There were times when Gaveedra Seven felt beautiful, though they were rare and far between.  Moments, captured forever in memory, when he was able to say, yes, he was a beautiful person, and yes, his soul looked just as wonderful.  Now was one of those times, when he not only felt gorgeous but happy *and* teased.

 "Will you stop it?"

 Julio laughed and shook his head impishly, giving Gaveedra a quick flip of the tongue.  Gaveedra arched a red eyebrow but gave in willing when Julio grasped his nearest hand, tugging him down so they both sat on the bed.  "But I feel wonderful today!"

 "And I am glad ... but you ..." Gaveedra brushed his hair out of his eyes with his free hand but still allowing most of it to cover his face, always hiding, never completely hidden. "You are making me *blush,* Julio."

 "And you're so cute when you blush!"  Julio said, laughing as Gaveedra's skin dipped to even a darker shade of red.  Shatterstar merely shook his head, rolling his eyes and receiving a squeal, a *squeal*, of glee for his efforts.  "Adorable!"

 "I believe they should take you off these drugs ..."

 Julio looked absolutely aghast at the suggestion, shaking his head as he rocked Gaveedra's arm merrily, two steps from bouncing on the bed he was so charged with emotion.  "I can't believe you're insinuating I'm high ..."

 "As a balloon no less," Gaveedra added dryly.

 "Doesn't mean I still don't want to see you naked," Julio said with a growl, tugging at Gaveedra's shirt again and sighing when his hands didn't seem to agree with his head.  "It is my birthday after all.  Me.  Nineteen.  Me, when I didn't think I'd make it to this day!  Don't you see?  Oh, mi amor, I'm nineteen!"

 Gaveedra smiled and nodded, trying to appear as happy as Julio needed him to be.  Today was indeed a glorious day, and Julio seemed to be out of his funk, at least for a little while, talking about everything, rejoicing over the smallest of things, so high on painkillers Gaveedra didn't know whether to laugh or cry.  It was like this too often these days, Julio losing himself as he tried to escape from the pain, Gaveedra pretending that it didn't bother him to see his *soulmate* so completely lost inside his own head.

 "Gaveedra?"

 Shatterstar lifted his head and smiled automatically, putting on a happy face, not letting Julio suspect that his whole body wanted to sob at the *wrongness* of the entire situation.  Julio needed happy; he didn't need sad.  "Hmm?"  

 "Nothing," Julio replied, weaving his fingers with Gaveedra's own, holding them so tightly Gaveedra feared Julio would unwittingly break them.  "I just wanted to say your name."

 "You are so high," Gaveedra said, smiling ruefully when Julio's jaw dropped dramatically and his lips twisted into a huge grin.  Julio Richter, always one for flair and exaggeration if the situation called for it, such a wonderfully quirky person, but the drugs made all the beauty of his personality seem wrong.  "If you really want me naked ..."

 "You are so sweet!"  Julio grabbed Gaveedra by the neck and dragged the Mojoworlder forward, planting a very wet, very sloppy kiss on his lover's cheek.  Gaveedra blinked, slightly stunned by the sudden display of affection, but Julio continued to nuzzle his beloved, letting his fingers roam free through the fields of copper hair.  "I love you so much!"

 "I love you too," Gaveedra muttered, trying to loosen the choke hold around his throat while his partner adorned him with kisses and gentle petting, murmuring happy sounds that never quite became words.  "Julio, that said, this is an awkward position."

 "You are just so wonderfully beautiful, just such an amazing person ..."

 Gaveedra braced himself for what came next, the blinding tears that Julio would spend a minute trying to hide before sobbing freely onto the Mojoworlder's shirt, muttering assurances that he really was happy and couldn't quite understand why he wept.  Every day, it never changed.  Every day, Julio cried for reasons neither of them understood.  Every day.

 "Julio, please, you must calm down."

 "I'm nineteen," Julio muttered, clinging now and pressing his face against Gaveedra's chest, wetting the firm flesh with his tears as he choked out the words.  "Dio, Dios, I survived it.  I survived death, even though it hurt so much and I didn't think I'd be able to come back to you.  I heard you asking me, but I didn't think I could give you it.  I didn't think I could ..."

 "But you did.  That is all that matters.  You are here now, in my arms where you should be, so the past cannot harm you anymore."  Gaveedra petted his beloved's head, stroking the dark and unruly hair so it lay in some semblance of flat down Julio's slender back, hugging him because words were useless when Julio was like this.  "Trust me, Julio, yesterday is but a memory.  It cannot haunt you unless you let it."

 And feeling Julio grow still against his chest, watching as the dark eyes drifted up to meet his silvers ones and seeing the slight smile that touched the light of his life's face as his fears were diffused, Gaveedra had never felt so much like a hypocrite as he did that very moment.

 And, he realised, it wasn't until then that he had ever willingly lied to Julio.

****

 After Julio feel asleep, albeit against Gaveedra's chest and none too willing to let go even in unconsciousness, Gaveedra tucked his lover into bed and pressed a gentle kiss to the furrowed brow.  Smiling almost in spite of himself, his ran his fingers along the soft swell of cheek and into the dark hair, pressing another lingering kiss to Julio's troubled face.  Pulling away, his hand brushed along the proud jaw, so in awe of Julio, always so taken with his very existence.

 Shatterstar turned away and took a deep breath before convincing his legs to walk towards the door.  With one foot in the hall, he turned back to look at Julio, thinking that it was impossible that anybody had ever loved another as much as he loved Rictor because people wouldn't willingly submit themselves to this type of pain, an agonising burn in his heart that seemed to tear his very being into a thousand pieces.

 Gaveedra stepped into the light only to see Cable standing there, watching him with those calculating eyes.  With a sigh, Gaveedra intentionally turned away and began to walk, but Cable cleared his throat loudly, and Shatterstar wasn't such a fool that he didn't understand what that sound meant.

 "What?"  Gaveedra asked with a snap, stopping but not turning around.  After, gods, Gaveedra could hardly think it, after Cable had all but tried to kill Julio, the young warrior found he couldn't even look at his leader without wanting very much to rip him limb from limb.  To have such feelings in him, to have such hate stewing within his soul, it frightened the Mojoworlder so much that he preferred running to confronting.  

 "We have to talk," Cable said briefly.

 "No, we do not," Gaveedra replied, wrapping the fingers of his left hand around the wrist of his right arm, pressing into his skin until he felt pain.  Just start walking, his mind whispered, just keep walking and he cannot touch you.  "I have to go."

 "You can't avoid me forever."

 The accusation in Cable's voice was obvious, and Shatterstar cringed, hearing it as an insult against his honour, but it was better for everyone, better for Julio, if Gaveedra just walked away now before he did something he would regret.  

 Again.

 So he took a step and felt a pressure on his body, a tight line of force that crossed over his chest and pinned his shoulders in place.  Gaveedra took a harsh breath through clenched teeth, scrapping his fingernails against his flesh to bring the pain to places that could be seen.  "And you will force me to speak to you?  Have you not already done enough to me that you will strip me of my will?  I took that from Mojo.  You are unwise to think I will take it from you, too."

 And the constraint against his body seemed to lift and vanish into thin air.  Gaveedra let go of his arm and took a step then another before he was walking, walking away, running away, no difference, he realised, he was a coward now but he could accept that, had to accept the reality instead of the dream.  

 Because it scared him to realise he had no problem with the idea of killing Cable.

 Gaveedra rounded the corner then broke into a run, treading so lightly upon the tiles that he was utterly soundless.  He half expected Cable to follow him, to bully him into the confrontation his leader seemed so anxious to have, and Gaveedra shivered, shaking his head as he locked the door to Julio's room behind him.  Leaning his head back against the door and sighing deeply, he pressed his hands to his face.  

 Gaveedra had never been happy, not really, not until Julio, but he had never been like this before.  So ... unstable, so rapidly swinging from one emotion to the other he couldn't even figure out what he felt anymore.  With Julio, his heart seemed to leap up and dance for joy, but with everyone else, he just wanted to ....

 Die.  Kill or be killed.  He had no preference really, though he knew that if he was to lash out, it would be against Cable.  How quickly Gaveedra had learned to hate him, to think with every thought about how glorious it would be to have his revenge against the cybernetic man, but to kill him?  Gaveedra hoped it would never truly come to that. 

 Gaveedra walked to the window and angrily drew the blinds across, blocking out the dim shine of the moon.  He wasn't like that anymore.  No, he had never been like that.  He had killed for survival, not for pleasure or revenge.  If he was given a man to kill, he did the job with flair and artistry because it was expected of him but never did he do it with joy or thrill or any semblance of happiness.

 So where had this hate come from?  Why was his soul suddenly so black?  Julio noticed but said nothing, Gaveedra could see it every time their eyes dared to meet, but the Mojoworlder couldn't say anything to him, couldn't confess these dark desires.  Julio had to heal first, had to overcome his own demons before Gaveedra could even think about burdening him with his.  It was unfair to do that to him, Shatterstar understood, so he would not say anything, maybe not ever.  

 But maybe he should.  Hadn't Julio said very early on in the relationship, not as lovers but as friends, that Gaveedra could tell him anything?  Gaveedra sat down to untie his boots, shaking his head.  Well, everything obviously didn't include stuff like slaying their leader.  Or killing thousands of men even younger than them both.  Or getting ... 

 There were just some things he couldn't tell Julio.  There.  That worked in his mind for all of thirty seconds.  But if Julio ever found out then he would assume Gaveedra had lied to him or purposely not told him.  Which was the truth.  Which made everything else lies ...

 Gaveedra pulled off his socks and dropped them on the carpet, digging his toes into the plush softness of the ground.  So ... he should tell Julio everything, right?  Then let Julio decide Gaveedra's fate, whether or not the Mexican wanted to keep him or get rid of him.  

 But no one wanted used items.  No one wanted to keep things that had been so badly abused and ruined that they ... that they couldn't even respect their own body.  He looked at his wrist, seeing the faint swelling of blood where his nails had cut.  Why could he not stop doing such things to himself?  When had he forgotten that this physical vessel he inhabited was something to exalt in, not hide from?  Gaveedra fingers tightened against his arms as they dropped his shirt, hugging himself because there was no one else to do it.  He was trapped in flesh that no longer felt right to wear.  Surely, that explained why he hated it so much, why he cut it only to watch the scars fade into memory.  

 But Gaveedra was better than that now.  He had stopped with the cutting almost entirely, and not because Cable wanted him to, but because he knew he was better than that.  He was stronger than the urge.  So why, then, did he still want to do it?  Why, as he pulled his pants off his hips, did he want nothing more than to ruin that perfect skin?

 Why did he want so badly to be ugly?

 And why would his healing factor never let him have that peace at least?

 Gaveedra sat there for a very long time, simply shivering and holding himself.  He wanted to go back to Julio, to sleep curled up at the foot of his lover's bed if need be, but he wanted to go back, to be with him and not feel so alone anymore.

 But that wasn't going to happen, not when Julio kept getting sick from everything he ate and Cable kept their time together so restricted.  No, until then, it was just Gaveedra, him versus the world as it had always been.

 It had never been such a lonely fight before.  

 And with tears in his eyes, Gaveedra kissed away the scratches on his arm, drinking of his own blood as he tried to weep for repentance because he was sorry.  He was sorry for being so weak that he had learned to hurt something Julio loved.

 And in the end, it was the only reason he could find to stop.  There was nothing else beyond Julio.  Nothing.

****

 Shatterstar dressed slowly several afternoons later, pulling on the purple fabric of his costume with almost painful movements.  The stains of blood were long gone, and it no longer stank of rancid flesh, but he felt almost sick having it touch his skin.  

 It made him feel unclean.

 Shivering despite the settling heat of early summer, he stood up and walked to the dresser, taking his hairbrush between shaking hands.  Carefully, he smoothed his hair into a high ponytail, wrapping the elastic so tightly it hurt, a dull, lingering pain that would keep him focussed, aware, in control of the more terrible stirrings in his head.  

 First and foremost, the fact he *really* did not want to be doing this.

 Gaveedra sat on the bed and stuck his left foot into his boot, clasping the buckles slowly as if he was afraid to move and break the mask he found himself wearing.  It was the same with the other foot, though his fingers paused more than once as he tried to think of more excuses without ever really admitting why he was so reluctant to train.

