Nobody's Hero

by Katey Hawthorne

  He grunted and made a face.

  I grinned and shoved my hands into my pants pockets. Standing outside on a fine early summer evening, smoking with Billy Armin. Jesus Christ, that brought back some memories. "How's Lisa?"

  "You know how it goes, Jamie. Jesus, you're one of the few who really does."

  I smiled, which I figured would say it all.

  "We should hang out again," he said. "Why'd we stop?"

  I somehow understood that he wasn't pretending not to know, more stating the stupidity of our reasons.

  "College," I suggested as a polite alternative to the truth. "You went to…?"

  "Temple."

  "Yeah. And I went right there." I made a general gesture to indicate the Case campus surrounding us. "So you were spared a few years of this bullshit."

  It wasn't bullshit, not entirely. Yes, these charity events tended to be dual purpose: for one, the awakened community gets together and actually does a lot of good. Our particular gifts—be they of the thermal kind like Billy's, who, through a complex manipulation of electromagnetic fields and photons, could cool matter down enough to freeze it—or electric like mine, are good for augmenting any number of regular occupations. To some, using our powers responsibly might mean simply not being a dick about them. But to others, it meant actively using them in service of the community. In this case, we had a couple of correctional officers who thought some money needed raising for a local charity that did volunteer work at prisons, and so Mom had gotten this black-tie affair up with the symphony. Fundraising was the main attraction, of course.

  But it was also an opportunity for us and ours to get together. Prominent doctors, police officials, energy providers, whatever—I'd have been surprised if any of the rich and powerful who'd flocked to Severance tonight were sleepers. Fulfill our obligations to the community and get together to talk, reconnect.

  And occasionally marry off our kids to each other.

  Billy smiled. "I'm making up for it. So's Lisa. Tell you what, though, nothing brings a couple together like mutual bitterness."

  "Well, at least make-up sex is the best."

  "No shit." He dug in his inside pocket and produced a card. "I'm serious, give me a call. We're near City Center, in East Fourth."

  "Hip." I took the card and tucked it away.

  "Yeah, well. Lisa insists that she has taste. Apparently, it's something you can buy."

  We had a laugh before I decided it was safe to ask, "So, you ever see…?"

  He shook his head. "Guess Mason moved to the west coast. Like Mae." He raised his eyebrows expectantly.

  "Yeah, don't go there."

  He clapped me on the back. "And I don't know what happened to most of the other kids. But we all come home eventually."

  I was about to agree when a new voice interrupted from behind. "Jamie, there you are."

  Mom's Chanel No. 5 reached me before she did, and in the meantime, Billy respectfully chucked his cigarette into the nearest smoker's port.

  "William, your father said you were here. It's so good to see you boys together again." She did that mock-scolding face, the one that looks more like a smirk, as she took my arm. "Not giving him cigarettes, I hope."

  "Tried, but smoking isn't cool anymore; only doctors and nurses do it now."

  I forced a laugh.

  Her grip on my arm tightened. It was meant to be a reassuring squeeze but served the opposite purpose in practice. "Well, I'm glad Jamie didn't like med school, then."

  I winced and hoped neither of them saw it.

  "It was the worst four years of my life." Billy looked at me with renewed respect. "You're my hero, man."

  I knew he meant it. And it was true that we were the few who could understand.

  He'd done everything right. Gotten the right job, married the right girl, come back to Cleveland. He was really powerful, at least as powerful as me in his own way—we were bred that way. Lisa was a little weaker on the scale; no one would ever mention it, not even in anger, but she knew that everyone knew she was meant to be more impressive. But her blood, as they said, was strong, and she and Billy would very likely produce perfect little superpowered babies to go on being doctors and police officers and quietly fighting the good fight against humanity's natural tendency toward entropy.

  And then there was me.

  Funny, but no matter how sincere Billy's admiration, I didn't feel like much of a hero.

  Five minutes later, Mom dragged me back into the hall, where swaths of silk and clouds of perfume adorned a crowd of Cleveland's richest and most powerful—in the awakened sense. "Jamie, honey, don't pout. If you can't joke about it—"

  "I have no idea what you're talking about, Mother."

