Grayson's mind slowly awoke from his exhausted slumber, producing half-formed, groggy thoughts. The vague sensation of a sheet covering half of his body and cold air clinging to his skin were registered, along with the unmistakable scent of smoke.
He opened his eyes and pulled his head up off of the pillow he had his face buried in. The room was dark, however, by the light shining through the crack under the door, he could see enough to recognize the room was foreign to him. The objects on the nightstand were different than his, and the covers were arranged opposite of his, with the foot of the bed where his head normally was.
Harley... The events of the previous night flooded back to him. The fire. The fighting. The strange purple energy. The attackers. Harley's kidnapping and subsequent return. The fans. The ending of the night...
Grayson's tired face broke into a small smirk as he rolled over onto his back, staring up at the ceiling with a sense of happiness.
But where is she?Grayson sat up, his uncovered form becoming acutely aware of the cool air in the room. He threw the blankets off of his lower half and quickly stood up, searching the floor for his clothes. He came across a floral patterned piece of clothing and figured it probably wasn't his.
A couple of minutes of scrounging around in the dark later, and he had collected his things. Gray slowly opened the door and peeked out into the hall, making sure it was clear before slipping on his shirt and exiting the room. He didn't know why, but he wanted to keep the night's events a secret.
He quickly made his way away from the living quarters after grabbing a pair of fresh clothes from his room. Grayson changed in the washing room before throwing his smoke-ridden clothes in the washer, leaving them to be cleaned as he went into the cafeteria. He nodded to the few people in the room before quickly exiting. He didn't particularly want to interact with anyone he didn't know fairly well. That, and he was still nervous about expelling more purple energy on accident and hurting someone. He figured Harley would be near the reserve, so he searched the area near it for her. Her sleeping form was discovered in the maintenence room on the floor, her clothes being used as a pillow. Sitting down by Harley's sleeping form, he gently stroked her face to wake her up.
"Morning, beautiful." Harley woke up to hear Grayson's voice and his touch on her face. She smiled and lifted her head. Reaching up she kissed him and leaned over to grab her clothes up off of the floor.
"Good morning babe. I hope you slept well. I would have been there when you woke up had I not been positive that the reservoir was empty.""It was really hard for me to leave you this morning. Have you eaten breakfast yet?" She inquired as her own stomach started to rebel about the lack of food in the last twelve hours or so. Harley wondered if he was okay with everything in the last few hours.
Looking up at him she asked him point blank.
"Gray? I am guessing that we are all good here. You and me, I mean. We are ok right?" Harley figured they were probably great. Sex in the last few hours and they had talked more in the last few days than they had in months unless around a group. What guy wouldn't be doing great?
Gray plopped down beside her on the cold ground, his bare feet making small slapping noises as he rested them on the floor. He let out a small sigh before biting his lip, his eyebrows furrowed slightly.
"Yeah, we're okay... " Pursing his lips, he paused for a moment, hyperconscious of how he was appearing at the time.
"Harley, you know I care about you. A lot." He paused, pushing aside his hesitation as he found the balls to be honest.
"I don't wanna rush things. My entire life, I've been really good at being impatient and having to face the consequences of my actions. Whether it's been me being too quick to make a comment, throw a punch, take a chance... I'm always too fast for my own good." Gray let out a huffing laugh and let a small smile creep onto his face. He felt that his expression was out of place, however he couldn't get rid of it.
"So I don't wanna sprint for the finish line and burn out before I'm even halfway there. Before I get to you."The distressed man ran a hand through his head and forced out the next sentence before Harley got a chance to interject.
"So I say, maybe this time, I... We take it slow," Gray turned to face Harley, looking into her dazzling blue eyes.
"So that we can make sure it works." Harley felt a flood of emotions and she sat there thinking about what he said. She wasn't sure how slow he was talking about. He obviously regretted last night or maybe it was her that he regretted it with.
She swallowed hard fearing the answer he might give her.
"Do you mean slow, and a couple or slow and just as friends?"Grayson's heart skipped a beat just before she spoke; he considered her words for a moment as the silence stretched between them. After a tense period that seemed to last for years, he leaned in close and rested his forehead against hers and smiled peacefully.
"Slow and as us."His lips found the tip of her nose, giving her a light peck as his hand came up and cupped her face, guiding their lips together as he fully kissed her.
After kissing him back she was so relieved that he wasn't ditching her that she forgot about food until her stomach growled loudly. She blushed, a little embarrassed and she got to her feet.
"We'd better go get some food or my stomach is going to eat it's way out."Harley put her hand in his and smiled. She hadn't realized how much she cared about
them being together. It dawned on her it was because he had become her best friend and not just a boyfriend so she could have lost all of him and that was a little terrifying to her. Harley looked up when they got to the cafeteria and saw Ben, Jake and Casey talking and the girl with the cooking powers in the back. Harley sat down because the girl was still cooking and was not ready for them yet. She looked at Grayson and blushed.
"Did you by chance find my panties?" She whispered to him.