 Warriors were not bred to know fear.

 Gaveedra stood and walked into the bathroom, taking a drink of water from the tap.  It was meant to settle his stomach, to force something into a body that would not eat, but it made him woozy.  Couching low to the ground with a hand pressed firmly to his temple, he closed his eyes and willed the room to stop spinning.

 Attempting to stand again only found him even more unsteady, barely reaching the toilet in time to vomit the bile of a barren stomach into the bowl.  He gagged and retched and fought to be stronger than himself, screaming at his body to realise that this is what it had been born to do.  Born to fight, and to die, so that others would be amused.

 Gaveedra hoped that it would at least be entertaining for Cable to watch a warrior fall.

 It would have been a ratings sweep for the Spineless Ones.

 Shatterstar stood up and took a deep breath, fighting the nausea.  What was he if not a warrior?  A man?  Men did not do *this*, whatever it was that *this* was.  Men did not spend the morning cowering in their room because they were too afraid to face the truth.

 And the truth?  Gaveedra had lost sight of it somewhere along the way and could not find it now even if he tried.  And he had, searching high and low for the words that would explain everything and fix all of his mistakes, but there were no answers to explain what had gone so wrong.

 But Gaveedra Seven was a flawed creature, had been from the very beginning when he had been born malformed, a four-fingered freak with impure genes.  Oh, yes, he denied it and pretended he didn't know when people asked, but he did, if only because the trainers had never let him forget it.  He was half human, half tainted by a fragile ancestry that had not been created in a dish but had evolved naturally, or so the story went anyway.  

 Gaveedra lifted his blades, holding them so the sun gleamed off their smooth and silver surface, pressing his lips to them tightly as he drank of their bitter taste.  They fit so well in his hands, such perfectly crafted works of art that he himself had formed to fit his misshapen body.  They were a true warrior's weapon.

 They were not of men.

 They were not of this weak and useless creature that held them now.

 Shatterstar dropped the swords and stepped away from them, holding his hands to his chest as he watched them, half expecting them to come alive on the wooden floor and morph into poisonous snakes that would pierce his skin a thousand times before eating him alive ...

 What was so wrong with him that he would think such terrible things?

 Gaveedra wanted to pick them up, to take them to his breast and vow on the strength of his heart that they would bless him with great strength, but he felt so unworthy of them.  It was they who had been there for him when he found himself exiled on an alien world, they who took away the pain every time he was blessed enough to inflict it, they who were the one constant in his life that remained after all this time.

 But Shatterstar left them there as he turned out the lights, lingering with his fingers on the doorknob before finally closing the door.  

 On them.

****

 "Hey," Julio said quietly, "I thought you were training."

 Gaveedra merely shrugged and sat down on the edge of the bed, still in uniform and having found himself lost somewhere on the trip to the gym.  It was just as well.  "I decided to skip it today.  They do not need me there."

 "You love training."

 Gaveedra looked at his lover, brow furrowed as he fought with himself to stay silent.  How he wanted nothing more than to throw himself on his beloved and confess all that was slowly driving him mad, but he could do nothing more than shrug slightly, feigning apathy.

 "You don't love training?"

 "Do you want me to train?"  Gaveedra asked quietly, biting his tongue to stop himself from snapping at Julio.  Collecting himself with a deep breath, he leaned forward and crossed his leg over his knee, bracing his chin with his left hand.  "It is not that I do not love it.  It is more that ... that I chose today not to do it."

 "Oh."

 Gaveedra could see Julio pulling back into himself, into that sad place he spent so much time in when he wasn't mood-swinging from the pills, locking everyone out and locking himself in.  When had it all gone so wrong?  It had been perfect up until now.  True love, perfect and absolute and undying true love, and now, now it seemed to have gone to some foreign place they couldn't find.  Left in its place was this unbearable tension.

 "I should go," Gaveedra mumbled, saying it but not meaning it, remaining perfectly still on the bed.  Instead, he picked at the lose threads on the afghan, pulling and flattening, trying so very hard to beg without having to truly implore Julio's understanding.  "Should I?"

 "No," Julio said quietly.  "It's just ... I'm tired of this, Gaveedra."

 "Of me?"

 Julio sighed deeply then shifted slightly, making room beside him for Gaveedra to lie as Julio himself settled on his side.  Rictor looked at the space then looked at Shatterstar, not asking, not begging, only offering.  Gaveedra slid up beside Julio and pulled off his boots, lifting his feet onto the bed and relaxing slightly as Julio's arm crossed over his stomach, holding him.  "I'm tired of being sick, mi amor."

 "I know," Gaveedra murmured sadly, concentrating on the thin fingers and how they felt against his belly.  The pressure was soft but existent, the heat from the flesh only slight, but it was enough to ground Gaveedra.  "I wish I knew how to help."

 Julio smiled weakly and ran his hand through the copper hair of his lover, always so fascinated by the amazingly unreal colour.  "Gaveedra," he started slowly, pulling at the silken strands with his fingers, "when I was younger, a small boy, I wasn't very healthy."

 Shatterstar nodded, never letting his eyes stray from his lover's face.  "You told me that."  

 "I was born two months premature in the slums," Julio said quietly, resting his head in the crick of Gaveedra's neck, and Gaveedra lifted his hand to brush Julio's cheek, dipping his head so furrowed brow met furrowed brow.  "They didn't think I'd live.  I mean, the fact I did was a miracle.  Then my family got into the gun-running thing and things were a lot better, money-wise, but I was so sick for so much of my life that I never really caught up to the other kids, you know?  I was always the dangerously thin and pale one, never really allowed to do things.  I spent a lot of time with the girls because of it.  When I came to America and met up with Rusty and Skids and Tab, I started exercising and buffing up, you know?  I fought long and hard to be like everyone else, and I *was.* I had real muscle tone, and people noticed me for reasons other than pity.  Now, now it's all gone again.  I've lost twenty pounds.  I'm sick again, and I don't want to be like this."

 Gaveedra didn't know what to say, he just wasn't any good with words, but as gently as he could, he laid a kiss on his beloved then held him with loving arms.  "Then you must fight again and know that I will help in anyway I can.  I know you can do it if you try, for you are the strongest person I have ever met."

 "No, I'm not," Julio muttered, snuggling deeper into his lover's embrace and comforted to know he was protected in those arms.  The power of the grip, the warmth of the limbs, they spoke of undeniable life.

 "You are," Gaveedra pressed, "and your strength is the reason I still fight."

 "I didn't do anything."

 "You came back from death.  That is hardly nothing," Gaveedra said, trying to keep the sadness for overtaking him and not quite able to stop his voice from cracking.  Julio looked up but had the grace to say nothing, letting their eyes linger and meet with too many unspoken worries.  "What?"

 "Have you been sleeping?"  Julio asked, his face scrutinising as he crinkled his brow fretfully.  It was a change of subject, yes, but they both needed to escape facing the truth of what happened and what still had yet to be.  It was too soon to deal with it all.

 "I sleep," Gaveedra replied, only mildly defensive, "sometimes.  When I need it."

 "You look like you haven't been sleeping.  Your eyes are bloodshot."

 Gaveedra frowned and touched his face, trying to block his gaze from Julio's view.  "I am fine.  I sleep enough.  You know I do not need a lot of rest.  I am watching too much television, too close up to the screen.  I tend to do that.  A lot."

 "But you look tired," Julio said with more urgency.  "Exhausted."

 "But I am not."  

 "Fine," Julio snapped, turning his head away and glaring at the ceiling.

 "I have done nothing.  I do not know why you are angry at me," Gaveedra said quietly, seething though he tried hard to hide it.  This is what it always came down to now, one snapping at the other and putting the innocent one into a foul temper.  Every day, it was always the same.  If Julio was not out of his mind with a bizarre mix of joy and sorrow, he was pushing matters that were not important.  Gaveedra was *not* important.  Only Julio was.

 "I'm not angry at you," Julio said, crossing his legs as he sat up and leaned forward, his hair falling into eyes and obscuring the bleak whiteness of the wall.  "I'm frustrated.  And bored.  And in a fuck of a lot of pain."  Julio tucking the mass of dark hair behind his ears.  "I asked Beast to take me off the painkillers.  I'm beginning to feel it now, you know?  And it sort of hurts.  A lot."

 Gaveedra looked up, his hands falling in lap as he faced Julio, mirroring the crossed-legs and hunched over body.  "Why?"

 "Because I couldn't be numb any longer," Julio whispered, pursing his lips together as he sucked in a harsh breath of air through his nose.  He was battling with himself, Gaveedra knew the look well.  The only person who spoke less about his thoughts than Gaveedra was Julio himself.  "I don't even remember you being here yesterday.  I mean, I *know* you were because my television was on the Home Shopping Network, and we both know I don't watch that."

 Gaveedra smiled and nodded sadly, trying to pretend to be happy if only for this moment because it always seemed right in that very second that things were back to normal.  They were given this space every day just to be Julio and Gaveedra, lovers, best friends, all of that and more, but it was such a short time.  They needed more.
  
 "I was here, but I do not mind that you do not remember.  Domino told me it is normal ..."

 "Normal, maybe, but I feel dumb as shit," Julio muttered, scratching his head.  "I mean, I got fucking *speared* and try as I might, I don't remember it happening.  I see the wounds, I feel them and, *fuck*, they hurt like hell, but it's like, it's almost like I don't know why they're there, like they don't have a purpose or something fucked up like that."

 Gaveedra frowned and dared to take Julio's hand, the good one, not the one with the IV because Julio was self-conscious of it, clutching it lightly.  "Julio, I remember enough for the both of us.  Is that not enough?"

 Julio continued on, barely paying any attention to Gaveedra's words.  "And you won't speak about it, not one word until now.  Cable can barely even bring himself to talk to me, Domino's turned into a mother hen, ‘Berto and Tab still haven't visited, and the others, it's like, I can't just keep pretending I'm all right.  I'm not.  I hurt.  Everywhere.  I can't eat because I get so sick from everything.  I can barely hold down a glass of water."

 Gaveedra bit his lip as Julio turned his face to the wall, staring at the blankness and white paint.  Julio started to cry, softly and quietly, but he was still crying.  That hurt, Gaveedra realised, and made him want to cry, too.

 "I wish I could make it all go away," Gaveedra whispered, fighting away all the guilt and shame he held about his lover's state, "but I cannot.  I am so sorry, Julio.  I brought you back.  I did not mean to make you suffer ..."

 "I'm happy to be alive," Julio replied quickly, licking his lips and erasing the tears though more inevitably fell to fill the void.  "So happy to be sitting here with you now, but I need someone to say it happened, that I'm not doing this all for no reason."

 "There was a lot of blood," Gaveedra said suddenly, forgetting what Cable said about letting it come back to Julio on his own, watching as Julio leaned back, unable to stay sitting for long, and stretched out his legs on either side of Shatterstar, bare feet laying against Gaveedra's hips.  "You spoke to me."

 "I did?"  Julio asked softly.  "What did I say?"

 "That if you were to die, you wanted me to be the one to hold you as you passed.  That you loved me.  That I made you happy."  Gaveedra smiled sadly, pressing a palm to the corner of his mouth to stop from reacting openly to the painful memories.  "And I asked you not to speak but you did anyway."

 "What a bastard I am, eh?"  

 "Yes," Gaveedra replied with a half-cough, half-laugh mixture.  "But my bastard so it was all right.  I held you so you would not fall to the ground.  One hand here," Gaveedra leaned over and curled his fingers under Julio's hip, "and the other right there," he pressed his palm to the space between Julio's shoulder blades.  "You never stopped talking.  I would have fallen apart if not for that fact."

 "Were you hurt?"

 "Just my heart."  Gaveedra clutched his fist at his breast, closing his eyes for just a brief second in time, but that same blink of an eye had almost stolen Julio from his life.  Time was such a dangerous weapon.  "At one point, you started slipping.  I could not hold you any tighter because I was afraid you would break, but you touched my arm, here," Gaveedra's index finger burned a path up his forearm, "to hold yourself in my grip.  And you touched my hair, I had forgotten to tie it back."

 "It's so handsome when you wear it loose."

 "Thank you."  Gaveedra sighed deeply.  "Should I go on?"

