saw his brother cutting himself and joined right in."
Luca spends a few minutes taking that in. I can't remember exactly when I told him the truth about where my scars came from, but I know I did, years after I gave him all those bullshit details about it. He was no less surprised by that revelation, I don't think. "Just...don't feel like it's all your responsibility," he says. "If I can help-"
"No." I give him a steely look. "When it comes to self-harm, that's my territory. Leave it to me." He opens his mouth, and I hold my hand up until he shuts up. "As much as you can claim to understand, you can't."
"I'm just saying," he pipes up after another long pause. "What if he's not hurting himself? What if it's just-"
"Devil's advocating me, Scag?" I shake my head, and he does the same, but with a little more stupid laughter. "Aron didn't steal those smokes just to experiment like Gabe and I did that one time-"
"You smoked?"
"Yeah, sure, go ahead and unfriend me IRL," I say. "Look, not everyone who self-harms uses a knife. Aron didn't steal those smokes to look cool. He thinks it's the only way to dull the pain."
"At least he's not drowning his sorrows," Luca says with only the barest hint of humor. "They know how to swim."
"I know I sound way too sure about this, but trust me, I know the signs." I lean back against my pillow, punching it until it's no longer a deformed lump of rock digging into my wings. "If Aron needs my help, I'll help him."
"And if he doesn't want it?"
"Then he just needs it more than he knows."
Luca lies back on his bed, hands folded behind his head. "You're the boss, boss. But seriously, though...if you do need my help..."
"You'll be the first person I ask." I roll over again, pounding my pillow until I can rest my head comfortably on it. I'll finish my playlist in the morning. Or I'll forget "Nicotine" is starting it off and embarrass myself and get fired.
Okay, no, I won't be pessimistic about this, or anything else, for that matter. If I see Gabe and/or Fionna in my dreams tonight, they'll know, and they'll probably jump down my throat about it. Those two are very concerned about my happiness, and sometimes, I think the pressure to keep a brave face for them is the most damaging influence I've ever been under.
(Nobody tell them I said that. That means you, Loudmouth Luca. They can only know that I love them.)
After class on Tuesday, I go down to the Bridge, grateful for a chance to properly fly outside again after so many days of rain. It's not been as heavy since Friday, but there's been enough water coming down from the sky to keep all us angels grounded - outdoors, anyway. We can still fly in big enough indoor places, like the gym at Balthazar, but it feels better when we can get some sun as well. I think the demons who invented Superman and Supergirl and Superboy and all the other Kryptonians had it in mind that they were part angel, with their literal solar powers.
Today, though, I'm just going for another swim in the pool on the uppermost level of the Bridge. What I don't expect, though, is the locker room to suddenly fill up as I'm halfway through changing into my trunks. I look up and over the row of lockers in front of me to see a crowd of guys, all around my age, flooding through the door, chatting animatedly. I don't know any of them, except for one.
"Yo, Alex!" Ty waves to me from the other side of the lockers. "Hey, I didn't know you were a swimmer!"
I close my locker. "Uh, yeah. I'm a water elemental, so I'm one of the few angels who is. A swimmer, I mean."
"Cool. Coolcoolcool." He says it in the exact same cadence as Abed from Community. "Hey, so we actually a man short for today's game - you wanna take his place?"
Is this for real? "You really want me to play? What's the game, water polo?"
"Sort of, but it ain't as formal as what you might do at school."
I shake my head with a small laugh. "There's no water polo team at my school. Believe me, I've tried, but there's not enough people who wanna join." I offhandedly stretch my wings and almost cuff one of Ty's buddies, a Eurasian dude, on the back of his head, but he expertly limbos under my wing and opens his locker, about five to the left of mine. "Angel, remember? We don't swim."
"Yeah, like they say white boys can't jump," Ty laughs. "Kelly's seen you swimming enough times to know you're really good."
"I dunno," says Limbo Dude with a stupid smile. "We don't want any team having an unfair disadvantage 'cause they've got an angel, huh?" He unloads the contents of a gym bag on the bench in front of the lockers, then strips off faster than I ever could.
