Archive of Our Own

o.

In the beginning, it had seemed like nothing, so he ignored it in place of more pleasant things: Adam, sex, laughter, television. And if he thought sometimes he was being watched, he attributed it to a natural paranoia bred by years of murder and mayhem. There was so much more to living than he had ever expected, and he was determined to experience it all.

Over time, Adam added touches of his personality to Shatterstar’s minimalist surroundings, his coat and shoes in a pile by the front door, his toothbrush by the sink, an ugly recliner he dragged home after finding it abandoned on the curb. Shatterstar let it happen, and was mostly glad of it.

“That chair is hideous,” Shatterstar had said, trying to block him from entering.

Adam’s grin had been blinding and beautiful. “But think of all the crazy sex we’ll have on it.”

They had sex frequently, often at night, always in the morning. Adam spent so much time at the bar that the owner hired him, too, and they worked together behind the counter, mixing drinks and flirting outrageously with each other and their customers. They finally upgraded the cable.

Adam taught him how to make friends, picking people at random and talking with them, forcing Shatterstar to do the same. Some acquaintances ended there, others moved to the bedroom, and very few led to nights of great food, better wine, and a step deeper into this strange human life.

Adam took him on dates, and bought him random gifts, and kissed him in public. They walked the streets of Madripoor, hands clasped, and got into fistfights with those who took issue with it. Shatterstar learned to love another person, though the love was decidedly different from what he felt for Julio. Less desperate, less urgent, a comforting love that filled him with deep satisfaction.

Months passed, and he almost believed it, that he could be happy, that he could be Ben.

Those hopes and dreams ended in flames.

They were walking home from work, arms draped over shoulders, fingers tangled in hair. He had been laughing, his smile pressed against Adam’s face, when he saw the fire trucks race by. He thought nothing of it, because Madripoor was loud and bright and always on the edge of danger and intrigue. But when they turned the corner, it was their apartment building on fire.

“Fuck,” Adam said, stopping so abruptly that Shatterstar walked into him.

His arms tightened around his knapsack, which now held the entirely of his possessions: his journal, a handful of recently developed photographs, the sweater he had worn to work on the chilly walk in, his wallet. Adam had even less: he had run out of the house with nothing, late.

They watched the building burn, and Shatterstar could clearly see the fire had originated in their apartment and quickly swallowed everything else. Numb, he went through his steps that morning, wondering if he had left a burner on, or placed an item too close to the ancient heaters. But his memory was eidetic, and he knew that neither he nor Adam had caused this devastation.

After two nights in a hotel, they found a new apartment. Their friends donated furniture and clothing, but they bought a mattress together and set it up beneath the window. The television was a gift from their coworkers; Shatterstar had smiled when he saw it hidden behind the bar.

But at night, he couldn’t sleep, even with Adam wrapped securely around him.

The police declared the fire arson.

He and Adam had their first fight, an ugly affair with name calling and angry shouting. “The entire world isn’t fucking out to get you!” Adam screamed in his face during a particularly heated moment, and Shatterstar screamed back, “You don’t know anything about me or my fucking life!” They grabbed at each other, first in violence and then in quiet desperation.

Life went on, and Shatterstar lived as best he could, though his knapsack never left his sight. In the edges of his vision, he saw flashes of people he thought he recognised, but whenever he looked again, the phantoms were gone. Adam never seemed to see them; Shatterstar had asked.

i.

The bus from New York to Boston took under five hours. Shatterstar spent the entirety of the ride staring out the window from beneath the rim of his ratty Boston Red Sox baseball hat. Half an hour into the trip, Julio had suddenly slouched against him, face hidden by the hood of his sweatshirt. Shatterstar could tell by the subtle change in his breath that he had fallen asleep.

When they arrived, Shatterstar shook him awake, ducking away from the fist that shot out.

“Sorry, habit,” Julio murmured, looking up at him, and Shatterstar nodded his understanding.

His first few steps on Boston soil, and he recognised absolutely nothing. He had thought he might, because Ben had loved his city, but the bus station and the surrounding area did not trigger the memories he had been expecting. They grabbed lunch across from South Station.

“So do we have, like, a plan or anything?” Julio asked around his sandwich.

“I thought it would be different,” Shatterstar replied, staring into his soup, “that I would know.”

“We can walk around a bit, see if that triggers anything. Nothing better to do, right?”

Shatterstar looked up at Julio, who gave him a tiny smile, and Shatterstar nodded with renewed determination. He had come this far, against all odds, and he was a creature of instinct. It had saved his life in the Arenas, and later when Mojo had been hunting him. It would save him now.

They finished up their food, and then they walked, Julio trailing a step behind him for the first few hours. It annoyed him immensely that Julio didn’t value himself more, but Shatterstar didn’t feel like he was in a position to lecture anyone on their feelings of self-worth. Julio had been through a lot, suffering a loss even Shatterstar couldn’t imagine. His feelings were valid.

“Nothing?” Julio asked as evening began to settle around them. He had finally caught up.

“I thought I would know,” Shatterstar repeated, frustrated.

They grabbed coffees and resumed walking. Darkness continued to fall, the lights in the streets coming on one by one. Shatterstar had very little money on him, and hadn’t yet asked Julio how much he had. Perhaps if they took turns sleeping in a park somewhere, it wouldn’t be so bad. The people seemed friendly enough. Couples out walking their dogs often nodded in greeting.

He was about to admit that this had all been fruitless when he saw a private school. He had never attended a day of classes in his life, but he had a fuzzy memory of marching up those stairs. “Wait,” he said, grabbing Julio’s arm. “I think … that school looks very familiar to me.”