 "It's upsetting you.  It's enough for now."  Julio shifted to the edge of the bed.  "I'm exhausted.  If you want, you can – *we can* – sleep here for awhile.  They had me up at five in the morning doing tests.  And I've missed you at night."

 "You are trying to get me to sleep."

 "Well, yeah, sort of, but I'm also very close to passing out, but if you don't want to, don't think I'm trying to pressure you into anything.  Do what you want to do, not what me ... or anyone else wants you to do."  Julio added the last concern as a second thought, not having been so completely out of it that he hadn't noticed the stench of pressure and politics that surrounded his lover.  "I'm tired.  I need to sleep.  You do whatever ..."

 "I will sleep," Gaveedra said quietly, lying in the space Julio had left for him and letting his eyes drift upwards, meeting the concerned glance that focussed in return on his face.  "The room is so barren without you, beloved."

 "As soon as I can, I'm getting the fuck out of this place, okay?"  Julio lay arm over Gaveedra's chest protectively, carefully lying on his side to avoiding causing himself any pain.  Gaveedra nodded and lifted his head, letting Julio rest in the crook of his neck.  "We'll make it through this, mi amor.  I promise."

 Gaveedra tried to think of an appropriate response, of something heartfelt and determined, but by the time it came to him, Julio was already asleep.

 "I love you."

****

 From that night onward, Gaveedra slept beside Julio, rarely ever sleeping deeply but feeling considerably more rested than he had before.  Perhaps it was knowing Julio was alive and safe.  Perhaps it was realising that so long as he stayed with Julio, Cable made no attempt to fix his mistakes.  Perhaps it was just the fact that Julio had this way, even in sleep, of demonstrating his love.

 Right now, a thin hand was draped possessively over Gaveedra's thigh.  The fingers curled into the fabric-covered leg, dangerously close to his groin but not giving any indication of straying further.  Since Julio had to sleep on his side, but without pressure on his healing wounds, they weren't allowed to touch save for the gentle gesture.

 As much as he wanted to stay there forever, it was late morning and he needed to shower.  Laying a lingering kiss on Julio's face, he went into the hall.  It was empty, thank the gods, but he still moved quickly to their room, fearful of any confrontations.  

 His blades were where he left them, sitting abandoned on the floor, and he picked them up, putting them into their leather case and then into the closet.  Returning to close the door, he paused at the answering machine.  The light was blinking.  Odd.  The answering machine was a joke, a gag gift bought because it was fancy and cheap.  

 Then the phone began to ring, which was even odder because it *never* rang.  Gaveedra wasn't even sure how to answer a phone, seeing as he had never used it, but he picked up the receiver and pressed it to his ear.  "Hello?"

 There was a moment of silence where Gaveedra feared he had done something wrong, then a very quiet word, "Julio?"

 "He is ... not here," Gaveedra said brokenly, hearing the heavy accent from that one word and having the afterthought to switch to Spanish.  "~May I take a message?  He will get back to you when he can.~"

 "~Are you his amor?~"

 Gaveedra raised an eyebrow, sitting down on the bed to collect himself from the sudden delve into his personal life.  Was he even allowed to say such things over the phone?   To a stranger no less, which led to him to ask, "~may I ask who is calling?~"

 "~Oh, forgive me!  I'm his grandmother, call me Nana.~"

 Gaveedra nearly swallowed his own tongue, a suddenly wave of nervousness striking him in the stomach.  Julio had mentioned having a huge family, but he had never seen, or heard, proof that they actually existed, which struck Gaveedra as odd now that he thought about it.  But this was ... this was the woman who had knitted every blanket they owned, the only person Julio ever spoke of, no matter how sadly.  "~Oh.  Hello.~"

 "~Is Julio well?  And please be honest, I have travelled a long way to see him.~"

 "~He is ... better than he was,~" Gaveedra said slowly.  "~He is awake and talking, but thin and still ... still sick.~" Travelled?  "~Are you here in New York?  I can ... bring you to him if you like.  He would like to see you.~"

 "~Offering before I've asked, what a polite young man you are.  My Julio has good taste, always has.  It has been years since I've seen him, too long ...~"

 And so they chatted for awhile until Gaveedra had managed to get instructions to the motel, grabbing his coat and his image inducer before hunting down Teresa to beg for her car.  She was watching television with Jimmy, curled up in his lap as they snuggled.

 "Teresa?"  Gaveedra said quietly, trying to ignore the fact they separated immediately when he spoke.  Did they think he would be offended?  He bit down the sudden rise of irritation, focussing only on the task at hand.  "May I borrow your car?"

 Siryn smirked slightly.  "Why?"

 Gaveedra thought about lying but he knew it would be useless because he was so terrible at it.  Plus, he hoped that she would take pity on him and actually give him the keys.  "Julio's grandmother is in the city.  I told her I would pick her up."

 "He has a grandmother?"  Jimmy asked, looking honestly startled.  Why, for all the time spent together, did anything normal surprise everyone so much?  Gaveedra was beginning to realise that for being teammates, they were all closer to strangers than friends.  "Does he know she's here?"

 Gaveedra shook his head sharply, willing his fingers to stop from twisting into fists.  "And you will not tell him, or Cable, or Domino.  He is so sad, and they will just complicate this.  Please, I just need the keys to your car and I will come right back.  I am not lying."

 "I didn't think you were," Terry said quickly, already looking for the keys in her purse.  She tossed them him and he caught them easily, looking so grateful Siryn blinked in shock. Shatterstar was such a changed man now, such an ... *empty* creature.  "Be careful with it?"

 "Of course," Gaveedra replied, "thank you."

 Gaveedra was man with a mission now, creeping about and trying hard not to be caught, but he knew in his head that this was the right and proper thing to do.  Cable would most likely be at him later, citing a million reasons why he had messed up things again, but Gaveedra didn't care.

 Shatterstar drove in silence, not bothering with radio when it was usually his favourite part of a car trip.  Of course, Julio usually drove, and they was really nothing else to do in that case, other than bug Julio and the Mexican didn't seem too fond of that game.  It was very rare that Gaveedra drove anywhere.  He just had nowhere to go.

 Gaveedra found the motel with little trouble, parallel parking into a tight spot before moving to the sidewalk, looking around for a little, old lady.  Humans had always looked the same to him, lacking the tattoos his people wore on their faces.  He did, however, find her with little difficulty.  The family resemblance ran strong between her and Julio.

 "Nana?"  Gaveedra asked, the word falling easily from his tongue, and before he knew what to make of it, he was overwhelmed with a hug.  He knew how to hug a lover, that was easy, but he had never been hugged just for the sake of the saying hello before.  Still, he did his best to return it.  It was really not that hard.

 "~Look at you,~" she said, patting his arm.  "~Such a big man, strong and handsome.  He's done well by you ... I'm sorry, I don't know your name.~"

 "Gaveedra," he replied, submitting himself to another hug when it was offered.  She was tiny, yes, but hardly as old as he expected, sixty if that and a happy looking woman who he could easily picture knitting blankets for Julio.  She must have been all too familiar with Julio's eternally cold feet.  "~He speaks of you often.~"

 "~Sweet boy, my Julio is,~" she said proudly, watching as Gaveedra put the bags into the trunk and opened the passenger door for her.  She smiled and patted his arm again, smiling so warmly.  "~Thank you, Gaveedra.~"

 "~My pleasure,~" he replied, walking around the jeep and starting up the engine, casting a quick glance over his shoulder before darting out onto the road.  They drove in silence for awhile before he spoke, seeking comfort.  "~Julio will be very happy to see you.~"

 "~Yes,~" she said with a deep sigh, idly fixing her greying hair.  "~I do not approve of what his mother has done to him.  I came here against her wishes, but I have not seen my youngest grandson in almost six years.  It is not right.~"

 Gaveedra nodded, changing lanes and heading onto the freeway.

 "~To cast him out like,~" she continued, "~to say that he is not her son.  It wasn't right.  I did not think I had raised my daughter to be so ignorant as to disown her homosexual child.  I obviously erred with her.  Julio is such a nice boy.~"

 Gaveedra was trying very hard not to respond to her comments and drive like he knew everything she spoke about.  He didn't.  Julio had mentioned being somewhat removed from his family, but he had never mentioned disownment or his family knowing about his orientation.  Never once in the eleven-and-a-half months they'd been together.  Not one word.

 "~I have to ask you to close your eyes~," Gaveedra said awkwardly, prepared to create an excuse but Nana did it without question, leaning her head back against the seat.  Quickly, he zipped into Murderworld and parked Teresa's car.  "~This way, Nana.~"

 Once inside, Gaveedra quickly traced the familiar path to the infirmary, holding a bag in either hand.  Nana walked carefully behind him, not seeming the slightest bit fazed by the bright but sterile environment.  Outside of Julio's room, he stopped and put the luggage on the ground, opening the door.

 Julio was awake, sitting on the bed and reading a book, squinting to see the words.  His head lifted when the door opened, and Gaveedra watched the colour drain from his lover's face, the dark eyes growing wide as a sound seemed to catch in his throat.  Perhaps this surprise was not a could idea after all, Gaveedra thought with growing fear.

 "Nana?"  He whispered, his voice shaky and cracking as he struggled to come to terms with the sudden appearance of his grandmother.  Immediately, he was in her arms, holding onto her as he sobbed, ragged sobs, painful ones that Gaveedra had never heard before.

 Julio was just a boy, Gaveedra thought suddenly.  He looked to Julio for everything, relied on him to understand the world when the Mojoworlder seemed so inept at it, but when it came down to it, Julio was almost three years younger than he was.  

 Gaveedra stood in the door and wanted to cry himself, holding himself as he watched Julio break, never having imagined that his lover held such grief in his soul.  Nana seemed to know the words to soothe him, touching him with love and gentleness as he cried onto her breast about the horrors and disappointments of his life.  

 Gaveedra never knew what to say and when he did speak it always seemed so stupid.  

 "Shh, Julio," Nana murmured, rocking her grandson as the tears continued to fall, brushing the streaks from his cheek as she kissed his head.  "~What an attractive young man you have become.  My Julio, such a beauty you are.~"

 Julio only seemed to break more at that comment, gripping at something from his past that gave the future sense.  Nana petted him, murmuring loving words to assure him that everything would be all right in time.  Grandmother and grandson, to see it was beautiful and hopeful, Gaveedra thought.  

 "~What are you doing here?~" Julio was able to finally ask, sniffing loudly as he tried to recover from the sudden swell and explosion of painful emotion.

 "~I came to see you,~" she replied, tidying his hair before arranging the blanket more evenly on his lap.  "~When I heard about your accident, I bought a plane ticket.  Your mama, she didn't want me to come.~"

 Julio's face fell and he looked to the door, so utterly ashamed.  "Gaveedra, could you ...?"

 "*/She already told me,/*" Gaveedra said quietly, brushing his hair from his face as he shifted dialects for more privacy.  "*/But I will leave if you do not wish for me to stay.  It does not matter to me./*"

 But it did matter, and it hurt, Gaveedra realised, to know that Julio had not told him about the situation with his family.  Yet Gaveedra acknowledged the fact he had not told Julio a lot either.  Perhaps it all evened out in the end, he reluctantly decided, but it still *hurt* to know that for all their love, their trust in the other did not seem to run so deeply.

 "*/Stay.*/"

 So Gaveedra stayed and sat next to Julio, watching with wonder as Julio took his hand and held it tightly, looking for strength, shaking he was so upset.  "~Mama will be mad, Nana.  I do not want to create bad blood between you.~"

 "~She is a silly woman with no idea of what it feels like to lose a son.  I have lost two and a son-in-law.  She gave them the right to decide your fate, strangers to us, like it did not matter to her if you lived or died.  But if you had died, Julio, she would have hated herself forever.  She is not allowed to be mad at me.  She is the one at fault.~"

 Julio's fist tightened as his face hardened.  "~Still.  I left when she asked me to leave and I came back here.  It really does not matter anymore.  When I came to America, she said it was better I stayed instead of going back to Mexico.  I did not even think she might have said that because I was a mutant.  I should not have said anything.  It only made our relationship worse.~"

 Nana shook her head.  "~Do not make excuses for her.  Do not rationalise the fact she is ignorant.  You are her son.  Blood, Julio, it runs deep between us, the Richter's and the Martinez's together.  It should not have mattered.~"

 But it did.  It always seemed to matter.  Gaveedra looked to the wall and tried to control his face, feeling the facade he kept up around Julio slowly slipping away.  He was an actor.  He knew how to act.  It would help no one if he was to fall apart now.