"I'm the kind of guy who calls 'em like he sees 'em," I say, averting my eyes, "and what I see is a dick."
Limbo Dude guffaws. "Not like you've never seen one before, angel." I look up long enough to see him winking at me. Like his rippling muscles don't intimidate me enough. He reminds me a bit of one of the PE teachers at Balthazar - a short but wiry Filipino with an extensive martial arts background.
"You're not exactly my type, demon." I close my locker and retracting my wings - but making sure to actually hit the side of his head with them this time as I turn around. "Can I not be on this guy's team?" I ask Ty.
"Don't worry," Ty says, grabbing my shoulder as I move past him and he goes up to his own locker. "You won't. And hey, Nate? Don't scare the boy, huh?"
"Just 'cause we're not in a frat house doesn't mean I can't do a bit of hazing," Nate says, snickering as he puts on a Speedo. Not that it does much to hide his junk from view. At least I know one thing for sure - mine's bigger. Cock and balls both.
Before long, all us guys are in the pool, along with a number of demon girls - including, yep, you guessed it, Kelly, who comes out of the women's locker room in a purple one-piece with an iPod and speakers playing some Beyoncé. I swear, when she sees me, she starts sashaying to the beat as she walks up to the pool's edge and jumps in to join us. "Did you tell Nate to fake sick so you could have an excuse to invite Alex to play?" she asks Ty, jabbing her finger into his chest.
"I'm right here, Kels!" Nate yells, jumping up and down on the spot and waving at her - and splashing everyone within a yard of him. "It's Finn who's down with a cold!"
"Oh, sorry," Kelly laughs. "You Binag boys are so identically testosterone-poisoned, I can never tell you apart."
Nate trains his flirty wink on her next. "I take that as a compliment, Kelly."
Kelly rolls her eyes in a perfect "What is wrong with you?" look, then gives me an apologetic one. "Your first day on our squad, and you have to learn the hard way - my brother's best friend is the worst."
"Yeah, I dunno what I see in him," Ty says, totally deadpan. "Oh, and before I forget..." He races back to the locker room and comes back with two thick, flexible yellow-and-black bands. "Since you a water elemental, Alex, you gotta wrap these around your wrists."
I take the bands from Ty and realize they're weighted. "Wait, don't these normally go on the ankles?" I ask.
"They do," Ty says with a nod, "but we've noticed that for some reason, if you wear 'em on the wrists, they limit your water elemental. Yeah, Nate, what was it you said about 'unfair advantages?'"
Nate holds up his own hands above the waterline to show a pair of yellow-and-black weights already in place on his wrists. "Don't worry, man," he says. "At least it's us who found it, and not our enemies."
"Yeah, like those guys who came out of the sky over LA in June?" a girl points out.
"All that Chitauri bullshit, like it's The Avengers or something," Ty says, tossing the yellow water polo ball into the air a couple of times. Everyone else starts laughing, but as the only one in the pool who had to face Holly's people up close and personal, I'm not joining in. "The villains need to update their playbooks, man. No wonder they lost - once they started coming, we knew all their moves!"
He says, like he was there. But I'm not letting his flash of insensitivity get me down.
It's a fun game of water polo - but I find myself spending less time playing and more time having to fend off Nate, who seems to get off on latching on to my waist and pulling me under the water. At least I get to return the favor a couple of times, and still manage to score a goal - only for me to spend too long watching Kelly throw the ball back into play, and open myself up to another thorough dunking.
Like I said, fun. Sincerely.
I'm on the point of packing my stuff up and heading back to Heaven alone when Ty catches me heading out of the locker room and catches up to me. Less than ten seconds later, Kelly joins us too, carrying her iPod and speakers and smelling like chlorine just like us dudes. "You don't normally come to the pool on Tuesdays, do you?" she asks me.
"No," I say as we go down the stairs. "Usually on the weekends, but that's hella crowded sometimes. Maybe Monday, if I don't get to go on the weekend." I scratch behind my ear, feeling my hair bunch up back there - it's starting to get a little long again. "Did you really used to see me swim?"
"Sometimes," Kelly admits with a sheepish shrug. "And you did the same to me once in a while too."
