Slow and Speedy Win the Fight

98. What's Okay?

Sheldon

It was a long time since I found myself in Reynard's home.

He changed places since then but some things haven't changed. The ceramic container of butter and salt water that lived on the countertop of his kitchen. The same dull red and black checkered blanket still draped over his bed. I suppose the only thing that has changed was his choice of posters. It used to be barren but now various movie posters barely clung onto the walls with thin pieces of tape.

He and I had defaulted into our old positions when he would crash at my old place and I was laying snuggly under his arm on the right side of the bed. He, on the other hand, was lightly tracing his finger on the back of my hand which I didn't mind at the moment.

"Do you still live with your parents?" I asked him as I studied the poster on his wall. The text was in French and I didn't bother to attempt to guess what the tinier text even said.

"They own the apartment. Whether they actually come here is another question."

"Where else would they be?"

"Sleeping at work probably," he muttered.

"Where do they even work?" I pushed my luck. He was always guarded whenever he answered personal questions. If he wasn't lying to me, he would actually give me a real answer.

He gave a sad lopsided smile and slumped his head against the pillow. "If I tell you, you can't judge me."

"Why?"

"Promise."

I raised an eyebrow. "Promise."

"They're actually heroes," Reynard said. "They used to operate back in France but they moved here to join some better hero group or whatever."

My eyes lingered on his face in an attempt to see if he was being truthful. It was usually hard to tell what he was feeling as his expression seemed neutral. But the way he attempted to hide his expression and the faint blush on his cheeks made me think that he was being truthful at the moment.

"Did you get into the industry because of them?" I asked.

He gave a nervous chuckle. "Yeah. Not in the way they wanted though. I wanted to go down the path of villainy and we fought over it. We ended up compromising over me becoming an anti-hero first so I could try out a bunch of hero and villain jobs. Was a sidekick for a couple of jobs and then a minion for a few more. Didn't really like working for other people though."

"And the part-time villain thing?"

"I'm not allowed. I want to be doing that at the same time as my anti-hero stuff but," he shrugs, "parents didn't let me."

"Why did you tell me you were one anyway."

"If you met someone who was considered a child genius in your field, you would say anything to try and impress them too, wouldn't you?"

My thoughts were jumbled and only a garbled noise came out of my mouth. Reynard laughed before putting his fingers on my chin and tilted my head upwards.

"What's wrong?" Reynard's fingers trailed down my face and my breathing became uneven.

"I wasn't a child genius," I managed to say.

"Lies. You pulled off some huge heists as a kid."

I attempted to hold back my smile and I cleared my throat as I pulled away. "You still kept secrets from me. I didn't even know you had powers."

"My powers are still developing. You know that other people's powers fully solidify by twenty. I don't even know if these will be my final power. Not that I fully understand yet anyway. Plus, you also kept secrets," he said. "What were you doing every day in your room? You heavily protected that room with stilyte."

"It's not like it was anything important." My eyes drifted away from his face.

"And why don't you have your glasses? I thought you would wear them with your outfit especially since you like the aesthetics of them."

That was when a realization hit.

"Shit."

I got to my feet and ran my hands through my hair. I began to pick up why dress pants and jacket and looked through the pockets to see if my glasses were in there.

Reynard followed after me. "What? What happened?"

"My glasses, I don't know where they are."

"You can just get new ones, can't you?"

"You don't understand, I made them." I emptied out the inside pockets of my jacket and found nothing.

"You also made the watch but you weren't so upset about it."

"This is different."

"How?"

I frantically searched the ground in hopes that it fell somewhere while simultaneously avoiding Reynard's question.

I was about to crawl under Reynard's bed to search through everything and suddenly my body was no longer on the ground. Reynard had carried me and plopped me onto his bed so that I would stop the search. He looked me dead in the eye and had a slight frown on his face.

"Sheldon, you know everything about me," he said. "Could you tell me this one thing?"

"I told you plenty of things," I said. "My rivals, the union, my robotic planograms."

"Yeah, but you didn't tell me much about your home life before the streets or whatever you did in your room." He grabbed my hands and held them tightly. "Don't you trust me?"

I hesitated. Did I trust him? I've been with him for a year now. He helped me find an apartment and even helped me steal more hormone blockers when I ran out. He fed me. He comforted me. He made me feel important.

Of course, I trusted him.

I took a shaky breath.

"Okay, I'll explain it to you. I," I sighed. "There's a key mechanism in the glasses."

The more I explained to Reynard the more his eyes began to widen. I rambled for what felt like hours when in reality it was probably a few minutes and he leaned closer and closer as if it would help him listen more intensely.

"Sheldon," Reynard's grip tightened on my hands. He leaned in closer to the point that I thought he was going to kiss my anxiety away.

It almost felt like things were back to the way it was before. Me and him against the cold cruel world. The very cold world... When did it get so cold?

It dawned on me that we were no longer in the cramped apartment and that we were outside and the harsh wind took every chance it could get to graze every inch of my exposed skin.

Reynard's smile was crueler now as he gazed at me with opportunistic eyes.

"Thank you for telling me exactly what I needed to know."

All the heat left my body and I knew it wasn't just because we were outside now.

"How did you even plan this?" I choked out.

He laughed. "Nothing was planned, but I was very good with improv. If you took more notice, then you would've learned faster."

In one quick motion, he had my wrists bound with a flimsy piece of string to the fence behind me and I got a better look at where he transported us.

The top of an apartment complex it looked like but it wasn't his. It looked like it was further into the city judging by how many skyscrapers I could see. Reynard finished tying the knot and slapped the fence in satisfaction.

"This is a shitty job," I spat. "You couldn't get better rope?"

"I know this won't contain you for long but I don't need you dead. I just need you preoccupied."

Just as I lunged towards him, he disappeared just as quickly. I was going to scream but Reynard seemed to want to have the last word as pieces of my suit were thrown towards me.

The string snapped and I squeezed my eyes, feeling the tears threatening to leak again.

I wanted to fight someone.