jonesing hardy

Mat holds your hand firmly as you walk among the light crowd out along the boardwalk. There are small rides, game booths, food stands, street performers, and vendors selling their wares. Which is why Mat hasn’t let go since you left the restaurant where you’d had a light early dinner. 

Someone had gotten a little too much sun and that someone is now wearing your peachy red bucket hat that you’d chosen to match your bike shorts for the outing, and coincidentally (or not) also matched his t-shirt. Mat’s cheeks and nose are red, and his shaggy offseason hair peeks out from the hat in beachy waves. 

At the car, before dinner, when you’d put your towels and bags away, you kissed his cheek after pressing your lips to an icy cold water bottle, and swiped some aloe onto his face while he held another water bottle to his neck after gulping down half of it.

“I think you were overly ambitious with boogie-boarding, baby,” you’d teased him lightly, watching him smile, eyes closed as you finished tending to his ails. He’d pouted, but he was laughing as he leaned in to kiss you, humming happily if not a little defeatedly.

Now that he’s eaten he’s regained a little energy, and the offensive sun is close to setting, lighting the sky in tones of purple and orange and growing the shadows on the boardwalk. You’re in search of desert, and a little more entertainment before heading back home for the night. 

Mat squeezes your hand as the crowd thins out and you look back at him with a reassuring smile, still tickled by how your outfits matched today. Your linen top is cream with a peachy yellow partial circle shape on the front that you think looks like the sun, but Mat said looks like a fried egg. Your sandals match the yellow, his white shorts complement your shirt and make his thighs look scrumptious. Your hat matched your leggings and his shirt, but you think it looks cuter on Mat.

“There’s a soft serve stand over there,” he says, raising a brow and pointing with his free hand. You look in the direction he’s pointed and find it, nod, and start heading over to it together. 

There’s a family ahead of you when you arrive, giving you both enough time to pick something off the menu. Mat wraps his arm around your waist while you wait your turn. You decide quickly, a cone with raspberry drizzle, but he takes longer to decide after he sees options for both chocolate drizzle and chocolate dipped. 

The mother ahead of you is talking very loudly to the clerk behind the counter, prattling more like, going on about… my husband this, my husband that, in such a snooty and somehow simultaneously resentful way that it makes you grimace. You can’t even tell what her problem is. 

“I never wanna sound like that,” you say under your breath, rolling your eyes when Mat looks at you and snorts trying to stifle his laughter. 

“God, me either,” he says, shaking his head and giving you a little squeeze. “I think I know what I want.” He looks around and nods at a bench. “I’ll order, you wait here?” 

“Okay,” you say, scrunching up your nose when he gives you a quick peck and heads over to the counter with a little bounce in his step. 

You laugh and take a seat, looking around at the nearby stands and booths. The family has moved on, their kids' faces covered in chocolate and ice cream, but looking as content as can be despite what a grouch their mother seems to be. They’re passing a booth full of charming stuffed animals.

There isn’t any fixed carnival game to try to win to get a toy, just a man selling toys. Mat is still waiting and paying for your ice cream, so you get up and take a few steps closer. 

“Babe!” you call, and watch him turn toward you, hands in his pockets, brows raised curiously. You point over at the booth and he nods, understanding where you’re going. 

The toys are even more charming up close, your gaze travelling over them thoughtfully. You squish one of the sample toys and discover them to be utterly pleasant to press your fingers into. 

Just when you think you’re ready to choose, the grouchy mother calls the vendor from the other side of the bench. He looks at you apologetically and goes to help her, and you hear her again; my husband likes… my husband wants, what do you think is best for my husband…

It only takes a moment, and you try to tune out her gratingly irritating voice, but finally you get your turn. You offer the vendor a smile, pointing to two bear toys that kind of look like loaves of bread, one beige and one brown. He turns to retrieve them.

“The beige one for me, and the brown one for my husband,” you say, the word slipping off your tongue accidentally. Your cheeks flush. The vendor doesn’t know that Mat isn’t your husband, but your face feels hot and you let out a heavy, embarrassed breath, almost dizzy with the thought of it.

The vendor turns around and pauses, a skeptical look on his face. Your eyes widen and you turn around, meeting Mat’s stunned, shit-eating grin, holding your ice cream in his hands. 

“Did you hear that, man!” Mat says, voice cracking excitedly. The vendor laughs. “She called me her husband!” 

Now your cheeks are burning worse than his. But if anything can be compared to the sun, it’s his beaming smile. 

“I heard it,” the vendor replies, shaking his head amusedly. 

“Oh my god, you’ve gotta come to our wedding, man,” Mat says, handing you your ice cream and reaching a hand out to shake his hand. 

