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INTERLUDE
Psy is so bored.
He impassively gazes at the girl trying to scrape up the courage to break up with him, stumbling as she tries to put into words what he has read in her mind quite some time ago.
At this point, he would usually gently cut in, and tell her that he understands. But not this time. No, he is going to let her squirm.
He could have prevented this, of course.
Stephen had seen the growing attraction to someone else. And with just a few well-chosen actions he could have steered her away, either by making her so ecstatically happy she wouldn’t even think about another guy or by tugging at her guilt with a timely reminder of all the things he’d done for her.
He hadn’t. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t angry that she would actually cheat. He expected her to run into the guy’s arms after the breakup.
Occasional mistakes aside, there is not a single relationship in Psy’s life that he does not have complete control over. Tex is the closest thing to an equal he knows, but even he does not understand just how much of what Psy says and does is calculated.
It has to be.
PsyKick knows the people around him, intimately, and he has to keep track of who knows what, what secrets he’s actually been told and which ones he only heard in passing, and then he has to pretend like he doesn’t know these things and talk as if he isn’t engaging in an elaborate deception or everyone will get creeped out.
The only people who can possibly understand are other mindreaders, but he does not want to have to sequester himself away with his own kind. Not to mention that most of his kind are just… dicks.
Understanding the very concept of boundaries is nigh impossible when one violates it just by walking around. Respecting the opinion of a normal person as if it holds any sort of weight when one can change it on a whim can be difficult. Most psychics think the only real people in the world are other psychics, while the rest are more like barely sentient pets they can get to perform tricks for their entertainment, which is why most fall to villainy.
PsyKick does not want to be like them.
But sometimes he can’t help but feel that he has no true equals.
And nowhere is it more evident than with the girls he dates.
Psy is very, very good at pleasing women.
He knows the right words to defuse their anger, can anticipate their needs, knows exactly what they would and would not like.
He is the perfect boyfriend.
And that is exactly how they see him.
Stephen knows them so well, and they know him not at all. They never do see how much of a liar he really is.
It’s a vicious circle: The more he loves a woman, the more he wants to please her. How can he bring himself to say what he knows to be the wrong, hurtful thing when he sees clearly which words will bring joy and happiness? The more he pleases her, the less she sees him as an actual person, with his own flaws and issues and needs.
He falls for them so fast, too. There is no getting to know each other phase for him. He just knows them after looking at their minds, and if he ever catches a glimpse of a beautiful core he has been known to fall in love instantly.
Intimate contact makes him see their cores.
Which makes him a ridiculous caricature of That Girl who gets clingy after getting laid.
Of course, he can never actually tell them how much he loves them because that would be creepy on the second date.
The love they develop for him grows so goddamn slowly, and it’s never quite like he wants it because it always feels like he’s manipulating them into it. He could force them to love him back instantly, but no, he does it by slightly pulling a thousand different strings and, really, how is that any better?
Love at first sight fucking sucks.
He always grows frustrated with it, in the end, and initiates amicable breakups with a few choice words. Sometimes though, he doesn’t even need to set out to do it.
“It’s not you,” she stammers. “It’s me. And I know that sounds like a stupid line, but it’s true. You’ve been perfect.”
Yes, perfect.
It turns out people do not actually enjoy dating perfection.
It makes them feel inadequate.
***
Psy finally finds a quiet corner in the library where no one else is sitting.
He sighs in relief as the last voice slips out of his head and he cracks open the books his classes demand he read. So he plans to memorize them in their entirety, for which he needs silence. Psy gets along with the voices in his head just fine, blocking out all of them except the ones in closest proximity and he is quite good at ignoring those. But to truly have peace and quiet he needs a good fifteen feet of distance between himself and anyone else.
Stephen flips the pages and quickly scans the complicated formulas within. He gets about halfway through the book when he hears the scraping of a chair, and someone sitting down on the other side of the communal table.