Grayson exploded in a fit of violent laughter as his voice echoed through the entire cafeteria. It had been so long since he had actually
laughed that he couldn't help but burst into mirthful giggles.
He put his arm around Harley's shoulders and leaned his head on top of her, chuckled frequently while he caught his breath.
"Yeah, I found them." Gray said, probably a little too loudly.
"They're under the bed."His voice dropped to a lower volume, giving a self-conscious glance at the other people inside of the cafeteria. He wasn't necessarily unhappy about their night together, but he still didn't want it to be known by others.
Harley turned three different shades of crimson in embarrassment and was trying not to laugh too hard at his expression.She playfully pretended to punch him in the arm. She had no idea what to call them but they were happy, at least for the moment. She did notice that Grayson, not normally a shy guy seemed to be a little shy about others figuring out that they had spent the night together.
"I have a question for you." She got a little serious with him.
"With the door situation being what it is will you stay in my room with me? For security. I promise on my honor I won't take advantage of you unless you ask me to." She grinned like a naughty school girl at that point.
Grayson didn't need to be horny to figure out precisely how many ways Harley could turn that into a situation that he simultaneously wanted and didn't desire. He smiled broadly and raised an eyebrow at her, looking Harley square in the eye.
"Security, huh?" Gray was skeptical at best, but she did pose a valid point. They had no idea if-
when they would come back, and with the damage done to the bunker's defenses, the likelyhood of being safe without grouping up was highly improbable.
Realizing his face had taken on a darker expression, Grayson quickly purged the displeasure from his face and nodded.
"I guess I could be coerced."Part of him wished he had no trepidation, seeing as this was the perfect opportunity for flirting, however he pushed those thoughts aside.
"But what will people think?" Harley looked at him oddly.
"Is that what is bugging you? You are worried that people will disapprove of us? Personally I don't give a crap what other people think or say for that matter. Why do you?" Harley had found exactly what seemed to be bothering him. Was he embarrassed or ashamed of her or of what they did? He seemed to have conflicting feelings about it. Hurt, she stood up.
"I gotta go find my dog." Harley jogged to the door of the cafeteria.
Grayson's heart fell as Harley began to move away, the distance between them suddenly increasing on both fronts. But Grayson was never one to leave things well enough alone.
He jogged after her, catching eyesight of her in the hallway. Knowing he would have to sprint after her to catch up and unwilling to run after the various injuries he had sustained recently, regardless of the healing, Gray opted for a different option.
"Harley!" His voice echoed down the hall as he held out his hand, mustering a tendrils of purple energy from deep within him. The energy slithered away from his form, gently wrapping itself around Harley's right arm, tugging insistently at her. Grayson didn't want to hurt her, however he doubted she would stop at a light tap on the shoulder.
"Wait."The man slowly walked towards her, pain in his eyes.
Harley wiped the tears that were threatening to race down her face and she turned.
"Gray, I-" She just looked into his eyes.
"Do you think I'm not good enough for you or something? I can't understand why you wouldn't want people to know we were together unless you don't want us to be together." The pain in her voice was nearly overwhelming her and she was trying not to let it get away from her.
"We have all the time in this world to do whatever we want. What do you see for us?" Harley stepped back a moment and she felt the knots in her stomach as she anticipated what he was going to say next. She knew it was going to hurt.
As Harley waited for a reply, Gray walked right up to her with a sad smile on his face.
"Harley, why would you assume you're the problem?"He gently placed his knuckle under her chin and tilted her face up to meet his eyes.
"Intimacy isn't... Something that comes easy to me."Harley stood there looking at him for a moment and she stepped forwards and quietly said,
"You and I are intimate all the time with each other in a non sexual way." She dropped her eyes a moment.
Grayson paused for a moment, his head also dropping down to meet her forehead. He focused his breathing, calming his heart rate. In all truth, he didn't have any legitimate reason to fear being with her. It was all in his head.
"This... Being in a relationship... It's never been something I've been good at." The man gave a dry chuckle and bit his lip, closing his eyes.
"I've never been able to do... this... right. I screw it up, disappoint someone else, force them away... I never seem to learn."Lifting his head, Gray put his finger under Harley's chin and lifted her gaze up to meet his.
"You don't need me to tell you that this has been the year of hell. I just... I don't want to hurt you. To make it worse. We've already been through so much, between fires, survival, powers, and attackers... I don't want to make this any harder on you than it has to be. And..." Gray's voice shook a little as he let out a huffing laugh.
"If I hold true to my pattern of fucking things up, then I already know how this is going to end for you. I don't want that, but I'm not sure I can change it."Harley stared at him. He was tearing her apart and he didn't even know it. She wiped the tears and she was too stunned to know what to say first for a moment.
"So you are afraid to hurt me later so it's easier to hurt me now? That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard! You are an idiot Grayson!" Harley felt raw and she didn't want him to see her explode into tears so she ran past him outside and flew off in a whilrwind of water off into the city. Soon there was a tremendous flood down there that was likely to make it difficult for scavenging later. Harley just didn't care. She had lost her best friend and her boyfriend in one foul swoop.
