Rafi: Building a family (Part I)
Chapter XXXII – A Sort of Honeymoon

A step inside, Rafi looked all around the room. It was bigger than he had expected, perhaps the size of the whole of the living area of his apartment, really. The far wall held a window that was obscured with drawn blinds and a door led from the room to what looked like it would be a bathroom and another. To his left, where that door lie, the wall was dominated by a closet. It's outside was a series of three mirrors that slid behind one another to allow access within. Across the room from that was a tall and wide bed, flanked by tall end tables of light wood that were topped by the lamps that lit the room and covered by a beautiful cream comforter with a gentle floral pattern on it. On one of the end tables, a tall glass pitcher of ice water rest on a small plate with two empty glasses alongside it. Along with the new linens, it seemed Damon had thought of everything.

His jaw dropped as he regarded the room’s apparent rich and stylish environment. He knew that Damon was wealthy, and the house’s size suggested that there’ll be big rooms and all that, but this still surprised him a bit. He was accustomed to smaller places during his whole life, even his own loft was new and seemed big at first - until it began to be tighter and tighter, considering the inhabitants, at first Carm, then his sister and finally, but not at least May. A movement pulled him out from the thinking and he looked down at the girl who he still held in his arms.

May looked up into his eyes and smiled. Her own, those beautiful blue orbs that captivated him so, were hooded with desire.

Rafi smiled back at her, it was mesmerizing how she did it, lying in his embrace with her hair falling on his skin as he kept her. His own eyes reflected the love and wish in her eyes, being misty with all the emotions and thoughts what flowed and burned in him at that moment.

He joked about wedding, Damon and the others did joke about honeymoon suite, but just like his first night with Carmilla, in the empty loft, only the two of them was wonderful and a happening never to forget, this scene seemed imaginary. Their rings glittered in the soft lights of the room, perhaps with some might by themselves, powered by their love. He wondered for a moment if Carm’s ring sparkles together with this two, far in the hospital, and what the staff said noticing that.

"I hope you really didn't plan on getting any sleep," she said, as Rasgar loped past them both into the dark bathroom--already getting started on the night's explorations. And as she did it, it seemed as if the energy that had been drained from her only a few moments before had suddenly reappeared from out of nowhere.

It was right then that he realized...in the future, they knew how to play possum quite well.

Rafi raised a brow as he watched her change and pulled his head to the side to look at her from a bit more distance. He smiled, though, and that revealed everything what needed.

"'Cause this looks like the perfect place for a sort of honeymoon."

And she shot him a little wink of one of her beautiful blue eyes, confirming the notion.

“Well,” he began deadpanning, “actually I could fall asleep right in this spot, but I think a quick shower might help to stay awake...,” he let the end trail off as he walked deeper into the room, nearing the bathroom, never once moving his stare from the girl’s eyes.

May reached up around Rafi's neck, encircling it in her strong arms in such a way as to lift herself slightly upward and, in that way, pull herself closer to his face. When she was but an inch away, her eyes never once, still, leaving his, only then did she respond. "I'd shower in a river of molten lava," she said, with no humor in her voice whatsoever, "if that's what it took to be with you." And then, bridged the remained of the gap between the two of them until her hips touched his. In was only a brevity of a thing, like the brush of a rosepetal whisper upon him, but it resonated within him like thunder.

He stopped in mid-step, to balance himself against the shiver what came over him by that statement and the soft touch of her velvet lips. The image what it painted to his mind’s canvas was both terrible and beautiful; a young man trapped on a small rock while molten lava flew around it, slowly eating away his land. Not far from him there was another rock, on that a lithe girl, with glimmering blue eyes, who reached out to him but could not touch each other. 

They stared at each other for long, and then, at the same time, just like they had some silent agreement began to wade into the river of molten rock to be together. The lava swirled around their heels, then knees until it reached their wait but did not burn the pair. Their love was so strong what the blood of the Earth, flowing forth from its heart accepted it and allowed them to be reach the other half of them, until finally they embraced and formed another small isle in the lava-river.

The image was so vivid, the end so placid that he couldn’t say a word for a few moments. “I’d do the same for you, indeed,” he nodded and when his head reached the end of the movement he moved even further, until he reached her lips with his and began to kiss her deeply and passionately. He had to stop his walking at the entrance of the bathroom, slowly descending May to the floor, but not allowing her to move from the wall, but pushing her to it gently, while his hands began to explore her body over her clothes.

He could her her whimper and then sigh beneath the weight of his kiss. May's fingers spread wide, then moved slowly downward, tracing the contours of his chest and shoulders, bringing waves of heat and pleasure with them every inch of the way. As they continued to kiss, breathing with one another, heads gently moving to and fro to the silent symphony the alchemy of their desire created, Rafi's hands sought out the perfect curves of her body. As he pressed her to the wall, they mirrored one another: He started just below his arms, as she did his--then ran down the sensitive skin at his sides, as he did hers. It took him a moment before he realized that he was no longer supporting her weight...and still, she hung in place.

Rafi pulled back a moment. And there was May, her chest heaving as she tried to catch her breath--her feet off the floor and back flat to the ground. Suspended in strict defiance of gravity as if she were on an amusement park ride, as if she were nailed there, like the most beautiful picture in the world. her blue eyes seemed to twinkle as she giggled gently, like the two of them were sharing a private door. And stuck to the painted wall like her namesake spider, she didn't move at all.

The young man chuckled along and regarded her with such a glare that almost stripped off her clothes only by the strength of it. He reached out and traced her contours on the wall before he moved his long and gentle fingers above her body, barely touching her, more caressing than actually feeling. “Wondrous,” he breathed quietly, when he reached the side of her small breasts, tracing around them up, until he looked into her eyes again, fearing that its only a dream, and she isn’t exist in reality.

No, all she did was reach back out, touching a single finger to Rafi's chest. And when she drew it back, he followed it into her embrace as if she had reeled him in with a steel cable, attached to an invisible motorized winch. And she kissed him anew, more passionately than even before. Her hands found the flat of his stomach and spread down to his hips...then back around to explore the curves of his backside. He could hear her purr with delight as she did it.

Relieved even from her small weight, he could push his body to hers more, his hip closing on hers, while his right palm stroked through her hair at her nape, slightly pulling her head, while his other hand gripper her taut bottom, as he responded to her kiss more forcefully.

Pausing to break from his lips again. "Spider-Girl, Spider-Girl..." she said in a sing-song way--just as Kyle had, back in Germany--before she resumed their kiss once again.

This time, of course...the circumstances were quite a bit different.

The thought of Kyle’s foreseeing flashed through his mind for the briefest instant, but then everything was washed away by her lips on his and her heart hammering in union with his...

It took some time until they parted, gasping for breath and staring at each other with almost glowing eyes, reddened lips and shocked hair. Rafi was the one who pulled back slowly, reluctantly, as he entered into the room to prepare for the night. After a days adventuring, being dusted in a vent and such things, he wanted to be clean and perfect for their night, and once his mind settled on that, the thought came back again and again. 

“Lets clean us up, ok?”, he asked with a sly smile on his lips, still wet from May’s. “Would you help to wash my back?” he asked as he began to strip off, planning on simply letting fall each piece of clothes into the floor before stepping under the shower.

The way in which she chuckled promised much, that night. "I'll wash more than your back, tiger," she whispered, before she watched him put his hands to the bottom of his shirt. She stopped him with a hand, gently lain upon his wrist.

Rafi bit his lower lip and tilted his head raising a brow. It sounded like a promise and that awakened another dose of desire in him.

"No," she said. Looking up into his eyes with her penetrating sapphire stare. "Let me."

Rafi swallowed hard and let his hands fall to the side of his body, while his breathing remained slow and deep, as he fought with his longing and with his body, to remain calm for a while yet.

And her hands fell to the edge of his shirt, where she took it and slowly began lifting it up above his head, revealing his dark skin for her eyes, alone. "I've always wanted to do this," she admitted, her voice a whisper as she looked upon him, freezing the sight of the curves and angles of his firm, hard body like she meant to photograph the moment with her memory--creating a forever-keepsake for herself. "With the right guy, at the right time. The right time is now," she said, as she got it over his head, discarding it to the floor.

Blue eyes, twinkling in the half-light.

"And you're definitely the right guy."

“And you’re the perfect girl,” smiled at her the young, reaching out to repeat her movement, but now he doing it with her shirt. Slowly, barely touching her skin, only when he wanted it, like a gentle and teasing reminder of what awaits to them, once they’ll touch by their naked skin on as much area as it is possible.

Rafi lifted May's shirt above her head, revealing a dark sports bra beneath the fabric. The black material was such a contrast against her pale skin that it was striking in and of itself. But as he reached out to touch it, he realized that it was made of some kind of synthetic neoprene analogue, something that reminded him of Kevlar for its texture. Perhaps it was S.H.I.E.L.D. issue, he mused. It might even be bulletproof.

But the fabric of that bra wasn’t that important, that what it hid and how wonderful it looked on her white skin, contrasting and emphasizing her breasts. He paused for a moment, the shirt covering her head to admire her form and even placed a quick kiss at the top of that bra, touching her softly with his lips, even licking her velvet skin shortly, right at the small swale where the collarbones joined.

She lifted her arms skyward, allowing him to take the shirt from her completely. It drifted down to the carpeted floor like a diaphanous feather, forgotten, in the moment. Rafi watched her take a single finger, placing it at the top of the strange undergarment, just at the point where it plunged into the center of her cleavage. The touch of her finger there somehow disjoined it, creating a small seam where there was none before, straight downward. "You just peel it apart," May whispered, looking into his eyes the whole time she said it. "It reseals itself when the ends touch again."

He swallowed, and maintained the eye contact as he reached out, grabbed the two parts of the bra, slowly but firmly pulling it away. Once the two side of the garment were far enough, he changed the position of his hands, sliding them under it, and peeling it with his wrist while his fingers stroked her chest, breasts until the bra opened up fully, revealing everything underneath.

May watched him perform the act, her sapphire eyes smoldering with the slow heat of her rising desire and the pitched intensity of the moment. Her gaze slowly traced downward from Rafi’s, down the length of his arms and finally to his fingers, the strange material separating beneath his touch. The firm weight of her breasts in the palms of his hands was amazing, her skin taut and youthful; he suppressed an electric shiver as the dark neo-fabric yielded for him.

The young tattooist breathed slow and hot, as his own desire rose with the act, too. To hold her in his palms in this way was a thing he wanted to do since she called him lover at the entrance of his parlor. At first he wanted only feel her with his sensible fingers, and watch the expressions on her face, but then he couldn’t resist to follow her gaze back at her chest, and watch what his skin conveyed to him.

The act slid the two straps of it from her shoulders and down to her elbows. It allowed him to gaze upon her for the first time in a truly intimate sense. And what he saw simply took his breath away. May’s breasts were not overly large but perfectly-formed. Full and taut and youthful, they had a gentle up-turn to their weight that made them seem disaffected by the pull of gravity, even with her bra removed. The small, stiff buds of her nipples and aereolae were a bright pink and she had a small smattering of tiny freckles that ran between them, trickling off as they widened until they disappeared at the top of her chest. There, she was flushed, a rich blush that extended up to her cheeks as Rafi’s eyes rose upwards again and beheld them. She offered him a shy little smile as if to offer a hope that they were enough for him.

He paused there, holding her in his palms gently, unmoving for a moment, before he leaned up to her again, kissing her on the lips, and with the same movement he pulled the bra to her back, freeing her hands from it, until he could discard that too. Only then moved he so close that their chest touched in the kiss, their hearts beating the same rhythm, before retreating again, to gather some breath.

“You’re truly beautiful, my lovely spider,” he whispered breathlessly, still holding her so close that her bosoms were crushed on his chest. “I wanted you since our morning...”, he went on... “but this is more than I could imagine...”, he added in a throaty, lush voice, and leant a bit back, to get some distance and look at her again, committing the wonderful view into his memory forever.

Rafi could feel the heat of her nipples, pressed against his bare chest, and their amazing texture, soft and giving and yet taut and firm, make his heart seem to beat faster than he could control, just beneath where they touched him. “God, I wanted you since…” May began to admit before needing a moment to gather her breath and thoughts, threatening to run breakaway as the passion of the moment grew all the more heady and wild. “Since Carmilla showed me your picture…last Fall.”

“Last Fall?” opened wide Rafi’s eyes as it took a few moments until he could clear his head enough to count after it. “But how?” he asked her, searching after the answer in her eyes, both hoping that she will remain silent and simply kiss back and that she’ll reveal the story behind this confession. But she’ll talk, he decided, she talks too much when she is at sea, he knew and smiled at her, punctuating the question with another kiss at the tip of her nose.

The kiss was enough. She said not another word of last Fall or its implication of crisp leaves, orange and brown and red, tumbling gently to ground in the legacies of brisk and chill October winds. Instead, she lifted her head, slowly tracing the kiss at the delicate curve of her nose along the side of his cheek. She whispered no more of Autumn's secrets, continuing on her lazy orbit across the side of his dark features, punctuating the measure with a slow kiss of his lips in the heart of Winter, instead. He could taste her, something that reminded him of sweet pear and magic; he shared her breathing as their tongues danced gracefully within the gesture. The mystery would remain.

She fixed him with her perfect blue eyes, their pure and sparkling quality seem to make her pale skin china and her dark auburn hair the color of the deepest, sweetest wine he’d ever tasted. “You were so beautiful,” she remembered. “I remembered her showing me that picture…and I just changed the subject, at first. I couldn’t say anything. I didn’t dare say anything. I couldn’t…I couldn’t tell her that I thought you were the most amazing guy I’d ever seen in my life…that I wanted you even then.”

The guy blushed and it was visible even through his love- and kiss-heated skin from this praise. He was handsome, he knew that about himself; he was vain enough for that, but he handled that like everything else in connection with himself – modestly. He never thought that he is more than anyone else because of that, it was only a gift from Mother Nature and from his parents through their genes. The girl’s words flattered him, but to his credit he kept silent, waiting her to finish what she wants. All he did to hold her close and stroke her backside, from shoulder to bottom, with gentle palm-sweeps, both to assure her and to keep the flame of love high even during the talk.

“When she put it away, later,” she confessed, “I snuck into her locker and looked at it again. I just…I just wanted to see you one more time, try and remember what you looked like. I thought if I could never have a guy like that…I’d just have that memory, y’know? I guess that was really why I did what I did at the door,” she said. “It was my way of maybe pretending you were mine--even if I was the only one that knew it.”

So he knew now why and how it happened, and why she reacted like a schoolgirl after her first kiss, laughing embarrassedly the tension away, Rafi remembered to that scene. The memory made him smile lazily and his eyes sparkled with love what he found in his heart, now equally filled for Carm and May, then nodded in understanding. “It was perfect, and it began there for me...”

May blushed deeply for the admission. “I never imagined…” she started, smiling awkwardly, before finishing, “that it could be real, y’know? That we’d actually be here. You, in my arms, holding me like you are--kissing me like you are. Mine.”

“But here you are,” she smiled, kissing him with the sweetest passion. “And here I am.”

Rafi responded the kiss with the same feelings, their lips and tongues moving in unison, breathing through their skin because there was no other way to do that. It lasted long, before they parted to get more air, lips moist and eyes twinkling in the van light of suite. He pulled her left hand between them, holding it with his own left one, the rings touching and placing a soft kiss on their touching surface. “As long we live... and after.”

And Rafi watched her gaze over the surface of his chest, reaching out once more to trace its dark curves and contours with her fingertips, spread wide, as if she were trying to soak in as much of his texture as humanly possible. Drowning herself in the sensation of his nearness. Still stuck to the wall, she leaned forward and touched the gentlest of kisses upon his neck. A subtle shift of her hips allowed her to continue downward, trailing a succession of rosepetal-soft affections down the pulse in his throat. He felt her flick her tongue across the ridge of his collarbone when she reached its union with his torso, sending an electric chill of unknown pleasures up his spine.

Without his T-shirt, the jade jaguar tattoo was clearly visible over his heart, on his chest. It was strongly lined, perfect and so living like it’d step off from it. And so it did, a day ago, when Rasgar crossed the long way between the Dreamland and this reality, to join his master along his work, building a new home in Elysium City. On his back, at the right shoulderblade, there was a similarly outworked gryphon, though that was evident that it was made earlier, as the style was a bit more naïve and cartoon-like. Squarely with that, on the left shoulderblade a bird flew, drawn in tribal style, like the most of his tatts.

His left shoulder was patched by an old Mayan glyph, a greenish-yellow square, with rounded edges. It had spot like eyes and a mouth, and its left half was covered a small-holed net. On the other shoulder, he had a small tribal moon.

May traced her fingers over each one in turn with infinite care. “They’re beautiful,” she said, her fingers on his flesh warm and soft. And leaned down in a manner that seemed to defy gravity with her incredible sense of balance and body control to kiss the image of the Jaguar.

Rafi closed his eyes, hanging onto her side and waist as he leaned a bit backward by the sensation, and felt goosebumps coming alive all over his skin. His torso was hairless, inherited from an unknown ancestor or by his mutation, but that he found good. And that made the girl’s touch even more sensible, as her fingers traced his chest, founding every rib and the spaces between, forcing him to shiver repeatedly.

"Maybe this is where I should tell you, tiger," she whispered into his ear, her hands curling around the small of his back once more, tucking themselves into the waistband of his pants to feel the curve of his body where his backside began. "I've never done this before." Another kiss just below the ear, punctuated with a tap of her tongue on the lobe, as if she were scripting an I love you across his body, dotting the I with the act.

Rafi held his breath, as the revelation sunk into his mind, and glanced sideways at her, his jade brow rising upward slightly. Another sweet symmetry between Carm and May, which lifted their love in him and his in them into a higher plane - they both gave their virginity to him.

“Precious gift what you’ll share with me, love,” he whispered back into her ears, what were right before his mouth as he moved back his head and coiled her earlobe between his lips, gently crumbling it, then biting on it once before he pulled back to look into her eyes. His hands stroked her side and back meanwhile, never once stopping moving, fingertips, fingers, palms sliding all over her skin slowly.

She breathed out a gentle moan in response to his attentions. It might have been meant to have actually been a word, once, but had been reduced to a whispered murmuring with the tracing of her body’s curves and contours. A thought that had been drowned in the undertow of sensation and desire.

He could feel her hands work to unbuckle his belt, thumbs deftly opening the top of his pants, though they trembled gently with every move. Never once did she stop gazing into his eyes. Her sapphire gaze, infinite, as where the sea meets the sky on a distant horizon. He could fall into their depths forever and it would still never be enough. "But I want to," she whispered.

"With you."

“Thank you,” he smiled at her lovingly, whispering like her, voice low and lush; while he trembled at her touch, and felt his body responding eagerly to May’s touches and kisses. “I want you to be with me until the sky falls to the earth, and then only your eyes will held its blue, looking at me - and Carm - like this forever.”

She murmured into the last of the kisses, fingers weaving their way in through the thickness of Rafi’s dark green hair, until she held him by the back of his head. “An artist,” she said, then had to stop to reclaim her breath once again, “and a poet, too. You’re so beautiful, Rafael. So beautiful….”

“Only when I have a muse with me...”, he whispered back, shivering by the experience of being pulled away by his hair. It was just randy enough to fan the flames in him even more.

She stroked his face with the side of her cheek, something that stoked that flame even higher within him as the texture of her skin slid across the bare of the side of his neck. “Mmmmm…” she purred, kissing his shoulder when she arrived there. “I don’t think so. I think it’s all inside you. But I’ll stick around anyway, just in case,” she said, nibbling gently at the sensitive skin of his throat, something that made him draw back a deep breath and hold it seemingly interminably. The shivers returned anew with the sensation. “I’ll stay every bit as long as you’ll have me, tiger.”

He leaned back a bit, to allow more space for her to touch, while his hands stroked all what he could reach, her side, tracing every rib with his fingers, her bosoms, massaging and squeezing them gently, even pinching the nibbles carefully. “I’ll never have enough of you, May. You’re way too wonderful for that...,” he said quietly, finally looking at her, “and I love you, too,” he added at last in a silent whisper as he rose back to neck her.

Then, Rafi watched her slip down the surface of the wall. Still stuck to it by the flat of her back, it was as if she were on a completely vertical slide, only stopping when her feet touched down on the ground. At first, he wasn’t quite sure what she was doing; when she grasped the open ends of the top of his pants, he understood. He watched her begin to take them from the width of his hips and ease them down around his legs. But he had other ideas.

With a tilt of his hips, like a dance move, he allowed his pants to slide down on his legs, then he stepped out from it. Then he reached under her bottom, his fingers clinging at it, like creeping ivy to the stone fence, as he pulled her from there; “Come,” gently nudging her to let leave wall, and allow him to walk into the bathroom.

When he pulled her from her position on the wall, she left with an audible, but quiet popping noise that could not help but make him smile to himself. Deftly, with a grace that might have even impressed Lise, she set down almost en poine, standing straight once more. She put her hands down and laced her fingers with her lover’s. “Okay,” she said, smiling gently. He caught her gazing down to his waist, where he wore but his underwear and socks; now, it was his turn to blush a bit.

Rafi sighed and took the first step away from her, to the direction of the bathroom, but it was one of his hardest decision is his life. After such a sensual beginning, he began to think that perhaps the bathing wasn’t as important as to reach the bed before they fall into each other... but then he closed his eyes, shivered again as goosebumps ran over him, and when he opened his jade eyes again, he pulled her with him.

The two of them walked into the bathroom in that way, together. It was a lovely affair of dark woods and marble, with an expansive bath and beautiful gold-gilt mirror, but neither of them honestly paid it much attention. The time to appreciate Damon’s home would come sometime in the morning. For now, the world consisted of precious little anything but one another. There was simply no room in their hearts for much more.

May turned to face Rafi once more, in the center of the room, there upon the beautiful white tile. She kissed him once, a small, soft thing, placed directly upon his lips. And then she continued to shower him with identical affections, trailing them down the length of his neck…down the ridge of his shoulderblades and the top of his chest. He could feel her hands on his back, plunging slowly with fingers spread wide, down the muscular contours, across the ridge of his ribs and finally to its small. All the while, she descended, kissing down his stomach and past his navel…only finally stopping just at the top of the band of his underwear. Her path had brought her lower and lower, until finally, she was no longer standing, but squatting before him.

Rafi was speechless as he enjoyed her kisses and soft touches on his body, the expectations about her goal making him take long measured breaths to avoid falling to the floor like a pile of boneless meat. He gazed down at her, his eyes shone brighter even in the light of the room, as he traced her contours while she bent down, stroking every bit of her skin what was exposed to his finger – and that was much, thanks to their removed tops.

She looked up the length of his dark body, seemingly a dizzying height above herself. He could feel her fingers curl in the top of the elastic, testing its quality. He could feel his pulse, jackhammering in his ears.

Blue eyes shimmered in the bathroom light.

“Can I?” she asked. But didn’t let him answer.

Pulling them down his legs, as an answer of her own.

Rafi’s young body showed his perfect health, throbbing heavily as his muscles strained while he stood there, with the girl before him. He wanted her so much that he felt his heart racing like a wild train, pumping the blood around in his veins, yet somehow making his vision blurry and his breath staccato. 

May turned her head and leaned forward, laying it at the base of his stomach while encircling his hips with her arms. It was in that way that she held herself close to him, at his feet, something honest and unabashed, heartfelt and unpracticed. “Here I am,” she whispered, before looking up to him with her heartbreakingly beautiful blue eyes. She shivered all the while through the gesture. “Here I am.”

He reached down to pull her up and press her to him while he kissed her deep, exploring her mouth playing with her tongue. Then he broke the kiss, mimicking her earlier move, slowly sloping before her, kissing his way down, gently licking here and there, pausing at both her nipples, sucking and biting them just as hard to cause pleasure but not harm. His hands found her panties pulling it down, just like she did with his.

She closed her eyes tightly, arching her back to offer herself to him, moaning deeply as he cupped her breasts…deeper still as he began to kiss and suckle at them. Rafi could not help but smile in pride as he felt the gooseflesh rise to the surface of the very skin he ministered upon, watching her chest heave with breath though the pleasure he brought her. He could feel her fingers running through his hair, the edge of her nails gently digging into his scalp as she breathed and murmured little exhalations that he could not understand in the slightest and yet seemed to mean everything in the world at once.

Those were the words he said when she kissed him, calling forth shivers from the very core of him, the words of every lover in the world, never understandable but always understood. The purest sensation of the humanity ever, the love was around them, within them, as they caressed each other; giving into the feeling everything what composed their soul and body, without any restraint or back-thought. And then Rafi continued his way down, sweeping on her stomach with his palms, then his chin and nose, occasionally licking and snogging in between.

Her panties were small bits of silk, connected at her hips by little more than bits of string, tied into twin bows. White, they bore a pattern on little hearts with smiley-faces on them. Too, they made him smile, but he took them down the pale lengths of her graceful legs to the floor below. Kneeling before her so, his senses swum with the heady scent of her femininity, something that sent that last bit of desire held in abeyance within him wild. The small bit of hair just above her sex was neatly trimmed into a small patch that made her shudder as Rafi’s fingers rolled through its thin sparseness.

He closed his eyes as he took a deep breath, drinking her scent like a thirsting man the first drop of cool water he found after a week’s worth of walking in the desert. Oh, how he liked this smell, the sign of lust and desire arising, crying for to be drank and shared. His fingers swept over the patch of hair, avoiding her mound but stroking the velvet, sensitive skin of the inner side of her thigh, while he leant closer to cover her belly with kisses.

“God…” she whispered, shaking hard as he held her, kissed the flat of her stomach, circling the navel with infinite care. “God…Rafi…I….” She never finished the sentence. Instead, she simply shook through the pleasure until he finally stood straight once again.

When he did, her breathing seemed to slow, some measure of composure returned to her. Still, her heart still pounded in her chest and she struggled to catch the physical reflection of her desire, her body running away from her at the barest edge of control. Her blue eyes fixed his and she kissed him passionately, recklessly, turning her head and allowing her tongue to dance with his as they shared breaths, shared life and soul. Rafi could feel her left leg rise up along his thigh, all the way to his hip, curling around it as if she meant to never let him go.

He twined her strong, balancing on the cold ceramic tiles of the floor easily, as he drowned into that kiss. As she lifted her leg to his hip, his leg almost tumbled from under him as the thought crossed his brain – it’d be so easy to sink into her now, only a soft move and then feel her around him… red cloud descended to his mind and his body moved by his own… but he cut through the fog and halted the movement barely before it happened. “No”, he breathed hard, voice barely audible even for her so close, “not yet…”, he retreated only a bit from the kiss.

She slid the leg still higher, something in the gesture approximating slow ballet; the turn of her knee rose midway along the length of his ribcage, the soft skin drifting all along him like the passage of an artist's brush across his flesh--the creation of a masterpiece on his flesh in the feverish prelude to lovemaking. A gentle sweat had begun to coat both of their bodies, facilitating the sensation of touch as the morning dew helps the kiss of spring's breeze across lush flowery fields. May's breathing was shallow and hushed and as it fell upon the skin of his shoulder, it seemed to set it afire.

Her leg moving up on his side probed his will again and again, all the while they snuggled and kissed, hand sweeping over each others back and butts. He trembled, moving closer to her groin with his own, pushing himself gently to her, stroking and shivering by the fire in his veins. Would he not practice balance through the capoeira since almost 10 years, he’d surely fell to the floor in a heap, limbs ensnarled. But they stood and held each other, glued together by their love and the sweat what they lured forth with their efforts to please their partner. 

Yet his will was enough to force the raw lust back a bit, to focus on the love and pleasure of her, instead of bluntly rushing through the door... and so he pulled back, not allowing her to follow but only a few inches between them.

When she parted, she stared him straight in the eye. “I want you,” she said, almost gasping, more serious about it than she’d been about anything in her life. “I want you so bad, Tiger…”

“Just like I you, May, just like I you…”, he replied, but after she told him that it’ll be the first time for her, he wanted it as perfect and exhaustive as he could manage. And that included being clean … even if that meant delaying what both of them wanted so desperately… but… a shower could provide more than a simple bathing… he smiled at the thought.

And the words seemed to mean the world to her. She gathered him up by lacing her arms beneath his and pulling him close to herself once again. Her head turned, she placed it flat to the top of his chest and gently shook for the feelings such a simple utterance had brought forth within her, like an I love you for every single star in the naked night sky. He could smell her gentle shampoo, gaze down into the dark red of her hair like the trailing edge of Hecate's dark cloak, shuddering into shadow.

Rafi embraced her gently but pushed her into his chest firmly at the same. His blood still burned, just like his desire to become one with the girl, and that she clearly could feel the way they stood there. Yet this embrace conveyed the emotions behind this longing, making more than a simple quickie, to a sweet union of two of Mother Earth’s children.

And in the sweetest of coincidences, with her head turned as it was, she could easily hear his heartbeat and he, hers. The two beats had ceased to be separate things...instead, one quick, breakneck rhythm. A single pulse; a metronome of desire. The sound of young lovers; the nearest one might ever know to Heaven.

May looked up at Rafi and smiled in rapt amazement at what they both knew to be true.

Trembling all the more for a moment made sacred by symmetry.

He smiled back down at her with similar feelings, raptured by her eyes and features. She was young, beautiful, and innocent, making his heart pulse with love, on a slightly different way than Carm did, but as much deepness and purity. His smile was serene and confident; this little pause helped him to regain the control over his body and mind, returning to his original intention, to bathe before the bed...

