Bark 2.5
I laid in the tangle of covers and pillows, breathing in and out. My body felt warm, and my thoughts were slow and a little self-satisfied, like a cat curling up against warmth. I felt more exhausted than I'd felt when I'd run a mile as fast as I could, and yet it was a good sort of exhaustion.
It had been awkward. It had been strange. I hadn't known what I was doing, and I was pretty sure that I could do better next time--
Next time? Would there be a next time?
I stretched and shifted, blinking when I didn't feel Rachel next to me.
She'd gotten up, naked as the day she was born, but she was quickly pulling on a pair of shorts and a bra, out of some half-forgotten modesty. "Where are you going?" I asked, and I was startled at how my voice sounded.
I was whining.
"Dogs are worrying," Rachel said, and then she turned back towards me and walked over, getting so close that I could feel her skin against mine. And she gave me a rough, quick kiss, as if reminding me that she was there.
Reminding me of what we'd done. I blushed, looking away for a moment, but too tired to get up and follow her. She walked off, and I watched her the whole way. The fire and the burning passion had simmered down a little, but now it was replaced with awareness.
Awareness of what her body felt like and awareness of her that I'd never really had of someone else before.
It'd felt close, and that I think, as much as the sensations, was why I wanted to do it again.
Plus there was this feeling, a sort of floating, happy feeling, that if I'd 'sinned' once then there was no crime in sinning again.
If I was what Emma would call a whore, than so what? Only one of us was paid money to show herself off in front of cameras, anyways.
Which was the kind of retort that would be shot down immediately, but it made me feel better.
I wanted to do this again. But more than that, I liked Rachel.
Liked liked her.
Oh, love was, who knows? Probably not yet if it meant anything. But I wanted to date her. I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to see what it
could be, even though I knew that's not what she was looking for, not what she was doing. She'd seen someone she was attracted to, and who she liked, and she'd gone after her.
And in the end, I'd gone right back after her, and we'd met in the middle.
At some point I had to get up and get dressed and go on with my day. But I didn't feel like it right now. I stretched out a hand, sweeping aside a dusty brown pillow, gripping onto the sheets and bringing up the other hand. My body felt different, or perhaps it was just the way I saw it. I looked at my hand, and saw something different than I had before.
Something desirable, or at least something that could be desired. Something passionate, or at least something that could inspire passion. Something powerful, or at least it felt like power in the throes of passion.
So, now I had to decide what to do next. I had no idea how to win someone's heart, especially since all of the usual ways to go about it were not really applicable. I had no idea how you 'get to know' someone when we've both learned a lot more about each other than we'd normally share with anyone else. We wouldn't wear matching rings, and there's no wearing lettermen jackets and going steady or whatever other traditional ways to indicate that there's something going on.
Though I wasn't sure I cared that much about tradition, if tradition said I should just dance around this kind of thing, what I'd done, for weeks, months, or even longer.
I breathed in and out, slowly, and then reached out. The first thing I dug up was the T-shirt she'd been wearing. It didn't really fit me well, as tall as I was, and as thin as I was, but I found myself grinning, and then stopped, covering my mouth but unable to keep from smiling.
Not exactly a boyfriend shirt, but.
I pulled it on, and then grabbed the jeans I'd discarded and pulled those on as well. I didn't need anything else, at least if I was just walking back into the room with all of the dogs.
Hell, I could be naked if I wanted to, it's not as if the dogs were going to judge. I stretched as I got up, body still tingling, and considered going into the bathroom. My hair was an absolute mess.
Rachel had ran her hands through my hair again and again. I had a feeling she must like it, either that or she liked getting it all tangled up.
So I should really care about getting it nice and neat again, but it really didn't feel like a priority as I walked over to the door and opened it.
Some of the dogs came over. Milk and Boney and Brutus, and I knelt down a little, watching Rachel as she interacted with the dogs, rubbing them and talking to them with care and focus.
"Hey, boy," I said, scratching under Boney's chin, "who's a good dog? Were you getting curious? Well… it's not your business, is it." I said that, but I said it in the right kind of tone that the dog wouldn't react.
After all, he was a dog. Dogs were a lot cooler than I'd given them credit for, but that didn't mean they were people. Finally, once their curiosity was sated, I stood up and said, uncertainly, "We made a lot of noise."
She frowned, "Yeah."
"No wonder they were barking," I said, shaking my head and stepping forward towards her. She was watching me, and I no longer quite wondered what she was thinking. At least, I wasn't wondering right now, in this very moment. I felt like I knew.