 "~But enough about her.  Let me look at you.~" Nana pulled back to admire Julio, causing the young Mexican to squirm and blush as she pinched his cheeks.  "~You were such a small thing when you left, all legs and arms.  Now, my, you're so handsome.~"

 "Nana," Julio murmured, trying to escape her hands, laughing quietly when he hadn't laughed in so long.  Gaveedra leaned forward at the exact moment Julio leaned back, and for a moment there was full body contact.  Besides the odd kiss and brush of hands upon clothed limb or belly, they hadn't touched so fully since the accident.  Julio looked up and smiled slightly.

 "~My Julio,~" Nana said with a choke in her voice, holding her hand to her chest as the pride welled within her, "~all grown up and with such a sweet and handsome boyfriend, such a big man with nice, strong shoulders.  It is true. All the good looking men are gay these days.~"

 Julio's jaw dropped.  "~Nana!~"

****

 Gaveedra took Nana to his room to let her sleep, seeing as his bed had not been slept in for almost a year now.  Even without Julio in it, he slept and lived in his lover's room.  All of his clothing and personal belongings joined the mess of Julio's, had from the first month together.  

 "~Gaveedra, thank you, for loving him when everyone else had turned him away,~" Nana whispered before shutting the door, giving him another maternal hug.  He submitted to it, finally understandingly why some people seemed so attached to the idea of parents.  He had come from a tube.  No one had ever hugged him before Julio.  "~Good night.~"

 Gaveedra wished her well and began to walk, very quickly becoming aware of the fact Cable was tailing him.  Gaveedra stopped and turned to look at him, speaking first to set the boundaries.  "She is his grandmother, Cable.  If it worries you, she did not see where I took her.  I was careful.  I have betrayed nothing."

 "How long is she here for?"  Cable asked simply, his face blank and his voice even.

 "A week," Gaveedra replied, "that is all."

 Cable nodded.  "Believe it or not, that isn't why I wanted to talk to you."

 "I know why you wanted to talk to me, and I have not changed my mind.  Leave me alone."  Gaveedra formed the words carefully, angrily, placing total emphasis on those last three words.  "I do not want your help.  I do not *want* it, Cable."

 "It's not a matter of wanting it, it's a matter you needing it.  You can't walk around like you are and not expect it to catch up to you," Cable said calmly, betraying no emotion.  "It isn't fair to you and it isn't fair to Julio.  I just want to talk to you, that's it."

 Gaveedra shook his head, knowing it would never be that simple.  "You think there is something wrong with me."

 "I think you're depressed ..."

 Gaveedra scoffed at the words as if he couldn't believe Cable would dare to say them.  "Is that what this is called?  You have a name for it?  And to think I have been like this my entire life and no one has ever tried to label it before.  I came here, and I was just like this.  On Mojoworld, in the Arena and the Pens, I was just like this.  Free and with the Cadre, I was just like this.  What makes now different?  Two years ago you could have told me the same."

 Cable's cold facade cracked slightly, and he sighed a deep and weary sigh.  "Shatterstar, I am trying to make this up to you.  Give me a chance."

 Gaveedra shook his head.  "No.  I have been like this all my life and I have never needed help before.  I will get through it but on my own.  You have done enough already.  I do not think I could take another round of your assistance."

 Cable's eyes flared at the heavy sarcasm but his lips reminded in a tight line, jaw grinding as he controlled himself.  "This isn't over.  So long as you're part of this team, it's my responsibility to look out for you.  I won't give up on you, Shatterstar.  I refuse to give up."

 "You should," Gaveedra replied coldly, brushing passed the man and being very careful to purposely shove him into the wall, a coward's way of revenge but the best he could manage without actually committing murder.

 "You can't hide behind Julio forever, Shatterstar!"

 Shatterstar just plowed onward, wanting to get as far away from Cable as humanly possible, but that just wasn't an option, not now, not yet.  It would be someday, and knowing that was the only thing that gave him hope that this would all get better eventually.  Gaveedra could wait.

 "You owe him more than that!  He's going to get hurt!"

 "He is already hurt," Gaveedra shouted without looking back.  "You saw to that!"  

 Cable said nothing more after that, and Gaveedra knew that somehow he had just made it all worse, added something else to the fire that burned between them.  It didn't matter.  Nothing mattered but Julio getting well.

 And what then?  Gaveedra didn't know.  He wasn't blind, he knew this wasn't going to end well, not with knowing what he did about his past and knowing even more that he *had* to tell Julio before someone else beat him to it.  Cable knew too much, so did Warpath.  He had been too willing with information, too forgetful of his pledge to destroy his history.  Too many people knew too many things and he could not know for sure that they weren't telling others.

 Rumours spread like wildfire.  Someone always told someone else and then that person told the person being talked about, which started an ugly tiff where every party cursed at the other and it ended with everyone being friends again.  Shatterstar had never understood the purpose behind it; Julio explained it was something teenagers did to idle away time.

 Warpath had, on more than one occasion, approached Gaveedra and tried to get him to talk about what happened, but Gaveedra wouldn't say anything more than what he had already.  Jimmy pushed and pushed until Gaveedra would just leave the room.  

 So he had been raped.  So *what?*  He was fourteen when it happened.  He was twenty-one now and he was *fine*.  Just *fine*.  Up until now, he had a healthy sex life with an incredible ability to bond with his mate.  It was *fine*.  He didn't think about it, which is something Jimmy didn't seem to realise.  He didn't think about the pain and the blood and the utter feeling of helplessness ... 

 Gaveedra stopped and threw his fists against the wall, pressing his forehead against the cool surface in an attempt to find peace.  He hadn't thought about it constantly until now, and now, *now* it plagued him.  He couldn't imagine himself ever being intimate with Julio again without thinking about the men who had come before, not if Warpath kept bringing it up, not if he wouldn't let Gaveedra forget it ever happened.  

 And if Julio knew, Gaveedra couldn't even think about it without wanting to throw up.  If Julio knew it would create a whole new mess of problems, which is something they just didn't need.  Gaveedra wasn't entirely sure their relationship could survive such a punch.

 No, he realised, he knew it couldn't.

****

 The next day, wearing his happy-happy face, Gaveedra sat as Julio bonded with his grandmother, mulling over a collection of pictures.  Julio nearly died when Nana whipped out a picture of Julio naked in a tub at a very young age, a small and sickly looking thing but completely happy with his life.

 "~I bet he must look better in the nude now, no?~" Nana whispered loudly to Gaveedra, which caused the Mojoworlder to fear Julio might actually have a heart attack and die in his arms the Mexican was so red.  Nana only laughed.  Gaveedra grew quickly to love her almost as much as Julio did, finding himself smiling without much difficulty and not as many internal lies.  

 But night always came and Nana and Julio always went to bed, leaving him to roam aimlessly until he was exhausted enough to feign sleep and curl up in the chair next to Julio's bed.  Julio insisted there was room in the bed, but Julio was a sprawler by nature and by the time Gaveedra was tired he could not find the heart to move the Mexican simply for his sake.

 He did this for the first three nights; it was on the fourth that Julio was actually awake when he came back, feigning sleep, yes, but Gaveedra could tell the difference.  Julio sat up slightly when Gaveedra took his place in the chair, their eyes greeting unmistakably despite the intense dark of the room.

 "It's four o'clock in the morning," Julio said quietly.  "You told me you were sleeping."

 "I am," Gaveedra replied just as softly, promising himself that he would not get upset if this conversation ended like the others.  It was not their fault that fate was so cruel to them.  "I really only need an hour or two per night.  I slept longer because I liked sleeping with you."

 "Even if I steal the covers?"

 "Even then," Gaveedra whispered, closing his eyes and willing himself to stay strong.  "I like everything about sharing a bed with you, even if you snore and take the blankets and press your cold feet against my skin.  I ... I just cannot sleep without you in the bed, it seems."

 "I miss you too," Julio said, reaching out through the shadows to stroke Gaveedra's face, and Gaveedra caught Julio's hand, pressing it to his cheek.  "You know what I miss?  Brushing your hair.  I know we laughed about being such narcissists that we were so concerned with something so trite, but I loved doing it."

 "We are such women," Gaveedra muttered quietly, grinning sheepishly as he dared to raise his eyes.  Julio merely laughed, having a sense of humour about it as he always had, but only with Gaveedra.  If someone else even implied he was effeminate, he made it his mission to beat the living shit out of him and prove his manhood.  "When we are old and in rocking chairs ..."

 "You're never getting me into one of those things," Julio cut in, shaking his head.  "When we're old and with nothing better to do, we're still going to be going at each other like rabbits and show all the young ones just how it's done."

 Gaveedra leaned forward and smiled a coy grin.  "Will we?"

 "Yes," Julio said, matter-as-fact like he always was, tapping his right index finger against Gaveedra's cheek once.  "Old but still in love, still together, you and me.  I don't want you to doubt that, all right?  Whatever is going on between us, with you and with me, together and apart, it's just something we have to get through, okay?"

 "There is nothing ..."  Gaveedra immediately began to deny it, but Julio pressed his fingers over Gaveedra's mouth, halting the words as they tried to escape and form lies.  

 "Yes, there is," Julio said gently, not sounding angry or upset but seeming to understand the reasons why without knowing exactly what the problem was.  "I'm not blind, mi amor.  I've *noticed* that something is bothering you, but I'm not going to press.  If you chose to tell me, and I really hope you do, I want you to tell me when you think you're ready.  Gaveedra, I love you, all right?  That's all that matters.  Anything else is inconsequential."

 "But what if what is bothering me is terrible?"

 "Nothing could make me love you less.  Nothing."

 "I cannot say anything yet," Gaveedra murmured into those fingers, ashamed that he couldn't find the strength to confess all that Julio had to know about him, but Julio merely nodded, understanding when Gaveedra hadn't thought he would.

 "I understand.  When you feel you're ready, know that I'm here for you."  Julio leaned forward and kissed the crown of Gaveedra's head, brushing away the messy hair from his lover's brow.  "And now I'm going back to not talking about my feelings."

 Gaveedra laughed quietly, such a sweet sound, Julio thought, and one he had not heard enough in recent times.  Gaveedra smiled when he saw the glow touch his lover's face, seeing those dark eyes lose the sadness, if only for a moment.  "I love you so much, Julio."

 "And I love you."  Julio touched the wild, unruly mass of copper hair, weaving his fingers through the velvety texture of it, happy just to touch something so amazingly beautiful and rare.  "Can I brush your hair?"

 "It is four in the morning," Gaveedra began, trying to think of excuses of why not to burden his lover with anything else, but Julio only pressed his fingers to Gaveedra's lips again, stopping the reasons from being said.  Gaveedra nodded and sat on the bed, his back to Julio.  "You really do not have to do this."

 "When will you realise that this is all I want to do?"  Julio asked, taking his hairbrush from the metal nightstand as his other hand pulled the red hair so it all lay down Gaveedra's spine.  It was like silk but thicker, Julio had always thought, and such an unreal colour that everyone thought that it had to have come from a bottle.  But it was natural.  Every hair on Shatterstar's body was the same coppery colour as the strands found on his head, Julio knew that fact intimately.  "Lean back a bit, will you?"

 Gaveedra complied and rested his weight on his elbows, crossing his legs as his russet hair pooled in Julio's lap.  Julio smiled and bent to press a kiss between the furrowed, red eyebrows, his thumb lingering to stroke the maroon tattoo, tracing the corners of the star.  

 "I did this for you," Gaveedra said, his eyes closing when first he felt the touch of his lover's fingers against his scalp.  "Brushed your hair when you were ... asleep.  That first time, when you came out of surgery and they took me to see you, I washed it.  They did not want me to do it, but I did it anyway."

 "I wish they would have listened to you," Julio replied, loosely separating a section of copper from the main mass, running the bristles of the brush from head to tip, slowly and carefully.  "But then I didn't think Mama would have given them the right to my life."

 "Why did you not tell me about that?"  Gaveedra asked, opening his eyes and looking up until he caught Julio's gaze, holding it.  "I am not mad about it, not when you know I have kept things about me private, too.  I just wonder."