The shower behind them beckoned. And so Rafi led her into its luxurious confines, turning the spigot that sprayed a whisper of hot water into the ceramic and slate basin below.

Once they were as naked as at their birth, not counting two from their triplet rings, he pulled her under the shower, adjusting the water without looking at it, because his eyes were captured by her amazing form and her shimmering eyes as he couldn’t sate with the view and her kisses.

The hot water danced off of their skin as the two of them became surrounded in billowing clouds of white steam. May’s hair, beneath the shower, turned the deepest shade of red Rafi had ever seen, sleek in the way that it pulled back to her head and neck with the rush of the water. Her pale flesh seemed to twinkle as if kissed by starlight-fairydust as the water sprinkled all across her, accentuating the perfect curves and contours of her body.

Rafi held her an arms away from him for a moment, committing the beautiful view into his memory again, wondering on her features and shapes, and meanwhile he enjoyed as the hot water splashed on his back too, unknotting the remnants of the day’s tension. He didn’t know how long he could’ve stay there, pulsating slowly all over his body with restrained energy and raw cupidity, until he finally began to pull her closer again.

She surprised him. She rushed towards him, pushing Rafi roughly up against the shower’s slick wall and holding him there by his wrists. There, pinned and mounted like a butterfly, her fingers laced with his and she began to rain down kisses onto his face and neck as if he were caught in a rosepetal thunderstorm. She pressed her slippery and warm body against his, crushing herself to him, then kissing his lips with a torrid passion that made his senses reel even as she murmured and whimpered through the gesture. She said many things, again, most of them he didn’t come close to understanding.

Then: “I love you, Rafi. I loe you so much….”

That much, he understood.

And within his chest, his heart filled to bursting for the knowing.

He fought against her unbelievable strength to lower his arms and capture the girl in his arms again, but it was pointless. She was so much stronger than him that all he could manage to keep his head moving and placing soft kisses on her available parts, all the while murmuring calming words to her, to reach her soul and mind and allow him to be freed. “I love you too, girl, and I want to show you how…,” he whispered but louder than her, “just let me move freely in your web, my lovely young Spidergirl…” he said, and lifted his right leg, stroking the inner side of her leg gently, slipping on the wet, velvet skin upward...

And she did.

Rafi felt her grip on his hand go weak, his lover's eyes closing gently like the sunset of sapphire. And as her head lifted just so, a whisper of a moan slipping from her lips, he watched her go slightly slack...pleasure from his touch washing over her, permeating her every bit as completely as the rush of hot water and steam from the showerhead above filled them both and possessed them entirely.

May allowed herself to lean back against the bright white ceramic wall, her astounding preternatural balance and grace making the thought of slipping so remote as to be beyond concern. In the doing, she drew Rafi along with her. And so it was that their positions were reversed: He found himself pinning her to the cool and slick surface behind her, his fingers entwined with hers, their hands held high above their heads.

He smiled contented and threw a series of kisses to her neck, under her chin, at her cheeks, nibbling and biting her earlobes before he found her lips again. He lowered his arms, pulling hers with along their interlaced fingers as he trailed her wet, hot and gorgeous body with his agile fingers, never stopping caressing her.

He could feel the heat of her breasts, crushed to his chest, accentuated by the shower's heat and the intensity of passions that were not to be denied, like so much water beginning to boil over the edge of the cauldron of their union. May was beginning to push her hips forward, grinding against Rafi's, stoking the flame of his desire to a fever pitch. She moaned and cooed like a small bird as he kissed her passionately, trailing little affections and gentle bites across the slender length of her neck. He could feel him trembling and shuddering under the weight of his every smallest gesture.

The more aggressive kiss from her called again to his purest instincts, and he responded accordingly, grabbing into her flesh stronger, pulling him onto her, in spite of their position, as if he wanted bury him into her soul and body. "I love ya..." he breathed through the sounds of rain of the shower and between their moans. The moments of clear, planned thinking were gone; this was something elemental, pure love between three youngsters, as he felt Carm’s watching presence above and around them, curious and approving in her dream. It was faint and distant, but it filled him even more love and lust, and that he gave to May too, through his kisses and touches.

Outside the shower and looking in, their shadows entwined in that way. It was an alchemy of light and substance; it was like the day's slow metamorphosis into night, the way that they melted into one another and became one. The sound of the shower was like the gentlest rain of sunshine at dawn and their breathing, heavy and quick, like the glare of noontime beneath a cloudless sky. Her gentle sighs and short, sharp moans as she discovered new pleasures with every passing moment beneath his touch like the jagged edges of color of dusk, encroaching over the placid horizon and staining the sky in rose and violet and vermillion.

Upon the glass, the two shades faded into a single and perfect night.

Love would mark the coming of day, when the sun rose anew.

Chapter XXXIII – As the Darkness longs for Day

When Rafi had been a small boy, his mother had taken him and his older sister to the beach. In the way that the vagrant memories of youth always seemed to find their way home, the day would be etched in the crystalline face of his imagination with a startling clarity. It was the middle of summer and the sun always seemed to be high in the sky above. It had been so hot that his mother had taken their family's only air conditioner and placed it in the siblings' bedroom, just so they might be able to sleep. In those, the days when the seasons still shared the calender unselfishly, he would draw pictures of the green park that they lived beside beneath a sun scrawled with a crayon marked burnt orange. He remembered seeing the ocean for the first time, in it's glorious blue expanse of gentle perpetual motion, his nose full of the sharp salt air and the sky above bespeckled with the pure white chevrons of seagulls, riding the winds gracefully above its surface. He had pointed out to the thin and retreating line where the two shades of blue, water and air, met and looking back at his mother and smiling. He hadn't said anything, nor had he meant to. He was just pointing at something beautiful, like children are often wont to do.

That day, the three of them had walked along the edge of the gentle surf. His sister had held his hand and in his other, he carried a small plastic pail in which he had occasionally stopped to fill with smooth and colorful rocks that had caught his fancy. While they had walked so, he had come across a beautiful shell, half-buried in the sand. It had been one of the most wonderful things he had ever seen in his too-short life, and if he closed his eyes even now, he could imagine the vivid, swirling colors gracefully spread over its surface, like those of a watercolor left out in the rain. He could almost touch it once more and feel the way that the water seemed to make it feel perfectly smooth upon his fingers, its weight like that of something half its size. Rafi had meant to put it in his pail, but his mother had stopped him.

Listen, she said, kneeling down and putting it to her ear before placing it back into his small hands. If you try, you can hear the ocean roar. And Rafi did, closing his eyes from the burnt orange sun and the blue infinity where the sky met the sea, the smooth fragility of it filling his childlike senses like it was the only thing in the world.

That was where the memory ended. He couldn't remember if he actually heard anything or not, that day. In the end, perhaps it didn't matter. Perhaps all that mattered is that he could remember the ocean that day, the subtle sounds of the tide as it swept rhythmically in on the shore, the soft madrigals of the seagulls and the brilliance of the sun. The nearness of his mother and his sister and a kind of warmth that even a hot summer day could never hope to touch.

Rafi smiled joyful as the memory and the feelings accompanied by it flowed forth from his memory, filling him again with the day’s experiences and the innocent happiness of being a child again. Family was there, even if only a part of it, but it was family nonetheless, loving and caring, always in his heart.

In the darkness, he remembered that day again. May lay atop him fast asleep, her body still and silent. The scent of her sweat, clinging to his skin and mixed with his own, was the fresh ocean air. Her breathing was like the water, encroaching and retreating upon the sandy shore in slow and measured rhythms. If he closed his eyes, he could imagine her weight upon him to be like the seashell, something lithe and graceful.

And if he tried, he could hear her heartbeat, and hear the ocean roar.

His smile turned wider, filling up with a different kind of love, as he etched the sensations into his memory from this night as well. May’s breathing swept over and over his chest, her warmth against his side was comforting, even as their body dried together by the sweat of their lovemaking, like it was meant to stay so forever. He always loved to sleep with his lovers, to stay awake when they fall into sleeping or woke up before them, to listen and to watch the smile on their faces in their dreams. 

And now May was here, in his arms, sated and asleep, just like Carm was the day before. He wondered how things can change up within a so small timeframe, to expand into wonder and show a small bit of bright future, behind the obstacles of the life. Her small, round breasts on his chest... the scent that hung in the air... he took all that deep in, eyes closed for a moment while taking a deep breath, and then he opened again, smiling.

Rafi had awoken, though in truth, he had never been asleep. At the side of the bed, he could hear Rasgar's soft snoring, the implication of the jaguar's shape in the shadows of the bedroom curled in upon itself into a ball as if a massive housecat. It might be any time in the early morning. The scent of their lovemaking hung in the air like another, different, pleasant memory, that one too, unlikely to fade anytime soon. He could still taste her femininity and that made him smile.

He licked his lips, both to wet them and to taste May again, and his eyes were drawn to her form next to him. The velvet, pale skin, almost glowing in the half-lit room, her happy face on his shoulder in her dream, her arm across his chest, that was like being in heaven, he thought.

He remembered the way that she had sat astride him, her hands slightly behind herself and holding the thickness of his thighs. He remembered the way that she had issued forth a whisper of a sigh as she moved herself upon him as if to the waves on that imaginary ocean, the whole of her pale body on display for him in that way. He remembered the breathless way that she had said his name and the way that her flawless skin had felt as he reached up and traced the contours of her body with his hands as if to never let her go. He remembered how she'd told him she'd loved him over and over as she rode him harder, taking him as deeply into herself as she could, and leaned down to rain kisses upon his face and neck, like the seagulls, plunging to the blue waters below for their nurturing bounty. The memories made him unable to suppress a shudder. Her warmth, and the knowledge of her nearness, like nothing that even a hot summer day could ever hope to touch.

His body responded to the memories of the night that made its way into the dawn when they finally fell into sleep, but it was satiated for now, that was more the memory of the pleasure and the happiness and joy for it than anything else. He loved her, he knew, their fate was sewn together at the very moment on the doorstep of his parlor, when she first called him lover. And that felt good, oh god, so good, he mused over it quietly. Just like the moment when he saw Carm’s eyes for the first time, sitting next to the roda, when he danced, and then the end of the day on the pier, by the ocean, watching the greenness of its waves and the grey-blue touch of the horizon on it.

Quiet. Calm. All amidst the roar of the ocean, thunder in his ear.

And then, the subtlest sense of motion, at the foot of the bed and the corner of his eye.

At first, he thought he imagined it only, as everyone was used to see movements and forms in the dark from the corner of their eyes. But then something nudged him to look at it again, colder wariness creeping into his soul atop the warmth of love. So he turned his head gently, slowly, moving carefully both not to wake May yet and not to scare that what might have moved at the end of their wedding bed. He slit his eyes, straining them to see better in the dim light, and in a vague hope to mask his move like he was still sleeping, before reacting with more hastiness than needed.

In the darkness, he would not have seen it at all but for its motion. There, right past Rasgar's subtly twitching nose and whiskers and the still-slumbering feline they were attached to, it slithered across the floor like something ancient and serpentine. Eerily silent in a way that things bearing mass and dimension could simply not be, he watched it as it made its way along the carpet and in the direction of the foot of the bed. It looked as if it had slipped from beneath the door, though the space extant there was almost non-existent.

A snake! The thought pulled all his muscles into tension as he realized what it might mean. And both May and Rasgar was still sleeping, their special senses somehow blinded by some magic or ability, his mind raced through the possibilities. But then how could I woke up, he asked himself. Then, another thought popped into his mind: perhaps because I’m the target and she wants me to dread, he mused. 

Darn, he cursed silently, why that is happening right now... but then he corrected himself that is better now than a sometime before while they were, well, occupied. And there he was again, tasting May with all his senses, deep inside her... Oh, just finish, he commanded himself, shaking his head to clear it, and slowly began pushing himself up, trying to see where the snake went.

It vanished from Rafi's pane of view, hidden by the bed's angle and his limited range of motion. It was somehow visible even in the shadows of the night because it was somehow darker than any of them, still. A sort of utterly black, inky pool of substance that he could not name, whose silent path along the floor gave him a chill in a sort of way he could not explain nor describe. It simply seemed to trigger something within him, some kind of preternatural fear that lingered within all men and women with life and souls. It was much in the way that prey or all stripe and species identified predators and knew to beware them, instinctively.

And it was in the room with him.

And May.

Rafi took a deep breath, then activated the mental link what distended between him and Rasgar, and mentally nudged the great cat to open his eyes and watch. He wanted him awoke, to avoid bitten while slumbering and to lend an eye to see the snake what was now out of view. His glance swept over the room until he found his pants with his beltpack right next to the wall, and sighed as he realized that none of his cards were available at the moment... the cost of their burning desire and continuous undressing over the room, he knew. 

The transition between Rafi's view to that of the great jade jaguar's was instantaneous. With a sharp blinking that seemed to carry with it an audible snapping noise for its quickness, he suddenly spied the room from two separate angles: Atop and below the bed.

He blinked once and forced his stare into the darkness of the room, under the huge bed what was now their nest for the night. He wanted to find and identify the dark, slithering form what he thought he saw.

Through Rasgar's eyes, he only saw the trailing edge of motion--almost exactly as he'd seen when he was first aware of the slithering shadow, himself. It was quick, he realized, so quick that in the instant of his transition between the two points of view, he'd lost it. All he ended up seeing clearly was the ribbon of the deepest shade of night as it disappeared behind the foot of the bed and then a sliver of it as it curled up the pillar of the bed's furthest leg. It was an amazing, quicksilver movement, the way the thing shot up the wooden post, curing around it so rapidly as to defy easy logic. It simply started...then was up and gone before he could even stop to be shocked by it.

But in that instant of motion, Rafi did notice that a ribbon described it more aptly than any sort of snake he might compare it to. Though it slithered like a snake, it was much, much faster than any mere reptile. And the thing was thin, too, maybe a hand's length in width, but no taller than the thickness of a single sheet of paper.

“What the...” he muttered under his breath as he measured the dimensions of the thing, whatever it was what slithered in the room. He furrowed his brows considering option what he could do to gather more information about the creature, determine somehow that it was benevolent or not. The thought crossed his mind that he shouldn’t think on that and create something against it in advance, but he wasn’t since long in the hero-business and yesterday’s events and the dawn with May drained him... without his cards he was kinda limited at the available images to call.

Oh, he can animate almost anything if there was a detail what his imagination can get a hold on, but it was better to have a complete drawing. Maybe next time, he decided, slightly wondering in the back of his brain that how time could stretch during life-threatening events to allow speedy thinking. Carm!, went his eyes wide as it hit him... I hope her guards are wary, too, he gasped, and knew that they shall finish here as fast they can, to let them check on his love.

His hand quickly stroked May’s nape and head gently, but this time not for pleasure but to wake her up and he whispered into her ear quietly, too. “Wake up, dear. We have a slithering problem under the bed...”, he said, pulling up his free leg, preparing for either a kick or a dodge.

She opened her eyes, blinking the sleep from them and revealing their incredible shade of sapphire that seemed to shine even in the darkness. "Huh?" she asked, her voice still heavy with the weight of her slumber. "Wha--?"

Rafi had no time to explain.

Before he could, he saw the ebon serpent arch its way over the crest of the bed just as an adder might strike at its prey. There was no time to utter even a cry of warning or a shriek of terror. 

Rafi’s foot swung right at the moment as he noticed the attacking movement of the creature but it was too fast and he was quite hindered with May on his chest. Still he tried to kick at it, but his try was already judged as futile by the gods.

With a celerity that would shame strokes of lightning in flight, Rafi watched as the thing dove onto the pale skin of May's foot, just at the delicate turn of her ankle.

And then, spread outward.

The effect was like the deepest India ink, poured out onto so much plain white paper. Rafi watched in horror as it exploded across the flawless curves and contours of her body, consuming the whole of her in almost an instant. Hungry tendrils of black staining the perfect cream of her skin in less than an instant.

Until May lay astride him no more.

His eyes went wide, placing his hand into the way on her waist, a half growl escaping from his lips in his helpless anger and fear; but the alien creature slipped under his palm, easily covering that part, too. What was this thing, what happened with his love, bonded with him for a life, on their bed, the thoughts swarmed in his mind. He could do anything just watch as the dark substance engulfs the girl, like the darkness of the night waves forth in the receding steps of the setting sun. 

And so he watched carefully, searching for clues what could’ve happened and who was lying on his chest, where May woke up a moment ago.

Instead, the woman whose weight rest upon him was replaced by a figure of her precise height, weight, and dimension. Featureless but for the way that the black was so consumptive of even the wan light in the bedroom that he could somehow make out her smooth curves in a beautiful and perfect nocturne of shape. About her chest, he saw flashes of a perfect white that seemed to band her, breaking the absolute blackness at four perfect angles at the sides of her uppermost ribs.

Looking into her face, he saw nothing of feature at all. Simply two white spaces where he eyes once were, slashes in the vague shapes of a phase of the moon.

He still hadn't had the time to scream.

He didn’t dare to move, but his muscles tensed up so that they almost hurt as Rafi stared at the white spots where the woman’s eyes should be behind them. He held his breath, while his eyes took in the form, the shape and the pattern, already planning on how he could turn those white stripes into bands to imprison the dark-clad woman in an instant if he’ll have the chance and his gift will do what he commands. 

Amazing, what the sudden rush of adrenalin can do with a tired mind. During that few seconds while the consuming happened, he formed at least a half dozen idea how he could’ve prevent that first attack... but now it was too late.

They were silent for a while, but then Rafi had to take a deep breath, and tilted his head cautiously measuring the line of her neck, her chin as he quietly voiced his question. “May? Are you there?” He swallowed slowly, his gift shivering at the bay of his will, waiting for his command. “What happened?”

He watched the white-slits blink once, making her eyes vanish for an instant. Then again. "I...don't know," she admitted. She arched her back slightly, putting some bit of distance between herself and Rafi's chest. He watched her reach up and stroke her fingers over the weird, inky substance that concealed her completely. The bit, on her chest, seemed to stretch slightly under the gesture before slipping back into place when she let it go, something like a gelatin that was too tough to break or rip. "I feel fine."

“Strange,” said Rafi under his breath, still shocked by the event. Her voice seemed right, and she was relaxed, too, and curious, just like him now. Still, his failure to prevent the creature’s arrival to its goal, bugged him. If it would be a normal attack, May could be dead by now, all because his inexperienced pondering over the possible reactions and slowness. And that kept him unmoving, still not sure that this thing wouldn’t cause problems.

Rasgar was up on the edge of the bed, his forepaws resting on a bit of the discarded comforter. He was obviously ready to spring to May's defense at the first sign of trouble; what he might do to save her from her ebon attacker wasn't quite so clear.

The young artist glanced at his jade friend, checking his reaction, and emotional state. During the day it was revealed that his senses were shaper than his in many ways, so he shared his concerns through their link, looking for the response. There weren’t thoughts or sentences on the way, but a more primal understanding, intuition and emotions.

The jaguar seemed calm…but wary. Rafi recognized the stance in which he stood frozen in every housecat that had ever spied a mouse. The head held low and perfectly still, a seemingly flawless calm in what was about to become a whirlwind of motion, muscles in the legs bunched tight as it prepared to spring at a moment’s notice.

He could help but watch him longer than a mere moment, captured by the amazing view, the velvet predator’s breathing sculpture, as it stood next to their bed. That was one the artist’s biggest drawback in him, to get caught in the moment by something visually incredible, in spite of the circumstances. It was even worse in a way, now that it was his friend, for a life.

Rasgar was ready to protect her as best he could, he could tell. But he held his powerful, razor-sharp claws in abeyance. May was not struggling and did not cry out in pain or surprise. She did not seem to need his aid…yet. And so, he did not pounce for the kill…yet.

His wariness warned for cautiousness Rafi, too, but showed that he wasn’t sure in his judgment, either. There was nothing at hand then, what he could do, other than to watch and hold his imagination at bay for fast reaction, grabbing and binding her, if needed.

The bit of distance she'd put between herself and her lover allowed Rafi to see the whole of her chest. Covered with the utterly black...substance, all that he was capable of seeing was the sleek contours and curves of May's flawless body, revealed in perfect detail by the absolutely skintight way that it clung to her. However, now, from the new angle, he was also able to see those eight white diagonal lines that curved over her shoulders and around her ribs--four on each side--and saw that they met at a central point, just between her pert and firm breasts.

"Oh," May said. She saw it too. "Wow."

They met and formed the image, in reverse silhouette, of a spider.

Rafi tilted his head as he regarded her wondrous form in front of him, as she rose to her knees to better see herself. He sighed wistfully, the returning desire clearly visible on his face, then reached out and touched her, tracing those spider legs from her should down to her chest, cupping her breasts at the end of the movement for a moment, before continuing down on the other legs, until his hands rested on her waist. 

May sighed softly. And Rafi watched as the costume seemed to melt away from her head, beginning at the very top of her dark auburn hair and bleeding away down her cheeks until it stopped at the top of her neck. In an instant of the same slithering by which it had encompassed her, but in reverse, it had revealed her lovely features once more. “I can feel you like I’m not wearing anything,” she said, closing her eyes for a moment as she revelled in the sensation of his skin upon her own…even through the utterly black costume. She reached her hands up, still astride him, lacing her fingers in his and holding his hands where they were, cupping the taut weight of her breasts in his palms.

It was her, he decided, in spite of the dark substance she wore now like a second skin. Her voice, the touch of her skin, even if he had only one night to remember was unmistakable. He let her lift back his palms from her thigh, tracing their way back with his fingertips, too. The weight of her small, round breasts in his palm made him sigh, and he shivered as the feeling ran through him, and his desire began to build up again.

“It looks like the one I drew for ya, but its white where I chose dark green...”, he mused, and closed his eyes for a second to allow his sensible fingers determine the surface, the texture of the strange garment. “And it reminds me to Obsidian’s shapeshifting costume, too. It came in the form of snake, but thinner and way faster.”

To the touch, the costume felt…strange. It felt like running your fingers through water stained shadowy by the kiss of night itself. Cold and gentle…but at the same time, it offered resistance to being moved like so much wet sand, finally gliding between his digits when he offered enough force to finally move it. It seamlessly filled itself back in behind the path of his touch. Rafi was sure he had never felt anything quite like it in his life before. Maybe nobody had.

“I don’t know what it is, but I failed to protect you from it...”, he whispered, lifting his gaze at the strange eye sockets of the suit. “I wanted to know and see more, before I’ll do anything, before I wake up you... and that was a mistake. It could’ve been anything...”, he continued still on low voice. “I’m so sorry,” he hung his head.

He could feel May’s fingers tighten within his grasp as she curled them into two loose fists, possessing his hands in her own. “Rafael,” she said quietly, then cocking her head downward and offering him a gentle little smile. There was something magical about her smile, he thought to himself, even in his darkest moments. Something transient and yet undeniable that could not help but to uplift his spirits, as if riding on invisible winds, somewhere high into the air.

He could’ve watch that smile for indefinite time, like Carm’s ghost of a smile, what crept on his face this time, like if they’d have change roles. Now he felt sorrow, he was moody, and the girl on his lap wanted to cheer him up. The thought made him smile a bit, as he mused over their trio and how good it’ll work through the everdays. It’ll be good, he decided. Two naturally happy and joyous young and a gentle, quieter one who could point out their silliness to be the balance, that would..., no, he corrected, that will be great together. And that made him miss Carm from his other side again.

Then again: “Hey…” she said, to get his attention. “You didn’t fail to protect me from anything, lover. I didn’t need protecting, in the first place. This…thing didn’t attack me. If anything, I guess you could say it’s an old friend of the family,” she mused, her smile slowly becoming something wry and bemused.

“I know exactly what it is. And what it is, is good.”

Rafi moved his head on the pillow, to look into her eyes from another angle, his palms still on her bosoms, gently stroking her velvet skin. “Perhaps you don’t need protection, that I allow willingly. But I’m a guy with protective feelings, if I love someone, I do anything to know her safe, even if it cost me something. You better get used to it,” he said, his voice serious and toned, but his love could be heard in it, too. “Just like Carm, when she’ll join us.”

He watched the midnight ocean of her costume slowly recoil away from where he placed his hands on her flesh. As if skittered away from his fingers like a million insect-thread-tendrils, leaving just enough space to allow him to touch her, it left no doubt in Rafi’s mind that it was a living thing, unto itself. The thought almost made him shiver…would have, if it wasn’t that May, herself, seemed so sure of it. “You say that like I don’t like it,” she admitted with a sly smile. He could see the flush returning to the lithe beauty’s cheeks with the confession; he was not alone, he saw, when it came to the matter of a returning desire. Like a recurring dream; a perfect, beautiful dream. 

“You do?” he teased with a sly smile and a wink under the raised eyebrow. He watched as the thing opened up before his fingers, allowing to wander on her skin freely, what he did with featherlike touches. Fingertip after fingertip, slowly round and round, lazily confessing his feelings mutely.

He watched her take in a slow, deep breath, releasing it gradually in a long sigh. Rafi saw gooseflesh raised to the surface of her skin, where he touched her. "I do," she confessed. And it was so. Her body betrayed as much.

“My dad used to tell me all those stories of all those damsels in distress he used to rescue on a daily basis,” she remembered. “Heck, my mom was one of those damsels. I used to imagine how it would be to have some strong, handsome boy that swung out of the night to save me from some terrifying villain. That was always my dream guy. That’s why it turned me on so much when you stood in front of me at the door, back at your parlor. Protecting me from that horrible woman--even though you barely even knew me.”

He listened to her tale and smiled. It sounded like a little girl’s dream about the prince on the white horse, supported by and based on his father’s stories. Darn, her father was Spider-man, he thought still shocked, one of (if not the) the greatest heroes ever lived. And I’m in the bed with her, he thought, but haven’t stopped caressing her, nonetheless. The last sentence struck him, he didn’t remember any woman at his parlor other than the Viper, and May arrived after her – so they couldn’t meet. When they stood at the door, playing lovers – oh, would he knew that what he knew now..., he mused - there was Kyle outside, no one else. But he didn’t have the heart to ask back and break the story, so he remained silent, for now.

He thought he detected a bit of a sigh. “Could you be that boy?” she asked him, her sapphire eyes seeming to gleam in the half-light of the bedroom. “Could you be the one?”

The way she asked him, it she had already decided the answer for herself.

The young man sat up, using his strong abdominal muscles only, embracing and kissing her, slow and sensual, deep play with their tongues, as a way of answer at first, before he pulled back and looked into her eyes. “You are one of the two spiders I love,” he said quietly, holding her in his arms. “And I’d do anything for love...” he began crooning the song, using his own voice, smooth and trained, without any prank or imitating ‘coz this was something from his heart, truly.

May smiled gently. He could feel her roll her hips slightly, settling herself upon him once more. Her sex was warm and still wet and the sensation of himself pressed against her in such a fashion seemed to spread out all throughout his hips like waves of heat, stoking the flames of desire within his breast once more. Rafi could feel the sheath of his stomach go taut, rippling with the feelings brought upon him with that one, simple gesture. "I think I remember that song," she said, "from when I was little."

The young artist smiled back at her as he slowly laid back onto the bed, continuing to sing the song but with May’s new posture over him it wasn’t an easy thing. His body responded quickly to the sensation of her warm and lush touch on him, perfectly healthily, creating a very distracting experience.

She leaned down and gently kissed the side of his neck.

"I like it when you sing it."

He stroked her side and those parts what were already freed from that black substance, all the while looking into her sapphire eyes, weighing sentences in the song with a flash in his eyes, or with a stronger grip, or simply by smiling so during that part.

But I'll never do it better than I do it with you, so long, so long…
And I would do anything for love …
I'll never stop dreaming of you every night of my life, no way …

The refrain was mostly skipped, though, as he chose to kiss her instead, passionately, but none of them minded that a bit. The play of their tongue and their touches were just as perfect for replacing those lines, expressing the same feelings the song was about.

His hands occasionally touched the inky thing as now worked as a costume for May, and he couldn’t help but shiver at it. The snaky entrance it had left him with no small distrust against it, and so when they parted, his thoughts returned to the original topic.

“Old friend?” raised Rafi a brow, pulling down her on him again, settling into a more comfortable posture. “Not just in your own dimension but here, too?”, he asked curiously. “Tell me about it, please. And if it don’t mind, would you place it somewhere else?”, he smiled at May coyly. “I’d like to get back the feeling that your skin touches mine...”

It made her smile widen gently. “Okay, you,” she said, looking down to the bit of blackness at the top of her chest. “Scram. Ball. Nightstand,” she ordered, looking over at the lamp next to his head. “Now.”

And Rafi watched, to his amazement, as the blackness that covered her dutifully did exactly as she bade. Just as quickly as it enveloped her, he watched the utterly black costume discorporate itself into hundreds of thousands of tiny slithering serpentine tendrils, sliding down into a single, shadowy pool at their side on the discarded sheets. Then, in a flash, it swept right along the white linens, right past his pane of vision, until it found the wooden nightstand she’d indicated. It moved so swiftly that he couldn’t follow it with his eyes. When he finally managed to catch up with it, he saw that it had turned itself into a perfect sphere about the size of a billiard ball. It still rocked back and forth slightly with its sudden stillness.

“See?” she smiled. “Perfectly well-trained. You just need to know how to talk to it.”

“Aha”, he deadpanned. “Like a good dog?” he asked as the thing swept through the bed suddenly, like an inky lightning. “It’s swift indeed. How do you get such a thing? I guess it’s not a stuff what you can buy in a shop, where you drop by,” he mused smiling, then added: “well, if the shop-owner is not a girl called Polly, that is.”