He looks up with a scowl, a little annoyed that he’ll have to find a new table now, before he realizes he hadn’t heard her approach.
His eyes widen as he stares at the woman who is already deeply immersed in her own stack of book.
There is complete silence.
He can’t hear a thing.
Her long auburn hair is cascading over her shoulder, hiding her face from view since she is bent over her books.
“Hi,” he blurts out.
She looks up at him, seeming to resent the interruption of her studies. The fierce scowl on her face only makes her look cuter. He can’t help but notice that she has full and sensuous lips, as they are common for Latinas.
Stephen turns on his most charming smile.
She rolls her eyes at him and goes back to studying.
***
Her name is Constance and she is magical.
Literally.
Her mental shields are a product of magic.
She is aloof and mysterious, and eyes his pursuit of her with wariness.
Stephen has no idea how to get her to like him.
It. Is. Awesome.
***
Kissing her for the first time is like nothing he has ever felt before.
She is impossibly shy, trembling in his arms while she presses her closed lips to his. He coaxes her to open her mouth with his tongue, gently, just so she can get used to the sensation.
He suspects this may be her first kiss, ever.
Constance, being something of a genius, learns fast, and only a few minutes later she is moaning into his mouth, her usual aggressiveness asserting itself. When she pushes him to sit and climbs on top of him, growling against his lips, he can feel himself growing hard.
***
Getting to know Constance is an adventure. He peels back layer after layer, and likes what he sees.
Well, most of the time.
One day she proclaims that the best form of government is that of a cunning dictator working for the good of all.
Psy just about falls out of his chair.
He tries to explain that this is the kind of thinking that leads to people trying to take over the world.
That her response is “So?” worries him a little.
***
They start arguing.
A lot.
They debate every topic under the sun, and her perspective is so twisted, yet he always ends up stammering when trying to argue against it. Constance is just so goddamn smart that she dances rhetorical circles around him. And yet… she actually listens to what he has to say, considering his opinion carefully.
And one day she hesitantly admits that she has been raised by villains and looks up at him with wide, fearful eyes, like he’s going to leave her over it.
PsyKick isn’t exactly shocked at this point.
So he just kisses her and tells her that it doesn’t matter.
What matters is not the family you are born with, but the one you make for yourself.
***
Chrono Warden smiles shyly as he reaches for her hand, and he brings it to his lips for a kiss.
They are surrounded by defeated henchmen. It’s her first night as a hero, “just to see what you do, for empirical data”, and he can tell she likes it. Her magical abilities are both amazing and terrifying to behold. She could have grown to be a truly dangerous villain, and he can’t help the jolt of pride he feels knowing he has prevented that.
They make love that night for the very first time.
He is gentle, very gentle, as he pushes past her hymen, and he can see her gritting her teeth so he slows down even though he has wanted this for so long and he is out of his mind with desire for her. He kisses and teases and nibbles until she is panting with need and moaning his name and when he thrusts into her again, this time she cries out with pleasure.
And for one brief, wonderful moment he can see her core.
It’s as exquisite as he imagined it.
Her walls go up again and he is glad; he really, truly does not wish to see more than that. Psy knows she still hasn’t told him everything, but he’s okay with that.
He likes her secrets.
He will discover them in time.
***
PsyKick is so bored.
The straps around his wrists are too tight, and it’s uncomfortable. The nurse who fastened them is new. She needs to work on her restraining technique.
It’s a day like any other. He’s staring blankly at the ceiling of his room. His Purpose claws at him. He spent yesterday like this, and he will spend tomorrow like this.
There… hasn’t been a day that was different in quite some time.
His eyebrows furrow slightly.
How long since Tex’ last visit?
The next visit should be soon. He thinks. Tex doesn’t keep a regular schedule, so PsyKick can’t keep track, or know when to expect him. But it should be soon, yes. He never stays away for very long. He thinks. Every day is an eternity, so he can’t really judge what is short and what is long.