You break into giggles. “Mat, please,” you plead, fishing out a few bills to pay the man for the toys. He shakes Mat’s hand laughing, and puts the bears into a paper bag for you.

He’s practically bouncing as you step away from the booth, another disbelieving laugh leaving your lips as he loops his free arm around your waist and starts guiding you to the railing to watch the sunset. 

“It was a slip of the tongue—“ you say, embarrassed, amused, but he silences you with a kiss that quickly turns into a grin between you both. 

“Say it again,” he says, pulling back a bit to look at you, still playful but utterly earnest. 

“My husband?” you reply, tummy full of butterflies. Somehow he grins even bigger and chuckles quietly to himself. 

“I like how that sounds,” he says, “A lot. About as much as I like the idea of you being my wife.” 

It’s your turn to grin, and you bite your lip, cheeks aching from trying not to smile too hard. 

“Just the idea?” You tease, and he laughs again. 

“You’re gonna be my wife.” He’s so happy and so sure you have absolutely no doubts about how serious he is. “And it’ll be an honour to be your husband.” 

“You’re gonna make me cry in my ice cream,” you complain, playfully, pouting, but can’t help but laugh again when he kisses you. 

“You’re okay with that right?” He asks, uncertain for a second. 

You nod. “Are you proposing?”

He shakes his head sheepishly. “I’m proposing that I want to spend the rest of my life with you,” he says, lifting his hand and stroking his thumb over your rosy cheek. “For now.” 

“For now,” you agree, leaning up to kiss him again. 

He holds your chin with his thumb and index. He tries to deepen it, and you indulge him for just a few seconds before you giggle. 

“Save that for later, our ice cream is gonna melt all over us!” 

He groans playfully. “Ice-cream? What ice-cream?” He kisses your cheek and steps back. 

The night is never as dark as you’d like in a city, and no matter the hour, night owls are bound to be turning their gaze onto anything that moves above the shadows. 

He casts quite a shadow. 

Dove.

You don’t speak much after he agrees to go with you. There is a stalemate between the two of you for many minutes before he offers an arm and helps you up, getting you to a more comfortable place in the warehouse to rest until you could stand on your own. 

You didn’t think he’d be able to fold his wings enough to hide them, you thought it would hurt too much, but he manages to do it anyway and tucks them away into a long coat that he found in the disused warehouse staffroom, along with a large umbrella that helps conceal him better.

Once you could stand you found a dusty bathroom with running water and managed to clean your arms and face of blood and wrangle your hair into something less dishevelled. You also took off all your absurd jewelry, cleaning it all with hot water and chucking it into the same locker you find a pair of shoes that are too big but are better than trying to walk barefoot. 

You get the privilege of draping his leather jacket over your shoulders, which doesn’t exactly keep you warm given the modifications he made to the back to accommodate his wings, but you suppose you’d be colder without it. 

You walk in silence side by side for most of the journey, and calling it such is no exaggeration. It only takes half an hour for the pain to creep into his wing again, especially with how he has them folded against his back— you feel it, and have to breathe through the discomfort, the one aspect of your powers that you can’t turn off, but that thankfully doesn’t wipe you out the same way healing or telekinesis does. 

It takes three hours, and neither of you seeks a break, somehow knowing that stopping would benefit neither of you. He gets more tired though, but you can tell he relaxes a bit when the city falls away and the trees thicken, and the people and cars become few and far between.

The safe house looks abandoned from the outside, and to your benefit, it has thick overgrowth around its perimeter that provides plenty of privacy. All of the windows are either frosted or boarded up save for the stained glass windows on the old domed church that will be your shelter. 

You find the key where you expect it, and as soon as you enter you’re working on autopilot. You throw off the shoes that have given you blisters, walk across the confused space to a large set of shelves and pick out a change of clothes that don’t quite fit but are better than the tiny cocktail dress you’ve had to trek your way here in. 

Dove throws off the coat and drops onto the nearest cot, groaning as he stretches out his wings. You shudder from the incomparable empathic impression it leaves in your back. You change without caring if he looks (he doesn’t), putting on the pants and a too-large shirt, collecting a blanket from a crate in the corner and yourself dropping onto a cot not too far from where he’d lain down. You pass out after you heal your blistered feet. 

You sleep for eighteen hours. 

He sleeps for twelve, and when he awakens he’s hungry and hungover, aching in unpleasant but not unfamiliar ways. You can feel the malaise even though it doesn’t wake you, creeping into your body and your dreams and then fading once he freely navigates the space and finds the food and water kept in the makeshift pantry. 