“It used to be my dad’s,” she explained, leaning down so that she could rest her weight on her hands, placed on the flat muscles at the top of his chest. “It’s kind of a complicated story, but he found it on another planet, during this big secret war he and all the other really famous super-heroes fought against an army of all their villains. It’s a living thing, basically co-existing with its host and feeding off its emotions. It likes all the powerful ones…and preferably the good ones. Excitement. Happiness. Love. It doesn’t lessen them for its host or take away from them in any way, as far as he knew. Somehow, though, those keep it alive. It liked my dad, I guess, because he could keep it pretty well-fed. Super-heroes tend to lead lives filled with all those emotional highs.”

“So, basically it’s a symbiotic creature, sponging on its host’s emotions, but not hurting it in any way?” asked Rafi, considering what she was saying. “How did he figure this out? Its not an easy thing to determine what emotion is the best food or what it consumes if the subject doesn’t decrease.”

"Most people don't know this," she explained, "but dad was actually a pretty accomplished scientist. After all, he built the web-shooters everybody knows him for, not to mention the web fluid they use. It's kind of a long story, but he actually got his powers when he was still in college, while he was looking in on a science experiment."

“Cool. There are lots of stories over the net about his origins. Some say he was a mutant – like me –, or he was bitten by a spider and got his powers then, or some even say that he was chosen by the God of Spiders...”, said Rafi shaking his head at the listing. “But most people know nothing about his personal life,” shrugged the young artist. “He was good at hiding his real persona, I think. Another good advice for the future if we’re gonna do this super-hero thing...”

"But," she added, "actually, one of his friends told him how the suit worked, I think. Though you wouldn't know it if you read the newspapers, dad was actually really good friends with almost everybody in the super-heroing community, all around the world. Mr. Fantastic from the Fantastic Four told him how it worked and what it could do and all that stuff, if I remember right. I guess he did some kind of tests on it to figure all that out. Considering that--at least, where I come from--he was the smartest person in the whole world, that's about as good an authority as you can get."

“Wow. I have to accept that opinion, then”, he shrugged, stroking her hair out of her face and placing it behind her ear. “He is a smart man here, too. One of the leading scientist the world ever had, though I would never try to arrange a ranking between all those types”, he smiled sheepishly. “You can never know what they really know as you can judge only by what they share with the world, and I’m pretty sure that they keep the best things for themselves. Just look at this city. It was made by Tony Stark and that Japanese businessman, Fujikawa all in a day! What else they could’ve invented so far?!”

“Well, somehow--and I don’t exactly know how it works--” she continued, “--it seems to be able to recognize people that’re related to one another. For example, when my dad was really badly hurt one time, it slithered halfway across New York and found my mom. It saved dad because it spelled itself into a big, black HELP sign. It’s really smart, it turns out.”

“Well, you said it feeds on emotions. Surely it can sense then the fluctuations in them, and so identify the subjects of them. Then all it has to do, to follow that smell, sight, trace, whatever you call it on the Astral Plane – if you believe that every living thing has a soul and a unique astral and mental radiation.” 

May shrugged. "No wonder it was able to track me down," she decided, smiling with a little flush to her cheeks. "I don't think I've ever been as emotional in my whole life as I've been in the last hour or so," she giggled gently.

The comment made him laugh too, as he considered what caused that emotional highness in the girl. “Well, I wasn’t left over untouched, either”, chuckled Rafi shooting a loving smile at her. “It was definitely an experience what needs to be repeated, just to be sure that it wasn’t a dream...”, he winked at her.

She gently ran her fingernails across the flat muscles of his chest; it was his turn to gain goosebumps all across his skin. "Mmmmm..." she purred, leaning down and kissing the bare length of his neck, at the sensitive curve, just below his ear. "As the daughter of a scientist, who am I to get in the way of such important research?" she asked. And slid her palms all the way down the sides of his chest, finally up to where his waist met her thighs. It was like being brushed by flame, the way it made all his senses seem to come alive.

He closed his eyes in delight as his body came as much alive as his senses did, pushing a bit stronger May’s body than before. He opened his palms, grabbing her bottom, squeezing it and then sweeping her back with his hands, using a gently nail or two here and there during the movement. His lips searched for hers, everything else falling out from his mind for a moment while he kissed the lithe agent.

When they parted, gasping after breath, he grinned from ear to ear, shaking his head slowly as he regarded the young lady on top of him. “If every research will be as breath-taking with you like this first joined project, then I have to develop the ability to breath through my skin.”

Rafi glanced at the creature, now a billiard ball on the counter, and shook his head. “Scary a bit, to have a living alien on your body, I think. But listening to you, it definitely has advantages. What else it can do? What protection it gives to the host if it has any?”

"Well, just it's composition has the effect of acting as sort of a shock absorber," she replied. "So it kind of works like armor, though it's not quite strong enough to stop bullets or anything like that. Aside of that, it's basically weightless and completely form-fitting, so it allows more freedom of movement than any other kind of costume you could imagine. Dad used to say that he felt like it made all his powers seem that much stronger," she added. "He felt just a touch stronger and faster...a little more in tune with his Spider-Sense than normal. Oh, plus it can shoot webbing all by itself. I'm not sure how, but it doesn't use web-shooters or web fluid, though the stuff it makes is exactly the same as mine or dad's webs were. So I don't need to worry about running out of fluid anymore."

“Form-fitting, eh?” grinned the young man at her love. “That I saw a few minutes ago... makes you think on other things than fighting...”

"Only when you touch me, tiger," she assured him, smiling beneath those incredible sapphire eyes of hers. "You need to know that I'm a one-man kinda gal. There's no way...no way I could even think of anybody else, Rafael," she said, leaning down and kissing his lips.

"I'm yours," she said, kissing his chin.

"Body." As she kissed his neck.

"And." As she kissed his chest.

"Soul." Kissing him finally upon the lips.

The young artist embraced her and kissed back on a way as only true lovers could, putting his soul into it. He was a bit jealous to Kyle even a moment ago, as before he and May happened to land in each others arms, and before the rings, she played the same games what she did with him. But now he knew that May had chosen months before, and the wonder in the hospital, the night here cleared up all those doubts, allowing him to let free his big, emotional soul and heart. 

“I was a one-girl man, too,” he replied, looking deep into her eyes. “I couldn’t think on anybody else other than Carmilla during the last year... until I met you...” he let the end of the sentence trail off. Both of them knew what that meant, that if Carm wouldn’t agree on their triangle, then he’d chose her. But fortunately for all of them, the things not went on that way. “And now I have you both. For a lifetime, I hope,” kissed Rafi the young agent, interlacing his fingers with hers, placing their rings right next to each other.

“Stronger and faster than you are already?” asked Rafi lifting a brow. “I must figure out something to keep up, then,” he shook his head though the soft smile in the corner of his lips showed that he meant that as a joke. 

Her smile grew devilish for the comment. "Yup," she replied. "You'd better."

“What’ll happen to me when Carm joins in on the afternoon?” he asked with an overplayed fear, but the tinkle in his eyes and his voice betrayed that was one of his greatest wishes. When, he said, not if; and in his heart there was no question, no doubt about that. 

“Both of you will have to help me to develop myself to that level,” he chuckled happily as he imagined those training sessions with the girls he loved.

“Your webbing can empty itself?” he went on the questions bugging him after the explanations. “It seemed back at the HYDRA base that you shot it from your wrist, and not from any gadget...”

She shook her head. "That's the way it's supposed to look," she explained. "It's kind of a slight of hand trick. Dad never wanted any of his enemies to quite figure out how his powers worked, so he went to a lot of trouble to make it seem as organic as possible--like he shot the webs right from his body, not from some kind of gizmo. He figured it would give him an edge, if he kept some of the smarter ones guessing."

"I can show you, if we ever get up," she smiled. "I'll even let you use them, if you want."

The idea was tempting. Using the web-shooters, that was...not so much getting up.

That, he wanted to forestall as long as was humanly possible.

“I’ll leave that for now”, he said, snuggling into a comfortable position and holding her close. “I know some tricks with my hands, too,” he winked at her, “But my options are somewhat limited now that we’re born-naked.”

“We’ll have plenty of time to show our tricks to each other, I think, tho”, he added smiling.

"It's a living thing and it wants to protect it's host at all costs," she finished. "So, like it did for dad that time--slithering off for help when he was hurt--it'll look after me as best it can. So that can't hurt either, I guess."

“Yeah. Handy, if it can come for help, but then you’ll be prolly unconscious and far away from us... and that I wouldn’t like to experience,” turned Rafi a bit more serious. “So lets do everything to not let that happen, okay?”

She chuckled. "You're so funny," she replied. "Like I'm ever going to let you get too far from me. Like it or not, Rafael Gurney, I'm stuck to you, now. And how know how we spiders can stick to things," she reminded him.

“Like I have any problem with that”, now it was his turn to say that with a smile.

Rasgar had moved his attention to the end table on which it rest. Forepaws up on its edge, he had his neck craned out and sniffed at it curiously. The ball remained motionless.

Rafi kept an eye on his friend and the ball, too. Though May ensured him that the thing was harmless, he wasn’t sure that the jaguar wouldn’t try to play with it, and they prolly haven’t got a great cat at home to torture the symbiote so it’ll be a new experience for it. Best to keep attention, he decided, but only half-heartedly, because he had May on top of him again...

He watched the emerald feline reach out tentatively with a paw and bat at it gently. The sphere didn't react at all except to roll gently toward the other side of the table, just like a normal ball would. It encouraged the great cat to bat at it once more, making it roll toward him.

Then, it seemed to suddenly disappear. Rasgar's expressive face went quizzical.

But Rafi could see where it went. It flattened itself into a perfect square, thin as a piece of paper. There, lying on the table, it escaped the jaguar's attention, for the nonce. Rasgar looked up at Rafi as if to ask for help in finding it. It almost made him begin to laugh out loud.

“Use your nose, silly cat,” chuckled the young man as he pointed with his chin at the table. That Rasgar lost the trace of the symbiote was a good and a bad thing at the same. If it hasn’t got any smell then it could protect May from being tracked by that sense. But if it hasn’t got any smell, and something happens with the girl, then Rasgar won’t be able to lead to her, either... “Does it have any smell, what do you know about that?”

"Nope," she replied. "No smell, no taste...no nothing. As far as I know, I don't even think it's capable of making noise. In fact, I'm pretty sure it doesn't like noise. I seem to remember Dad saying that it was vulnerable to really intense, directed sounds. Which is good and bad," she continued. "Absorbing sound like it does, it helps me move a lot more stealthily. But, having a weakness is never good, either."

“No taste? That would be another interesting story to hear how he tasted the creature…” raised Rafi a brow while a wry smile crept onto his face. “Vulnerabilities are never good, but they can help you that don’t be too bold” nodded the young meta as he remembered how his own images created a lot of fun and misunderstanding, and how he learned where are their limits – just to dawn on that on the first day in the city that he was wrong with those limits.

“It seems the thing doesn’t want to play with the cat, huh?” he smiled at the lithe agent on his lap. “It’ll be a constant source of pranks, I’d bet on it...”

Rasgar finally looked downward and saw the flat black object hiding just beneath his nose. He overlooked it right away, turning his attention behind the table to see if it had rolled off. It was looking for a ball, after all, not a flat square. "It's probably just trying to make sure he's not a threat," May guessed. "It'll probably interact with him more once it figures out he doesn't want to eat it."

“Well, if it hasn’t got any smell and taste, I don’t think it has to fear from him. Perhaps a few claw- or teeth-mark during the play, but nothing serious.”

Rafi could feel the sensation of May’s skin upon him once more, warm and supple. She smiled at the expression on his face, to feel it again. “I thought I recognized it, when I saw Kyle wearing it,” she confessed. “He might not remember, but that’s why I gave him a funny look, the first time I saw it move. Anyway, I didn’t say anything because I still wasn’t sure it just wasn’t part of his shadow-powers. But, obviously, it is.”

“Funny look, you say? You became as pale as the snow was around us,” smiled at her Rafi, stroking her backbone and the taut bottom under it. “Anyway, I think he’ll remember that. He seems a very perceptive young guy to me, with good heart, too. Hm,” he mused aloud, “you say that this is part of his powers, too? Then now both of you’ll have one?”

"Well, no," she corrected herself. "That's not exactly what I meant. I mean, it seemed like it was part of his powers. To tell you the truth, I'm really not sure what he's going to see when he wakes up tomorrow and goes looking for his clothes. He might find out he's got nothing to wear at all," she said, smiling slyly, "not that I think Jennie or Marina will mind too much."

“Hehe,” chuckled Rafi along as he imagined the face of their friend who’ll find himself naked in their room, without anything to wear. “Just they won’t mind it, eh?” he asked teasingly. 

She shrugged. "What d'you think?" she asked him. "Jennie seems like a pretty wild one, to me. I wouldn't be surprised to see her go out of her way, just to make sure he doesn't accidentally find anything to wear anytime soon," she laughed.

“Anyway, I hope that it won’t be the case, as it can lead arguments and bad feelings even if he seems very generous,” said Rafi seriously. “If it’s a living thing and works like a real symbiote, the best option could be that if it proliferates, and then you and him both will have one.”

"Well, I can't really help it," May looked over at the flat square on the table...as it suddenly reformed itself into a ball. It was as if it realized she was looking at it and, to please her, went right back to the form she'd commanded it into. "It's a living thing and it's going to do what it wants to do. If it wants me to wear it...it's not like I can help that. As for it...reproducing," she shrugged again, "I dunno about that. Dad never mentioned anything about that before."

“Okay, don’t brood on it more now,” shrugged Rafi, waving off the matter for now. Once they’ll wake up and meet with the others, they’ll now, and if needed, figure out something. Until that there was nothing they could do, he decided.

“By the way, doesn’t it have a name?”

"Uhmmm...black suit?" she laughed a little. "That's all dad ever used to call it. Mom used to be kinda creeped out by it," she remembered. "I guess we could use her nickname for it: That damned thing."

“TDT or BS? I’d rather stay with the latter, it sounds better,” mused Rafi aloud. “Like an unknown fabric or a secret discovery’s abbreviation, huh?”

She stroked downwards, rubbing the powerful contours of his chest sensually.

“And obviously, despite the fact that I come from someplace else…it recognizes me, too.”

“Yeah, strange. I don’t know much about other dimensions and genetics, but prolly the two Spiderman weren’t as different as someone might think. There must’ve been deviations in their life, I guess, but prolly not in their body,” he shrugged, and closed his eyes for the sensation of her fingers on his chest. When he opened them again, he pulled May and placed a soft kiss onto her lips, before parting again to continue their talk.

“We’ll have to search for someone who could say more about these things... perhaps Tanya?” he glanced at the girl questioningly. “She is a wizard, after all, and wizards are using summoning spells and other dimensions in the books and movies.”

"Maybe," she replied. "Or maybe..." she started, but then stopped, obviously reluctant to go any further. But, after a slight pause, she eventually dared it anyway. Rafi could tell that it was hard for her to talk about what weighed on her mind in the moment; the fact that she shared it with him at all made him feel even more close to her than he already was. It was a reassurance, if any were needed, how much she really loved him.

He embraced her closer, stroking her chin and placing a soft kiss on it, while his other hand swept over her back, rubbing her bottom, shoving his love and presence, that anything she might say, he’ll be there and support it.

Of course, he wasn't ready at all for what she said.

"Maybe we could just ask my mom?"

“Your mom?!” blurted out the question from Rafi as his eyes went wide by the notion. “But how? You said that you came from an other dimension...” he searched for an option to escape unintentionally. He definitely wasn’t ready to meet with the family so soon, not just with the girl’s, but not with his own, either.

"I did!" she quickly assured him. "Well, not so much another dimension as another time. The two are totally different, right?"

“Aha”, agreed Rafi, not so sure in it, but he not really had any other choice.

"Anyway," she explained, "my mom--the one from this time, that's going to eventually give birth to me--lives in New York. Me and Carmilla looked her up one time, using the S.H.I.E.L.D. database files. So I know she exists."

“Cool. Scary that so much thing are in those databases…” wondered Rafi on the information. “So you haven’t even born yet? That is creepy. Having you in my arms, kissing you… from a future what I not know and I can’t be sure that I’ll ever know…”

May cracked a sly smile. "You like 'em young, huh?" she giggled delightedly. "I guess I'm sorta the ultimate jailbait--not even having been born yet. Let's just not let the Judge know and we might actually get away with it."

Rafi nodded with a wide grin. “A bit too young, my dear, but with you here I don’t care,” he said, looking into her blue eyes and placing a gentle kiss onto her lips, tracing her cheek with his nose after it. “We already held the ringing ceremony and I’m contented with that...”

“You’ve met with the wife of our Spiderman?” he glanced at her curiously. Our Spiderman, he said... he meant that the hero of this dimension, of this world, but since he was the idol of him - just like to many other kid and adult in the country -, he was eager to know more about him and her. To know who raised the beautiful girl in his arms, to know who was responsible for her brilliant mind and incredible shape, too.

“Who... who is it?” he asked quietly. 

"I...I haven't met her yet," she said. "I...I wasn't sure about that. I had no idea how it was gonna go, so I've kind of been purposely avoiding that. I figured it might be awkward or weird. Especially since Dad's supposed to be dead right now, I wanted to make sure I knew what I was doing before I approached her."

“Prolly it was a good idea,” nodded Rafi. “To delay that meeting, that is. I can imagine how someone would look if a beautiful grown-up young lady stands up in front of her and says that she is her daughter from the future.” 

“What do you mean by that he ‘supposed to be dead’?” he looked at the girl curiously. “Everyone knows so that Spiderman died during the Black Friday… there is his mask on the monument…” He was sure that May knows that, prolly she’d even visited the memorial.

"I'm sure everybody thinks he did," May replied. "But you know how super-heroes are...they seem to come back from the dead more often that soap opera characters," she joked. "The way I see it, Dad has to come back from the dead, eventually. After all," she reasoned, "I'm here, right? If he never makes it back and Mom doesn't have a daughter yet, then I wouldn't be possible. Yet here I am," she smiled. "So I know he's going to make it back. How and when, I have no idea...but I've got faith in it."

“Aye, superheroes are coming back... but I’d like to skip the dying part on my side, if possible. I’m not really sure that I’d be able to do the trick yet.”

“There is reason in what you’re saying, no doubt in that,” nodded Rafi agreeing. “And you pointed out the ultimate verification, your own existence. I hope you’ll be right and that’ll happen eventually. Spiderman’s return and your birth, that is.”

He looked at her smiling shyly. “He was one of my favorite heroes. I’ve read almost all articles about him,” he confessed. “I’ve even draw a card about him...”

"Have you ever heard of the supermodel Mary Jane Watson-Parker?" she asked him.

Rafi's jaw nearly hit the floor. Oh, he'd heard of her, all right. There probably wasn't a man between the ages of thirteen and sixty that hadn't. He'd remembered well the time that Ross Gibson had brought her Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition into school; all of the boys had spent a week of recesses poring over the centerfold and surrounding six pages until some of the print bore the marks of their fingerprints. She wasn't just a supermodel. To kids of his generation, she was the supermodel.

“Sure I’ve heard! Every boy from the school was in love with her more or less…” he confessed blushing heavily. “Don’t you say…” he breathed, heart bumping heavily.

"Oh, I say," May giggled. "Y'know, it's kinda kinky to think you had a thing for my mom. I'll have to be sure and let her know, right after we make the introductions," she flashed a wry wink for his approval.

He tried to complain but the words stuck in his throat at the thought. His eyes went funnily wide as he considered the scene what May described and he might’ve paled a bit, too, it was hard to tell in that twilight what filled the room. “I think it’d be better to keep that between us...”, he breathed at last. Even if he knew (hoped) that May was joking, that wasn’t something that you’d share with the mother of your love.

And in the moment, all Rafi could think of was her beautiful red hair and green eyes. Those eyes had to have been her father's, he was sure.

The origin of her hair, however, was every bit as certain.

He looked at her again, measuring her wonderful features, the sky-blue eyes and that aubergine hair, searching for the similarities with the model. Now that he knew, it was easy to find some of them, what could lead to that conclusion, but without this relevation he’d never have thought on that.

“Famous family you have, dear,” he smiled faintly at May. “I think we should think on that call yet a while, do you agree?” he asked, placing a small kiss onto her nose.

She nodded. "Definitely," she said, more seriously this time. "Honestly, even if you wanted to get in touch with her...I'm not sure I could do it. I mean, I've known where she is for a while, even down to having her address and phone number. I just haven't been able to work myself up to show up at her doorstep, make that call, yet," she confessed. "I know that sounds like I'm being a total coward, but...well, can you blame me?"

“No, you aren’t a coward, and no I can’t blame you,” smiled the young man at her lovingly.

“I have other ideas in mind for the close future now…”, his smile brightened as he stroked her side again, this time downward, until his palm found her bum, squeezing it gently while his other hand touched her nape, pulling her closer for a passionate kiss.

"Mmmm..." May breathed through their kiss, returning the gesture with a passion that surprised him in its ferocity. "I like your future," she said, when they parted for the brevity of a moment. At the side of the table, Rasgar batted the black sphere off the table and onto the carpet where he gave chase to it, underneath the bed on which they lay. Rafi noticed that it made no sound at all when it hit the floor.

Normally he’d’ve spent more attention to what Rasgar does with the symbiote, but now it wasn’t as important to him. His nose began to fill up with the girl’s scent again and his heart bumped heavily in his chest, while he stroked her velvet skin all over he could reach as if he could pull her into himself to meld together totally.

May shifted her weight up slightly, reaching behind herself and grasping him. He listened to her sigh as she settled herself unto him, surrounding him tightly within the slippery heat of her sex. She made a gentle noise that was somewhere between a whimper and growl, deep in her throat, the sound of pleasure given voice. Rafi felt his stomach draw tight as a drum and all the air leave his lungs, well before she lowered her chest to his, crushing her breasts against him and renewing their passionate kiss. He could feel the heat of her nipples against his skin and shuddered for the pleasure of her slowly beginning to rock her hips up and down upon him.

"I love you, Rafael," May whispered, in the space of an instant between their kisses.

Rafi growled just like her once he could take a breath, embracing her and holding her tight, kissing her chin and down her neck as she rose above him. “I love you, too.” He clawed her back gently, bit her lips, not strong enough to leave marks but enough to heighten the pleasure and when his hands found her hip to guide her movements on him, deeper and harder, somewhere there he lost the world around the two of them.

The black ball and the hunting jaguar were forgotten an instant later.

Chapter XXXIV – Gossamer

The first thing that he heard the next day was the sound of his phone.

All the way across the room, right in front of the bathroom door, he could hear one of its ringtones issuing forth from within the pocket of his discarded jacket. And so his day began, not with the pleasurable sensation of warmth that May's body, drawn close to his chest, should have given him, nor to the sound of Rasgar, snoring loudly at the foot of the bed like some sort of feline buzz-saw, nor even a slow rising out of a dreamless sleep, dark and peaceful. Instead, he woke to curse himself for leaving his clothes so far from the bed so that he could get the phone without disturbing his lover. Or for at least not thinking to turn it off.

“Damn thing”, he muttered barely awake, right after he could open his eyes as much to locate his posture and the surroundings. He was as tired as never before, he thought, but then corrected himself, thinking on one of the parties they had back at Frisco at the University. That was a trip; during a whole weekend... he shivered as the memories came forth and focused on the task at hand again instead. His throat was dry like a desert and he thought his body is hurting here and there, but wasn’t as aware yet to locate those parts at first.

May lay on her side, her lithe body clinging perfectly to the contours of his own. He lay right behind her, his arm beneath her head; she'd somehow managed to fall asleep holding his hand, and her fingers were still laced with his own. She had been breathing slowly, with a measured and gentle rise and fall of her chest; he could almost feel her wake up wit ha change in that rhythm. She grasped his hand slightly tighter.

She groaned. "They have cell phones in Heaven?" she asked, her voice still groggy and unfocused. For Rafi's part, he was beginning to feel the soreness all over his body from the night's adventuring. And from their trip to Germany, as well. It felt like somebody'd worked him over with a baseball bat. He didn't regret it a bit.

“Ouch...”, he groaned as he tried to move his limbs and the ants began on their walktour on his numb arms. “Yeah, they’ve,” he replied, “so let my arm go and I’ll grab that forgetful angel by the ear, to pull it away, okay? Then you can continue your sleep,” he joked instantly, as it was his nature. He’d prolly crack a joke even on his dying bed as it seemed. He placed a soft kiss onto her shoulder as he pulled his arm from under her head and slowly crawled down from the bed.

She did as he bade, reluctantly allowing her fingers to slip from his. The flow of blood rushing into his still-sleeping arm made the pins and needles that pricked along its length only seem to stab deeper. Once he’d pulled it away, she allowed her head to drop back to the pillow. “Tell ‘im if he keeps it up, I’ll web ‘im by his halo to the ceiling,” she cracked right back. His lovely spider, he considered, was just like that--always quick with a joke or a wisecrack of her own. “Stupid cherubs.”

"Okay, he'll get the message, I assure you, dear," he replied more and more awake as they talked and as he used more braincell for thinking. He massaged the numb arm with the other, supressing the wish to cry out aloud as the blood slowly began to circulate in it again in its regular way and the life returned into it. This was one of the two sleeping positure he liked the most, right before when he laid on his back and the girl placed her head onto his shoulder - but it had its disadvantage definitely.

The phone kept ringing and ringing. Rasgar began to growl. May pulled a pillow over her head. Only then, with the fog of confusion from his sleep beginning to lift, did he realize what ringtone it was.

The one associated with his youngest sister's cell phone.

“Great,” he mumbled and darted to the wall, fishing the phone out from its belt pocket where it was left. He glanced at the screen while he pushed the green button to receive the call, to check on the time and walked into the bathroom, pushing the door behind him. Then he leaned up to the wall, slowly sliding down on it until he sat on the floor, back on the wall, legs stretched as he replied into the line.

The bathroom floor’s tile was cold and hard. Outside the door, he couldn’t hear a thing. He wondered to himself if May had actually gone right back to sleep. If she had, he couldn’t blame her a bit. Instantly, he longed to be back in bed with her--where he belonged. Even as his sister’s voice greeted his ears, he smiled at the thought. He’d never belonged anywhere more in his whole life.

He cried out in pain by the cold touch of the ceramic tiles of the floor, but he kept it low, not to disturb May. It was good to have her on his side... or as hi more polite nature kicked, to be on her side, Rafi corrected himself. He almost felt complete himself, only one thing, one person was missing from the room to be everything perfect. Carmilla. Then he'll never feel cold again and loneliness in his life, he mused, but the turned his train of thoughts back to the phone, where his sister greeted him.

“Hello?” she asked.

“Heya elf”, he said on a throaty voice, then he cleared his throat glancing into the direction of the sink, but then just grimaced. It was too far from there where he placed himself. “Whazzup?”

“What’s up with you?” she asked, a little giggle on the edge of her voice. “You sound like you ate a pound of sand and washed it down with some bleach. Rough night?” she asked.

Of course, she couldn’t guess at the half of it.

"Aye, you can say that," nodded Rafi, still staring at the sink. Tempting, but not sufficiently enough yet. "Let's define like that it was a long, tiring day since Friday morning and I haven't got the chance to sleep enough since that."

"Ahhhh..." she replied, considering it. She sounded like she figured he'd gotten very drunk the night before and didn't want to admit his subsequent hangover. In the final analysis, Rafi was fine with letting her think just that. He wasn't prepared to tell her the truth about the evening's events, that was for sure.

Then: “What’re you doing?” she asked him. “I’m on the road right now!”

“You ready to move your little sister in, or what?”

"Wha...?" blinked Rafi through a huge yawn. "Is already Tuesday?" he asked, voice half teasing as he tried to dig up the information what he agreed on with Jo about her arrival.

She answered before he could manage the feat. "No, dope!" she giggled riotously. "It's Sunday! I figured I'd sneak down there early and start moving my stuff in as soon as possible," she explained. "I told Mom you prolly wouldn't care, so...I'm on my way!"

"Huh?" pulled a confused face the young artist again, "Something must've hit my phone and my memory, 'coz I'm sure that its Saturday only."

"I can't be tired this much if its Sunday..." he mused aloud. He remembered quite well on the events of the day and the subseqent dawn, so he was sure in it. That was the main reason why he suggested the meeting with Kommissar Maxwell to be arranged on the afternoon, to have time to rest. Now it seemed that he won't have... enough, anyway.

Jo confirmed the notion with a sly little giggle. "I'm just messin' with ya," she admitted, finally breaking into even wilder laughter. "It's still Saturday! What's up with you? That musta been some goooood stuff you were drinkin' last night, huh?"

"I never drink, elf, and you know that..." replied Rafi without hesitation and only then caught himself before saying any more. "But let's skip this for now. You can torture me and laugh on me enough once you settle," he smiled as he recalled their constant good-natured banters.

Rafi's sister was famous for always having to get in the last word in any conversation she found herself in, though. And this one was no exception. "I figured you musta started, the way you're acting," she slipped into their dialogue before letting him shift gears in the conversation. "You're acting funny, Rafi. They put something in the water down there in your fancy new city?"

“Could be...,” he nodded over the phone, feeling too sore to reply with a usual joke. He knew that Jo heard in his voice that, and probably had a huge list of questions already, so he tried to forewent that. “I’ll explain when you arrive,” he said, then paused for a moment and sighed. “Or a bit later, as kismet allows.” 

