Our Memories

Full of rage, he went to the only place that might give him answers. He didn't want to wait any longer. He asked the Amazon to beat him down like her life depended on it, and she did — kept going until she started tiring, but Nick ordered her to keep going, he wanted to feel the pain, and she did, without argument, until she finally knocked him cold out with a wide kick on the head.

He was falling again. This time he let it happen, let the void swallow him whole. He knew what waited for him at the bottom, and it scared him — but he WAS her angel, and he wasn't going to stop chasing his wife's dream just because he was afraid. Nothing was going to stop him. A man keeps his promises.

That bathroom waited for him again — the agony of watching the love of his life flee in terror, the horror of seeing himself turned into a monster gripping him tight — but he didn't want to run this time. Anger outweighed the fear now.

"I know you're not me. I've made peace with what I did. I'm an angel."

"Stupid boy. I'm trying to save you. Save all of us."

The heavy Eastern European accent gave him away — same face, but no doubt who this really was.

"Stop wearing my face, Gregory. It's not working."

Everything around him shifted. He was standing in an enormous hall lined with columns and chandeliers, everything decorated in white and gold, and at the far end, a golden throne with a red tapestry hanging behind it. He recognized the setting from pictures he'd seen researching Rasputin — the throne room of Tsar Nicholas II, in the Winter Palace, St. Petersburg.

"Look at that, I live pretty lavishly myself, but you took it completely off the rails, huh."

He tried to keep his tone neutral, pretending he wasn't scared.

"Yes," came the answer from behind him. Nick turned and found himself facing that bearded giant in dark robes, ice-cold eyes fixed on him.

"And you're headed down the same road. I tried to warn you, but you seem determined to die stupidly too."

"'Trying to save all of us' — turns out you only exist through me, so forgive me if I don't buy the whole save-you angle. Sounds more like you want me hiding away forever."

The man growled.

"You're the saddest thing I've seen in my entire existence, Gregory. You spent your time living the high life, and now you want me to spend mine clinging to whatever's left of yours. Screw you, and everyone who came before you and left the world worse than they found it."

"I don't understand you. You have everything a man could want — why risk it all for one woman? You could have any of them you wanted."

"I feel sorry for you. I wish someone like her had crossed your path, Gregory — then you'd understand why I'd die for her without thinking twice. I'm not stopping, no matter what. You can cry and stomp your feet and try to scare me all you want, but I'm going until we wake up, or I die trying."

"And if we can't, stupid boy? If it's all for nothing? You'll have wasted our lives over nothing."

"No. Not nothing. If it's for them, it's not for nothing. It's what we came into this world to do — men, I mean. Strength and honor. That's what I choose to believe is going to wake us up."

"I won't let you get us killed over your childish nonsense."

"I don't think you have a choice, which is exactly why you're talking to me — you know I'm close to something, and you're trying to scare me off. Go ahead. Show me the most horrific thing you can dredge up. I'm not stopping."

He saw himself back in the hospital room where his mother died, watching her fight for breath in that bed.

"How can you be so miserable," his eyes filled with tears as his mother begged him, "don't leave me, please, help me." It was too much for him; he closed his eyes. Every fiber of his being screamed to hold his mother, tell her he'd stay with her forever — but he wouldn't. This wasn't his real mother. The real one would've told him to keep fighting, no matter how much it hurt.

"Is that all you've got? What's next, watching my wife get murdered, or raped, or something like that? Go on, do it. In this shitty little imaginary world of yours you can show me whatever you want, but you can't actually hurt me, because your life IS mine, so go ahead — throw whatever garbage you want at me, I know that at the end of the day my wife and everyone I love is waiting for me up there. You've got nothing, you miserable fuck. Nothing."

The scene shifted. He was in an elegant office; Rasputin sat down behind the desk and folded his hands.

"You're a clever boy. I'll give you that."

Nick sat calmly across from him.

"Help me, Gregory. I know you can't see why I'm about to risk everything, but I'm doing it, with or without your help. You'd better help me however you can, if you want me to have a real shot at this — if you want to keep existing here at all."

Rasputin studied Nick with a mixture of frustration and resignation. The air in the room felt heavy, almost suffocating, as the two men stared each other down, each trying to unravel the other's secrets.

