Not As I Do 8

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Horrified, Miguel watched as Pete landed on his side, his skull broken and gushing blood. His body convulsed three or four times and went still. Miguel was certain that if he wasn't dead yet he would be soon. Silently he said a catechism for Pete's soul, one he'd learned as a young boy and not said since then. Mama would be so proud of him for remembering his mission studies. Oh, Pete, he thought. Pete was so young, and more innocent then he liked to act, and was loved. He shouldn't have to die now.

But Miguel was too busy. He resolved to mourn for Pete when he could but now was the time to keep himself alive. The three had been focused on Pete so they shouldn't have seen Miguel, but he'd been in plain sight for the three but hoped he'd been out of their field of focus. Seeing a seven-inch... six-inch now... man standing on the floor would have caused more problems than it solved.

Safely under the desk, he went to the chair and leaned his forearm against the chair seat, thinking furiously, unable to watch Stain wrestle Pete's body free of the chair, as though trying to pull answers out of his broken form. His forehead was even with the top of the seat. Another thing he couldn't afford to worry about right now was the fact that he was now permanently a living human doll. Pete had fallen saying something, but he couldn't have said anything coherent in the brief second before he went under. Pete was the only one with the tattoo and the power. Unless Miguel could get Bruce to give the tattoo to someone else... but who would want to be saddled with that power? Who could be trusted with it? Pete had had the power thrust on him with no warning at a relatively innocent age, but had proven the old adage that the ones who are most trusted with power are the ones that want it least. No. Not now. Where the hell was he supposed to hide? The three of them would rip the place apart but when they found nothing would leave. After that he could afford to worry about the rest.

Shit! he thought in both Spanish and English. He could hide easily, suddenly glad he was a shitty cleanup guy, but they'd want to tear apart everything to find the cash, and he might not and probably wouldn't reach other safe hiding space before they saw him. Or might not at all if he picked the wrong one and boxed himself in. He sighed deeply, letting his chin drop a little bit so that it rested on the chair seat Somehow, "CSI" had not prepared him for this kind of crime, not in 150 episodes. He rested his arm on the chair, slightly lower than the level of the underside of his arm and held his head. Think! There has to be something...

It was amazing how slowly and yet so quickly realization hit him. It was like slow lightning. He was resting his arm on the top of the chair. He looked down. He was no longer six inches tall. Even as he watched, he could see his feet growing and the scale of things around him and about him changing right before his eyes. He was growing back. And quickly, much faster than he'd shrunk that day. He wouldn't have to hide for long, but he would have to stay safe until he was a big enough size to handle them. He moved around slightly, so that he was on the opposite side of the desk from where he'd run under, and checked the scene he'd just left, carefully peeking around the edge. He could feel the steel sliding under his hand as he continued to shoot upward.

The scene was grisly, so he carefully avoided looking at Pete, focusing on the other three. Blade was trying to stem the bleeding from his broken nose while holding his side, which had a nasty-looking switchblade sticking into it, the dark stain of blood drenching his leathers. Stain, however, had not completed the job; he'd been distracted by Rock, who had begun attacking him full-out. Miguel nodded soberly, watching the fight. Rock had always been mild, polite, respectful... but very obviously gay. That had obviously changed in the years since he'd seen them last. He'd been following Stain around with a defeated and resigned manner, but very butch. The defeated, scared attitude he'd had had melted like ice in the sun in just a few moments. Miguel had the distinct feeling that it had been drug-induced stupor. It must have taken the knife to Blade's middle to wake him up. What was truly surprising was the skill in close-quarter fighting that Miguel was now seeing Rock display.

But then, he didn't know why it was surprising - perhaps because he'd never actually seen the man in action before. Rock had told him a long time ago that his father had been a Marine DI. When Rock came out to his father, expecting the man to beat the shit out of him, the man had shocked him by admitting that his own younger brother had been gay, a fact he'd never mentioned before, and had died in a gaybashing incident. That was when he'd joined the Marines, fully intending to teach men how to protect themselves, gay or straight. Screwy logic, but it had worked. He'd known which were the gay recruits and took special care to make them star pupils in his self-defense and hand-to-hand combat classes. The Marine brass knew about his son, of course, but they carefully looked the other way since it wasn't actually one their own. They simply "never mentioned it."

