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pantha. It also fills the "Negative Self-Talk" square in my 6-4-18 Mixed card for the Winteriron Bingo Adventure. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with fuzzyred, erulisse, and ng_moonmoth. It belongs to the Christmas storyline in the Shiv thread of the Polychrome Heroics series.Warning: This poem contains intense and controversial topics. Highlight to read the warnings, some of which are spoilers. It includes hangover-like symptoms from superpower overstrain and low blood sugar, emotional upset, caregiving, guilt, feeling unworthy of help, self-loathing, reference to recent torture with superpowers (for cause), reference to recent sexual assault, ethical dilemmas and debates, revulsion, everything is awful and Gray is not okay, shying away from emotions, kinky sex issues, feeling filthy, and other emotional mayhem. If these are touchy topics for you, please consider your tastes and headspace before reading onward.
"Strange and Twisted Creatures"
[Evening of Wednesday, December 24, 2014]
Gray woke with a headache and
a queasy burn in his belly that told him
he'd gone far too long without eating.
Then he remembered why, and groaned.
"Good, you're awake. It's Molly.
I came back to check on you after
what happened last night," she said.
"Last night?" Gray said, shoving
himself upright. The room spun slowly.
"How long did I sleep for, then?"
"You slept the clock around," she said.
"May I run a quick health check?"
"Bathroom first," Gray said.
He needed it urgently.
"Okay," Molly said, cupping
the air around him in case
he wobbled on the way there.
Fortunately Gray made it
without any loss of dignity.
He managed his morning routine,
less the shower, which he needed
but didn't have the strength to deal with.
Gray trudged into the living room and
collapsed onto the couch, hugging
the gray cushions for comfort.
"My turn?" Molly asked,
and Gray nodded agreement.
She was deft and gentle,
but Gray still felt like crap.
"Are you still queasy?" she said.
Images of what he'd done to Chyou
roiled in the back of his mind.
"Yes," he admitted. "I threw up ...
yesterday, I guess it was, and kept
dry-heaving for a while. I can't afford
that, my whole body goes haywire
if I don't eat every few hours."
"Low blood sugar issues?"
Molly asked, looking concerned.
"Yes, nothing clinically significant,
I just have to be careful," Gray said.
"It's probably connected with
your superpowers," Molly said.
"The overstrain would make it worse
than usual. Chuckie's Tummy Tabs won't
help much with this kind of nausea. Let me
see if I can damp down the emotional side,
and then I'll get you some calories."
"Please," Gray said. He felt like
a dishrag that had been used,
wrung out, and left on the floor.
Molly reached out and put
one hand on his forehead and
the other, ever so lightly,
over his stomach.
After a few moments,
his feelings stopped
sloshing around so much,
and that helped the nausea.
"Better, thanks," Gray said.
"Good," Molly said. "May I
borrow your kitchen?"
"Go ahead," Gray said.
"I'm sure not using it."
The warmth of her hands
disappeared, and then
he heard her puttering
around in the kitchen.
Soon Molly came back.
"Sit up and drink slowly,"
she said, offering him a cup.
"It's ginger tea with honey."
Fresh ginger, he realized
from the stinging bite on his lips,
but he knew that it would help
settle his stomach, and he
needed the honey too.
The heat of the cup
soaked into his hands,
and Gray found himself
hunching around it.
The apartment wasn't
really cold, but he felt cold,
as if he'd swallowed an icicle.
Or been stabbed with one.
"Here," Molly said, wrapping him
in the yellow-and-gray afghan
that he kept on the couch.
Gray huddled in it, and
sipped his tea slowly.
He shouldn't be tying up
a paramedic's valuable time,
let alone raining tar all over
an even more valuable empath.
"You don't have to take care
of me," he said. "You can go."
Molly gave him a look as if
he had suggested that he didn't
really need to wash behind his ears,
as nobody would see them.
"I'm not here because I have
to be," she said. "I'm here because
yesterday was a complete disaster, and
you need aftercare. If you'd like to visit
a clinic, or specify someone else
to take over, I'm listening."
Gray wished, suddenly and
bitterly, for Thriver to give him
a good boost of energy, but Gray
wasn't about to ask Thriver to come
clear over here to clean up this mess.
Instead, he drained the cup and said,
"I don't have anyone else nearby."
"Then I'm going to borrow
your kitchen again," Molly said.
Almost as soon as she left,
he could smell toast cooking.
It didn't turn his stomach, either.
