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The Man Who Saved Me (Updated 30 Jan - Chapters 1 to THE END)


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You wanted some backstory. Here it is. 

Chapter 9

A week has passed since Dean and I first had sex. Beyond some heavy petting and sucking, we haven’t yet been brave enough to move further. In all honesty, I’ve been having doubts about his ability to stay in control. Just making out with me was enough to bring out a side of him that I’ve never seen before. It excited me at the time. Now I realise how much danger I was in. Dean was close to the edge, verging on losing himself in his passion. And that was kissing. What if the beast rises again while he’s a foot deep inside of me? It’s easy to forget just how strong he is. He could rupture my internal organs with a single thrust if he’s not careful, crush my teeth with a kiss, or shatter the bones in my shoulders with a simple embrace.

There are no practice rounds, and no second tries.

Of course I’ll still go as far as he lets me. But not right now.

The solution to flying has been solved, at least. Dean ‘borrowed’ a supersonic jet from some US military base while no one was looking, gutted the electronics, and reinforced the nose with a few metal panels. It lacks any air filtration system, but the journeys are never remotely long enough for me to use up all of the oxygen in the cockpit. He settled me down in a hidden clearing – it was in a small forest somewhere in Kent - and flew me the rest of the way at a more manageable speed.

I’ve been going to the gym a few times a week. I feel fitter, less tired, and I think I’m putting on a little bit of muscle. I’ll never be the size of Dean though. Not that I want to be. The contrast between my frail, delicate body and his colossal one is indescribably hot. He’s started doing exercises on the kitchen floor without a shirt. To motivate me, he says. But when he asks me to sit on his back, to feel the marble contours of his traps and lats, motivation is the furthest thing from my mind. And I’m sure he knows. Sometimes he drapes me upside down over his shoulders so that my back touches his abs and orders me do crunches. Each time I reach the top, straining and sweating, he leans down and kisses me. That has contributed more to my stamina than anything else.

But it hasn’t all been good. There have been some pretty fierce moments. The last one was on Thursday night.

“DON’T BE STUPID!” I shouted at the top of my voice.

“YOU HAVE NO CLUE WHAT YOU’RE FUCKING TALKING ABOUT, BRO.” He boomed so deep and so loud that it made the room shake.

I stood up as tall as I could, jamming my finger into his left pec. “IT’S FUCKING IMPORTANT SO OF COURSE YOU WOULD COMPLETELY OVERLOOK IT!”

“THEY WERE A FUCKING PLOT POINT! WHO GIVES A SHIT WHERE THE OOMPA LOOMPAS CAME FROM!”

“I DO! AND THE REMAKE TOLD ME THAT. THEY WERE IMPORTED FROM THE JUNGLES OF FUCKING GOD DAMNED LOOMPA LAND YOU CULTURELESS PIG!”

“THERE IS NO LOOMPA LAND!” Dean roared, poking me back so that I stumbled and landed on the couch.

“BECAUSE IT’S A STORY! THAT DOESN’T MEAN IT’S NOT IMPORTANT! WORLDBUILDING MATTERS AND TIM BURTON UNDERSTOOD THAT, MOTHERFUCKER!”

“IT WAS A SHIT FILM AND YOU KNOW IT!”

“I’D TAKE JOHNNY DEPP OVER THAT GENE WILDER ASSHOLE ANY DAY.”

Dean’s eyes were beginning to burn red. He leaned down and shoved his face into within an inch of mine so that all I could feel was the heat radiating off him. His next words came out dangerously quiet. “Say that shit one more time. I fucking dare you.”

To be blunt, I was getting scared, and while defending the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory remake has always been an important cause to me, I wasn’t willing to provoke a 6'8" 450lb superhero over it. With a scoff, I stomped (as loudly as my feet could stomp, which wasn’t very loud) into the kitchen. I only knew Dean had left when I heard the bedroom door slam with such force that the top hinges shattered. The door didn’t have a lock, so he bent our metal broom around the handle. I didn’t get a word out of him for two days.