If May will accompany him greeting his sister, then their pair would explain itself, right at the first look, even if Jo will notice the rings only a few seconds later. Because she will pick them up, he was sure of it. And the fun part comes later, when Carm will join to the family, he smiled in advance as the warmth of his love coming from the thought filled his heart.

"When will you arrive? I'm not at home yet, and I have to arrange a lot of things before..." he expained, as he remembered the broken window, the tracks of the baked eggbot, and all the things the SHIELD agents could have done in his loft after their fight. Darn, he thought, they haven't even talked with them, and he had no idea what the MaxxLaw's Kommissar had acchieved in their case. 

"Uhmmm...I'm not real sure," she replied. Over her end of the phone, he heard a rustling sound that he imagined to be her opening a map to determine the answer for sure. He hoped she wasn't driving at the same time.... "I think I'm still an hour and a half out of town. But don't worry about arranging anything," she assured him. "I can move my own stuff in and rearrange what you've got to make room for myself!"

Actually, he mused, that was exactly what he was worried about....

"You coming alone?" he raised a brow as he remembered on his own drive down here in this awful weather. "Just keep it safe, okay? Meet you at the parlor's door in two hours?" he asked cageyly. He wouldn't want to test the street's safety and the vampire-stories on her. Not mentioning all those organizations he had around him now, like the SHIELD, the MaxxLaw and the HYDRA... and what he don't know yet, too.

"Uh-huh," she replied. "Mom and Dad were thinking about coming, but she's got something big going on down at the paper--and since she couldn't be there, I just figured I'd go by myself. I told 'em they could come and visit sometime next week, once I'm all moved in and see our setup. You know them," she finished. "They wanna make sure we don't need their help or anything like that. As if."

Next week. His parents would be coming down next week.

Rafi felt his throat go slightly dry for the thought.

“Yeah, always the perfect for the little lady,” he teased his sister, just to talk about something else and give himself time to accept that. “I’m sure that we’ll handle everything by then. Or, more exactly, I hope…” he said, smile audible in his voice, in spite of his concerns about the loft and the problem of how to present his love-life. The girls. Both of them. Together. And the rings, of course. Oh, Mother Earth, please help, he prayed silently.

Jo just snorted, choosing to ignore the gentle jibe for the moment. "What're you talking about?" she asked with a giggle. "What could go wrong?"

Somewhere, Rafi was pretty sure that was written on more than one headstone.

“With you on the scene?” he asked back instead of revealing his real concerns, leading his sister’s thoughts to a playful badgering. “The minimum is that we’ll get an earth-quake and a hail on that week, prolly limited to the district I live,” he went on, voice on the verge of a nascent laughter. “Fortunately I have some helpful hand around, to keep you occupied,” he added, chuckling under his breath.

Jo's giggle became full-blown laughter, obviously rather proud of her well-noted ability to wring chaos from even the most orderly pockets of resistance. "Oh, yeah?" she asked, obviously curious as to the comment. "Such as?"

If she only knew....

Rafi just snorted as if the question was a silly one, still luring her away from the actual answer of having two girlfriend, ringed for life. “You know that I make friends easily. One I already mentioned that he’ll help you learning flying...”

"Which is soooo sweet," Jo interrupted him in mid-sentence. Undeterred, Rafi continued on without as much as a pause. "I love your friends already, have I mentioned that?"

 “...you’ll meet with them as soon as we can arrange it.” Maybe sooner, he added mentally as he considered the wisdom of leaving Jo alone in the loft while he’ll be at the MaxxLaw. Either he’s gonna take her with them, or gonna leave her had its dangers, he considered. 

Damn, he’ll need serious explanations for Jo, since he never lied to her before and this won’t be the day he’ll begin that, sighed Rafi softly. “And I’m not gonna show off all the surprises I have, elf, no matter how trickily you’re asking after it,” he smiled through the line. “Just get here safe to see them.”

She sighed wearily. "But I wanna hear 'em noooooww!!!" she protested, though he could tell that she knew he wouldn't budge on the matter a bit, just from the tone of her voice. "Fine, then. I'll wait. But you'd better tell me everything the second I get there!" she demanded. "I'm thinking of pulling off for a quick lunch--then I'll get there as fast as I can, 'kay?"

“Okay,” nodded Rafi, grinning widely as he listened to the commands his sister gave off so easily. The smallest and youngest in the family, she was everyone’s favorite, and with all this changes by the surfacing mutation, he bet that she received even more attention. This resulted a strong and firm personality, who always knew better and had her own ideas about everything – and wasn’t afraid to talk about them. Sometimes it was pointless to argue with her, but fortunately she accepted his decisions if he looked as firm as she. Well, mostly, he thought with a smile.

"I love you, big bro," she added sweetly at the end of the sentence. For most, it might sound syrupy-sweet. But Rafi knew just how honestly it came from her lips, as she said it. Exactly as she used to say it when she was but four and speaking in her first complete, intelligible sentences.

And so, it practically made him melt.

“I know,” he replied with his best impression of Han Solo, from the 5th episode when they dragged him into the carbonite and Princess Leia confessed her love for him. “I’m preparing a hug for ya, when you arrive.”

This going to be an interesting day, again, he thought as he fought himself to his feet and approached the sink, opening it with one hand while holding the phone with the other. Then he watered his face, sweeping the cold water around it, clearing his eyes and mouth to force his body to be as awake as he could manage.

The water seemed even colder than he knew it was against his flesh, actually taking his breath away for a moment, it was such a shock to his system. With some disappointment, he realized that every drop was taking more and more of May's scent, her taste, from his skin. It was far too early to be awake....

He winced at the icy touch of the water, but repeated the process anyway. He wanted to crawl back to the bed, curl behind May, embrace her, drink deep her scent and sleep until that afternoon meeting but faith interrupted. Again. And now he had to solve the problem somehow and the sleeping wasn't on the list of the solutions, unfortunately.

"Anyway," Jo continued, "I'll be there soon enough. And I can't wait to see you!"

The words really drove the point home: In but a handful of minutes, his sister would be there. To live with him. Permanently.

He was going to have to hustle to get everything done before she got there.

"Me neither," he replied and he meant it. He loved the silly young girl the most from his family and would do anything for her. Not the same love he felt for Carm and May, but as strong for sure. "I'm gonna hung up, you turned my timetable upside-down now, so I have to do a lotsa things. See you soon and in one piece, if possible, kiddo. Luv ya."

She didn't apologize for it a bit. She loved him, too. And she said as much before she hung up. "Luv ya, too!" she bid him. "See ya in a few!"

The phone on the other end hung up, leaving him with a dull dial tone buzzing in his ear.

He placed the phone onto the shelf in front of the mirror, above the sink and looked into the mirror what he cautiously avoided yet. "Where to start, huh?" he asked rhetorically from the black man who he saw. He washed his face and nape again, awakening slowly fully while he thought the problem over.

At first, he has to dress up, that was obvious. Then arrange a call with the MaxxLaw to get info about his home, Carm's state and the hassle with the SHIELD. Then get there somehow, prolly by taxi as he didn't plan on to wake up anyone else from the group. He still had no idea where will Jo sleep, as he had only one bed yet and one room, but that was the smallest problem for now.

He sighed, grabbed his phone and searched for the number what he saw on the screen when the Kommissar called him at the hospital for Kyle. That would do as a start, he nodded and then pushed the call button.

Outside, through the door, Rafi could hear the sounds of movement, the soft kiss of a feminine whisper. May was up. It was impossible to tell if she was talking to Rasgar or TDT.

He turned his ears into the direction of the closed door as he noticed the talk, then grimaced. His plan to let her sleep apparently failed, so he decided to walk out, and so he opened the door, checking the main room. This part of the conversation was in connection with May, too, after all. If the number will be proved correct.

Peeking out through the slivered door, he saw that Rasgar had seen to invite himself up onto the bed. He lay there regally, at its foot, stretching out so that the edge of his fore and rear paws hung just over the edges of its sides, his tail disappearing well off the edge to hang down onto the floor below.

May, for her part, lay there nude on her stomach, the perfect curve of her taut bottom in pale profile for his approval. She held her head up in one palm, elbow sunk into the depths of the disheveled comforter--while with her other hand, she lazily stroked back and forth through the soft jade fur along his side. She had a contented smile on her face, beneath her tousled shock of dark red hair, that seemed to match the great green jaguar's loud purring perfectly. The sight of the two of them, relaxing in such a way, made Rafi's heart melt within his chest. She was so beautiful there, the delicate contour of the trailing edge of a pert breast barely visible to set off the flawless dimensions of her bare body; his best friend seemed so majestic in his morning repose. It was a singular moment--something that begged to be captured forever in the stroke of a pencil or brush.

She seemed to have no idea she was being watched. And so, he loved it all the more.

Rafi smiled at the vista before his eyes, and leant to the doorframe, one hand holding the phone to his ear, the other placed in front of his chest, palm resting at the elbow of the other. That Rasgar will sleep at his... no, at their feet, he corrected himself was clear even since he bought that huge bed into his loft, but now he saw how it will look like. 

May’s presence and the natural way as she lay on there, stroking the jaguar made his heart beat faster, and a special kind of warmth spread out in his chest. At first he wanted to join them on the bed, kissing her inviting bottom, and sweeping her lithe body with his fingers, but he chose to stay for now. He just stared at them, smile undisguised on his lips, as he committed the sight into his memory for later use. It was one image on the list he led what definitely will be drawn, given enough time and opportunity.

The phone began to ring, that strange double-ring that reminded him of the one he heard on all the British telephones on television, growing up. It was only appropriate, he supposed, considering whose house he was in and the heritage of its owner.

It rung and rung. Perhaps seven times before he finally heard it pick up.

CLICK!

"Kommissar Maxwell," the familiar, deep voice greeted him over the line. "Good morning, Mr. Gurney." It sounded like he might be smiling. It caught him a bit off-guard.

He hadn't expected him to personally answer.

“Oh,” he said in surprise at first, then cleared his throat, and greeted the commander normally. “Good morning, Kommissar.”

“Excuse me for the early call. I know that we agreed on a later meeting, but life got into the way, and so my schedule was turned out of the order,” he apologized in advance. He talked to the head of a big organization, after all, about his own problems. “My sister will arrive within a two hours to the city, and she knows nothing about the events with the SHIELD what happened in my loft.” 

"Actually," the Kommissar corrected him, "closer to three. There's quite a bit of road construction on the north 99, around Merced. Not to mention she'll be stopping for lunch at the In-and-Out in Atwater," he added. "I've had two agents following her ever since she set foot outside your parents front door in 'Frisco."

Rafi sighed relieved, and shook his head at the well-organized firm of the Kommissar. “Thank you, Sir,” he said at last. “I highly appreciate your help in connection with my family.” He meant that, as the Kommissar shouldn’t have to do that, even if they agreed to work together, it was far from his area. But he did, in spite of that, and that was good. It meant a lot of support to Rafi, to know his loved ones in safety under watchful eyes.

"We made an agreement, Jaguar," he replied. "I told you me and my people were going to work to prove worthy of your and your teammates' trust. The way I see it, this is all part of that. So you're welcome...but you should start getting used to it," he chuckled. "Maxx Law looks after their own. Now that we're working together--that means you too."

Cool, he thought, but said nothing aloud. Kommissar Maxwell knew it prolly, from the small pause, being a smart man he showed so far. It was both good to have someone to watch his back, and protect his family, but it was a bit uneasy, too, to being watched constantly. He became a kind celebrity; he thought and snorted lightly at the idea.

“I’d like to ask about that if you know something about the state of that flat, and the results of the negotiations about Spidergirl’s and Scorpion’s status with that branch?” asked Rafi shyly. “Can we go back there without any further problems?” 

A pause for a moment. It sounded like the Kommissar was drinking something. Rafi imagined him sipping a cup of coffee out of a big white mug with the Maxx Law insignia emblazoned on its side. Or, at least, the familiar Uncle Nick's emblem. "By now, I'd imagine you should," he replied after the brief moment of silence. "I spoke with S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Regional Director just a few minutes ago about the...incident last night. We both agreed that dispatching a Damage Control cleanup crew to your apartment to minimize the chance of media attention being focused on their Elysium City operations--where they have no legal jurisdiction--would be prudent, considering the circumstances. More my idea than his," he added, sounding like he smirked slightly as he said it. "So, you should be able to go back to your place--and you shouldn't see a thing out of place when you get there. Just like the whole thing never happened."

“Huhh, delighting,” sighed softly the dark-skinned young meta, nodding to himself. “I’d like to avoid any unnecessary question from my sister and family, as long as we can make it,” he explained one of the reasons behind his concerns. 

"I don't think that should be a problem--as long as you don't bring it up," he replied. "Our position with the city allows us to circumvent most of the necessary channels required to reboot property in Elysium City," he explained. "So we were able to send out a Public Works truck to make sure your place was restored to default--and your personal belongings either recovered or replaced within an hour or so after we made the call. I'd be a bit surprised if you even noticed anything out of the ordinary."

The young meta snorted shortly. He knew that he has sharp eyes, but that was the job of those guys, so prolly they were good at it. But they didn’t have Rasgar at their side, he thought. “We’ll see, what the senses of the jaguars will pick up,” he replied smiling, not without self-confidence.

"If you do notice anything, you'll have to mention it when you drop by my office," he replied. "I'd actually like to know. There's always room for improvement. It's something I try and preach to all my people: If you're not improving, you're declining."

“If I’ll, I’ll mention. If I won’t, then I’ll mention that,” nodded Rafi seriously. This is gonna be a test of his abilities as well, not just the officers’. “Nice quote, by the way. One worth to keep up.”

“Even if some media-hype surely would raise the customers’ number at my loft,” he added, unable to resist the joke. “But maybe it would attract the bad kind, not the good…”

The Kommissar chuckled. "In your neighborhood?" he asked. "That's a definite possibility. You're right on the edge of the relatively safe part of that area. A bit south, though...." his voice trailed off, implying the obvious menace to be found there.

“Yeah, I heard about vampires and such creatures...” he dropped, still not really believing it, but with all these metas and gifts in the city, it wasn’t as unlikely as might think, he knew.

He must have detected the skepticism in his voice. "Don't be so quick to dismiss it," he cautioned him. "The Jack Draculas--a gang that pretty much runs the area just south of your place with an iron fang--are every bit as real as you or me. And yes, they also just happen to be completely constituted of vampires. Our intel says there's about fifty of them running around after sunset out there. Very dangerous bunch, as I'm sure you can imagine."

“My imagination is pretty vivid, I’m sure you got the intel...,” replied Rafi somewhat wryly, but not without some sense of joke. “From what I’ve heard about them, they are pretty vicious, so why can they still operate?” he asked, but he knew the answer right then. Prolly did nothing exactly provable, and that is to only newcomers or frightened citizens who don’t tell anyone in uniform or with badge. It was the way of gangs in every city... he felt sad that his new one isn’t an exception, neither. 

The Kommissar confirmed the thought in his reply. “As far as street gangs go, they’re a pretty careful bunch,” he said. “They haven’t really done anything--at least, not that anyone can prove--that would give us the authority to move in on ‘em. Plus,” he added, “The ECPD’s finding it pretty difficult to pin down a group whose members seem to be able to vanish into a fine mist at the drop of a hat. Otherwise, you’d better believe we’d have put ‘em out of business by now. I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before they slip up and that happens. But in the meantime, you need to be careful, around your neighborhood.”

Rafi sighed softly and shook his head as he listened the explanation what he knew so good from personal experience, from his youth. There are things what didn’t change, no matter where the city was and he found it sad. It was a bit surprise, since he was part of a gang by himself, too, or at least someone who counted close associate, but he never agreed the extremely violent part of their nature. Just like here, what D and the others told about the war they’re going to... this reminded him to them, again.

“I’ll try to avoid the Dracs then, as good as I can, but I already met with some people, who are in war with them. That means that I could be involved, not matter what I do...”, he shrugged as he explained his concerns. “I became quite fond of these bad boys... but I know that gangwars never do good to the people, wherever they happen...”

“You can probably guess what I think of that, Jaguar,” he sighed softly. “My advice is that you steer clear of a crowd like that. I’ve met a lot of very good people that have ended up in very bad situations because of relationships like that. Eventually, those friendships got them involved in the darker side of that lifestyle. There’s just so many things that can go wrong…from extortion and blackmail to just ending up in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Yeah, I know. I stood on and off on that line before, back at home,” nodded the young black-skinned man. “It isn’t easy, to stay in the light and yet not loose some friends.”

“If you can’t get your buddies in line with the law,” he said, flatly, “you need to distance yourself from them. Before it ends up being too late.”

“We’ll see how life turns,” sighed Rafi heavy-heartedly. “Many things happening at the same time now, none of it is easy to decide…”, he said, staring at his toes. “Well, okay, some of it are, but that’s another matter,” he added, turning the ring around a few times on his finger with his thumb. “I’ll do what I can, and will try to get the best out of them.”

For a moment, the thought flashed in his mind that they could do something, but then he furrowed his brows and shook his head. He already had enough enemies; they must be dealt with first, before pissing off new ones. Until that, let’s hope that Jo won’t get into trouble. And D and his men; he wondered for a moment how their party went, before he turned back to his own matters.

“Thnx, anyway,” he said, before he turned to the next side in the book of questions. “That was one of my main concerns, to know about my flat.”

“And Scorpion’s status in the hospital, of course. I guess that didn’t happen anything extraordinary there.” This question wasn’t really connected to the matter with his sister, but if he talked to the Kommissar, why shouldn’t he ask that, too?

The notion that he'd had somebody following Jo dispelled the thought that something untoward would have happened. He'd almost certainly would have mentioned it, Rafi reasoned, if it had. "Well..." the Kommissar sighed slightly, "that was the main crux of my conversation with Director Bukowski. You've got to understand that Miss Black and Miss Parker are extremely valuable assets, as far as the organization is concerned. So he was pretty dead-set against anything but their immediate return to S.H.I.E.L.D. custody--for convalescence, in the former's case, and punishment, in the latter's."

Assets, he grimaced at the term disgusted. Like a special weapon, made to obey and work smoothly under any circumstances, or a robot. And now he, with his emotions and deeds corrupted these two precious instruments, not just have their own feelings but to act for them. “I understand their importance, and I think I understand their value even more than they imagine at the SHIELD,” he said at last, his voice turning colder with the thoughts, even if he had no ill will against the Kommissar but the SHIELD. 

"Yeah," the Kommssar grunted. "They may have a funny way of showing it, but neither of the two ladies can say they don't know how bad they wanted 'em, huh?"

“Sure. I’ll ask after it from them. There are lots of stories to be told yet,” replied Rafi, still pissed off a bit.

“That May broke the rules allowed that they can even think on the convalescence of Carmilla; but I heard a lot about the law enforcement organization’s strictness, and their sometimes blind sticking to the rules.”

“I do not think and work like that.”

"You're not the only one," the Kommissar replied. "If I did, I'd have applied there and worked my way up through their ranks...instead of going through all the ass-ache to make my own group of people. I'm a military man, Jaguar. I make no bones about that. I'm proud to have served my country, like I did. But I'm not so brainwashed as to not understand that the military--and that includes S.H.I.E.L.D., whether they like it or not--has it's failings. What happened to both those two girls last night is a perfect example of that. The day Maxx Law stages an operation like that," he grunted again, "is the day somebody else has the title of Kommissar. And whomever that it had better damn well beware my ghost."

Rafi listened silently to the fulmination of Kommissar Maxwell, his words perfectly summarizing his own thoughts. Being proud about and sticking to the rules of the gang was a good thing, but you had to have your own mind, and thus be able to decide against them if they weren’t applicable to the situation perfectly. Sure, that usually came with hassles after the action, but keeping your soul clean always worth it. But that wasn’t everything what the mighty man talked about, he felt, so he kept his ears open for the phone.

"Anywa, I was able to persuade Director Bukowski that the media attention and possible public litigation in the wake of their retrieval operation on your home was much more serious than the loss of two of their higher-echelon agents, though," he continued. "After I explained to him the possible repercussions of a Federal investigation of an armed and aggressive S.H.I.E.L.D. incursion in Elysium City--where, again, they have no jurisdiction--he was able to see my point of view. Basically, the long and the short of it is that he's agreed to immediately release both ladies from any obligation or possible future punishment or reprisals from the organization, provided that you're willing to meet with a member of their legal team to sign a binding non-disclosure agreement. They want an assurance that you won't go to the media and cry foul, once you've gotten free and clear from them," he explained. "As far as I'm concerned, it's a pretty good deal, from your perspective. Your apartment is brand-spanking new, your girls are in the clear and have a clean slate--and they get a hall pass on last night's stupidity."

Another pause. Another drink.

"So--you want I should tell him you'll play ball?"

“That who made the stupidity I could argue, but I’m opting not to,” replied Rafi seriously but he listened to the roll of the heavy rock as it fell from his heart, hearing the offer from the SHIELD, the results of the Kommissar’s mediating. “I’d be honored if you’d tell them that I’m in, and I think the girls are agreeing, too.” He glanced at May, who could only hear half of the conversation, but he was sure that she understood that it was about her and Carm. 

"I think that's a smart move," he replied. "Believe me--I know you and your folks in the League didn't start that whole debacle. And between the two of me, I take a little pleasure in seeing those high-and-mighty types that wear the black eagle get their comeuppance once in a while. But the truth is, your like will be a lot easier without worrying about them breathing down your neck, the second you step foot out of the EC. This is the way to make that happen--and I'm glad to see you're not stubborn enough to ignore that."

“Yeah, sometimes I think before I talk...”, replied Rafi wryly. “I’m working on that it shall happen more often,” he added.

"I've noticed a lot of you super-types seem to have that trait," he said, a bit of a smirk on the tone of his voice. "Must come with the cape."

“No capes!” replied Rafi without thinking on the tone of Edna Mode from the Disney cartoon, The Incredibles. It was a great movie, he memorized almost all the great lines from it. A funny mirror to the face of some prideful superhero, and a poke into the side of some evil genius, he smirked.

“Please, let me know when I should meet with that suit and where, if it will be arranged. I’d suggest tomorrow’s afternoon, tho, since for today we have an arrangement with you,” he said then, pushing himself from the frame, and slowly walking up to the bed where he sat onto the edge, touching his back to May, gently nudging her to give more space to him.

Both May and Rasgar turned their attention to him as he pushed his way through the door, following him as he left its frame and crossed the carpet over to him. Even as he heard the loud purring of his best friend, like a gently thrumming motor muffled by the covers, May offered him a slow and lazy smile, spreading across her beautiful features. She rolled over onto her back, sinking into the soft comforter, allowing him a breathtaking view of her pale and tight, youthful curves.

His legs almost buckled out from under him as he looked at the young girl’s perfect body in front of him. He responded a smile of his own, while he approached her, just as naked by himself as the girl was. The conversation with the Kommissar was almost forgotten, would he not be talking into his ears at the moment as he reached the edge of the bed.

He watched her reach up with both hands in his direction, fingers spread wide. The gesture, the smile, seemed to beckon him closer. And even if he'd wanted to resist it, her pull to him was inexorable...just as irresistible as if she'd ensnared him in one of those silken webs of hers.

"Sounds good to me," he replied. "I'll get a time from them and pass it along when we get together today, all right?" But Rafi could barely hear him, truth be told. His eyes were lost in the cream of May's skin, unbroken and flawless but for the warm pink of her aereoles and nipples, the shaven sex between her legs. She was so damn beautiful, lying there, that all he could hear was his heartbeat, thundering in his ears; the panorama of his vision was filled solely by his lover, lain out before him so.

"Jaguar?" the Kommissar said, snapping his attention back to the phone. "You still with me?"

Yes. But only partially.

Rafi swallowed once, then twice, to be able to respond clearly, turning his eyes afar from May, to look the counter instead, just as long as he’ll say goodbye. “Thank you for you help, Sir. See you later.”

"Right," the Kommissar said, by way of farewell. "Whenever you get here."

He finished the talk and closed his phone, staring it for a moment before he placed it onto the counter and turned to the lithe agent behind him.

“The Kommissar talked the SHIELD out of their suit, so both of you are clean if I sign a paper that I won’t go public because of the attack on my loft,” he explained shortly, stroking the flat of her stomach, tracing the lines of the strong, lean muscles gently.

He watched May close her eyes gently. It was like all the air, all the tension, was released from her body in one long, low sigh. He thought she might have even sunk deeper into the bed's surface. "That's..." she searched for the words, before opening up her striking sapphire eyes once more, "perfect."

Then, looking at him a bit more seriously: "Are you...uhm, going to sign it?"

“Well, I hafta think about it... considering the pros and contras well, before I make my decision,” he deadpanned, then glanced at her with a raised brow, like you’d do over lowered glasses. “What do you think, miss? Do you have anything what might shift the balance to your sides?” he asked with a sultry smile, while he let his palm rest on the creamy skin of her belly, unmoving.

She smiled slyly. "Why don't you come over here and find out?" she said, placing her small hand upon his; the contrast of the tones of their skin, juxtaposed upon one another, striking. As she spoke, slipping her fingers between his, he could feel a subtle shift in the slip of space between their skin. It suddenly disappeared, as if two objects joined together by a vacuum. He realized that she had used that strange and wonderful ability of hers that allowed her to cling to vertical surfaces like her namesake arachnid. "Maybe you'll find something about lil' ole' me that might interest you."

Said as she slid his hand slowly downward, from her belly, towards her sex.

Rafi smiled widely at her, putting some strength into his hold, to slow down her movement, even if he knew that he couldn’t win that contest. “I’m sure that you’ll find out that I’m interested in more things about you, not just one,” he said on a deepening voice, stroking her brows, then her chin with a fingertip; just as slowly working its way downward as slow she pulled his other hand to her flower.

She closed her eyes, as if to cut off her sight so that she might drink in the sense of his skin upon hers, alone. "Mmmmm..." she purred. A touch found her lips; moist and soft, it was amazing, distant, the similarities; the passions they stoked within him. "I can tell you everything you want to know while we make love," she promised him. "I'm all about killing two birds with one stone."

“Ah,” made Rafi a surprised sound playfully, “so you talk only under pressure?” he asked teasingly, as his single fingertip continued its way down on her neck, carefully circling her breasts before turning back to the way up again. “Good to know...” 

It was tempting as hell to forget about the phonecalls and simply join her in the bed, caressing each other until they both loose their consciousness by the exhaustion, but he couldn’t do that. If he won’t move out from this room soon, Jo will arrive to an empty, cold flat, without a welcoming brother, that was sure. So he sighed staccato, and closed his eyes for a moment, calling his mental practice to calm his heart, like before an important dance competition, then continued the sharing of the news.

“The other news that my sister is coming down here, and will arrive in three hours, so we have to arrange a few things before that…”, he added, making a funny scared face, but his warm smile and voice belied his real happiness about the event.

His love made a little face as well. "Wow," she said. "I, uhm...hope she likes me. I've, ah, never exactly met a boyfriend's family before. I think I'm supposed to be really nervous, right about now, huh?"

Looking at her as she was, Rafi couldn't imagine Jo not liking her. It was unthinkable.

But then, there was always that chaos to account for, too.

“No, not really,” he decided to say, with a smile, which turned into a mischievous one soon, but one what held a bit of anxiousness, too. “My sister’s gonna like both of you, I think. Spare the nervousness next week, when my parents will come down to take a look at us,” he said with a wink. 

She made another, even more frightened, face. "Remember, May," she reminded herself aloud. "Fainting dead away is not the way to impress the parents."

To that, he could only laugh and shake his head, the scene appearing right before his eyes. The girl’s witty comments definitely fit to his own way of living and talking perfectly. With that and Carm’s silent, melancholic but sharp way for the darker side of reality it gave off a very good feeling, and promised a life never to bore.

“My mom already knows about Carm; that means she’s expecting a girlfriend on my side – but you’ll be a surprise to everyone,” he continued, and leant closer for another kiss. “Not that I mind the possible ruckus in a bit,” he added after it, looking into the skyblue eyes of the girl seriously, smiling proudly meanwhile.

She looked directly into his, as well. Her hand--and so, his--had finally arrived at its destination, smooth and warm. The gesture also had the effect of pulling him downward so that the two of their faces were but inches apart. So close to those sapphire eyes, Rafi honestly thought that he might be able to dive into the ocean of her gaze and lose himself in its depths, if he so desired. It would be a magical place to go, indeed. "I love you, Rafael," she said, so seriously, her voice heartbreakingly quiet as she did.

There was never in his life something said that he could feel so certainly, so definitely, to be true as those simplest four words.

Said by a girl from tomorrow's world.

He closed that small distance to kiss her by way of response, leaning back to the bed to snuggle to her, to feel her skin on his again. He gave himself into the act fully both emotionally and physically, but at the back of his mind there were his consciousness, counting down the minutes before his sister’s promised arrival, and so he freed him from the embrace several moments later. He rose to his elbow, stroking her with his other hand, smiling contented now that he had her scent and taste on him again.

It dawned upon him that his hand remained between legs, stroking her lightly as they kissed and nuzzled. May's breathing was growing faster, shallower, her hips gently rubbing up against his palm and fingers. The two of them might never find their way off the bed if they continued any longer. And though Rafi could have easily done just that, make no mistake...he knew deep within himself that he shouldn't.

