Someday Maybe

A/N: First of all AFF, why must you reset when you hit the back button or not have a drop-down for errors instead of making you go to the next page to see how you screwed up in submitting a chapter and forcing you to do it all over again? Seriously.
I'm 9,759 words away from the 50,000 word goal that's due tomorrow at midnight. I still want to reach it.

Thanks to my readers and reviewers.

Gslinger: I went to go look at your review again to respond to it and it was gone. 0.0 But thank you for reviewing.

Lisa: Yeah, I thought that would work pretty well for him. And I'm glad that the playfulness came across well.



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It was the little girl again. Ty couldn’t stop thinking about her now. It had been too long since their last mission and it bothered him. Sure it was nice to have a vacation. No assignments and plenty of time to get to know this strange new relationship he had with Aiden and being free of the constant harrow of alien voices in his consciousness. It was nice to have nothing more to do in a day than eat and sleep and play games and expect to do the same thing again the next day. It was nice to know that their relationship was finally formalized and decided. They were dating. And that was... well, a whole can of worms.

Apparently there were all these rules to dating. Aside from the obvious monogamy thing, which didn’t bother Ty even slightly because he just had no interest in anyone else, there were so many subtle little rules that he now knew all of but couldn’t make sense of most of. They went on dates now. They went out as friends still but they also went out on “real dates.” Since they were both guys they had to take turns asking. And apparently it wasn’t good enough to do the things they usually did. They had to do different things. Ty was expected to come up with different things for them to do for dates and then invite Aiden out on them.

So far for dates Ty had invited Aiden to see a play. He wasn’t totally surprised that neither of them had enjoyed it. Aiden had invited him on several dates. The first one they had driven an hour outside the city ad gone to a bookstore neither had been too. They spent hours carefully altering the displays of books and even moving all seven hardback copies of Harry Potter into the Biography section. They’d also put a copy of Twilight on the floor under the shelves of Bibles and opened half a dozen copies to the Ten Commandments ‘ye shall not worship false idols.’ Aiden had snapped pictures of their handiwork on his phone and Ty had guiltily bought half a dozen books and they left without getting in trouble, much to his surprise.

They’d gone to the Aquarium and pretended they were in Finding Nemo on one date. Aiden had also invited him to go and deliberately try to get kicked out of WalMart. They had fought with plastic swords and slid across the floor and switched about bunches of bras and boxers and eventually were very politely asked to leave. Aiden very politely agreed in a British accent and grabbed Ty’s hand and they both literally skipped out the door.

Ty had a good idea for a date now, though, one he figured they’d both enjoy. He’d signed them up for a all-day mini-tournament of Laser Tag the place was setting up for “beginners.” He fully expected they would kick-ass because even though neither of them had played before... the concept was far from foreign and both had an extremely unfair advantage just in personal experience never mind any kind of special powers.

They weren’t allowed to flirt with other people. Looking was okay but flirting, apparently, didn’t bother Aiden at all he just didn’t think that the blond should lead people on with flirting when they weren’t going to get anything his flirted suggested. And looking was supposed to be done in a way that implied they were strictly looking even though he wasn’t sure how to go about that. And apparently people were supposed to know they were together in more than a friendly way. Ty thought that seemed fine because neither of them really had anyone to break the news to. Except that Aiden enjoyed announcing their togetherness as much as possible to discomfit people. That was fine too, it was as funny as the younger male usually figured it would be.

There was a lot of touching. Nothing wrong with touching. There was just a lot of it and it was taking a little while to decipher the strange language of touch and what was appropriate in different situations and a thousand other things he needed to know. Was this the kind of thing that could only be learned by going to a public school full of normal children? He didn’t know. Aiden just gave him a strange look when asked how he knew all the rules. Maybe he was just perceptive? After all, he’d realized he would need to explain all the rules to Ty.

Despite all this to occupy him he still couldn’t help but think about the little girl. She was so little. Just a year old. Maybe less? Maybe more? He wasn’t very good at judging ages. Soft, delicate little dark curls and soft, soft skin. She was so tiny and fragile. They’d snatched her from her bed at night, risked her life to the elements and by climbing out the window and around the outside of the building, and given her over to people whom he wasn’t so sure had her best intentions at heart.