So it hasn’t all been sunshine and daisies. However, the good has vastly outweighed the bad. I don’t know if what I feel for Dean is genuine love or some infatuation born out of loneliness, but I want him in my life. I want him at my side, protecting me and cherishing me.

With a cup of tea in my hand, I stand just outside the doorway of the living room. Dean is curled on the couch, staring vaguely at the TV. He doesn’t register my presence, which is strange for a man with infinitely powerful senses.

“Dean? What are you watching?”

“The news.” He murmurs. I glance at the TV to see that the news ended twenty minutes ago, and Dickinson’s Real Deal is now playing – a show I’m sure Dean would never find interesting. I cross the room and cuddle against him. His head springs up as if he’s only just fully registered that I’m here.

“What are you thinking about?” I gently ask.

“I don’t know. A lot of things. The past. My past. And my future too, I guess.”

“Do you want to tell me?”

He looks intently at me for a moment, then half-nods. “I never told you how I got like this, did I?"

I shake my head.

"I got my powers when I was pretty young, but they weren’t… natural. I wasn't born this way. There was this company. You wouldn’t recognise the name because it went under a long time ago and everything related to it has been hidden. They were experimenting to create super soldiers. The whole thing was top secret. Not even the government knew at the time.”

“And they succeeded?” I can tell where this is going.

“Yeah. But they didn’t realise it.” He bites his lip, looking straight at me. “The first human trials were on homeless people. They all ended up dead. It turns out you can’t just grow a person like the Hulk. The body can’t take it. They just balloon up; the muscles struggle against bones which have already fused. The heart isn’t capable of sending the blood all that extra distance, so it just stops, veins burst, skin tears. The brain grows so fast that all the connections inside it just fall apart.”

My mouth has fallen open in shock. “That sounds like a horrible way to die.”

“I’m sure it is…” He nods. “And that’s where I came in.”

I remain silent, willing him to continue.

“If you take all that growth and spread it over the development of a normal boy, it becomes manageable. I was a growing boy, I was an orphan, I was healthy, and one of my friends was the son of the project’s lead scientist. He saw me a lot. All in all, I was the perfect candidate. So every month or so, I would be brought in for tests. They would use all sorts of monitors on me, put me through dozens of machines, take samples, give injections. They took me through the process… and I started to grow. But even though I was bigger and stronger and faster and harder than I should have been, I wasn’t super. This stuff was supposed to give me the ability to crush bricks, take bullets, run faster than a car, yet I was just a very physically impressive child. Based on the doses they’d given me, and the results they were seeing, they ramped up the treatment. I’m talking a thousand times stronger. Then when that proved ineffective, ten thousand. A hundred thousand. They found new ways of squeezing this shit down to absurd concentrations just so that they could keep scaling up the dose. After the first couple of years, I was getting a hundred million times what I had originally been getting – and I was getting it daily. I got strong as hell. Stronger than the average powerlifter, and I was just a boy. But they didn’t want that. They wanted a living weapon.”

I listen carefully, absorbing every word. “So what changed?”

Dean talks like he's had this speech prepared for weeks. “They never knew what piece of the puzzle they were missing. Not until something… traumatic happened and the power was triggered. All those treatments had been preparing my body for years, but its real potential lay dormant until I truly, desperately needed it. It was like someone had flicked a switch. Just like that.” He snaps his fingers, causing a small shockwave that makes me ears ring. “And I had the power. But they were right from the start – the original dose would have been enough. I had been given unimaginably more. In that moment, I didn’t become a super soldier, I became a god.”

There it is. The answer to all my questions. “So you were just a normal kid who suddenly turned into this?" I motion to him. "That must have been crazy.”

“It was. I freaked the fuck out and went back to the lab to get help. But I was so strong. Everything I touched crumbled to dust, even the ground under my feet. I was so fast I could cross the country in a split second, and I barely had any control over it. My senses were amped up so high that, ironically, I couldn’t tell what was going on around me. But it was the laser vision which made me realise how dangerous I really was.” He sounds so solemn. Like he's admitting to a heinous crime.

“What happened to the lab?” I ask, my voice barely a whisper.