Still, the velvet touch, the warmth and the wetness what began to build up in her, permeating his fingers as well again almost stole the lead from his head. He needed all his willpower to retreat and bend his mind to the less intimate matters at hand.

“We better get dressed, little spider,” he said reluctantly. “I want to visit Carm, then go home to see how the cleaners did their job before Jo arrives, and we need some clean clothes, too,” he explained the reason behind it.

She sighed. "I know," she said. "Damn Damon. This bed of his is just too damn warm and comfy to get out of," she playfully bemoaned. "Not to mention, I think I really like the guy that came with it." She smirked impishly and leaned up to place a quick kiss upon his lips.

“Just wait till you try my own bed,” he smiled down at her, thinking about embracing her to elongate the meeting of their lips properly, but then he changed his mind and let her lean back after the quick kiss soon, before their blood would become afire again. “Prolly all three of us will fit there without territory-wars,” he revived his thought about the bed’s size, “considering the tonight’s experience.”

She sat upright, back against the bed's headboard, stretching out her shoulders one at a time. The act took Rafi's hand and slid it along the length of her thigh, down to the inside of her knee. He found that he immediately missed the intimacy of its former resting place. Judging by the expression on her face, so did May. "All right," she said, finally resigning herself to getting up and gong on with the day. "What first?"

“Marina promised some new garment via his driver, but I don’t know that it has arrived since that or not. I think it’s a safe bet that we’re the first to wake up... but maybe Kyle and his ladies are up, too,” he winked. 

"Riiiiight..." she nodded. "And I hear Mephisto's taken up ice skating, too."

The thought seemed to tickle her. May couldn't help but chuckle a little at her own joke. "Bracelet," she said, as if to nobody in particular. But in the blink of an eye later, Rafi watched a snakelike ebon tendril lash up from underneath the bed on which they lay, leaping up to strike May directly on the outside of her wrist. Before Rafi even had time to be startled, he saw that a thin, utterly black band circled his lover's wrist. Apparently, That Damned Thing didn't have any particular need for sleep.

He shivered, unable to resist the urge for it, as he saw TDT snapping up its unearthly speed at the command. He’ll need some time before he’ll get used to it to see and know the alien thing wander around them. It had its own consciousness after all, its own decisions apparently, as it had left Kyle to search for May… But on the other hand, it was useful and handy, if someone hasn’t examined it by extraordinary means, like checking for mind-patterns or such things.

She made a little face as she regarded it. "Concert bracelet," she specified. And dutifully, he watched as its form melted, becoming exactly that which she commanded in appearance. It looked like it was a thin slip of black paper, affixed to her wrist with a bit of adhesive at both ends, small holes all in a row about its middle. "Much better," she decided, smiling at its authenticity.

“I wanna leave a note for Damon, to inform him where he can find us and that we’re gonna join them on the meeting at the MaxxLaw. That is the plan, I mean,” he continued, smiling back at the girl, gently stroking her calves as he watched her.

She nodded. "Sounds good," she said, standing up. And Rafi followed her perfect, pale figure, as she walked across the carpet in the direction of their discarded clothing. "I suppose you'll use some paper from your art tablet?" at the end of the sentence, he watched her stop of a moment to yawn, stretching her hands out high above her head. He studied the taut curve of her bottom, the way that it seemed to stop, then melt into the tops of the backs of her thighs. There was something in the slope of her back that reminded him of the contours of the cello, artistry in both forms. When she stretched, she looked so elegant and graceful, like a ballerina in motion. Even in the midst of a yawn, he found her flawless.

“Yeah. That is the paper and pen I have, so what else I could use?” replied Rafi, just to say something while he regarded his young lover’s form. Funny, he thought, that he knew every inch of her body just as thoroughly as he did with Carm’s, if not better, only in a day. 

He cocked his head to the right, musing and imagining Carmilla next to May, on their way to the bathroom, and a slow, loving smile appeared on his lips. He was damn lucky, to have all this, he thought, touching the silver circlet on his finger, the gift of a mysterious, beautiful fae; the material proof of their trio’s love.

She stepped over the pile of clothes. Disappeared inside the bathroom.

Poked her head out around the corner of the doorway.

"Care to join me for a shower?" she asked.

Wagging her brows suggestively, just thereafter.

“For a shower, eh? Should I dare?” he asked back while he stood and made his way to her, images flooding from their previous bathing into his mind, making him shiver as goosebumps rose all over his body. 

“Well,” she shrugged gently, “I can always hog-tie you with a couple web lines, drag you into the bathroom and suspended you from the shower’s ceiling, if you don’t wanna come peacefully,” she smiled sweetly. “Your choice.”

“Lets do that quick,” he said, stepping inside and embracing her, leading the way. 

May draped her arms over his shoulders, placing a small kiss on his lips as their chests touched, the electric shiver of one another’s touch sending goosebumps across each one of their bodies. “Smart man,” she said, flashing a scintillating smile for his approval.

”I know when I’m overwhelmed and better to surrender…”, chuckled Rafi, tilting his head as he smiled back at the girl, enjoying the pleasureful shiver.

She reached back as she turned around, grasping his hand in hers slightly, leading him into the confines of the shower.

As he stepped over their underwear, left in the middle of the bathroom, he frowned as a thought flashed into his mind. Fully incongruous, as usually happened with him in any situation. The young man leaned closer to May, placing a soft kiss to her shoulder, and whispered into her ears. “You take anti-baby pills, do ya?” he asked not without some uneasiness.

She reached out and turned the shower’s knob, bringing a warm spray of water to sprinkle in a merry cone all about the pristine floor on which they stood. A thick plume of steam immediately filled its environs, its accompanying rush of heat a delightful sensation that seemed to permeate the whole of the body luxuriously. That done, May turned back to him, reaching out to hold him once more. Her pert breasts crushed to his chest, the incredible contours of her body slickened with the water, it made her somehow even sexier than ever in his eyes--something he wasn’t really sure was entirely possible, before. Desire seemed even hotter than the water, with her in his arms.

He let her pull him into the booth, his brow still up questioningly, but as her body was pushed to his, and the warmth of it was topped with the warmth of the water, he closed his eyes and kissed her passionately without further hesitation. One of his hands found her bum, lifting her slightly while the other supported her back around the shoulder blades. How long it took, to let her down again, he didn’t know, but didn’t care, either.

May leaned back with an arch of her back, wetting her dark red hair with the act. Still in the slight arabesque of the pose, she met his eyes and smiled. “No,” she replied.

“Shiiit,” breathed Rafi as the meaning of this short word settled on him, chilling his growing desire to a very deep level, in spite of the situation. If May didn’t take it, then prolly neither did Carm. That means, he thought, that he could be father by now if kismet plays with corrupted cards – and he definitely wasn’t ready to have a baby yet. 

That’d kick up all his plans for his future, though probably not the shop or the normal work but the heroism. Not talking about his family’s opinions and the SHIELD when they got intel about that one (or two, in the worst case) agent of them got pregnant. On top of that, after this mess with them… huh, he thought and shivered.

“Should I have?”

Rafi looked into her eyes, sighing as he tried to voice his concerns about the matter, without being too raw. He didn’t let the girl go from his embrace, though, but his hold got softer yet stronger, as he stroked her lower back and bottom with his palm.

May smiled a little nervously, sensing the shift in her lover's mood at her reply. Her bright blue eyes were undimmed, locked into his, as the water danced merrily off each of their bodies. She didn't say anything. She looked like she might be too scared to, really--like she was scared she might have inadvertently scared him off with her response. No, she'd let him speak first. It was safer.

“Well, first of all, I think we’re a bit too young to have a child. Or at least I don’t think that I could handle it yet… Even when we talked about that in connection with Sabah, I hoped that her faith will be arranged without us. Sure, if there’d be no other way, I’d do the adaptation, but…” he paused, searching for words again, “an own kid?! Now? Here? After all this hassle with the HYDRA, the SHIELD and all?!” The somewhat rhetorical questions just came one after another, leaving no chance for May to respond in between them.

"Uhmmm..." she mulled it over, obviously an answer just at the tip of her tongue, though she waited still longer to voice it.

“Second, what would we do with the League if you or Carm would get pregnant?” he asked on a soft voice, after he got his breath back. There was nothing but love in his eyes and the wish of a man to take care about his family. Even he felt that with this question he practically lost the strength from behind his former protest, and the question seemed like a final excuse, but he asked it nonetheless.

To tell the truth, the idea of having a real family with the girls, with children around them, and living as normal life as they could manage wasn’t as scary as he worded several moments ago. He remembered well to their half-teasing, half-joking talk with May in the waiting room of the Hospital, about having kids, right three of them… and it still felt right.

Awkwardly, she continued to consider how she should word her response. "I, ah...we...."

“Third, what would we do all those kids in my small loft?” he asked, a sly smile creeping to his lips, “Asking the City Hall for another floor onto the top of the building?” he asked half-jokingly. “Hm, that isn’t a bad idea, actually, that’d come handy for Jo, too,” he added musing on it.

Finally, she just said it.

"Relax, Tiger," she burst into a broad, warm smile, pushing him up against the cool solidity of the shower's wall with a single finger placed upon his shoulder. Her strength was absolutely amazing, Rafi could not help but marvel again. If she wanted to, those fingers could probably push right through the wall into the room on the other side without any difficulty at all. As it was--as gentle as she was--it was a loving, if insistent gesture. "They outlawed pills to do that even before I was born, where I'm from. Too many bad side-effects," she explained.

He tried to resist the push at first, by pure pride even if he knew and experienced again that he has no chance to do that. Still, his resistance looked more humorous than forceful as he let her lock onto the wall again. His eyes were locked into hers, through the steam and gentle water, and his ears drank in her words. 

He wanted to relax but couldn’t, the topic thrumming in his mind more and more alive as the girl spoke. “Outlawed? For side-effects?” he asked back making a scared face, breath caught both by the thought and her nearness.

"Yup," she nodded sagely. "Everything from acne to birth defects, when they don't quite do the job. Eventually, I guess the people at the big drug companies were sick of the lawsuits and the government-types went ahead and did something about it," she reasoned with the slightest of shrugs. "They decided to go a different route."

She followed him all the way to the wall until her sleek, slick body pressed up against his. The sensation of her nearness was so heartbreakingly incredible he could barely believe he was there, in that spot, with such an unbelievable, flawless beauty naked against his flesh. He was aware of the sound of his heartbeat in his ears, like so much thunder, of his pulse, gone breakaway within the cage of his chest. And staring at the sapphire of her eyes, the dark ruby of her hair, as she placed her hands on his hips and began to stroke them upwards toward his ribs, he shuddered for the proof that it was no dream. She was there. He was there.

Rafi embraced his young lover, his agile fingers tracing her contours reverse as hers did with him. He started at her brows, going down on her cheeks, chin and then neck, pausing for a moment to rub her earlobes and tickle her hairline before he went on. His fingertips barely touched her shoulders as they crawled onto her back, tracing the borders of the backbones, then going down along the spine from vertebra to vertebra, until his palms arrived to her bottom and cupped it. It was like he went blind and had to explore her body to know that it’s her and it isn’t a dream.

He heard the gentlest whisper of her breath, her body rising and responding to his every subtlest touch. He could feel the small pink nubs of her nipples hardening, pressed to his chest...watch, as she closed her eyes to drink in the sensation of his touch, of his simple nearness, deep. Then, when she opened them again, the blaze of sapphire glory was like the sum of all springtimes, blooming simultaneously into flower.

It was all real. Every bit of it.

He closed his eyes and slowly began to smile. It couldn’t happen any bad things because they were here both, caressing each other, as long as life allows; he sighed softly. Some of the tension left him by the act, but then he opened his dark green eyes again and listened to the girl forward.

"Where I'm from," she went on, "babies undergo post-birth genetic therapy. Mostly, it fixes a lot of the places where humans are vulnerable. It touches up stuff like congenital defects and helps us resist infant-specific illnesses. But for girls," she added, "it adds a kind of a genetic 'trigger switch'. Basically, without boring you with the details, it lets us pick and choose if we want to get pregnant or not, every time we're...with a guy. If we want to, we are--if not, we're not."

His eyes went wide by the explanation, it sounded like something from a sci-fi – as it was, actually, considering that she was from the future. Genetic augmentation, he thought raising a brow. One of today’s feared experiments as far as he knew, as it became more and more widely used in the agriculture; and he was sure that in the military, too. He wanted to reply to the revealed information, but her stroking touch on his chest found a sensible spot and his words were stuck in his throat by the shiver what ran through him.

Her hands ran across his chest, kneading and exploring the curves of his wet musculature.

"So..." she came close enough to whisper it into his ear, "we can do it as much as you want--and you don't have to worry about a thing." She kissed the bare lobe of his ear and blew a hot breath across it, like a sirocco wind. Rafi felt his knees almost buckle beneath him. May might have wagged her brows suggestively.

"Convenient, no?"

“It makes life easier, for sure,” he nodded thoughtfully, recovering from the previous shock. “Isn’t it as dangerous, playing with genes, as the pills before?” he asked nonetheless. “You look around, the papers were full with articles about the genetically modified plans and herds a few years ago, before the snow came... Heck, my mom wrote a few!” 

"Nope," she shook her head. "A few years from now, a small scientific expedition is going to finally find their way inside Wundagore Mountain and come out with the High Evolutionary's entire roadmap for the human genetic structure," she explained. "There'll be a big business boom for genetic augmentation--medical, military, and otherwise--for a couple more years before they pass a UN ban on a lot of outlets for the technology. Finally, it'll settle down into primarily useful consumer stuff. Like prenatal care."

“Ah-ha,” he considered the information what May shared with him now with a bit doubt. “Like some base resistance against the cold weather in this crazy, Endless Winter?” he asked smiling wryly. 

“I guess,” she shrugged. “Though the cold affects me the same way it affects you and everybody else. What’s really kinda weird is that I don’t really remember the Forever Winter from history book in school and stuff,” she confessed to him. “I got pretty good grades, too; it’s not the kind of thing you’d think I’d miss. So I figure something must be coming up pretty soon that’ll take care of it.”

“I see,” mused Rafi rubbing his chin and then closed his eyes bending his neck backward to allow the water soak his braids and trickle down on his face. “I don’t think that they’d left out this from the booksm be it only a few years,” he said then. “More likely it never happened on your timeline. If you believe to some sci-fi writer then when you travel time then you travel dimensions as well – and that could explain the hiatus.”

May's brow furrowed at the suggestion. And from that merest response, the way that it settled in across her beautiful features as do stormclouds across a gentle springtime sky, Rafi instantly wished he could take the words back. "I...thought about that," she admitted. "But...there's no way," she shook her head resolutely. "There's just...too much that's alike. And the way that I came back...no, there's no way," she said, convinced of it as there was a sun in the heavens. "This is my timeline, just further back. There's no other way."

The way she said it, she seemed to be wanting to change the subject. To anything but the inexorable persistence of time.

The dark jade eyes of Rafi filled up with sympathy and love as he stroked her cheek then pulled her to him to hold her for a moment in his arms. He placed a soft kiss into the corner of her left eye and sighed softly, his hot breath tickling her ear in spite of the water what trickled down onto them. 

“You know something about the future,” he whispered plainly, sure in what he said. “Something what you don’t want to happen – but you don’t want to speak about that. Not yet, anyway,” he went on quietly with his guess, what he felt behind the girl’s darkening mood. “I can wait. And I’ll be ‘round, at any time, hope y’know that, too,” he told her, whispering into her wet hair, gently stroking her back.

May shivered beneath his touch, holding him close. Rafi thought he could feel her heartbeat, like thunder within her chest, perhaps even hear it for the sudden and absolute silence that had filled the bathroom as so much water does an empty vessel. "I need to be careful," she whispered into his ear. "There's...there's just too much at stake. Too much to lose if I make even a single mistake. I could accidentally influence time the wrong way just by telling the wrong person what I know...even if my intentions are good."

The young man just stood and held her in a heartfelt hug, idly stroking her hair and back, but he remained silent while she talked. He said what he wanted, he was and he’ll be here, everything else was up to May. Judging from her expression and the way she talked his guess was right, indeed.

She took a deep breath against his body, let it all out in a long, slow sigh. "The way it was explained to me, there's a really small window," she tried to explain. "If I nudge time too gently, it'll reseal itself--and I won't have made a difference. But if I push it too hard...there's no telling what might happen. I could break the whole thing. I might make sure I'll never be born and wink myself out of existence. I could make something even worse happen than what I'm trying to cut off."

“Shhh,” he hushed her, placing a soft kiss onto her head, through the water and steam. “Don’t say more than you can, there is no need, I said.” And so he put himself into the embrace, firmly showing that he’ll share his shoulder whatever she had on hers. “I don’t want to loose you,” he whispered.

He felt her kiss his shoulder gently, rocking him back and forth. "Thank you," she said quietly, for understanding. I promise I'll tell you as soon as I can. When it's safe."

She repeated herself, a little more hollow, this time.

"I promise."

He pulled her even closer if it was possible, hugging her firmly then released her just as far as he could kiss her gently by way of response. Sure, he was curious what it could be, but has read enough novels about time-travelling to know - or at least, to suspect - that it was a risky thing, and that helped him to keep silent.

Rafi then pulled back, smiling at May and nodding once, then cocked a brow as he returned to their original topic about the gene-manipulations by the High Evolutionary’s data, like if they’d never have trailed off from that, just to allow her to relax again, thinking on something else.

“And all of it came from the High Evolutionary, expanded further and then part of it outlawed again by governmental researchers? But he is a myth, with unknown motives – other than his creatures what he creates from every living thing... how could they trust in him?”

She shrugged again. “Prolly like anything else,” she decided. “Money. Once whatever company got the technology and they proved to their own satisfaction that it worked…they convinced the general public with a marketing campaign with a happy face on it. They probably never even told anybody it was from the High Evolutionary--not until its use was widespread that, by the time they did, nobody cared anymore. It all boils down to the fact that there was too much money to be made off of it to let anything silly like morality or social suspicion get in the way.”

“But looking at you...” he began, pulling May closer as he ran his right hand up on her back until her nape, “it must work perfectly if the result is so wonderful...” he breathed before he lowered his head to kiss her lovingly.

“Mmmmm…” she purred through the soft kiss, her fingers spreading wide and sliding down the backs of her shoulderblades to pull him close to her. Rafi could feel her left leg slide upward along his own, the inside of her thigh, soft and lithe stroking along the long flat of his thigh. Finally, he felt her knee peak at the top of his hip. The sense of her warmth, her nearness, was indescribable. It was making the idea of leaving the shower less and less palatable by the moment….

He detected a slight blush as May lowered her eyes to look at him, starting at his toes and slowly working upward to meet his eyes once more. "Oh, I dunno," she replied, the blue quality of her gaze startling for its brilliance. "There's a lot to be said for what Mother Nature cooks up all on her own, I'd say."

“Exactly why you happened to be so gorgeous and magnetic, inheriting good genes, toppled with science,” that he just whispered almost into her mouth before their lips touched. He held the kiss for a moment, closing his eyes and relaxing into the embrace, like if he’d gathered strength before a long run and then let the scene go on, flowing with the pelting water on their skin and the emotions behind the touching bodies, the young hearts in love within their chests, crowned by the play of their arms on each other’s skin and the dance of their tongues in the French kiss.

They kissed in that manner for a long time. When, at last, they paused to take a breath, Rafi watched her reach up with a single pale finger, placing it upon his left breast. Such a contrast in their tones, he watched her trace the long pattern of a heart, directly over his own. When she was done, she looked back up into his eyes, desire smoldering in the sapphire quality of her gaze. If they didn’t leave now, he knew, they’d be at least another hour….

“Okay, I think we’re clean enough now and it will only worsen if we don’t go out now,” he said a few minutes later, gasping after breath, once he freed himself from another kiss and snuggling. To show that he means it, he quickly turned off the warm water’s knob then stepped out from the boot and grabbed a towel, leaving the girl alone under the cold shower. A few steps far he turned, covering himself with the textile, sweeping off most of the wetness and waiting with a mischievous smile.

Within the confines of the shower, May shrieked, laughing loudly once she'd caught her breath from the initial shock of the cold water. For his part, Rafi barely had the time to turn around before may had flown into a blur of motion. With the suddenness of a gunshot, a streak of jet erupted from her extended, upturned wrist, from the center of the black wristband she wore. That flash terminated when it struck the towel--and by the time Rafi'd finished spinning about to see her, she'd already yanked it out from under his arm--and reeled it back into her chest.

“Hey, that was my towel!” he protested aloud, eyeing the girl, the tempting changes on her body what the cold water called forth as he cautiously reached out to grab on the other one, thus re-arming himself.

May giggled riotously. “Was, being the operative word,” she said, swiftly stepping out of the confines of the shower, into the center of the bathroom after him. Stalking after him with a grace that would make Rasgar proud as he grabbed a new towel.

She began to walk towards him with a bit of playful menace in the smile crossing her lips. "Ah, so we're gonna play dirty this morning, huh?" She encroached closer and closer to him, gently directing him into the corner of the bathroom...where there was no easy escape.

“Dirty?” he asked back slowly retreating and looking for ways for escape, at first others than his loved high jumps because that would have resulted catastrophic in a wet bathroom. But perhaps a low one, sliding under her arm with a steadying arm on the floor... he mused, but didn’t stop talking. “You used your webbing, not me my gift! ”

She laughed. “Uh-huh,” she replied. “Exactly what you deserved, Mr. Cold Water-Shower!” Which, of course, did nothing to explain away the unfairness, but she didn’t seem to care a bit about that, either.

He grinned wickedly as he followed her with his eyes, rolling the towel up to form a weapon. He remembered well to the childhood plays with the wet textile and the painful red marks on their skin what was left after its bites. “You wanna more?” he asked playfully.

"I know a thing or two about playing dirty, too, y'know," she promised.

The grin only spread all the wider across her lovely features.

“Show me,” he winked at her mimicking perfectly Morpheus’s voice and expression from the movie Matrix when Neo said to him that he knows kung-fu, and then an equally happy, teasing grin appeared on his face as he jumped into action. The idea was to create a waist-high fog from the white tiles of the floor, then using that as a cover quickly jump past her to get out from the corner to where she wanted to wedge him in. 

Knowing her swiftness and quick reflexes it didn’t promise too much luck, but he not really had any other option. If she’ll catch him mid-motion at least he can grab on her to yank her onto him as he’ll fall to the floor... and that promised some very warm moments, the thought flashed through his mind.

May offered a wolfish grin. “Your funeral,” she promised him. And even as the steam rose up all around them, bathing the bathroom in a waist high pall of wispy white clouds, she continued toward him, cutting down the corner in which Rafi stood more and more, with each passing step.

He responded an equally self-confident grin, eyeing his nakedly approaching lover. Rafi measured her every step, the angle and the speed she came to him to choose the best moment for the planned escape. His decade-long practice in capoeira provided him a great deal of fighting experience, even if that wasn’t only training room experience as some might call it.

Finally, he made his move, right when she was in mid-step--darting as quickly as he could right past her. At first, he thought he’d taken her off-guard; he made it as far as a half-step past her, skirting just past her left hip in the direction of the open door and freedom, beyond. But, just before he was past her, he felt her hand brush his back, just above his bare bottom.
And the next thing he knew--he was airborne.

“Uhh,” he groaned in surprise instantly twisting his body to break free from the girl’s grab, only to find that it wasn’t just pure strength what got him and that his efforts were totally useless.

May’s fingertips had stuck to his flesh like glue. And as strong as she was, Rafi had a better chance to knocking a mountain off the face of the Earth than he did of moving her as much as an inch. If she would have stayed still, he would have at least ripped six inches of skin right off the bone--if not hurt himself even worse from the shock of being stopped so suddenly. But with an effortless grace borne of her amazing blend of strength and agility, she managed to allow his momentum to lift him skyward with the gentlest lift of her hand…and then back down to the floor below.

At first, Rafi thought he was going to smack flat on the tile floor in an unceremonious heap. But May broke most of his fall with that unbelievable strength…and so, instead, he ended up laying flat on his back with more or less the same speed one achieves when they slump comfortably into a padded chair or the mattress of their bed.

Of course, still stuck to him, May eventually went down with him. And when she did, she ended up twisting in such a way that she fell astride him. Her legs were on either side of his hips; her hands bracketed his head. Her beautiful face ended up little more than an inch from the tip of his nose. Rafi felt the edges of her wet hair, dark red gone nearly black, for the moisture, dancing on his forehead. The heat from between her legs spread out all throughout his groin. “Since I’m not from these parts,” she said quietly, her blue eyes fixed on his, “you’ll have to tell me if, 'round here, that qualifies as epic fail…or just fail.”

Rafi sighed as he felt her over him, her breasts crushing to his chest, both the nipples sensibly poking his skin and the warmth of her desire spreading through him. His young body responded naturally, producing a growing erection what tensed between their wet bodies. His arms slowly crept onto her back, pulling her down onto him as he replied with calmly with his last bits of willpower.

May was not oblivious to the way that his body rose to greet her nearness. Her free hand reached up and stroked his face, fingertips brushing the dark curve of his cheek like the gentle breath of a breeze. It was enough to make him close his eyes for a moment, immerse himself in the sensation, of the entire experience. The breeze of a fingertip. The heat between her legs. The sense of her breasts against his own. The smoothness of her skin.

When he opened his eyes, he was greeted by the brilliant sapphire of her gaze.

It took him a moment to find the breath to speak.

“Well, that depends on what part of my action you directed the question at,” he said, a ghost of a smile appearing on his lips. “Option A: in spite of what my pride whispers into my ears, the attempt to slip past you was a total fail. We’ll have to practice more to know better each other’s abilities... and to provide me more chance,” he presented the first version, not without some self-irony.

“Thank him for this, I felt it,” groaned the young dancer under the lithe agent playfully, moving his hip to the left then to the right like it’d be hurting where her fingers were stuck to his skin or from the fall to the floor. “Even more I think that I’ll have to improve my agility to keep up the pace you set. It’d be a shame if I couldn’t handle the women in my house in every possible way,” he winked as a lustful smile appeared on his lips.

"Blame dad," she said, leaning down to nuzzle his face, across the still-tingling flat where her fingers had been, but a moment ago. "He always said he neglected his wall-crawling too much. He used to say if he had to do it all over again, he'd have found a way to work it into his fighting style. So we used to play around with ways to do exactly that," she explained. "He was right: It has a lot of potential."

"You can tell him yourself, someday. And as for handling me..." she said, that smile drawing ever wider. "I think you did just fine, last night, tiger. Good enough that I can't wait to get handled again."

Another giggle and a sly wink.

It was going to be really hard, getting out from beneath her.

Pride swept over him, joining the already growing lust and love in him. He smiled up at the girl from that close distance, while his hands stroked her side and back. “I’ll note that in my dance order,” he said and wiggled his eyebrows then punctuated the movement with a wink, before he went on his reply.

“Option B: if you consider that I planned originally that we’ll end somewhere around here, with you over or under me, embracing you and feeling what I feel now, then it was a perfect maneuver,” he went on the explanation, obvious, naughty happiness shining in his eyes.

May's blue eyes seemed to glitter with delight at his response. And she didn't reply at all to his assertion. At least, not with her voice. Instead, her lazy smile spread wide across her lips.

It vanished, once they began to kiss his own.

Their hands explored each other’s body again, stroking every available piece of skin, quiet, pleasureful moans breaking only the kissing. Neither of them cared about the hard floor tiles or the other parts of the not too comfortable environment as they were lost in their own world again. 

It took several moments to get his breath back, cutting through the threatening red cloud over his mind in the little pause. He pulled back his head and turned it so that he pushed his cheek to the floor and stared into the room to re-gain some self-control. His strong arms pulled May down onto his body, but it was more a loving hug than one filled with sexuality.

Outside, in the bedroom, Rafi saw that Rasgar was awake. He had taken up a spot above the bed, laying extended atop the wide wooden headboard, above the small spots on the sides where books rest in built-in shelves. Relaxed, he was stretched out so that his forepaws hung off one end of it, his tail dangling over the other. He was watching the two of them, there on the bathroom floor, probably trying to figure out what in the world it was that they were doing.

But, in his typically-feline way, it didn't interest him enough to get down from his perch, where he played at being lord of the rainforest. He was content enough, it seemed, just to watch.

The jaguar’s view always provided a calming effect to him and this situation didn’t differ much, either. It was good to see that some things haven’t changed and his friend was around like ever when he was alone and no one could see the illusionary jade feline wandering around. His approval - even if he knew that it comes somewhere deep inside from him... well, he thought that it came from there only but a day ago - meant a lot. Instinct and intuition, born into a separate body to guide him.

But Rasgar’s view couldn’t divert his thoughts fully from the lithe girl’s presence over him, her scent was in his nostrils again, her taste on his lips and the tingle between their skin was almost overwhelming.

His voice was croaky as he whispered into her ear, “We really shouldn’t do this now... we have all the time of the world until our lives will end to make love,” he breathed heavily, clearly with his last bits of sense of duty. “The family calls and you’re part of it since the morning, too.” Rafi dared to look back at her, searching for her eyes to see if she’ll let them go or he’ll fall into the depths of those sapphire eyes and delay their departure with at least a half hour.

He was still looking out into the bedroom when she replied, Rasgar's beautiful green eyes gazing into his from across the room. "I don't recall giving you a choice, tiger," she whispered back.

Rafi sighed and slackened, like if he’d acquiesce into her decision, his hand sweeping down on her back to the direction of her butt, and closed his eyes allowing his fingers to convey as much of the sensation from the touch to reach his mind as it was possible, when...