Rock, however, from that moment on, became his own father's special project. He was, in many ways, too avid about his son being gay. He was almost maniacally supportive sometimes. But the man had been very close to his brother, and they'd been only a little older than Rock himself at the time of the incident. The many after-school nights and weekends he'd spent teaching his son some of the deadliest fighting skills had at first been a pain, then an excruciating pain both figuratively and literally, then suddenly the smartest thing he'd ever done in his life. Two years after starting what Rock learned was exactly what his father taught combat-ready Marines, Rock asked his boyfriend at the time to the prom.

His father didn't mind, although he made it perfectly plain that if he caught them having sex before age 18 he'd castrate them both. It was frustrating and pleasing both at the same time: frustrating that they were forbidden from fooling around and they both really wanted to ("Dad! He's my boyfriend! It's the prom! I won't let him go too far!"), pleasing that he was treating his son exactly the same way he'd treat a child who'd been born straight ("I don't care! If I catch you fooling around underage I'll have your balls for bookends! And then I'll tell your mother!"). Mostly frustrating, though.

The school also had no issue with it: they'd been having same-sex pairings for several years and although there were always parents who protested, ultimately no one really noticed any more.

Which was of course not necessarily true. The asshole jocks noticed, and went out of their way to cause a scene on the way to the prom and then break into the hall, drunk, and start beating the hell out of both of them.

Or so they thought. Rock's boyfriend went down like paper, but Rock swerved back from the punch, forcing the jock to keep momentum behind the swing. He overbalanced and Rock neatly dodged out of the way as he fell. The second kicked at him, but Rock kicked higher, well up to the man's forehead, impacted his head with his foot, then brought his leg down, hooked it around the man's kicking leg and with the strength of his leg spun the man vertically 360 degrees. The third had just enough sense to pull a knife out of his pocket and flip it open, not that it did much good. Without ever touching the weapon Rock broke the man's nose, jaw, and knife-wielding arm in rapid succession. After that, Rock became both a hero at his school and somewhat of a pariah: people viewed him as both a savior and a danger.

But now, instead of just being a force to be reckoned with, he'd become what Miguel heard a martial arts instructor whose bike he'd fixed call "the silent wind." Rock was attacking full out, flowing from one attack to another with no pause, no jerkiness, from one fighting discipline to another; from boxing to judo to tae kwon do to brazilian jiu jitsu to savate and techniques Miguel had never even heard of, one after another. Shit, he thought, but it was in stunned praise of the man's ability. He learned all this shit at age 16?! His dad must have been one fucking awesome DI before he retired.

Stain, however, wasn't so easily vanquished. Rock was getting more blows in than Stain, since he was smaller and lighter and knew how to dodge, but Stain was not so slowly starting to overwhelm the odds through sheer stamina. He was bigger and bulkier, but he was crazy, did not feel the impacts even though they would cripple anyone else, and had the advantage of relentless attack. Rock would win against anyone else, but Stain would eventually tire Rock out and then Rock would be dead too. Miguel looked toward Blade, but he was no good to anyone at the moment; the blade was buried deeply in Blade - the thought almost made Miguel laugh in definite dark humor - and he was losing a lot of blood very quickly. His face was white and he was looking dazedly around the room, obviously fading in and out of consciousness.

That moment, Miguel noticed that his height had topped the desk and still shooting upward. Good and bad, good and bad... he had to hope Rock could last long enough for him to grow enough to handle Stain.. if he could handle Stain. The best of times he couldn't best the man, he didn't know what hope he had now. But he had no choice in the matter now; his head had long since topped the surface of the desk and was continuing upward. At this rate it would be minutes before he was full-size again. He took advantage of a particularly spectacular punch-kick salvo that made Stain reel back momentarily before beginning yet another response - he was a quick learner too, it seemed; he was returning some of the moves Rock was doing, albeit clumsily - and ran around the corner out of sight, hoping that he wasn't within visual range of the open door. His grandmother's luck was with him still, it seemed; so far he'd managed to escape being seen for hours.

"What the fuck was that?!" he heard Rock and Stain both say at the same time, a moment before he heard the sounds of punches and kicks again. Miguel suppressed a groan; so much for his luck. They'd seen him, but realized almost immediately that they were still in the middle of a fight. He made himself creep to the tall file cabinet and get as far behind it as he could while waiting for his height to return to normal. He just hoped that Rock could keep going for a bit longer. Oh, that and survive.

