Miracle - Chapter 36: Chapter 36

For the rest of the week, life settled into a rhythm that was, dare I say it, pretty comfortable. I got up early so I could make Ezra a real breakfast before work. He took me to school, with enough time before the first bell that I could meet Grace at the gym. She was supposed to be doing morning yoga with the rest of the student body, but ditched in order to work with me on MMA moves. I spent the day following Maddy around to her classes—except Reproductive Health, since I was banned. But that was a perfect time to head back to the gym and get in a little private practice, without the distraction of Grace's sarcastic commentary.
I was starting to see what people liked about working out. Used to be, I had to spend gym class strategizing how to avoid getting beaten up. Now that I was able to focus on athletics, it was... fun. Never mind that I was uncoordinated and awkward, even hella sore. It felt cool to be punching and kicking like a badass street fighter in a movie. I got all sweaty, which felt like a merit badge proclaiming my hard work.
After the last class got out and I followed Maddy to her fencing club practice, I would either sit and watch the MMA club sparring, or go up to the weights floor and do a set of exercises Grace assigned me. I carried a Ziploc in my backpack for my workout clothes, and made sure to change and apply the blocker formula before Ezra picked me up.
He took me to the institute for the evening, where Dr. Sarias put me through an assortment of tests. They weren't too bad at first. Things like running for five minutes, making me listen to obnoxious loud noises for a couple hours, putting me in a sensory deprivation tank and then randomly flashing bright lights when I'd almost fallen asleep. Afterwards, he asked for urine and semen samples. While he analyzed the data, I tried to find sneaky ways of questioning him on the things Grace had tasked me with finding out. And after Ezra and I went home, I tried the same questions while I was making us dinner. I didn't learn much, but Grace seemed excited by every new detail I could tell her, no matter how small.
Things were nice up until Friday, when Dr. Sarias took me to a smaller testing room and told me that I had to jump back and forth between a tub of ice cold water, and one that was hotter than a jacuzzi.
It was the first experiment he'd done that was actively miserable. I had to sit in the tubs long enough for my core temperature to shift as much as seven degrees. Then he made me get out and switch to the other tub. The abrupt, extreme temperature changes brought on a steady adrenaline rush, and after about the fifth round I was feeling dizzy and nauseous. He let me pause a few moments outside the tubs, shaking and pink-skinned in a pair of dripping boxers, while he compared data on a couple of screens. I was getting tunnel vision.
"Okay, good, we're getting there. Again."
"I can't," I said through chattering teeth. I'd just come out of the heated tub and wasn't actually cold, but I couldn't stop my jaw from trembling. I wasn't sure I could move my feet without falling down.
"Ah, okay."
I thought that meant we could be done. Instead he came over and laid a hand on my shoulder, and levitated me back into the ice water. I was dunked all the way under, though I hadn't had enough time to catch my breath from the initial shock. Frigid water flooded my mouth and nose, so cold it gave me instant brain freeze.
Panic kicked in. I started choking. I thrashed, which I guess he took for rebellion, and he held me under even more firmly.
I was let up all of a sudden, gasping and spluttering, right as the electric doors hissed open and Ezra barged into the lab. "Bo, what the fuck?"
"This is beautiful data, wait 'til you see—"
"Move," Ezra commanded, charging past him as I shot up out of the tank and over his forearm. He thumped me on the back a couple times, sending water gushing out of my throat onto the vinyl flooring, and in the next second he had his lab coat wrapped around me and was cradling me to his chest, trying to get me to look at him. "You okay?"
No. I was scared shitless, and my lungs hurt. But I couldn't tell him that, he already blamed himself enough for all of this. I nodded, because I didn't have enough air to speak.
"Bullshit." He spun on Dr. Sarias, who was tapping away on his tablet. "Weren't you paying attention?"
"Of course I was. We need a full stress response, Ez, you know that. And before you coddle him any more, I need a semen sample or we're going to have to do it all over again."
Ezra cursed and looked down at me. "Connor, can you—"
"Give me the cup," I rasped. No fucking way I wanted to go through that again.