A pause. Then, a gentle giggle.

He stopped and turned his head back to look up at the girl. His question was clearly visible on his face, the delight in her voice suggesting that he was tricked.

She arched her back, putting her weight on one arms so as to behold him anew again. For Rafi, it was like the break of a new day--breathtaking and majestic. "You're lucky I've had duty drilled into my head since I was in diapers," she smiled slyly, a bit of the fringe of her dark red hair dripping down onto his chest. "With great power...and all that, right?"

“Yeah,” he smiled back, both relieved and frustrated by her response. They can go on the planned route but he will miss this intimacy in spite of his former words, he knew. “Everyone knows that quote,” he nodded, his eyes drinking deep her beauty as she stretched over him.

"Mom always said he should've gotten it copyrighted," she remembered with a bit of deadpan humor. "Put it on mugs and t-shirts and posters. The two of them would've been millionaires."

“But they’re,” he replied quietly admiring her, “They have you.”

The remark made her actually blush, a little pink burnish that rose to the tops of her cheeks and had a way of making May even more irresistibly cute than she normally was...if that was possible, anyway. She sighed gently, stroking a single singer from the bottom of his breastbone, downward...only finally pulling away when she was just beneath his navel. It seemed to light a cold fire behind it, in its path. "You keep talking like that..." she promised him, "...and we're never getting out of this bathroom."

The touch made him breathless, his eyes went wide by the feeling what followed and there were other changes, too, just as clearly visible. His flat stomach wavered as his breathing became faster and shallow, making his nostrils move, too. He lifted his palms as a sign of defeat, but he didn’t miss during the movement to carry his fingertips over the side of her, leaving only the lithe body at the cheeks. “Okay, I’ll be quiet,” he promised when he considered the threat very real and tried to shift his train of thoughts other than that.

Adroitly, with an amazing amount of flexibility, she managed to rise up above him without as much as resting any weight upon him. And she reached out both hands to offer him help standing, himself. "Just be warned: I think you've unleashed a monster on the world," she cautioned him. "I had no idea just how horny I was until you so kindly pointed it out to me last night. So don't blame me when your sister wonders where you've gone missing to--"

Rafi accepted the offered hands, shaking his head grinning widely at her speech meanwhile. Her ever-present off-hand witty remarks and jokes were something meant to him, to his heart, and that felt good.

May laughed as she pulled her lover to his feet.

"--when I pull you into the hall closet, 'cause I can't help myself any more."

To that, he laughed aloud, placing one hand onto her waist and placing a soft, tentative kiss onto her lips before releasing her again as they’ve walked into the room. “I’ll warn her not to search unexpectedly,” he replied as he began to dry off himself with the towel, carefully turning sideways to May as he guessed that he couldn’t stand to watch her doing the same without the risk of another hot moments.

It was hard enough to command his body to calm, as he got dressed up, glancing at his phone when he put it back to its sheath on his belt, to see how much time they had left.

May extended her hand in the direction of the wall--and Rafi watched the other towel hung there seem to leap off the rack into her hand like a blue bolt of lightning. He had to strain his eye to see that she'd actually shot a filament-thin line of webbing from the black bracelet she wore to make it begin its dance. It was amazing to watch. May used her powers so easily, in such a natural and careless manner, there was so mistaking that she had possessed them since her very birth. "I'll try and act embarrassed, if you forget to mention it," she quipped. "Probably make a better impression if I at least pretend to blush."

Rafi chuckled as he considered the situation and a deep blush crept onto his face. The idea of caught on the act by his beloved younger sister... well, that was well over his usual limit of being extroverted, and so his chuckle turned into a quiet coughing. “I’ll try not to forget, rather,” he said a bit embarrassed.

He felt her hands on his hips, behind her, sensed her drawing near, once again. In the mirror, he watched her appear from over his shoulder, smiling lazily as her hands curled around him, arms encircling his chest to hug him close. "But I won't be embarrassed, really," she confessed.

"I don't think I could ever be embarrassed about admitting I'm in love with you."

Rafi put his hands behind him, embracing her backward and sighed contentedly in the pose, but couldn’t resist the opportunity for a slight joke. “Never say never,” he chuckled, “just imagine how the three of us with you, Carm and me will stay in front of my parents, explaining our relationship.”

“Other than that, I can imagine nothing, either,” he added a moment later, before May could’ve responded and turned to have her in front of him, even if he felt this backward hug a very intimate and heartfelt one. He wanted to see how she reacts to his remark.

May made a little face. "Right," she replied, as an admission of defeat. "Note to self: Never dare the artist to paint you the picture." And judging by the look on her face, it was true enough. She could imagine it well enough, now.

Rafi giggled and placed a small kiss onto her nose. “We’ll be full with such notes, as it looks now. Like: You can’t outrun a spider or A spider’s web isn’t just for catching the prey”, he winked at May, a mischievous smile spreading on his lips.

She flashed him a smile that actually made Rafi's heart feel like it might have skipped a beat in his chest. How long would it be before he became so used to her company that he was no longer so stricken by just incredibly beautiful she was? How long was forever supposed to be? "It's a good thing you keep that pad of paper around with you," she said with a little laugh. "I'll have to buy you a couple more; I get the feeling the three of us are gonna go through a lot of sheets."

It was a comment that could have been taken in several different ways, to be sure.

Rafi snorted instead of a loud laugh as he nodded grinning from ear to ear. “Aye, I think the same,” he agreed, not defining on what meaning he thought. His smile, the shine in his dark green eyes and a slight blush what appeared on his cheeks talked for themselves; showing that his vivid imagination already painted some scene to his mind. How he’ll live through the first month after Carm moves in, too, he didn’t know, but he was sure that it’ll worth it.

Then he wrote a few words onto an empty page in his sketchbook, addressed to Damon about the leave and where they can find them, then tore it, pocketing the book. When he finally reached the door, he grabbed May’s hand, their fingers interlaced, black on white, in harmony. “Okay, lets sneak out to the hall, then call a taxi and leave,” he said quietly, calling Rasgar after them with a move of his head.

The two of them dressed while Rafi had written his little note, Rasgar finally somehow sensing that the time had come for them to leave and dismounting from his high ground on the headboard. By the time May had finished putting her light windbreaker on, Rafi'd finished tying his shoes and put the piece of paper on the front door. With a little nod in her direction, she affixed it there with the tiniest bit of webbing, cast from that utterly dark bracelet of hers. Not a word was exchanged by either of them through the whole of the act--they were already beginning to make a good team.

May reached down and held Rafi's hand as they started quietly down the hall in the direction of the front door. "What?" she whispered back to him. "I was thinking I take you swinging across town back to your place. Old-school, like my dad used to do?" she grinned.

Rafi grinned wryly as he thought on the idea, swinging over the city, through the high buildings and over the bridge to get to his... no, their home. Would not the Endless Winter on, he’d have enjoy it no doubt. Hopefully he will, he thought, when this damn cold will be gone. But now... it wasn’t a too good way of approaching their goal and on top of that, what would they do with Rasgar, he mused. His thoughts were written on his forehead as he tilted his head, still smiling as he glanced at her.

She must have thought about the wind and the cold. She made a little face and shrugged.

"Or...we could just call that taxi, I guess."

“Right,” he nodded, “it’ll be much warmer and Rasgar can come with us more comfortably.” He fished his phone again, and began search for EC’s taxi company on the Net. From his former explorations he knew that it’s really fast and ordered, so it won’t take long to find out the proper number.

His expectations were not denied in the slightest. Even though he wasn't yet on the city's vaunted Quicksilver network, Rafi discovered that simply dialing into the Elysium City phone directory gave him a full-screen manually-browsable register of all the city's businesses. In about thirty seconds, he had before himself a list of any of ten taxi services he could use. He was tempted to check the directory to see if Steel Bulls had yet been entered into its listings, but decided that the investigation could wait until sometime later.

By the time they’ve reached the room where they’ve talked after their arrival, he was calling it, and glanced out in the window to the street, to see what was waiting for them.

One in particular caught his eye in the directory: Hermes Acinonyx. It sounded like a species of animal, to him. Seeing as none appeared to be better than another, he decided on that one. Keying in the number into the phone, a voice picked up after only one ring. At his side, May grasped his arm and drew herself into his shoulder warmly.
 
Rafi lifted his arm and placed on her shoulder without thinking, allowing her to snuggle closer to his side, and placed a quick kiss onto her head, while he waited for the phone. It felt good, like they’d known each other more than a mere day. He wondered for a moment how it could’ve happened, getting into each others heart and soul in this neckbreaking speed, but all he found was that only the result mattered.

The voice was feminine and young. "Hermes Acinonyx," she greeted him. "How can I help you?"
 
“Hello. Rafael Gurney here and I’d like to have a car to 315 Parklife Lane,” he began once the line was picked up. He remembered the address from his list what he got from the City Hall when he asked for capoeira dancers. “Non-smoking, please, and I have a great cat with me. I hope that won’t be a problem.”

"Not at all," the young woman replied. She took it so absolutely in stride that Rafi had to wonder what kind of things a taxi driver in Elysium City must see on a day-to-day basis. When he looked at it that way, maybe having a green jaguar along for the ride with him wasn't so strange after all.

“After how much time will s/he arrive here?”

"I'm just getting off the 99 right now," she said, her use of the first person telling Rafi that he wasn't talking to somebody at a company secreted away someplace in the city--but to the driver that would take them on their way herself. "I'll be there in less than a minute, if that works for you."

 “Thank you,” he finished the conversation, placing the phone back in its sheath, still staring outside. The white of the snow was still captivating after all these months, years, but he wasn’t just looking at that. His eyes searched for signs of any unexpected, any out of order, out of place thing what could belie the presence of someone with ill will. After their night, he began to be a bit paranoid.

He barely had time to scan the low and level snows covering the front yard--unbroken but for the prominence of the stone sculpture of the ladybug in its center, all covered in a thick blanket of winter white--before the vehicle came into view through the leftmost pane of the window he stood before.

It looked nothing like a taxicab. It was a beautiful thing, Rafi thought, rather like some piece of artwork manifested through engineering, than anything else. It was sleek and graceful, a smooth silver shape that reminded him of something insectine, like some kind of automotive praying mantis, or something. The windows were all tinted black and nowhere did it rise more than three feet off the ground. It cleared perhaps as many inches from the snowy pavement below it; it would have been impossible to move, had it not for its wheelless construction. As it was, sliding gracefully and silently into view, it implied speed, like some kind of bleeding-edge fighter plane. It seemed to have no seams on it that he could see, anywhere on its build.

“Wow,” the remark escaping his mouth unintentionally. Sure, he saw the flying cars of the city before, he even went with one when they hurried into the hospital with Carmilla, but this was something else. Now he had the time to see it closely and detailed if just from the outside. But was it their taxi, he wondered, looking for the obvious signs of that.

May seemed rather impressed, as well. She let out a low whistle as she looked the sleek curves and contours of the vehicle up and down. "Now that," she said quietly, "is a car."

Rafi had to look closely, to make sure it was, indeed, their ordered transportation. But, even as it turned up Damon's driveway--emitting no sort of emission that he could see, whatsoever--he saw a small holographic sign that twinkled in silver and black for his view: TAXI, to the fore and rear of the thing. He looked for some kind of logo on the automobile, interested in its maker. Where one would normally be, centered on the front, between the headlights and above the bumper--all he saw was a perfect yellow circle. A smiley face, in place of advertisement.

May looked at him and shrugged slightly.

As with anything else in the Imperial City--nothing was drab and ordinary.

The surprised look on his face spoke for itself as he looked back at her and copied her shrug. “Well, nothing ordinary for sure,” he said, “I hope her price would be that, tho,” he joked.

May huddled closer into his side for warmth. Even though they remained inside, just looking out through the window into the swirling winds and bitter snows outside was enough to chill one to the bone. "I wonder if she has an installment plan, at least," she quipped. "Since I'm not going to get a loan without a working social security number and all that."

“Will keep that in mind and hide you when the shop will get a monitoring,” Rafi retorted without thinking, referring their former agreement in her employment in his loft.

“Let’s go. First stop: hospital.” Rafi led May to the entrance where he helped her into her coat and then grabbed his own, before he reached for the door.

Stepping out into the cold was every bit as brutal as it looked from inside the house. Out there, in the face of the winter wind's full fury, one had might as well been nude for all the protection even heavy coats and boots offered. The way it hurled the snow and ice into the body, it was like standing in the face of an invisible tornado full of razorblades. It seemed to cut right to the bone and then go directly through you--making one feel every bit like a fading phantom as the warmth fled rapidly from the body and leaving nothing left in its stead.

Rafi basically had to fight against the wind to pull the door shut after them, the wind was so strong. With its furiousity the cold was even more biting than it was during their turn in Germany, where they’re protected against it by the hole they stood and Jennie’s light – which now they lacked. He groaned unpleasantly, pulling his coat closer and sneezed once as the icy breath of the winter flushed his nose.

It inspired the three of them to hustle across the front yard to the side of the automobile. The door closest to them swung open from top to bottom like the unfolding wing of a seagull, inviting them inside, well before they reached it. Quickly, they piled inside. Only a moment outside, and they were both already chilled to the bone.

As the door closed behind the two of them, it instantly became apparent that the vehicle they were in was anything but ordinary. Its interior was comprised simply of one lone, wide seat, made of contoured leather, soft, supple and dark. They were reclined at something of an angle, making Rafi feel like he was within a vehicle destined for the stars, rather than the road. The interior of the car was curved and sleek silver metal, just as was its outside, trimmed by a gently glowing electron blue highlight. The whole of the experience of being inside it was like being thrown suddenly into May's future, rather than Rafi's present.

“Wow,” he repeated their former sentence from the hall, when they watched the vehicle stop before them. “I feel like I’m in a sci-fi movie,” he admitted, looking around amazed. His original plan was that May and Rasgar will get the backseat while he’ll sit next to the driver, but this overrode that idea.

Next to him, May drew closer, shaking the last bits of the cold from herself in a little shudder. “I almost feel like I’m back home,” she added, which made him smile because he’d only just considered the same thing, himself. Rafi felt her put her arms around his as she rest her head on his shoulder. And as she did it, he realized that she might not have been talking about the car as much as being close to him.

And that made him smile even more.

Rafi turned his head to her and placed a soft kiss onto the top of her head, to the frozen bits of hair and sighed contentedly. He didn’t say a word, he didn’t need to, he was sure that his relaxed posture and the way he reacted told her what he felt, too. The young man closed his eyes for a moment, drinking in her scent and enjoying their privacy before the car’s unusual interior drew his attention back and he began to explore it with his eyes.

Rasgar lay down in the center of the floor, kicking his feet in short, whippy motions, knocking the snow from himself. If nothing else, the interior of the vehicle was comfortable and luxurious, warm, with seats so soft, he could easily fall asleep in them, were the rest of the car not so eye-catching and the experience so strange and new. Rafi strapped himself into his seat, noticing that the belts provided were five-point in nature, like those of a formula one car. As May did the same--it occurred to him that the design of the car left no room for a driver. Nor an engine, for that matter.

The details were even more surprising, as the extent of the interior meant to the passengers became evident. He tilted his head, searching for any sign of life, but found nothing. Considering what he found in EC so far, the idea of a living car wasn’t as far now as he would think a few days ago, for sure.

In front of them, suddenly, a perfect square appeared in mid-air. A hologram, Rafi immediately thought, of the same electron blue as the details within the vehicle. It looked like a television screen, through which, a young girl looked out at them and smiled. She looked like she was about Rafi's own age, perhaps slightly younger. Though it was hard to tell, for the color of the screen, her hair looked like a dirty blonde that she swept neatly over her head before putting in braided pigtails behind her head. She looked tomboyish, wearing a suit something like race car drivers did...but there was something about her eyes, mirthful and friendly, her smile, that Rafi liked.

"Hey!" she called out to them from the screen, waving her hand happily. "Welcome to Hermes Acinonyx! My names Juli--and I'll be your driver today!"

She cocked her head curiously.

"Where can I take you two...er, three fine-looking folks today?"

“Heya, Juli,” greeted the girl the young artist. “We’re going to EC General Hospital first. After that it depends on what we find there, and on what prices you work,” he said, giving both the direction and sneaking some humor in his speech as he felt sympathy for the girl instantly.

“No problem!” she said happily, flashing them another smile as the car began to creep backwards out of the driveway. “I can have you there in less than four minutes.” It was a boast that made Rafi’s brow arch slightly. He wasn’t an expert in the city’s topography by any means, yet…but just in the short time he’d been in the Imperial City thus far, he figured that it had to be more like a ten-minute haul--even breaking every speed limit in America, doing so. The car certainly had to be every bit as fast as it looked…and even then, he was a little sceptical.

The information made him wonder if they gonna be rocket to the air and fly instead of levitate over the asphalt, or the car had some other hidden extreme technology what allowed it to be there where the driver wanted, like a short travel through some extra-dimensional highway. And though this was the city of possibilities, here were rules, too, so that exceptional speed must’ve come somewhere.

“Huh,” he summed up all those questions in his head practically, “This is a bit fast, isn’t it? Are we gonna fly or take a dimensional short-cut or what?” he asked, becoming more and more curious, just like his namesake cat.

“Two hundred eighty-four miles an hour is fast to you?” the face in the hologram replied with a little arch of her brow. “Naah, that’s nothing. The mechaform you’re riding in right now tops out just over four-hundred, when I’m really pouring it on. And since I’m considered a Z-Plus Class vehicle by the city, I’m allowed to go just as fast as I want without worrying about speeding tickets. For me, there isn’t such a thing as a traffic law,” she informed them with no small amount of pride. “Which is how I’m going to get you halfway across the city in less than four minutes--the old fashioned way: With some burning rubber on the road.”

“Cool,” was what all he could say about that. “Very handy when someone needs a real fast transfer to somewhere within the city limits. I guess you do run around even without passengers, just for the fun in it?”

"Yup," she nodded in the holographic window. "When I go to the store, head out to the clubs...sometimes, just to run around, like you said," she shrugged. "Sometimes, I like to just try out new mechaforms just to see what they feel like. They all feel different to me, y'know. Not like wearing new clothes or new shoes...but a whole new you," she confided, a little electric excitement in her eyes at the assertion. "It's fun to be someplace where I can just go nuts with whatever I wanna try--and I don't have to worry about some racist freak trying to burn my house down in the middle of the night because of it."

That’s so cool, having more forms than one, he thought and grinned. His ability to sense through the created illusions must have had some similarity in this effect, he guessed, but it’d be nice to be able try her gift once. The word mecha slipped past his ears, he was too amused by the idea of having more than one forms.

Rafi then nodded in agreement. “That I like, too. The freedom, I mean. Even if I hid my gift at home and shared only but a few very close friends, I know that many of us weren’t this lucky,” he said, the sad voice of his sister tingling back in his ears from the start of their first conversation about her powers. She would be one of those who’s powers weren’t as subtle as his or May’s.

“As for how much it’ll cost you…” the cute, young face on the hologram added, looking slightly quizzical for a moment, as if she was doing the sums in her head. “I see you’re new to the city, Mr. Gurney. And you’re registered with the city as a metahuman resident, too. That makes it really simple!” she informed them happily. “Your fare’s free today! First-year residents have their taxi service paid for by the city. I guess they do that so everybody can get around conveniently while they get settled into their new lives.”

“I love this city!” he pronounced with a smile as he nodded to the holographic girl, and then glanced at May while he grabbed her hand and then slipped his fingers between hers. The thought What it’ll cost me later, getting all these wonderful things for free? flashed up on the screen of his mind but only for a moment before the happiness washed it away in an instant. This definitely wasn’t a moment for such thoughts. 

“Me too,” Juli confided with another little giggle. “Where else could I drive at half a Mach--and nobody thinks twice about it?”

“True,” laughed Rafi with their young driver, who was apparently their car, too. Amazing how this awesome settlement for metas was able to handle people both generally and individually at the same time. It was almost like a dream, a utopia and he could only hope that no one would try and destroy it or that the residents would stand up against such attempts and protect their future.

Instead, he continued to stare at his love, cocking a brow. “What if you settle here too?” he asked lowering his voice, the above information hidden in the question. She was a metahuman, too, after all. She could receive many things from the city and that would be good both for her and for their family, too. If that wouldn’t warp her goals and the rules she had to keep for her mission, that is.

May pulled back from his shoulder slightly. “Uhm…what if?” she asked him with a little disbelief in her voice, giving him a look like he was blessed with two heads on his shoulders. “You think I didn’t plan on that, first chance I got? You’ve got a lot to learn, indeed, Mr. Gurney.”

He blushed only but a little as he grimaced back at her. “Oh, sorry, my dear bride, but I know you since a single day only and we didn’t talk too much about past,” he retorted playfully and a sly smile etched his face when he put a bit emphasis on some words. Meanwhile he turned the ring around on her finger and placed a soft kiss on her lips.

"That's exactly what I said," she allowed a wry little smile. "You've got a lot to learn. Didn't say the education wasn't gonna be pleasureable, though."

Rafi’s smile turned a bit more mischievous and his voice got a sultry underplay as he replied to that. “Oh, and here I thought that I’m gonna teach you,” he winked. “But looking it in this light, you can be right on a way,” he allowed, “what you say to that that all of us has a lot to learn?” he asked, subtly pointing out their threefold romance and bit his lower lip to restrain himself from chuckling. And perhaps from beginning to kiss her all over, again.

Juli looked surprised in the holographic window. "You guys are newlyweds, then?" she asked.

May looked over at Rafi to gauge his reaction. Then: "Kinda," she said, holding his hand tighter. "After a fashion."

Rafi looked back at their young driver with a little confusion in his eyes, as he was reminded that they weren’t alone, but then he nodded, smiling happily. “Sorta,” he offered too, stroking the back of May’s hand with his thumb and squeezing it.

"Congratulations!" the girl-projection replied, seemingly genuinely happy for the two of them. "You want I should maybe manifest some cans on strings to drag behind us or something? I can do that, y'know."

She looked up at him with her sharp blue eyes. "Why don't you ask the groom?"

Rafi scratched his chin deadpanning. He’ll have to shave, that was his first thought as he heard the bristle under his nails even if it was very small yet. “Well, why not?” he grinned then, after a few moments of musing. “It’ll be fun!” he grinned at the thought that they’re gonna rip through the city at amazing speeds and there’ll be cans after the futuristic car.

He watched the young girl displayed in electric blue haze before them nod her head in the direction of the read of the car. “Howzat?” she asked.

Rafi turned his head, expecting to see nothing but almost-too-dark tint in the tiny curve of glass that served as the car’s back window. To his surprise, though, the contours of the glass seemed to stretch all the way across the whole of the automobile’s width. So clear as to be almost imperceptible, it allowed a clear view of the road behind, receding at an astonishing pace as they went on their way.

He watched in awe as the car - their driver, he reminded himself again -, changed in front of their eyes, and as her incredible speed became obvious. He barely could see anything other than the white streaks of the front yards and the houses’ fronts, having no time for the details. Actually, Rafi couldn’t imagine how she plans to do the can-thing at this speed, those things must be extremely heavy not to fly after the car, he thought. And then what would it do with the pavement, he mused and watched.

Just below the bumper of the car, Rafi suddenly watched a set of five silver tin cans drop forth on long, slender metal chains. Like pictures of grass growing in stop-motion, the chains slowly elongated further and further until the cans bounced and danced on the pavement ten feet behind them. Finally, across the whole of the now-clear window, feminine handwriting began to appear, as if written in a careful hand, invisible and disembodied. JUST MARRIED, it read, in bright pastel colors.

May was positively aglow at the sight of it, even as the tint came back into the depth of the glass. The handwriting, however, was still visible.

He imagined, in the darkness of the car, so was his blush.

Rafi’s smile and the glitter in his eyes told everything about his feelings as he closed them while he leant closer for a kiss. It was passionate but short, not to abash Juli, and when he retreated, only she could hear when he whispered “I love you.”

May titled her head back, pulling him down by the back of his head into a deeper kiss. He could feel her gently purring through the gesture, even as she slipped her tongue into his mouth and began to slowly writhe along with the pleasure of the sensation of his nearness, the intimacy.

She loved him, too.

And had no compunctions at all about showing it to anybody who might see.

The sleek, dynamic vehicle stopped its motion for a moment as it found the road. Then, turning slightly, it pulled out onto the main thoroughfare was a smooth, yet explosive acceleration that Rafi could never remember experiencing in any kind of machine before. It was less mechanical and more…organic. It reminded Rafi of watching cheetahs on nature shows: The way they could simply rocket forth from an utter standstill with an effortless, inertialess grace, finding a breakneck speed in but a few strides that made them seem as if they were gliding over their terrain in search of prey, rather than running. Outside, the houses became a blur of color through the deeply tinted glass.

He felt as if they were barely moving at all.

“In this case, may I ask you to wait for us there and then bring us home?” he asked form their driver. “Or, to be not this greedy, could you come back to us if I make another call from there?”

“As long as you don’t mind me letting the meter keep running, while you take care of whatever you need to do inside,” she countered with a playful little retort. “Being that it’s all on Mr. Fujikawa’s tab, of course. Built-in business like that… I’ll wait for you all day, if you need me to.”

Rafi chuckled and shook his head. The talk with Juli was a fun one, indeed, filled with lot news about another young meta and about EC itself. Still, he was a polite and respectful man, so he waved off the comment with his free hand. “I’m not that impertinent to make unnecessary costs for our benefactor, so I’d rather chose the another call option,” he said. “I’m sure that with your speed, it still won’t last long before we see you again.”

She laughed. Rafi could tell she took a lot of pride in her speed, so the comment was definitely well-received. "Depends on how far I am when I get the call," she prefaced the response before adding with a cheeky little wink. "But for a pair o' cute kids like you--I'll make sure to step on it a little harder."

“You’re too kind,” smiled the young artist at the holographic girl, “thank you.”

Their trip became more and more strange, with this odd feeling for the speeding up, the enormous interior, the lack of driver and engine... while he wasn’t an engineer in any sort, but he had an almost endless curiosity what he could keep at bay if he wanted, but this wasn’t such a time. He had only four minutes to ask, after all.

“Can you tell me meanwhile if its not a company-secret that how the hell this car works and where are you actually? ‘Coz not in this shell as it looks like...” he asked the girl with a smile and uncovered curiousness in his eyes.

Juli giggled playfully. “It’s no secret,” she replied, rounding a corner at what Rafi guessed was over a hundred miles an hour. On the snow. On the ice. The vehicle did not slip in the slightest; inside, May barely pressed harder against his arm for the effort. It seemed to defy physics itself. “I’m right next to you. Actually, I’m all around you.”

“Huh?” the utterly surprised question escaped his lips. That answer, he definitely wouldn’t expected. Rafi glanced around in search for her, guessing that it could be only a joke, perhaps she is a meta and so small that she can hide anywhere, while she built this automotive or something.

She laughed gently. “I am the car. That’s my metahuman power: Becoming any kind of mechanical object I can think of. Especially vehicles,” she explained. “They’re kinda my specialty.” It explained everything about the whole experience. The lack of driver or engine. The organic feel of their passage through winter. The uniqueness of the automobile’s entire experience, really.

Like a silver bullet, they shot towards the heart of the city ahead.

To that, he only whistled rousingly and appreciatively. “Not bad,” he admitted, looking around for the umpteenth times. Then, as the situation dawned on him, he started. “Erm, you say inside you? Aren’t we too messy or uncomfortable?” he asked shyly, as he considered that what he felt as one of the most comfortable seat he ever had in a car was a part of a living being, a person, actually.

She giggled again. “No, not at all,” she gave him a dismissive wave from within the confines of the hologram. “I’m kinda…wrapped around you, more than you’re inside of me, to be totally accurate. To me, you kinda feel like you’re rising in the palms of my hands, or maybe tucked under my arm. Kinda,” she said, considering it a little more closely. “I’m not sure the feeling translates to anything you’re acquainted with.”

Rafi couldn’t do anything else other than continue wondering on the girl’s abilities and the possibilities what that meant. He mused about the idea how his own set of powers would react if he would create an actual car or other vehicle with them and what he would feel through the sensation... then reminded himself that his sister actually commanded him to do exactly that, and he immediately cracked a grin accompanied by a quiet snort.

May shot him a little look, but didn't ask any questions.

“You could be a plane, a spaceship or even a stargate, too?” he went on his questions, being utterly curious for the limits of her abilities.

Juli nodded. “Yes to the first two…not too sure about the third,” she replied. “Remember, I kinda specialize in vehicles, and I’m not sure a stargate really qualifies. Plus,” she added, “I need to know how the mechaform I’m taking on works, in order to do it right. If you could teach me how a stargate works, then maybe…but for now…” she shrugged gently, unconvinced.

“Ah, then you know how a starship works?” asked back Rafi surprised. The girl haven’t looked that old to have finished universities but the look wasn’t all, he knew well. “As for stargate... I dunno either, but some trick works without the proper scientific knowledge, as I noticed.”

"I can guess how a starship works," she replied. "I know I need thrust and I know how a nuke plant works...and that's just about all I need. My power, once I envision how the two'd work together, does the rest. In a few seconds--I'd be a nuclear-powered rocket ship," she grinned. "Kinda cool, eh?"

“Yeah, cool indeed!” Raafi agreed and by that the next question already presented itself. “And how do you move? I didn’t see any wheel or rocket or something...”

