The water rained down upon his upturned face, eyes closed enjoying the dual streams splashing against his body. For someone like him, a normal shower proved barely adequate to get clean, and impossible to enjoy when your head and shoulders rose high above the placement of the shower head. Someone planned ahead in designing this facility, which was no longer a shock to him, and he leaned his arms against the side and lowered his face to allow the gravity driven water pour over his neck and shoulders, and sighed in enjoyment. He’d have enjoyed it a lot more if Allison were in here with him, but she’d been right that he needed to get all the blood and tissue off of him. Even if it was his blood and tissue, or maybe especially because it was his, the result of his efforts in healing that police officer. The arms leaning against the walls of the stall may have been more about staying upright than he wanted to admit, as exhaustion from the exertions of the undersea, the lack of sleep, and then this morning what may have been the most difficult healing he’d ever performed, certainly the most complex and difficult since…..Felix.
His worn mind traveled the wrong, but frequent, journey again at the thought of his name. Was she just using him as an excuse? Was she still more interested in Felix? He wasn’t blind to all those looks at Felix over the last few months since he had to listen……ugh. Why was he jealous of Felix? Sure, he was incredibly handsome…..the definition of his muscles…….but his surly attitude poisoned all of his beauty. Surely she saw that, right? Least Barbe seemed to be entangled with Chayton so hopefully she was off limits, or was she? He slammed his palm against the tile of the shower, and it echoed across the empty room. Was he the fucking last choice? Just lack of options……at first it had been exciting to see what people thought of him without……..the perception of wealth and power and position his family offered back home. So much so that he’d held himself somewhat aloof from most people in North Dakota because he didn’t know if people liked him because of who he was or who is family was….and too many times he’d been burned. So he’d ….. well, hidden wasn’t the right word, but he certainly hadn’t been open about his background. Then after hearing Felix’s past, and Barbe’s hadn’t said much, but what little she had mentioned did not bode well for somebody with any money at all. Not that he had access to any of that right now, that wouldn’t matter. So what exactly did he offer Allison that couldn’t be gotten somewhere else? Jealousy, doubt and confusion pummeled him from the one spot he couldn’t defend against, his own anxious mind.
Exhausted anger, frustration and guilt surged through him, a bounty of emotions overwhelming his thoughts as his mind began to sputter, causing his thoughts to spiral, quickly flashing from his stupid attempt at flirtation when they’d gotten back to the center, to the overwhelming fear and pain at the loss of his sight while healing the officer, darkness, pain, suffering, and then flickering to the shame of having to be corrected by Mick about his decision to stay up so late on the report, to the even greater shame of realizing that Mick was likely right, and……….
“Stop that!”
He jerked, almost slipping on the wet tiles as he “woke” from the semi-lucid state of self-beratement, exclaiming, “What?”
“I said stop whatever you were thinking about…..I could feel you down the hall.”
“I……wait, you could sense my emotions in your room?”
“Isn’t that what I just said?”
“Yes, but what I meant…….” he started excitedly, “hold on.” The water sounds started to dwindle as he quickly turned the handles to off, “Uhm…..want to throw me one of my towels……..” he waited, “Allison?”
Sighing he opened the door, reaching for one of the towels……and there she was, standing a few feet away, a scowl upon her face that quickly became bemused as she caught full view of his naked muscular body, her eyes lighting up in…..an emotion he hoped he was reading correctly, but even as his body began to betray his own thoughts, he started toweling off, at least enough to not drip everywhere before he tied the towel around his waist, not that it hid anything about how his body felt seeing her in, well, anything frankly, or better yet, nothing at all and that just caused him to flush even more. He was a big guy, no matter the interpretation, and a single towel did not hide that fact.
He started to step toward her when the door to the shared facilities slammed back and Felix walked in headed to the other part of the room, before he paused and smirked, “Don’t mind me……”
Lukas muttered, “Fuck,” and again wondered if he was imagining Allison’s look towards the door lingered just a second too long, even if it was a nice view.
“Anyway, what I was going to say is that’s good right? Your powers are growing? If you could feel that?”