  She rolled her eyes. The grayish green of them was the one physical feature I'd directly inherited, but it always looked cleverer on her. "You only call me Mother when you're pouting."

  I rolled my eyes right back and let her brush invisible lint off my jacket for a few seconds before finally saying, "Stop."

  "Sorry." She took a step back to admire her handiwork. "Margaret's here."

  I scrubbed my hand through my hair, trying not to scream. "That's why I had to come?"

  "She hasn't seen you in months."

  "She's your friend." And out of her damn mind, to boot. Woman smiled so hard, I always thought of the Cheshire Cat. This did not inspire confidence, especially considering—

  "She says Mae can't wait to see you again."

  I froze. "I thought Mae was still in San Diego."

  "Well, yes."

  I narrowly avoided yelping in relief.

  "But Margaret wants to see you. Jamie, you're going to be the father of her grandchildren."

  Yeah, just lie back and think of England, Jamie.

  "Let her look at you and think of how handsome they'll be." She leaned forward, went up on her toes, and kissed my cheek.

  I rolled a million snarky comebacks around on my tongue. That was power too—the kind of power that made me sick to my stomach, just knowing it existed anywhere in the world, let alone inside me. The power to hurt her. The power to let her down.

  Again.

  I took a deep breath.

  She patted my face and stood there looking at me for a second. The wrinkles were getting deeper at the corners her eyes these days. It made her smile sweeter, softer—tiny lines at the corners of her mouth too.

  I took her small, pale hand, compared it to my long, rough fingers and baseball tan. Noticed how thin her skin felt.

  I still felt sick but not in the same way. Something in my throat.

  "You look really good, by the way," I said. "Love that dress on you. That the new Versace?"

  "Yes, it is, sweet talker." She laughed. "Mae better come home soon; I don't know how one of these other girls hasn't snapped you up already."

  I followed her into the crowd, stopping, waiting, smiling, speaking when I was spoken to. Oh, Andrea, look at your boy! Jamie, have you met my daughter…?

  *~*~*

  No big shocker that I had the nightmare again that night. People write about recurring dreams, and there's that cliché: The dream was always the same.

  But it is, is the thing. Only twice a month or so, at least since I had the sense to ditch the Doctor Jamie idea, but it's enough that there's no time to forget.

  It always starts in an alley. Not a real one, but some weird gray and brown alley in some strange city that exists only in my subconscious. And there's always this guy there—again, not a real guy, not the real guy, but he's close enough, with his grizzled gray hair and wild eyes. And he starts yelling at me in a language I shouldn't be able to understand. I can smell his sour breath and feel his hate. I mean hate like I've never known in the waking world, hate like a nuclear bomb.

  Sometimes I realize here that it's a nightmare. Sometimes they come close together enough that I really can't forget, and something flicks on in me, some half-consciousness. But it's never a lucid dream; it just makes what co
mes next even worse.

  Because I get angry. I get angry, and I puff out my chest, and I don't even say a word to him. I just put my hand into him—not on him, but I reach out and shove my hand into his chest like the bad stereotype of a priest in Temple of Doom—and I amp myself up hard. My whole body lights up. God, it feels so fucking good to let it go like that, like I never could, never should. All of me exploding, racing from the little place inside that generates the fields, through my torso, funneling it into my arms, into my hands—

  Into him. His mouth goes wide in a silent scream; his body lifts into the air in slow motion, lit up like a storm cloud with all my lightning, jackknifing around and through him.

  And I'm not even sorry, because I'm too busy laughing and wiping the blood off my hand.

  At fifteen, I used to wake up screaming. At twenty-eight, it was just a lot of shivering, so I guessed that was an improvement.

  Chapter Two

  In the first three innings, I knocked two out of the park. Sex, electricity, and beating the hell out of the ball with a Louisville Slugger: the holy trinity. Cures whatever ails you.

