"What do you mean?"
"I'm really old."
"You're older than the gods?"
The dark skinned man chuckled.  "I'm probably older than their momma."
The younger man took a long pull at his drink, staring through the table. "Did you ever meet her?"
Another chuckle.  "Nah.  By the time anyone knew who she was, she had already married the creator."
This was met by a long pause.  The young man with the bizzarre features slowly let a scowl dominate his face.  "Have you ever seen her?"
"Not personally no.  There once was a painting made of her though.  I saw that in the elven court at Listhouriai.  It was very lifelike."
The younger man's head snapped up and he immediately asked.  "Is it still there?"
"Sorry son.  The whole place burned to the ground three centuries ago."
"You know, they all say that you're really old, but you seem pretty human.  How is that possible."
"Kid, I'm more human than you, but that's not saying much.  I'm a little less than half human.  The rest is all entish and elvish."
"Oh, that's interesting.  You don't see many crossbreeds around."
"Not anymore, but they used to be everywhere.  When I was born I was one of many in my village.

"How the hell do you pull this shit off?"  exclaimed the smaller of the two men, momentarily forgetting the cup in his hand and spilling part of his Canoe Love Pilsner onto the porch.
"Um." said the taller of the two.  "I think that's a party foul." pointing at the spill.
"Whatever.  This is more important.  You're telling me you made out with two different women, and a third confessed having a major crush on you, all within the same damn weekend?  And that doesn't include the ones who just flirted with you?" he quickly brought his hand to his mouth after realizing that he was beginning to spray spittle in his excitement.
"Look, it's not like it was anything I did." The taller man's voice had taken on a note of defensiveness.  "I guess I was just around the right women at the right time."
"Pshht!  That's a ball of crap.  You got that italian chick to focus on you more than anyone else.  Besides, how do you explain the crush?  That was not the right woman at the right time."
"So what?  I'm not interested in her."
"What!?  That has nothing to do with it!  It's the fact that it happened!  Fuck, man.  Do you know how many times that that has happened to me?"  He waited until the other man began to speak just to cut him off, yelling, "Once!  Once dude.  And that was in the seventh grade!"  He grimaced into his hand for a second before saying, "You get the women.  You get the women like I never will and you don't even capitalize on it.  A girl crushes on you and you blow her off.  A girl makes out with you and you tell her to stop.  I will never be in a position where I could tell a girl to stop, and you're treating it like it's no big deal.  I can't believe you man."
"Hey!" the taller man snapped back angrily.  "First off, the girl I made out with was on the rebound and knew I didn't like her like that.  She was the one who gaveme the opportunity to tell her to stop.  It was her idea, not mine.  And second!" he had to shout the word to cut off the protest of the other man. "Secondly, the one who crushed on me is retarded!"
"Dude, I've met her, and she's not that retarded."
"You haven't had a conversation with her.  Talk with her for more than two minutes and you'll see it clearly.  She's on disability for a reason.  The girl is just, slow."
"Is that any reason to kick her to the side?  Does it make her any less human?"
"Look, she's still a person, and there's nothing wrong with her.  Well, I mean, there's nothing...  She's fine, but I know that I can do better.  I can find a woman that is on my intellectual level."
The other man just shook his head angrily and went back to his beer.  Which caused the taller of the two to decide to fill the silence.
"If you care so much, why don't you ask her out?"
He quickly swallowed his sip and shouted back "Because she doesn't want me!  She wants You, Dumbass!"
"Hey, like I said, I can do better!"
"Well I can't!"  He screamed the last word with such vehemence that people drinking four porches away looked over.  "You motherfucker!  I can't even get a retarded chick to look at me, and here you are going on about how stressfull your life is!  You had, as I recall a three week grand total of two women making out with you, two flashing you, and four confessing crushes on you!  You have it fucking made, and I don't want to hear it anymore.  The next time you feel like whining, do me a favor and shut the hell up, spend three seconds counting the stuff that has gone right with you, and afterwards, if you still feel like crying yourself a river, do me another favor and jump in." with that he downed the last of his beer, knocked the rest of the tall man's beer off the railing into the bushes and stormed inside.
The taller man stood on the porch motionless, thinking about how he'd been in the same place as his friend not so long ago, and wishing he could just take the attention of even one woman away from himself and direct it to his friend.

What can I say? I have a thing for mechanical women.

