Kill A Man: Boys, Boys, Boys (Interlude) [IC]

[alderwitch]

Alex was quick to slip inside the suite she shared with Erin, stepping into the bathroom first on the off chance her roommate wanted to linger to say good night to her boyfriend. Mike wasn't the type to try and sneak more than a chaste good night's kiss (Much to Alex's chagrin often enough) but she didn't begrudge Erin her moments. Alex was nothing if not patient. Once she was sure the coast was clear, she slipped into the main room in her robe and headed to crawl into the center of the giant bed, giggling as she sank into the mattress. "Best. Beds. Ever!"

[Electra]

Erin was already in her pajamas, having bid Trevor good night in the hallway, and she was more than willing to echo the sentiment. She dropped down face-first onto her own giant bed, sighing with pleasure as it settled under her with cloudlike softness. "I think my career may be over," she told Alex, her voice muffled. "I don't think I'm ever going to leave this bed again, except maybe to try out the giant bathtub someday. Why don't we have beds like this at school?" One of these beds would've taken up the entire square footage of their dorm room, but that seemed immaterial.

[alderwitch]

"I know, right? We totally have to find out where to get one of these. Or two. We could put them in the manor." Alex agreed, flopping back into the soft fabric, arms and legs splayed out. "You think the boys are enjoying it or just all 'meh, beds' and then asleep. I swear. Boys."

Alex giggled and rolled over onto her stomach, "If we had these at school, we'd never get up for class. I'd just roll around in this. I swear, I want a place that has this bed and that tub for when I go off on my honeymoon. I think we are missing out on some of the 'key functions' of these giant fixtures."

[Electra]

Erin's entire face turned pink at that, revealing without words that her thoughts had been traveling along the same lines. "Maybe the king will let you come back here," she suggested. "This seems like it would be a pretty ideal place to honeymoon. But it's not like you don't have the whole world at your disposal, and unlimited money." She rolled onto her back, long limbs flopping like a rag doll as she looked over at her roommate. "It could be cool, you could visit like every five star hotel in the world for one night each, and see which one is the best." She smiled, a little ruefully. "I still can hardly believe you're getting married this summer."

[alderwitch]

"It's still a long way away and there's a lot to do before then. There's senior year, and graduation... and then Mike and I think he should announce who - and what - he is so that it doesn't come up around the wedding. Better to do it first. I'm still not sure how big a thing it's going to be. I mean, I think small and private is probably out at this point. You think I should ask Zoe to be in it or would that be way to weird?" Alex asked turning to look at Erin and smiling, "You know I want you to be my Maid of Honor, right? I mean, I figured it went without saying but its probably good to point it out. There isn't anyone else I'd want by my side that day."

[Electra]

"Really?" Erin looked totally surprised for a moment, then she grinned. "Yeah, I mean, I would love to. It would be an honor. You and Mike are so perfect together, it's going to be an awesome wedding. And it should be big, super big," she added enthusiastically. "The biggest party of the year, with music, and dancing, and tons of food. I'm not sure Zoe would feel good about being in it, but you could always ask." Erin scratched her head thoughtfully. "Even if she says no, it would probably mean something that you asked her. I think she's really lonely."

Crunching a pillow up and putting it under her head, Erin looked thoughtfully at the ornate ceiling. "You think Mike really needs to come out before the wedding?" she asked. "I mean, you already took the heat by coming out in public, and that's what you wanted to do, so it's good. But anyone who really cares about Terminus Babies probably already suspects all of us on Young Freedom just because of our ages, and a lot of other people it probably won't even make a difference to. I mean, I don't think it's bad or anything that he got his powers the way he did," she added quickly. "I don't think there's any shame in it or anything like that. But I know he would hate having to be in the public eye like that. It might be nice if you could avoid that."

[alderwitch]

"It'd be nice, but if he marries me, it's really only a matter of time before people put together Phalanx and Alexandra Harris' husband. It'll go better if he volunteers the information and doesn't just have it revealed for him. It's always better to control these sorts of things and with who he is, lying to people has never really sat well with him. It's okay, it means that when he goes off to training to become a fireman, he won't have to lie to people about the fact he's super tough." Alex said having unsurprisingly played the angles out in her head. "And he's the one who decided that he wanted to out himself in the end. We talked about it and I think it'll be okay."

