Whipped - Drake Merwin x OC

A Fool's Paradise

~~36 hours, 37 minutes~~COATES~~~~~

"Drake's been gone for two days," Diana pointed out, tactfully not mentioning Lily. "We need to look at what we have here."
"I'm busy," Caine snapped.

They stood on the front lawn of Coates, supervising an effort to repair the hole caused by the earlier power struggle. Caine teleported bricks, a few at a time, up to where Mallet and Norman, the new kid they'd picked up, were attempting to cement them in place.

To say Norman Jacobe was weird was, at best, a vast understatement.
Norman was an odd, lanky kid, practically rat-looking. He seemed like an easy target for a bully- greasy, dyed, purple hair, dark and soulless eyes, and a way of walking all hunched over that made him seem to disappear into himself.
They'd taken him in after Diana had found him lurking near the main building, muttering about plants and poisons, and decided to keep him.
His talent, though, clearly did not lie in structure.

"We need to make some kind of deal with...with the townies," Diana said.

"Townies. Carefully avoiding having to say 'Sam'. Or 'your brother'."

"OK. You caught me," Diana sighed. "We have to make some kind of deal with your brother, Sam. They still have food. We are running out."

Caine made a show of being distracted as he levitated another stack of bricks out through the front door of the school and up to first floor, where Mallet and Norman dodged the arriving load.

"I'm getting better at this," Caine said. "I'm gaining control. Precision."

"Goody for you."

Caine's shoulders sagged. "You know, you could occasionally show some support. You know how I feel about you. But all you ever do is bust me."

"What do you want to do, get married?"

Caine reddened, and Diana erupted in an unusually loud laugh. "You get that we're fourteen, right? I mean, I know you think you're the Napoleon of the FAYZ, but we're still kids."

"Age is relative. I'm one of the oldest people in the FAYZ. And the most powerful."

Diana bit her tongue. She had a smart-ass answer ready, but she had tweaked Caine enough for one day. She had bigger issues to deal with than Caine's puppy love.
And that's all it was.
Caine wasn't capable of real love, the deep kind, the kind that would grow over time.

"Of course, neither am I," Diana muttered.

"What?"

"Nothing." She watched Caine as he worked. Not what he was doing, but the boy himself. He was the most charismatic person she'd ever known. He could have been a rock star. And clearly he thought he was in love with her. It was the reason he tolerated her impertinence.

She supposed she liked him. They had been attracted to each other almost from the start. They had been friends...no, that wasn't quite the word. Accomplices. Yes, that would do: accomplices. They had been accomplices since Caine had discovered his powers.

She had been the first person he showed. He had knocked a book off the table from across the room.
She'd been the one who encouraged him to work at it, develop it, practise in secret. Each time he reached some new level, he would show it off for her. And when she showed even the slightest kindness towards him, a word of praise, an admiring nod, even, he would puff up and seem to shine with some reflected light.