PsyKick has prepared his apology. Tex is being a horrible friend for keeping him in here, but PsyKick should not have said those things, so he will tell Tex how sorry he is. He was just so angry. Tex can’t help not understanding why keeping him in here is wrong. He’s never met PsyKick’s Mistress, and she has not shown him Purpose.
But once PsyKick escapes and gets his powers back, he will show Tex Purpose.
And then they will be family again.
He smiles at that thought.
But it’s very important that he apologizes, he has to remember that. Sometimes it’s a little hard to think, but he must remember that. He can’t jeopardize their friendship, not even to escape. If he destroys it, he can’t get it back, just like he can’t get back Dawn’s.
He yelled at her, a long time ago.
She hasn’t come back.
Yes, he could make Dawn his friend again with his powers and then show her Purpose, but it would not be the same. And it has to be the same.
But Tex is still his friend, so there’s that.
… Tex hasn’t come back in a long time.
And in a moment of perfect clarity PsyKick understands that Tex is never coming back.
He is…
Tex was the last.
Nobody is ever going to visit him again.
Not Tex.
Not Dawn.
Not Constance.
They are leaving him here to rot.
And the day PsyKick realizes that he is alone is the day he starts refusing to eat.
Of Heroes And Villains:
The Ties That Bind By Minikisa An assassin. A fallen hero. An unlikely meeting. The road to redemption is long and hard and filled with explosives. |
 |
Psy is so bored.
He impassively gazes at the girl trying to scrape up the courage to break up with him, stumbling as she tries to put into words what he has read in her mind quite some time ago.
At this point, he would usually gently cut in, and tell her that he understands. But not this time. No, he is going to let her squirm.
He could have prevented this, of course.
Stephen had seen the growing attraction to someone else. And with just a few well-chosen actions he could have steered her away, either by making her so ecstatically happy she wouldn’t even think about another guy or by tugging at her guilt with a timely reminder of all the things he’d done for her.
He hadn’t. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t angry that she would actually cheat. He expected her to run into the guy’s arms after the breakup.
Occasional mistakes aside, there is not a single relationship in Psy’s life that he does not have complete control over. Tex is the closest thing to an equal he knows, but even he does not understand just how much of what Psy says and does is calculated.
It has to be.
PsyKick knows the people around him, intimately, and he has to keep track of who knows what, what secrets he’s actually been told and which ones he only heard in passing, and then he has to pretend like he doesn’t know these things and talk as if he isn’t engaging in an elaborate deception or everyone will get creeped out.
The only people who can possibly understand are other mindreaders, but he does not want to have to sequester himself away with his own kind. Not to mention that most of his kind are just… dicks.
Understanding the very concept of boundaries is nigh impossible when one violates it just by walking around. Respecting the opinion of a normal person as if it holds any sort of weight when one can change it on a whim can be difficult. Most psychics think the only real people in the world are other psychics, while the rest are more like barely sentient pets they can get to perform tricks for their entertainment, which is why most fall to villainy.
PsyKick does not want to be like them.
But sometimes he can’t help but feel that he has no true equals.
And nowhere is it more evident than with the girls he dates.
Psy is very, very good at pleasing women.
He knows the right words to defuse their anger, can anticipate their needs, knows exactly what they would and would not like.
He is the perfect boyfriend.
And that is exactly how they see him.
Stephen knows them so well, and they know him not at all. They never do see how much of a liar he really is.
It’s a vicious circle: The more he loves a woman, the more he wants to please her. How can he bring himself to say what he knows to be the wrong, hurtful thing when he sees clearly which words will bring joy and happiness? The more he pleases her, the less she sees him as an actual person, with his own flaws and issues and needs.
He falls for them so fast, too. There is no getting to know each other phase for him. He just knows them after looking at their minds, and if he ever catches a glimpse of a beautiful core he has been known to fall in love instantly.
Intimate contact makes him see their cores.