“I don’t recognise it,” Julio said, “and you made me watch a lot of TV with you.”

That had been one of his fears, that he had seen it somewhere once, but this felt different. The perspective of his memory was odd, as if seen from a much shorter man, or a very young child. He approached the staircase like it might rip out his heart and eat it, before climbing up it.

“He went to school here,” Shatterstar said, certain. “Ben.”

“Probably lived around here, then,” Julio replied. “Dense urban population and shit.”

Shatterstar nodded, his hand on the glass door, peering into the darkened school. The memory was a joyful one; Ben had enjoyed the time he spent here. He had learned a lot, sitting at his desk, never afraid to ask questions. He had been a gifted child, far beyond his classmates.

“This is a nice neighbourhood,” Julio remarked.

“Yes,” Shatterstar agreed. “I want to keep walking.”

So they moved on from the school. Flashes of memory hit in waves, a familiar corner store, a friend’s house, a park where Ben had scraped many knees. His head was throbbing; this was the most he had ever remembered, and it was literally taking his breath away. When he faltered, Julio took his hand and squeezed. “Keep going,” he urged with a tug. “You’ve come too far.”

Just when he though his head might explode, he saw it. A blue door, with ivy hanging over the entrance and climbing up the walls. More familiar stairs, but with an even clearer memory of sitting on the concrete, reading comic books and drinking lemonade, an older woman next to him.

Next to Ben.

“He lived here.”

Julio stepped up beside him. “You sure?”

“There are happy memories in this house,” Shatterstar replied. “He was deeply loved.”

“Lucky kid.”

“Yes,” Shatterstar agreed. They stood shoulder to should for a long time, looking at the house. There was a light on in a room on the second floor, implying someone was home. He gazed at it.

“You wanna see if they’ll let you inside to take a look around? That always works on TV.”

“It is very late.”

Julio tugged his cell phone out of his pocket and checked the time. “It’s not even nine o’clock. I think it would be okay, if you knocked. Just in case of, like, babies or whatever.” Julio looked over at him. “Unless, of course, you’re too chickenshit to go any further. I wouldn’t judge you.”

“Yes, you would,” Shatterstar replied, smiling a little. “I suppose you are right.”

Julio nodded, and followed him up the stairs, standing so close behind that Shatterstar didn’t have any choice but to curl up his fist and knock firmly upon the wooden door. For a long time, nothing happened, and he tried to swallow the bitter disappointment before Julio could see. Just as he was about to turn and leave, the door opened, and a very familiar woman stood there.

The pain in his head that had faded to a dull ache flared to life again, and he stepped back into Julio’s waiting arms, his knees buckling under the sudden agony. Ben’s memories were still there, but there was something else, more recent, more violent, a badly fractured Shatterstar memory. He couldn’t grab onto it, but it was there, behind his eyes, burning a deep wound in his thoughts.

“Spiral,” Julio said in disbelief as she stared at them. “We are so fucking dead.”

Shatterstar, blinded by pain, gave into the darkness.

ii.

When Shatterstar awoke, he was in someone else’s bed, and it was morning. He felt marginally better, though his head still throbbed. He sat up gingerly, looking around. It was a boy’s room, perhaps that of an older child. An aged computer sat on the otherwise tidy desk. Boston Red Sox posters adorned the walls, slightly faded by the sun, and a signed baseball sat on the dresser.

The wooden floor creaked when he stood on it, and he tripped over the air mattress that had been set alongside the bed. Julio’s duffle bag had been shoved in the corner, out of the way, so hopefully Julio was still around somewhere. Unless Spiral had already disposed of his body.

Shatterstar opened the door and stepped out into a narrow hall that led to an even narrower staircase. Carefully, he took each step one at a time, and eventually reached the bottom. Julio was sitting on the couch, back ramrod straight, and Spiral sat across from him, equally stiff.

Just looking at Spiral caused pain to scratch across his brain. He pressed his hand to his forehead.

“What did you do to him?” Julio asked, breaking the silence.

“His memories have been altered,” she replied blandly. “He was stupid to come here.”

“I had no choice,” Shatterstar said, sitting down next to Julio, trying not to look at Spiral. But she was dressed in a sweater and jeans. The sweater created the illusion of two arms instead of six. Dressed like that, she looked almost like a woman and not the monster he knew her to be.

“I realise we are completely at your mercy,” Julio said, “but what the hell is going on?”

“You’ve invaded my home. You’ve probably led him straight to me,” Spiral replied angrily.

Her misplaced anger made him angry. “I did not know you were here. I wanted to see …”

“That’s your problem right there,” she said, cutting him off. “You seem to think you have some right to a life that isn’t yours. You are not Benjamin Russell. You don’t belong here. Go away.”

“I had to come,” Shatterstar insisted. “You can’t possibly understand.”

“Why didn’t you stay in New York?” Spiral hissed. “Couldn’t you at least value his life?”

Julio snorted. “I already tried that argument on him, lady. Good luck making him listen to you.”

Spiral looked at Julio briefly, dismissively, before she turned back to Shatterstar.

“Can you even comprehend what Mojo will do to him if he gets his hands on him? Humans don’t normally interest him, but I guarantee Mojo will make an exception. There isn’t an audience in the multiverse that doesn’t know about your pathetic infatuation with him.”

“I will protect him,” Shatterstar replied, hearing the hollow truth in those four small words.

“Have I mentioned I really hate when people talk about me like I’m not sitting right here?”

“If you’re lucky, they’ll simply kill him. If you’re not, he’ll end up in some chop shop.”