But his hopes were dashed almost immediately; there was a groan from Rock and a crash, indicating that he had lost the fight. Miguel had no desire to find out what the man looked like at the moment and no time to even wonder; Stain bellowed as he entered the cramped office. "Where are you?! I know you're in here! I saw you! What the fuck happened to you? I'll fucking kill you!" Like all unbalanced people, he did not realize he was changing personalities and mental states with each sentence. He punctuated his words by upending the desk and throwing the chair out the open doorway. He was within a foot of Miguel's hiding place.

Jesu Cristo, I need to grow NOW! he thought, knowing it was impossible, knowing that when Stain reached him he would be literally broken in two. He couldn't be more than three feet tall.

Out of sight of both the resigned Miguel and the insane Stain, the limp body of Pete jerked and rolled to its left, exposing the right arm, which rose under its own power, pulling him up to a sitting position. When he'd reached it, his eyes opened, exposing not Pete's own eyes but two fields of unfathomable black. The mouth opened and an unearthly voice sounded, almost like the sound of a god speaking from a mountaintop. "MIGUEL..." the voice said sepulchrally, echoing around the room, and Stain whipped around with a gaping look on his face, "YOU HAVE CONTROL." The right arm turned, exposing the bicep, from which erupted a scintillating explosion of light and energy that disintegrated the sleeve containing it. The tattoo was no longer the dark ink of tattooing but the brilliant white light of a star, illuminating everything it touched. And burned; Stain raised his arm to protect his eyes just in time, but on every bit of skin that was exposed during that brief flash angry welts erupted, as though he'd been scorched. He yelled inarticulately in pain, confusion, and terror.

Miguel, unable to see anything except the unexplained light abruptly over his head, himself confused at hearing what was clearly not Pete's voice, felt a surge within him, somehow knowing what to do. I need to grow now. I need to handle Stain. He needs to be punished for what he did. Miguel didn't just mean in the past few hours.

The surge of power changed, exploding outward from the center of his being in all directions, producing a radiating flow that ennervated his arms, his legs, his head. His height shot upward from three feet to six within a second, but he knew instinctively that he could not stop there. He continued upward, six-foot-three, six-foot-six, six-foot nine... until he was even with Woodward's height. The cabinet rocked forward, displaced by his new mass, but Stain still had his eyes covered from the blinding light bathing the room and the limp forms on the floor.

I need to grow, but he no longer meant height. He felt strength and muscle explode onto his already stocky body, expanding outward in all directions, thighs widening more than a figure skater's, chest like a bellows, arms like cannonballs. As he felt the growth continue, he saw right over Stain's head onto the floor, what Pete's broken body was doing of its own accord. Strangely, he could look directly into the light with no discomfort, pain, or welts. His mouth dropped. Pete was like a marionette, the limbs laying awkwardly, his broken head still painful to see and hanging at an unnatural angle, but his arm was across his chest exposing the tattoo like one would brandish a shield. Impossible. Or was it?

"Hello, Stanley," Miguel said, and Stain dropped his arm and whipped around, his eyes widening as far as they could go at the naked monolithic giant towering over him, seemingly appearing from nowhere while his back was turned. Further, Miguel was the only one who knew Stain's real name. That was still alive, that is. "You've been a bad, bad boy, Stanley. You're going to be punished. And I'm going to be the one who punishes you." Stain, already mentally receding from the impossible sight in front of him, reacted too slowly and Miguel grabbed the man's shirt front and the front of his jean's waistband and hauled him upward exactly the same way the man himself had held Rock only minutes earlier.

The man began scrabbling desperately at Miguel's hands and forearms, but Miguel knew better than to let the man get any closer than he already was. Miguel was strong enough now that holding the man aloft was no effort whatsoever. Still holding him up, Miguel forced them both out of the cramped doorway and into the open space. Pete's body still continued its pose, relentlessly bathing them with light. Stain cringed from it; Miguel was energized by it the closer he got. The moment Miguel was immediately in front of Pete, however, the light abruptly ceased, Pete's abruptly limp body falling like a marionette with its strings cut.

