February II

What the fuck, John thought, side-eyeing his apartment door as he approached through his building’s carpeted hallway. It hung slightly open, the light off behind the door. He re-equipped his mask and uniform, sinking into the shadows next to his apartment. He tapped the black wrist band and pulled up his girlfriend’s contact, sending her another text as he gazed up and down the otherwise vacant hallway. I was gone for a while. Is this why she’s not responding? What could have happened?

John: Just got home. Are you okay? Hope to see you soon. Love you.

David appeared on his shoulder, hopping to the edge and their door. John conceded, and holding out an invisible arm in the shadows toward their door for his similarly unseen bird, he activated Attunement. Alright buddy, you’re perfect for this, just be careful and quiet.

David made no sound as he slipped between walls and worlds, teleporting into their apartment at the very top of the entertainment center. The television which should have been directly below him instead lay face down on the floor, the furniture splayed around the room as if thrown. Somebody was here. Looking for something. Was there a fight?

I see no signs of an active struggle, Cinder commented as David teleported again; this time his gaze focused on their bedroom. Their bed lay askew, touching Jenny’s nightstand at the end and pointing at their door instead of the opposite wall. A small, warm hand unfurled the iron grip he didn’t even realize he held, deep grooves imprinted by his nails on his skin. Action. Not anger.

He resisted the urge to dwell on the possibilities and strode toward the door, sliding up on the bracelet to bring up its display when it vibrated on his wrist.

Jenny: I’m not hurt. At Keith’s cleaning up. Love you too.
John: On my way <3

His heart leapt as he opened their living room window and stepped out onto the fire escape, though a small part of him grimaced at her terse and formal message. Whatever’s going on, we’ll get through it together.

The trip from his apartment to Keith’s stretched out into an eternity. Even though he sprinted from roof to roof as fast as his exhausted legs could carry him, the buildings shifted out and onward. A strange sense of vertigo passed over him as his tired mind and sore muscles missed grabbing a flagpole. He hurled a bullet from his inventory onto the roof he intended to land and activated Displacement.

At the very least the shock woke him up, and the rest of the trip to the alchemist’s apartment went smoothly. He landed on the roof of the older man’s apartment and entered the barrier. He started down the fire escape toward Keith’s apartment, but walking down the steps revealed a section of the building’s facade torn away. Fuck. They were here too. How long did Nairis know where we live? How can we possibly stay safe like this?

John used Magic Rope, coiling the length around a brick jutting out of the torn wall and swinging into the apartment.

Several trash bags were scattered around the rim of a giant hole in the living room floor. Most of the bags were visibly filled and bulging with rubble or pieces of destroyed furniture. John recognized the amputated couch end sticking out of one garbage bag as the very same upholstered arm Jenny liked to lean against when Keith and Kimberly were laying down.

He floated down the gaping hole in the middle of the floor using Move to slow his descent. He nudged himself aside to land on the floor instead of the giant slab of building facade lying on the cracked linoleum tile of the lab. He let out a gasp, his eyes became glossy, and one hand went up to grab a fistful of hair though his stress quickly drained. There in the rubble crouched his girlfriend in a dust-streaked t-shirt, open garbage bags all around her and another roll at her feet. “Jenny! It’s so good to see you.”

“I’m glad you’re okay, John,” Jenny said, turning as she ran up to accept his hug. Her arms wrapped tightly around him and she broke into his embrace, body shaking as tears rolled onto his shoulder.

Keith, John thought, turning his head to look back at the hole he came down through, and the hole in the wall besides, if he couldn’t handle it... He tightened his arms around her in kind, suddenly a bit breathless as her sobs wracked both of their bodies. John stroked her hair as she cried and slowly relaxed, eventually releasing him. For all the times he’s saved my life, now when I finally can, I wasn’t here to repay the favor.

“Why don’t we get out of here?” John asked. He stepped away but kept an arm around her shoulder. Much to his surprise, however, Jenny shrugged him off and turned back around, sweeping an arm over one of Keith’s cabinets to dust the rubble into another garbage bag. Before whatever Keith couldn’t take comes back.

“The barrier would’ve run out of mana if I didn’t come. He left a burner on too. His latest batch is still warm. When I look at the lab, it’s…” Jenny trailed off, idly brushing more dust off the cabinet in front of her. Her hoarse voice radiated a pain he had read in her music before, of lost loved ones; he summoned the water bottle Shelle gave him and offered it to her, eying his starvation and dehydration debuffs.

“It’s not safe here, Jenny, and… he’s not coming back on his own. You getting taken is not what he would’ve wanted,” John said, he swiped a screen into existence above his wrist and tapped into the Abyss Auction. He meant to place an order for water bottles, but he canceled it when it came to the shipping destination. Definitely don’t want anything sent here. Or to my apartment. It’s not safe anywhere.

“Stop talking about him like he’s dead already!” Jenny snarled, turning back to cinch her garbage bag and pulling another free from the nearby roll. “You’re big on talk.”

“I will find him,” John said, taking one of her wrists in his hand from behind. She pulled away with a sniffle. “I’m going to stop the thing that’s doing all this. When I’m through, nothing like this will ever happen again.”