“Your Body Shoppe, you mean,” Shatterstar snapped. “If you harm him …”

“He can’t even defend himself like that Shi’ar halfbreed of yours,” Spiral continued unabated. “Whose life you have also ruined, or did you not bother to tell him that? No? You and I, Shatterstar, are among the few who truly understand Mojo’s depravity. I expected better.”

“This is fucked up,” Julio decided. “And you didn’t answer my question. What is going on?”

Spiral looked like she wanted nothing more than to teleport them both to another dimension. “I owe you nothing,” she said. She turned to Shatterstar again, and he thought her eyes looked wet, though her words were cold. “I am not your mother, and this is not your home. Leave me alone.”

“Mother,” Shatterstar repeated, as it finally hit him for the first time. “You’re Ben’s mother.”

Spiral kept her face expressionless, though her eyes betrayed her. “He was my son, yes.”

“Then what am I?”

“A mistake,” she snapped. “You are the biggest mistake of my life.”

That hurt to hear, though Shatterstar could not understand why. She had done as much harm to him as she had helped him, and he hated her only marginally less than he hated Mojo. But she had been a good mother to Ben, he was sure of that, and she had saved his life without asking for anything in return. He contemplated, briefly, just letting it go and leaving without an answer.

“I think you owe him an explanation,” Julio said before Shatterstar could speak. “He’s all that’s left of Ben, isn’t he? I know Star. He’ll protect Ben, but I think we can agree he’s operating with only half the story here. Maybe if he finally knows, he’ll start focussing on his own life.”

Spiral bowed her head, her silver hair hiding her expression, and Shatterstar realised he was holding his breath. She seemed to be the only one who knew the truth. If she refused to speak …

“I owe you nothing,” she repeated, and Shatterstar felt the air leave his chest.

“We can wait all day,” Julio said, crossing his arms over his chest. “Weeks. Months. Years.”

Shatterstar sat back upon the couch, closing his eyes. This was a nightmare. He had only meant to see this place, to learn a little more about this man whose body he had stolen, whose life he had assumed, and then leave. He hadn’t expected Spiral. There were no clear memories of her.

It jolted him in his place when Spiral began speaking. “I wasn’t always like this. I used to be sane, before Mojo changed me. I had problems before him, I admit that, but it wasn’t like this.”

She shifted in her seat, sitting up higher. “I was obsessed with Longshot. Not my proudest moment, but like I said, I had some problems. Normal human problems. When Mojo created me, he ensured that he also controlled me. I have spent most of my life serving that psychopath. Often willingly, but not always. There are instincts in me that even he could not override.”

She looked directly at him as she spoke, clearly angry, visibly agitated, and he wanted to shake her, to make her understand that he felt the same things. This was his life in shambles, not hers.

“There are few things I won’t do for him. He has eyes everywhere. So when he found out Dazzler was pregnant with Longshot’s child, he had to have the baby. I had the ability to take it.” Spiral clasped her hands together, and Shatterstar forced himself to continuing looking at her even though it felt like his head might explode. She seemed to be telling the truth. “I had never teleported a child out of a woman before. It turned out to be much easier than I expected.”

“Fuck,” Julio breathed.

“But the child was too young. I had told Mojo it was likely too soon, but he was impatient. He’s never been one for delayed gratification. So I took this gasping, dying thing to my Body Shoppe and I did what was needed to preserve its life. I used parts of my own body to supplement his.”

Shatterstar closed his eyes again.

“It took longer than I expected. The child was weak, his human side delaying his recovery. I watched over him for weeks, night and day, and I came to care for the miserable little thing.” Spiral paused, and he forced his eyes open. “Even monsters are capable of love, you see. He was as much my child as he was Dazzler’s by then. Very little of Dazzler remained once I was done.”

Shatterstar wanted to stop her, didn’t want to hear another word.

“But Mojo had plans for him. I had no choice but to provide him with the child he would market as the saviour of an enslaved race. Ratings were down, and the slaves had very little hope left. Who better to play this role than the son of Longshot and an X-Man? By delaying his debut for a century with my mutant powers, Mojo created the perfect hero for a desperate people.” She laughed quietly, bitterly, shaking her head. “They thought they’d been saved, the naïve fools.”

He needed her to stop talking.

“Mojo has never understood the extent of my powers, and I’ve made sure he never will. I created a copy of the child, almost identical in all ways save three. From the original, I removed the star-shaped birthmark from his face so he looked human. And it was only later I would learn the X-gene had somehow degraded in the copy. This mutation saved the copy from my son’s fate.”

Julio sat up straight. “Star’s shitty mutant powers saved his life?”

“His powers manifested differently, significantly weaker, which saved his body from the trauma. Had I known …” Spiral trailed off before shaking her head sharply. “But it wouldn’t have mattered. The third difference was in the soul: the original had a human soul, tied to his body in a way they are not on Mojoworld. The copy was an empty husk, so I created an uemeur for it.”

“I really don’t fucking understand any of that, but okay,” Julio replied.

Spiral glared at him for a moment then resumed her story. “So I took the original back to this dimension, and named him Benjamin, after my father. My mother had been a Russell before she married. They raised Benjamin when I was away on Mojoworld, but when I could, I came back to be with him. I loved my son.”

“You knew what they would do to me,” Shatterstar said quietly.

“Of course I did, but everything I did, I did to save my son. You’re only the copy. You wouldn’t even exist if I hadn’t grown you in a lab. You only continued living through a cruel twist of fate.”

“I am a person,” Shatterstar replied in an odd, cracked voice. It did not even sound like him.

“If that’s what you need to believe.”

“Enough,” Julio said sharply. “You can’t possibly be this cruel. Jesus. And I thought my family was fucked up. Come on, Star,” he said, tugging at Shatterstar’s arm until Shatterstar gathered the strength to stand. He was finding it hard to breath, the ache in his chest almost suffocating.