For a wild moment he considered pitching Stain across the parking lot like a javelin, but the landing would be who knew where and there would already be too many unanswered questions from this. So he did the next best thing; the ceilings were tall enough, the far wall far enough away. He threw Stain forward at a steep angle toward one of the high unobstructed parts of the garage, and felt a savage pleasure hearing the man hit like a boulder, upside down and flat on his back. He instantly fell, the wind knocked out of him, yelling as he saw the floor rapidly approaching his head. He got no further than a foot from the floor when Miguel deftly grabbed him, holding him in midair by one ankle in a crushing grip. Stain was pushed further down the path of madness by his predicament, his eyes rolling wildly, scrabbling at anything around him, but Miguel made sure he was kept safely suspended and helpless.

"Feel good? Like the way feeling helpless feels, Stanley?" He sneered, feeling the bottled-up emotion of years flooding out of him, the fury at seeing Pete's life end despite the sight he'd just seen. He violently righted the man, watching the man get ill from the sudden spin, holding him around the neck still a foot above the ground, watching his face get red from lack of blood flow. "You get me hooked and leave me dry, get me hooked again, drag the Scorpions through the shit, a group I helped found, and you want more! Your fucking money! Your fucking money's gone, Stanley! I haven't laid eyes on that money in years! I knew you hid it in the bike and I got it out of my sight the second you were in the pen! Fucking idiot! You think I wanted to hold onto your dirty money? HUH?" He screamed the last word right into Stain's ear, and he cried out in pain. Miguel sincerely hoped he'd just deafened the man. "You kill one of my best friends ever," and his voice broke. Suddenly Miguel felt a surge of emotion come from nowhere. Woodward had been his best friend for years, but Pete was up there too. Not because of the power, in spite of it. Gone. Gone forever.

"You kill him right in front of me," he finished simply. The surge of anger, of sheer red, blinding fury rushed through him like a broken dam, drowning him. "You're dead. For what you are, for what you've done. You. Are. Dead." With his free hand, he reared back, preparing to punch the man's face, knowing that he had enough strength behind the punch to not only go through the man's skull but through the steel wall behind him as well and into the open night air. A transient thought said cleanup was going to be hell around there.

"NO!" came a roaring yell that made Miguel start and look toward the open doorway to the night. "Miguel, you will stop!" Miguel ignored the voice, but found that he could not make his punch advance any further than it already had. He tried valiantly to force the fist forward, but it would not budge. Nor could he let it drop, or move in any direction. In fact, the only things on him that could move were his eyes. What the fuck!

"You can move," Woodward's voice continued in a milder, but no less firm, tone as he entered the shop, Matchen right on his heels, "but you will take no violent action toward Stain unless I say so." Miguel felt a loosening in his body and felt himself letting go of the helpless man and setting him down almost gently on the ground and releasing the man's throat. Stain immediately collapsed on the floor, holding his throat and coughing, trying to draw ragged breaths, cowering from the giants around him.

Miguel stared at Woodward in disbelief. He felt the same surging fury within him but could not act on it no matter how hard he tried. It was like a plug had gotten disconnected somewhere inside him. "How the fuck did you do that?" he said in disbelief. "Only Pete..." and his voice died. "Pete," he whispered. "Pete's dead, Steve. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." He glanced toward Pete's body, but could not make himself look fully.

"Not yet he's not," Steve said, holding up his arm and exposing the new tattoo. Miguel's eyes widened when he saw it. It was identical to Pete's in every respect. Also, strangely, his uniform sleeve looked like it had been violently burned away. A quick glance at Pete's still form showed what he'd already seen; it was the same effect that had happened when Pete's tattoo had exploded into light. A moment later he and Miguel were on either side of Pete, Matchen standing at Pete's feet looking miserably sad and helpless.

Woodward did standard examination of Pete's injuries as rapidly as he could, but Miguel did the expedient thing, he checked the juncture of Pete's head to his neck. There was a pulse, but it was fading. There was no time to get an ambulance there, nothing they could do in time. He'd been hoping, so hoping... "Steve... he's gone. Let him go."

"No!" Steve said, not looking at him. He was looking at Pete in a strange way, not touching him, as though he could see through him somehow. "His heart's beating. His soul is still there! He can hear me." Miguel stared at him, open-mouthed, then at Matchen, who shook his head with the same stunned expression. "You listen to me," Woodward said to the still form, "You will heal. You will live! Your skull will heal. You will be the way you were before Stain hit you! You'll wake up! Please, Pete!" Nothing apparent happened, no magic panacea or medicant of the open cranium. "Dammit!" Steve said, frustrated. If only he'd gotten here sooner, but as it was they'd gone nearly 90 mph in the city the entire way there, only to have Woodward's tattoo erupt into light, making them swerve to avoid crashing. There had been no way. "Damn you, Pete!" And in frustration, he slammed his arms down over Pete's chest, inadvertantly pressing his tattoo square on Pete's, still laying exposed across his chest.