But apparently, part of a 'full stress response' was the absolute inability to come. I kept trying, with every one of the dirtiest, most desperate fantasies I could invent. But nothing worked. All my go-to Ezra daydreams were riddled with sadness now, which wasn't exactly conducive to my end goal. Thinking of Pete brought equally uncomfortable feelings. And not a single picture in that man-candy magazine was doing it for me, not after what I'd just endured. After a while, Dr. Sarias knocked on the flimsy bathroom door. "Never mind, kid. Come on out."
"I can do it," I called, frustration shaking my voice.
"It's too late. The sample will be useless now, so forget it. We'll try again tomorrow."
If Ezra hadn't been out there, I think I would have yelled. I was still shivering and raw from the sensory overload. Breathing hurt. I bit the inside of my lip, pulled my cold, wet boxers back up, and grabbed my watch from the top of the toilet paper dispenser.
The moment I saw Ezra's face when I opened the door, I knew I couldn't say anything. He had that same haunted, guilt-ridden look he'd worn when he'd come to get me after the laser flogging. Like he wanted to peel his own skin off and give it to me in penitence.
I handed the empty cup back to Dr. Sarias. "I don't think this is going to work," I told him, bravely as I could. "When I'm, um, stressed," I was hyper aware of Ezra in my peripheral vision, "my body's not going to... I mean, is there any way we could, uh..."
"This test is essential," Dr. Sarias said firmly. "We have to repeat it until we get the sample, however many times it takes."
"Bo," Ezra snapped in warning.
"That's not what I was going to say!" I looked back and forth between them, trying to keep my teeth from chattering. "I just thought maybe it would help, if..." Oh god, this was going to sound weird.
"If what, Connor?" Ezra asked.
"If... do you think you might be able to, um... Can we ask the Swan to be here?"
Both of them stared at me.
"The Swan?" Dr. Sarias repeated.
"Y—yeah. He kind of makes it easier for me to, uh..." I stared down at my feet, which were so cold my toes felt like little ice cubes clinging to the rest of me. "I think if he was here, maybe I could make it happen."
As soon as I said it, I felt stupid. The Swan was a busy man. A professional. He wasn't going to want to come all the way here so that a traumatized, half-drowned lab rat could masturbate to his pheromones in the next room. It was a dumb idea. I was going to have to figure out how to do this on my own, unless I wanted this tub-hopping torture to be my new normal every night for the rest of my life. I wrapped my arms around my middle, shivering.
A fluffy towel draped my shoulders. Ezra's big hands drew it closed in front of me, tight as a hug. "I'll call him," he said quietly.
I looked up. "Really?"
He nodded, then turned to Dr. Sarias. "We're going home."
I held on to Ezra a little tighter on the ride home. He didn't seem to mind. And once we got back to the apartment, he wordlessly took my backpack, set me on one of the barstools, and made us peanut butter and jelly sandwiches before I could ask what he wanted me to fix for dinner. He sat down next to me and spent more time watching me eat than eating his own food.
He wasn't speaking, but I could feel the worry and guilt rolling off of him, thickening the space between us. I finished my sandwich and said, "I'm going to get ready for bed."
He took our plates and started washing them in the sink, so I went to change into sleep clothes, use the bathroom and brush my teeth. Physically, I was pretty much recovered from the events at the lab. My skin didn't sting anymore, my throat no longer ached. But my stomach was still quivering when I let myself remember it was all going to happen again tomorrow.
It was just discomfort, I told myself. Just heat and cold, not like, outright pain. It wasn't going to kill me. Hell, the flogging had been a million times worse, and if I could make it through that, I could make it through anything. I'd be fine. I could handle this.
As I was climbing into bed, trying hard to quell the simmering dread in my guts, Ezra's massive silhouette filled the doorframe. "Can I come in?"
"Yeah."
He moved into the room slowly, like he still wasn't entirely sure it was okay. And then he sat on the edge of the bed next to me. After a moment, his fingers brushed my forehead. My phone was charging on the nightstand, casting his face in a greenish light.
"Bo won't really harm you. You don't have to be afraid."
