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▇ Just minding my business and gathering some energy...

▇ Chaonis taking out his frustration [not entirely unjustly] on Ever.

▇ Can two lieutenants really hold up against a super?

He was still gagging when the mirror broke. The sight of all that blood, likely something common for most teenagers, the ones who indulged in splatter films and horror comics, was a rarity to a young man who hadn't been allowed to see any R-rated movie until he moved out of his parents' place.

It wasn't real, and objectively it was easy to wrap his mind around that concept. A show put on for their benefit -- well, Zink's benefit, or perhaps Zac's, as Zac was the part of Zink they could get to -- but that didn't wipe the image from his mind. Ilmenite had a good memory. He would have nightmares about spilling blood, the fine muscles of Schee's neck slitting under a glass knife, the tears that left his cheeks wet, the hoarse sound of his voice.

Ilmenite couldn't make his eyes focus, was still shaking, his throat bobbing frantically as he struggled to keep down his lunch. And that was when the senshi hit him.

Almost his height, the girl was pale-eyed and dark haired, a willowy creature with a skirt that floated around her legs, mostly-transparent and emblazoned with fine stalks of wheat. She was young. God help him, they were all young, teenagers playing at some greater game. And she was entirely unafraid of him, white teeth flashing in a too-full mouth as he stumbled and swallowed and finally lifted his head to look at her.

"Sweetheart, you got a lot of nerve." Her voice was soft and fluttery, tinged with something country, gentle and almost kind. Her blow, on the other hand, was hard as a sledgehammer, a sweep of feet under his legs that left him sprawled on his back and woefully winded. "…mouthin' off to your betters, and never you mind that she ain't real."

These people were crazy. He cried out, his head ringing as one heeled shoe settled in the middle of his stomach, and suddenly understood the appeal of the torture devices. They could also be used as torture devices. And he just thanked his lucky stars that the girl took time to gloat: long enough to catch his breath, to wrap hands around her ankle, and pull.

She'd been mid-summoning, her star's name on the tip of her tongue. The tumble drove it away, turned it into a childish squeak instead of her drawling, self-confident edge. Ilmenite was fresh, but so was she, a relatively new recruit who'd never engaged the enemy in anything more than words, who'd tossed her attacks and let others do the work.

When he slammed his elbow into her stomach, she looked shocked more than anything else, those heels suddenly a hindrance. They were too tall, scraped hopelessly against the ground beneath them and found no purchase. Ilmenite sucked in a few breaths, both of them disabled long enough for him to catch his breath -- and when he did, he twisted to catch her arms and slam her against the ground again.

Her head rattled against the ground, the lights in her eyes dimming with the contact, but she'd had time to whisper before he touched her. Ilmenite's hands came back hopelessly bloody, shredded by fine stalks of wheat that had sprouted from her skin, and he choked out a pained noise, unable to celebrate his victory.

The battle had come to a close; victory that rattled hollowly around his ears, plans made to gather up the dead or wounded, burials and after parties, funerals and celebrations, bravado and introspection. As he came back into his human form, dark eyes turned upward toward the unfurling scene of youma, monsters and senshi, his stomach turned just a little instead and Ever found himself turning away to head toward home.

At least when he switched from uniform to comfortable civs it washed away the blood, even if it didn't heal off his hands. He sat on the subway picking bits and pieces of torn wheat out of damaged palms until he caught someone staring. Then he spent the rest of the trip staring evenly back, meeting the well-dressed man's eyes every time they landed on him.

He had learned to be smarter than that. That was the kind of behavior that got you beaten all to hell, or shown roughly to the door.

His head ached by the time he got home, his jaw swollen and eye still ringed with bruise, finding it surprisingly easy to focus on the mundane hurts and to set aside the confusion and pain that should have come with beating a girl's head wetly against concrete and watching her eyes go dim. Ever should have found it harder to turn off his worry.

She was probably dead because of him, and he couldn't bring himself to care.

Instead he made his way as quietly as he could past his new landlady, hands shoved behind his back so she wouldn't see the mess, wincing and she grumbled in Italian and poked at his face and shook a finger at him. He understood enough of it to drop his head and mumble the suitable apologies, to deny as much as he could and to accept what he couldn't. Food would be good anyway. His appetite was starting to kick back in, bouncing back both body and mind.

The most pressing issue was his hands. The battle had been dizzying, enough so that he hadn't gotten a good look when it happened, and then he'd been far too engaged in the fight to worry about it, adrenaline roaring in his ears and his head pattering out a panicked staccato. The subway light had been harsh but the blood had obscured most of the damage, had turned his palms to a generic filthy mess that his eyes couldn't sort out.

In his bathroom, though, it was an entirely different story. Setting palms under the cold rush of water was doubly horrifying: first the shock of contact that turned to a sharp burn, a piercing pain strong enough to drive away what appetite he'd had and that left him wishing he'd hung onto the painkillers, instead of pawning them off on Zac. The water ran red, pink, eventually turning toward clear, and then he was greeted by what a mess it really was.