I almost imagined that I could hear the faint whirrs and clicks of her arms over the sound of the music, but then again, I would only have been imagining them anyway.  I could only ever hear them when I was in full gear and she was close by.  Still, I’d rarely been closer to her than at that moment, suit or no.

            The music was the standard club fare, techno with a bit of pop and hip-hop thrown in.  The whole crowd was moving and I had already lost everyone in our group but her.  I was a little surprised that she was all up on me even though nobody we knew was around to be her audience.  She also seemed to be laughing less and dancing more.  I gave up and decided that it was all in my head.  We just kept dancing till the end of the song and into the next.  The Jäger had already going to my brain and I was feeling invincible.  I was relaxed, happy, and feeling like no matter what I did life was going to be okay.

            She was dancing really close now.  I could feel her body heat.  I went with it.  The sinuous movements, the arms mostly around each other, it was dancing, just more fun than usual.  I thought about how shocked people were about this kind of thing in junior high.  They described it as sex with clothes on.  The memory made me laugh out loud.  Chopper looked at my face, quizzically.  I leaned in to put my mouth by her ear and yelled over the music.

            “I was remembering junior high.”  I pulled back to see if she understood.  She still looked confused, but she leaned in and replied.

            “You went to clubbing in junior high?”

            “No. No, I was thinking about school dances.  They were so shocked by this kind of thing back then.”  This time she pulled back with a look of admiring surprise.

            “You mean,” she yelled, “You used to bump and grind in junior high?”

            “What? No.”  I leaned in again. “I never went to the dances but that kind of dancing shocked them.  I was the dork of my class and dances would’ve sucked.”

            “I was a dork too.  I was actually shy, quiet, never did anything like this-” and then she held tight with her arms and I felt her lips on my neck.

            I nearly fell over entirely.  I lost focus for a second.  Several muscle groups went all tingly for a moment.  I was lost in that intense, warm, exhilarated feeling until she pulled back.

            I looked her in the eyes for a moment.  She was smiling, but I knew her.  There was a fake confidence in that smile that said “I’m just playing with you”, but it was just a screen.  Below the surface was an uncertainty.  She was afraid that I was going to back off, reject it, run, or at the very least laugh it off as a joke.  I didn’t have any plan of letting that happen to her.  She had just laid her cards on the table, and as shocked as I was, I wasn’t going to punish her for taking a risk.  Not after what I’d said earlier that day.  I pulled her in close, and began the rest of what turned out to be an amazing night.

Pride and petulance

“Back off!”

I froze with one foot in the door.  I looked around the room to see who Pride was yelling at, but everyone else looked as surprised as me.  After a long pause where we all looked at each other quizzically, Chopper spoke up from the couch.  “Are you okay?”

“Yeah!” she snapped “I’m peachy, I’m cool, It’s all good.  I… I just need some space.”  She didn’t move though.  She just stayed sitting at the table, staring down at the paper without reading it.  The others slowly got back to what they had been doing.  Chopper and Riot kept glancing back to her to make sure she was fine.  I just stood in the doorway, trying to decide whether to stay or leave.  When I looked at Pride I thought about the fact that she was under so much stress.  She wasn’t handling the strain as well as everyone else.  That is, she hadn’t been since Sidney.  Seeing her look so vulnerable made me wish I was in a position to do something about it.  I just wanted to take care of her and hel- “Just Shutup!” she screamed it.  Everyone else jumped at the sound and I stiffened again. 

Chopper spoke up, “Nobody said anything.  What did you hear?”  Pride had put her head in her hands and was gritting her teeth.

“I didn’t hear anything.  Nobody said anything.  It wasn’t sound.”

“Was it mental?  Telepathy or something?” asked chopper.  Something surfaced in the back of my mind.  Something Pride had said months ago.

“Was it a smell?”

She glared at me.  I was suddenly glad she didn’t have any projectile abilities because she looked furious with me.

“Shut up!” she was now definitely talking to me.  “You know what’s going on so either suit up or back off.”

“What?”  I was so confused.  “What did I do?”

“Don’t give me that!  You know what I smelled.”

“I have no idea.”

“Either suit up or leave!  I’m not kidding around!”  The others started to stand up.  They knew that if she struck first, someone would have to take her down.

“I’m not going to fight you, and I’m not leaving until we have everything straightened out.”

“I’m not gonna fight you.  Just put on the damn armor if you’re staying.”

Riot looked over at me.  “Blitz.  Everything is fine.  It’s all under control.  Just put on the armor and it’ll all be okay.”

