Working stuff out

I woke up the next morning, feeling great.

Great, but hungry. Starving, almost.

I'd barely stretched the stiffness out of my shoulders and rubbed the sleep from my eyes before my stomach gave a deep, dissatisfied rumble.

If there'd been any doubt before, it was becoming very clear to me that absorbing powers - perhaps especially physical powers - radically increased my required calorie intake, at least temporarily.

I was so focused on getting to the kitchen, to the smell of frying eggs, that I nearly bowled over Val coming out of the bathroom.

"Woah there!" Val struggled to keep hold of her towel as she jumped back, her chestnut brown hair still damp and clinging to her face. She looked damn good with the little bit she'd let the towel slip, some part of my mind noted. I might've appreciated that more if I wasn't both dying of hunger and her brother. "Take it easy, will you. Where's the fire?"

"Sorry, just very hungry," I shot over my shoulder, not letting the near collision distract me from what was important.

Food.

"Weirdo," Val shook her head ruefully as she slipped into her room.

Mom glanced over her shoulder with a carefree smile as I entered the kitchen, apparently the first to arrive besides herself. Very rarely did anyone beat mom to the kitchen in the morning. "Morning, honey. You're up early."

I guess I was. I had a habit of sleeping in, or I used to, but - Well, things had changed.

"Morning." I smiled weakly, already putting bread in the toaster. "Yeah, uh - just excited for breakfast."

"I'm almost done with the eggs, you can grab some off the plate." She chuckled, neatly flipping what she had in the pan, "You'll have to wait a bit on bacon and greens."

"You're a lifesaver, thanks mom," I felt like I could've chowed down the whole plate, no problem, but managed to restrain myself.

I shuffled three perfectly fried eggs, done sunny-side up, from the platter onto my own plate, and dug in with no further ado, staring at the toaster expectantly.

"Careful, those might be a little hot, honey -"

Now that she mentioned it, I did feel a slight burn. Not enough to hurt me, but...

"N-nah, they'd cooled off enough." I stammered, before shoveling more eggs in my mouth.

I was shit at this hiding my powers thing, so it was a good thing I had a trump card.

It felt strange. I'd never really lied to mom about something important, and the whole family knew how my supposedly minor ability worked. Hell, the government knew.

Or they thought they did.

But it didn't feel right to just go blabbing about exactly what had been going on with me over the last few days.

Whatever I decided to do with this, I wanted my home to just be... Normal. You know? Or as close to normal as I could manage. Judging by my poorly considered use of the voice yesterday, maybe that was going to be a challenge, though.

Before I knew it I'd finished off the eggs.

The bread popped out of the toaster with blessed timing, and I set about making sandwiches at what was presumably world record pace.

"Wow, you weren't kidding," Val mused, slinking down into the chair opposite me, and pouring herself a cup of coffee before taking her first sip with a deeply satisfied sigh. "Mmmh."

"I'm a growing boy," I quipped, through a mouthful of sandwich. Technically not lying. The best kind of correct.

"Yeah, about that. I'm heading out for a run after breakfast," Val said, giving my leg a playful kick under the table. "You should join me. It's no good building all those muscles and not having any stamina."

"My stamina is just fine," I said, perhaps a little defensively. It hadn't been, for sure, not by my sister's standards. But now?

"Great!" She chuckled in response, "You won't have any problems keeping up then. Ready to go in forty-five?"

I took a huge bite of my ham-and-cheese monstrosity to give myself some time to think while I chewed.

I hadn't really tested myself, ever since this whole thing started. I had a good idea what I was capable of, but maybe going out for a run wasn't such a bad plan.

"Stop stalling," Val grumbled, pouting cutely as she gave me another light kick. "Spending some time with your big sis can't be that bad, can it?"

Huh. That gave me pause.

I guess I hadn't been doing that lately, outside of stuff mom planned for the whole family.

We used to play console games together all the time when we were younger, just hang out like friends. Back before she went away to MIT for her degree, and I started college here. By the time she got back, I guess we both got busy. Work and school.

She was reaching out, in her own way.

"I don't know about that. I've seen Rachel and Tammy after one of your 'friendly workouts'. You're a slave-driver." I chuckled, defusing her offended scoff with a reassuring smile, "But sure, let's do it. Promise to take it easy on me?"