You feel better when you wake, but you’re ravenous, and dig into whatever shelf-stable item seems most appealing— you’re still chewing when you go and find him, having made himself a more private corner to relax in with cushions, two cot mattresses and a few blankets. 

Swallowing doesn’t quite soothe the scratch in your throat, and you notice some subtly floating feather particles in the air, leaving you to idly wonder how much he sheds. 

“Are you well enough to heal me now?” he asks, filling the silence. You’re not sure if he believes you are, he seems tired and resigned.

“No,” you reply. “Not significantly anyway.”

He levels you with an incredulous look. 

You sigh. “I could give myself an aneurysm if I try to heal you too fast.” 

“What can you do, then?” 

“I could have you flying again in ten days,” you say, “that won’t put too much strain on me.” 

His wing, the undamaged one, flutters slightly. “Fourteen.”

“What?”

“Take fourteen days. You were like a rag doll at the warehouse, Häschen, you’re no use to me like that. You think you can do ten days— I don’t have anywhere to be— we’ll do fourteen.”

You look at him for a moment, trying to spot some ulterior motive and figure he must be doing the same. 

“Okay, alright. Two weeks.” That’s probably how long you’ll need to arrange extraction anyway. 

You swallow again against the scratch in your throat and take a deep breath. 

“You need a tour?” you ask, feeling awkward. 

He shakes his head. “I looked around while you were sleeping.” 

“The church is free-reign,” you say, explaining anyway, “the rest of the building is not really safe, but isn’t off-limits.” You shrug. “The shower room is over there.” You point. “Towels and soap are in the baskets… they’re all labelled.” 

“You planning to leave me alone here, Häschen?” he asks, sitting forward slightly and canting his head to the side. 

You both react when he strains his wing, and you try to hide your whimper with a cough. His wings shudder and the feathers tighten up, drooping slightly as he sits back against the wall with a slight grunt of pain.

“I want to get some supplies from the store… like better food,” you explain with a shrug. You also want to get him some medicine to tide him over between your attempts to heal him. 

“Are you going to walk?” 

You shake your head. “There’s a car stored on the property, I have what I need. I shouldn’t be more than forty minutes.”

He doesn’t say anything further, and it feels too invasive to watch him struggle through his pain.

“You want anything?” you ask, already planning to get him some clothes. 

“No.”

“Okay. What clothing sizes do you wear?” 

The look he gives you is almost a smirk, a raised brow and a quirk of his lip that makes you flush. You look away in embarrassment and clear your throat again. 

He tells you the sizes. “You don’t like my clothes?” he asks. 

“That’s— that’s not the point,” you say, and motion at him, his pants and boots, the lack of a shirt, the modified leather jacket he’d taken back while you slept. “That’s all you have.”

He shrugs with his hands. “Do what you want.”

“I will.”

“See you in an hour, then.” He seems inclined to give you more time than you think you’ll need.

— 

The subtle hiss and splash of water greet your ears from across the echoey safe house when you return. You took less than the hour, but more than the forty minutes to get everything done. You put the bags down on the tables that make up the kitchen (which isn’t much of a kitchen at all. There is an old fridge, two hot plates, a toaster oven and some cookware and dishes next to a deep industrial sink).

There is steam coming from the shower room, and when you get closer with the bag of clothes you got for him, you feel a malaise creep into your body. 

“Dove?” you call, but he doesn’t answer.

You put down the bag and go to the door, not sure what you’ll find, but hardly wanting to violate his privacy nor open yourself up to any teasing if you’ve misinterpreted the empathic impression. 

A small gasp leaves your lips. His wings are almost totally clean now, free of the dirt and char and blood that had been caked on them— some of which sits over the drain grate to his right. Feathers are missing from his left wing, and it continues to droop, but what concerns you is how he’s kneeling on the floor with his head against the wall, taking in shuddering breaths. The wings hide his nakedness almost completely, but that hardly crosses your mind as you step into the room.

“Dove?” you say again, more urgently now, your new shoes splashing on the wet floor as you cross over to him. 

It’s a rather bare room, stripped of all curtains and half-stalls, with only a dozen showerheads set a few feet apart around the space. He has two showers running to cover all of him, and you gasp when you feel how hot the water is, yanking the tap to the left to make it cold and then reaching over him to do the same to the other. 

“What are you doing!” your voice is louder than you intend, and he tenses, groaning when cold water penetrates whatever daze he was in. You get down on one knee and grab his face between your hands. He’s hot hot hot, and not just from the water, flushed. He startles, wings jerking and feathers fluffing, and he gives a slight grunt of alarm.

“Hey, hey, it’s me— it’s just me.” 