Grayson sighed deeply and leaned against the wall, sliding down to the floor into a sitting position. He found her reaction both warrented and utterly ridiculous. Of course he didn't want to hurt her at any time. He wasn't even trying to break up with her, if they were even a couple. In retrospect, he had probably been a little too squeamish and uncommunicative. Probably more than a little. Probably a lot.
"Hindsight's a bitch." He muttered, breathing in deeply and closing his eyes. If there was one thing Gray did better than screwing up, it was continuing to get up when he should call it quits.
Grayson's astral form drifted outside of his body and drifted away at a phenomenal speed, soon leaving the bunker and forest behind. It wasn't hard to track Harley. On top of being intimitately familiar with her own astral signature, he could just follow the high waters. Eventually, he came to a building where Harley stood on top, water swirling around her in a violent vortex.
The purple aspect of Grayson gently landed on the roof, walking straight through the water funnel to the distraught woman. His movement's were silent, giving Harley no warning of his approach. He considered calling out to her, however he lacked the words. Instead, he gently encircled her in his arms from behind, resting his head on her shoulder. A single tear leaked down the side of his face, however it was as noncoporeal as the rest of him.
Harley felt his astral arms weave their way around her and she ignored him for a moment. She couldn't believe that he had treated her like that.
"What do you want Grayson? Obviously you don't want the same things I do." She hurt so badly she could have sworn that her organs were being stabbed. Her stomach hurt from the stress.
At first, he didn't say anything, simply resting behind her. He knew he had a limited amount of time before he had to return to his body, but he pushed that thought out of his mind. His stomach turned in on itself, making him want to vomit, however he resisted the impulse.
"Y'know, when I first met you, you kinda scared the hell outta me." Gray gave a half-smile and shifted his head, placing his chin on her shoulder so that his mouth was right next to Harley's ear.
"It was about a week after we came into the bunker. Everyone was still getting used to it. Order was pretty scarce, and everyone was terrified to death. I hadn't eaten anything becuase I had given it away to a couple kids, but I secretly regretted it. I was headed to the food pantry when I saw you. Some pervert was trying to get in your pants, as if the world hadn't just literally ended. Had I not been about to pass out from exhaustion, I might've intervened; but I didn't really need to."A small chuckle ran through his astral form as he remembered the event.
"He tried to grab you, but oh my, you were notabout to let that happen. The poor guy didn't even know what happened. In less than a second, he was on the ground with a broken nose and probably some irrepairably damaged reproductive organs. You said a couple of swears that up until that point I hadn't even heard of, and you stormed off. You passed by me, and two things ran through my head: 'Get the hell out of this woman's way', and 'I guess steel really is forged through fire'. I knew from that moment that I was never gonna get on your bad side. At least, not intentionally. But it looks like I've done that already."Gray drifted around Harley, placing his clasped hands on the small of her back as he came face to face with the woman.
"I don't want you to leave. I want you to stay. More than anything. But I'm not sure how that's gonna work. It's probably gonna be pretty rocky. I just wanna work through it with you."Grayson bit his lip so hard that his real body could feel the pain.
"I'm sorry."Harley looked up at Grayson's astral form.
"I'm a little confused. Are you UN breaking up with me? Because you sound like that you don't know what you want." Harley wanted him to take back everything he said but right now he just sounded like he regretted making her cry. She twisted her hand and a small tsunami took out a three story building.
Grayson knew that the longer he stayed silent, the worse off he would be, however he couldn't muster the will to speak. The shifting waters around them became more aggitated as Harley did, destroying more and more terrain as time passed.
Just say it.Grayson inhaled deeply and stared Harley straight in the eye, summoning every ounce of courage he had.
"I'm scared. That's something I've always been. Scared to take a chance. Scared to make a difference. Scared to do something about my life. That's why I said those things. I didn't want to break up with you, but I didn't want to risk failing either. That's a problem with me. And I absolutely get it if you don't want to be with me because of my fear. I wouldn't want to be either. But-"The man's voice cut off suddenly as he looked down at the waters beneath him.
"I've never been able to make a relationship work. I'm scared I'm going to mess this up with you. I want this, more than anything else, if I'm being honest. But I'm not the best at taking a leap of faith. But this time, I'm willing to try."Gray swallowed and let out a final, weak chuckle.
"I want this."Harley's expression had softened somewhat while he was speaking. She felt the pain easing away and it was being replaced with joy and a little irritation. Harley took his astral hand and she pulled him with her back to the bunker and she walked up to him and knelt down on the ground in front of his corporeal self.
"I still maintain that you are an idiot. But I'm not going anywhere." She lifted his face to look at him and she looked into his eyes and smiled.
"You have a way of saying the wrong things sometimes don't you?" She hugged him tightly and then she grimaced.
"Crap, I flooded the city!"Grayson laughed.