She turned towards Erin and smiled, "But that's still a ways off too. Not till after college. So, I should go big, hunh? Invite all of the world's super heroes?"

[Electra]

"Sure, why not? It'll be fun!" Erin said, blissfully unaware of all the complexities involved in an undertaking of such magnitude. "If you invite enough people, nobody needs to worry about their secret identity, and everybody can enjoy themselves. And you've got all sorts of friends who'll be around to make sure nothing bad happens, so you don't have to worry. I've been practicing my dancing," she confided, though it wasn't much of a secret. "Trevor and I are getting pretty good together."

[alderwitch]

"So I've seen. You two are getting pretty good together at a lot of things," Alex teased, rolling up on her side to wiggle her eyebrows comically at her friend and dissolve into blushing giggles. "I am doing my best to un-remember all of the thoughts I picked up on the plane. He's got it so ba-a-a-ad..."

Alex singsonged the last word, drawing it out. "It's so cute."

[Electra]

Erin flushed pink all over again and tossed one of her many pillows at Alex. "I guess it's only fair you picked up on some of our thoughts," she teased, "since you were so generously sharing the fact that you were totally looped with us." Erin hesitated for a minute, torn between dignity and curiosity, and then gave in. "What sorts of things was he thinking about me?" she asked Alex, with a totally worthless effort at nonchalance.

[alderwitch]

Alex's eyes crinkled up at the corners as she smiled but told Erin, "You know I don't give out details. I really do try not to peek... I mean, would you want me telling Trevor what you were thinking?" Alex teased, arching her eyebrows high in question but she did reach out a reassuring hand to squeeze Erin's gently. "I'll just say this, you have rattled his focus. It was very cute, very sweet and very, very not platonic."

[Electra]

Erin chuckled at that, despite the pinkness of her face. "Well, I don't think you really need to be a psychic to see that part," she told Alex dryly. "And it's kind of fun. The kissing and, you know, cuddling and stuff like that. Okay, really fun." She grinned, then sighed. "I'm just not sure where to go from here, or if there's anywhere to go from here. Dating is one thing, but I don't know how far he wants to go, or how far I can go, you know, on any level. I didn't really expect to be doing any dating at all."

[alderwitch]

"You're over thinking things," Alex said without a trace of irony in her tone. She began to float pillows up, bouncing them into the air with a light telekinetic touch as she tried to see just how many she could keep up while she chatted with Erin. "I mean, you just go at your pace and either he can handle that or he can't. If he can't, then it's better that things end then because someone who really loves you can wait, well, forever. I should know. It's really hard to not push at Mike because I can tell what he wants but it's important to him to wait. So, we wait. I think Trevor can wait until you're ready. He loves you and he's the patient sort."

[Electra]

"He's never pushed or anything like that," Erin told her friend, tossing another pillow at Alex just to see if she could catch it without dropping the handful she was already suspending. "He really takes it slow and easy, you know, lets me make most of the moves when I'm ready. I think it's the only reason things have gone as far as they have. He makes me feel... safe, you know?" Alex, probably more than anyone else except maybe Dr. Marquez, would know how important that feeling was to Erin. "And happy. But I sort of feel like maybe it's not fair to him."

She picked up a pillow and toyed with it, mashing it up in her hands and smoothing it out again. "I told him everything," she told Alex, "or close enough, about where I come from and what happened. He was good about it, he didn't freak out or anything like that. I don't want to lie to him, even by omission. But I don't really think he understands how messed up it made me, or what kind of problems I have. I can't help thinking he's getting a really bad deal, getting into any of this."

[alderwitch]

Alex pointed her finger at the pillow like a gun, punching it up into the middle of the ones she was juggling as she went quiet. Alex rarely went quiet and when she did, it meant she was weighing options in her mind.