He doesn’t quite relax but he seems to calm, bowing his head slightly and shivering. You carefully reach up to turn off both showers and bring your hand to his neck. You squeeze your eyes shut, trying to focus through the haze and urgency. 

“What are you doing…” he says dully, lifting a hand to grasp your forearm. He groans when he feels the initial relief of your healing. “Don’t, you’re not— I’ll be fine—”

“I can handle it, you’re not well,” you reply, almost scolding. He makes a sound of acknowledgement but speaks no further, he keeps his hand on your arm. 

You don’t find what you’re looking for, you assumed it would be an infection from the fracture, but his whole nervous system is rioting. You quickly readjust, your fingers pressing against his neck, by the nape. It’s not the healing you expected him to need, but you hadn’t exactly gotten the chance to examine him and come up with a plan. Your healing balances his autonomic nervous system, calming the sympathetic and re-engaging the parasympathetic. He’d need more help than that, you can tell, but easing his distress is your primary goal. 

A drop of blood hits the floor, and his hand squeezes your arm. Your nose is bleeding.

“That’s enough,” he says, his voice much more controlled now.

“I’m alright,” you assure him, “I know my limits, I can do a bit more…” You aren’t lying but you know how far you can push yourself before you get as bad as you were last night. You can do more now that you’re touching him too, that always makes you more precise.

His breathing even outs and his heart rate calm, and his head bows in relief after another long moment. Your bloody nose gets worse, but you set him up better this time, stimulating his immune system and provoking a healing response throughout his body, natural pain relief. It would help his body help itself until you could resume your efforts tomorrow. 

You move your hand away from his neck and move it to under your nose. The leg of your pants is wet when you stand, and you turn away but he gives your arm a little tug, making you look back down at him. His face isn’t as flushed now, and there’s a different kind of pain in his eyes, something non-physical. Something like guilt. 

“I didn’t deserve that,” he says gravely. You slowly pull your hand away. 

“You were in distress, I wasn’t going to leave you like that.” 

His wings twitch, ruffling carefully. “Some pain deserves to be felt,” he argues weakly. “Especially for something of my own doing.”

“Withdrawal isn’t a penance, Dove.” When he meets your gaze, you think he might be searching for judgement, but he won’t find any. He looks away.

“It’s an unfair strain on you.”

You turn away, still holding your bloody nose. “I can’t just pick and choose what I heal. If you’re sick I can’t fix your wing effectively.” You huff, turning away. “And I’m fine. It’s not as draining when I can touch you… I left you some clothes by the door. If you really don’t want to waste my efforts, you’d better get some rest. Your body can do the work itself until tomorrow.”

You start out of the room deliberately, shoesfalls splashing wetly. As you pass the threshold, the echoey walls of the shower room amplify his quiet words just enough for you to hear.

“Thank you.”

You’ve been running for eight blocks barefoot in a cocktail dress since you ran out the service exit of the high-class club you’d snuck into. You were caught with one of the patrons, but it’s not clear whether they think you were soliciting or if they saw you using your powers. You were so careful, you only wanted to help, and you’d taken the risk knowing the likely consequences. 

The club district has fallen away to warehouses, traffic is still in earshot and you should really grab a taxi, but you’re listening to your gut. The fewer people around the less likely you are to draw attention to yourself, and besides the dress, without your shoes and with the nosebleed you’ve given yourself, you expect to draw some gazes. 

“Ich sah sie diese Gasse hinuntergehen!” I saw her go down that alley! The voice is clear but it’s far enough away that when you shrink back into the nearest dark doorway you’re sure they haven’t seen you. Standing still makes your feet ache and throb, and your throat taste like blood while you try to gulp in some air. You close your eyes and concentrate, slow deep breaths, and after a moment your feet don’t ache and your nose stops dripping. “Suche nach blutigen Fußspuren!” Look for bloody footprints! 

They’re too close for you to make a run for it and despite your efforts to calm yourself, you can’t locate them with your powers. Something metal clangs nearby and you hold your breath, glancing at the door behind you. Here is a place to hide. You can’t tell if it’s instinct or fear that drives you to thrust forth your hand at the lock, but it you hear it scrape and click. At a distance, with your other hand, you smudge your bloody footprints on the ground behind you, as far as you can before you feel the hot wet drip of blood from your nose again. 

“Fuck,” you whisper, wiping your nose with the back of your hand before opening the heavy door as little as possible to let yourself in, locking it again behind you. When you turn around you find the space empty. Your stomach drops, there’s no way to hide here, you’re exposed. You can hear music playing somewhere above you and immediately hold your breath. The only saving grace is that it’s dark, the only light coming in from skylights above the rafters. 

