A Two Man Hand Job
TWO
Iturn on the faucet and dollop a healthy amount of soap onto my hands.
You shouldn’t have done that, One chides. Shown off our powers like that.
He’s annoyed. Big shocker.
I look in the bathroom mirror as I scrub my hands, rolling my purple eyes for One to see.
I’m too tired to care what he thinks right now.
Using his power doesn’t sap him of his energy like it does me. I’m ready to drop for at least twelve hours of sleep after phasing the handful of times tonight.
Not that I’d care anyway. Just because he takes the lead all the time, he thinks he’s the best of us. The one who gets to tell the rest of us what to do. But I’m not his obedient little puppet. I do what I want, when I feel like it.
And right now, I plan to climb into a bed and take it in the flesh instead of resting in the background. It’s so much more satisfying.
Though it’d be even more satisfying curled around the white-haired little sprite.
No. Absolutely not, One says, responding to the visual I have of wrapping around a very naked and sexually satisfied Snow.
A variety of reactions arise to the fantasy.
A hungry purr comes from Four—our resident horn dog, while Three also clearly enjoys the idea of sleeping next to her. He’s the only other one who enjoys a deliciously long nap.
Meanwhile, Five pretends to be an impartial party to keep the peace. But he can't hide anything. Neither can Six. They wear their thoughts and feelings on our sleeves.
Underneath all the chatter is a simmering dark anger, radiating from the same place it always does. Seven.
Snow should have been afraid of that Human Against Magic. But more importantly, she should have been afraid of us. For all that the human was dangerous, he is nothing compared to Seven.
If Snow knew what he could do...she would have run screaming from us.
I sigh and pump out more soap, scrubbing harder at my fingernails this time.
"You like her," I say out loud, addressing One. "You just don’t want to admit it. At least I’m honest."
The control freak turns apoplectic in our mind, denying his painfully obvious attraction.
Super speed. Pfft. My power is way better than his. Though before Snow came poking along, I would never have dared to brag about having a power.
I want to meet her, Five says, putting in a bid which he rarely does.
We’ve told him countless times why it’s not a good idea for him to take lead. Not with his power. It leaves behind too much evidence.
No, One snaps, saving me the trouble. Absolutely not.
It’s like the HAM guy said. It’s unnatural, wrong. And we don’t have just one power. We have seven aberrations.
You will stay away from her. All of us will. She’s a problem, One lectures with his usual boring command.
"So I guess that means you don’t approve of what we did," I say, shaking my hands in the sink, knowing they’re as clean as I can get them right now.
The bone white sink is splattered with red. I look up in the mirror, this time at the figure in the background.
The HAM guy who was definitely going to come back around and hurt Snow later is lying dead on his living room floor.
Following him home had been easy. Phasing through his front door, even easier. What came after that was…considerably less elegant than I would like to admit.
He had more fight in him than I expected, and this was the first time I’d gotten my hands this dirty.
After drying my hands on his hand towel, I gingerly poke at the fast-forming bruise under my eye.
One never would have let that happen. One would have been a ghost and a killing blow in the same breath, clean as a surgical cut, no evidence, no three-inch gash across the forearm I'm only now noticing.
One would never have needed seven attempts with a kitchen knife before finding the right angle either.
I look at the body with mild affront. He was probably thirty pounds heavier than me, but it shouldn't have been that much of a production.
One remains tersely silent.
Because I’m right. Had he been lead, he would have hunted this guy down too and finished what Snow should have.
Because the idea of him hunting her later...doesn’t sit right.
I grab a roll of bandaging from inside the medicine cabinet and wrap my bleeding forearm.
Besides, the human had seen us too many times.
Two nights, same streets, same face. Men like that don't let things go. They come back with an axe to grind, sometimes literally.
After Snow, he would have come for us. It’s just simpler this way.
The plant mage kid saw us too, Six points out. And those other two from the first night are still breathing.
I scrub harder at my knuckles.
"Those are different circumstances entirely."
How? Six asks, with genuine curiosity rather than accusation, which is somehow worse.
I pump out more soap.
They just are.
I turn and step over the body, a kitchen knife sticking straight up from his jugular, messy cuts all along his torso before I landed the killing blow.
I head to his surprisingly clean bedroom. Shucking off my shoes, I slide into the bed and hug a pillow to my body...like it’s her.
The girl with electric ice eyes who smells like tart apples and makes my dick twitch with want.
I meet the guy’s wide, sightless eyes that still hold just a bit of fear in death. As if he is still remembering the last thing I said to him.
I threatened him with Seven’s power.
I didn’t mean it though.
We would never use that power.
Never again.