“What, uhm, I guess. Or I wasn’t blocking right, or,” she paused, looking at him, “well, there could be other reasons maybe.”
“Well, maybe we can bring it up to Mick, see if there’s a way to test to see,” Lukas replied, confused as she sighed and shook her head at his misunderstanding. “Sure.” She paused, but then she turned to walk out, and did he imagine her hips swaying a bit more suggestively. “Come find me when you’re dressed, we can watch that movie before we meet everyone for pizza.”
That left him looking at Felix, who said, “Are you stupid? Better hurry.”
He lay face up on the double sectional along the wall, eyes half closed as he waited for Allison to join him, exhaustion heavy upon him. Whatever he had to do to heal that police officer had pushed him over the edge, but his mind wouldn’t shut off to let him relax. Instead, he ruminated on every false move he could think of since Homecoming of last year, flickering from one flaw to another.
What more did he need to do? He worked all the time, studying, experimenting with his powers, extra leadership courses and training scenarios and discussions with Mick and the professors. Maybe he wasn’t a weight lifting nut like Felix but he lifted enough to build muscle, or maybe he didn’t, maybe he needed to lift more instead of all the cardio and running workouts early in the morning. Late nights trying to relax in the botany lap, building experiments and just…..calming, maybe he needed to spend more time in the greenhouse, he could feel the pull, the need to be closer to the natural world. He ran on the roof a lot of the time instead of the Gridiron because no matter how real it appeared, down deep he knew it wasn’t like running through the broken hills within the boundaries of his family’s ranch.
The confines of the city and the center tightened around him. All those dreams of leaving home, of being somewhere, anywhere else, any city where there were things to do, so stupid now. The craving to go home, to ride Dalea along the banks of the Little Missouri, to be out in the open, alone, or maybe with someone special pulsed through him, an intense longing for the safety he’d known would always be there, no matter what, gone now, like a broken promise fluttering away in the wind.
He’d barely made it through the weeks of confinement after the mission to help Zee, and then the “fear” of the Alpha Sapiens that kept them sequestered. It felt like a noose slowly constricting around his neck, like the restraints that let Crazy Annie and her goon squad used to hold him why they tortured him. Helplessness. He wouldn’t be helpless ever again.
What did people expect? He’d done his best to lead the team, to ……. help them, to push them, to protect them, to make meals fun and to suggest road trips and school trips and excursions to the beach. He’d pushed Mick for more autonomy, politely of course, pushed with Downs, with Ms. Synara, Ms. Run. Did he favor Allison too much? It didn’t interfere with the workings of the team, did it? Everybody liked the beach trips, even Barbe.
Deep inside he sighed. No matter how exhausted, no matter how much pain, he just needed to bull through. Push through it. He could hear his Dad and every coach he’d ever had in stereo in his mind. Push, push, push. Learn to be better, learn to be a true leader, a protector, a healer……he had to do it. He had to do it all, try harder. After all, in Mongolia, it had marked him, not his……He’d never abandon the family he had found, not like……
The cushions of the couch moved as she sat down next to him, and softly said, “I told you to stop that.” He looked up into her bright blue eyes, her smirk as she leaned over him, kissing him lightly on the lips, but as he moved his arms around her, the kiss deepened, longer, her lips opening, her tongue pushing into his mouth and he could taste the citrusy mint of her toothpaste and he knew where she had been, and need surged through but she pulled back, waving the remote, “The Stars Fell on Alabama, right?”
Inhaling a deep breath, he smiled, “Sure, I’ve always wanted to see meteorites crash into the deep south,” and he laughed at the stupidity of his joke, causing her to giggle as she lay down beside him, curling onto her side, head upon his arm, and pushing her ass into the obvious proof of his reaction to her kiss. He hated lying on his side with his throwing arm pinned, but he turned onto it anyway, lifting one long leg to lay across hers. He could learn to like this though.
They were asleep five minutes later.
They thundered across the valley. Tomorrow they’d be moving the herd into this range, but of course he’d miss it. The rest of the ranch’s cowboys slept or monitored the herd a few miles to the north, but grass in North Dakota was good for only about ten days for a herd this size, and he’d helped move them this far but football tryouts were tomorrow.