"You aren't supposed to tell me that, are you? How am I going to get stressed enough for the test if I don't think I'm about to die?"
He stiffened, so I patted the hand he was holding to my head. "I'm kidding."
"Connor, I..."
"I know. You want me to feel better, but the only way this thing will be over is if I feel terrible."
His fingers captured mine. "I hate this," he said intensely.
"Well, good. If you were enjoying it, I might be tempted to rethink this whole proxy thing." I grinned up at him, hoping to lighten the mood.
"I'd force the council to lift the proxy if I could." He sounded so pained it made my chest ache. I was the one who'd volunteered for this, over his objections. And even with what had happened today, and what I was facing tomorrow, I didn't regret it.
I was just terrified.
"Do you think you could stay with me tonight? Until I fall asleep."
In response, he nudged me over and got up onto the bed. One arm slid under me, and I curled up onto his shoulder and closed my eyes. Ezra's heart beat strong and steady under my ear. His warm, clean scent surrounded me as effectively as a weighted blanket. Now this? This made everything I'd been through, totally worth it.
"Do you think the Swan will help?" I asked sleepily.
Ezra pulled the comforter up over us. "I won't stop leaving him messages until he answers."
I drifted off.
🧬🧬🧬
When my eyes sprang open, I wasn't sure what had awakened me at first. The room was still dark, but my heart was racing and the taste of fear was sour on the back of my tongue. Visions of hissing, fanged snakes were dissolving behind my eyelids, so I must have been having a nightmare. I shifted under the covers and discovered I'd gone clammy under the arms, and around my groin, and all along my hairline. Ugh.
That damn stress experiment was messing with my dreams. I groaned and started to roll onto my back.
A heavy weight dropped across my middle, and I was tugged backward. A deep, rumbling sigh sounded behind me, followed by even breaths that tickled the top of my head. I froze.
Ezra was still in bed with me? He must have fallen asleep too. What time was it? How long had we been like this? Not that I really cared, because as far as I was concerned he could keep holding me like this for the whole night. My pulse shifted gears, pounding now for an entirely different reason, and an uncontrollable smile spread over my face in the dark. Oh my god, he was sleeping with me. Well, next to me, whatever... it was awesome.
I closed my eyes and wiggled a tiny bit in hopes that he'd pull me closer. It worked. His arm tightened up, and his soft exhalations warmed my scalp until it prickled.
This was heaven.
To make things even better, his hand spread against my chest, his thumb moving back and forth over my heart. He nuzzled my hair a little. Man, I was definitely not going to be able to go back to sleep. I laid there trying to keep my breathing even. If he woke up he'd probably insist on going to the sofa bed, and I liked him right where he was.
After a while he shifted so that I could feel his cheek pressed to the back of my head, and his arm slid down so that his hand was covering my stomach. My shirt had ridden up a little, and part of his touch was on my bare skin. I held back a shiver of glee, blood rushing happily in my ears.
I was trying hard to lie still, but my arm started to fall asleep. Carefully, I eased it into a new position. Ezra made a snuffling sound and moved around behind me, his whole body cupping mine. I held my breath as he kept squirming, his arm and hips seeking more comfortable arrangements, and... oh. Oh crap, the lower parts of me couldn't help reacting.
I grimaced, trying to figure out how I was going to deal with this development, especially since the way he had my legs curled on top of his was kind of, well, pinchy. I flexed a bit to try and loosen things up down there.
All of a sudden, his hand dropped down and covered my crotch. Then squeezed.
I bit back a gasp, but it wasn't enough because he kept on doing it. He was rolling me steadily in his palm, over my sweatpants. What the hell?
Was he awake?!
No, he couldn't be. This was just an instinctive response to my Eljo pheromones, because I'd...
"Shit," I whispered, scrunching my eyes shut as waves of pleasure and dismay hit me at the same time. I'd forgotten to reapply the blocker formula before bed. Lying in a nightmare sweat next to Ezra, of course it was affecting him.
