Dirty Little Secret - 7 (Patreon)

Part 7:

-CW for (fairly minor?) self harm-

The weekend had been a blur, Ethan having been plagued by nightmares. Or memories. Considering the era of his life they were from, he was pretty sure he could call them both.

At least work on Monday helped to reground him, getting his mind off the flashbacks and off the strange nagging curiosity that was sitting in the back of his head. That little voice that said to try the collar for himself, and seemed almost designed to set off his memories of what his mother had done. Had his mother conditioned him to have that curiosity just to ensure relapses would be worse?

He didn’t know if that was possible, but he did his best to shut it off by staring at diagrams showing fibre optic infrastructure in Northford. Losing himself in the maze of cables and subsystems that his team had to manage. It worked for about eight hours.

At home he tried to keep his thoughts slower and more manageable with a mixture of alcohol and bad television (not being sure which killed more neurons, but hoping it was the right ones being dealt with).

Sure, the hangover on Tuesday was unpleasant, but it also helped keep his brain from doing any thinking he wasn’t putting effort into, so he counted that as a small win while dragging himself to work. Which was another eight hours of distraction as he went over paperwork and diagrams once more.

“Is everything ok?” Dr. Xiang asked at the end of the day.

“Fine,” he lied, trying to gather up his things.

“You haven’t seemed fine. You’ve looked exhausted all week and you’re making sloppy mistakes,” she said, not actually blocking his way out, but seeming ready to follow him if he tried to slip away.

A small accomodation to his issues. One he appreciated, even if he felt too miserable to gain any real joy from it.

“I…” he started, before realising they were alone. The rest of the team had apparently slipped home while he’d been struggling not to fall asleep at the computer. “Something set off my… memories. Bad. And I’m not having much luck putting my brain back into normal functions mode.”

Dr. Xiang gave a nod. “Have you talked to your therapist?”

“It’s not really emergency levels… the next regular opening is next week, so that’s what I booked for,” he replied.

Dr. Xiang’s eyes drifted down, and he followed her to see the various bandages on his hand. The result of his efforts to ground himself with pain.

“That was the worst of it, and I’m past that,” he said.

“You’re sure?” she asked, her voice gentle. Gentle and feminine and… not what he needed right now.

“Yeah. It’s… well, it’s not fine, but I can manage.”

Xiang nodded. “If you do need to talk to someone… I can grab my collar, if that makes you more comfortable?”

“I’m ok!” he blurted, retreating slightly.

He knew she was trying to help. He appreciated the effort. He wanted to show he was thankful. But he couldn’t. The conversation was stretching out too long, and his discomfort was rising. Especially with how she’d (probably subconsciously) moved slightly closer as they’d talked.

Thankfully the outburst got her to take a couple steps back. “HR should have counselling too, if that helps.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I can’t… like, I really can’t. There’s things… I have to go.”

With that, Ethan grabbed his things and hurried to the door. Against a screaming flight instinct, he forced himself to stop at the door, blurting a stiff ‘sorry’, before hurrying off again.

-

Getting home, he stared at his phone, typing and deleting various attempts to message ‘Julie’. Or… Ilya.

What name should he use to think of ‘her’… him.

What pronouns was he supposed to use?

Did it matter? Did anyone like pronouns? ‘She’ had never seemed to dislike feminine terms, despite being a man. Would he prefer male ones?

Would I prefer fe—no. Nope.

No more thinking about pronouns. Apparently that was too gender-y and woke the whispers back up. Which woke up a new swirl of things his mother called him.

He didn’t know why she’d called him a thief so often, but his mind was awash with her voice repeating it again and again and again and…

Not wanting to drink any more (and having emptied out his meagre stockpile last night), he decided to give a sleeping pill a shot this time. The night seemed lost already, after all.

Unfortunately it saw him wake up at 3am, too well rested to sleep any further. He decided to stare at the ceiling for a bit, studying the shadow cast by the streetlight outside shining through his window.

He did have to wonder why the house had a popcorn ceiling. Hadn’t that fallen out of fashion years before the house had been built?

At least it provided him more stimulation than a smooth and blank ceiling would have. He could search the shadows that resulted for anything that resembled a constellation.

The search didn’t go very well, but at least it bought him about ten minutes of distraction before he checked the time on his phone again. The blast of white-blue light told him it was now 3:22 am.

Inside him he felt a war rage between ‘staying in bed’ and ‘getting up’. Both sides seemed roughly equal in power… or, more accurately in weakness. There was nothing to be achieved by either, and he had to wonder which would prove less appealing.

Until his bladder proved the only part of him capable of a decision right now, and he was forced out of bed, to trudge off to the washroom.

After that he wandered to the kitchen, poking around for anything he could eat. A toastable pastry caught his eye, the allure of warmth and sugar being the best thing he’d thought about in hours.

Once it was heated, he sat on the couch, turning on the tv to mindlessly waste a few hours on infomercials. He was halfway through his breakfast when a knock on his patio window made him jump.

Turning, he saw ‘Julie’ standing there, illuminated by the red glow of the change collar and a pale influence from the streetlight.

Confused, Ethan headed over, seeing relief in ‘her’ eyes as he approached. And a crack in the glass where the redhead had knocked. a reminder that ‘she’ was far stronger than Ethan had ever realised.

“What’s going on? Are you ok?” he asked, noticing there were various tears in ‘her’ dress.