“If you stray more than a mile in any direction, Mojo will eventually find you and kill you.”

“Fuck you,” Julio said, and Shatterstar almost wept when they stepped into the cool air outside.

iii.

They walked for hours, never beyond a mile from Spiral’s house. Shatterstar barely remembered any of it. Sometimes, he had to stop to catch his breath, the world spinning around him. If Julio had not been there, strong and silent, Shatterstar had little doubt he would have harmed himself. He had never known anger, or grief, like this. To learn his life was worth so little devastated him.

Despite his unnatural birth, he was half human. All this time, he had thought … he hadn’t seen himself in their human eyes. Even among mutants, he had considered himself different. Not necessarily better, though there were few who could match him, but a different breed, always separate. Even when he began to live as a human, he had been so terrible at it, but it should have been a natural thing. He should have known, should have felt it somehow, but he hadn’t at all.

He stopped walking, a hand pressed against his chest, heaving for air.

“Star,” Julio said helplessly, the first words he had spoke since they left the house. Shatterstar looked over at him, realising he could barely see him through the tears. How long had he been crying? He couldn’t remember starting. He stared at Julio, pleading for something he couldn’t name, and Julio, so badly damaged himself, wrapped his arms around Shatterstar’s trembling shoulders. So much comfort in such a simple touch. “We’ll work through this. It’ll be okay.”

“It will never be okay,” he said numbly.

“It feels like that now,” Julio agreed, bringing him down to sit on the curb, and when Shatterstar leaned into him, Julio took the whole of his weight onto his lap, curling around him. “It feels like your life means nothing, and that you would rather die than live with this pain, but it’ll get better. The pain will dull, and you’ll somehow find the strength to wake up every morning.”

Shatterstar squeezed his eyes shut. Tears leaked from the corners. “You didn’t.”

“I’m still here, aren’t I?” Julio squeezed him tightly, gently rocking them back and forth, and Shatterstar felt the first heave of sorrow wrack his body. “Your life has value, Star. You are loved. Adam loves you, and I love you. Nothing has changed. You’re still the same man.”

“I’m a copy of a man,” he whispered. “I’m a mockery of someone else’s life.”

“Don’t believe that, please, don’t,” Julio said, his voice losing composure. Shatterstar felt the heavy drops of tears against the back of his neck. “You’re not defined by your beginning. I’m sorry that you were born like that, but I am not sorry you exist. I’m not. You’re my best friend.”

Shatterstar’s heart split open, and he pressed his hands against his face. “I think I’ve killed you.”

“You haven’t. I’m still here. I’m still fighting. I’ll be stronger with you. I always have been.”

Shatterstar turned his head to look at Julio, seeing first his shameless tears and then the fierce determination in his brown eyes. It was the first time since they had been reunited that Shatterstar had seen anything but desperation in Julio’s bleak gaze. It was that thought which brought the first sob to his mouth, and then he found himself weeping like a child in Julio’s arms.

“I want to live,” he confessed, ripping it out of his body.

Julio squeezed him even tighter. “I know. So do I. I just don’t know how yet.”

It was cathartic in a way. Humiliating on some level, but freeing as well. Julio held him, murmuring sounds of immense comfort, and Shatterstar cried out all of the ugliness and the shame, the endless nights of running, the slow but steady loss of all the happiness and warmth in his life. He had worked so hard, only to be helpless when Mojo took it all away for ratings.

When there were no more tears left in him, leaving a feeling of calm behind, Shatterstar slowly untangled himself from Julio’s grasp. He did not go far, simply sat up and stretched his back, but still close enough to Julio that they were shoulder to shoulder. Julio offered him a fistful of tissues. At the rise of his eyebrows, Julio shrugged. “Some old lady thought we needed them.”

Shatterstar blew his nose, but it was Julio who dried his tears with a gentle swipe of his fingers. That was almost enough to start him crying again, for different reasons, but something in Julio’s gaze stopped him. A familiar sort of longing, a clearness of vision, and when he leaned up, Shatterstar kept very still. The touch of his lips, now familiar, on his mouth, so very gentle.

A second of hesitation, from both of them, and then a fury of movement, the kiss ascending into the frantic type he had seen so often on television. Shatterstar needed to taste every corner of his mouth, needed to feel the solid weight of Julio in his arms. Julio, in turn, grabbed at him, burying his hands in Shatterstar’s hair, open against Shatterstar’s mouth with an eager tongue.

Had they not been in public, it might have gone differently, but eventually they pulled back, gasping for breath. They kept their hands together, fingers locked in a tangle. Julio’s thick hair was a dark halo around his face, and Shatterstar suspected he looked equally as dishevelled.

“I know why I did that,” Julio said with a crooked smile. “I lied before when I said I didn’t, okay?”

Shatterstar matched his expression, and nodded. “Okay.”

A moment of regret for all the time they wouldn’t have together rose up in his chest, but he forced it down. His future had not yet been scripted, though the conclusion seemed inevitable, and for right now, they were safe, if Spiral was to be believed. His instincts told him she was.

“We are seriously boned,” Julio said, as if he knew exactly what Shatterstar was thinking.

“I know, and I don’t know what to do now.”

“We could just stay here,” Julio replied. “A square mile isn’t bad compared to the alternatives.”

“It would make the world very small. There would be so much we couldn’t do.”

“We’d be alive.”

“Is that enough?”