I gave her a hug, and she nuzzled me back, her fingers brushing against my cheek. She was very physical. She didn't say a lot, but she demonstrated a lot, as it were. I liked it, I liked the feeling of her fingers on my cheek, I liked my cheek when her fingers were brushing against it. I wanted to kiss her again, though I knew that the truth was I was too exhausted to do anything else.
It wasn't even two in the afternoon yet, and it felt like so much had happened. But I'd need to be home before Dad showed up, or call him with an excuse that wasn't, "I was at Rachel's."
I didn't think he'd accept that kind of excuse. Her lips met this place at the base of my neck, and she sort of pressed herself into it, as if she was trying to catch my scent. I hugged her back, and took a breath, in and out. I closed my eyes, and just let the moment stand, until she finally began to pull away.
"I want to do it again," I said, deciding that I needed to be honest with her.
Rachel frowned, a ghost of old suspicion rising up, the suspicion that people were making fun of her, I understood. That people were judging her.
She didn't respond, and so I pressed, "Do you? I really… liked it."
"I did too," she admitted. "I want to do it again. Not now."
"I'm too tired for that too," I said, laughing a little, but making sure not to show my teeth. "So…"
And here was the question. "Is this a physical thing?"
"Yes?" she asked, as if I was being dumb. Yes, of course it was physical.
I didn't slump or give up or worry, I just thought that that meant I had to try harder, figure out ways to get closer to her, and make her see me in even more different lights. It felt a lot more possible now than it would have felt a week ago.
What's just physical can be made more than that, I thought, stepping back a little bit. "I still have that poetry book, if you wanted I could read some to you. There's also the games. I need to get going in maybe an hour, but there's still time. Also, my hair is in tangles."
"I like it," Rachel said, bluntly.
"Even like this?"
She ran fingers through it. Rough fingers. "Yes."
Well, at least I'd know when she turned against me, because she'd probably just say it. "So, poems or games?"
"Poems," she said.
"Why?"
"I like your voice," she said.
My blush, which had started to work itself up into a majestic crimson, was probably darkening even further at those words. "Well, thanks. I made it myself," I said, a little drily, going over to where the backpack had been discarded.
It looked like the dogs had rummaged around my backpack to see if there were any treats, but they hadn't found anything, apparently, and none of them had been ill-behaved enough to go chewing on my books, luckily.
I pulled out the large volume of poetry. It was one of those omnibuses, which meant that if you liked a poet or poem style, while too bad because they have the next in the list, after only one example.
Perhaps I should skip towards the end, towards the more lyrical poems? Or something. I flipped through and stopped on two poems by this guy called e.e cummings. All lowercase. I'd heard of him, but in the same way the average person has heard of Dickens.
I glanced at the first poem. Huh. Then the second--
'I like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite a new thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
I like your body- I like what it does,'
I was blushing like mad, and there was more to the poem, but I didn't want to read something like that aloud to Rachel, even if it felt oddly fitting that I'd stumbled across it.
"What is it?" Rachel asked.
"N-nothing, just looking at a poem." I flipped the page, and there was 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.'
I glanced through it, and nothing about it seemed quite as revealing as the cummings poem.
"Okay, here's one. I'm not sure if you'll like it, but there are parts of it that are amusing," I said, hoping she hadn't seen that other poem. It felt too personal, as if a long dead poet had reached out across the better part of a century and given me a high-five. Or perhaps a slap. It was hard to tell. I could tell from the later lines that this was a woman he was with, but still.
Far safer was a poem by T.S Eliot. "Let us go then, you and I/When the evening is spread out against the sky/Like a patient etherized upon a table;..."
"Ether?" she asked, sounding a little baffled.
"Anaesthesia, like before a surgery," I said.
"Huh," she said, her frown oddly thoughtful, as if she almost saw that there was something oddly (bizarre was a word for such poetry) beautiful about those lines.
I continued, "Let us go through certain half-deserted streets/ The muttering retreats/ Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels/ And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells."
"You ever been to a cheap hotel?" she asked.
"Once, actually. I went with my Mom to a conference," I said. I was startled. She usually only interrupted for questions about words, or the meaning of something. "We went all the way up to New York, but we stopped on the way in New Jersey. In New Jersey, everything is legal, including horribly overpriced motel rooms with bathrooms that stopped working in the middle of the night."
Rachel chuckled.