I knew that he could hold her back as soon as she tried anything, so I activated the base layer of my suit.  I felt the familiar sensation of the bodyglove covering me while the simple weapons and helmet whirred and clicked into place.  I took basic readings of her temperature, breathing, and heart rate, to see if she was really okay.  Everything was elevated.  It was like she was working very hard on something, like she’d been exercising or something.

“There now.” said riot. “He’s in the suit like you asked.  Are we cool now?”

“No!”  She turned her head back and put it into her hands again.  Her vitals were still running hot, but she was starting to cool down.  She just sat there for a minute and when her body settled back toward a more natural state Chopper signaled the others to relax.  Dragon and Founder sat back down to watch the TV, but Riot didn’t move.  Chopper shot him a look and gestured again, but he kept his eyes on pride.  He didn’t need to watch her to know her exact movements, but he was playing the noble hero and refused to watch her without his eyes.

“Riot” Pride said, her eyes still covered.  “Listen to Chopper.  I’m fine.  And Chopper, it’s me, and we're in the same room, a gesture is as loud as a spoken word when you’re this close to me.”

“Alright then.  Riot, her vitals are fine, she’s calmed down entirely.  You can stand down.”

“Well there’s no polite way to put this, but no.  I’m not backing down until she can tell me what happened in the first place and how to keep it from happening again.”

“I’m right here jackass.  You can talk to me directly.”  She turned to look at him.  She was glaring, but without the same fire that she’d turned on me.  “You can’t prevent it from happening again, and exactly what happened is none of your damn business.”

“Bull.  If you turn on a team member it is everyone’s business.”

She snorted in reply before saying, “I didn’t turn on shit.  He’s fine, and so’s everyone else so again I say it’s none of your business.”

“And what would’ve happened to Blitz if he hadn’t kitted up?”

“That’s between me and Blitz.”

“No.  It’s not.”  He said it with the same leaden tone that in most contexts would mean that he was already reaching for a weapon.  The difference with him was the fact that he was a weapon.

“Actually, I believe that until he and I have had a chance to talk, I am the only one who can judge that.”

“Fine.  I recommend that you start talking.”

“Not here.  This is between me and him.”

“I’m not letting you out of my sight until I have some assurance that you won’t attack him when you get the chance.”

“You get nothing.  This isn’t your fucking business and until we get a moment alone I can’t even guarantee that I’ll ever not want to attack him.”

“Dreadnaught!” I blurted, before the tense conversation could escalate into something worse.

They just stared at me, momentarily distracted from their argument out of total confusion.  I explained my entire thought.  “I trust Dread, and I’m sure that you trust her since she’s your superior, right?”  Pride gave a slight nod.  “So we talk about this in front of her and Riot can back off.  Does that sound okay with you guys?”  Inside my own head I prayed to God to help them be okay with it.

They both agreed that it was okay, and Chopper told us that Dreadnaught was already on her way.  No doubt she’d gotten Dread on the line as soon as the situation with pride had gotten out of control.

In a couple of minutes we were sitting alone at the table with dreadnaught standing by the door.

Eventually Dreadnaught spoke up.  “Either one of you guys should start talking or I’m locking you both up in a box and shaking it.”

“Okay,” I started.  “What happened to you just then?  It seemed like you freaked at soon as I go to the room, before I even did anything.”

“Yeah right.  You know what you did.”

“If I knew, we wouldn’t be talking right now would we?”

She paused, looked me in the eye for the first time since the glare and said, “You want me.”  I sat back in my chair in surprise.  She continued, “I told you once before that I can smell it clearly.  As soon as you walk into a room and see me I can smell you getting aroused.”

“Wait,” I stopped her “I don’t get aroused!  I may be attracted to you but there’s a difference.”

“Not as far as your pheromones are concerned.  And that’s all I have to go off of.”

“You could try going off of my actions!  Have I ever acted like I wanted to jump you?  No.  Have I ever even tried to flirt?  No.  I know you’re not interested and I’ve respected that, so as far as I’m concerned this is a matter between you and your nose.”

“The problem is not that I’m disinterested.  The problem is that I’m in estrus.  Right now I have no mate and you are the only male sending any signals my way.  My body is hormonally out of whack and has decided to find you attractive for the sake of procreation.  I still don’t want you, but at the same time, when I can smell you the only thing I can think about is jumping your bones.”

“Oh.”  I didn’t know what else to say.

“If you ever take advantage of me in this state, I will send you to heaven in the bedroom and as soon as my mind clears I will send your soul to hell.”

