Song Selection: Jolt—Unlike Pluto

???:"You look like shit!"

Max: "Dude, can't you see I'm working on something. Go, I don't know, get yourself something nice."

???: "Uh-huh. Hey guys, this dude's a dork."

Max: Okay okay, Dad. Are you leaving yet?"

???: "I dunno, does it look like it?"

Max: "Bye."

???: "Dork."

Max: Uhhm. Um. Well hello there, people. You may be asking yourself, who's this guy, and the answer is, I can't tell you, which is pretty cool if you ask me, heh-heh. Uhhhh....no, I'm not just some random guy, I'm that guy on the receiving end of your superhero's violence. Yes, you might think it was only a punch, but it's more than that, okay? I was being silenced, and that's just, that's just no bueno. And think about it, would your hero feel like she'd need to do that if she had nothing to hide? I hate to say it like it is, but supers are freaks of nature, anyone can see that. And sure, we prize freedom and tolerance and all that pretty stuff, but you know what? I prize my freedom to be able to talk to you guys without the possibility of being hurt or harassed. If any super has the power to silence or kill you, it doesn't matter whether they use it. They could, and no one should have that power. We didn't elect supers. We didn't choose them to have that much power over other people, and we didn't train them. They are freaks, I mean, sorry to tell it like it is. But they're freaks and they need to be brought to heel. 

"Hey, honey." Gatsby steeples his fingers, his alabaster face illuminated in the blue glow of the grainy footage. "I think we're kind of fucked here."

Galaxy, Heaven Brooks, sighs and puts her hands on his shoulders. She's not messaging him, not exactly, she's just holding him, and occasionally gripping and un-gripping the soft skin and malleable muscle as if he were her personal stress ball. 

She's staring at the screen, at that stupid boy. She hadn't meant to punch him, not really. But when she saw his hands on Angel's throat, she couldn't help it. This boy wanted her and her friends destroyed. Why didn't other people see that? Yeah, Voltaire and all, but this can't be what Voltaire meant. Standing there and listening to someone advocate for the destruction of her friends, her people, and just, just do nothing?

Angel rubs the back of his neck. "You didn't need to do that, protect me like that. I'm sorry that I got you into that situation."

"No, no." Truth was, she'd been 'mingling' that night with the other party-goers. She'd been trying the vodka and listening to them talk about supers. And it wasn't good. Judge, jury, and executioner, they'd said. Unelected, unchosen. All her life, she'd been surrounded by fans, people who saw her as a bastion of justice. She had powers. She could stop criminals, she could save people. So what if no one explicitly told her to become a superhero? She couldn't sleep at night if she didn't use her powers for good. She couldn't just let people die. "What was I supposed to do? Let him choke you?"

Angel blinks at her, his black eye clear and trusting, the purple one misty. "I mean, yeah. Those kinds of people are waiting for you to slip up. Sometimes, you can't do what you think is right in the moment, you know? Because they'll use it to hurt you later."

Galaxy's heart clenches. He's the son of a supervillain, and ever since black wings twisted out of his skinny back and one of his eyes began to glow purple, he's had to adjust. This is what he's had to adjust to. Proving he's not a bad guy by not even fighting back when anyone else could.

"That can't be how it is. We can't live like that."

Angel shrugs and gives her a pat on the back. "It is what it is, Hev'. Thanks for protecting me, though. What can I cook for you? Steak? A bone soup?"

She looks at him. He's trying to smile, but it doesn't reach his black and purple eyes. He doesn't usually make big and meaty dishes, as much as Heaven bemoans his chickpeas-and-quiche hippie shit. He's still cooking little french dishes even after Gastby started snubbing them in favor off of canned sardines and chicken bones. Gatsby stares at his phone, his eyes glassy and faraway. 

Angel clears his throat and pokes his buddy in the side. "Hey, Gats, I could always get you Meow Mix."

Gatsby doesn't even look up. "Fuck off."

"Ooh, harsh language. I think you're supposed to say 'fudge off.'" He sticks two fingers on the top of his head and waggles them. "Or meow-off?" He smirks, clearly proud of his terrible dad joke. 

Gatsby springs out from under Heaven's hands. She remembers when it used to be him and her, wrestling like kids, with Angel staring at it all, absolutely terrified. Now Angel's soft, feathery wings spread from his back and he spirals up into the air with a whoosh. Gatsby flings himself up towards him, curls his hands, and with a feline roar, pounces on to the spread wings.

Heaven watches them with her chin on her hands, the way someone would watch exotic animals in a nature documentary. Freaks of nature. Okay, yeah. Her best friends are a cat-boy and a bird-boy. The angry kid kind of has a point there.

Angel hits the ground. The wings flutter, the sound of them slamming the hardwood floor like little heartbeats. Gatsby spreads his arms, his lithe body taut as he struggles to hold down the much bigger, much more muscular boy. Galaxy pinches the bridge of her nose in an attempt to stave off the headache she knows she's about to get, sure there's some crime for her to be stopping, somewhere.