I had to wake him up, hopefully without letting him realize what had happened. Maybe I could climb out of bed and say I had to go to the bathroom. He'd probably leave for his own bed for the rest of the night, but it was better than having him freak out on me again. Once I put more of the spray on, everything would be fine. I started to wriggle around reluctantly, pushing the covers back to unpin my legs.  But as I twisted toward him he slid his hand up onto my stomach, and then back down.
Under my sweatpants and underwear.
Just like I'd dreamed at the Swan's house.
Only this time it wasn't a dream. He was really here, and his touch was very real. I clapped a hand over my mouth to keep from moaning. He had me on my back, one of his arms extended under my head, with his torso cuddled tight against my side and his nose in my hair.
Jesus, he felt so good. I couldn't move. It was like he knew, even in sleep, exactly what every stroke felt like. Exactly the speed and pressure to keep the sensations building. My watch was flashing wildly, and I could hear his phone beeping from out in the living room.
I had to stop him, I had to. But then he mumbled my name, his lips caressing the shell of my ear.
It felt like my insides melted, all in a rush. The release I hadn't been able to summon in the lab swept through me in a tidal wave, and in spite of all my attempts to hold it back, a sound escaped my lips much louder than I wanted it to.
I lay there panting, multicolored stars bursting behind my eyelids, feeling a tingling glow spread through my limbs. It was a perfect moment... right up until I heard him say my name again, in a completely different way. Full of confusion and alarm.
"Connor?"
I opened my eyes, and turned my head to see him staring at me. He looked down, along my body, where his hand was buried in my pants. He pulled out like he'd been bitten, which left a trail of wetness up my stomach. He scrambled away from me, off the bed.
"Fuck. Ah, fuck, what did I do?"
"It's okay. It's okay," I said as he held his hand up, covered in my fluid, and looked at it like it had betrayed him. "We fell asleep, it was an accident." He looked like he was hyperventilating, nostrils flaring with every breath. Was he scared, or was he angry? I couldn't tell. "It was just touching, Ezra, it wasn't anything... it was nothing bad." I liked it. A lot.
"I thought it was a dream." He backed up a step, shaking his head. "I didn't realize... oh, fuck."
"You didn't hurt me," I tried to assure him.
"I could have! You don't get it, when I'm with you I'm not—God, this can't happen."
"It's my fault!" Fear welled up as I watched him getting closer to the door. "I forgot to put the blocker on last night. I won't forget again. I'm sorry, Ezra, please."
"You're sorry?" he echoed, sending bolts of misery down into my gut. "Michael's balls, do you realize what could have—? Ah, shit, I can't do this."
"Ezra!"
He vanished down the hall, and before I made it to the living room the apartment door slammed and beeped. I tried to follow him out, but the door wouldn't budge. He'd locked me in.
I banged my fists against the door until they ached, shouting, but it was no good. He was gone. I was alone in his apartment, with damp underwear and bare feet and a cloud of toxic pheromones that had driven him away from me all over again. What was wrong with me? Why hadn't I stopped him when I had the chance? I'd known he was going to react like this, was I a complete idiot?
I slumped to the floor at the base of the front door and ripped the watch off my wrist, pitching it across the room. It struck his poster of the female reproductive system, and dropped down somewhere behind the sofa.
I'd be damned if he was going to monitor my crying this time.
🧬🧬🧬
By the time the door lock beeped open a few hours later, the sun had come up. I had migrated from the floor in front of the door over to the sofa, and wrapped myself around one of the cushions that held Ezra's scent. I couldn't bring myself to go back to the bedroom, but this wasn't all that much better. This entire place was him. His stuff, his life, his space. I was trapped in it.
It wasn't Ruth who entered the apartment, though. It was the Swan. The second he set foot in the entryway, in his sleek white suit and neatly groomed beard, my unruly body twitched and swelled. I despised it all the more.
The Swan closed the door behind him, looked around the room, and made a face. "Merciless Michael, this place has enough sex vibes to fuel an orgy."
He whipped a spray bottle out of his jacket and came toward me like he was fumigating a bug. After he'd coated me with the stuff he started spraying it around the room, too, like air freshener. I didn't think the formula worked that way, but I also didn't care enough to argue.