 Julio shrugged slightly and resumed the brushing, letting the repetitive glide of wood against hair relax his tense body.  "I wanted to tell you, but it was ... it was so humiliating, you know?  I could handle the rest of the world calling me a faggot, but to hear it from my own mother?  It was the cruelest thing that has ever been said to me.  I stupidly expected understanding from her and didn't get it at all."

 "When did it happen?"

 Julio paused then confessed sadly, "Christmas."

 Gaveedra blinked, having expected Julio to say a time much earlier than that.  "But we had been together for months," Gaveedra looked at Julio, utterly perplexed, "and you told me you came back early because you missed me."

 "I know," Julio whispered, "I *know* what I said, but I really came back early because I *needed* you, though I missed you painfully, too.  If I had told you, if you had known the real reason, you would have blamed yourself.  I know how you are.  I'm the Catholic, but you're the one who bears all the guilt."

 Gaveedra frowned.  "I could have taken it."

 "I know, but it was one less thing, you know?  And it's not like she'd been there for me.  I hadn't seen her in years, barely ever spoke to her because I was still so angry she made me stay in America.  After the ... after the Right and what they did to me, I just wanted to go home."

 Gaveedra looked up again, only to see Julio's eyes were pressed shut.  Julio never mentioned the Right, had only brought it up once or twice in passing.  It was something they just didn't talk about, but it was obvious it still hurt Julio incredibly.  "And she made you stay in America because you were a mutant?"

 "I didn't think so at the time, I thought she wanted to give me a new chance at life or something, but who tells a thirteen year old boy not to come home?  I should have realised.  Had I thought about it, I probably wouldn't have told her I was gay.  Never.  I never even got to you.  She called in my brothers and they ... made sure I left."

 "Brothers?"

 Julio nodded and slowly started to brush again, shaking his head as if to clear his thoughts.  "I'm the youngest of five boys, but I do have a younger sister.  Before I even realised I could shake cities to bits or that I liked men, they all referred to me as the freak anyway.  Dios, most of my early life involved me getting knocked senseless by my brothers for things I couldn't remember doing."

 "And you don't talk to any of them?"

 "My sister, Marita, sends me a Christmas card and birthday card every year, and I do the same for her, but I have never once put a return address.  I guess part of me realised that I had all but been kicked out of the family.  And Nana, of course, mails me stuff all the time to the box I have in the city, and I phone her when I can, but I don't want to create trouble." Julio shrugged, trying to pretend none of this bothered him when Gaveedra could plainly see it did.  "Anyway, I don't need my family.  I have you."

 "But what if you need something more?"

 Julio stopped combing again, resting the pads of his fingers on Gaveedra's hairline as he dropped the pretense of the hairbrush, letting the item fall to the mattress.  "I don't.  You're the one who understands, you're the one I love, and you're the one I'm going to spend the rest of my life with.  I *know* this, and I don't need a family of gunrunners and drug dealers to complicate an already fucked up life."

 Gaveedra bit his lip, seeking the courage to comment on the future, trying not to be afraid of Julio's answer to his worries.  "If I said I did not want to fight anymore and wanted to leave the team, would you come with me?"

 Julio stopped his brow-petting and twisted slightly so their eyes could meet, looking deep into the silver gaze and seeing how honest the question was.  "Anywhere you go, mi amor, I go, too.  This life isn't for me, but I stayed because you were here."

 "I want to leave," Gaveedra confessed shamefully, "I do not want to live this life.  I want to be free."  Gaveedra dropped his head, focussing on the floor.  "But this is all I have ever known.  I do not understand this world, but I fear it less than I fear staying here."

 "I know," Julio whispered, "and I swear to God, I *will* get out of here the minute I can hold even an ounce of solid food down.  I mean, fuck it, right?  We deserve a chance to live life, to be happy together without this constant fear that one of us is going to die."

 Gaveedra didn't say anything, didn't need a single word because Julio seemed to know what was in his head.  Always had, Gaveedra supposed, save for the I-love-you angle, which had come as a surprise despite the mirror of their feelings and the many restless nights when they had thought only of each other.

 Julio went back to combing through Gaveedra's hair, cracking his back when attacked with a mild twinge of pain.  The level of hurt was better than it had been, those first few weeks when he couldn't even sit up, but every movement still seemed to bring him some form of discomfort.  He needed activities to take his mind off of it, especially now that he wasn't doped up on painkillers around the clock, and this seemed to be doing the trick.

 Gaveedra closed his eyes and focussed on the smooth movement of the brush, leaning his head back when Julio touched his fingers to Gaveedra's forehead.  By now, it was half-passed four, but neither man seemed overtly tired.  This moment was nice.  Intimate, Gaveedra thought, loving and full of love.  He sighed and shifted on the bed, blind to the world and focussing only on the movement of his boyfriend's hands.  

 "So how are things on the outside?  Nice weather?"

 Gaveedra smirked to himself.  "You sound as though you are imprisoned."

 "I think I am.  I miss windows, mi amor.  I miss the *sun*.  You don't miss the sun until you never see it.  You know what we never did but said we would?  What I'd really kill to do right now?"  Julio patted Gaveedra's chest, the sort of light slap he would have given his lover's thigh if he felt he could reach it without doing internal damage.  "Go camping together!"

 "We will someday," Gaveedra replied, opening his eyes to smile at Julio, reacting immediately to the lighter tone in the Mexican's voice.  "We will do everything we said we would.  I will get that wonderful design you drew tattooed around my arm.  Do you remember it, Julio?  It was right after we made love for the second time, and you took a pen and wrote on my flesh, trying to describe what you saw in your head, two separate lines fused as one."

 Julio smiled fondly.  "I remember.  Dios, that's such a sexy image," Julio muttered, using his thumb and index fingers to circle the upper part of Gaveedra's arm, right where his lover had suggested it be put.  "We'll get an apartment and plants."

 "The plants are yours," Gaveedra replied, his eyes laughing as Julio admired his arm, tracing the swell of muscle.  "We have already established I will be anti-productive to their survival, but yes, plants.  And you will do my laundry if I vacuum ..."

 "And take out the garbage," Julio reminded him.

 "And take out the garbage," Gaveedra agreed with a demure grin, "and we will live up to the stereotype and have a fabulous apartment with trendy furniture all purchased from Ikea because it is not our fault we have style."

 "I love how you say fabulous, very sexy," Julio murmured, ditching the brush to use his fingers, hooking and combing through the russet mass, gently lolling the relaxed head between his palms.  Gaveedra looked so content that Julio abandoned the hair to massage his lover's broad shoulders, knowing the perfect spots to turn the Mojoworlder into jelly.  

 Gaveedra gave into the pleasures of the flesh, forgetting the early time, forgetting this was probably something they shouldn't be doing right now, but it had been so long since they had touched so intimately, so like lovers.  They knew the secrets of the other's body, knew all those hidden places and sensitive areas, knew how to relax, and arouse, the other with ease.

 "I have never been so bitter that I can't lift heavy objects," Julio said suddenly, drawing a sudden laugh from Gaveedra's lips as he eased further into his beloved's hands.  "Remember when we were at Sam's house, stopping in to see his mother and his brothers and sisters on the way back from our fight against the Mutant Liberation Front?"

 A knowing grin crossed over Gaveedra's lips as he remembered the aftermath of the battle fondly.  "I recall it, Julio, when you somehow convinced me that a quickie in the bathroom would be a good idea?"

 Julio grinned mischievously.  "You know what seeing you in spandex does to me.  I could hardly be faulted.  If I recall correctly, you weren't complaining when we were finally in there.  God, you tasted so good, I remember, still sweaty and wet and just shining."

 Gaveedra huffed a laugh, smiling to remember the events of that particular day in their history.  It was such an innocent and carefree time.  "And you were so vocal, as usual, that Samuel came to see what all the ruckus was about."

 "And we told him I had something in my eye and you were trying to get it out for me, but you had poked me, causing me much pain and thereby inciting such a cry from lips.  Exact wording, if I remember precisely."

 "Sounds vaguely familiar," Gaveedra said lightly.

 "I *still* cannot believe he bought that.  I mean, we were out at that point, and he must have at least expected we had used his bathroom for illicit purposes.  You had dusty knees!  Hell, so did I!"  Julio's face took on a impish expression as he naughtily continued.  "We've used a lot of places for illicit purposes, haven't we?  We should make a map and give tours."

 "Very funny," Gaveedra muttered, leaning into Julio's touching now, so close to drifting off to sleep it was so completely relaxing.  "Though if Domino ever found out how we used the briefing room table ..."

 Julio tried to block out the mental images of severe beatings from their leader, all while she was lecturing them on why using common room tables for coital purposes was not their swiftest idea nor one she would forgot about anytime soon.  "Let us hope she never finds out, mi amor, and save both our balls."

 "Good idea.  I like your balls," Gaveedra said, looking up with amusement as Julio spared him a smirk, resting his hands on Gaveedra's chest as they shared the humour, so desperately in love even now.  But seeing those dark eyes, another fact became apparent to Gaveedra.  "Come, Julio, let us sleep before we both fall over."

 "Yeah," Julio murmured, laying back and shifting to the edge of the bed, slipping under the thin sheets.  Gaveedra took off his shirt but left his pants on, settling next to Julio comfortably.  "I love you."

 Gaveedra smiled and nodded, leaning over to kiss those gorgeous lips, a real kiss when they hadn't really kissed since the accident.  Touches of lips to head, cheek, hand, all of those had been blessed with kisses while their lips remained virgin.  Julio leaned into the touch, fingers sailing through russet hair as Gaveedra returned the embrace.  Time ticked by and they pulled apart, reluctant to entirely let go.

 "I love you," Gaveedra whispered, laying down against Julio's body like he used to in sleep, fitting perfectly.  Entirely comfortable, he was, for the first time in a month, protected, safe though he was hunted.  Maybe he was using Julio as a shield, but he loved him so much he did it almost unconsciously.

 Almost.

****

 The next day, Gaveedra left Julio alone with his grandma, not because Julio insisted but because Gaveedra felt they needed a moment alone.  Which, by default, left him alone, and he didn't like that one bit, even though it had been his idea in the first place.

 Gaveedra cursed himself for being so confusing as he combed his hair, fresh from a cold shower and eager to spend the day on the run from Cable.  He smirked slightly, so that was sarcasm.  He knew he would get the hang of it.  Julio practically thrived on it, so it was bound to wear off eventually.

 "Hey," Roberto said quietly, walking into the bathroom despite the fact Gaveedra was obviously there, wearing only a towel.  The Mojoworlder gave the Brazilian a look then turned back to preening, ignoring him.  "I'm sorry."

 "So?"  Gaveedra replied coldly.  

 Roberto took a deep breath but stayed where he stood, stubborn enough that backing down never crossed his mind.  "I was wrong, all right?  I *freaked* when you guys told me you were together.  I *freaked* when Rictor was stabbed.  But you have to understand where I'm coming from, okay?"

 "I have to understand that you hate me for something I cannot change?  That you called me a fag?  And a queer?  And a homo?  And what that last one?"  Gaveedra faked thoughtfulness, pressing a long finger to his chin as he pondered the mystery.  "Cocksucker.  I especially enjoyed that one, Sunspot.  I thought it was very accurate."

 Roberto visibly flinched as he remembered that first morning, right after he had seen that *picture* of them, faces pressed together as Julio laughed, the grin of Gaveedra pressed to his jaw.  "I didn't mean to say what I did to you.  Or what I have said to you, you know, *other times.*"

 "No?  Did your lips simply move of their own accord?  A spirit, perhaps, took possession of your body?  Well, then, I must forgive you.  It was out of your control when you took my love for Julio and turned it into a joke.  Poor man," Gaveedra commented idly, angrily tying his hair away from his face.  

 Roberto frowned, never having thought Shatterstar could be this intentionally cruel, but anger made people do strange things, fear made them do worse.  "Why more do you want me to say?  I *am* sorry.  I *apologise*."

 "Sorry does not fix what happened.  Sorry does not put you back to the beginning.  I am sorry for a thousand things I have done, but those are only words and they cannot undo damage wrought by their masters.  So you are sorry.  I do not hate you any less."

