Page 43 of Too Many Beds

I force a smile onto my face for the boy, catching his eyes over Caleb’s shoulder and smoothing my voice out into something reassuring. “You’re safe now, little man, we got you.”

Despite how upset he must be, the boy offers a wobbly smile back. “Thanks for saving me, Barricade,” he says, voice raspy from crying.

It makes my heart clench, thinking of how badly this could have gone if Caleb and I hadn’t been here. If this boy had been on his own, he might have been killed. A furious rush of anger at The Maker hits me, and I have to try very hard to keep it off my face so I won’t scare the boy.

I ball my hand into a fist and bump it against his much smaller hand where he’s grasping onto the back of Caleb’s hoodie. “Any time, little man.”

After we find the kid’s mum, who was going half hysterical outside over not being able to find her son, and she all but collapses under the weight of her relief when we put him back in her arms, Caleb ushers me home with all the worried clucking of a mother hen that is angry at one of her chicks for wandering off.

Dodging the police, not to mention the swarm of reporters who showed up in the interim, proves a challenge, but we’ve got a lot of experience with it, so we’re able to avoid trouble from either group.

We pocket our masks halfway home, once we’re sure no one is following us, and get inside our flat without being spied by one of our neighbours.

The block of flats we moved into are ancient by Danger’s standards, considering how often shit gets torn down by the antics of supervillains. It was built back in the early 1800s, made up of centuries-old, crumbling brick and wood barely holding onto its threadbare lifeline.

Caleb wanted to move somewhere modern, or at least not falling apart quite so dramatically, but I have a real love for old buildings. I appreciate the architecture, the years and years of history that mark and scar every wall and floor, the stories told in crevices and grooves of the people who inhabited them long before I was even alive.

Plus, we have large bay windows in our living room that look out over the city. It’s a great view, and in my opinion, well worth the extra rent.

Caleb looks just as gorgeous bathed in golden morning light—sleepy and bed headed—as he does in the stark noir lighting of Danger City nights, gritty and windswept from patrol. Sometimes it takes real effort not to stare at him in the confines of our flat, when we’re sprawled out on the sofa eating a hastily thrown-together breakfast or drinking beer on a rare evening off. I have so many pictures of Caleb on my phone at this point that he has his own folder, some taken outright and others more discreetly.

I’d feel weird about it if I hadn’t seen the innumerable sketches Caleb’s done of me.

Caleb pushes me down on our second-hand sofa, a bit scraggly around the edges but comfortable, and goes into the bathroom to retrieve the med kit from under the sink. He comes back out with it and orders me to take off my hoodie and T-shirt so he can deal with my wounds.

Used to being in various states of undress with Caleb, I don’t hesitate to strip out of my clothes as instructed.

Caleb sits down next to me on the sofa and opens up the med kit on the coffee table in front of him, also second-hand, with nicks on the edges and a couple of ring stains on the flat surface. He takes out a pack of butterfly bandages and some antiseptic wipes, then swivels his finger, indicating I should turn so he can better check out my shoulder.

“How deep is it?” I ask after a handful of seconds of Caleb inspecting the pillow bite.

“Could be worse,” Caleb answers, exhaling in relief, the air from his lungs brushing over my damaged skin with devastating consequences and an uncontrollable shudder rolling through me so fast and harsh that it takes real effort not to gasp. Caleb does me the great favour of ignoring my unmistakable reaction. He can be kind like that, sometimes.

“There’s no point in stitches,” he says instead. “You’ll heal too fast, but taping the skin together might be worth it?”

It’s a real question. One thing you need to learn as a Liquid Onyx survivor is how to read your own body because our physiology is so different from an ordinary person’s. There’s not enough data on how ours works for us to base it on much more than experiences we’ve had in the past with similar injuries.

I dip my head in agreement, wincing at the sudden slice of pain that action causes. “Yeah, okay, tape me up.”

“I’ll clean the bite first, yeah?” Caleb offers, holding up the antiseptic wipes, and I nod in silent permission. That’s important, too, the asking and the giving. Something all Liquid Onyx survivors understand is the value of making decisions about what people do to your body. We know what it feels like to have that power taken away.

Caleb pulls out an antiseptic wipe and goes to work at cleaning up the wounds on my back and shoulder. It stings likehell, but Caleb has careful, steady hands. An artist’s hands. For about the millionth time in my life, I imagine him using those hands on me in less innocent ways. Fisting my hair until it hurts. Clutching my hips hard enough to bruise. Tightening his fingers around my aching cock, sure in his right to touch me and possessive about that right too.

I shove those images down as far as they’ll go, smothering them in the dark recesses of my mind, but that only gives way for softer thoughts to rise up and claim space front and centre. Images of Caleb’s nail-bitten thumb brushing over my cheek when he cups my jaw. His pencil-smudged fingers running over my pecs, my thighs, my back, kneading out the muscle there. His hand grasping my neck and tugging me forwards into a mind-melting kiss, a secret want I’ve been dreaming about for half my life.

“Hey, you okay?” Caleb asks, concern in his voice. “You’re tensing up. Are you hurt worse than?—”

“Nah,” I interrupt, too loud and rapid-fire, a flush spreading up my chest. I scramble for an excuse before Caleb can start prodding further. “Just thinking about how Mei is gonna lose her shit over us getting into it with a supervillain without her.”

“Yeah,” Caleb sighs. He takes out another antiseptic wipe and starts cleaning up the other bite that feels like it’s somewhere at the base of my neck. “She’s gonna rip us a new one for not calling in for backup, as if we can’t take out an idiot likeThe Makerby ourselves.”

It’s not so much that Mei thinks we can’t handle fights with supervillains on our own as much as she worries about us getting hurt in a way she could have prevented if she were there to have our backs. We’ve always worked best as a team, and any time we’re split up, there’s a level of anxiety that lingers for whoever got left behind.

But Caleb sometimes has trouble understanding Mei’s true feelings about things like that, which considering the fact that his empath abilities allow him to literallyread her emotions, it’s almost impressively ridiculous how often he misjudges her intent.

All Caleb tends to hear when Mei gets upset about him getting into trouble is that she’s angry and disappointed in him, not that she cares so deeply and is terrified of losing him.

I don’t have to worry about Caleb misinterpreting my emotions at every turn, because my shielding abilities apparently mean that he’s unable to read me at all. He says being near me is like putting on silencing headphones. He always says it like it’s a good thing, a relief rather than a frustration. I’ve never been sure what to think about that, if I should be glad or disappointed by it.

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