Now there’s a look of panic in his face. “It wasn’t my fault, Jake. You have to believe me. I never meant to hurt anyone.”

“Were there survivors?”

Dean doesn’t respond. That’s my answer.

I wrap my arms as far around him as I can, squeezing. I plant a kiss on his pumpkin-shaped shoulder. “It’s okay. You were a scared child. You didn’t know what you were doing. Don’t blame yourself for this, Dean.”

He nods, but I can tell he doesn’t believe me. “After that, I flew around the world until I found a place that was completely empty. Somewhere I didn’t have to be afraid of myself. It took a long time to learn to control my abilities, especially since I never stopped growing in size or strength. I’m still growing now. My power is already so close so infinite that any more doesn’t make a difference, but I don’t want to get any bigger. I’m hoping that since I’m at the end of puberty, it will stop. If it doesn’t, I’ll pass the 7’ mark in a year or two…” He shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s not like anyone gave me an instruction manual.”

“Seven foot?” The revelation leaves me reeling. It’s hard to imagine Dean being any bigger than he already is.

“I’ll be a freak.”

“You’re already a freak, Dean. It hasn’t made me like you any less.” That makes him quirk an eyebrow as his shy smile reveals perfect white teeth. “You’re my freak, and I wouldn’t have you any other way.”

Dean squeezes me to his side, resting his nose on the top of my head. “Thanks. I lo… You’re pretty great too.”

“So you were thinking about all this earlier?” I shiver as his hot breath runs down my neck.

“Kinda’. I’m trying to figure out whether I have a responsibility to do something good with my power – I know I said I have rules, but being with you has made me realise that I have a stake in the world and I can’t just ignore it. And I was wondering whether any scientists or data survived from the project, or if the technology might be reinvented. And then what should I do? Destroy it? Let them create super soldiers? If they did that, it would only be a matter of time before they ended up with doses stronger than I had, and I can take a supernova to the face or wipe out half the globe in a matter of minutes. These super soldiers wouldn’t be like me, they wouldn’t be neutral and they wouldn’t work for the greater good, they’d bow to the orders of governments. I can’t let that happen. So I’ve been tracking down any existing connections to the project for a while, and I haven’t found anything, but I’m still worried. I’m worried that if I go public and start helping the world, it’ll just draw attention back to the super soldier project. Sooner or later, people would figure out where my power came from. And then the whole world would race to recreate it. In the long run, helping out might just make everything worse.”

The room falls silent for a long time, with only the droning sounds of Dickinson’s Real Deal playing in the background. It takes me a while to comprehend everything Dean has told me. Secret projects and experiments on children, superpowers and arms races. I want to offer some word of reassurance, but I just can’t. His past is a series of unchangeable traumas, and the future is a minefield of terrible outcomes. Do nothing, and the world goes to shit around you. Help out, and you might end up a slave to governments and corporations. If you refuse to do that, the world will create superheroes who don’t. But I’m not the kind of guy who lets a bleak outlook rule me. There is always a way forward, even if it isn’t obvious.

“What if you’re subtle?” I ask. “Change the world a little bit here and there, in a way no one will notice?”

“That would only work for so long, Jake.” He says. “And then what?”

He’s right. Once the cat’s out of the bag, there’s no putting it back in. “What if…” I mutter as my gaze falls on the Marvel comic on the coffee table. “…You were disguised?”

“Like a fake moustache?” He lets out a deep, rumbling laugh. “I don’t think it would suit me.”

“Not a moustache. A costume.” I pick up the comic, pointing to caped, masked man on the front. “You want to be a superhero? Be a superhero.”

Dean backs away, looking at me as if I suggested he eat the moon. But then he looks at the cover, and a wry grin crosses his face. “You really think that would work?”

“Well we know one thing.” I say, shaking the comic for emphasis. “It’s tried and tested.”

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Hahaha I loved the argument.  Made me laugh out loud.  

And great development with the whole 'contemplating life as superhero/god'.