Julio shrugged, lips drawn in a line, and Shatterstar felt helpless yet again. He remembered being so in control of his own destiny, and now his entire existence depended on a woman who had tampered so badly with his life that he didn’t know whether to hate her for every horrible thing he had experienced or be grateful to her that he had even been created in the first place.

It had not been all bad, he reminded himself fiercely. There had been good in his life.

“What do you want to do, Star?”

“Head home.” Shatterstar didn’t catch himself in time, and though Julio raised his eyebrows, he was kind enough to not comment on his slip. “Back to Ben’s house. It’s getting late, and.” He stopped there, because he had been about to say his mother might be getting worried. “It’s late.”

Shatterstar let go of Julio’s hands and stood, turning to walk back to the house, but Julio reached out and caught him by the wrist, stopping him from moving any further. “Hey, are you okay?”

“Fine,” he said, only half lying. “This is a less than ideal situation. She hates me.”

Julio’s voice was soft when he spoke. “I don’t think it’s hate, Star.”

He smiled sadly. “It feels like it.”

They walked back, hand in hand, and it was comfortable, mostly. Any awkwardness from Julio when prying eyes did a double-take at their clasped hands just made Shatterstar love him more. Julio wasn’t an affectionate man, had never been one to act out emotionally, so that he was trying at all meant more than any annoyed glare or muttered curse word under his breath.

Shatterstar was halfway through the door by the time Julio pressed the bell. A subtle reminder of their presence here, but it was too late to back out unseen. Spiral was reading in front of the television. She looked up when they entered the room. “There’s food in the fridge,” she said.

Two neat plates had been made up and covered with plastic wrap. He did not understand her. How she could be so cruel one moment, and the next moment prepare dinner for both him and Julio? In the pens, the food has been grey and tasteless. Nutritional, but it was slop prepared for animals. He had learned to eat like an animal, on his knees, with his mouth lowered to the bowl.

How dare she do this to him now, years too late?

And then Julio’s hand was on his back, fingers spread like a flower. The rage, white hot, cooled, but he found he wasn’t hungry at all. “You have to eat,” Julio said, when he stepped back. “I don’t care what you say, but I know you’re not fully healed yet. You need your strength, Star.”

“I feel fine,” he said hollowly. “I just want to go to sleep.”

“It’s not hate,” Julio repeated quietly. “And you’re not sleeping until you’ve eaten, okay?”

“I can’t look at her,” he whispered.

“Then we’ll eat in here, okay? Just the two of us. And then you can sleep. You need that, too.”

Shatterstar nodded, too numb to argue, and Julio rose on his toes, pressing a kiss to his mouth. Shatterstar curled his hand around the back of Julio’s neck and held him there, their foreheads bent together, touching. They breathed in unison, and slowly, the numbness began to subside.

“Thank you.”

“Always,” Julio said.

oo.

Even when his life resumed its normal course, the feeling of impeding doom never went away. Madripoor, which he had begun to think of as home, lost much of its lustre, and he began to notice how run down and dreary the city was. All the people living on the streets, with nothing. All the random violence in the streets. All the other unhappy anonymous faces passing him by.

He learned keep his thoughts to himself, because Adam reacted with exasperation and disbelief. They still had happy moments, but they, like Madripoor, were tarnished now by a bleaker reality. He supposed this was a natural progression of a human relationship, but it still made him sad.

It wasn’t that his possessions had meant that much to him. Much of the art on his walls had been of images he had not understood nor connected to, though the artists had insisted he should. It was that someone had maliciously taken his things from him, before he was ready to let them go.

He had spent his entire second pay cheque on that television.

He started running at night, after work, in the quiet hours before dawn. Adam, who preferred strength training, often chose to stay behind and head directly to bed. Shatterstar would creep in after his run, freshly showered, and slip under the sheets with him. Adam rarely ever woke up.

Small things started happening. Innocuous things. Someone repeatedly stole their mail, causing bills, so meticulously tracked when life had been less busy, to go unpaid. Complaints at work, though his performance had not changed. And a man tried to mug him outside the apartment.

“I hope you beat the living shit out of him,” Adam said.

Shatterstar had.

Such small things, vaguely annoying, mildly disruptive. It made him more paranoid, yet it did not prevent him from becoming careless. He hadn’t even noticed, slipping into this human life, that he no longer brought his swords everywhere. He often didn’t touch them for days at a time.

So the first time he was attacked, he was unarmed. He had let his guard down and paid dearly.

He had been out running, weaving through the tree-lined paths. He passed a couple pushing a cranky baby, a group of loudly intoxicated teenagers, a single man walking a large dog. It was quiet and peaceful, and he almost missed it. A familiar figure, unexpected enough to force him into a complete stop, standing under a street light. He felt immense relief wash over him.

The warrior he had been would have been more suspicious, but he was no longer that man.

“Julio,” he said, raising his voice, a hand outstretched in welcome. The figured mirrored his movements, moving toward him, arm out. Their hands slid into a firm handshake. Shatterstar had a million questions. “What are you doing here? Did Adam tell you I was out here?”

One moment, happiness beyond description, and the next, blood everywhere, in his mouth, his eyes. He stood there, in shock, still griping the hand he held, almost half a person attached to it. The rest lay a foot away, all blood and gore and the most terrible sight he had ever seen. He breathed harshly, feeling the air rip from his throat, and he let go. Julio fell heavily to the ground.

Look at him, Shatterstar told himself. Look closely. Be rational.

Inside, he was dying, but he forced his eyes to focus on the fallen body, cataloguing everything.

The face was an exact copy.

They had surrounded him, and he hadn’t even noticed. And worse, they were laughing at him. He could barely hear them, too numb to process such a cruel thing, but he knew that sound. It was the laughter of a disposable people who did not value life because life did not value them.