The silence stretched on until Rasputin finally let out a deep sigh and spoke, his voice thick with ancient exhaustion.

"I can see I won't convince you. You've got the fire inside you — the kind that consumes brave men... or foolish ones. But don't mistake your resolve for invulnerability. That fire can destroy you too. It destroyed me for certain"

Nick held his gaze steady. Rasputin's words carried weight, but his mind was made up.

"Fine. Maybe that woman of yours will make the difference. She'd better."

He extended his hand; as Nick reached to shake it, he added, "Remember, boy — caution. Every single one of them who tried, failed. Hundreds of our predecessors, whatever their intentions, every last one of them perished."

Nick looked him in the eye and shook his hand.

"You don't need to get beaten unconscious to come down here by the way" the monk said then.

"Here? Where am I?"

"In your memories. Our memories."

"Welcome back. I was about to call an ambulance."

"Even my eyelashes hurt."

"I hit you hard enough to drop a bear. The weird part is you're still breathing."

"It worked."

"Good, because you are extremely hard to drop, and I'd really rather not try that again."

"Thanks, Ari. You're an exceptional woman."

He got to his feet with difficulty; she just watched him, drenched in sweat, like she'd just finished a marathon.

"So?"

Nick smiled.

"I know kung fu."

"What?" She didn't catch the reference.

He went up to the room and showered. Late by now; his wife was in bed, awake, smelled like fear. He hated putting her through that.

He climbed into bed and held her.

"I'm fine. Just took a few little taps, nothing serious."

"You lie terribly."

"I know. That woman hits like an anvil in free fall. Even my ID card hurts."

"Oh god..." She turned to look at him, but Nick gave her a smile back — he seemed perfectly fine, honestly. He leaned in to kiss her.

"This is torture, Nick..."

"Tell me about it" He kept the tone light on purpose — needed his wife to calm down. "But I got what I wanted."

Jennifer just stared at him for what felt like eons.

"This might be the worst possible moment in history to leave me hanging. Spill it."

Nick smiled.

"I can influence men too. Not the same way, but I can."

"Really? That's incredible."

"I have a voice — our voice. It can make men do things. But not all of them."

"How, can you just give orders, straight up?"

"Yeah, more or less, but only to men who are... close. Not physically — close mentally. It's complicated."

"How do you know that?"

"I've seen it. Watched a lot of angels use our voice — and watched a lot of them die because of it too. It's a double-edged sword. It breeds resentment in whoever's too far away, and the more you use it, the riskier it gets. You always end up finding someone way too far off, mentally, and it always ends the same way."

"With bullets in the chest and drowned in a river."

"Or crucified, or exiled on some island, or stabbed to death in the middle of a senate chamber. There'll been thousands and thousands, we are as old as humanity itself."

"Then don't you dare, for the love of god, shut your mouth about it."

Nick smiled — knew she'd say that.

"None of them had you, gorgeous. I'm not using it unless you tell me to — how, and on who."

Jennifer sighed heavily, the weight of the world starting to press down on her too.

"It's heavy, isn't it."

"So heavy."

"I've seen wonderful things too, you know — how a few words could fill a man's heart with courage and hope. There's so much good it could do. That's exactly why it has to be you who leads this — there's no one on earth better suited for it."

He pulled her into a hug, wanted to forget the world entirely, take her off to some forgotten corner where they could just be happy forever — but a man keeps his promises.

"I love you, gorgeous, and I know this isn't going to be easy, but every single person or entity we've met tells me we're unstoppable together, and I think they're right. Even Rasputin's come around to it — the coward wanted me hiding in a hole for the rest of my life."

"You talked to him?"

"Yeah. I carry him inside me — all of them, actually, but he's the only one I can actually talk to, because he's my direct predecessor. He tried to scare me off."

"What a piece of shit."

"Yeah, you have no idea how low that miserable bastard can go, but it didn't work. I made it clear I'm not stopping, that I'm not scared, and that I'm your angel. He ended up admitting nothing like what we have has ever happened before — that maybe we've got a real shot. Even the he saw something in us. what we can do together. I'm not like them, because I'm not alone. I have you, and that's everything I need."

Her whole expression shifted — she was already scheming.