What did they want her for? She was just a baby. What could they possibly want with her? And why her specifically? Also, why had she been alone in a mansion that was full of military-trained guards? Who the hell had had her before they had? He couldn’t seem to make the questions leave his mind despite his usually apathy toward his so-called career and everything that went along with it. He supposed it was because she was somehow key to the little “global conflict” that Aiden predicted.

He had to find out. So he decided he would go and pay his superiors a little visit and find out what they knew. He showed up armed with nothing more than his usual bag of tricks and demanded to see whoever would see him. This time the receptionist in the lobby immediately allowed him to go upstairs. No doubt she remembered their little encounter last time and decided to just let him do as he pleased. It was the same attitude most people who understood his powers adopted. He suspected it was because they found him frightening. It was disconcerting to say the least but at the same time he knew very well that he was dangerous. He also knew that most of these people didn’t deserve a passing glance as far as if he was going to go about playing God. But they didn’t know that, he supposed.

Cheryl was rightfully busy doing her work. Unfortunately despite the fact that she’d flown all the way to oversee him when he’d been injured on their last assignment he didn’t think she’d know what he wanted to know. The very fact that they’d allowed her to come overseas just to attend to her favorite child meant a great deal. It meant that while, yes, her job was important she herself wasn’t important enough to know things. She was expendable and replaceable so she didn’t know anything about the importance of the little girl.

Which left, for people who might know things that he had access to, Dergin. He didn’t like the man. He was harder to read than most and the landscape inside his mind made his stomach turn as though it contained the sickness he found there. He’d never been exactly sure what the man did. He was constantly busy but the only action Ty had ever really witnessed him performing as far as job duties went was yelling at himself and receiving reports. He was his own direct superior and Aiden’s as well. He didn’t know if this made him higher up the ladder because he supposedly controlled the two people most powerful and useful that they had or if it was only coincidence due to the fact that they had “given” Aiden to him for some reason.

Still, he was a start. He was not the place he would have wanted to start but if he wanted to learn about the girl he would just have to suffer through dealing with his mind to get his answers. He wasn’t here to actually talk to the man because that wasn’t going to earn him anything but unwanted suspicion. He just wanted to get inside his head and to do that required proximity. He pulled out a hand held video game and started to play it absently. But at the same time his mind wandered to where the man resided in his office. It took some concentration but he delved into his thoughts.

How were you supposed to describe the landscape of a person’s mind? His own mind was so very familiar and comfortable. It molded around him and responded to his every whim like some kind of futuristic life-support pod. But being inside someone else’s mind... Well, he knew that other people with the same powers probably didn’t see the same things he did inside a person’s mind. A mind that wasn’t yours was a foreign land controlled by a sovereign dictator that, if they could discover you, would kill you before anything else.

It wasn’t something he was meant to comprehend so his own mind translated it into safe, symbolic concepts for him so that he didn’t go mad. He thought of another person’s mind as standing in a room shrouded in twilight darkness. The room was full of filing cabinets and controls. Pull this lever to jerk someone’s strings, pull that one to paralyze him, push that button to stop the heart. In this cabinet was childhood memories. In that one were their darkest secrets. Up on a large screen was everything that was passing through their thoughts at that moment.

That was how he saw the inside of most people’s minds. People were pretty average. They thought and lived the same way and his symbolic view of their mind was adequate for him to be able to understand and navigate inside them. He couldn’t fit Dergin’s mind into that box. There was something somewhat wrong with him. It could have been the drugs. It could be he had some kind of touch of psychic powers and he was trying and obviously not succeeding in keeping him out and that skewed things in some way.

There were many possible reasons for it but the result, regardless of any reason, was that instead of memories being neatly assorted in filing cabinets the darkest of them turned into vivid, life-like renditions that assaulted him when he tried to examine them. The room itself was too hot and the air hard to breathe. The walls appeared to be melting around him and the colors swirled and changed and shifted. Why his mind interpreted things in this way he would always wonder. He often wished there was a book on the subject as dream books had been little aid to him but sadly he knew he’d have to write the book himself.

He felt nauseous as soon as he tried to enter his mind but succeeded in the endeavour and wished he could squeeze his metaphysical eyes shut to block this out. Only once before had he briefly entertained the idea of entering his mind. He’d experienced the same thing he was now and given up on the grounds that he just didn’t care that much about what he could learn. This time he did care but he was lost. He didn’t know where to look or how to protect himself from the vicious memories that wanted to wrap him up and force him to experience them. He isn’t worried about finding the right controls though he does have to wonder if that would be easier than what he’s attempting.