“Hey.  I’m not that guy.  I don’t rape.  Keep your accusations to yourself.”  I thought about the situation at hand for a moment and said “Look, we are intelligent adults here.  We’ve both been through adolescence before, we both know what it’s like to have hormonal surges and strong inexplicable attractions.  You just happen to be doing it again in a different way.  I think that over time you can learn to control this adolescence too.  Until you do though, I’d be willing to wear my gear around the compound when you ovulate.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier for you to just get over me and focus on somebody else?  Chopper’s pretty hot.  There’s that one lab tech that founder was kind of into.”

“Dude.  I’m not into you the way you think.  I think you are attractive.  Period.  That isn’t gonna change unless you become uglier to me both physically and as a person.  I can’t just switch my attraction off like a light bulb so I’ll stick with the body suit.”

Currently Listening Collide By Skillet Fingernails see related

Sidney

Blood.  Pooling out across the floor, mixing with rivulets from the children, leaking away from me.
The explosions becoming less deafening, but I still hear the giggling sounds.  My mind detaching from everything around me notices that the sound is a psychological tactic.  The giggling is meant to unnerve us and make us slip up.  Just like the heads of the people.  He wants fear.  He loves it.
The blood traveling further now.  Spilling off the edge of the ceiling, into the sky.  I wonder how far it goes, or if it is real, if up and down are real at all, if I am real.  I am real, but is the psycho?
As the thought occurs, I slowly turn my head upward to see the ground below me.  Olympus fighting at incredible speed.  He sweats, bleeds, and screams words I've never known in the face of the man.  That man in the suit.  The spotless suit, the perpetual grin on the leathery face.  Bastard.  Killed me.
Movement.  In the rubble of the brick building.  Dreadnaught standing up.  Armor is dented, cracked, sparking, and moving in stop motion.  Three cannons aim.  The giggles stop.  The man explodes.
Olympus on the ground.  Dreadnaught on her back.  Blood turning brown on the ceiling.  Still flowing, flowing around the nicely polished shoes of the well dressed man standing over me, or below me.
"Don't try to get the directions right." the voice is high pitched, and his lips don't move, they never move.  "The difference between up and down is so subtle.  It doesn't need too much explanation."  the giggling returns.  The children stand up.  They are corpses.  They assemble each other, sticking arms and legs back on, moving like marionettes, giggling.  They dance.  I hear music.  It is celtic, irish, Tim Finnegan's Wake.  The giggling gets louder "Tim Finnegan's Wake.  He wasn't dead.  They thought he died and he didn't.  He got back up afterward.  Just like the kiddies.  They aren't dead.  Look at them dancing around.  It's so cute."
I look back to the ground.  Dreadnaught, Olympus, Circus, Flashpoint all in sight.  Not moving.  Twitching from Chopper, but not from the half attached to her head.  Oracle still spinning slowly in midair, still screaming.  No voice, no breath, just sound.
"Believe me, they're dead.  All of them.  That's why I'm playing with you.  You're the only one left.  You're not much fun yet, but soon you'll be dancing too."  I can't die "You will.  Soon."  My soul will live on.  "So what?  Fuck your soul, I want your body.  Souls can't scream, or bleed, or cry."  "Speechless?  In your own mind?  You must be dying."  Children picking me up, putting my armor back together.  "Help him start to dance."  holding my body up, standing on the ceiling.  Where did the blood go.  firing gauntlet beams.  Falling through the sky.  No ceiling keeping me down.  Parts of children falling with me.
The buildings shrink, the ground falls away.  Falling.  The world spins.  Bodies flying away from me.  Falling again.  To the ground.  My head clearing.  There isn't that much blood in the human body.  I took too long to die.  I wasn't seeing what was real.  I'm out of the cauldron now.  He has no affect on me.  Checking equipment.  
Flight=yes
Armor=40% integrity
Sensors=50% functional
Weapons-Gauntlets=yes
       -Torso=left yes
       -Back=yes
       -Head=yes
       -Legs=no
Life support=10% functional
That's good enough for me. Flight systems engaged.  No more falling.  Targeting scanners online.  Heat signatures.  Bingo.  A recently damaged floating ceiling.  Magnify.  He's got nobody around him.  One good straight clean shot from a half mile away.  Steady.  Beam weapons ready.  Fire.
Right through his fucking chest.  Now to get down there and see who's really dead, and pray that he was lying about that too.