"After the fact, yeah, it was a little amusing, seeing my Mom lay into them. She could guilt trip like nobody's business," I said, shaking my head, leaning into Rachel a little more. I imagined sitting in her lap.
Rachel looked troubled, but I didn't want to press too much. But I did look at her, and after a little while she said, "My mom did drugs and had parties and shit. I don't think she knew what guilt was."
"Ah," I said. "And then there's the foster parents."
"It fucked me up," Rachel said, with more bitterness than I'd ever heard from her. And more self-awareness, for that matter. I knew she was aware she wasn't like other people, or at least not like some 'average' person.
"I like you," I said, as if that was some answer to it. I didn't want her to change, but I'd begun to think about how she could not-change, or at least not really change, and still become a hero. I didn't want to be on the other side from her. I wanted to be by her side, and for her to be by my side.
I wasn't going to go villain for her, because I had moral reasons not too, but as far as I could tell, she was just a villain because she'd fallen into it. There was no deep motive, and if she was vicious, well. Maybe I could find a way to channel that the right way? Make it merely a little too far rather than just more 'proof' that she's a monster.
I knew that if I hadn't known her those past weeks, if I hadn't done what I had, then if introduced to her case I might be far harsher than I was. There was bias going on, sure, but I didn't really care all that much. People were going to be biased about the people they cared for: news at eleven.
"Oh," Rachel said, and then she nodded. "Thanks."
"I need to go soon," I said. "We could play some video games, I suppose. Or I could try to explain to you that one card game and you could be twice as confused as I am."
"No thanks," she said, but I could hear the amusement in her voice. She was in a good mood.
"To both?" I asked, and glanced over at the dogs. They certainly seemed as if they'd been neglected.
"Sure." Then she leaned in, hugging me tight, and I realized that there were other things we could do. Like kiss and cuddle. She wasn't shy about it, not reticent at all to just jump straight into it, and I was sort of impressed by the whole attitude.
She leaned in and her lips met mine, their taste familiar now, her arm wrapping around my back, our chests and bodies pressing together as she kissed me, stopping for air and then kissing again and again.
It was like my world narrowed and then narrowed some more. My bugs all found a wall, got out of the way and hugged it, the easier to focus on the now, on the moments that were happening, on the way her dark eyes stared into mine and I saw the subtle shifts of emotion that I imagined were going on there.
Of course, it didn't take a genius at socializing to guess at the kinds of things Rachel was thinking when she kissed me like that.
And it didn't take a genius to know that a time like that's not really the moment to do any thinking at all. Just feeling.
********
It was later than I'd expected when I finally managed to pull myself away. We'd kept on doubling back and back around, and she hadn't seemed to get sick of it at all. Neither had I.
Honestly, I couldn't imagine getting sick of it, but then, it happened all the time. Finally, though, I pulled myself away, the taste of her on my lips. I felt giddy and capable of leaping tall buildings in a single bounds, and I barely paid attention to my bugs as I left the building and went down one street and then another, winding my way through a city that seemed at least a little brighter than it had been earlier.
I was a hero, right? I'd definitely done heroic things last weekend, and if I kept it up, I'd prove myself in that way. And if I could figure out what I was doing with Rachel… it seemed like that was the start of a life that wasn't messed up and broken.
Sort of. At the very least, it would be proof that I was beyond them, that I was growing past the trio's nonsense. It was hard to be optimistic sometimes, but it was also hard to be pessimistic at the moment.
I'd taken the E88 down a dozen pegs, and I wasn't sure how they'd recover from this, especially if the Protectorate managed to keep all of them locked up for as long as possible. I had to trust them to do their jobs well, and hope that everything else worked out. I needed to get more involved online, too.
Not because I wanted credit, but…
Actually, I had to admit that was part of it. Honesty was the best policy here, clearly. But I also just wanted to know what the situation was in Brockton Bay, and that involved talking to people online. It also involved getting to know people in real life, but I wasn't sure about that: talking to Lisa would just get me moved around to attack only their enemies. Once was fine, I hoped, because there was more at stake, and taking out Nazis wasn't bad, but beyond that?
Well, in theory I had a partner for major attacks, if I could convince Rachel to go along with me. I didn't want to say that I had my ways, but she seemed like a loyal sort of person, and her help had made the difference between me dying and not.
Now there was a thought that made my stomach twist and turn, and even protest. I was trying to ignore how badly things could have gone last week, because when I thought of it, it made me want to back down.