 Roberto started to turn but stopped midway, pausing.  "But you won't kill me?"

 Gaveedra looked at him, unbelieving that the mutant would have the gall to ask such a thing, to imply such reasons for seeking forgiveness.  "Is that why you apologised?  Because you do not want to die?"

 Roberto fought down the anger that swelled in his stomach at the indignant question, clenching his fingers into tight fists.  "Fuck!  What the *hell* do you want from me?  You want me to tell you the truth?  That I find the thought of you together with a friend of mine disgusting?  I do!  It makes me sick to think about it!"

 "This is a clever way of begging for your life," Gaveedra said darkly, walking passed Roberto to where his pants sat on the bench, folded neatly.  Without any thought to who he was with, he dropped the towel and pulled on the cargo pants, tying a quick knot around his belly.  "I would advise you to leave now before I remember why I decided killing you was a good idea."

 Roberto bit back his smile, swallowing the expression before Shatterstar could see it, but it was obvious to Sunspot that he had not been quick enough.  Good.  "You're all about threats.  You never actually *do* anything."

 Gaveedra stopped midway through unfolding his shirt, turning around slowly to regard the hot-headed mutant.  He could either let this go and walk away or he could stay and fight, take back the dignity Sunspot had stolen from him, take back his pride, but he promised Julio he would fight with his head.  "Forget it.  You are not worth it."

 Grinning freely now, Sunspot stepped away as Gaveedra hurriedly pushed passed him, running away.

 "Faggot."

 Again.

****
 
 "~He was three here, loved being naked,~" Nana said with a grin, handing Gaveedra yet another yellowed picture of Julio as a child.  Julio had long since given up protesting, merely sat there covering his face with his hand as Gaveedra gleefully viewed everything Nana had to offer.  "~Fifth birthday, he tripped and fell into the cake his mama baked.~"

 "~A klutz to the day I die,~" Julio muttered from behind the veil of his fingers.  

 "~You were cute,~" Gaveedra said with a grin, holding a fistful of Julio's past in his hands.  As an afterthought, he added, "~still are.  I especially like the one of you wearing your sister's dress.  Positively adorable, Julio.~"

 "~Little did they know, huh?~"

 Gaveedra raised an eyebrow at the comment, especially when it was put forth with such apparent bitterness, but he otherwise ignored it because he knew it would lead to them fighting, and Nana just seemed so happy Julio had a boyfriend that Gaveedra couldn't bring himself to even let her suspect it was not the paradise they presented.

 In time, Nana gave them both kisses and went off to bed, promising a large breakfast for Gaveedra and Julio, too, if he felt he was willing to attempt it.  Once he was sure the coast was clear, Gaveedra turned to Julio with great concern.

 "What is wrong?  You have been upset all day," Gaveedra stated quietly.
 
 "Jimmy came to talk to me."

 "About what?"  Gaveedra asked, swallowing his fear and already knowing the answer.  Gaveedra had run out of time.  This, he realised, was it.

 "About you.  About things he felt I should know."

 "Oh."  Gaveedra stood up and walked to the window, scratching his head as looked down into a bizarre, indoor forest with oranges trees and blue grass.  If nothing else, Murderworld was certainly a sight to behold.  "Did he say anything?"

 "I asked him not to tell me a thing.  I told him I wanted to hear it from you," Julio muttered, lying back and rubbing his face with his hands.  "Then he said not to count on you ever telling me, that he knew you better than I know you.  I told him to get the fuck out.  So there you go, Gaveedra, I've alienated another friend.  Who does that leave?  Terry and Sam, I think.  Oh, and Domino, but she's my pseudo-mother now, so she doesn't count."

 "He will forgive you."

 Julio laughed, shaking his head slightly as he pressed his eyes closed.  "Maybe.  Maybe not.  Do I want to be forgiven?  Oh, I don't know, don't know anything anymore.  So Cable comes in the other morning and says the same fucking thing, that there's something about you that I should know.  I'm starting to feel stupid, Gaveedra, people you don't even like know more about you than I do."

 "That is only because they know to strike when I am down," Gaveedra snapped, clutching his sides as he struggled to remain still and not stalk out of the room.  Julio was looking at him, venomously angry and terribly accusing, and Gaveedra shook his head.  "Julio, if you know what they know, you will not want me anymore."

 "Let me decide that."

 "*Trust me.*"

 "I can't," Julio hissed quietly, fighting to control the overwhelming anger he felt in his heart, "I can't trust you because I'm not sure I know you!  I *love* you, but is it fair that we only love the present and not the past?"  Julio did not spare Gaveedra the time needed to respond. "When I was twelve, I fucked around with this really girly boy, who was the son of my mother's childhood friend, during the Christmas celebrations, gave him head then let him give it to me in return.  He was seventeen.  When I was thirteen, the Right fucking tortured me until I shit myself, and I lay in my own filth until morning, crying for my mommy while those mutant-hating bigots pissed on me!"

 Hearing the painful words and trying not to openly grieve the confession, Gaveedra continued to stare out the window, fingers pressed to the cool glass as he struggled with himself to remain calm.  What could he say to that?  Julio was angry, he knew that, angry at him and saying things ... bad things, Gaveedra dropped his head, but not as bad as his secrets, not quite.  But Julio seemed to determined to know, and Gaveedra wasn't sure he had the right to keep any of it from him.  "If I am to tell you ... you cannot look at me."

 Julio sighed deeply but immediately closed his eyes.  "All right."

 "And you are not allowed to touch me until I say you can."

 Julio took longer to respond to that requirement, but he finally nodded in concession.

 "And if you do not say anything, I will leave this room and never come back.  I will take the silence as your decision to end our relationship because I will not blame you if you cannot find words to forgive me."  Julio nodded again, surrendering completely to the Mojoworlder's demands, and Gaveedra turned to the window.  "You know I am a killer."

 "I know you've killed."

 "When I was in the Arena, it was expected that one man fight for himself and let all others go to waste.  In the smaller games, each match followed the same patterns.  Man against man, a fight to the death put to the sound of music and the sight of flashing lights.  That is why I do not like clubbing.  It is exactly like my homeworld."

 "You never told me.  I didn't need to go out."

 "You are a social creature, Julio, and I am not, but it was my choice to accompany you.  I  know why I did it, so you are not allowed to feel any guilt about that.  You could not have known because I never told you."

 Gaveedra took a deep breath.  "But in the Arena, the main one where only the best fought, the rules were different, more extreme.  I not only killed men ... but boys, fresh from the tubes ... and the women, I killed them too all because I was told to do it.  Children, Julio, I murdered children and never really knew regret until one month ago, and now, now I hate myself more than you can understand.  Like a coward, I ran from the knowledge of what I did in the Arena for entertainment value, but it has all caught up to me and I want to die the feelings are so horrific."

 Julio opened his mouth, but Gaveedra hissed him silent, "not until I am done!  Stop speaking, Julio, you are only making this harder for me."  Gaveedra touched the pads of his fingers to his inner arm, tracing the prominent veins.  "I cut myself, I have since I was fourteen, with sharp objects, usually a blade, but sometimes pieces of glass or my nails.  I do not do it so much anymore, though when I came back and found out you were out of surgery but in a coma, I cut myself very badly and Cable found me.  That is what he wants to tell you, that and he believes me insane, a weak thing that does not know how to cope when I can cope just *fine.*"

 Gaveedra turned to look at Julio, noticing how his beloved was chewing on his own lip, a tiny trickle of blood burning its path down Julio's chin.  Odd, Gaveedra thought suddenly, how even their mannerisms seemed to reflect each other.  Somehow, through all the years of knowing each other, they had come to mimic each other without ever knowing they were.

 "And when I was fourteen, Julio, I was raped by four men.  Each of them took me many times and used my body so badly that I did not stop bleeding for fourteen hours, even though I had a healing factor.  But to save myself, I still fought in that condition and killed each of them to the echo of applause.  That is why they were threatened and that is why I was the best.  Split in two, stripped of my dignity, used by foul creatures who thought me weak because I had beauty, and I still killed them.  I should not have told Warpath, but that is what he wanted to tell you.  So there you go, Julio, everything else you know, but this is what I wanted to hide."

 Gaveedra felt sick the moment he ended the rant, having barely breathed since he started.  It was better just to get it all out, he felt, just to speak what was on his mind and regret it all afterwards.  And he did, Gaveedra slid to the floor and pressed his hands to his eyes, he regretted it immediately.  

 And Julio, Julio seemed to have nothing to say.  Gaveedra moved his hand over his mouth, trying to muffle the strange, anguished sounds that reverberated against his teeth as he fought to gain control of himself.  Fine.  Gaveedra stood up and straightened his shirt, trying to stop from crying.  But those tears, those *fucking* tears were already streaking his cheeks, already betraying his weakness.  

 "I love you," Julio said quietly, "till death do us part, Gaveedra."

 Shatterstar looked up and saw those dark eyes open, wet and shiny things, exactly like his own.  "I am a monster, Julio!  You cannot love me!  I *could* hurt you, do you understand?  People like me, they put us in a jail, they kill us because we are too horrible to live."

 "There has never been a person like you, so the rules don't apply."

 "They should," Gaveedra muttered, licking the tears as they hit his lips, watching Julio, seeing how he sat and didn't move, seeing how he cried those horrible silent tears.  "Julio, I love you more than my life.  I had never thought myself capable of tears until I thought about losing you, but I think I am dangerous."  Gaveedra's voice caught bitterly in his throat, and he found himself on his knees, bent low to the ground, begging.  "But please, Julio, do not throw me away."

 Julio stopped breathing, a strangled noise escaping his lips, and Gaveedra looked up, meeting those wet eyes and lifting his hand.  Julio scrutinised the spread fingers but made no move otherwise, and Gaveedra lifted it further.  "You can touch me.  I did not mean what I said."

 "You should have told me," Julio said quietly, taking the shaking hand and pulling Gaveedra onto the bed, resting his hands on Gaveedra's back when the Mojoworlder bowed into his lap.  "But I'll never throw you away.  You're not garbage."

 "I feel as though I am," Gaveedra whispered, taking small solace in the pressure of Julio's fingers roaming over his back.  "When I was a Gladiator, they treated me like an animal.  I feel like one still, like I am hunted.  And Julio, they will not leave me alone.  Cable.  Sunspot.  I beg and they still will not let me be."

 "What are they doing?"

 "Sunspot taunts me, and I wish to be better than him, and I wish to ignore him, but he just pushes, Julio, and I know I will break first.  And Cable," Gaveedra tried to still the frantic tone of his voice, but he couldn't find the strength, "and Cable thinks that I am mad and that I will harm you and that I should leave you.  I tell him to leave me alone, and he will not.  I am afraid of him, Julio, and even more afraid of myself because I hate him and wish to do him harm."

 "I'll do him some fucking harm if he doesn't back away!"  Julio hissed angrily, looking down at the shaking body of his lover and hating the ones who had stolen his pride.  Julio had noticed from the moment he was awake that something was slowly destroying Gaveedra, had watched silver eyes grow dimmer with each passing day, had watched the life slowly leave the once vibrant soul, but he had never suspected any of this.  

 "Julio, I love you so much.  I will do whatever you want me to do, so please tell me how to behave now because I am only making things worse.  I have threatened Roberto with death and accused Cable of attempting to kill you, so now they hate me more.  I do not know what I am supposed to do."

 Julio smiled sadly and lifted the head from his lap, curling his index fingers under Gaveedra's chin so he could stare into those exotically silver eyes.  "If I knew, amor, I would tell you, but I don't what to say.  There may be no right thing to do anymore."  Julio pressed a kiss to the fretful forehead.  "And thank you for telling me everything."

 "I was afraid you would not love me anymore," Gaveedra confessed, finding that he was still crying and none too pleased with it, but Julio didn't seem annoyed, only wiped away the tears with his fingers as he smiled lovingly.  "I do not like this crying nonsense."

 "Neither do I," Julio replied sadly, thumbing the hair from Gaveedra's eyes as the Mojoworlder blinked with red-rimmed eyes.  "It's amazing, but when you cry, your eyes turn an incredible shade of blue.  I've never seen a colour like it."  Julio paused and pressed another kiss between Gaveedra's brow, speaking as his lips lingered.  "But then, I never thought I'd meet anybody like you in my lifetime."