Only twelve years old, he was still the biggest kid in his class, if one of the youngest. School didn’t even start for six more weeks. The biggest, could throw the farthest, was by far the smartest boy in the class, he could run the longest, even if he wasn’t quite the fastest. When he was five, his coach wanted to make him center. He didn’t care, he just wanted to play, but then he saw him throw. Not that anybody else could catch the damn thing, but he’d been the quarterback ever since. Some people bitched, calling it favoritism. Maybe it had been, but he never doubted his ability to play on the field. He did doubt his desire to play though, but…..since his mother had died three years earlier, the topics his Dad wanted to talk about had grown less and less, and the Broncos were still one of them, and football in general…..so…..he played.
He didn’t care if Dalea was getting older. Wouldn’t be long before she couldn’t gallop across the valley, or even help cut out cows for branding, and then she could grow even older and fatter in the stables, eat carrots and apples and sugar and do much of nothing. Maybe that was why it happened. He never really knew, just that one moment they were cruising through the long grass under the bright moon and the next they weren’t. He’d grown too much that summer, and maybe he hadn’t adjusted his stirrups right, or maybe…..it didn’t really matter. All his life he’d been taught how to release in case, well, in case something exactly like this happened, and he failed.
He hated when the wind got knocked out of him, but it was just a matter of staying calm until the breath returned, so it wasn’t until he tried to move that the pain pulsed through him, so sharp and sudden that he passed out for a moment, or maybe a few minutes. He never remembered. He did remember though the howl of the coyote, sniffing after blood. Not far, but not close either. The next sound was always the worst, the whimpering of a horse, his horse, his first horse, companion of hours and days and weeks. He always thought he’d hit his head because he could never remember all of that night.
The memories he did have were bad enough, crawling with what felt like a shattered leg and pelvis to where she lay, cradling her head, whispering and crying, promising that that everything would be ok, crying, crying, the piteous moans of the first true friend he’d had until he’d met Jeremiah in fourth grade.
He never remembered how he stood, but he always remembered the smell of gunpowder, the echoes of the shot. Never did he remember the mountain lion, but he remembered his grandfather finding him in the light of pre-dawn the next day, and his father found the cat.
It took all day to dig the damn grave, even with all but three of the cowboys helping while the others monitored the herd. They buried Dalea with the mountain lion. It really hadn’t been the cat’s fault. He helped, even if his leg hurt like hell. The vet said he must have had a concussion since the memory had been an issue, but the leg never appeared to have been broken. Even with the x-rays after they got back to the hospital the next day. Maybe that should have been his first hint.
He missed tryouts and the first week of “summer” practice.
He was still the quarterback when he finally showed up.
The candle flames flicker on the cake as he holds his breath. “Did you make a wish?” his grandmother. “Don’t tell anyone and get all the candles at once and it will come true.” Her Polish accent might have made it sound weird to someone else, but he’d been learning Polish since he began learning English, so, it just sounded normal. Besides, everybody knew Babcia was a witch.
He looked at her as only a seriously precocious nine year old could. “Promise?” It was a ritual. As long as he remembered she said the same thing and he asked the same in reply.
She nodded seriously, “Obiecuję.“
If he’d known his Mother was sick again, he’d have changed his wish. She died less than a month later.
He’d always loved the rodeo, especially the clowns.
Waking up bound, hanging upside down, at first he assumed another one of Mick’s stupid training scenarios on the Gridiron. The girl in the clown paint and the fishnets and sexy clown costume was even pretty hot, all things considered. The long ass kitchen knife in her hand didn’t even phase him, not even after she sliced down the outside of his arm and the blood began to drip onto the floor. I mean, he didn’t really find being the hostage in distress a particularly fun test, but all the pain and wounds would fade, although it was kind of weird when she let some of it drip into her mouth. I mean who would think up this creepy ass shit for a training scenario?
I mean, how did he know she had Daddy issues? He didn’t start screaming until she stuck knife into his kidney……
After he got his breath back, and the wound had started to heal, “You won’t fucking get away this you psycho bitch! I……”
“Promise? Will you make me pay? Please, please, please?”