And if I'd learned anything from knowing Rachel, it was that backing down was never, ever a good idea. I needed to stand up to myself and be direct, and that included not giving up or letting a little risk rattle me. After all, she'd taken the same risks, and she didn't seem nearly as freaked out as I was.
This was normal for her, and considering I wanted to be a hero and fight super powered villains, that meant it'd have to be normal for me.
*******
I found a computer and began trying to do way too many things at once. First, I was trying to get a verified cape account. Second, I was trying to look up news. Third, I was trying to look up other cases of heroes who did pretty nasty things and yet were forgiven. Fourth, I needed to look up more about what Rachel's actions would even be legally.
Fifth, there was homework to do.
In other words, I didn't come even close to getting all of it done, and it might have been better to just pick one action. I had the account set up, but not verified. That'd take a picture of me in costume.
I learned that the E88 had been pressed back and were apparently lying low, and that Lung was on a rampage across their former territory while the Merchants, far more quietly, were snapping up prime real estate. They didn't seem to be acting the way they usually did.
Skidmark--yes, that was his name--was a boastful idiot, clever at running a gang or he'd be dead by now, but in a very obvious kind of way. But now his men were being careful, sneaking out deals from right under the E88's noses, and the most I could tell was that they had suddenly started to get better product.
A lot better.
I knew a lot more about drugs than a girl should, thanks to going to a series of schools where more people knew all about cocaine than about the many uses of coke. Where Special K referred to the drug first, and the breakfast cereal never. Emma and I had been a little insulated from that kind of thing, but only a little.
If you don't shut your ears, you pick these things up. I had to think that it was the tinker, since it was the only lead I had.
It seemed to me as if the Merchants might be a larger threat than I thought.
Next, there was the heroes front. And I sort of ran out of time between quickly answering math problems and trying to look up legalities.
It was just something I'd have to do tomorrow, or over the next few days.
Because right now, with my homework done and the time to get home and start cooking passing, I had to get out of here. I wondered what Dad would say, and so I called him. He might be home already.
He didn't answer.
I let out a breath I didn't know I'd been holding. Things were not going as wrong as I thought.
So I got up and then began to hurry home. I needed to get there before Dad, or at least not long after him.
I was sick, as far as he knew. But I could excuse it if I had the math done, including the stuff I knew that the teacher was going to assign today if I had showed up.
When did I start thinking of Dad as someone I had to outwit? The question had come up before, and it was going to keep on coming up until I came to a solution. Should I just be honest and tell him the truth? But what truth was that?
That I was having sex with a known villain, but I swear she wasn't that bad?
That I was an independent hero called Arachne?
There were a lot of things to keep secret, and the weight of them on my nerves was definitely the worst part about this new double, or maybe even triple, life I was living.
I hurried home, and almost beat Dad there. He was just stepping out of my car when I jogged up, panting. I'd felt that I'd lost the race, had sent a fly to buzz against him, and I'd still run as hard as I could. Maybe I thought that it meant something, and maybe I was just being stubborn.
"Taylor, I thought you were sick today?" He got out. He was sweating a little, clearly tired from a long day.
"I… was," I panted. "But I felt better a little after noon, so I went to the library to look a few things up and do my homework somewhere else."
"Really? You could have done it here. All of that running can't be good for you."
"A little exercise is a good thing," I said, trying not to blush and think of other forms of exercise I'd gone through recently.
"Sure, but Taylor," Dad began, and then he sighed. As if I was too much trouble.
I grit my teeth, baring them at him, frustrated by that sigh just like I'd been about his involvement. "I'm fine, Dad. Better than I was this morning, definitely."
"I suppose so. It's not like you to get sick, though I suppose you always were the sort to run around even when you should be in bed. We had to keep you distracted and stay home," Dad said. I'd heard the story before, but it still had its own sort of power, and I tried to concentrate on the facts.
Dad was smiling, not baring his teeth or whatever it'd be if he were Rachel. I smiled back, trying to ease into it. "Oh?"
"I know I've told you this story a thousand times," Dad said.
"Well, then a thousand and one times wouldn't hurt."
It felt more like a truce than anything else, and I had a feeling that things with Dad were going to get worse before they got better, but I'd take the moment of peace.
******
A/N: And thus ends Bark arc. With a bit of a whimper, but we're setting up Bite Arc, which is going to be pretty big, I think? I have plans. We'll see how well they survive contact with the enemy. Thank to
@NemoMarx.