And he knew. Knew that his life as he had been living it was over. Because he knew.

Mojo.

Look at him, Shatterstar told himself again, and he wiped the blood from his eyes and looked. Looked and realised the body was wrong. Missing Julio’s numerous scars, clearly, but more than that, the index fingers were too long compared to his ring fingers, the belly button pushed outward. It was in the knobs of his knees, the texture of his skin, the curve of his shoulders.

Everything about him was wrong.

If they had meant to torment him, they had failed. He knew every inch of Julio’s body.

He was badly outnumbered, and he was unarmed, but he could still fight. What choice did he have? He couldn’t reason with them. Only the most gifted would have the words. The rest would be nonverbal, especially if they had spent their entire lives in the pens. He had learned English by listening to Mojo’s broadcasts of the X-Men. He had learned Cadre only upon his escape.

He had learned Spanish by watching television.

When they moved, they moved together. He was so badly outnumbered. He twisted through the air, up as far as his legs would send him, and landed behind one of them. He snapped her neck. Her sword was lighter than his were, made of a poor quality metal, but it was sharp enough to remove a head. He killed three of them in one swoop of his sword. He took a second weapon.

They kept attacking him, coming from all directions. He lashed out blindly, lacking all of his usual grace. He did not escape injury, because he could not escape their numbers. He jumped and arched and turned, dodging what he could, minimizing the damage he couldn’t avoid. At one point, he came down heavy beside the mimic’s grotesque body, slipping in the pool of blood.

Even though he could see through the lie, it looked so much like Julio.

He hesitated, a mistake, because he had lost track of where he was and landed in the one place guaranteed to distract him. They pounced on him immediately, the few remaining. One of them grabbed his hair and dragged him across the slick ground to a more open area. A boot came down on his face, and he grabbed at the offending leg, pulling the flailing body onto the ground.

He ripped out its throat bare-handed.

He writhed and fought, slashing out with his swords, trying to get back up, but the remainders would not let him stand. They stabbed at him, and kicked at him, and spit at him, but he did not stop moving, looking for leverage, struggling to turn and push up onto his knees. One fell heavily onto the ground and his waiting sword, and it was quick pull to slice through his torso.

A grab of his hair that almost scalped him, and he kicked out, getting one of them in the groin. A conversation he had with Julio once about being anatomically correct, suddenly remembered, and he found himself empowered by the memory. He attacked the ankles of those he could reach, dismembering two of them. How many, he thought frantically. How many left?

Focus.

He counted. Four, only four that could still fight. The others were either dead or dying. He flipped onto his belly and pushed up, bucking one of them off his back. Another stuck a sword through Shatterstar’s thigh, causing him to roar in surprise more than pain. The one that had his hair yanked it again, and Shatterstar pulled back. A flash of a sword, followed by a tear of flesh.

Blood poured down his face, stinging his eyes. He didn’t dare pull again, so he reached up and sliced his sword through his hair, taking a fair amount of scalp with it. He felt backward, landing heavily, and narrowly missed a sword in his belly. Almost blind, he struck out and hit something.

Another body fell to the ground.

Two, two more, and then it would be over. He got one by accident, aiming for a leg but somehow getting the head instead. The last one hesitated, eyes darting frantically around, clearly looking for an escape, and Shatterstar noticed how young he was. Probably fresh from the pens and desperate for life, but Mojo would never let him return to Mojoworld alive, without glory.

Shatterstar drove his sword deep into his heart, and held him as he died.

And then it was quiet. He allowed himself a moment to appreciate what he had done.

He limped to the path then walked for half a mile before he found a washroom. He shoved the tip of his sword into the lock, breaking it. Inside, he stared in the mirror. He barely recognised himself. He had accidentally removed two large patches of flesh on his head. And his hair, well.

It would grow back.

In the stall furthest from the door he found a nest of dirty clothes. He took three cotton tee-shirts and a baseball hat. Flipping it over, he saw it was for the Boston Red Sox. Flickers of happy memories danced at the corners of his vision, memories of another man. He smiled grimly.

Looking in the mirror, he rearranged the mess of his scalp, occasionally wiping the blood from his forehead, and settled the hat over his head. He rolled down his running shorts then tore the tee-shirts into strips. He tightly bandaged the wound in his leg then checked for other injuries.

They were numerous.

He washed the blood from his skin then cleaned up. When he was satisfied, he opened the door and stepped out into the glow of the rising sun. He limped to a nearby bench and sat down. He looked over at the clearing where he had fought; the bodies and blood had all disappeared.

Like it had never happened at all.

He was not surprised.

He watched the sun come up, quiet and contemplative. He savoured the feel of his body healing.

Adam showed up later, racing down the path. He slid to a stop, putting a hand to his mouth. “Oh, god, Star.”

“Hello,” he said, staring at the sky. He flinched when Adam reached for him.

Adam shrugged out of his sweater, wrapping it around Shatterstar’s shoulders. It was only then that he noticed he was shivering. “We need to get you to a hospital.” Adam was speaking rapidly, almost incoherently. “Shit, who did this? I’ll kill them. Fuck, what can I do?”

“I’m fine,” he assured him.

“You’re in shock,” Adam said, reaching for his hat, but Shatterstar pulled back.

“Don’t,” he said, harshly, pushing Adam away. At Adam’s expression, Shatterstar softened. “It’s the only thing holding my scalp to my skull.” Hurt turned to horror, and Shatterstar had to remind himself that Adam didn’t have enhanced healing powers. That Adam didn’t know just how far his body could be pushed, how much it would take to break him. “It just needs time.”

“What can I do?” Adam repeated.

“Sit with me.”