"Meow mix?" The brit's words roll thickly off the tongue, his accent at his heaviest when he's angry. "What kind of joke was that, Angel? Do I need to kick your ass? You think I won't punch a guy in contact-lenses, hmm?" But there's a twitch on the corner of his lips, almost a smile.

"Contact lenses?" Angelos squirms under his friend, giving Heaven a wink. She can't step in to help them even if she wants, because she knows they need this, the playing around. Taking the stress out of the situation as best as they could. Years ago, she was just like them, wrestling and chasing Gatsby down and fake-fighting, a peaceful pantomime of her superhero activities. That didn't come so easily nowadays. She'd been superheroing for what, three years now? And this was the first time she didn't know what to do. Punching, which worked in any other circumstance, clearly wasn't working now. And she couldn't trust herself to think of something better. 

"Contacts, dip-shit."

"What are you, a Brit or something?"

Gatsby fixes Angel with an angry glare. He lifts his fist, but it only hangs in the air for a second, because he laughs. A dry, small sound. Angel smiles winsomely and Gats collapses on his friend's chest, still laughing. "You're so dumb."

Angel smiles and ruffles his friend's thick white hair. "Yeah, I know." 

"Love you though," he mutters.

Angel tosses his head back, the joy clear on his sunny teen-boy face, in his glittering eyes and goofy, oversized smile. "Oh, everyone does."

Heaven leans against the wall, watching, her heart so big in her chest it hurts. So she messed up a little. She can fix it. She has to.

Everything will be okay, she tells herself, and it seems that way, until Gatsby screams.

It's such a feline sound, more like a cat's shriek than a person's. He twists, pale and suddenly sweat-soaked. Heaven rushes over to him; but there's nothing she can do. It's one of his fits, the ones that are becoming far more frequent. Angel sits up and cradles his friend's head, wrapping him in his thick wings, all the joy melted from his face. He rocks, humming, a response that comes easily to him. "Shh...shh..."

There's nothing she can do. It's his DNA unraveling. Or an unforeseen complication no geneticist could predict.  But he thrashes and cries, all catty sounds. Angel looks up at Hev, helpless as he holds his thrashing, clawing friend. Her heart keeps breaking and she creeps closer to the horrific, yowling mess.

She swings a superpowered fist, and with one well-aimed hit that she's learned after years of using on criminals, Gatsby collapses limply against Angel. He doesn't look like he's in peace when he's asleep. He looks like he's seeing hell.

"What are we going to do?" Angel asks, his voice a dry, desperate rasp. He squeezes the body as if it's about to be torn from him, staring up at her as if she can save them. "There has to be something, right?"

"I don't know." Heaven sits down, closes her eyes, and tries, unsuccessfully, not to cry.

***

Max.

FB: Hey. You talked to me at your shitty party. Can I take you up on your offer?

My heart skips a beat. I'm guarding the laptop away from Gideon's eyes, not that he wants to look. He's too busy putting away the Martha Stewart pots and pans he bought with the "bonus" I got from my job. That wasn't exactly a lie, the bonus; when I walked toward the house the next morning, there was an envelope on the front porch filled with more hundreds than I could count, and a small note that read "Keep it up." I handed the stack to Gideon, didn't keep any of it, told him to quit his job and get a car.

Didn't expect him to buy another gun, and at least twenty copper cook-knives, but you know? To each his own.

A FelixBlackwell7 hit me up immediately in the "business email" I gave myself after my first video goes live. I have to blink a few times while looking at the text. I spoke to a lot of people at the party.

Me: You'll have to be a bit more specific.

He pops up in messager. 

FB: You called me a freak

Me: Didn't I call every super a freak?

It's all hazy. I have vague memories of speeches and putting my hands on a villain's throat. I remember someone collapsed on the ground, a small, trembling figure. But those memories are just shadows, faded silhouettes compared to the much more vivid memories of being, you know, stabbed.

FB: For sure, which is pretty fucked up of you, I'll have you know. You seem like a bit of a bigot. But that's beside the point, I guess. You said you could fix me.

Me: Oh for a fact. 

My heart thuds. I want to tear the accusation from me, but he's right. I hate supers. I hate them just for being supers. I guess I want to blame all the bad parts of me on my being a super, no matter how much of that is really just from me sucking, totally independent of my superness.

And bigot's a strong word.

FB: It's true

Me: Do you want my help?

FB: Give me an address.

Supers shouldn't exist, I tell myself this all the time. And, really, I'm doing him a favor, taking the curse away from. But thinking about sending anyone, even another super, to the men in the alley or the dark trippy void that's pretty much the monster house, it makes my heart feel like hot lead in my chest.

Me: Are you sure about this?

FB: You said you could help me.

"Poor thing. I can't believe anyone would hurt you." Gideon shakes his head, and the weight in my chest becomes something much heavier. Sending someone to the void? To get jumped? I'm not sure if I can do that. I type in the first letters of the cult house's address, and I have to backspace it. I can't. Can't send him there.

So I give him Gideon's address, instead.