Also a big fan that Dean is still growing.  Never big enough! ;)

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I know this is a short one. I usually aim for around 2000 words and this topped out at 1200. I was going to make it the first part of a longer chapter with two or three scenes, but I wanted to put something out today, and this is all I've finished. 

Chapter 10

“I don’t know about this, Jake.”

“You look great!” I force the words out as I try to catch my breath. “Really threatening.”

“Then why can’t you stop laughing?” Dean frowns at me.

“Just thinking….” I wheeze, “Just thinking about a funny joke I heard earlier.”

It takes me a while to calm down. Dean stands with his bulging arms crossed over his chest and a dark look in his eyes. Okay, so maybe the costume is a little ridiculous. Just a tad. The lycra Superman outfit stretches over his muscles rather than clinging to them, giving his torso the appearance of a big formless block, and his limbs aren’t much better. But what really makes this outfit are the fake sponge muscles shoved between the layers of the suit. He looks less like a superhero and more like a red and blue Michelin man. And I am loving every second of it.

“I will concede that perhaps this isn’t the best I’ve seen you.” I say, still grinning from ear to ear. “But hey, think on the bright side. You wouldn’t have to worry about making any criminals piss themselves looking like that. I’m sure that would be messy, so maybe it’s a good thing.”

Dean’s grim mood quickly turns to a smirk. “You think?”

“Oh yeah, I’ve always thought the one thing every crime scene or humanitarian disaster needs is levity. And looking like that, there’ll be no shortage of laughs.”

The smirk disappears. “Trust me, I can always be scary when I want to. Even dressed like a clown. Not that it matters - I’m vetoing this costume. It doesn’t even cover my face. Hair gel and a pair of glasses aren’t gonna’ do shit. I don’t care if it works for Superman in the comics.” He makes a solid point. There’s no point in disguising his body. You can’t make a 6’8” man with 450lbs of pure muscle look like anything else. What matters is the face.

When I’ve got enough pictures on my phone to keep me cackling for at least two weeks, I rummage around in the huge bag I brought back from the costume shop, throwing out random items in my search for something more suitable. Dean kneels next to me to pick up a Wonder Woman lasso. “Why would I need this?”

I give him a withering look. “That’s not for you.”

“What were you going to do with it?”

“Sweet boy, you ain’t ready to hear what I plan on doing with that rope.” I throw another outfit at him. “Try this on.”

After a suspicious pause, Dean strips out of the Superman outfit, smiling when he hears me groan. I’ve seen that body plenty of times now, but it still astonishes me every time. How can anyone be so beautiful? Every single inch of him ripples with striations and veins that run across his biceps and web over his forearms, crawl up his abs, crisscross over sculpted obliques. He oozes power and authority from every pore.

“This one was a lot more expensive, so I’m returning it if you don’t like it.”

The costume looks to be sized for a child, but has a stretchy texture. As he pulls it over his monstrous calves, it displays every ridge and curve like it’s painted on. Dean checks himself out in the mirror. I can tell what he’s thinking. The stud staring back looks every inch the hero. “It’s perfect.” He shouts, flexing his arms and watching the shadows warp across his triceps. “Just one problem.”

“Go on…”

Dean turns on the spot and points to his chest. “This is a Flash costume. It has his logo and everything.”

That could be a problem. Aside from the legal issues, it just doesn’t make sense to wear the outfit of a fictional hero. “We could always get something custom made for you using the same materials.” I suggest.

“No. Think about it. I’m gonna’ be dealing with fires, bullets, earthquakes, all kinds of shit. I might be invulnerable, but the clothes aren’t. Whatever costume we get will need to be replaced a lot. And if we have it custom made, it’ll be too expensive, and it’ll be traceable back to us.” Damn him and his ruthless logic. He’s totally right, but I’m not going to admit that.

With a sigh, I toss him another outfit.

“Is this it?” He waves the pieces in one hand.

“Yes. Now try it on.”