Trying to juggle continuing to look normal in the real world and struggling around in the hostile environment of another mind in the metaphysical world was harder than he’d imagined. He started to rifle around recklessly, looking for anything on the little girl in his recent memories. Most of his most vivid recent memories were of talking in an almost coded way with people Ty didn’t recognize. More of them? More powerful higher-ups?

Another recent memory gripped him and dragged him into it. Hands pawed at him and bitter, musky scents assaulted his nose. He could hear moaning even though nothing that was happening was something that turned him on in any way. The memories doubled as his own mind supplied him with a similar experience of his own from when he had been younger and thought there was nothing wrong with doing everything that was asked of him. He was yanked abruptly back into his own mind when he became physically ill. All over the carpet of the waiting room. He realized he was sweaty and too hot and shaking to go along with the nausea in his stomach. There was a weird red flashing flicker out of the corner of his eye. He was relieved to decide that this was not a symptom but simply his game flashing “Game Over” “Game Over” again and again from where it had fallen from his nerveless fingers.

The secretary he usually flirted with had come out from behind her desk in concern. She edged awkwardly around the puddle of sick and out her hand on his shoulder. “Are you okay?” She asked carefully and then seemed to realize what an obvious question that was. “Do you need me to call an ambulance or anything?” He shook his head mutely. No. If there was one place worse than airports it was hospitals and emergency rooms. Could you imagine when you were ill being surrounded by pain and worry and stress and death and being able to feel all of it? Well, that was a trip to the hospital for Ty. It just made being sick worse so he avoided it as avidly as he avoided airports and flying. More so, in fact.

“Do you want some water or anything?” She pressed, obviously concerned. He nodded. She went and got him a cup of water from the cooler. He sipped at it while she called the facilities people to have them come up and clean the carpet. A few cups of water later and he felt well enough to go home and curl up and be ill. The woman insisted on his calling someone to come get him. So he called Aiden. He was... less than pleased but he was pretty sure it was not at all that Aiden was annoyed at him but rather at the situation.

Finally, finally Aiden arrived, highly agitated. He grabbed Ty’s game and put it in his bag and then slung the bag over his shoulder and helped the blonde up. His gray eyes were as annoyed as angry and he shook his head to himself as he let Ty lean on him so they could make their way out of the building. Aiden had taken a cab so he could drive Ty’s car back to their apartment. When they were back at the apartment Aiden settled his ill lover on the couch and started the kettle heating to make tea before he spoke.

“The fuck did you leave for if you were sick?” Ah. So, maybe he was angry at him. A bit at least.

“I wasn’t.” Aiden narrowed his eyes at him.

“So you just spontaneously got sick?” He sounded seriously doubtful. “Or did you eat something bad or something?” Ty shook his head in answer but then had to elaborate.

“I went inside Mr. Dergin’s mind and accidentally triggered some pretty terrible memories.” He admitted. “And then I ended up getting physically ill because of them.” Aiden snorted and poured boiling water over a tea-bag and dunked it up and down angrily for a couple minutes.

“Did you learn whatever it was you wanted to know at least?” He asked finally as he threw away the tea bag and then added a bit of milk to the tea and brought it to him. Ty had to think. Had he? He couldn’t seem to remember learning anything about the girl. There were some strange conversations he might be able to puzzle out the meaning to but whether they were relevant or not he didn’t know. He hadn’t learned anything useful and made himself sick for nothing.

He was about to say no when he realized something. He hadn’t learned anything about the girl, no. That was true. But he had learned something. He had learned enough to figure out who else he should try to rummage through the mind of. They had protected themselves through anonymity previously and cushioned themselves with an underling they assumed was too hard for Ty to read. But from the memories of some of Mr. Dergin’s conversations he knew their phone numbers. And from that he should be able to locate them.

“No. Not about the girl. But I did get some new leads.” He revealed to Aiden. The blue-haired male sighed but folded himself up on the couch to lean against Aiden. He knew what the other was thinking. He didn’t think Ty should dig into this. But he was and there was really no arguing about it. Ty felt more determined now than before to learn about the fate of the girl. He would find out. If only because of her role in the likely future Aiden had seen.



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A/N: Encouragement so I can reach 50,000 words?