 Gaveedra looked up, wrapping his fingers around Julio's wrists as they sat, linked in a chain that wouldn't seem to break, no matter how horribly it was tugged.  "I am a terrible boyfriend.  I have made you cry."

 "Nah," Julio said with a crooked smile, sniffing, "I'm just a sensitive guy."

 "I do not know how I would survive without you."  Gaveedra smiled beyond the tears, lifting a finger to touch the unhappy face of his lover.  Julio only shrugged, returning the grin the best he could though it was obvious they were both too close to shattering.  "Will we be okay, Julio?"

 "I think so," Julio said slowly, his eyes dropping to Gaveedra's arms, the hands followed soon after as he touched the unblemished skin.  "I hope so."

 "And you will never stop loving me?"

 "Never," Julio said with a sniffle, "you're stuck with me."

 "That is not so bad," Gaveedra replied, and they sat like that until morning came, quiet and contemplative of each other, and when they could not do it any longer, they laid down together, wrapped their arms in that unbreakable chain and slept the sleep of the safe.

****

 "~I am sorry Julio could not escort you to the airport but walking tires him out terribly,~" Gaveedra said quietly as soon as Nana returned with her boarding pass, handing her the carry-on bag she brought.  "~And thank you for coming.~"

 "~I will come back.  I had not realised how much of his life I had missed.  He is not the boy I remember, but he has become a wonderful man.  All I ask, Gaveedra, is that you love my grandson the best you can.  He has no one else.~"

 "~I will love him more than anyone else has ever loved another,~" Gaveedra replied quietly, returning the hugs she was so free with giving.  As she entered the terminal, he watched and waved when she did, saying a final good bye.  Once she was gone, he turned to Teresa and James and followed them to the car wordlessly.

 It wasn't until they had parked in Murderworld that Jimmy cleared his throat, something Gaveedra recognised as a prelude to speech.  Terry was already half-way down the hall, eager to return to her movie.  Gaveedra sighed deeply.  

 "I told him.  You need not concern yourself with that anymore."

 Jimmy looked honestly surprised, as if he hadn't ever expected Gaveedra to actually come out and spill his secrets, as if he underestimated Gaveedra's love for Julio that severely.  "And what did he say?"

 "That he loved me.  That I should have told him.  He took it all rather well.  Considering," Gaveedra muttered uncomfortably, entirely sure this was not a normal conversation to be having.  "But you still should not have gone to him.  I trusted you."

 Warpath looked immediately guilty, avoiding eye contact as he shifted his weight from one leg to the other.  "Shatty, man, you just can't miraculously get over something like this, you can't keep it in ... I was just ... fuck, man, I've heard some things about you that made me think ..."

 Gaveedra narrowed his eyes.  "What sort of things?"

 "Fuck, man, don't *look* at me like that," Warpath said suddenly, stepping back as he raised his hands as shields.  "Just things, okay?"

 "What sort of things?"  Gaveedra repeated, stepping forward.  Warpath was many inches taller than him and twice at thick with muscle, but in a fight, both of them knew Shatterstar would triumph.  That was still a given.  "James?"

 "That you cut yourself ..."

 Gaveedra reeled back, a dark anger erupting in the centre of his chest.  "Who told you that?"  Warpath shook his head, refusing to answer, and Shatterstar knew immediately who it was.  "Sunspot.  And how does he know?"

 "It's true?"

 Gaveedra wanted to scream, wanted to get it all out before he exploded, but it was so hard to break through the silence, so hard to release everything that he harboured in the bowels of his broken soul.  "Yes, it is true, and I am not proud of it, but that is how I learned to endure on my world.  I do not care if you do not understand because you will *never* understand what that hell was like for me.  But only one other person knows beside Julio and I, and that is Cable.  How did Sunspot find out?"

 Warpath shook his head, wishing like he never had before that he would only *think* before he said these things to people.  "He saw you, he says, right after Ric was injured.  Bobby said Cable knew he was there, that they looked at each other and just stood there while you ... while you talked about things."

 Gaveedra blinked rapidly, not sure whether to sob himself mad or punch his fist through the wall.  As it was, he turned away from Jimmy with a deep shame.  "Why is my private life such a concern for others?  Why does it matter?"

 "He's a jerk, Star, that's it.  Just an asshole.  We don't care.  We're just worried."

 Gaveedra shook his head, pressing his hands to his temples. "That is not it.  I know they do not like me, I have always known it because I made it so hard.  I did not want friends.  I was never going to live this long.  Sunspot hates me.  Cable hates me.  Boomer hates me.  This is why I did not want friends.  They are too much trouble!"

 "Shatty, man," James started softly, trying to approach the Mojoworlder without startling him, but Shatterstar turned to him, shaking like a cornered animal, and Jimmy backed off.  "They don't hate you.  You're just ... this whole situation has been *really* fucking stressful, you know?  For everyone but especially you."

 "It has," Shatterstar confessed quietly, "and I have let it get out of hand."

 "Oh, fuck, don't say that, man," Jimmy said, shaking his head as he heard the distinct whine of madness in the heavily accented voice, could distinctly make out a definite sound of *pain*.  "And don't look like that, Star.  Don't do anything ..."

 "Stupid?"  Gaveedra asked and caught Warpath one-handed as he fell, his other hand pushed against a pressure point in the Native American's neck.  Within seconds, James was fast asleep, and Gaveedra dragged him into the nearest room and lay his head on a mountain of freshly washed towels.  

 Gaveedra stood up and began to walk, not sure where he was going but letting his famed warrior's instinct lead the way.  Up the stairs, down the hall, up more stairs, through the kitchen until he hit another flight of stairs, which he casually walked down as if nothing in the world could bother him.  Idly, he realised this is where Julio and he had first kissed, if it could be called a kiss, it was more that Gaveedra had pressed his lips to Julio's babbling mouth then had run away in cowardice, but it had been the most beautiful experience of his life.  Pity, then, that it had to be tarnished like this.

 "Roberto," Gaveedra said with a crooked smile, looking around the room and nodding to Sam and Tabitha, greeting them as friends greet.  Sunspot looked up then quickly looked away, the muscles in his legs tensing.  He was about to run.  "Roberto?  Are you not even going to say hello to me?  Or, better yet, why do you not call me a fag again?  Since you seem to have forgotten my name, you might as well use that, right?"

 "Fuck off," Roberto muttered, standing and walking around the couch, making for the only exit in the room, the one door that Gaveedra was blocking.  Shatterstar smiled and stepped in front of the Brazilian.  "Get out of my way."

 "Star," Sam said slowly, approaching him from the other direction.  "Back off, all right?"

 "I am doing nothing," Gaveedra replied innocently.  "I have merely come to speak with Sunspot about the fact that he cannot seem to respect my privacy, that I fear he might be intending to do me harm.  Why did you tell James about what you saw in the hallway, Roberto?"

 "Get the fuck away from me," Sunspot said, stepping back.  

 "Why did you think it was so important that everyone know how weak I am?  That everyone realise I am a coward?  Is it not enough that I merely take everything you say to me without so much as lifting a hand?  Why did you have to tell everyone that I am afraid?"

 "Shatterstar, back away," Sam tried again, battle-ready.

 "You do not understand what he has been doing to me," Gaveedra replied quietly, moving his eyes to rest on Boomer.  "And what she has done.  The looks, the name-calling, but only to me, never to Julio, like *I* do not matter, like *I* am trash.  Is it not enough that I already think of myself as worthless?  Is it not sufficient that I do not think I am fit to be living this life?  I hate myself *so much,* and they do not let me forget that!"

 "We all feel bad sometimes," Sam started, but Gaveedra shook his head, moving so quickly Sam could hardly register what was happening until he collapsed on the ground in a heap of arms and legs, unhurt and safe.

 "You will never feel as bad as I do," Gaveedra murmured sadly, moving his eyes away from Sam, away from that honest and kind face, to look at Sunspot, "and you, Roberto, you and I have something we must work out."

 "You're fucking out of your mind!  Get the fuck away from me!"

 And Gaveedra hit him, hard against the jaw and took mild solace when he felt the bones grind.  Roberto fell back, hitting the carpet and sliding backwards, as Tabitha began to scream, a time bomb already forming in her hands.  But Shatterstar was quick, knew too well how they would react, and he had his elbow under her chin before it could go off, knocking her out when she deserved far worse.

 "Now, you and I will rectify this situation," Gaveedra said darkly, grabbing Sunspot and heaving him into the air with one arm, fingers curled around the mutant's throat as he punched him in the stomach.  The more severe the pain, the less likely Roberto would be to concentrate and call on his powers.  "You have taken everything I hold in me and made it into a joke.  You have taken *me* and made me into a farce.  Why do you hate me so much?"

 "It's unnatural," Roberto gagged, choking as Gaveedra thrust him into the wall, cracking the drywall and shattering his left shoulder.  Sunspot only whimpered, too much of a man to betray how much it *hurt*.  "Ric wasn't like .... wasn't a fag before you came along ... men shouldn't ... *fuck* ... other men ... he probably just lies there ... and lets you ..."

 Gaveedra tightened his hold on Sunspot's neck, digging into the soft flesh.  "Who ever said that I was the one giving it?  Why do you assume that he *lets* me do it?  Has it ever occurred to you that perhaps I give myself to him?  That he enjoys making love as much as I do?"

 "You ... made him ... gay."

 "Why are you so stupid?!"  Gaveedra cried, smacking the dark-haired head into the wall again and enjoying the hollow sound it made.  Thump.  Thump.  Thump.  "We did *nothing* to you.  What happens between us, in bed or out, is none of your business, just as my *life* is none of your business."

 "I don't want ... a faggot ... watching my ass.  On the field or ... off."

 "I do not think you have to worry about that," Gaveedra hissed, bringing his face close to Roberto's pained expression, hoping this hurt as much as the words had hurt Gaveedra, "for you are far too ugly to warrant even a second glance."

 "You fucking ..."

 Roberto screeched when he felt the bones of this leg snap.  It was a vicious sound, a loud popping that was so bizarre that it took a moment for the pain to reach his head, to scream to his brain that something had *broke*.    It took even longer for the fists to register, the hitting, the scrape of flesh against flesh.  With a groan, he called on his power and received no response.  He could barely think, all those hits on his head ... 

 "Shatterstar!"

 Roberto collapsed on the floor, broken and bloody, sobbing in agony.  And Shatterstar screamed, incoherent cries made of words no one understood.  Domino was wrestling with him, smashing his face against the coffee table in an attempt to get him under control, but he fought, kicked and screeched, hit her and received each punch in return.  Finally, with one last wail, he crumbled to the ground, unconscious.

 "My leg," Roberto whimpered, "the fucking faggot broke my leg ..."

****

  "He's not a criminal."

 "He almost killed Roberto."

 "Nate, to be honest, Bobby's been ragging on Star for months.  We both knew eventually Shatty was going to fight back.  If anything, it's our fault for not stopping it, for realising they weren't working it out and stepping in to mediate."

 "If he did this to Roberto, what happens the first time he gets mad at Rictor?  Shatterstar is obviously *violent* and emotionally unstable, and he has refused help from the beginning. We've been lying to ourselves too long, Dom.  I *know* they're in love, it's all I hear in my head half the time, but we have to be realistic.  Shatterstar is a loose cannon.  He's a danger to the team and he's a danger to Julio."

 Gaveedra just lay there on the other side of the holding cell, resting on his sides with his legs curled to his chest.  They spoke like he was deaf, like he couldn't hear every word.  Maybe they did not understand he was awake.  Maybe they just did not notice he was alive.  

 Or maybe he was dead and hadn't noticed because he felt empty and cold, like there was nothing left, like he understood what he had thrown away.  Julio.  Gaveedra closed his eyes.  Didn't think about him, just wanted revenge.  Just a little bit.  He hadn't meant to hurt Roberto so badly.  Had just wanted a little revenge.  

 "If you split them up, you'll kill him, Nate.  Star was just *fine* until everyone started getting involved.  Yeah, he has problems, they all do.  Julio grounds him, Nate, just like Shatterstar brings a little stability to Ric's life.  Neither of them will exist without the other. *Don't* do this."

 "I've already contacted Longshot.  He thinks he can bring him back to the proper time."