It takes Dean just a second or two this time. I can immediately tell that it’s perfect. The only article covering his body is a pair of black shorts that show off his mountainous quads. They have no logo or label. I got them from Primark for £2.50. The mask is a cheap knock-off of the one from Black Panther, and comes completely black with two sharp points and translucent eyes. A small pot of silver paint has been included so that the wearer can add the iconic stripes themselves. It’s made of that same rubbery material which clings to Dean’s face, disguising his contours but allowing free movement. As it stands, the mask doesn’t immediately bring Black Panther to mind, which is good. A few black rubber armbands mount a futile struggle to contain his biceps, and really bring the whole look together. It would be a striking costume on anyone. But set against Dean’s physique, it’s downright dangerous. Not just that, but it’s durable, cheap, easy to replace, and hides his identity.

Dean stares into the mirror for a long time, totally silent. I wish I could see his reaction.

When I can’t contain myself any longer, I ask “What do you think?” I almost sound timid. I guess I’m used to looking into the kind, reassuring face of the man I’ve fallen for, not a featureless black void.

Dean slowly thuds across the room. He looms over me, every powerful muscle flexing. I gasp as the eyes of the mask begin to glow red. It’s terrifying. “Still think I look funny?” Filtered, his voice sounds deep and resonant.

 “I guess… making criminals piss themselves isn’t all bad…”

He whips the mask off with one hand, and suddenly the terminator is gone and my big cuddly goofball is back. “I love it!” Dean says, practically bouncing with childlike excitement. “Scared you though, didn’t I?”

It’s only now that I realise how tightly I had clenched my body, how wide my eyes had become. I must have looked like a startled deer. “I guess you di-“

Before I can finish, Dean scoops me up and hugs me to his chiselled chest. He seems to love carrying me around. “Then we need to keep working on it. I don’t want you to be frightened of me. I want you to feel safe. Just because I’m wearing that thing on my face, it doesn’t mean I won’t protect you.”

I take the mask between my hands, stretching it to examine the inside. “I know, I know. You’re a big friendly giant. Fear isn’t always rational, remember?”

“Sure. Maybe you’d be less scared if I wore it for some… other stuff too.” He gives his eyebrows an exaggerated wiggle, making me laugh.

"We'd need to add a mouth hole..."

He winks and whispers, "I don't plan on sucking this time."

"No?" I take a deep gulp. “Well... What are we waiting for?"”

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I know the last chapter indicated that this chapter would include sex. But I didn't feel like it. So instead you get this. It's pretty dry, not much sexy stuff, but it sets up some important character development and plot. You'll get your beloved anal spelunking later.

Chapter 11

"The costume is sorted." I take a sip from my Costa Coffee to push out the chill. I know that Dean doesn’t feel heat, but he could at least pretend. Wandering around in a tank top in this weather is just bizarre. “But becoming a hero is the easy bit. Now you need to figure out how to become heroic.”

“What does that mean?” Dean peers down at me in confusion. With his hand wrapped around mine, he steers us through the dense crowds of Central London. They part easily before him. Shoppers and tourists and commuters scramble to get out of the way of the man so colossal that most of them don’t even notice me being pulled along in his wake.

“Remember when you told me you were worried about becoming the kind of man you never wanted to be? We need to make sure that it never happens.”

“Oh, right. Gotta’ make sure I only do good things. I guess I’ll start by restoring the Aral Sea. That’s a good thing, right?”

I nod slowly. “It could be… but there are people living on the land that used to be sea-bed.”

“So I’ll help them move. They probably want the sea back as much as anyone else.”

“Okay… And what happens once you’ve restored it? According to Wikipedia and one BBC documentary I saw, the disaster was caused by mass cotton production, to fuel the West’s need for cheap fashion. So much water was drawn from the rivers that feed the sea that it dried up. You can bring it back, but unless something happens to those factories, it will just dry up again.”

“So I should get rid of the factories?” 

I drink the rest of my coffee. “Not unless you want to put millions of already impoverished people out of work, destroy businesses which are working perfectly legally, piss off several countries, and severely damage the global clothing industry.”

Dean groans, running a hand down his face. “God, this is difficult. Being a hero was a bad idea after all.”