The toast, when it came, had
mango-orange Honey Stingers
on the tray beside the plate.
"These will do you more good
than orange marmalade, when
you feel up to them," Molly said.
Gray ate the first slice dry,
and when that stayed put, he
dressed the next with energy gel.
The calories slowly made
his headache start to fade.
Once he finished the toast,
Molly said, "Give that some time
to settle, and if you're still hungry,
I can scramble some eggs for you."
"I'm still hungry, but not as bad,"
Gray said. "I know better than
to stuff myself after not eating
for so long. Give me about
half an hour to an hour."
Molly pressed a few buttons
on her vidwatch. "Done."
Gray sighed, dragging
a hand through his hair.
It was sticky with sweat
from yesterday's efforts.
Well, that was disgusting --
and frankly, so was he.
"Do you want to talk about
what happened?" Molly asked.
"I'm a monster," fell out of his mouth
before he could catch it by the tail.
"I respectfully disagree," Molly said.
Gray looked at her, then looked away.
"I tortured someone," he said, "for hours."
"That's horrible," Molly said. "However,
if you were a monster, you would have
gone out for a beer to celebrate instead
of throwing up your toenails and hiding
under the exam bed in the patch room."
"That sounds awfully specific," Gray said,
hoping the backstory didn't involve her.
"I know a number of supervillains,"
she said. "What I hear and see
gives me a very good idea of
what a monster is -- and is not."
"You don't seem disturbed by
what I did," he observed.
"I'm disturbed by a lot of things
that happened recently," said Molly.
"I'm sad that you've made yourself sick.
Now ask me what I would have done."
"What would ..." His voice failed him.
"I wouldn't have tortured Chyou,
but I would have called someone else
to deal with her, and some of those folks
may have broken a few bones while hauling
her ass to the police station," Molly said.
"I don't think I did any permanent damage,"
Gray said. "For a while, I thought that
I might have, but then she -- she --"
He thought he had broken her mind, but
then the crazy bitch wanted him to do it again.
Gray shuddered, rubbing his hands over
his arms under the afghan. His skin
crawled every time he thought of her.
"She made you uncomfortable,"
Molly guessed. "It seems to be
her way, from what I've heard."
"Yes," Gray said. "I did everything
to her that I had wanted to do to
all the people who hurt Shiv before
I met him. Everything. And then
when she came out of the daze,
she made a pass at me."
"Well, that's alarming,"
Molly said. "No wonder
you freaked out a bit."
"I just -- I couldn't deal
with that, not on top of
worrying about Shiv and
and what I did myself,"
Gray confessed.
"It's okay," Molly said.
"I'm not sure 'okay' is
a place I'll ever find again,"
Gray said miserably.
Molly put her hand
over his. "Then I'll
walk with you until
you get back there."
"Thanks," Gray said.
"I know I don't deserve it,
but thank you anyway."
"Everyone deserves
to be treated gently, Gray,"
said Molly. "Even the people
who ask for it in ungentle ways."
"I guess that I'll have to take
your word for it," he said.
Molly's vidwatch chimed.
"How does your stomach feel?"
"Hungry, less queasy," he said.
"Great," Molly said. "How do
you like your eggs? I'd better
go light on adding milk or cheese,
but a pat of butter should be safe.
You can certainly have herbs."
"Curried eggs?" he said hopefully.
"Maybe leave out the alliums, but
things like cumin and turmeric
are good for the digestion."
"Coming right up," Molly said,
and took away the empty plate.
Gray still felt like everything
was crazed and might fall apart
if he breathed on it wrong, but
it was marginally less awful
than when he woke up.
His fingers traced along
the zigs and zags of
the afghan, its stripes
of gray, white, and yellow
lifting his mood a little.
Molly came back with
two plates of curried eggs,
and she had also found
some rice to go with them.
Gray's stomach growled a demand.
"Ah, there we go!" Molly said, pleased.
"I was starting to worry that your digestion
might not wake up without more help."
"It's awake, just sensitive," Gray said.
"The food smells good. That helps."
"I'm glad you're not getting queasiness
from the smell of food," Molly replied
as she dug into her own plate.
Gray ate a few bites. It was delicious.
"Food is not the trigger," he said.
"It's not physical, it's emotional.
I did all of this to myself."
"Don't deny Chyou her share
of the blame," Molly pointed out.
Gray saluted her with the fork.
"Understood," he said. "I'm sure
there's plenty of blame to go around."
"You'll get through this, Gray,"
said Molly. "You won't always
feel as bad as you do now."