"Nuh-uh. Can't promise that." She retorted, grinning back.

I figured as much.

It'd be a test-run. Val was fun to hang out with, anyway.

My only worry was potentially having to do some smooth-talking to explain why her workout didn't positively murder my lazy ass.

Couldn't exactly go out and start bench-pressing cars or leaping tall buildings, not without drawing unwanted attention. But I'd get to see how much effort it took to keep up with a girl who could, occasionally did, run marathons. Not a bad measuring stick.

I didn't want a repeat of yesterday, though. Any... Unintentional consequences.

Or so I told myself, quickly dismissing the mental images that resurfaced.

"It's nice that you two are spending some time together," Mom ruffled my hair affectionately as she added a plate of veggies to the table, then took her seat at the table. "Your mom and I are going to the Guggenheim later, if either of you want to join - it's been a while."

Both Val and I made our excuses, but mom waved it off, saying we didn't need any excuse to go out and enjoy our weekends. Ava was a museum enthusiast, art in particular, but anything really - we'd each been to more exhibits than the average school class put together by this point. It wasn't that we didn't enjoy it, but just - perhaps not as often as mom did.

Mami Jua joined us as I was digging into my third overstuffed sandwich and a new helping of eggs.

I tried to judge if anything was still... Off.

She was yawning slightly, mostly focused on her coffee until the first cup was gone - and that was more expected than unusual. But as mami slowly joined the world of the living, and the conversation about other weekend plans between mom and Val, she seemed... Mostly fine? She wasn't giving me the weird looks from yesterday, flushed and... Needy.

Maybe a little uncomfortable, but... Well, so was I. It was to be expected.

"Earth to Mason?" Val chirped, as she pushed her chair out and started collecting her dishes.

"Hmm?" I met her amused eyes.

"Get some workout gear on, heading out in twenty."

I realized my plate was empty, and I'd been staring at mami Jua long enough for Val to notice. Great. Smooth.

"Y-yeah, sure." I agreed, fighting off a blush.

"Have a good run, you two."

***

You know what's pretty cool when you find out you can do it effortlessly? But becomes extremely boring, very quickly?

Running at a moderate pace.

I mean, the park was pretty and all, even in the overcast weather. But not that fascinating, and I didn't want to give myself away by also managing to hold a conversation while Val tried to test the edges of my fitness.

Early March weather in NYC.

The chilly winds had us in thick sweats, our breaths steaming the air, but at least spring was coming soon.

The cold didn't bother me as much as it should've, but obviously part of the reason was because we were running, and I didn't have enough experience to tell how much.

I made sure to deliberately breathe more heavily, but my acting skills weren't really up to par. I'd have to work on that, probably. Not that I think most actors can pull off getting red-faced without actual effort.

I was still working up a sweat, but not nearly as much as I should've been, and it was purely a physical reaction to stimulus - no burning in my legs and lungs, no pounding heart.

Val had her eye on me, of course, so she stepped up her game to try and get one up on me. She took it as a challenge, intended or not, that I wasn't already showing signs of strain.

When a higher pace didn't seem to faze me, we started doing high-intensity interval training.

That was probably the most difficult to pull off. How do you judge what a full sprint should look like, when you could run much quicker than a normal sprint? I hadn't tried it yet, true, but I could feel the potential there.

My answer was to run just fast enough to outpace Val, and that just pissed her off more.

I nearly fucked up a couple of times. It was actually surprisingly hard to control, going fast, but not too fast.

After about forty minutes of this, Val looked beat, annoyed, but also mildly impressed.

"How - the - fuck -" She gasped between breaths, leaning against a tree and taking a swig from her water bottle, "- are - you - still - standing?"

She put extra emphasis on the 'fuck', not even trying to hide her frustration.

I was leaning forwards with my hands on my knees, and took an extra moment to fake breathing heavily before I responded, keeping up the act that I was just as winded.

"Just - barely - trust me -" I nudged her, applying just a little bit of power to my voice, "- We - done?"

Val shook her head in disbelief, "You should write - a fucking book or something."

She regained control of her breathing impressively quickly, so I let mine slowly calm, too, "Can barely believe - you've gotten in this good shape - so quickly."