As we pass the Tower of London and onto Tower Bridge, I look out over the Thames and the sprawling metropolis beyond it. “Maybe we should leave the big, globally significant changes for now. When they’re not battling super villains or saving the world, most comic book heroes fight crime. And right here we have a city with a skyrocketing gang crime, knife crime, acid attacks, you name it.”

“You think I should go smack around a mugger or two?” He grins, flexing a bicep and sticking out his tongue. “Make ‘em piss themselves?”

I shake my head, deep in thought. “As funny as that would be, you’re going to need to go about this carefully.” When Superman catches a criminal, he just flies him over to a police station and dumps him on the doorstep. That’s not going to work here. “Here’s my idea. We put some kind of camera on your costume, maybe in the mask. When you encounter a crime in progress, you neutralise the danger through legal means and get names from the witnesses – as well as the perp if you can. Everything is caught on film: the crime, the vigilante justice, the faces and the names. The footage comes through to me, I check it over to make sure nothing gives you away and modulate your voice, before sending it to Scotland Yard using an untraceable method. We let the police do the rest. That’s the best way of ensuring they have all the evidence they need to make an arrest. It also protects you from any false allegations and reassures the government that you’re not a threat.”

When I look at Dean, I see cogs turning as he processes my idea. Probably searching for flaws. When his smile grows more confident, I let out a sigh of relief. “That could actually work.” He booms loud enough to turn heads.

“See? You’re going to be great.” I wrap an arm as far around him as I can, squeezing. In response, he bends down and plants a quick kiss on my head.

“Just… When you talked about neutralising the danger through legal means…” He frowns, a furrow in his brow. “What are legal means? What can I do?”

“Hmm.” I rack my brain for information. The memory that springs to mind is so clear, it could have happened yesterday.

I remember sitting with tears welling in my eyes,  glaring at the screen of my phone and desperately typing questions into google. I remember the sound of a heavy fist on my bedroom door. Thump, thump, thump. "Open this door, or I'm breaking it down!" The crack of wood, the cloying tang of alcohol. Deep, harsh voices. Fear. Intense and overwhelming fear. I don’t realise I’m crying until Dean’s face is inches from mine. With a large, rough thump, he wipes away the moisture on my cheek.

I don’t give him a chance to ask any questions. In a quavering tone, I say, “The UK’s laws on self-defence are… weird. You are allowed to retaliate with the minimum amount of force necessary in order to prevent further crime, or to help a lawful arrest." I realise those are the exact words on the government website, and try to paraphrase them a little. "In other words, hit the guy hard enough that he can’t hit you or anyone else again, but no harder.”

“Okay.” His voice sounds so soft. “Hey Jake?”

“What?”

“Why do you know so much about self-defence laws?”

I open my mouth to reply, but the words freeze on my tongue. How do I put this across without prompting further questions? Dean is protective in the extreme. If he knew the whole story, he would seek revenge - I have no doubt. I shudder at the thought. I hate lying, but it might be necessary right now. “I didn’t always have an invincible muscle man around to look after me. This is London. There are plenty of things to be afraid of.”

The slight narrowing of his eyes tells me he knows I’m holding back. I’m going to be interrogated about this later. But I’ll have time to come up with something by then.

We’re coming to our destination. The Shard, or what’s left of it. Back when I worked here, I used to sit at the window of my flat and watch the tower glitter in the night, distant but still visible among the skyscrapers and cranes. The view changed the day I came back from the hospital. Where the Shard had once been, there stood a smoking, blackened husk. It collapsed a week later.

I only see the full extent of the carnage now, close up. There’s nothing left. All of the nearby streets have been closed while demolition crews clean away the rubble. Apparently they’re still finding bodies. Parts of bodies. The building's internal structure was so damaged that no one could enter in search of the dead, so when the Shard came down, the corpses came with it. Armed officers in military uniforms watch every corner, their fingers poised over their triggers. The whole country is on high alert.