The world exploded.

The next thing Miguel knew, he was laying on his side ten feet away, black spots flashing through his eyes. Matchen was on hands and knees not far from him, retching up everything he'd ever eaten in his life and looking unsteady. Through swimming vision, Miguel looked toward Woodward.

Woodward and Pete were floating in midair as though in water, their tattoos still joined together. Pete was just as still as he had been, but Woodward was shaking in what looked like excruciating pain, unsuccessfully trying to separate himself from Pete. But even as he struggled, a glowing nimbus was building around them, until it was too bright for Matchen or Miguel to look at, when it flared. Steve was thrown free and landed on his back not far from Matchen and Miguel, watching Pete's still floating form.

Pete's nude body was slowly rotating in midair, folded into a fetal position surrounded by a womb-like aura. In what seemed an excruciatingly long time but was actually seconds they saw, improbably, Pete's skull join together, close the fracture, and heal the seam. Even the skin knitted together over it, leaving only a dark bruise which itself lightened and disappeared. Woodward stared at it, then at the other two, who stared back. "Light of Heaven," Matchen breathed hoarsely, "you did it."

Woodward spoke without thinking, still staring at Pete's rotating form. "It wasn't me. It wasn't working no matter how hard I tried. And even if it had, he was brain dead. I could feel it. That shouldn't have happened."

Miguel and Matchen looked at each other, then Woodward. "How do you know all that?" Miguel asked. He sounded almost afraid.

Woodward just shook his head, although he suspected he knew the answer. This wasn't the time. Moving like a sleepwalker, he got to his feet and approached Pete, who was still as death... or birth. "Pete," he said, scant inches from the glowing nimbus. "I know you're in there and I know you're alive and can hear me. Wake up." He reached into the nimbus, realizing a second too late he had no idea what would happen, but he simply put his arms around Pete and pulled him outward like an infant. The nimbus instantly disappated and Pete sagged into Woodward's arms. He brought the still yet breathing form to the other two and laid him on the floor near the other. "Get a blanket," he said to Matchen, who scrambled out to their squad car. "Pete. Wake up. Be okay. Please." Pete did not stir or even react even as the blanket was folded around him. "Pete!" he yelled directly into his ear.

Pete's eyes abruptly shot open, but as before, they were not Pete's eyes but the still deep blackness. Matchen and Woodward, who hadn't seen this, recoiled, but Miguel simply let out a breath. The same sepulchral voice he'd heard earlier sounded again. "He is here. He is alive. But repairing the damage to his shell has been taxing. He must emerge on his own."

Woodward gaped. Obviously it wasn't Pete speaking. "Who are you?" Right over him, before the voice could answer, Miguel asked, "Are you God?" Matchen simply stared openmouthed.

The head turned to regard Miguel and Woodward both. "The word 'God' is a human invention. However, if you imply that I am the Creator or the Oneness, no, I am not. I am the Gatekeeper, a messenger if you will, one given the task of watching over those who are given the Key to open the Gate of Change."

"You mean this," Woodward said, holding his forearm up. The tattoo felt almost like it was burning, but not in a bad way.

"Yes. You and Peter are the newest but not the only ones even now. You are, however, the most responsible ones currently living." It was not stated as a compliment, just a statement of fact.

"Why couldn't I heal him?" Woodward asked. "He was still there, I could feel him. But it wouldn't work, no matter what I said."

"The power of Change that the Marking allows will not work on other Keyholders unless they give active permission. Also, except in certain circumstances, Changes wrought by Keyholders cannot be undone by other Keyholders. Peter was not in a position to give consent, so your intervention, while noble, was blocked. That was when I intervened. As it was, the damage to his shell was drastic. It was all I could do to guide the Light into him simply to keep him alive. I could not initiate repair. Due to his, as you call it, 'brain dead' nature, the Gate was closing on his form. It took the application of the Key of another Keyholder to open the Gate enough to allow me to repair him. Your shells are extraordinarily fragile yet infinitely complex."

Matchen, confused, opened his mouth, but closed it without saying anything.