"I could show him." Alex said finally after a moment of thought. She 'tossed' the pillows up to the top of the bed again and turned to look at Erin, "You know how I don't forget things. I... I know enough of your dreams that I could making a waking dream. Show him your world as it was. A bit like a danger room scenario. All illusions. I'd do it, if you wanted. I think you're ready to look back into it but that's a call only you can make. But if you want me to, and he agrees, I can show him what life was like for you."

[Electra]

"No, god no," Erin said immediately, scrunching the pillow hard enough that a few feathers flew out of it. "If that's what it takes for him to really understand, I don't want him to understand. I wouldn't wish seeing that on my worst enemy. I'm really sorry that you've had to see it sometimes in my dreams, and I'd change that if I could. I don't want to do that to him."

She relaxed her hold on the pillow, hugging it to her chest instead. "I think he got that part, anyway. I think he understood at least as much as anybody can how bad it was there. I told him about all of it," she added softly. "About my parents, and about Megan. It was the first time I told pretty much anybody the whole story when I wasn't in a debriefing session. I think he knows that. But even seeing it play out in the Doom Room or in his own head wouldn't put him into my brain, and I wouldn't want to do that, either." Erin shrugged helplessly. "Half the time I don't even know why I think or feel or act the way I do. I just know that it messed me up, and that I'm never going to be the way I would have been. He's really a good guy, and I don't... I just don't think it's fair," she said again.

[alderwitch]

"We're a lot stronger than you give us credit for," was all Alex said but she let the subject drop, having anticipated this answer but made the offer anyways. "And you do him a disservice by thinking that you are less than he deserves. He might not be as tough or as showy as the rest of us, but he's capable of making his own calls on things. That includes loving you and the best thing to do - the smart thing to do - is realize that love freely given is the sort of gift that you just accept and are grateful for."

She turned towards Erin and shrugged her shoulders, "If he wants to love you, let him. He sees a lot more than you think he does. You know I'm going to tell you that he's the one who's lucky to have you but more than that, you really don't want to make choices for him. Look, I'm a billion times smarter than Mike. I probably would always make the better choice but I don't have the right to take that away from him. It's the same thing, just because you think he deserves better, he still should be able to choose you. And he is going to choose you."

[Electra]

Erin was quiet for awhile, resting her chin on the pillow and thinking about that. Alex gave mostly good advice, but she tended to give it in big enough chunks that it had to be chewed on before it could be swallowed. "Part of me thinks you're right," she admitted finally, "that I should just go with it and be happy about it for as long as it lasts, and figure that he's perfectly capable of saying what he thinks, usually in the fewest possible words. We're both adults now, or close enough. The other part is still worried because I don't know if I'll ever do more than make out with him, or be healthy enough to have a good adult relationship, or any of that stuff, and I keep thinking I should at least, I dunno, disclose all that explicitly or something." She sighed and punched the pillow so that a few more feathers escaped. "The other part, the stupid part, can't stop worrying that because I care about him, something awful is going to happen to him."

[alderwitch]

"Well, he's a superhero, something awful is bound to happen to him eventually," Alex pointed out with world-weary truth in her tone, "But that's the life we all picked, or was picked for us. It really doesn't matter. Bad things are going to happen and so are wonderful things. All we can ever do is try and stop the bad and enjoy the good, that's all anyone can do. But, we're superheroes. We've got kinda the advantage on changing fate. I mean, we get to hang out with kings and gods and angels. We can change the world. Only a fool is unafraid but you can't let it choke you in life any more than you can in a fight, cuz, really, it's the same thing, different scale."

[Electra]

"I can't ask him to stop being a superhero," Erin said glumly. "It's his life's work, and it's part of what I love about him. But I hate that it's so dangerous. He's not armored like I am, there's so much that can hurt him. And I know I have huge, massive issues about needing to protect people from danger because I've failed so badly in the past. I don't want to screw things up over that, either. How do you deal with it?" she asked Alex. "I mean, Mike is hugely strong and tough, but don't you sometimes wish you could put a giant tinfoil hat on him or something to protect his mind the way yours is?"