I expected to feel some kind of catharsis coming here. I saw it as a way of coming to terms with what happened and moving on. Instead, I find myself drawn to the wall of faces – hundreds upon hundreds of missing person posters pasted over one another. On either side of the wall sit mountains of flowers taller than I am. I've read about all of this – the memorials they're already building, the candlelight vigils in Trafalgar Square, visits to the families of victims by the Queen, messages of sympathy from across the globe, a dramatic resurgence in racial hate-crime, new proposals for laws allowing the deportation of any individual suspected of terrorist leanings, a crash in consumer spending at tourist attractions, and of course, the wall of faces. I’ve read about it all. Watched it on the news. But it never felt real until now. That might sound strange coming from someone who was personally caught up in it, but I’ve been able to push the whole thing to the back of my mind and almost ignore it. Now it’s standing right in front of me. I can’t turn a blind eye to this.

My gaze tracks from face to face, victim to victim. It’s not long before I begin to see familiar faces. One of the security guards I saw when I arrived that day. He looks so different out of uniform, playing with his dog in a photo. A few more seconds, and I spot one of the kitchen staff, then another. I remember the sight of them rushing around in an effort to complete the morning orders. I wish I had looked up from my damned pastry long enough to say something. I don’t know what.

Hi. How are you? Doing anything nice at the weekend? Your hair looks good, did you do something different with it?

But I never did.  

I trace the photo of a woman with my index finger. The paper has bloated in the corners from the rain, but her smile hasn't faded. “That could’ve been me.” I whisper, pointing to the wall of missing person posters. “I’m here and she’s dead. All of them are dead. By all rights, I should be too.”

Dean’s grabs my shoulder harshly, spinning me to face him. I flinch at the fury in his eyes. “Don’t ever say that.”

“I didn’t mean-“

He doesn’t let me finish. “I could have saved those people and I didn’t. It’s my fault they died. Not yours. I never want to hear you talk like that again, clear?”

“Okay.” I say. His expression softens, and he pulls me close. He makes me feel safe. 

I don’t immediately register the tapping on my back. “Excuse me, sir? Hello?”

Once Dean has released me, I turn to look at a small, squat looking woman with a notepad and pen clutched in one hand and a smartphone in the other. “You’re Jake Langley, right? The chef?” He says, looking from the screen of his phone to me, then back again. I tilt my head and get a look at what appears to be my Facebook page. “I read your article in the Guardian. You should consider a future in journalism. You put your point across excellently.”

My mouth falls open and I feel a blush creep into my cheeks. I’ve never been good at taking compliments. “T-thanks. No, I just… I’ll stick with pastry. It's simpler. No one sends me death threats over bad filo.”

At that, Dean's head snaps around to me. I never mentioned the death threats, but it's journalism. Death threats happen.

"Ah yes. Occupational hazard, these days. Just try to ignore them. That's what I do." The woman shrugs. “My name is Natasha, I’m working with the Spectator. In your article, you mention a lot of scarring on your back. I know this might be inappropriate to ask, but would you mind showing me? A picture like that would really help the public understand the struggle you went through. Plus, if I’m frank…” She hesitates. “It would help me out a lot.”

I bite my lip. I’m not just going to take my shirt off, right here, in the middle of a memorial to the victims of a terrorist attack. The obvious answer is a resounding no. It’s not a fair thing to ask. I may not be self-conscious about the scars (it's hard to be when Dean kisses them so lovingly), I’d rather not broadcast my gruesome burns to the world. Yet I can’t bring myself to refuse. I’ve always been too polite - letting someone down goes against my nature.

After some umm-ing and ah-ing, I lead Natasha over to a quiet alley where no uninvited guests can see. As I slip my shirt up over my head, Dean stands where his wide body can block the view of anyone passing the alley’s entrance. I hear a few metallic snapping sounds in quick succession, and it’s done. Natasha thanks me for the help, promisinh to promote my article and any others I might write in future.

At first, I feel proud of helping out a struggling journalist. It only later occurs to me that Dean would be in her picture too. All of him. With my panic mounting, I track down her email on the Spectator’s website and send a message, asking her to crop him out of any photos. She quickly replies with an edited version. I give my approval.

I dodged a bullet there. If an image of Dean and I was published a national news website, that could only spell trouble.

But now there’s nothing to worry about.

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