"And you probably checked out each other's butts a ton of times too," Ty comments.
"I'll admit if if you do," Kelly says, narrowing her eyes at me.
"I'm too polite for that," I laugh.
"Just get together already!" Ty says. "God knows we ship you two hard enough-" He turns around, then stops talking for a moment, thank God, before changing the subject. "Nate? Nate, that you? Whatcha doin' there? Don't just skulk around, man!"
Kelly and I laugh with Ty as Nate creeps out from behind a corner on the lower level. Is this just another weird stunt of his?
Wait a second...this Nate is wearing all black. The one we played with today, his street clothes were a red hoodie and blue jeans.
Is this not the same Nate?
In which case, he could be a Second 'Verse scriv version of...
Oh God.
Kelly? I ask in my head. Does Nate have an identical twin?
No... She sees me getting defensive and copies my slight crouch.
Ty, however, is oblivious. "Dude, why you giving me the silent treatment?" he asks, getting ready for some double-brofist action. Wait, that's not the first step of the Twenty-One Pilots salute-
Lightning-quick, "Nate" pins Ty to the Plexiglas wall and holds a knife to his throat before cutting the cord on his arrowhead pendant.
All Ty does is stand there, gawking open-mouthed in horror as "Nate" runs off with his booty. He barges through the doors into town, tearing across the plaza even as Kelly and I chase him. "Nate" dodges my ice attacks, proving himself just as limber and flexible as his demon. In the end, it's Kelly who takes him down, sending small tremors through the ground until mini-sinkholes swallow his feet. And, for good measure, a shrub on the edge of the lawn comes to life, brambles snaking around the bright white wings he's just stretched out and violently pulling him down to the ground.
I stare at Kelly for a moment, watching her hands twist around like Doctor Strange casting spells. "You did that?" I ask. "You...you're a..."
"Yeah, I can play with plants," she says, stepping slowly up to "Nate" while Ty runs to catch up with us. "It's a rare talent, I know."
We approach "Nate" as he struggles against his botanical bonds. He looks up at us with eerily dead eyes, without any of his Hellish counterpart's mischievous gleam.
"I'll take that." Ty pries his pendant out of "Nate's" hand. "And you," he adds menacingly, grabbing the guy's face, "can take off that mask."
"It's not a mask," I say in an undertone.
"Nate" spits violently at Ty, and he jumps back, letting go of him and glaring down at the dark wet patch forming on the lapel of his hoodie (wait, do hoodies even have lapels?) and the white V-neck underneath.
"Maybe I failed," says "Nate." "But someone else is gonna come for that shard. You best give it up!" He twitches, hearing sirens approaching from somewhere in the distance. Then I see him push one of his teeth out of place with his tongue.
"NO!" I yell, jumping down to his level and trying to stop him, but it's too late. Even as I stick my fingers into his mouth, he bites down on the poison-filled false tooth, drawing blood from me as well. I pull my fingers back, wincing as I see the mixture of my blood and his saliva - and wincing again when he starts to twitch and foam at the mouth.
Hail HYDRA, shitstain.
Even Ty and Kelly, who I'm thinking aren't any slouches in the movie-watching department, know what's just happened. Or, at least, they have a pretty good idea. But they turn to me all the same as a cop car screeches its brakes on arrival at the plaza.
"Alex?" Kelly asks warily. "What do you know about this guy?"
"He's a scriv," I say. "One of those guys who came out of the sky. But that's all I know."
"Man," Ty says, looking down at the arrowhead hanging by its broken cord, which he's holding on to very tightly. "What the hell did he want this for? What's so special about it?"
As the cops come out of their car and hustle us out of the way while they check out the corpse, I look back and ask the same question in my head. Of course, I do have contacts on the other side I can maybe get answers from...but I can only contact them in my dreams, and even then there's no guarantee I can reach them.
I have to try, though. Gabe and Fionna, now that they're working a little more closely with Russell and his sibs, they could have picked up on a thing or two about whatever new threats await just over the horizon.
Because there's always a new threat.
I guess somewhere, in the back of my mind, I knew that I wasn't done dealing with the Second 'Verse for good after Operation White Shadows ended.