My Fiction. My Blog. My Life:After braving the vast world of the internet with fanfictions, I've decided to expand my portfolio with short stories, blog posts, and snippets of my novel.
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Chapter 4Gar woke as Raven got up to use the restroom. But when she started angling toward the door he knew he was caught. There was no point in running away, she knew. Trying to look away, he heard her door open and felt her gaze as she looked down at the curled up dog. His ears went back and his tail started to subconsciously wag. She sighed. “Gar, I’m fine. I didn’t have a bad dream, I just had to pee.” She tried to sound exasperated that he was worrying so much. Yet when he looked up, he saw she had a small smile on her face that she couldn’t mask. Before shifting back, he took a couple steps back to give her room.
“I know. I just…I just kept thinking about you waking up with a bad dream and no one there.” He felt a little embarrassed, and perhaps a bit stalker-ish? But she still didn’t look upset. She leaned on her doorway and bit her lip. After a few seconds under his gaze she bashfully looked down, smiling. Her hair was in a messy bun, the short pieces falling around her face. And she wore an even bigger t-shirt tonight. It was baggy on her, which made it hard to tell if she was wearing shorts or not. But he quickly snapped his eyes back up to her face. She was looking at her feet as she scuffed them on the floor, with a slight blush on her face. And he realized she couldn’t have looked more beautiful if she tried. “Well, I guess I’ll be heading to bed.” He turned to leave, blushing slightly himself. “Wait, it’s late, and your room is so far away.” She called to stop him. He considered the short distance to his room, but didn’t comment. “You might as well just stay here.” Smiling, he quickly ran past her, changing back into the dog. Tag wagging excitedly as he hopped on the opposite side of the bed, curling up to sleep. Slowly, she crawled back in bed, pulling the covers back over herself. He could tell she was looking at him, and heard the soft sound of her lips parting as she bit her lip again. It fell quiet for a little bit before she took a breath in to speak. “Thank you for checking on me Gar” She whispered and rolled over to go to sleep. The next morning, they said their quick good byes and he left to volunteer at the zoo. They had a new polar bear that was having trouble adapting. He had been a circus bear and was rescued to live a much better life. Gar had trouble accepting the zoo for a while. At first he had assumed they were all caged and living horrible lives at the sake of amusement. But as he got to know the animals he had relaxed on the idea. They would not have made it in nature, especially this poor polar bear. And the zoo actually took his suggestions to heart. It has been staffed with wonderfully caring people that did only want the best for the animals. And on occasion Gar was allowed to help with research or vet work. Being the animal in question allowed him to comfort and communicate with injured or anxious animals better than any human could. And if it didn’t work, as the case with the testy eagle, he at least could read their language and tell the staff why she was so upset. She hadn’t wanted another bird in her cage, let alone a green one, and they removed her younger partner. But he never made it. On the way there, he got a strange sense of fear coming from the building he was walking by. Inadvertently, he had come across a bank robbery. Thinking it would be easy he didn’t reach for his communicator right away. But the robbers were quicker than he had anticipated, and much more numerous than people normally used for just a bank robbery. He was forced to use a lot more energy than he had planned. And after 20 minutes of getting nowhere he finally had to call in back up. It only took a few more minutes after Raven and Kory showed up. But by the time they finished, he was beat. His head pounded as he looked over the scene. The smell of fear still clogged the building and he tried not to taste the air filled with recent gun fire. A few loud calls between officers passing by grated on his mind as they talked to the chief. It took another hour before he was able to go home. And sadly, he was forced to call off the zoo. As soon as he got home, he made a beeline for the storage room and hunkered down in the corner. Placing his hands over his face he took a deep breath. After just a few minutes though, the light flashed on and the door opened. The pain in his head flared as the new comer approached. It was rare for someone to come here, but of course they were now. He tried his best not to sniff out who was coming in, but his sensed turned on before he willed them to. His aggravation quickly diminished as he figured out it was Raven walking into the room. She passed through a few stands of boxes and by him without realizing he was sitting there. It was a bit too late to get her attention without startling her. “Hey,” he called. Jumping, as he had suspected, she turned. “Hey?” She scanned the room. “What are you doing in the storage room?” “Sensory Deprivation…basically.” Her brows pinched together. “During fights, sometimes I have to keep all my senses on overdrive and it’s basically overwhelming after a while. Especially as I pick up new senses, and add them to all of my forms. Like the echolocation thing, that took some getting used to. It’s like once I realized I could do it, I didn’t want to chance turning it off. And then I had like 6 senses