“My power does all that for me,” she replied. “So don’t ask me. As long as I’m acting like a vehicle, my power supplies all the energy I need to do whatever those vehicles do. Like, for example, if I’m a forklift, there’s no liquid in the tubes attached to the lift…but I can lift tons of stuff, just like I had actual pneumatics. Kinda weird, huh?” she shrugged. “I don’t really know how it all works--except that it does. And I’m cool with that!” she laughed lightheartedly.

He joined to her laughter, she responded just like he said before and he how he thought. There were way too many metatalent to have exact explanations for every single one and apparently this was one of those. 

“You can have armory then, too, should the situation come when you need that?” he added one more to his raining queries.

"Yup!" she nodded. "Armor plating, force-fields, cannons, machine guns, rockets, bombs...any of that stuff. My dad said I shoulda joined the Army, if they'd've taken me," she said. "Which I'm not sure they woulda, but...."

“It was a logical thought as I see,” he replied, “your abilities seem very useful for them. What happens with you when you form a weapon and fire with it? A special kind of diet?” he asked smiling mischievously.

“Nope,” she shook her head. “Nothing, really. Like I said, I’m not too sure how it all works. But I don’t feel any different after I shoot a machine gun or a missile or anything like that,” she explained. “Believe me--I’ve tried before.”

“I see”, he replied tilting his head as he considered the information. He was curious, that was the reason behind his questions not actual engineering knowledge, and so if Juli didn’t know the mechanics in the background of her gift, he could leave that. Apparently, she tried everything she could imagine just like he did when he began to explore his own gift and that was cool.

He wondered for a moment where she could’ve change into such armed things and what fell against her power, artificial targets, rocks or trees, but that he didn’t ask then.

“If I’m not too obtrusive with my questions, that is,” he added at last as a slight blush appeared on his cheeks when he realized that he was asking questions about the girl’s life, in a more intimate way than if he’d be asking about her favorite color, music or animal.

“Oh, I don’t care,” she waved him off once more. “I think it’s fun talking about what we all can do. That’s kinda what this city’s all about, right? Bringing all us special people together? Believe me, I’m just as curious about what the two of you can do as you about what I can.”

“Again, true and understandable,” nodded Rafi smiling.

She cocked her head slightly in the electron blue image.

“So, uh…what can you guys all do?”

Rafi glanced at May lifting a brow to know her opinion about the girl, but he trusted his own instincts enough to risk a guess that if she would mean any threat to them, the lithe agent already would’ve detected it and she wouldn’t sit there so calm and contented.

May did seem at ease about the whole exchange, just giving him a little shrug as he glanced at her. It seemed the equivalent of giving him permission...so he pressed onward. “I can make illusions if I have a base image to start from,” he said at last. “As long as I can imagine how that thing I see fits into the greater picture, I can call it forth and make the illusion.”

The face in the holograph seemed impressed. "Cool!" she replied. "So...your power works kinda like mine, huh? I mean, you can make anything real, just as long as you have something you can work with to build off of?"

“Something like that, yeah,” nodded the young meta. 

“I can use these creations as proxy to see, hear, feel what they do, too. And I can talk through them.”

"That's awesome!" she enthused. "That's gotta be, like, the coolest power ever!"

Rafi grinned proudly and shook his head watching the girl’s amazement. “Yours is awesome, too!” he ensured their driver.

She looked down from the square over to Rasgar, who had likewise seemingly become more interested in her, looking back up into the gentle blue light and the face in its midst. "So...I'm guessing they're not quite real, right? Or are they?"

“They are illusions, not real things, but I’m working on that, too,” he explained. “If I’m focusing very hard, I can make them tangible for a while, but that’s very taxing.”

“Lately, some of them became more real, more alive,” he explained with a proud smile, glancing down at Rasgar at their feet. “He is the one I most love,” he said, nodding at the jade jaguar, being obviously proud on the great cat.

Rasgar seemed to understand him. At least, that was what he got out of the way he craned his neck upwards to begin affectionately nuzzling the sides of his face against his leg. "He's really beautiful," Juli estimated, obviously enthralled by the jaguar. He had met few people that he failed to impress; she was certainly not one of them.

“He is,” he admitted, affectionately stroking his buddy’s cheek and then the top of his head, scratching behind his ears. “A friend of mine said that he came from Dreamland to me, to be here in flesh and blood.”

He watched Juli’s eyes go wide with wonder at the remark. “Wow,” she said in a simple, hushed whisper. Staring down at the jaguar in renewed appreciation, Rafi was sure she understood the magnitude of the comment. He was beginning to become fonder and fonder of the young girl that bore them on their way.

After a moment to admire him som emore, she looked out of the square at May. "Okay," she said with a little grin. "What do you do?"

Outside, Rafi could see that they were already beginning to pull into the hospital's parking lot. A quick look at his phone confirmed their total elapsed transit time: Two minutes, twelve seconds. He had to the math twice, just to make sure it was correct. When he saw that it was, his jaw almost dropped open in disbelief. They had to have been going well over three-hundred miles an hour; it felt like they'd barely moved.

May looked at Rafi, smiled wryly and looked back at the screen.

"Whatever a spider can," she replied, cryptically.

“Like luring innocent artists into their web, and sticking onto various places?” he asked smiling wryly and stroked her cheek gently with the back of his fingers. 

She shrugged. “You gotta stick to what you’re good at,” she replied before shooting him a little wink of a bright blue eye. For Juli’s part, he thought he detected a little bit of a blush in the vast electron blue field. Her mind must’ve been wandering on where the various places she chose to stick to were.

The young man’s mind wandered over the possibilities too and that made him blush slightly as well. They had an entertaining night together with May, but he was sure that it was only the beginning. They both seemed to have the same creative, funny ideas, pulled out from the hat in a whim and that promised a lot of fun and pleasure, just mixed more when Carm’ll join to them. 

A few moments of silence followed as they were lost in each other’s eyes, their heart beating in synch.

The car stopped beneath the awning outside the hospital’s emergency room that was beginning to become, unfortunately, all-too-familiar to Rafi and his friends alike.

When they stopped, he looked back at Juli and smiled at her. “Thank you for your service and the good chatting. It was an honor to meet you.”

“You’re welcome!” she enthused, the cans and their chains, the feminine handwriting disappearing so subtly that he was barely aware of its vanishing. “It was really nice meeting you!”

May nodded. “Believe me--the pleasure was all ours.”

“I’m gonna call you, whenever we’ll be finished here... and perhaps later if I’m gonna need a lift,” he added with a wink. “Good to have the number of someone who can be a taxi, a limo or a truck as well, when needed,” he joked.

The door opened for them, revealing the swirling wind and briskly falling snow. Instantly, the inside of the car dropped about fifteen degrees, prompting Rasgar to whip his head in the direction of the inclement weather outside. He certainly didn’t look excited about possibly leaving the cozy confines of the vehicle. “Or a boat or a plane!” she reminded him excitedly. “If you guys need anything like that, gimme a call! I could take you guys wherever you’re thinking about going on your honeymoon!”

May looked over at Rafi quizzically or a moment. Then, she began to gently laugh.

It seemed like a good day to do exactly that kind of thing.

Rafi joined her laughter and shook his head disbelieving, while he stood and moved to the door. “So will it be,” he promised as his laugh softened to chuckle, what was cut abruptly at the moment he stepped out from the vehicle’s comfy environment.

Outside, he pulled his coat around him and quickly walked up to the entrance, with May and Rasgar on his side, stopping only when the glass door closed behind them. His first glance went at the door where they left Carmilla a few hours ago, and where the MaxxLaw guards must have stood, the counter and the nurse was secondary now.

Walking into the Emergency Room, the doors parted before them, the rush of warm air from inside a welcome relief from the frigid clime outdoors. Behind the nurse’s station, young Nurse Hutchinson stood, talking to an elderly woman who seemed rather upset about something that Rafi couldn’t quite understand, only having heard about a fifth of the conversation. The Nurse seemed to be a good job of handling the situation, being firm yet gentle against her insistences. Still, he could see that she wouldn’t be able to attend to them personally aside of making quick eye contact and offering them a little smile, nodding in the direction of Carmilla’s room and mouthing out Go ahead.

That was just fine by Rafi as the two of them began to approach the door, flanked by the imposing Maxxlaw officers, their guns held before them, ever at the ready.

He would’ve gone ahead anyway.

Still, he nodded to the nurse and then walked up to the officers, his pace slowing down with every step as he approached them - or, to be more correct, the door which led into his love’s room. He glanced from one to the other, then decided to talk to both of them at once.

“Hi. I’m Rafael Gurney, and I’d like to enter,” he said firmly, unsure about that they were the one whom he met when they arrived or not. Usually, he had very good memory, particularly for faces but by that time his mind was at many places except this.

Rafi noticed both officers tense up their grips on their weapons as they eyed him suspiciously. To judge by the looks on their faces, he was worried that the episode was fated not to end well. But before anything such could happen, May opened up the front of her thin windbreaker and flashed out a small black billfold. In one motion, it opened…and a badge secreted within shone forth silver. “Let’s try this again,” she glowered at them. “I’m Special Agent Parker, and I’d like to enter. Now,” she added, with not a little bit of genuine menace to her tone.

The young artist glanced at his mate halfway, one eye still on the officers as he heard the change in her voice. He expected some resistance or identification since their enemy was said clever and resourceful, but he hoped that they could solve the situation without any bad move. But May said that she dispatched the whole SHIELD team on their way to his home at their first meeting so he wanted to make sure that she won’t do such move now. 

Not that he could’ve do anything against May if she’d decide to make an attack or something, he knew.

The guard on the left almost fumbled his weapon as he produced a small oblong, hand-held scanning device from a pouch at his waist. As he pulled the trigger on it, directing it at May’s badge, it reminded Rafi of a barcode reader at the supermarket. “He’s with me,” she thumbed up at him as it made a small, single beep!

The guard replaced the oblong and nodded. “Go ahead ma’am,” he bade them, looking in Rafi’s direction. “Sorry about the confusion, sir.”

“No problem, officer,” nodded Rafi as well. “You did your duty,” he said and he thought that, too. If May’s way would’ve not worked, he would’ve called the Kommissar and would’ve asked for clearance. But this was easier, he had to admit and he smiled at May quickly before he turned his attention back at the door in front of them. He stared at it like it’d have been the entrance to a personal heaven and hell both.

Rafi reached out to the doorjamb and took a deep breath before he opened it slightly, only as much to allow them to slip in. His other hand grabbed May’s, searching for support and he did his best to sneak in unnoticed if Carm would still sleep - which was what he hoped as the girl needed to rest. His eyes immediately were drawn to the bed, and to the dark green haired beauty on it.

There, no more than ten feet distant, she lay.

She looked like a different woman than the one he had left behind. Before, she had been a pale and broken thing, little more than a shell of the girl he had met, there, outside the capoeira circle, the day they had fallen in love. Emaciated and drawn, like an angel with broken wings, in the hollow of a hospital bed, cold and lonely. Enough to wring tears from the heart of a stone.

The memory levitated before his eyes like a strange, ghostly veil over the reality as he looked at the bed. His fears manifested somehow shadowing his vision so ash he had to stop from a step away from the door, barely allowing May and the jaguar enter into the room behind him. He blinked a few times and took a deep, staccato breath to chase the dark images from his mind and turned the memory fast forward.

But the young doctor’s life-giving gift had worked its magic upon her. Now, instead, was that same girl he remembered, before him. Her skin was still pale, but vibrant and alive, like a river of milk where the sheets and covers did not hide its beautiful lengths. Her hair was that dark green color that haunted the shadows of his dreams, her features still sufficient to give him shivers up the lengths of his arms and his spine. Carmilla appeared not only in the perfect bloom of live but just as perfect as she had in any of his vagrant imaginings, born from days and nights spent so distant from one another.

And those he had many, playing with scenes how to meet her again, how to tell her that he loves her, how to kiss her and how to make love with her. None of those turned true but the reality was thousandfold better, he remembered and that called a sultry smile onto his lips. She caught his heart and soul so deep that he had doubt that it’ll ever fade – not that he’d’ve wanted that, ever. His heart stopped beating as his eyes finally met with hers, and realized that she wasn’t sleeping.

She was looking at him when he walked through the door. Her emerald gaze made something in his stomach go alight, stole words and breath from his mouth. “Hi,” she said simply, just as she had when they’d last spoken. Her smile was sun and moon, air and water. Everything that was essential and central to a young man named Rafael Gurney.

Carmilla Black. Awake.

Waiting for him.

Rafi never once moved his stare from the girl’s eyes as he approached her on the bed and stopped there, only an inch away. There was something stuck in his throat and tears welled up in his eyes, this time from the happiness to see her back in her best form. He held them back forcibly as he replied to her greeting. “Hey beautiful,” he said and moved his fingers like kids used to when greeting someone beloved. “Already awake?”

She smiled lazily. Really, she looked perfectly hale and healthy. Perhaps a bit tired, but considering her ordeal, he couldn't begrudge that a bit. It was a miracle, he reconsidered, after the way he'd seen her, when they'd first walked into that German cell. It was something he didn't dare dwell on for too long--not unless he wanted to hurry those impending tears on their way, anyway. "I couldn't sleep," she replied with a little shrug of her shoulders.

Rafi shook his head once, disbelieving, as he drank deep her every feature, watching her smile and eyes with a look how someone who haven’t drank for days would look at a glass of water. The emotions made his throat swell and he had to swallow hard even to be allowed to breath, but he kept on moving closer and closer and smiled genuinely happily.

May gave her a little wave of her hand, just wiggling her fingers in her direction, really, bringing her smile a little wider across her lovely face. Rafi watched Carmilla turn on her side a little bit so she could face them, revealing her left arm--bound up from shoulder to fingertips in a thick wrap of white surgical gauze. Although he knew that it was just a matter of convenience--the doctors and nurses were just trying to tend to her without dropping dead on the spot--he hated to see it, anyway. It looked like they were considering putting a cast on her.

Seeing the gauze recalled his idea earlier this day, when they arrived at Damon and he mused about how he could avoid her poisoning touch with the help of some ancient and recent magic, meaning the relic and Tanya respectively. That would be a gift for life, he thought as his gaze was drawn to the whiteness of that makeshift protective, to be freed from such bounds.

“You look fabulous in white” he said with a loving smile as he regarded her with an appreciative look-over from toe to head. He didn’t know why, but his otherwise big mouth and fun-loving nature became calm and shy around her. Still, this sentence had more than one meaning to him, as his imagination could readily turn the hospital gown to a bride’s attire.

She chuckled so gently he could barely hear her. "You think so?" she asked.

He nodded, the envisioned garment flashing alive for a brief moment around her, emerging from the bed sheets and getting clear contours as an illusion, before he let it fade when he finally reached her.

Rafi sat onto the edge of the bed. "You look good in anything," she added. And leant over Carm to take her into his arms while she finished with a whisper: "But I like you best in this."

She was a lithe and light thing in his embrace. Nearly weightless as he pulled her closer, in but a moment, they were sharing a passionate but gentle kiss, to celebrate her recovery. Her lips were warm and giving, her skin, smooth and soft. He could feel his pulse hammering in the side of his neck as they moved with one another, Carmilla's hands gripping his shoulders as if she never meant to let him go, all throughout the rapture. Even there, in the hospital bed, being close to her was magic. She was like a ghost of a thing in his arms, so ethereal as to feel like a phantom, like a old, cherished memory. He kissed her harder to remind himself that she was still there, that she was real.

As she kissed him back, her small tongue dueling with his, within his mouth, he knew she was.

All the tentative love what he felt for her since the first day and then during year passed since then, with the occasional talks and messages was released in this kiss, topped with the fear of loosing her what he felt at the night when they went after her. It was something elemental and primary, like the need for water and food; it was the moonshine cast over the eerie, dark night to fill it life and beauty. 

Because he loved her.

Rafi could feel May settle her weight down on the bed next to him, even as they kissed. Kissing Carmilla was different to her. That almost-insubstantial lightness to her body, her scent and the texture of her skin...it made it for a completely different experience. Both miracles offered by different aspects of nature. It was something that he knew he could spend the rest of his life, fondly, detailing the difference thereof.

And never regret it for a moment.

It was another wonder, how he could fell in love with the girl in one day, like he did with Carmilla, when he couldn’t look so on another girl while he waited for Carm, albeit there were beauties around him in the school that he couldn’t deny. Some of them were even curriculum, to draw them -- but his heart was taken. 

And now, he fell for her but kismet seemed to love them as they were allowed to be together; even bonded by rings, the three of them. 

Forever, he hoped.

Once they parted, he stroked her cheek tilting his head. “You talked to the docs?” he asked. “How long they want you to sit here?”

She traced the contours of the back of his hand with her uncovered fingers, gently brushing them across his flesh. It was like sunshine cast across shadows at dusk, for the way it looked, the alchemy of their coupling. "They said I'm actually probably ready to go right now," she replied, distracted, as if she were much more interested in the sensation of his flesh than in answering. "I guess that doctor does pretty good work. But they're going to keep me one extra day for observation, just to be sure," she sighed softly.

“Naah,” pulled the young artist a long face. Joy began to fill his heart as he listened to her that she could’ve been released with them, but that was soon clouded by the bad news about the another day’s observation. He wanted to have her at home, when Jo’ll arrive. He wanted to sleep with her and May in his new bed, embracing them both. He began to voice this when Carm spoke again.

Carmilla looked up at him. The sharpness of the green of her eyes held him breathless, as ever. "Don't bother trying to get them to release me early," she made a little face. "I've already asked. They just want to be sure I'm stable before they let me go. Apparently the doctor that worked on me's pretty new. They're not sure how his powers work and want to err on the safe side."

Rafi closed his lips, grimacing wryly and then sighed. “My mind understands what and why they say,” he said reluctantly. “But my heart and soul protests against it. I want you around me,” he puckered up his lips like kid when someone takes his sweets, until he noticed the other meanings of his sentence and his grimace turned into a sly smile.

She reached up and stroked the side of his face. Rafi could feel the cool metal of the silver ring she wore as she drew it slowly across his cheek. "How are you?" she asked him. "I miss anything good last night?"

Rafi was unable to resist a quick glance to his side at May at the question, to see her reaction, as carnal images flashed up before his eyes from their night.

May, next to him, looked like she wasn't sure whether to laugh or be terrified.

Rafi smiled at her and reached out to take her hand as he turned back to Carm. “We couldn’t sleep much, either,” he admitted, blushing slightly but he looked straight into her wonderful jade eyes. 

“We, well," he began, a sultry smile appearing on his lips," celebrated the happiness and love of forming our trio, what became alive in this very room when that fae bonded us with these magickal silvery rings,” he said, pulling her hand onto their with May, reuniting the mentioned jewelry. His dark hand lie there palm upward and the girl’s fair hands sat both on it as his fingers curled up enclosing on them while he put his other hand onto the top, too.

“One more day, and we can do it all together, like I want it for the rest of my life,” he stated firmly, gently squeezing their hands, looking from Carm to May and then back. 

He didn’t just say it. He meant and wanted it, from the bottom of his heart and soul.

Carmilla looked deeply into Rafi's eyes, the flawless dark emerald of her gaze so intense, even with her merest glance, than he could simply not bring himself to turn away from it. "Don't tell me another thing," she said, stroking the top of the back of his hand with a certain affection, almost as how he might pet Rasgar in a quiet moment. "I want to see it for myself."

The young tattooist shivered at the thought and flashed a wide grin at her, while he felt that even this faint suggestion of being together in the bed made him horny a bit. “You won’t be just wathcin’” he assured her, squeezing her fingers.

At the foot of the bed, the massive green jaguar had decided to make his presence known. Rafi watched as he stood up on his hind legs and put his forepaws on the covers, right atop Carmilla's feet. It brought a big smile to the girl's face, lighting it up as the moon lights a late spring evening. "Hey, you," she said, shooting the feline a thin smile. "I missed you, y'know."

Rafi smiled at the notion as he turned to glance at his buddy, too. It was good to see how the girl became happier at the sight of the jade jaguar who was interested for her well-being as well in turn. Another proof on the list of the cat’s secret abilities in connection with the humans, he mused smiling.

She looked up at May. "Was he in the room with you, last night?"

Rafi glanced at the lithe agent as well, but remained silent as he let the girls talk out what they wanted.

The lithe girl with the sapphire eyes stepped closer to the bed. "Yeah," she replied shyly. And if Rafi hadn't known better, he could swear she was blushing slightly, too.

"Did he do it to you, too?"

May cocked an auburn brow. "Do what?"

"Put his nose...y'know," she made a little face. "There."

She looked totally lost. "Whaddya mean? Where?"

The young artist lifted a brow as well as he looked at Carmilla puzzled. He didn’t remember anything out of ordinary from their night in the empty loft, but he had to admit that all of his senses were full of her. Still, the thought bugged him as he thought it over that he wasn’t accompanied by Rasgar when he met with Carm, and he became alive only the next morning after she had left.

"The first time," she explained, "I was on top of him. I leaned down to kiss him...and all of a sudden, all I could feel was a cold nose...right there. I almost jumped outta my skin," she chuckled a little. "I think Rafi thought I was just getting into it...so I never said anything. Anyhow, I guess jaguars like to do that kinda thing. They're really attracted to those kinda scents...particularly excited females. So be careful."

A little of the color drained out of May's face. "Uhm...okay," she said.

“What the...” he turned his head and stared at his best friend with brows furrowed. The whole idea was somehow flawed, he felt it, but didn’t want to dig into the jaguars mind to prove his idea that it might be a ruse. He just stared at the girl’s, waiting for the solution or another info to solve the mystery.

A pause.

"'Course," she said, "I could just be messing with you. That might've never happened."

May closed her eyes, making a little face, knowing she'd just been had. "Gotcha," Carmilla laughed slightly. "Now...willya just come on over here? You're so nervous you're making me nervous."

Rafi sighed as well and let his body relax as he shook his head, softly chuckling, barely audibly. The tone of his love turned his attention back to the conversation, though, as it sounded more important than this joke before. Her words were true, he knew, albeit not only for May but for him as well, since when they departed Carm were barely over her ordeal and was goddamn tired while now she was in his best shape. He hoped that she hasn’t changed her mind about their love, allowing May to expand their duo to a triangle.

The girl did as she bade, coming to the side of the bed. "I'm jealous, but I'm not mad," she assured her. "I wish more than anything I could've been with you guys, that's all. But I wouldn't be wearing this," she offered the ring on her finger as proof, "if I wasn't okay sharing Rafi with you. You're my best friend, Mayday."

The fear began to melt away from his heart as he watched the scene unfold before him, palm resting on her thigh at the height of her hip. Maybe that decision wasn’t just a quick one but came from the heart and that morning will be remembered as the foundation of their unusual family, he mused, still muted.

She reached out and took the girl's hand. Rafi heard the metal of their rings softly chime as they struck one another. "And to prove it...."

She gently pulled May down. Leaned up and began to kiss her.

Rafi watched, almost slack-jawed, as the two loves of his life began to deeply, passionately touch lips. May's eyes closed gently and he watched her grip on Carmilla's hand tighten slightly, while, on the bed, she reached up to curl her arm around her to pull her closer. It was a slow, sweet thing, the two of them moving against one another, murmuring softly through the whole of the gesture. It might have been the sexiest thing Rafi had ever seen in his life.

When they finally, reluctantly parted, they were both breathless. Trembling.

"Wow," they both said, still holding hands, more or less in unison.

Unsurprisingly, so was Rafi.

He felt his heart bumping; he could count every beat as time seemed to slow down around the three of them in that moment. His earlier wave of lush returned much higher and he had to gasp after breath once he noticed that he held it back during their kiss. 

He swallowed once, tilted his head slightly as he smiled at the pair of lovely young ladies in front of him. “Okay girls...” he breathed, “another kiss like that and I’m gonna steal Carm from here and don’t care with the docs” he said with a wry smile, but his tone revealed that he was joking. Not that he wouldn’t agree in a moment if the girl’s would take that serious, mind you. Only that kept him on the ground that he knew that his sister is on her way down to his loft, and he really wanted to be there in time.

Of course, Carmilla called him on it.

With a deadpan serious, she locked her incredible green eyes with his. "Let's go, then," she said with a little shrug. "I'm sick to death of hospital food, anyhow."

“After only one breakfast?” asked back the young tattooist with a wry smile. “We’re lucky then that you couldn’t taste what I got after awaking, since you’d never want to leave the room,” he said winking at May.

May grinned broadly, a light blush gracing the tops of her cheeks. The comment drew her closer to Rafi's side. She looked like she might have a come-back right on the tip of her tongue...but whatever it was, she decided to swallow it, for the nonce. She might have been waiting to see if Carmilla was being completely serious.

A pause. Then, a little smile.

"If you're waiting to see if I'm serious or not," she added, "I guess I can kiss her again, y'know."

Oh, she was serious, all right.

Rafi felt his breath ceasing again, even his heart skipped a beat as he looked at the girls and various sultry images flow forth from the back of his mind. The glow in his eyes showed to his ladies what he was thinking on, just as his heavy breathing and the occasional shiver of his fingers, by the restrained desire. 

“You sure ‘bout leaving?” he asked for safety as he tilted his head, stroking her leg slowly wandering upward, like if his fingers and palm were a spider. “The staff of the Hospital was nice to us, just like the Kommissar, who placed those two guards in front of your door to keep you safe,” he explained part of the past events to Carm. 

"It hasn't got anything to do with being nice," she said, looking down at the top of his hand while she stroked it. "It's got everything to do with sitting here cooped up in a room by myself feeling perfectly fine while the two of you're out there enjoying life."

“We do only that because you were saved and we both know that you are safe and sound here. Its good to know that, but it could be better,” assured Rafi his love. “Once you’ll join in person, not just in our heart, then will it be perfect.”

She looked up and met his eyes. For a moment, that rarest emerald left him breathless. "I've waited for you too long to wait another solitary second."

Rafi felt May squeeze his hand that much harder. She had the same effect on her, too.

The simple truth in the sentence gripped his heart as he agreed silently. They met first almost a year ago, but her work and his unusual shyness kept them separated if they don’t count the phone calls and lots of SMS, that is. But now, after their brief time together in his flat he wanted more, just like her, evidently. His hand trembled as a ghost of smile etched his face while he was lost in her eyes, their different shades of green melting into one.

“On the other hand, we can leave a message to docs and we’ll meet the Kommissar today anyway,” he mused over the possibilities, while his hand reached the end of her thigh at her hip, and placed it there. The touch was gentle, his hand warm, like if he’d have a built-in forge of love.

"Now, you're talking," she smiled, obviously loving his attentions. She laced her fingers with his own by placing her hand atop his, guiding his senses across the flat of her thigh, along its outside. Strong and slender, supple and soft...it made his fingertips seem electric all upon their ends.

“And both of you’d be there to meet Jo when she arrives,” he added, smiling at the girls mischievously as he knew that May knew what he talks about, but Carm will figure out soon as he heard about his family a lot, prolly checked them by herself, too.

That was too much for her to pass up. "Okay, that settles it," she said, gingerly sliding her legs off the edge of the bed. She was wearing aught but a small, paper hospital gown and it came no further than midway down the length of her creamy thighs. Rafi marveled at the china paleness of her skin. She still held his hand as she did before. "Gimme a second to get dressed," she bade them. "Somebody from the hospital staff was nice enough to repair my costume while I was out. While I'm putting it on, maybe you can talk to whoever you need to outside to make sure nobody hassles us about me leaving."

The young artist tilted his head as he watched her move so energetic and some sultry images passed in his mind, awakened by the gown what didn’t hid much from her sleek and lithe form. And he remembered well to that body, he had undressed her in many dreams and considering his artistic talent those dreams were damn accurate about the dimensions. Still, the reality on the night before was nothing what he dreamt but more, with real taste or her skin... so he just stood there, leaning against the bed and watched his love planning.

She tossed his a wry grin as she skirted off the bed and looked up the length of his chest at him. She was not a tall girl, maybe only a few inches above five foot. She filled up the expanse within his heart like a giantess.

"Unless you plan on sneaking me out of here, that is."

“The sneaking is your job, girls,” said Rafi shaking his head as he pulled her closer by their interlaced fingers to place a kiss onto her lips. He then glanced at May, grinning mischievously. “We got in by Agent Parker, anyway, so if we go out unnoticed that’ll be her fault,” he said and winked at her.

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah," she added sarcastically. "I suppose they can just add that one to my permanent record too. What're they gonna do? Gimme a bad review, or something?" she snicked.

"Considering the last two days, Mayday," Carmilla replied, with a thin little grin, "I doubt you'll be getting a raise anytime soon. You may even get yourself fired, at this rate."

She giggled. "You think?"

She shook her head. "You're probably already there, babe, if y'ask me."

May looked over at Rafi and squeezed his hand tighter. "Good."

Rafi just shook his head but his smile contradicted with the move, just as did as he stroked the back of May’s hand with his thumb. “What a bad girl,” he said pulling her closer as he placed his hand what held hers to her back at the waist then placed a slow, soft kiss onto her lips.

"If my mom knew what I did to you last night," she smiled devilishly, "I'm sure she'd agree."

Rafi grinned from ear to ear and kissed her once more while he squeezed her hand affectionately. “Oh yeah,” he agreed, “the same goes for mine.”

That got Carmilla's attention. "Oh, really?" she replied. "I think you and I'll have to be comparing notes."

"Definitely," May laughed gently. "Partners to the end, after all."

She chuckled right along with her. "Partners to the end."