"We can hope," he said.
He wasn't being obstinate
about it. He just knew that
what he'd done was monstrous.
He still had to eat, though, and
the food went a long way toward
warming the cold spot inside him.
When they finished their meal,
Molly set her vidwatch timer again.
"Two hours, this time, and you can
have a choice of hot cereal with apple
or something made with lean chicken."
"Let me think about it," Gray said.
"Both of them sound fine, though."
"That's good," Molly said. "May I
check your emotional health?"
"Check how -- oh, the gazing ball,"
Gray said. He vaguely remembered
seeing that the night before.
"Yes," Molly said as she
showed him the sphere.
"It helps me visualize
what people are feeling."
"I'm sorry," Gray said instantly.
He wouldn't wish last night's mood
on anyone, especially not on her.
"This won't be pretty," she warned.
"You don't have to look, but I need to --
like checking a wound to make sure
that it's healing as it should."
"Go ahead," Gray said,
but as soon as he saw
the awful, bruised colors
spreading over the ball,
he turned his face away.
"I know, it looks bad, but it was
worse yesterday," Molly said. "I'll do
what I can for you, since the injuries
are mostly emotional. We can call
in a mindhealer if necessary."
Gray shook his head firmly.
"Boss White doesn't do that."
"I didn't say Boss White,"
Molly replied. "There are
other people who could help."
"I can't afford that," Gray said.
"You wouldn't have to," Molly said.
"I'm given to understand that
'Boss Quiwil' will be paying
the damages for Chyou."
"Oh," Gray said. "I guess
it's good that someone is
stepping up. Shiv ought
to have first call, though."
Molly sighed. "Shiv wants
nothing to do with any of this. He
asked Boss White to solve it for him,
and he said something similar to
Uncle Tolli and Uncle Simon."
Gray gave an arid laugh.
"Chyou better hope they
never get ahold of her."
"Well, now you know why I
and my conscience would be
having a long talk if I'd had
to set them on her," Molly said.
"If I'd seen her hurting my cousin,
it would have gone even worse."
"What would you have done?"
Gray wondered, watching her.
"I probably would have sapped her,
either with my empathy or with
the nearest heavy object,"
Molly said. "I try not to be
a violent person, but I don't
let anyone hurt my family."
Gray's eyebrows went up.
You did not mess with medics,
because anyone who knew how
to put a body back together knew
how to take one apart just as well.
A blow to the head could break bone.
A psychic blow from an outraged empath
could, indeed, do even worse than that.
They usually didn't do more than
knock someone out for a few minutes ...
but that didn't mean they were all incapable
of doing grievous harm in an instant.
Gray knew that Molly had a temper
she kept under control most of the time.
"You're admitting that you might attack
someone with your superpowers," he said.
"That could get you in a lot of trouble."
"I'd be uncomfortable with it, but I
wouldn't let that stop me from rescuing
someone," Molly said. "It's not new to me,
Gray. I have had discussions like this
with my uncles ever since I souped up --
and before that, ordinary self-defense.
I know where I draw those lines."
"That sounds unusually comprehensive
for a civilian," Gray said, tilting his head.
"They didn't want me to get caught
by surprise if I hurt someone to escape
or to save someone else," Molly said.
"So I got the whole combat talk. It was
scary, but I was grateful for it. You
don't want to meet those issues
for the first time under live fire."
"I guess I should have thought
about this sooner," Gray said.
"Well, we can't go back in time,
but we can make sure that you won't
get blindsided again," Molly said.
"There are ethical exercises that
can help in such situations."
"I'll take your word for it,"
Gray said. "I'm a supervillain,
we're not long on ethics."
"Baloney," she said at once.
"There are principled supervillains
and unprincipled ones. If you didn't
have principles, you wouldn't care
about what you did to Chyou."
"Point," Gray conceded.
"So what do we do now?"
"Go over what happened
and think about whether you
would change anything if
you could," Molly said.
Gray bit his lip, and then
admitted, "Not much of it.
Like I said -- I'm a monster."
"Tch. No," Molly said. "I'm
looking right at you, Gray, you're
not convincing me of that. Did
you violate your own ethics?"
"Yes," he whispered. "It's
one thing to smack someone
during a fight, another to do it
for fun or to scold people -- but
this was a deliberate attack on
someone who couldn't fight back."
"Isn't that what she did to Shiv?"
Molly said. "He may be a supervillain,
but he's also a survivor. His memories
really hobbled his ability to respond."