 "You are so *bull-headed*!  This mess isn't yours to fix!"

 "Will you stop fighting with me, woman?!  This is for the best!"

 "You didn't just call me woman!"

 Gaveedra scarcely blinked as the screams ignited again, an ugly fight that they would drag out for half an hour until one party exhausted the other.  A moment or two of rest and then they would start again, yelling about things they had no roll in.  This was *his* life. *His*.  Why did no one seem to understand that?

 Julio.  I am so sorry.  I have thrown it all away.  Gaveedra closed his eyes, clenching his hands into tight fists and pressing them to his ears, begging for a moment of silence, of peace and solitude before it all turned to chaos.  "Please be quiet!  You are driving me insane!"

 Cable and Domino stopped, turning their heads in sync to stare at him.  He blinked and returned the look, equally as harsh, just as serious.  "Please, just leave me alone.  I will go back.  I will leave forever.  You are right.  I am not fit to stay here.  I will hurt Julio.  So I will leave.  I quit.  Okay?  I *quit*.  Just please do not scream again."

 "Star ..." Domino said softly, shaking her head.

 "No," Gaveedra replied, crying into the dark and only hoping they mistook it for something else because he was so tried of people seeing how weak and cowardly he was.  Shatterstar was no warrior anymore but a joke of a man at whom everyone laughed.  "No, I will go.  Cable is right.  I am a monster."

 "Oh, fuck it, you're both idiots," Domino said with a disgusted snarl, leaving the room angrily and disappearing down the hall.  Cable and Shatterstar stared at each other until the telepath bowed his head and followed his irate lover, ignoring the obvious tears.  

 And Gaveedra was alone.

 Again.

****

 It was late at night, some shade of early morning, when Gaveedra finally sat up and walked to the glass door, running his hand along the seam.  Holding his breath, he pressed one palm along the line and pushed the other against the locking mechanism.  Exhaling sharply, he popped the door open and stepped into the room.  Humans, especially idiotic men who called themselves Arcade, could not hold a man who escaped the Pens.

 Stepping in the hall, Shatterstar ran quickly down the darkened corridor, moving so softly his feet made no sound.  Up stairs, down even more, he eventually arrived at Julio's room and ducked into the doorway, locking it behind him.  Ignoring the tears which sprung to his eyes, he began to throw things into his backpack, important things, like pictures and .... and ... things.  Clothes.  Julio's journal, which would make the Mexican mad but Gaveedra needed something of his soul to hold.  His wallet.  A ... hairbrush.

 No, Gaveedra realised, he wouldn't need one.  On his world, if you had shamed yourself publically, you were expected to wear the badge of dishonour.  Gaveedra opened the top drawer, grabbing the needed item, and slid the wooden box closed.  Looking in the mirror, he saw only himself, nothing special, just Gaveedra Seven, the dishonoured warrior, the man without pride, the monster who knew only violence.  Nothing special.

 "Forgive me, Julio," Gaveedra whispered, closing his eyes as he wrapped his fist in his hair, the long and gorgeous russet hair that Julio loved more than words.  It was ritual, it was a mark of his lost humanity, and it was something that Julio seemed to truly like.  If it was gone then maybe Julio would love him that much less and it wouldn't be so hard for the Mexican to know he had been left behind.  

 The scissors made only the slightest whisper of sound as they cut, only the slightest betrayal of what he was doing, and he did not open his eyes again until it was done, until he sensed the immense reduction of weight and the cold chill against the nape of his neck.  

 And when Gaveedra Seven lifted his head, he didn't recognise the face that stared back, couldn't see beyond the wavy, chin-length hair that jetted in every direction.  In his fingers, a strange snake of reddish-gold hissed back at him, just like his swords, things of honour he was not allowed to have.  Tying the hair into a long twist of red with an elastic, he stuffed the ponytail into his jeans and heaved his bag onto one shoulder, his guitar on the other.  

 The swords stayed in the closet.

****

 Julio was sleeping when Gaveedra stopped at the medlab door, reclined on his side as he snored lightly.  Gaveedra smiled sadly and walked to the bed, kneeling by his body and murmuring a blessing in Cadre.  Protect him, spirits of life, and may happiness be his reward in this dark hour.  Pressing a kiss to the furrowed brow, Gaveedra lay the twine of hair in Julio's fingers.  

 "It is over, Julio," Gaveedra whispered, standing up and turning away, fearful he would cry and not go if he didn't force his legs to move.  Now.  Just one step but it was so hard to take, so utterly impossible for his feet to understand what his head said, not when his heart was crying and begging to stay.  Just go.  Go.

 "No."

 Gaveedra felt the bile rise in his throat, forcing it down as he twisted back, eyes resting on Julio, on the open eyes and how they glistened in the dark.  Julio look at him then looked down at the hair in his hand, then up again, back and forth.  

 "You're leaving me?"  

 "I have to," Gaveedra whispered, biting his lip so the pain would cancel out the sorrow.

 Julio clutched the braid of hair tighter, holding it to his breast.  "Why?"

 Gaveedra blinked away the hot tears that laced his eyes, trying not to respond to the sound of terror that cracked Julio's voice.  "I *almost* killed Roberto, Julio.  I made him bleed and I broke his leg.  I would have killed him, so Cable is going to send me back to Mojoworld unless I leave now.  I will not go back to that awful place, yet I cannot stay here, Julio, so I have to leave.  I will hurt you, too.  I know I will."

 "No," Julio repeated, pushing back the covers and pulling his legs from the bed, putting them against the floor.  Carefully, he pushed to a stand and teetered only slightly before he stood tall, breathing sharply through his nose.  "I won't let you go."

 Gaveedra pressed his hand to his mouth when he saw Julio clutching his wounded belly, fighting to be better than his injuries, struggling to pretend he was as he had been.  Why did they hurt themselves so much?  "Julio, you are not well."

 "I'm well enough," Julio replied sharply, grabbing the IV from his arm and holding it between stiff fingers.  Gaveedra immediately pressed his hand to the tubing, looking around for gauze.  It sat innocuously on the table, and he took it, still holding Julio by the wrist.  "You better help me get this *thing* out of my arm before I pull it out myself!"

 "Julio, you will starve ..."

 "Are you fucking going to help me or not?  Because I am *not* letting you leave me," Julio repeated through clenched teeth, fingers immediately pulling on the nearest strand of plastic, tearing flesh and drawing a trickle of dark red from his vein.  Unable to watch Julio hurt himself, Gaveedra removed the needle, pressing his palm to the sudden swell of blood then bandaging the wounded appendage.  "I'll fucking show Cable who's the cripple."

 "I can help you walk ..."

 "Get the fuck away from me!  I'm fucking mad at you!  I can walk on my own!"  Julio began to move, slowly at first, creeping forward as his legs remembered how to walk.  "He kept me in this bed to keep me away from you.  I knew that from the beginning.  I wanted to believe he was actually concerned for my health.  I should stop believing that people actually have good in them.  I'm such an asshole to keep thinking that."

 "Julio, were are you going?" Gaveedra asked quietly, following Rictor out of the room.

 "To get my stuff and then we're getting into Star and getting the fuck away from this hell-hole.  After that?  I don't know, but we'll be free, Gaveedra, and you'll be safe, and I'll be happy.  So start walking."  Julio turned back, his eyes burning into Gaveedra and waiting for the taller man to pass.  "Now."

 Gaveedra walked in front of Julio the entire time, occasionally looking back out of concern for his weak lover, but Julio was so furious Gaveedra suspected the anger would give him enough strength to make it out of the building alive.  

 "What do you want to pack?"

 "My clothes," Julio said, already half into a pair of old jeans and looking around for a sweater, just wanting to leave and be gone.  Gaveedra was immediately in the drawers, searching for what Julio wanted.  "And my CDs.  And my books."

 "Okay," Gaveedra replied quietly, throwing the selected items into a large duffel bag.  Sweaters, tee-shirts, a lot of underwear, socks, jeans and cargos, dress pants just because.  The CD collection was small and fit in the bag, as did the books.  "Is that all?"

 "Your swords, I want them too," Julio said softly, sitting on the bed and pulling at the mountain of afghans.  Gaveedra looked at him reluctantly, hoping Julio would have understood why they were in the closet, but the sheer look of determination on Julio's face destroyed any will he had to fight.  "That's it."

 "You sure?"

 "And my blankets.  But I'll carry those myself," Julio whispered, picking up the stack of hand-knit, wool covers.  All fourteen of them.  Gaveedra nodded and opened the door, letting Julio lead the way this time.  With every step, the anger seemed to fade and it was Gaveedra's hope that by the time they reached the car Julio will have calmed down and stopped hurting himself so much.  

 Star was waiting, freshly restored but never actually driven.  If he didn't move, well, they'd steal someone else's car, but they both trusted him to take them away, to take them out into the world and far from everyone that fought so hard to tear them apart.  

 "I'll drive," Gaveedra said, opening the passenger door and watching Julio all but fall into the seat, leaning his head back against the chair.  Gaveedra leaned down to buckle the belt but looked up when he felt a hand rest in his hair, pulling at the curly ends.  So short, he could almost hear Julio saying, not beautiful at all.

 "Still as gorgeous as the first day I saw you."

 Gaveedra bit his lip and tried hard to rage against the tears, refusing to let his emotions get the better of him.  In the morning, when the sun was bright and everything would reflect what he had done to himself, he would regret the short hair.  But now, he grasped at Julio's comment and took it to heart.  

 Literally.

 "I love you," Julio murmured, closing his eyes.  "Te amo más que mi vida."

 Gaveedra pressed a kiss to Julio's belly, where the scars the Julio hid lay under thin cloth, and Julio placed his hands on Gaveedra's head, just holding him there.  How could Gaveedra have ever thought he could live without Julio's dedication?  It wasn't possible.  It was the air he breathed, the food he ate, the thoughts he pondered, every part of him was a symbol of Julio's undying love.  It was his *life*.  Gaveedra could not escape something this huge and overwhelming by merely running away, not when Julio said he'd come with him.  Why had he ever thought otherwise?

 "Leaving us so soon?"  Domino asked quietly from the doorway to the hidden room, arms crossed over her chest as she leaned against the stop.  "And without saying goodbye?  Well, goodbye, kids.  I wish you luck, and I wish you love.  And take this.  It's not much but it'll do, at least for awhile.  Take a *vacation* then get away from this life and don't look back."

 Domino pressed a MasterCard into Gaveedra's hand, touching her fingers to his cheek and kissing the other.  She did the same to Julio, saying her farewell and letting them go.  In the morning, Cable would be furious that she drugged his evening tea, and even more angry that she had left Gaveedra's cell unlocked.  But it was for a good cause, the best cause, the only cause.

 Love.

 "We will keep in touch," Gaveedra said, "from time to time."

 "Fair enough, and you take care of him, Gaveedra," Domino replied, handing him a bag of medical supplies then stepping away from the car, going to the garage door.  It was a long and winding path into the city, but she had faith the car would make it.  When the lovers hadn't been looking, she'd made sure they'd done all right.  And they had.  Perfectly.  "Godspeed, kids.  Libertad!"

 Gaveedra smiled gratefully and got into the driver's seat, laying a gentle hand on Julio's thigh and rousing the dozing man.  Julio grinned weakly and took the extremity, kissing it softly.  "Are you ready, beloved?  Are you sure?"

 Julio nodded his head, regretfully letting those comforting fingers go as he turned his eyes ahead, ready to see what lay beyond.  "I'm sure, Gaveedra, take us away from here."

 Gaveedra started the engine, listening to it purr, a perfect ride after all.  Julio relaxed and sat back, bringing the afghans from his lap and pressing them to his chest, taking comfort in things made of love, of blankets from grandmothers and smiles from lovers.  They would be okay, they had to be, because it was the only way, the only thing left they needed to be happy.

 Libertad.  Freedom.  It meant the same in any language.  

fin.

****

"Libertad" means freedom in Spanish (much like, to my own luck, "Alegria" means joy in Portugese AND Spanish).

"Te amo más que mi vida" means "I love you more than my life" in Spanish, or so I've been told.  I have this rule, never send a Canadian to pretend they speak Spanish because they're infinitely better at pretending they speak French. If it's wrong, feel free to tell me so I can fix my mistakes on archived copies.