  Of course, it had been a week since Dubious Provenance Guy, so I was getting twitchy in the sex department. There were a couple of guys I could call for something quick and easy, and Derrick was already on me to go down to the west side again, but—

  "Is that New Guy?" Clark asked.

  I looked to the stands, where Isabella sat next to a lanky young thing in a green ball cap and well-broken-in jeans. Huh. "I'll be damned. It is."

  "What?" Sarah came up behind Clark and ducked under his arm.

  "New Guy," he said and kissed the top of her cap. Then he looked at me. "Thought he impolitely declined, as usual."

  "To play," I admitted. "Maybe Bell talked him into coming. They look kind of chummy."

  "Jealous?" Clark asked.

  I pretended to ignore him. "Aren't you up to bat?"

  "Nope," Sarah said. And she took off, orange ponytail swinging behind her.

  "Back up!" yelled the Datasoft pitcher when he saw her coming up to the plate. "Outfield, back up!"

  "That's my wife," Clark said, grinning.

  *~*~*

  We hopelessly outmatched Datasoft, the poor bastards. Sarah and I had more runs than their whole team together. I'm not exactly sure how, but Isabella convinced Kellan to come to the Winking Lizard with us after. When I expressed surprise, she said, "He's a sweet boy, Jamie. You have a big personality; you have to be careful around people like that."

  Only Isabella could consider herself an expert on someone after a week of cube-farm association. Or, for that matter, consider grouchy-ass Kellan Shea a "sweet boy."

  The Lizard crowd thinned from eight down to four over the course of a lot of wings and two rounds. Sarah and Clark hung around because Saturday was the day they left the adorable brats with the grandparents. I guessed Kellan hung around because the three of us kept putting beer in front of him. He drank like a professional, keeping pace with Clark—who was an offensive lineman in college, to give you some indication of what that means—and there was noticeable difference in both the amount of time Kellan's fingers spent in his mouth (less) and the amount of words that came out of it (more).

  And then they did it. Clark looked at his watch and sighed. "Guess it's time."

  Kellan and I had both started new beers not two minutes before this announcement. I hoped the dirty look I shot Clark would communicate my Et tu, Brute? sentiments sufficiently.

  He shrugged and smiled. I shouldn't have been so surprised. It would've violated Clark's personal Man Code to say anything, but I knew goddamn well he thought my voracious clubbing and random sex habits were juvenile, bordering on self-destructive. Just, I never thought he'd stoop to a setup.

  Sarah threw some money in my direction. "Pay for us, will you? Don't want to keep Mom waiting."

  "I feel that."

  She made a sympathetic face and prepared to leave. I looked at Kellan across the table.

  He had his head thrown back, gulping his Fox like someone was going to take it away. I was very nearly disappointed but watching his white throat contract and expand as he swallowed distracted me.

  The massive awkwardness potential of the situation presented an irresistible challenge. When he put the mug down, I asked, "Thirsty?"

  He laughed, always silently, but at least it seemed real. "Guess so."

  "You got somewhere to be?"

  "Oh. No. I just thought you would."

  "Nope. Spending Saturday with people from work is kind of my thing."

  He flushed. He'd taken his hat off just before he'd sat down at the table—so had I—so his hat-hair bangs fell into his eyes.

  Cute. I could do worse than have another beer with him, anyhow.

  Sarah kissed my cheek, and I kissed hers twice, saying, "Extra one's for Caitlin. Tell my baby I love her."

  The bill came as they were leaving, and Kellan was staring at me, obviously wanting to ask, so I said, "Charlie and Caitlin, their kids. Cait's my goddaughter."

  "Wow."

  "Kid has a black dad, a white mom, and a queer godfather. They figure that covers her bases."

  Kellan blinked a few times. His mouth opened, then shut.

  "It's a joke, Kellan."

  He smiled, all crooked. "Yeah…I…yeah. Heh."

  Okay, so he wasn't offended. Which left only one option for the source of his mystification. He was either hard of hearing or completely oblivious, to go a week in that office without hearing someone say something indicating my state of extreme queerness.