Which makes him a ridiculous caricature of That Girl who gets clingy after getting laid.
Of course, he can never actually tell them how much he loves them because that would be creepy on the second date.
The love they develop for him grows so goddamn slowly, and it’s never quite like he wants it because it always feels like he’s manipulating them into it. He could force them to love him back instantly, but no, he does it by slightly pulling a thousand different strings and, really, how is that any better?
Love at first sight fucking sucks.
He always grows frustrated with it, in the end, and initiates amicable breakups with a few choice words. Sometimes though, he doesn’t even need to set out to do it.
“It’s not you,” she stammers. “It’s me. And I know that sounds like a stupid line, but it’s true. You’ve been perfect.”
Yes, perfect.
It turns out people do not actually enjoy dating perfection.
It makes them feel inadequate.
Psy finally finds a quiet corner in the library where no one else is sitting.
He sighs in relief as the last voice slips out of his head and he cracks open the books his classes demand he read. So he plans to memorize them in their entirety, for which he needs silence. Psy gets along with the voices in his head just fine, blocking out all of them except the ones in closest proximity and he is quite good at ignoring those. But to truly have peace and quiet he needs a good fifteen feet of distance between himself and anyone else.
Stephen flips the pages and quickly scans the complicated formulas within. He gets about halfway through the book when he hears the scraping of a chair, and someone sitting down on the other side of the communal table.
He looks up with a scowl, a little annoyed that he’ll have to find a new table now, before he realizes he hadn’t heard her approach.
His eyes widen as he stares at the woman who is already deeply immersed in her own stack of book.
There is complete silence.
He can’t hear a thing.
Her long auburn hair is cascading over her shoulder, hiding her face from view since she is bent over her books.
“Hi,” he blurts out.
She looks up at him, seeming to resent the interruption of her studies. The fierce scowl on her face only makes her look cuter. He can’t help but notice that she has full and sensuous lips, as they are common for Latinas.
Stephen turns on his most charming smile.
She rolls her eyes at him and goes back to studying.
Her name is Constance and she is magical.
Literally.
Her mental shields are a product of magic.
She is aloof and mysterious, and eyes his pursuit of her with wariness.
Stephen has no idea how to get her to like him.
It. Is. Awesome.
Kissing her for the first time is like nothing he has ever felt before.
She is impossibly shy, trembling in his arms while she presses her closed lips to his. He coaxes her to open her mouth with his tongue, gently, just so she can get used to the sensation.
He suspects this may be her first kiss, ever.
Constance, being something of a genius, learns fast, and only a few minutes later she is moaning into his mouth, her usual aggressiveness asserting itself. When she pushes him to sit and climbs on top of him, growling against his lips, he can feel himself growing hard.
Getting to know Constance is an adventure. He peels back layer after layer, and likes what he sees.
Well, most of the time.
One day she proclaims that the best form of government is that of a cunning dictator working for the good of all.
Psy just about falls out of his chair.
He tries to explain that this is the kind of thinking that leads to people trying to take over the world.
That her response is “So?” worries him a little.
They start arguing.
A lot.
They debate every topic under the sun, and her perspective is so twisted, yet he always ends up stammering when trying to argue against it. Constance is just so goddamn smart that she dances rhetorical circles around him. And yet… she actually listens to what he has to say, considering his opinion carefully.
And one day she hesitantly admits that she has been raised by villains and looks up at him with wide, fearful eyes, like he’s going to leave her over it.
PsyKick isn’t exactly shocked at this point.
So he just kisses her and tells her that it doesn’t matter.
What matters is not the family you are born with, but the one you make for yourself.
Chrono Warden smiles shyly as he reaches for her hand, and he brings it to his lips for a kiss.
They are surrounded by defeated henchmen. It’s her first night as a hero, “just to see what you do, for empirical data”, and he can tell she likes it. Her magical abilities are both amazing and terrifying to behold. She could have grown to be a truly dangerous villain, and he can’t help the jolt of pride he feels knowing he has prevented that.