If it hadn’t been so fucking terrifying, it might have been an interesting study in psychosis of daughter manipulated and abused by the insanity of her father.
The winds and storm tore at them as they pushed forward towards the ancient altar, Barbe pushing forward in front of him like a fullback, the orb tucked under his arm.
He couldn’t reach it, no matter how he struggled, the gate was opening, or so it seemed, and then he felt her push him. Somehow she was no longer in front of him. He settled the orb onto the old stone altar and instantly he felt the winds calm, the darkened skies.
As if the world balanced, he murmured, “I promise.”
The wind whispered, “Adir Magi.“
“Lukas!”
His eyes opened to see her face right in front of his, his arm asleep, lying on the couch facing each other. “Sorry, I guess I fell asleep.”
“I noticed, kind of hard to watch it when someone’s constantly jabbering in their sleep.”
“Sorry – how much time we have? Where is everybody?”
She smiled, “Time enough and who cares?” Then she kissed him. It wasn’t long before he threw her shirt on the floor, kissing down here neck, along her breasts as she gasped, her hands scrabbling at the buttons of his jeans, reaching down and grabbing hold of him, stroking urgently. He moaned, taking her nipple lightly in his teeth, hands reaching down and rubbing against her mons, and she arched, whimpering, before he slipped his hand within the elastic band of her tights, her wetness on the tips of his fingers causing him to stiffen even further, and the he was sliding two of his long fingers inside. As he pierced her, she tightened her hold on his cock, gasping again.
Her next long moan took the form of his name, “Lukas…..now.”
Momentarily shocked, he breathed a wondering, “Here?”
“You’ll stay with me?”
“What? Of course.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.” A kiss.
“Then, yes, now, please.”
Hurriedly, before they were interrupted again, and as much as he didn’t want their hands to move he let her push his jeans down while he stripped off her tights, moving up to kiss her forcefully as she guided his engorged flesh into her wetness. He almost lost it then as she shivered but he pushed slowly deeper, before propping himself on his elbows. She hissed, nipping at his neck.
He slowly began thrusting in and out, gathering speed and rhythm. There was no way he was going to last long as she moaned, especially as much as he wanted this, and when she screamed his name, shuddering, he moaned “Allison,” and began to pull back, and her breathless voice moaned “No,” and she locked her legs around him, pulling him back toward her so he slammed back inside and with a few more strokes, exploded inside of her, crying her name over and over, arms around her, collapsing on top of her, still inside.
The giggles surprised him, the laughter even more so, but the shock when he saw the painted face and blue and purple hair of Crazy Annie horrified him, and he screamed when the face began to melt as acid ate it away.
“LUKAS!!!!”
His eyes snapped open to see Allison straddled across his stomach about to smack him again. That’s when he felt the sting of the apparent slap on his face.
“Ugh.”
“You were having a nightmare.”
“More than one I think.” He reached up cautiously to grab her hand, before letting go.
“Hit me again.”
“WHAT?”
“I want to make sure I’m awake.”
“How would me hitting you in a dream prove anything?”
“Uhm,” and he took the time to look this time, and she was wearing the halter and jeans that they had started the movie with and the same colors, everything. “Is the movie over?”
“Yea.”
“Sorry, fell asleep.”
“What were you dreaming about?”
“Bad things.”
She quirked an eyebrow, before reaching behind her back to grasp through his jeans, “Bad things, huh?”
“Well, not all. Some of it was good.”
She smiled, before saying, “Better have been about me.”
“The good parts were.”
Her smile faded, “I shouldn’t have used your fears to wake you up this morning. I…..it wasn’t that urgent.”
“Allison,” he paused, taking her hand. “Don’t be sorry. You did what you thought you needed to do. I’m not mad.”
He pulled her down to him, “Besides, what came after was…..”
She smiled, kissing him again, “Well, maybe we have a few minutes before everybody should be back.”
He had just gotten her shirt off under the blanket when Waverly bounded around the corner from the hallway, “Hey guys, ready for pizza?”
She seemed shocked when Lukas bellowed “Fuuuck” and Allison just laughed and laughed.
Last Dreams 