Miguel was about to ask about another pressing issue, the other three visitors in the room, but looking toward them the words died on his tongue. Rock and Blade were still. Too still. Unnaturally so. He realized abruptly that the two were frozen in place, like time had stopped around them and only them. Even a drop of blood from Blade's side had stopped in midair. Stain, on the other hand, was cowering in the nearest corner, his already unbalanced mind unable to cope with what he'd seen so far. He looked completely terrified, and frozen in his own way.

Matchen regained his composure but did not notice Miguel's look around the room. He asked harshly, "If you can do that, why didn't you undo all the other shit that Pete pulled to fuck up other peoples' lives?"

"That is not my responsibility, nor truly within my power, Paul Thomas. I watch over the Keyholders but I cannot exercise their power through them, nor do I necessarily wish to. Any wielding of power through a Keyholder is my own power, which is not the same and not as effective. However, a Keyholder's soul and shell are, in a sense, partially within the Gate, and therefore within my purview if I so choose. I do not ordinarily Heal the injuries of the Keyholders."

"Then why do it at all?"

"Because I like Peter. He is a good soul and does not deserve the treatment that he has received. I saw his life endangered and I helped him to live again. It is that simple."

"No it's not," Woodward said quietly. "There's more." Again, he didn't know how he knew.

The voice said nothing for a time. Then, "You must tell Peter the truth, Steven. He deserves to know. And you deserve to be unburdened." Matchen and Miguel both abruptly became uncomfortable, looking anywhere but at the two of them.

Steve sagged. "I'm afraid. I don't want to hurt him."

"Life is pain, Steven. Living is easing pain. Tell him." There was a hesitation, then, "Yes, there is more. The path of She whom you call Sister Fate must be unblocked for you both."

"Sister Fate. Destiny."

"Yes."

Wonderful. So this was meant to happen anyway. Far from being reassured, it made him more depressed. Reluctantly, more reluctantly than he'd ever done anything in his life, he nodded.

The entity occupying Pete simply looked, then turned its attention to the other two. "Paul Thomas. It is time to reveal the truth to Paul Thomas Matchen Senior. He mourns a son who died in the line of duty, as he believes. He will accept and be grateful for your life. He will even, in time, come to regard you as both son and brother." Matchen gaped anew at the entity occupying Pete's body, reeling from the thought that his father believed he was dead, but no words came out. The look on his face was clear: how could... it... possibly know?

"Miguel. The answer to the question you asked on the day your mother died is: Podría nunca estar avergonzado de usted. Soy orgulloso de usted." Miguel looked shocked, then abruptly his eyes started watering. Woodward and Matchen, who did not speak Spanish, looked at each other, perplexed, as Miguel turned away from them. "Peter is returning. Do not tell him you have spoken with me. He should not know."

"Wait, I know," Steve said. He showed his tattoo for good measure.

"The situation is not the same. It is not important why. It simply is." Pete's body began to relax backwards, growing limp.

"Wait, what...?" Woodward began, but even as he said it, Pete's body convulsed in a seizure. They grabbed him to hold him steady but even as they did, he became still, breathing evenly.

The three of them watched for a moment as Pete seemed to drift into a light, normal sleep. It was eerie, in light of the day's events, to see anything normal. Finally, to break the tension more than anything else, Matchen said to Miguel, "What was that, whatever, whoever, said to you? I don't know Spanish."

Miguel looked at Matchen, then went back to watching. His eyes were sad, but not for Pete. "Mama was so proud of me for getting this bike shop, but when she found out about... about the drugs the Scorpions cooked up, she cried for days. I couldn't even look her in the eyes. But when Stain got sent up, I thought I was free. She died only a few weeks later. The day she died, I asked her... I asked her if she was ashamed of me. She never answered me." He closed his eyes. "Until today."

He didn't continue. Matchen blinked at him for a few seconds more then started to ask the obvious question, but a look from Woodward shut him up.

A moment later, Pete's eyes opened. And they were his eyes, not the endless pits of black they'd seen moments earlier, albeit blurry. "Hi," he said vaguely, unable to focus on anything. "Why am I naked and on the floor?" His head lolled. "What did I miss?" His last memories were fragmented. Nothing past leaving the Club was in a linear manner in his mind. Except he had the feeling that right before he woke up, someone kissed him on the forehead. For luck. Weird. Must've dreamed it.

The three of them exchanged glances, and Woodward drew a bit of blanket over his tattoo before Pete could see it. Letting out a breath, he said, "It's complicated."

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