"Guess I can't argue with that,"
Gray said. "I just don't know if I
can come to terms with that I did.
I kind of hate myself right now."
"How would you feel if you had
ignored what Chyou did?" Molly said.
"Worse," Gray admitted. "I know
that I should have left it to Boss White,
but I just couldn't walk away from it."
"I think you might have parts of
your ethical structure that you
haven't examined yet," she said.
"Likely so," Gray said. "Beware
the dark pool at the bottom of
our hearts. In its icy, black depths
dwell strange and twisted creatures
whom it is best not to disturb."
"Now if only Chyou had stopped
to think about that," Molly said.
It startled Gray into a laugh.
"Quite true," he agreed.
"All you can do is work on
knowing and accepting yourself,"
Molly said. "If other people decide
to poke the dark things, well then,
they'll get what they have coming."
That reminded Gray of how much work
it took to coax Shiv into asking for
what he wanted. The memory
made him wince away from it.
"I felt that," Molly said. "What is it?"
"I'm kinky, and I'm a switch. That
means I am both a masochist and
a sadist," Gray said. "I don't know
if I can stand to hurt people for fun,
not after what I did yesterday."
"Ouch," Molly said. "That's going
to be hard on you, and your partner
or partners. Kink is an orientation,
Gray, it doesn't go away just because
you found a whole new squick last night."
Gray shuddered. "That's what I'm afraid of."
"We'll find ways to deal with it, or if not,
find people who can," she assured him.
"We don't have to solve everything now.
It's okay to take a break -- just don't expect
that to last forever. You need what you need."
"I'll try to set it aside and not worry about it
too much," Gray said. "It's hard, though.
Thinking about yesterday, I still feel ... filthy."
"How's your balance now?" Molly said.
Gray held out a hand. It was
still shaky, but not as bad as
before. "Coming back slowly."
"A shower should help you feel
better," Molly said. "You can
do that whenever you're ready.
We'll find a plastic chair to pop
in there if you need one."
"Boss White keeps a stash
of adaptive equipment next door,
including clinical shower chairs.
He told me about all of that when
the apartment opened up," Gray said.
"I think I'll be okay in a few more hours.
I hope that a shower actually helps."
"It's a good technique, especially
if you have any cleansers -- salt scrub,
milk bath, lemon rinse, anything designed
to remove grime will improve the effects
of washing in water," Molly said.
"I have a bar of lavender soap,"
Gray said. "That should work."
Molly nodded. "It's a good start,"
she said. "You can also take steps
to make up for what you did."
"But I'm not sorry," Gray said.
"I feel bad, but it wasn't a mistake.
It was choice that I made."
"You can still make it up to
yourself for crossing lines you
aren't comfortable with," Molly said.
"Maybe consider if you broke
other rules you care about."
"I stepped on Boss White,"
Gray admitted. "I owe him
an apology for that one."
"I'm sure he'll understand,
even if he assigns a penalty,"
Molly said. "You might also
think about learning new skills
to help you deal with that kind
of challenge in the future."
"Not a bad idea," Gray said,
"when I have energy again."
"Don't worry about that now,"
Molly said. "Just concentrate
on getting better. We'll patch up
what we can later. Look at
the ball, Gray -- it tells us
that you're calming down."
The ball looked less
like it had been beaten up
and more like it had just
tripped over the couch.
"I feel less like I'm going
to vibrate out of my bones,"
Gray said with a nod.
"That's good," Molly said.
"Try some gentle stretches,
and don't hesitate to lie down
if you need to. You exerted
a lot of energy yesterday. Even
strange and twisted creatures
need to take time for rest."
Gray chuckled a bit.
"That sounds like a plan."
"Okay then," Molly said,
and put her ball away.
She patted his knee.
Gray sighed, his body
leaning toward her like
a flower toward the sun.
"Could we maybe just ...
cuddle or something for
a little while?" he said.
"I'd like to feel as if I won't
break everything I touch."
"Of course," Molly said.
"If you'll share that afghan,
I can even find something
to read aloud to you."
Gray simply reached out
and handed her the book
of poetry he'd been reading.
The original text was French,
but the facing pages were English,
so she should have no trouble.
"Oh, this sounds lovely,"
Molly said, and began to read.
Gray pulled the afghan around
both of them, set his worries aside
as best he could, and let her voice
soothe the aches he felt inside.
* * *
Notes:
This poem is long, so its notes appear elsewhere.