Rather than a spoken reply, the short ‘woman’ pushed into the house, hugging him just hard enough to be a little uncomfortable. He ignored that and took a step back to bring ‘her’ properly inside, closing the patio door behind them.

“I messed up… I messed up,” ‘Julie’ muttered into his chest, Ethan deciding to return the hug at this point.

“What happened?” he asked.

“I was supposed to—but then Mikey—and they grabbed him,” ‘Julie’ mumbled. “They had stun batons. I’m not good with electricity.”

Ethan gave a slow nod, vaguely remembering that there’d been an electric supervillain in town a while back who’d seemed to give Captain Wrecking Ball trouble. Ethan was pretty sure he’d been better at handling the electric attacks than a normal person, but it still wasn’t up to the ‘invincible’ level defense most other attacks hit.

The tears in ‘her’ dress, though. They mostly looked a bit different from how Ethan would expect burn marks from electricity to look.

Apparently ‘Julie’ noticed, and blushed a little. “Er, well, when they shocked me I—they ended up shooting at me, and I maybe threw a car and then they called for backup and… there was a whole operation and I had to run away.”

“And you came here?” Ethan asked, glancing out the window to see if there was any sign of anyone having followed ‘her’.

“I panicked and the Keep was on the other end of town and… and you’ve always made me feel safe, so I… right, but we… I guess I should go,” ‘she’ muttered, turning away.

Ethan felt his heart drop and rushed to get in front of ‘her’. “No. You don’t—I was… it isn’t—”

Stuck for words, Ethan leaned in, kissing ‘her’.

‘She’ melted at the affection, pulling him clumsily over to the couch. Unlike their usual encounters, this time it was ‘Julie’ who was desperate and hungry for his touch. And, also unlike their previous times together, he understood how strong ‘she’ really was. Yet he was allowed to lead.

He soon realised their dynamic was unchanged by the reveal of last week. That he was as in charge as always.

Which surely meant the relationship was, in fact, a boost to Ethan’s masculinity. He could make Captain Wrecking Ball shout and moan like this. The strongest superhero in the city was Ethan’s secret little lover.

Somehow Ethan found himself saying ‘Ilya’ in place of ‘Julie’ as they cuddled after, on a slightly crowded couch. A simple change of names that apparently proved more powerful than even Ethan had expected with how the redhead let out a moan of happiness and curled into him.

It was only as they lay there in the slowly rising light of dawn that the heat of passion flowed away and Ethan realised how many important unanswered questions he had.

“We should wash up,” he whispered, while the redhead kept ‘her’ face buried against him.

“I know…”

“Ilya,” Ethan whispered.

“Mmmm… I like you saying that name,” Ilya mumbled. “Especially in that tone.”

-

It took a bit, but eventually Ilya showered, followed by Ethan. Stepping out of the bathroom, toweling off his hair, Ethan froze at the sight to greet him in the living room. Ilya had returned to his true form. He looked large and imposing even as he sat on the couch, the change collar sitting on the coffee table.

“Is that my shirt? And, uh, track pants?” Ethan asked as he walked over.

He recognised the shirt as an oversized one he used as a pajama top on cooler nights. Only, it was straining to fit over Ilya’s larger than life superhero frame. The sweat pants were just as stretched.

It was definitely making it tricky for Ethan to hold onto his convictions of heterosexuality.

“S-sorry. The clothes I was wearing were ripped and definitely wouldn’t have fit and… I can focus better when I’m like this,” Ilya said, his voice soft as he seemed to try to shrink into himself. “If it’s too uncomfortable for you, though…”

“I…” Ethan paused, struck by how much Ilya’s two sides looked alike.

How the cute blush carried over. Ilya’s body language, the strive for cuteness, if anything seemed stronger in this form.

Maybe it didn’t make sense, but Ethan couldn’t shake the feeling that things were the same as they’d been half an hour ago, even if the size ratios were reversed.

As such, he took a step forward leaning in to give a flustered looking Ilya a quick kiss on the neck.

“I knew from the start you were really a guy, now that you’re properly my girlfriend I’ll just have to get more used to it,” he said, smiling as Ilya turned red enough to stop traffic. “So… what is going on?”

Still flush, Ilya gave a nod, looking at the wall to focus. “I—earlier this month one of the ‘girls’ ghosted on a shift. The madam didn’t think much of it, as long as the collar is paid off she understands it’s a messy job to keep and we lose employees who have to escape the scandal of working at the club all the time.

“But then another employee disappeared last weekend, and the madam realised both of them take the bus and had gone home with their collars on… sometimes the clips are harder to take off, especially if you’re a little drunk. Like bras or necklaces… if you’re hurrying for a bus it can make sense to just figure it out later. Especially with how infrequent the buses are at 3AM,” Ilya explained.

“So, well, she’s the only one other than you who knows who I am, and she, uh, asked me to go catch a bus with my collar on to see if someone was targeting the ‘girls’. But then Mikey… he’s one of the new ‘girls’, wanted to come with me for ‘safety in numbers’ since his car is in the garage and… well… I didn’t know how to say ‘no’ without sounding suspicious and… then…”

“You both got jumped by whoever is behind this,” Ethan said with a nod.

“Mhm,” Ilya replied.

Ethan stared out the patio window, the low bungalow neighbourhood being rather well let even if the sun barely above the horizon.

“Is there a plan now?” he asked.

“I’m working on one,” Ilya replied.