to concentrate on at once. I come down here because it’s quite and I’m alone.” “Oh…sorry.” She flicked the lights off with her powers and went to leave. “No,” he sat up. “It’s ok. If you needed something feel free to get it.” “Oh, no I’m just on my last suit. I came to get my back up uniforms. No big deal.” He noted she was wearing a tank top and sweat pants, probably washing the one she just fought in. One of the robbers had planted a few thousand dollars on her as one last stab at the titans. The packs had exploded while they were talking to the chief. Gar let out a small laugh as he remembered her shocked face, stopping midsentence as she was instantly covered in blue gunk. She went to leave again, then stopped. “Meditating doesn’t help?” “No, it’s not like it was when I was trying to control the beast or other instincts. This is different and harder to tune out.” Taking a few more seconds to think about it, she then came forward and placed a hand on the side of his head. Her cool fingers felt wonderful, and the pain lightened a bit. His eyes snapped open and he grabbed her wrist. Probably harder than he meant to. She jumped and looked at him wide eyed as he pulled her hand from his head roughly. And his voice fell to a serious and deep tone. “The other’s might not know. But I know what you’re actually doing when you heal us. There’s no point in you putting yourself in pain when it’ll just go away.” Her eyes narrowed and she pulled back huffing. “I wasn’t going to take the whole thing away.” She snapped. Sighing at his outburst he leaned back on the wall. “I’ll be fine, I just need to rest.” She pondered this for a second. “I…” she drummed her fingers on her knee, “I have something that might help you. But it’s going to require a bit of trust. And I would prefer to do it in my room versus in here.” He caught himself before he let out a dirty joke out of habit. And cursed the inability to use her perfect set up. After all, she was offering to help him out. Though he had begun to catch her micro expressions, and she did find him funny after all, just liked to tease the fact that she didn’t. “Of course I trust you Rae.” She smiled slightly and without another word, pulled them back to her room. He stayed sitting on the floor as she walked around getting things ready. At some point he had grown pretty comfortable in her room. Probably had to do with the fact he was spending more time sleeping in here than his own room. Moving about with rehearsed fashion, she eventually sat down on the ground over a thick rug, surrounding herself with a few candles and incense. Her legs were crossed and she took a deep breath as she normally did before meditating. “OK, most of this stuff is for me, might as well meditate while you’ll be here. But basically you lay down here and put your head on my lap… looking up of course.” He smirked at her unnecessary addition. Doing as she said, he laid down and looked up at her from her lap. Letting a deep sigh calm her, she placed her hands on his shoulders. “So, what’s going to happen is I’m going to surround you with my powers. Like I would levitate an object, but you won’t transport anywhere. You’ll just stay here. It’ll be pitch black, you won’t hear or smell anything, and once I start levitating us, you won’t even feel the ground. If for any reason you want to get out, just move and I’ll feel it. But remember Gar, I’m here, right here. I’ll be able to keep a good eye on you too, from this point of view.” He nodded, not really understanding why she sounded so concerned. She took another deep breath and he was enveloped in darkness. His eyes started searching for something, anything to register. And all at once, all of his senses started panicking. He couldn’t hear anything, smell anything, feel anything. He couldn’t even really tell where he was, it felt like he had just vanished into a vacuum. Even during everyday life, he kept a keen ‘eye’ on the everything around him. Whether it was knowing who all was in the room with him, especially while in public. Or what was going on outside as the air shifted with the weather. Sometimes even sensing the change in the bodies around him, if someone was growing nervous for some reason, or about to angrily snap at someone else. This was strange, almost horribly so. He sucked in a ragged breath, but tried his best to calm down. Everything was fine, he was just in Raven’s room. He repeated to himself several times that he was in Raven’s room. She had even told him to remember she was there. Hell, wasn’t his head even on her lap? He strained to feel her legs, but he couldn’t feel anything. A hand reached through the darkness and rested on his chest, right over his heart. It was Raven. Instantly her smell comforted. He tried to not seem extremely needy as he grasped her hand in his. But he was. Her thumb moved slightly, as you would calm a child, and he focused on her touch. Her thumb only moved about half an inch back and forth over his chest. But that was enough. He put all of his attention on that tiny movement, feeling it go back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth… It worked wonders and after several minutes he was no longer freaking out. In fact, it was wonderful. His thumb started drumming on top of her hand and she stilled her thumb, letting him get into his own groove. He wasn’t sure how long he rested there, but his headache was dissipating.
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AuthorI am split between a world of fantasies and science. {Blog}
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