“I sense conspiracy in the air,” lifted Rafi a brow, smiling wryly as he turned to Carm but left his hand on May’s waist. A faint thought began to form in his mind that perhaps having two so energetic and young girlfriend wouldn’t be just about joy but he’ll have new problems as well. It was a very distant and ghostly idea so far, blurred by the flames of love and happiness but there it was.

"That's what you get for having a pair of friends, doubling as girlfriends," May smirked.

Carmilla lifted a dark jade brow. "Is that worse than having a pair of girlfriends, doubling as friends?"

"The intelligence is still coming in on that," she deadpanned. "When we know--you'll know." The comment made the two girls start laughing anew. Oh, yeah...this was sure to be interesting....

The young tattooist smirked as well as he listened to the girls’ conversation, what apparently just barely involved him. Both of them seemed happy and content with the way the things unfold and embraced them into a family. The last bits of his sense of guilt about flirting with and craving for May since the ruse at the parlor’s door slowly melt away fully; leaving nothing but contentment and love. 

Well, almost just that... and a bit playfulness, he thought as he glanced at May at his side returning to the point where the conversation started to grow.

“If you get fired that won’t look good in your resume, young lady, and that can cause problems with later employers,” he teased her as he stared into her blue eyes from inches apart, smiling, since he knew exactly why she acted like this. How he could forget their earlier talk about her going to prison and that he offered a place next to him in the parlor, he mused.

"S'okay," she shrugged. "Dad always told me never to quit a job before I had something else lined up. And I know a tattoo parlor that's hiring."

Carmilla grinned. "What a coincidence," she chimed in. "I'm about to start a job at a tattoo parlor, too."

May tossed Rafi a wink. "What a coincidence." And the two girls laughed gently.

It was music to Rafi's ears.

“Ah but if you are talking about the Steel Bulls, I know that they’ve some liquidity-problem,” he deadpanned holding the grin back what tried to push itself forth. “And that’ll only grow as there are rumors about building operations on the parlor’s location,” he added. “The birds chirped that the owner needs more room, you heard about that, too?”

"Nope," Carmilla shook her head. "But it makes sense. Your place isn't very big."

Rafi was about to start complaining when May chimed in so swallowed back his words, looking for a spot to talk again. That was unusual as well, not being the one who talk the most, he mused with a happy grin.

May grinned sheepishly. "I don't take up much space."

"Were you ever a teenage girl once?" she asked quizzically.

"Uhm...yeah," she replied. "So?"

"Then it should make all the sense in the world," Carmilla shrugged. "Rafi's sister's practically gonna need a house all to herself."

“Hehe” chuckled Rafi at the notion, “true indeed. Jo’s stuff tends to crawl over and occupy any empty-looking shelf – but she’d be hurt if we mention it,” he laughed lovingly as he teased his not-present sister. “And since neither of you is much older than her...” he let the end of the sentence trail off, grinning widely.

May leaned her head on his shoulder, her arm sliding around his waist as she did so. "You implying something about stones and glass houses?" she asked him slyly.

Rafi placed a soft kiss onto the top of her head, returning the gesture of placing his hand onto her waist, too. “If the cap fits...” he replied while he chuckled softly.

Carmilla smiled. 'I wouldn't worry about it," she added. "Some girls grow out of that habit. You're lucky you just happened to land a pair that'll make for good role models for her."

"She wants to be a spy?" May lifted a brow.

Rafi’s chuckle was frozen in his throat at the thought, so he had to cough once to clear it. That’d be a disastrous idea, he mused, considering her way of solving things. She hasn’t even arrived and already had plans for him how to clear the gangstas from around him... what if she’ll know about the more concerning problems?!

"Not that kinda of role model," she chuckled. "About traveling light."

"Ah," she she nodded. "Probably a good thing. Not sure she wants to emulate my career as a spy, anyhow."

“I hope not!” shook Rafi his head, returning from his musing. “We must do everything to avoid that,” he added, obviously seriously even though he smiled thinly. “She is agile, spends her free time dancing like the rest of the family,” he chuckled. “And smart, too. Way better in school than I was, well, except the art-related stuff.”

The two of them shot one another a little glance, something in its quality that made May have to stifle a laugh to herself. Rafi wasn't so sure exactly what they found so funny, unless it had something to do with avoiding his sister following in the footsteps of his two lovers. Perhaps it was an inside joke, he mused before going on with his thoughts on his youngest sibling.

“Jo just recently discovered that she is a mutant and only that shook her out from reverie that I called her down here, to live with me. And that I told her about my powers,” he added as his smile widened recalling the surprise in her voice when she opened the MMS.

Carmilla nodded sagely. "Those first days are...."

"Interesting," May finished for her.

"A lot like how I expect Hell must be," Carmilla countered.

The lithesome spider rolled her eyes at the grim description. "Go on," she bade Rafi.

He nodded but kept his stare on Carmilla, knowing why she said that, just as much as May knew but he knew that too that his sister’s abilities far less dangerous then his green haired love’s are. At least those what surfaced so far, he reminded himself. He had read every article about mutants what he could get a hold on in public, without exposing himself and there were some about secondary mutations which could surface any time later than the original ones, sometimes causing very drastic changes. 

But those were thoughts for later he decided, gently squeezing Carm’s hand before he went on.

“She is very inexperienced but stubborn as well,” he explained and sighed. “I already arranged that Damon will give her flying lessons, but then I haven’t met with Jennie yet, so I think that both of them can help her at that.”

"Probably," Carmilla decided. "From what I'm gathering, though, I think she'll learn a lot more from Beetle-Boy than she would from your other friend. The two of them," she smirked, "would probably spend more time comparing notes on good shopping places than getting any real flight studying done."

Rafi chuckled at the idea but then he furrowed his brows. What he had seen from Jennie so far, the description was really accurate and that was frightening. “Note to self: never leave them without supervision,” he said using an electronic voice like it’d be said by a robot. 

"Oh, I wouldn't worry about that," Carmilla replied with a thin smile. "You've got built-in supervision, now. Trust me, she'll get in as much trouble as we'll let her to get into."

May giggled. "The benefits of living in a house of spies."

“House of Spies, eh?” he asked back, emphasis on the capitals. “That I wouldn’t mention to my parents next week... only the safe and protected part,” his smile lit up his face even if his eyes still were a bit worried about that promised meeting.

“I have more trust in Damon in that regard, I have to admit”, he returned to the possible dangers of letting his sister and Jennie alone, „but Jennie surely will have good additions other than the shopping... I hope,” he smiled.

"We'll see," Carmilla shrugged. "Maybe I'm getting the wrong impression of her from you two."

May looked at her once, then over to Rafi. Then, back at Carmilla.

"Naaahhhh...."

Rafi let out a soft laugh, shaking his head, but did no other comment. She’ll know by herself how good this first conclusion was what she got, prolly within the next few hours, at the meeting with the Kommissar. Until that, every other word was unnecessary and can lead to false ways. It was a question how Carm will get along with the others but Rafi hoped the best. Her quiet and witty way was somewhat similar to Lise’s so at least that two lady will get along nicely, he’d bet on that.

“When I moved here and filled the immigration form I asked for a home where I could live, learn, practice, and have space to share with someone,” he told and glanced at Carmilla smiling shyly, showing who was that someone he thought at then. 

She tossed him a little sideways look as she continued to dress, her smile going wide and thin. Carmilla tossed him a little wink that he was quite sure only he could see--something that made something within his belly seem to go light and aflutter. If he hadn't been blushing before, he could feel it then, spreading across the surface of his cheeks.

He took a deep breath, his eyes shining with love as he grinned at her. There was no denying - he loved her as deeply as a man could love a woman. Something caught his heart and soul in her, right then at the circle when they first met. It was different than with May, but that wasn’t less in any ways, just fresher, considering the time they spent together so far.

“I got this loft and parlor, but Tanya and I will solve the room-problem as soon as she’ll have time for it, and we can gather the ingredients for the spell,” he said after that. “She is a sorceress, from the group whom with we saved you,” he explained to Carm.

She nodded sagely. "I see," she replied. "Always nice to have friends that can bend the laws of physics in your favor, when you need it."

"That kinda makes her a metaphysical lawyer, huh?" May chimed in with a little giggle.

Carmilla just rolled her eyes.

Rafi giggled along, but rolled his eyes as well. “I guess the bad jokes will be often visiting our family,” he said then, grinning happily.

“And don’t forget, the records are cleared, for both of you, that was the main part of my deal with the SHIELD. Would you throw that out in the window?” he reminded her to the contract what he shall sign tomorrow.

"I know," May replied. "I can't believe my ID still worked."

Carmilla shrugged. "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, Mayday."

At first Rafi almost corrected the girl that it isn’t a gift but a contract between him and the SHIELD for the attack on his loft, but then he decided to keep his mouth, not wanting to ruin the moment. He hoped that she will think over that later, but the quickness of her decisions pointed to the direction that maybe she wasn’t the one who overthinks a decision.

“What do you think? You arrange it with the guards or should I try and open a door to our loft?” he asked a bit more seriously but his eyes sparkled with humor and happiness by the fact the Carm will go home with them.

May shrugged. "I'll just tell the guards she's ready to leave," she said nonchalantly. "Either they'll let her, or they won't. And either they'll end up with their dignity intact, or end up swinging hog-tied from the ceiling."

Carmilla crossed over to the far side of the room, taking a moment to pet Rasgar, as she did. "Nice," she said, picking her costume up and inspecting it quickly. Then, she ducked back closer to the bed, where she wouldn't be immediately visible from the door.

The young man followed her with his eyes, wondering on the grace she walked and fantasizing about her form, completing it under the hospital gown from those parts which were visible. “No fight and no aggression in a hospital, May, whatever they answer. There are other ways now, y’know,” he chided the young agent, but only half-heartedly. 

"I know," she giggled. "But most of 'em aren't nearly as much fun."

“They are here because I asked for protection from the Kommissar, so if everything fails, I’ll call him, but I think they already reported our arrival so I don’t think that we should have any problem.”

May pushed it open for him. "After you?"

Wagging her dark red eyebrows suggestively.

“I know, I know”, he puckered his lips, “I talk too much,” he deadpanned but allowed him to be escorted through the door, between the guards. He took only a few steps then turned to face them again, and tilted his head as he glanced back at May. “Agent?” he asked, his tone verging on restrained laughter.

May was a pretty good actress, he thought. She didn't let on for a second that she was about to burst into laughter as well. Must've gotten it from her mother. "We'll be escorting Ms. Black home," she looked back and forth between their eyes. "When we leave, you two're relieved from your detail."

Rafi was mildly surprised by their response. "Yes, ma'am," one of them replied, while both nodded subtly. Perhaps relieved would have been a better word. Nothing seemed to go as planned for them, the last couple of days and he'd prehaps expected more trouble than he'd gotten. He found himself hoping it was the start of a trend.

It was definitely a good thing that the soldiers allowed them to leave, and gave Carm into the SHIELD agent’s hand, but at the same time it was stressing as well. What if someone gets a badge and simply waltzes in while they aren’t here, he mused for a moment and then settled on the thought that prolly they asked their boss about the arrived persons. That was much more comfortable and fit more to his pensive but after all optimistic nature.

May pushed the door back open, tossing him a little grin as she did.

"See?" she asked. "Easy stuff."

Rafi walked back in, waited for the door to close and only then let the laughter out. He leant up to the wall with one shoulder, glanced out on the window to see what the soldiers did after their entry while he grinned at his ladies. 

Behind him, the officers exchanged a few words before turning and walking together down the hallways, disappearing in the direction of the Emergency Room's entrance. Rafi was relatively sure that they'd be heading back to MaxxLaw Headquarters to file whatever sort of report they needed to make out regarding their experience at the hospital. In any case, they were gone...leaving the three of them quite alone.

“We’re ready to leave? Any paperwork at the counter with the Nurse?” he asked them while he pulled his phone from its pocket.

Carmilla was slipping the gloves onto her costume, the finishing touches on being fully dressed. The skintight uniform clung maddeningly to the contours of her body, exosing the taut flat of her stomach between her belt and the top, extending only slightly below her breasts. Her boots came up just above her knees and the gloves that covered her deadly touch ran from her elbows to fingertips. In all, the costume epitomized everything about Carmilla: Sleek and sexy, dark and sensual. The covered half of her face with the thick neck of the ensemble, almost like a scarf.

"Yeah, I'm ready," she nodded.

"You look great," May grinned.

“Yeah,” breathed the young man as he regarded his love with a look that could’ve torn that outfit off from her. His mind wandered to the field of lush dreams again for a while, but he caught it before it went in too deep. As he took a deep breath his eyes cleared up from the mist and regained their usual dark jade color, but the desire remained in his smile.

“That’ll be a bit cold outside, won’t it?” he asked the girl, tilting his head to the side. “I can solve it so long we’ll get home, if ya want,” he added.

She drew close to his chest, placing both hands on his shoulderblades as she looked up into his eyes. "I'll have you know that I fully intend on wearing significantly less than this within a few steps inside that apartment of yours." He could tell she was smiling, even though her costume obscured much of her lovely features. "Cold is good; it makes me want to warm up."

The young man placed a kiss onto her temple, then placed his own against it for a moment. The picture painted by her words was more than tainting, he felt the desire rise in him as he closed his eyes and drank deep her nearness and scent.

Only a few inches away, May laughed gently. "I think I know somebody who's pretty eager to help you with that," she said. "Maybe two people, actually."

“Definitely,” breathed Rafi, pulling both girls closer to his chest and smiling at them. “And now I have a bed to keep us comfortable,” he winked at Carmilla.

“We just have to be ready before my sister finds us in the bed, naked and all,” he blushed at the thought. “It’ll be hard to explain the rings even without that.”

"She's gotta find out sometime," Carmilla shrugged nonchalantly. "At least, if she finds us, it saves you from thinking up some way of breaking it to her that she won't completely freak out and run right to your parents with it." She actually managed to keep a straight face through most of the comment before finally allowing a little smirk to cross her lips.

Rafi pulled her even closer to place a kiss onto those smiling lips and then bit the lower one gently. “Bad girl,” he said grinning. “Jo’ll be the first whom I’ll telling about the three of us, with both of you on my side, that is clear,” he shrugged. “I didn’t mean the relationship itself; I meant the ... well, the situation, y’know. I’m not the one who is comfortable being naked and horny in front of his lil’ sister...” he added with a wry, somewhat uncomfortable smile.

May actually snorted she began to laugh so hard.

He wasn’t a too shy guy of any sort but the family was always an exception. In front of them, be it anyone from it, he always felt a bit more low-keyed, especially with the nakedness. He hasn’t got any bad feeling about Kyle and Jennie, but he couldn’t imagine letting his sister catch him with the girls, making love. It was an impossible idea...

"Uhm...yeah," Carmilla agreed. "That's not exactly high on my to-do list, either."

And for that, even as May kept on giggling, imagining it, Rafi was glad.

“Then this is settled, two on one,” he sighed relieved, but May’s apparent delight hinted some nasty surprises, coming from her. Rafi poked her to the side gently with an impish smile to get her attention again, saying “Nah, no fair laughing, keep these thoughts for the time when our trio will be alone.”

“I’ll call Juli back then,” he nodded, looking down at the mobile for the menu of last calls. He first saved her number under the name Machine Girl, then began to call it.

The phone only rang twice before it picked up. "Thanks for calling Hermes Acinonyx--this is Juli. How can I help you?"

Then, with a smile creeping over her voice: "Is this Rafi?"

“Yup,” he agreed, but furrowed his brows at his nickname as he didn’t remember that it was mentioned during their trip, but then shrugged and went on. “We’re finished here. Can you come back for us?”

"Sure can!" the friendly, upbeat voice returned to him over the line. "I just got done with a call. I'm in Iron Town right now. I'll meet you at the hospital right where I dropped you off in less than two minutes." Rafi did the quick math in his head and gave up halfway when he realized that meant she'd be doing somewhere in the vicinity of three hundred miles an hour to their destination...and that was assuming a completely straight route....

They were walking out towards the door, the nurse eyeing them curiously.

"That work for you?"

“Perfect, thank you. See ya soon,” he said and closed the phone.

“Gimme a moment,” he told to the girls releasing them from his arms and turned his trails to walk up to the counter. She was nice to them a few hours ago - was it only that long ago, he mused - so Rafi thought that it’d be nice to explain things and ask for permission to leave, not just simply walk away.

Both Carmilla and May did as he asked, standing there in front of the doors that led outside to the parking lot and the waiting winter while he made his way to the desk. He was absently aware that they started taking between one another as he bellied up to the nurse's station.

“Hi,” he greeted the young nurse with a wave and a smile. “She decided to leave,” he nodded into the direction of Carmilla, smiling apologetically. 

Nurse Hutchinson had put the telephone down sometime between their entering the hospital room and their reappearance at the Emergency Room's entrance. She smiled gently, glancing over at Carmilla who said something that made May start to laugh to herself. "Ooookay," she said, turning her attention back to Rafi and making a little mark on the clipboard she had behind the counter's top and shrugging a little. "I guess she's doing better, then?"

“As we can judge, she is in perfect condition and we have faith in the young doctor’s abilities, so if it won’t be a problem we wouldn’t like to have her here any longer.”

The nurse nodded. "Well, that's fine by me," she allowed, though Rafi could tell she was a bit hesitant. "I've got instructions here to let you guys go whenever you're ready. But are you sure?" she cocked her head slightly. "I mean, we haven't really had her under observation that long...."

“God save us from that but if anything untoward would happen, we can be here in a moment,” he assured her. Both by the newfound extension of his power or by Juli; they can be here in moments or minutes and that was a reassuring thought for him as well. He wasn’t too sure in this decision either, but he wanted to have her at home, by him and by May.

"Okay, then," the nurse smiled broadly, a bit more reassured for the comment. "Then you guys can just take off whenever you're ready. Have a nice day," she gave them a friendly little wave.

“We’re planning on that, be sure,” he winked at her, smiling slyly. “Thank you for your help,” he added then a bit more seriously.

He was barely turning around when outside, the sleek silhouette of an automobile pulled up beneath the Emergency Room's overhang. Rafi thought, as he approached his two beautiful lovers, he heard Carmilla offer an appreciative whistle.

Juli had a way of making an impression on people.

The two of them walked up to the side of the vehicle until Rafi could see Carmilla's face reflected in the mirrored tint of its windows. Idly, she brushed the back of her hand across the metal beneath the edge of the pane. If only she knew, he inwardly chuckled. It might've been the equivalent to fondling her. "I'll say this," she mused admiringly. "You sure do know how to pick a gal up in style."

Rafi produced a small bow and a contended purr proudly by the compliment. “Only the best for the family,” he said quietly.

May grinned broadly. "And she's every bit as fast as she looks," she added. Cryptically, he supposed, considering what she and Rafi knew...and what Carm was just about to find out.

“Just wait until she greets you,” he said when he reached them and put his hands over their waist. He led them up to the door and then to the sleek body of a mecha girl. 

"Pretty good friends with the driver, then?" she asked, as the seagull-wing door gracefully opened for their entrance. "Should I be jealous?" she asked with a sly little grin.

“Nah, I have my heart full, really,” he grinned back at Carm, stroking her side fondly. “But you’re right on it; the driver was quite friendly to May and to me when she carried us here to you.”

Once she opened a door he let the girls crawl inside before he stepped in as well, settling between them on the comfortable couch.

Rafi watched Carmilla look all around the inside of the vehicle with the same wide and wondering eyes he knew he and May must've had during their first ride with Juli. "Very plush," she decided, stretching her legs out easily within the luxurious interior. "But...where's the motor?" she asked, grasping Rafi's hand anew as she offered a quizzical glance. "I can't see where it should fit."

On his other side, May grasped the opposite palm, lacing her fingers with his. "Verrrrrry perceptive, Ms. Black," she nodded sagely.

“Ah, the technical wonders of Elysium City,” beamed Rafi as their trick worked and she still didn’t get the trick, just as they haven’t. He squeezed both girls’ hand, stroking the back of their hands with his thumbs gently. Better drop a hint or two, he decided and began to do that immediately.

“Heya Juli,” he greeted their driver. “This is Carmilla,” he nodded into the direction of his love, presenting the holo-image of the girl. “Carm, this is Juli, our car today.” He glanced at her face from the corner of his eye, to see the reaction about the phrasing. Will she be as surprised as they were, he mused.

The hologram in the space before them flickered to life with a moment's wavering, like that of a freshly-energized monitor. Within its rectangular boundaries was the happy-go-lucky face of the girl that'd picked them up before at Damon's. "Heya, Carmilla!" she waved from inside the box of electric blue light. "Nice to meet you!"

“We’d like to go home, to 28 Leonard str.” He gave the address to her and hasn’t bothered with other comments, she’ll be there within an eye blink, prolly, he knew.

"Our...car?" she asked. "Uhm...don't you mean our driver?"

Juli tossed her head back and gave a merry little laugh. "Silly girl," she said. "You didn't tell her, did you?" she grinned knowingly in Rafi's direction.

Nope, he realized. Same reaction as they'd had.

Even as he felt himself pull backwards into his seat with her acceleration.

“No, I was a tricky elf and wanted to see the surprise on her lovely face,” he admitted smiling back at Juli. 

It seemed to delight the automobile-girl. "Nice," she beamed. Outside, through the windows, Rafi could see the scenery, houses and buildings; cars and streets, become a blur of motion. The falling snowflakes fell straight down, then diagonally...and then almost horizontally for her speed. Still, riding with Juli was a smooth, almost effortless experience. Though she remained in contact with the street, it seemed ever so much like she was gliding, like one of the city's police cruisers or ambulances.

Rafi liked his own car, that old Cricket and it could go fast enough if he wanted but this speed was something more, almost like sitting on a plane. Everything was too fast to notice from this closeness where the other cars and the buildings were; he saw only outlines and vague shapes no definite details. It was impossible. He stared outside, mesmerized by the white streaks of snow what made their trip similar to the old Star Wars movies and the hyperspace travel.

Carmilla followed his eyes, amazed by the rapidity of their motion for a moment before she reminded herself they'd been in the midst of a conversation. "Our...car," she repeated herself. "She is the car, isn't she?"

He then glanced at Carm on his side, smiling mischievously, “Carm, this is Juli, a resident here in the City, currently working as our taxi – the fastest one in the city. She’s a meta, like us and that’s how she does the trick,” he explained still amused by the fact. 

“We are currently sitting on her palms, kinda,” he added.

She glanced out the window at the snow, now-imperceptible for their speed. Rafi could feel her change lanes smoothly, the shadows of other cars blinking past them, too quick to make out as more than vague shapes before they were gone. "About how fast are we going?" Carmilla asked her.

She replied so matter-of-factly, it belied the ridiculousness of it. "Oh...about three hundred and seventy miles an hour," she said. "I can't really push it too much inside the city."

To that, Rafi shook his head disbelieving and chuckled softly, drawing soft circles onto the back of the girls’ hands. It was good to sit there between them, holding their hands and feeling the warmth on his shoulder and legs where they touched. He could’ve sit there long; it was a peaceful moment between two scenes, off panel from the comics called life.

Carmilla nodded numbly. "It's nice to meet you, Juli."

"It's nice to meet you too, Carmilla," she smiled gently. The way she did it, Rafi realized that Juli was probably a very beautiful young girl when she wasn't playing at being a car.

Outside, the scenery began to slow. She'd only barely finished her sentence when she added:

"Oh, and by the way--we're here."

Elapsed travel time: Less than one minute.

“You’re really guarding Mr. Fujikawa’s wealth, whizzing through the city at this speeds,” he said after a soft sigh. “Perhaps we should meet at a club or teahouse sometime if we want to talk with you more than a few words,” he added smiling wryly.

The world outside the automo...er, girl's windows suddenly came back into view, as if they had suddenly stopped from that amazing speed almost instantaneously. Within the luxurious and warm confines, however, it felt like a gentle, gradual deceleration. Some kind of play with the physics of the universe had to have been in play, he knew. "No biggie," she replied, laughing gently through her view in the electron blue viewscreen. "I get paid by milage--not time. But you're sweet for thinkin' 'bout me."

Rafi smirked and produced a friendly gangsign, what he learned to do with friends who aren’t in the gang - like he - but are accepted by it. It was for gratitude and friendliness as well, just like any situation what he saw that Kyle usually solved with a slight bow.

"And I'll tell ya what," she continued on, the door rising upward to allow them access to the curb. Instantly, the warmth inside was gone, replaced by the bitter chill of the cold outside. The temperature had to've plunged sixty degrees in aught but an eyeblink, Rafi considered. "Call me. I can set my own hours, pretty much--so if you wanna hook up sometime, just let me know! The only thing I love more than going fast is dancin'!" she shuffled slightly within the borders of the screen.

Rafi glanced at the two girls on his sides, first on Carm then on May, gauging their reactions as if asking their opinion, then turned back at Juli.

“I think we’ll arrange that party night sometime, we have each other’s number, after all.” The emphasis was on the night, and a definite smile in his voice. “I love dancing, too, but I’ll leave the being fast and quick for you,” he said at last.

Chapter XXXV – Family home

 “C’mon girls, we’re home,” he nudged the young agents out from the car, sending Rasgar after them.

The great green jaguar had once again managed to fall asleep on their ride. As Rafi cajoled him in the direction of the door, he squinted against the outdoor light, stretching out his forelimbs while curling his tail high in the air and letting out a wide yawn that showed off his massive fangs quite prominently. He didn't look too excited to be stepping out into the snow, that was for sure.

Rafi gently nudged his friend by poking him at his side and patting on his back a few strengthful, as men usually handle their pets. “Go, buddy, go. It’ll take a moment only to get in.”

In the meantime, Carmilla looked up and down at the facade of the building, the unlit sign reading STEEL BULLS TATTOO PARLOR announcing its purpose for anyone that might be interested to see. "So this is it, huh?" she asked, squeezing his hand gently. Rasgar led them in the direction of the door, tip-toing through the snow like a ballerina.

“This will be, after a while,” he smirked and squeezed back. “The bed is inside, so don’t let it wait,” he went on with a wink while his breath produced long cones. “Or let Rasgar take it...” he added, shivering.

Outside he instantly shivered by the winter’s bite so he didn’t spent much time for looking around but walked up to his door, quickly unlocked and opened it allowing their small family to sneak inside, into the warmer confines of the loft.

The keys in his pocket were cold and he fumbled with them once before getting them into the lock and turning it. His breath was a long cone of frost that fogged the window at its terminus. Still one good thing came of the brief delay at the door before he finally got it open--Carmilla and May both reflexively buried themselves close to his sides for the bitter chill, tucking into his shoulders for warmth. And no matter how cold it was outside...that could never not be a good thing.

The girls’ closeness kept him from concentrating on the lock and the keys, derailing his thoughts and feeling in an instant but the bite of the Forever Winter helped him to regain the focus and finally open the door and let them inside. There was the classical burlesque moment, three trying to get in on the same door, but them Rafi stepped one back and pushed the ladies by their bottom, first May then Carm - so he could keep his hand longer on her - inside, then followed suit.

In spite of his former rush he glanced around on the street before he closed it again, measuring the snow and the wind, and empty parking places for his sister, to know how much he has to be worry before she’ll finally arrive.

Both in front and behind his bright green Cricket, Rafi saw there were ample spaces in which Jo could choose from when she finally arrived. That was a good thing, too. His youngest sister was a terrible driver, which was one of the things that was ratcheting up his tension before her inevitable arrival. Her parallel parking skills consisted pretty much of closing her eyes tight, pushing the gas pedal, and cutting the wheel hard. That she wouldn't have to park by power of prayer was something of a relief.

Another thing on the to-do list, right after the flight and school, practicing with her driving a car, he noted for himself as the image came up very vibrantly, Jo charging into a hill of snow after loosing control over the car. He blinked away the image, hoping that it won’t happen ever, but that was something for attention for sure.

The door closed, he turned and smiled at his lovers. “Lets go up and warm up,” he said sliding out from his coat as he moved up on the stairs. His eyes turned a bit serious, tho as he remembered his promise to the Kommissar that he’ll find something what’ll tell him that the loft was attacked before...

May walked a bit about the downstairs portion of the parlor, putting her hands over her head and stretching, like a ballerina. Carmilla, meanwhile, continued to cling to Rafi's side for warmth. Apparently, though, she'd seen quite enough of the parlor to devlop her opinion of the place.

She looked up his shoulder at him and smiled. "It's perfect," she decided. Then, with a wry little grin. "Show me the bedroom?" It got May to turn around to look at them so quickly, it affected the end of a pirouette.

As Rafi searched for breath, Rasgar was already half up the stairs.

The young man stared into her clear, sparkling emerald eyes breathlessly until the quick movement in the corner of his eye broke the spell. “Don’t dare the bed!” he yelled after the jaguar loudly enough that he could hear, firmly to let him know that he means it but with friendly and loving undertones.

He then pulled Carm into a one-arm hug, looking down again onto her eyes, smiling. “You know that I have only one room, but now I have much more to offer than the mere carpet on the floor,” he said and kissed her passionately. 

As they began to walk up the stairs he pulled May onto his other side, but then he had to notice that the stairs wasn’t wide enough for three so he stepped forward, pulling the girls after him by their hands until they could join to him on the side again upside. He looked around, searching for any misplaced whatnot, the used mugs on the table, the used plate in the sink and such things, to see how good the SHIELD cleaners were.

And there was the look on Carm’s face to look after, certainly, since she hasn’t seen any of his chosen furniture before.