I stood slowly, and couldn't quite suppress a slight grin, "Thanks, Val. High praise coming from you." I blew out another breath, while she flushed slightly. "That means we're done, right?" I waited a beat, took a swig of water to rehydrate. That part wasn't a lie, I definitely still needed to rehydrate. "Please tell me we're done."

I probably didn't hit the appropriate tone of whiny pleading, but good enough.

She nodded her head tiredly, chuckling, "Yeah. Yeah, we're done. Just the walk home to cool off."

"Thank god." Didn't have to fake that one. As fun as it was watching her mounting frustration, it was clear that I was beyond the point of baseline human exercise doing anything for me.

We talked more on the way back, a little bit of everything. Mom kept us close, as a family, but it became more and more apparent to me that I hadn't really kept tabs on my sister much.

I brought up our teenaged console marathons, and she assured me she still played games sometimes.

We'd gone sort of different routes with our now limited time, me being the MMO casual with a group of online friends, and Val leaning towards single-player story stuff that she could binge occasionally when she had a day off.

I was forced to promise I'd make time for her to 'hand me my ass', direct quote, in the old fighting game we used to play. Soul Calibur 14, I think? She was definitely holding a grudge over not beating me into the ground via workout.

I was surprised to learn she was dating again.

After the implosion of her college relationship, Val had sort of sworn off men for a while and just focused on her research. I didn't know what happened exactly, but it was bad. Not entirely surprising to me. I'd only met the guy once, and while Val may've been madly in love with him, the dude was arrogant and full of himself. Seemed to actually have a problem with Val outpacing him in their mutual academic pursuits, though he tried to hide it.

She'd frequently lamented that she didn't share our moms' preferences afterwards, jaded by the whole thing.

But she must've worked through it. New guy. Hopefully not a douche.

I told my brain to shut up and just be happy for her - hadn't even met the guy yet.

Didn't mean I wasn't going to tease her.

"And he's taking you out clubbing?" I clarified, giving her the side-eye, "You? Clubbing?"

I laughed and dodged her swipe at the back of my head pretty easily. She almost had to jump to make it.

"Don't be an asshat," Val pouted, "I can party. I'm fine with clubbing. Besides, Rachel and Tammy are coming too."

"Sure, sure." I agreed, amiably, "Party it up with particle physics, maybe."

Honestly, she'd always been more socially competent and amiable than me, even with my mystical power of being perceived with a baseline level of friendliness. But I wasn't going to admit that out loud.

This time I let her hit me. And that was a mistake.

"Ow fuck, what are you made of?" She swore, shaking her hand. I was just as confused as she was. She'd hit me in the side, and I could've sworn my skin had hardened at the swift contact.

I'd barely felt it. Didn't know I could do that.

"Nothin' but muscle, baby," I forced a smile, flexing to emphasize the statement as I rubbed my side. "You must've just hit a rib. Trust me."

Nowhere close a rib, and Val had to know that, but it sank in easily. I had to figure out how exactly the resistance worked.

"Idiot," Val chuckled, shaking her head, then grinned back at me mischievously once her eyes cleared. "And you're just jealous you can't come along. I've seen you making eyes at Rachel when you think no one's looking."

"Wh-what do you me-," She'd caught me off guard. Never let her catch you off guard. Basically Val 101. I quickly stopped myself from stammering, then refuted the heinous and blatantly untrue allegation more calmly, "I have no idea what you're talking about. Besides, I'm sort of seeing someone."

... is certainly one way to describe my situation. A charitable way, to be sure.

"What a shame," My sister sing-songed teasingly, skipping ahead of me to the apartment door. "Because Rachel thinks you're kind of cute, too. With this new bodybuilder thing you have going, who knows what could happen?"

I felt myself blush. Okay, she got me.

Rachel was one of Val's closest and oldest friends. Also capital H hot, with a gothic look that could make a guy's head spin.

"First dibs on the shower!" Val laughed uproariously as she rushed inside, slammed the bathroom door behind her and locked it firmly.

I shook my head ruefully.

As I said, my sister is fun. It was just usually at my expense, if she could pull it off.

I hoped this new guy knew how lucky he was.

What the hell sort of name is Johnny Storm, anyway?

Val hadn't said what her new guy did, but I imagined he must be a monster truck driver. Professional wrestler, maybe.

Or a lion tamer.

Absolutely ridiculous name.