Is there a security office here? In an empty warehouse? You can’t make any assumptions here. You take a few deep breaths and start crossing the space, trying to stay in the shadows, heading for the opposite door which would put you in a better position to get somewhere safe. 

“Eindringling!” Interloper! A man’s echoing shout comes from above.

You slam your hand over your mouth, barely muting a scream as you jump in fright. You’re about to plead your case, play the damsel, beg the man that shouted to let you go, but then the music stops. It’s still too echoey and too dark. You feel cold now that you’ve stopped running, paranoid. Your head hurts. The longer you stand there the more an ache creeps into your shoulder.

“Dies ist kein Ort für ein häschen!” A bottle smashes a few feet away and you yelp, staggering back, looking up to the rafters from where it came. Wings. Huge wings. Your breath gets caught in your throat and a startled sound leaves your mouth. 

He drops from above in shadow, boots crunching on broken glass when he lands. He’s clutching another bottle in his hand. He stalks toward you and you back up, tripping and falling with a grunt onto the dusty floor. You throw your hand out and he stops his advance when he collides with a lucky telekinetic shield. Your nose is definitely bleeding again.

He’s a mutant.

He’s hurt.

He doesn’t try to come at you again. You can see now why your shoulder aches, so strangely too, as he steps into a patch of light. His left wing is burnt, drooping— the pain you feel radiating from him tells you it’s broken. You wipe your nose with the back of your hand, coughing from what you assume is the dust.

But then you realize what he said. This is no place for a bunny!

“Ein häschen?” A bunny? you ask stupidly. You touch the obnoxious necklace you wore to the club, all the VIP girls wore something similar; a thick twisting gold chain with a Playboy bunny charm on it. 

He exhales, something between a scoff and a laugh. “If that’s what you want it to mean.” He doesn’t sound German now. Some mix of British and American. 

“You’re with them,” he says, assuming, bringing the bottle to his mouth and drinking, letting it drip over his chin and onto his chest.

“What?”

“The cage.”

“I don’t kno—”

He turns his back on you then, starts walking away with this drunken swagger, making you understand why your head hurts— your clarity returns when you feel a jolt of pain.

“Wait!” You throw out your hand, straining your powers to keep him from using the broken wing. This time he staggers, his pained yell echoing throughout the warehouse as he drops to his knees, his bottle smashing next to him.

“I can help you!” you gasp, wiping your bloody nose on the back of your hand again.

“I don’t want anything from you!” he growls. 

“I can help you,” you repeat stubbornly, pushing yourself up, kneeling now, arm still outstretched. You feel the ache in your shoulder and trace it back to him, feeling a tingly coldness in your body as you strain your powers to heal him. It’s more than you can handle and you know it, you’ve already healed someone and yourself tonight, but you keep going. 

He gasps when the relief washes over him, groaning and trying not to cry out at the healing pains that follow. 

You push yourself until your head is spinning and your vision goes hazy black. You growl in frustration and lean forward, choking from your bloody nose, which you wipe on your arm. 

“Blöder häschen,” he mutters, half amused, half reproachful. Stupid bunny. “You’re too weak to help.”

“I can finish it,” you retort. “Don’t try to fly… I just— I just need to rest.”

You look up to find him staring back at you, a conflicted expression on his face. Dizziness threatens you toward unconsciousness. You put your head back down reluctantly, leaning it on your arm. You cough again, your throat stinging and your tongue feeling gritty.

“This isn’t a good place to rest.” His voice is closer now, you didn’t hear him get up.

“I have a place,” you say, trying to breathe through your mouth. This is what you get for pushing yourself this hard. If you could relax you could heal yourself enough to stop the nosebleed. “It’ll be good for you too, it’s big enough.”

“Where?”

When you tell him, he gives a slight grunt of acknowledgement. “Fine.”

You sigh, still leaning your head on your arm. You don’t want to think about how you must look; bloodied and barefoot, dusty, in a little cocktail dress, keeled over in something approximating child’s pose.

“What’s your name?” you don’t look up to ask this. 

“Why do you want my name?” Now that he’s not in so much pain, his personality is coming out. He’s stubborn. You don’t blame him. 

“Why not?” 

“So what’s yours?” 

“I won’t tell unless you say it first.”

He scoffs. “Keep your name, häschen. Call me what you want.” 

Still leaning your head on your arm, you turn to look at him. His wing looks better, not dropping as badly, but your efforts didn’t touch the burnt feathers, which look so stark against his white wings, pale skin and light hair. At least he looks calmer. 

“Dove,” you finally decide.