Adam complied without another word. They enjoyed the sunrise together, hands tightly clasped. Eventually, Shatterstar stopped shaking so badly, and he became more aware of his surroundings. Early morning joggers couldn’t hide their shocked reactions to his appearance.

“How did you find me?”

Adam turned to him and smiled sadly. “Star, my mutant power involves cutting people to shreds and lighting their blood on fire. It’s weird, but I can identify people by the smell of their blood. When you didn’t come home, I went out looking. It didn’t take long before I could smell you.”

“It took long enough,” he replied, without malice, but Adam visibly flinched.

“I’m so sorry …”

Shatterstar looked over at him. He felt strangely removed from the entire situation. “Don’t be. It was not your fault.” He brought Adam’s hand to his mouth, and kissed it. This hand had touched every inch of his body, coaxing enormous pleasure from parts of him he hadn’t thought existed. “Adam, I appreciate everything you have done for me, but I cannot do this any longer.”

Adam, to his credit, said nothing.

“Mojo has clearly decided I am interesting to him again,” Shatterstar explained, like speaking to a young child. “I know him. I know what will attract the highest ratings. You will be irresistible to him. His strength is in numbers. My people are disposable, like garbage, and numerous, like cockroaches. Your mutant power is impressive, but even you cannot take on an unending army.”

“You’re asking me to leave you.” The disbelief in his voice was clear.

“I’m asking you to live.”

“You’ll die,” Adam said, barely more than a whisper. He took a deep breath. “Do you have any idea what you look like right now? I’ve seen corpses better looking. You’re bleeding from fucking everywhere. You lived this time, but what about next time? Or the time after that?”

“I’ll be fine,” Shatterstar replied, hoping his lie was convincing. He hoped it would be true, but after the events of that night, he was less sure than he had ever been that he could beat Mojo. “These are my people. I know them. I will be okay.” Adam’s expression was heartbreaking, so he looked away. “You must return to the Shi’ar Empire. Mojo would not dare touch you there.”

“I won’t. I would never be able to live with myself. And I fucking hate the Shi’ar Empire.”

“If you will not go, I will kill you myself. It will be more humane.”

Adam placed his hand on Shatterstar’s face, turning his head. “You’re serious.”

“Those are your choices. If you feel anything for me, as my friend, you will do what I ask.”

“Star, I can’t. I can’t do what you’re asking. I don’t leave friends to die.”

“Please,” Shatterstar said, curling his fingers around Adam’s wrists, “please.”

But it was only when Mojo attacked him directly, almost killing him, that Adam agreed. His injuries were severe, and he had become a hindrance. Adam had not reacted when Shatterstar told him that. They both knew the truth, and Adam had done enough. Shatterstar stayed with him in the hospital, sleeping in a chair, and made the plans that Adam couldn’t make himself.

His jaw had been wired shut.

iv.

On the second day, they made plans to leave, but when Julio was in the shower, Spiral walked up behind him. He thought she might have plans to kill him and put them both of out of this misery, but she simply said, “you can stay as long as you want.” When he turned around, she was gone.

And because they had no other options, they stayed. Shatterstar hated feeling desperate.

For the most part, he tried to avoid Spiral, though it proved to be almost impossible. She rarely spoke to him, but there were moments, strange moments, when she would do wildly out-of-character things, like pointing out the notches in the wood that tracked Ben’s growth or leaving a stack of photo albums for him to look at. He accepted these things gratefully, but he still couldn’t look at her without pain. She made him profoundly sad, and he did not understand why.

She never spoke to Julio at all, and he seemed to prefer it that way.

The first few days were aimless. As Julio’s request, he spent time most of his time resting on the couch, feet in Julio’s lap as Julio read aloud from the stack of novels they had found in Ben’s room. They watched TV. Spiral came and went without a word, and spent a lot of time alone.

Outwardly, his body looked fully healed, save for the pink scar that ran from sternum to groin. It itched, and Julio slapped his hand away whenever he caught him picking at it. Inside, Shatterstar was weak. Walking up the stairs too quickly winded him badly, and he struggled to lift heavy things. His left arm was significantly impaired compared to his right. His fingers often felt stiff.

At night, they slept in separate beds, Julio on the mattress on the floor. They both slept poorly, Julio too much, Shatterstar barely at all. More than once, Shatterstar screamed the entire house awake, and he would have been humiliated except Julio had seemed to expect it. Each time, the lights had come on in the hall and footsteps had padded down the hall, but she never came in.

Julio was affectionate with him, and Shatterstar tried to be patient. It was very difficult. Adam had been easy to get into bed, one look and Shatterstar would know exactly what he wanted. Julio was harder to read. When they kissed, Julio was clearly aroused, but it never went any further. Shatterstar did not pressure him. When Julio finally came to him, it would be willingly.

It was a comfortable life and a much needed period of recovery, but it was simply not Shatterstar’s style to lie around all day. One morning, he awoke especially early and decided to run. Julio had been less than eager to join him, but Shatterstar thought it might help him sleep better.

The run ended prematurely with Julio in the bushes, violently throwing up, and Shatterstar holding the stabbing pain in his side, wheezing, almost drowning from the sweat pouring down his face. Julio called him a sadist, to which Shatterstar agreed, but they ran every morning after.

In the afternoons, they did strength training exercises using items they found around the house. Julio complained about that, too, but he did them anyway. Together, they became stronger.

In the evenings, they walked, hand in hand. Shatterstar began to tell Julio about his life in Madripoor, starting from the very beginning. The first night sleeping in his very own apartment. How nervous he had felt in the bank waiting to set up his first bank account with the identity of the man whose body he now resided in. The sense of satisfaction with his first real pay cheque.

