One of the rooms in the east side of the property happened to be used as a small gym; set up with a treadmill, cross trainer, exercise bike, rowing machine and one of those large, gym balls that happened to be deep purple in colour. There were also some small weights, not dumbbells nor barbells, just something with a minor mass to be held or attached to wrists and legs while exercising and other small pieces of equipment. The treadmill could no longer be used and the gym ball had been wedged into a corner, but the rest still had some function, even if the electronic parts were pointless.
Desperate for something to do, especially when the storm had been swirling around the property, this had become a den heavy with testosterone of late. Currently, Harry was stretching his calf muscles having finished a long round upon the exercise bike, while Arthur was upon the rowing machine and Winston was jumping rope. Cole entered the room and gave the others a curt nod before strapping on some weights and approaching the bike.
"Not hanging out with Chang Min?" Arthur asked, but there was a hint of subtext to his words. Cole raised an eyebrow in response to his tone, but shook his head regardless.
"Chang Min had something to do," Cole replied, shortly.
Harry didn't understand the inflexion in Arthur's tone either, but thought it had to have something to do with the whole meditation-cultivation thing. Cole had awoken abilities that were not dissimilar to the ones Chang Min had, so it really was not surprising that Ren Zexian thought Cole should learn from him. Besides, Ren Zexian was one man, there was only so many people he could teach his knowledge to at anyone time. That and recently, most of his time had been spent with Nathan.
"Hey, do you think that Ren and Nathan ever will...you know, cross the line," Harry mused, aloud.
"Get it on?" Winston grinned, lewdly between heavy breaths as he took a break. Sweat beaded across his brow and he swept his hand through his frizzy black hair, before thinking that he seriously needed a cut. "Hard to imagine, really. Hey, who do you think would be on top?"
Arthur rose to his feet, abandoning his work out with heavy sounding words; "I'm not homophobic or anything, but doesn't mean I want to imagine that kind of thing between guys!" Winston and Harry simply laughed, in reality, they joked about it, but couldn't imagine nor wanted to imagine about it either! Sex aside, they thought Ren Zexian and Nathan made a saccharine sweet picture when together and had no ill thoughts about their relationship.
"Ren'll be on top," Cole suddenly added nonchalantly, drawing glances his way and an awkward pause. Cole ignored them all, continuing to cycle upon the bike as they groped around for a different topic or at least some small talk to gloss over the previous one. Suddenly, Cole stopped moving and shuddered inwardly, rubbing briskly at his arms.
A sense of deja vu whispered over Harry, whose brown eyes were trained on the odd motions. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah, I think," Cole responded, though his brows were furrowed.
Arthur slipped out of the gym room, heading towards the bathroom; he wouldn't be able to bathe, not his turn, but there was usually enough spare water that he could wash up a bit with soap and a cloth. As he reached the stairs, a foggy black shape appeared then vanished again before reappearing upon the landing and bounding down the hall. Not thinking much of it, he ran up the stairs, taking two at a time, before having to pause at the top as the little guy, Patrick rushed past.
"Sorry!" The flaxen-haired man apologised as he rubbed at his arms and headed in the same direction as the hound.
Arthur was an observant man, it helped to be so in the force, after all, he realised that something odd was happening. Actually, despite seeming to adapt well to the changes that had occurred since the end, deep down he was very uncomfortable about it all. He joined the police as to have some sense of control after experiencing crime as a victim; nothing major, a burglary within his parents home when he was twelve. Coming home, seeing his room turned upside down and his console missing wasn't much compared to what his parents must have felt. And it was nothing compared to other crimes he'd dealt with in the aftermath.
But since the end, since the rising of zombies and the mutation of animals and plants, since laws no longer meant anything anymore and some people gained powers only found in comics or the movies... the control he sought within the force amounted to practically nothing. He didn't like it.