“You should have been here to help him in the first place!” Jenny rounded on him, eyes ablaze. “You’re incredible now and that’s great but what is it for?!”

“I was fighting for my life out there, Jenny!” John responded. Throwing his hands up defensively, he motioned to the bracelet on his wrist. “My phone broke! I didn’t want to be away for that long! You know I wouldn’t leave you like that!”

“You’re not trying very hard to avoid it,” Jenny continued, crossing her arms and leaning forward. “You were on a contract. Great excuse! You’re always out there helping people and I love that about you. But what good is all that power? Who is it really for?”

“It’s for us! It’s always been for us,” John said, taking her hands in his and finally looking her in the eyes, but she couldn’t stomach it and looked away. Finally she acquiesced to his wishes, dropping the garbage bag and walking toward the edge of the building and barrier.

“More like for you,” Jenny huffed, looking back at him with no small measure of disappointment. “But I’ll leave. Only because you’re right, Keith wouldn’t want me in danger here. Take me home.”

John generated a Waypoint fairly easily with his apartment’s Waypoint so close. He took her hand and they stepped through it together, though she quickly pulled hers away when they arrived. He took the opportunity to collapse the Waypoint in Keith’s apartment from this side. Jenny set about collecting her things, but John only stood there waiting for the words to come. I need to be more careful with the people in my life. No more taking people for granted. In the Abyss, you never know when they leave one way or another.

"You’re right. I’m sorry. I’ll do better. I haven’t lived my whole life in the Abyss, I don’t really know what the life balance should even be. I focused on contracts because I felt like I needed to get ahead in the Waites. We could be spending more time together if you stuck with them instead of cutting out for the rockstar life, but it’s what you want and I support that,” John affirmed. Though he slouched and admitted his mistake, when he turned the conversation to her, he raised a brow at her lack of support for what he found purpose in.

“John, I’ve been dreaming of being a rockstar since I was a little girl. You got your powers nine months ago. Besides, half the time you seem miserable after coming back from a contract. Is that really what you want to be doing? Now that you’re as great as you are, can’t you find something else?” Jenny asked, the fight left her eyes when she looked back into John’s and saw how they had hardened, his timid smile turned to a frustrated glower.

“This is what I want to be doing! Jenny, up until I got my powers, I was bullied and beat up almost every day of my life. Now I can help people like me! The Abyss is so full of **** and despair every day, every second. I’m tired, Jenny. Tired of feeling helpless. Out of control. But when I’m out there saving lives--I don’t think I could stop myself--I need to do this. For a while when I was enslaved, I wondered if it wasn’t for me, and it’s not easy, but it’s right.” John stepped past Jenny to help her with her bass stand, moving the metal into his inventory.

“I’m really happy for you, Johnny. I’m sorry for talking down to you, if it’s what you want,” Jenny’s scowl had turned into a ****, warm smile, and she almost sounded regretful, “but… did you say enslaved?”

“How the hell could you not tell me somebody enslaved you!? That would’ve been really good to know if you were acting weird. You HAVE been acting weird! Is that why!?” Jenny let out an exasperated sigh and buried her head in her palms, but she quickly switched to jabbing him in the shoulder. “You. Have. To. Tell. Me. Things!”

“I don’t tell you things?!” John spouted, almost more surprised at his own reaction than frustrated. He stepped away from her damageless hits. “You just let Abigail into our relationship. You would’ve broken up with me if I tried something like that without talking to you. You emotionally blindsided me! And practically **** me to go along with it without any say.”

“You do not want to bring her into this,” Jenny replied icily, her scowl returned as she continued, “not when you didn’t tell me she kissed you. I get it would have been a really bad first impression for me to have of her. Where do you get off making a choice like that for me? Closer to a betrayal than including our new best friend in our relationship, especially after I saw the way you looked at her.”

“Abigail practically **** herself on me, and it took some time for me to get really comfortable around her.” John recoiled and let out a frustrated breath, both glad Abigail had told her before joining their relationship and upset she did it without telling him. “What about the sexual bingo card from the beginning of our relationship? You said you made it just before we started dating, and crossed off three spaces by the time I knew about it. When did that happen? With who?”

Her glare quickly deflated into a wistful, melancholic gaze. “You’re right, I haven’t been totally honest with you either,” Jenny stepped forward and grabbed his hand, her other stroking where she had hit him before, though she probably hurt herself more than him, “but I want to be! That was before we started dating. And I will tell you about it. But only if we’re honest with each other.”

“That’s probably for the best,” John replied, scratching his neck with his free hand, “even the uncomfortable stuff. But you don’t have to tell me about it right now, if you don’t want to.”

“No, it’ll be better to just get it behind me. Before I was dating you, I was fucking a fan, or so he claimed anyway. He never showed up to any of my shows. He was a fucking meathead Abyssal named Mark. I had the idea when I was with him, but I never told him about it. He and I had a talk kind of like this before I broke it off with him, but… I was bleeding by the time we were done. And we were done.” Jenny put her head on his shoulder and kissed him on the cheek. “I didn’t want that. I’m sorry I lied to you about it to begin with.”

“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” John said. Rubbing the back of her hand with his thumb, he pulled her in for another hug, but this time she pulled him in for a kiss.