"No offense, honey, but I'm stepping into the hall for a few minutes to let things settle in here. You get dressed, we have places to be."
Screw that. I wasn't moving from this couch. Ezra was sending the Swan to be my nursemaid now? He trusted the Swan with me, more than himself? What a joke. I guess he didn't care if the Swan and I ended up screwing each other, as long as he didn't have to be involved.
I stayed where I was, motionless and wadded up. When the Swan came back in, he tsked. "Up, up, let's go. Do you want the EBG folks to come fetch you instead?"
I assumed he meant Elioud Biogenesis, though I couldn't summon the will to care. The Swan stood there for a second, then brought one of the barstools over so that he could sit near me—but not too near.
"The experiment they're doing is something dreadful, isn't it?"
I raised my head. "Ezra didn't tell you?"
"He said you needed me. There aren't many circumstances where a healthy teenage boy has trouble producing a sperm sample, so I assume it's serious."
I pulled my knees into my chest and stared at them. The Swan tilted his head after a moment. "That isn't the reason you're out of sorts, though, is it? Oh, my." He crossed one trousered leg over the other. "What is it, sweetness? Ezrael's been too vigorous with you, has he? Ah yes, it can be difficult at first, especially if your man's inexperienced. He should have just said so, I have some things that can help."
"That's not it," I muttered darkly. "Ezra doesn't want me like that."
"Oh, I beg to differ."
I ground my teeth and stared up at the ceiling. "No, I mean he doesn't—his..." My eyes were filling up. I'd run out of tears a while ago, but I guess I'd taken a break from crying long enough that now I had more. "His heart doesn't want me."
The Swan made an exaggerated "oh" face and nodded slowly, then switched to shaking his head. "Mm. Loving a Nephilim is difficult work, isn't it?"
My chin trembled, and he clucked his tongue. "I know, precious, I know. In the end, for creatures like us, love is just another thing we have to figure out how to survive. I wish I had a pocketful of secrets to share, on how to make it easier. But I'm afraid I haven't worked it out all that well myself just yet."
His ice blue eyes were somber, and I was able to wipe the excess wetness from mine as I said, "It's Absalom for you, right? He's your sponsor."
"Yes, Absalom is very dear to me. But even before him, there was another. Niklas. I told you about him, didn't I? We met in Sweden."
I nodded.
"I haven't seen him in many years. Absalom doesn't visit much anymore either. I suppose that does make it less complicated. I'm fortunate these days to have my own separate life. When you're living with them, it can be impossible to escape the pain at times."
I sniffed as my cheeks streaked with fresh tears. The Swan got up from the barstool and came over with a handkerchief, dabbing at my face. "There, there. I know it's a lot of very big feelings, especially at your age. But trust me when I say life is full of feelings and experiences that are even bigger. You may not get to play the role you want, but you're needed in ways you can't imagine."
I scoffed, which was muffled by the handkerchief he'd held to my nose.
"I mean it, sweetness. As you may have noticed, Ezrael's somewhat different from the others around here. Not many people understand him."
Because he wasn't going to take the handkerchief away until I blew, I complied aggressively. I was rewarded with pleased cooing, and he tucked that dirty handkerchief back into his jacket like it was no big deal.
"Listen, that boy needs everyone in his corner that he can get, and he doesn't let many people get close enough. I don't even think he likes me." His wide eyes said that was a mystery he would never fathom. "Which makes the fact that he's asked me for not just one, but two favors on your behalf, all the more interesting. Speaking of which, if we don't get to the institute soon, the creepy doctor's going to come looking for you."
"Ariel?" I'd been lucky enough not to run into Ezra's father yet.
"Heavens, no. The one that's been doing all the poking and prodding."
I smirked in spite of my tears. Man, if the Swan thought Dr. Sarias was unnerving, he should meet his daughter. Dr. Sarias might have no problem holding me underwater for his research, but Grace would do it for fun.
Actually, the one good thing about having to do that stress test again: if it went badly enough, Ezra would have to intervene. Then at least I'd get to see him.
"I'll get dressed," I said.