"Okay... okay... OKAY."

Nick got up, grabbed the laptop off the desk, and brought it to bed without a word. She opened it without even blinking and started typing frantically within seconds, then surfaced back to reality for a moment, looked her husband in the eyes, and kissed him without a word — didn't need one, Nick already knew exactly what that kiss meant: sorry I was scared.

She dropped straight back into her trance almost instantly. Nick slipped out of the room — knew he'd only be in the way while his wife was in supercomputer mode.

Everyone was in their rooms. Alex seemed a little worked up, so he headed to her room, walked in without knocking; she was in bed, looking at her phone.

"Thought you slept with Rose."

He said, lying down beside her.

"Almost always, but she likes some alone time sometimes, you know how she is."

Alex kissed him with her signature style; their tongues played for a moment.

"Wait, let me text her, she'll come."

"Why bother, you don't have to, I just wanted to spend some time with you."

"Yeah, you need it too. Let us take care of you for a while, okay? Just let go."

"Well, thanks, that sounds amazing, honestly — I've never asked you, how do you know things like this..."

"No idea. I just saw you walk in like you'd had a really long day, and figured you'd like it if we did a couple things for you."

"Pretty long, yeah, honestly — Ari beat the hell out of me, we found out some things, we'll fill you all in later — but yeah, Jen's in full trance mode planning things already, that's why I'm here like a helpless little puppy."

Alex smiled. "I'm glad. Lately it's Ari I take my frustrations out on when I need a good rough round — I miss you, but I know with everything you two do, you need your space."

"We do it, Alex — you make most of it possible, we'd have nothing without you. Sorry we get less time together, you deserve every ounce of attention in the world."

Rose walked in through the door, not wearing her usual uniform, just lay down on the bed on his other side.

"I get all the attention I could want, and I know how much what we do matters, don't overthink it. Tonight, let us tell you we love you, that we know none of this is easy for you, that we don't doubt you for a second, and that we owe you so much. Let us thank you."

While Alex talked, Rose leaned in to kiss him — her friend, right there in bed with them. She climbed on top, sinking down onto him, and started riding him slowly, savoring every stroke.

Alex pulled him up into a sitting position without Rose stopping, settling herself between the headboard and his back, wrapping her arms around him, letting him lean back against her — he felt her breasts against his shoulders, her lips against his neck, her hands sliding over his chest, all while he lost himself in Rose's hypersexualized features, moving above him.

He'd been so devoted, body and soul, to taking care of all these women, he'd completely forgotten how good it felt to be taken care of. What a wonderful sensation.

He barely had to do a thing that night — both of them dedicated themselves fully to giving him pleasure without him moving a muscle, Alex wouldn't let him — every time he tried to sit up, she pushed his chest back down. Rose eventually buried his face between that huge ass of hers just to keep him still — no complaints, of course; there wasn't a more pleasurable punishment invented than spending a long while under that oversized ass, licking pussy and ass with total abandon between gasps for air while his favorite pornstar sucked him off with exquisite technique.

"Come for us, please..." Rose said then, leaning down and starting to suck the tip, while Alex went to work on his balls.

He obeyed — each of them working one side of him from a different angle, so he grabbed both their heads blindly and came upward, covering their faces when it rained down.

Neither stopped, seeing he was still hard, and Alex took the chance to ride him a while, while the pair, face to face and covered in cum, took the chance to lick and kiss each other.

At some point Nick sat up on the edge of the bed, thinking the session was over, but both of them dropped to their knees between his legs and kept sucking him off together for a long while — he'd already come across their faces, and inside both of them, but they didn't want to stop giving him pleasure with pure devotion.

"Want to swallow it all, love?" Alex whispered to Rose, who nodded — he'd never heard them refer to each other that way, like a couple.

He understood the assignment — Alex stroked him while Rose opened her mouth and stuck out her tongue, soon full of his cum, and instead of swallowing it right away, she showed it to Alex.

"You look so sexy with your mouth full of cum, love."

They had a genuinely unique relationship, no doubt about that.

They finally made him lie back down, and both wrapped themselves around each arm, until they fell asleep from pure exhaustion. Nick, knowing full well how hard it'd be to sleep without his wife, slipped away quietly at last — already daylight out.