Following Jonah and the others as part of a squad to find food and deal with the zombies had given him a grasping sense of normality. None of them had developed so called super-powers, they were just ordinary people trying to help create some order in the chaos. He hadn't been that happy, if he had to admit it, when Shaun joined their already formed squad, but he had dealt with it by ignoring it. Besides, with Shaun there was a sense of balance in a way; he had his abilities, but he was still bound to a wheelchair. Fuck it, even he winced inwardly when he thought about it that way. Their group expanded more, Brooke had powers, but they were both useful and kind of lame. She liked to rely on others anyway and were it not for her ability, they'd have had it tougher during that time. He never once thought that they wouldn't survive without her, though.
Coming here, finding more people with powers was unbalancing, but no sooner had they arrived, they'd gone out raiding, keeping his mind from being overly bothered about it. Tyler and Patrick proved that they were strong, but not without weakness, that their powers didn't mean they weren't vulnerable. Admittedly, Ren Zexian and Chang Min were something else, but keeping his body busy meant he didn't need to dwell on things.
In the end, though, he couldn't ignore reality forever and when Cole, one of their own that despite his history of being on the other side of the law he could claim as brother now, had developed powers, he felt that last straw of normality turn to ash.
Silently, he was trying hard to accept things, he knew his chances of survival would be pretty slim if he could not get over his issues. But the weirdness just kept on getting weirder. He took a deep breath and followed in the wake of Patrick and Aslan, finding them both outside of a closed door.
"Whose room is this?" He indicated the door casually with his thumb.
"Tyler's," Patrick replied, excitedly. Before he could ask any further, the door beside it, but further down the hall, opened. Ren Zexian stepped out, with Nathan following. The oriental man's smile seemed less like a physical boundary for some reason and more welcoming, while Nathan's face seemed flushed with feeling. Patrick clearly could detect the alteration in the aura about them as he clapped his hands together and took a deep breath. He waggled a finger, pointing at both of them, even as he bounced upon his heels in giddy excitement.
Neither man said anything in response to Patrick's unspoken question, however Arthur could see that Nathan's hand no longer grasped the sleeve of Ren Zexian's robe, but instead the man's pale fingers. What was there to question?
Ren Zexian's sparkling, black eyes glanced towards the closed bedroom door. "It seems that Tyler will be advancing soon," he murmured, causing Arthur to frown. He didn't understand what this meant, however the smaller man beside him was obviously aware.
"I thought it would be me next," he pouted, childishly. "I mean, I've been cultivating longer than he has!"
Cultivating... that had to do with those mediation techniques. There were officers in the force that used to swear by things like that, claimed that it helped to loosen the stress of the job. Arthur had favoured physical exercise over those 'well-being' methods. However, at that time, he'd never imagined that such would become the norm in this small base of survivors and even considered beneficial to strengthening powers and abilities.
"I have explained," Ren Zexian was saying, "that the speed in which one can advance has to do with technique, talent and fortune. I have given you the best techniques that I am able to, talent is innate, I cannot help that. A single root means the concentration of spiritual energy is focused upon a lone path, two roots and the energy is split two ways. Your fortune may not be as great as Tyler's but it is greater than others, mine for example."
"Really?" Patrick questioned, sceptically.
"Truly," Ren Zexian agreed. Otherwise, how could he have only been of nonary stage after ten thousand years?! Nathan gripped his hand more tightly, revealing his discomfort in the stirring atmosphere centring on the man locked in his room. "Come, his advancement still may take a while."
"You aren't going to help him?" Patrick recalled how Ren Zexian had been there throughout Dexter's advancement.
Ren Zexian simply smiled and replied with a slightly wry expression; "I honestly do not believe that Tyler requires assistance." And with that, he calmly lead Nathan away.
Arthur sighed, he really didn't get this shit at all.
Tyler advanced in the middle of the night. The first thing he did following his advancement was to fumble to his en-suite bathroom in the dark, leaving sticky black prints upon the wall. Once there, he proceeded to create hot water for a good bath.
Author's note; I hope everyone's enjoyed the bonus chapters! I'm going to focus a bit on Paired With Fate this week, though I can't guarantee an update everyday, I will do my best!