The senshi had spoken a word and had gone into defensive mode. Fine stalks of wheat had sprouted along her flesh, on bare shoulders and arms, and the barbed weeds had found purchase in his own poor palms, digging in deep and rending flesh as he pulled away. Ever's hands, now, were lined with deep, angry slashes, bits and pieces of barbed wheat still stuck, transparent enough that he had to squint to make them out.

His evening was consumed by the cleanup. Torn-and-chewed fingernails were ill equipped for extraction, and even when they did find purchase, ripping out the senshi's defenses hurt like a b***h. His eyes were red-rimmed, his breath coming short, and Ever wished desperately for a drink by the time he was done, hands wrapped up in a torn pair of boxers that were the only clean thing he had at hand.

He needed to do a better job of sterilization and Ever knew it. As they stood now, oozing and starting to scab up again, the damage was going to leave scars. But going out -- either to find a drink or to pick up supplies -- meant too much emotional investment, too much effort for someone who was entirely exhausted and currently without energy to spare. He'd sacrificed it up before the battle. Certainly others had needed it more than him.

His body was sore, tired, but his head still swimming. Hands bundled up and rendered almost useless, Ever paced the confines of his little room and turned the cell phone Zac had shoved off on him to make sure there were no missed calls or messages, and eventually gave up on the outside world.

He was an extrovert. Being around other people meant energy building on energy, made him feel more alive -- most of the time. But for now, he didn't want to think about others, their feelings toward him, the judgement people passed in quiet, the wider problems of epic battles between good and evil. Instead he rifled awkwardly through his things in search of his books, pawed with bandaged fingertips until he found something to relax most of the tension out of his shoulders.

Harry Potter might not have been the best choice to escape epic battles. But at least it would keep him occupied for an evening or two.

▇ Ever finally shows up for work, after an absence.

▇ Tony catches Ever at his other job.

It was the better part of a month after his birthday, and the package on his stoop drew him up short. On the day, Ever hadn't expected any presents, and he hadn't gotten any. There were so few people in his life, and fewer still who he actually expected to stick around, that in general he didn't make a practice of telling people the date as it approached.

No wonder, then, that his first reaction was a heart-pounding moment of excitement and fear, a shaky hand lifted to rest against the door and a look shot back over his shoulder as if someone might be there. Thoughts fluttered to home, the sudden certainty that this was a gift of forgiveness from no-longer-furious parents strong enough to leave his knees a little gooey, to make the breath frozen in his throat. The desire for acceptance wasn't something Ever usually took the time to study or consider, and his longing for home was something that he usually shoved down to the bottom of his mix of emotions, beneath the rather superficial mix of flirting and sarcasm. It was a secret hope, a private need, and he was endlessly grateful that there was no one there to see him giving in to it.

His fingers, still battered, trembled slightly as he reached out for the small brown envelope, perched sideways on top of a paper bag. He licked his lips in a nervous way, turning it over in his hands and prolonging this moment just a little longer, not quite sure what was inside but complete unwilling to brake this bubbling moment of hope for just a little bit longer.

It was broken for him. Ever got a brief glimpse into the bag and caught the glint of glass, the brightly colored lid, the first three letters of 'Smirnoff', and the fragile, frozen moment of hope crumbled down around him.

Of course his father hadn't sent something, and he flushed helplessly even if no one was there to witness his naivety. Proper fool thing to think. He grabbed his bag and shoved the door open and closed it loudly in front of him.

Everything was tossed onto the bed for the better part of an hour, abandoned there because he wasn't sure what to make of them and because not knowing was better than a second dose of disappointment so close on the first. Something like four years since someone had bothered enough to give him a present -- or, at least, given one without the expectation of something in return. He retreated into the shower and indulged in a little bit of imagination. It was too flat to be a book. Too light to be electronics, and besides, what would he do with electronics? It had enough heft that it wasn't coupons or gift certificates or cash, enough padding that it must have been at least somewhat fragile, and it had been paired with a relatively cheap bottle of flavored vodka.

Who the hell drank green apple vodka anyway? As he toweled the mess of his hair dry, head tipped down, pieces popped in together. Teenagers drank flavored vodka; he knew that, the sugary syrup more candy than booze, going down smoother than the five-dollar s**t Ever usually purchased. And, of course, he'd spilled his birthday in a moment of weakness to the first person in quite a while, bubbling out as angry words to Zac. His thoughts skittered around the reasoning behind that one. Didn't tell it to people who weren't going to stick around…

Ever wasn't good with this kind of patience. Three years since he'd been able to rip a package open in excitement, and he thought that waiting this long was a sign of amazing restraint, so he dove into it with a fury, finally. No scissors: instead he lifted the awkward bundle and tore at it with his teeth, sinking down to perch on the edge of the bed…

The bracelet that tumbled out into one palm was a baffling surprise, one that left his eyebrows knitted and his mouth a little slack. He gave it a shake, studying the fine detail work on the linked chains, the delicate little clasp, the gunmetal finish. It was a while before he thought to double check the envelope, fingers dipping in and coming up with a hand-written note and an ebay receipt:



…sealed his certainty, and brought a flustered edge of color to his face as Ever tried to decide, then, if this was a present from Zac or a present from Zinkenite, a simple gift or some kind of reminder. Eventually he decided it didn't matter. And he put it on.