  Well, one way to find out if he was bothered. "You staying?"

  He cleared his throat and said, "Sure. I must owe you three beers by now."

  Curiosity ruled me. Would he be more awkward now? Or less? Or was he in a static state of awkwardness? "I got at least three more in me. Let's move to the bar so they can turn this table over."

  The second we were propped up on bar stools, he said, "I really didn't mean it to sound that way, about spending your weekends like this. It just came out wrong."

  "Forget it, man. You're here, so you obviously don't think it's that pathetic."

  "Heh."

  "Though I almost asked what the hell else you could've meant. At the time."

  He waved for another beer, then pointed to me to indicate that I wanted one too. "I meant—you seem like the popular kid."

  I raised my eyebrows. He blew upward, sending his bangs flying. Nice mouth. Sweet lips, the bottom one fuller than average, pale, palest pink, and perfect teeth. More idle speculation. Wonder what all that repression tastes like.

  "In school," he said. "The popular kid. The one who always had parties to go to on a Saturday night because he's everyone's best friend. Baseball with your married coworkers…"

  "I'm starting to feel like a disappointment."

  He looked into his beer and bit his nails.

  So serious. I leaned nearer, one elbow on the bar, and lowered my voice. "I'm batting .1000 tonight with the jokes, so I'll just be honest with you."

  "Yeah?" One corner of his lips quirked upward.

  "Yeah." I don't know why I decided to tell him; he just seemed like the kind of guy who'd appreciate it. "The truth is that we all have options. And my favorite day of the week is the one where I play baseball with Clark and Sarah. Them, Isabella, Megan, Lance—they're good people."

  For the first time, he smiled. A full-on, teeth-showing smile. And, oh God, he had just the tiniest dimple in his left cheek.

  My blood rushed hard; I shifted to relieve the building pressure against my fly. I wasn't even sure what about the moment had just done it to me, but there it was.

  "I know. I'm just really shit at being the new guy."

  "Nah. You just seem a little…"

  "I know how I seem." A pause, during which the bartender brought us drinks. Kellan polished off his old one, and I made a sizeable dent in mine. Then he went on, staring into his beer. "Like
I think I'm too good or something."

  I scanned for something soothing to say, something to take the edge off it, to let him know it was all right, we all give an impression we don't mean to, and all it took was five minutes' conversation with him to realize—

  "But I'll be honest too." He looked up, ruffling his hat hair as he scratched his head. "I'm, like, the fucking definition of white trash, so I never look down my nose at anyone. I'm just not good with new people, is all. So I'm sorry if I come off like a douchebag. I mean, I am. But it's not because of that."

  "I don't know about trash." And encouraged by his sudden affection for strong language, I said, "But I do know you're a fucking nerd."

  He laughed. "What gave me away? The affinity for SQL?"

  This was sarcasm, but I replied in earnest. "Spider-Man."

  "Heh."

  "I mean, I was more of a Fantastic Four guy, myself, but—"

  "Spidey and Human Torch crossovers."

  "Yes." Torch. Obviously based on an experience with someone who was awakened, by the way. You get a good heat-type, and they can make it look like they're covered in fire. It's magnificent.

  "Those were the best." He took a long swig and grinned. His wide shoulders rounded, he slouched, but not in that protective, curling-in-around-himself way. "Fucking Johnny Storm, man."

  The strange softness of his voice combined with his wanton use of the word "fuck" had a predictable effect. It beguiled me into admitting, "Always thought he was hot."

  "Shit, I was just about to say you remind me of him."

  "That'd explain it."

  "What?"

  "Why I think he's hot. I get a little narcissistic sometimes."

  He smacked the bar and laughed, this time out loud.

  "See, you laughing at my jokes only encourages me."

  He shot me a sideways glance, a little knowing smile.

  The gaydar, which had been swinging this way and that all night, finally pinged so hard it pinned the needle. Something hot woke up deep in my belly.

  And then, of course, my phone buzzed.

  While he was gulping his new beer, I pulled my phone out. Text from Derrick. You coming tonight or not, sweet pea?