They make love that night for the very first time.
He is gentle, very gentle, as he pushes past her hymen, and he can see her gritting her teeth so he slows down even though he has wanted this for so long and he is out of his mind with desire for her. He kisses and teases and nibbles until she is panting with need and moaning his name and when he thrusts into her again, this time she cries out with pleasure.
And for one brief, wonderful moment he can see her core.
It’s as exquisite as he imagined it.
Her walls go up again and he is glad; he really, truly does not wish to see more than that. Psy knows she still hasn’t told him everything, but he’s okay with that.
He likes her secrets.
He will discover them in time.
PsyKick is so bored.
The straps around his wrists are too tight, and it’s uncomfortable. The nurse who fastened them is new. She needs to work on her restraining technique.
It’s a day like any other. He’s staring blankly at the ceiling of his room. His Purpose claws at him. He spent yesterday like this, and he will spend tomorrow like this.
There… hasn’t been a day that was different in quite some time.
His eyebrows furrow slightly.
How long since Tex’ last visit?
The next visit should be soon. He thinks. Tex doesn’t keep a regular schedule, so PsyKick can’t keep track, or know when to expect him. But it should be soon, yes. He never stays away for very long. He thinks. Every day is an eternity, so he can’t really judge what is short and what is long.
PsyKick has prepared his apology. Tex is being a horrible friend for keeping him in here, but PsyKick should not have said those things, so he will tell Tex how sorry he is. He was just so angry. Tex can’t help not understanding why keeping him in here is wrong. He’s never met PsyKick’s Mistress, and she has not shown him Purpose.
But once PsyKick escapes and gets his powers back, he will show Tex Purpose.
And then they will be family again.
He smiles at that thought.
But it’s very important that he apologizes, he has to remember that. Sometimes it’s a little hard to think, but he must remember that. He can’t jeopardize their friendship, not even to escape. If he destroys it, he can’t get it back, just like he can’t get back Dawn’s.
He yelled at her, a long time ago.
She hasn’t come back.
Yes, he could make Dawn his friend again with his powers and then show her Purpose, but it would not be the same. And it has to be the same.
But Tex is still his friend, so there’s that.
… Tex hasn’t come back in a long time.
And in a moment of perfect clarity PsyKick understands that Tex is never coming back.
He is…
Tex was the last.
Nobody is ever going to visit him again.
Not Tex.
Not Dawn.
Not Constance.
They are leaving him here to rot.
And the day PsyKick realizes that he is alone is the day he starts refusing to eat.
Comments
This Interlude...It. Is. Awesome.
Okay, couldn't resist borrowing that line. (smiles)
I love your writing. You do a perfect job of conveying so much emotion and thought with so few words.
I was hoping we would get to see some of the past with PsyKick and Constance.
Thank you for another awesome chapter.
Cicero2K
'Otium cum dignitate'
It is.
I normally prefer the normal chapters to the interludes, since I really want to know what happens, but this interlude was particularly great. Probably the best chapter of the series thus far.
I like these interludes
this one was painful, but it shows some important parts of Psy
Another enticing little bit of background.....
I love the way you use these interludes to fill in the back story. I makes the main story so much more real. It fleshes out the characters and makes them much more whole.
So Steven has only ever really had one woman that he couldn't read and control - perhaps this is another reason why he and Radiance are so attracted to each other. He can't use his power on her, so he has to rely on his feelings and his real persona to relate to her. I'm sure that somewhere in there this is just a small contributing factor to the attraction he has developed for her.
Dallas
D. Eden
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
Head games
I mentored earlier that having a mind reader in a story is always very interesting, and this is an exceptional example. I like how we get to see some of Psy's... I don't know if vindictive would be the right word, but let's go with that... Psy's vindictive side as he lets the girl struggle with breaking up with him.
-Tas
Cunning dictator working for the good of all.
True that.