Julio listened, and never told his own tales or asked a single question until the sixth night. The question was totally unrelated to the story; he hadn’t even begun to tell Julio how he lost his life.

“Is Adam dead?”

The question startled him badly, and he took too long to reply. “No. He went back to the Shi’ar Empire.” At the murderous look on Julio’s face, Shatterstar quickly added, “at my request. He was … he stayed as long as he could, until they … my body could handle it. His could not.”

“I wish I had been there. I mean, not like I am now, but how I was before.”

“In my nightmares, you are there.” It came out soft, and he felt his mind drift toward the terrible memories he tried so hard to forget. It was the squeeze of Julio’s hand that brought him back. Shatterstar shook his head. “It wouldn’t have mattered. The situation was unwinnable.”

“You wouldn’t have been alone.”

“I wasn’t. I had Adam for much of it.”

Julio’s teeth chewed into his lower lip. “You’re making it really easy to be jealous of him.”

Shatterstar smiled, kissing the back of Julio’s hand. “We are friends, Julio, good friends, but we were honest with one another from the start. Adam knew my heart was otherwise engaged.”

Julio’s mouth tightened into a thin line. “You sleep with all of your friends?”

“Only the attractive ones.”

Julio snorted at the admittedly lame joke, and Shatterstar’s smile widened against Julio’s skin. With a twist, Julio turned his hand and cupped his face, laying his thumb on Shatterstar’s mouth. “So how’s that supposed to make me feel, huh? I seem to remember you turning me down flat.”

Delivered flippantly, like he didn’t care, but Shatterstar knew differently. “You weren’t ready.”

“I’m ready now,” Julio replied.

“Are you?”

Julio nodded solemnly.

“Then I will sleep with you.”

Julio smiled, but didn’t say anything else, just started walking again, their hands separating. Shatterstar watched him for a moment then jogged after him to catch up. He didn’t know whether to start talking again, or simply keep quiet and wait. Julio seemed to have more to say.

Shatterstar’s instincts proved correct. “Is that one of the reasons you left?” Julio asked.

“It was the only reason I left,” he replied, honestly.

“That was shitty of you, leaving like you did. For the record,” Julio added, voice too even to be flippant, though Shatterstar suspected he was trying to act like it was nothing. “I mean, you could have said something. I could have been there for you. I was feeling the same things, you know.”

“No, I didn’t know,” Shatterstar replied. “That was the problem. Human emotions are baffling.”

Julio smiled a little. “You get a free pass because you’re half-alien. I don’t get that excuse.”

“Adam was good for me,” Shatterstar said. “And I will be good for you.”

“No complaints so far,” Julio replied, smile blossoming into a full slice across his face. Shatterstar’s heart felt like it might explode in his chest. He laid his hands on Julio’s face and kissed him deeply beneath the streetlight, mapping every corner of his happy, grinning mouth.

They walked home quicker than usual, back to Ben’s house. The windows were unlit, which was good. It was easier to pretend that nothing else existed in the dark, that this wasn’t the house of a villain, that monsters weren’t waiting in the shadows. It was just him and Julio, together.

At last.

This did not fix anything. Shatterstar knew that, and he knew Julio wasn’t naïve enough to believe that either, but if this human life had taught him anything it was that if he wanted something and it was freely given, he had to take it, especially if he had nothing left to lose.

In Ben’s room, they did not turn on the light, but kept the blinds open so moonlight spilled into the dim room. They undressed each other reverently, revealing their bodies by inches. Shatterstar had seen it all before, of course, but never so freely shared, never with anticipation.

“Have you been with a man before?” Shatterstar whispered in Julio’s ear, once they were naked.

“No,” Julio replied, leaning into him. “So if I’m not some sex god like Adam, it’s not my fault.”

“I will make it good for you,” he promised, kissing Julio’s mouth. “Adam was a good teacher.”

Julio made a face, flustered, annoyed, but also pleased, and allowed Shatterstar to walk them back to the bed. With Julio spread out beneath him, Shatterstar barely knew where to touch first. So many lessons quickly forgotten. It was like he had never seen an aroused man before. Sensing his hesitation, and likely mistaking it for something it wasn’t, Julio reached for him.

“You’re so beautiful,” Shatterstar breathed, kissing Julio’s fingertips.

“You have to stop saying shit like that,” Julio replied, wonderfully aggravated.

After that, it was easy. A touch here, a touch there, and mouths wherever needed: over lips, on bellies, between thighs, around cocks. Julio almost knocked him off the bed when Shatterstar first took him in his mouth, sucking hard, enjoying the musky taste of him. He had a lovely cock.

Julio was an easy-going but adventurous lover, not nearly as reticent as Shatterstar expected. He gave terrible, enthusiastic head, which had them both laughing, grateful they were alone. And though his mouth needed some practice, his hands were knowledgeable and self-assured. He stroked Shatterstar into a fury, until he was a writhing mess on the bed, toes curled in the sheets.

Shatterstar struggled to remember how everything felt, and Julio seemed equally desperate. Just in case, their bodies seemed to say, pressing and sliding together, slick with sweat. Just a little longer, just one more time. Shatterstar wanted a million times, unending days of peace, and a life with Julio in which they could be happy together. He would do anything, to have all of that.

v.

Days slid by, filled with exercise, sex and chores around the house. They celebrated Julio’s twenty-third birthday with a small cake that Shatterstar made. It was lopsided and badly undercooked, but Julio said it was delicious. They brought a piece to Spiral, who thanked them.

On the surface, life seemed good, but inside, their world seemed to be going askew again. Spiral returned one night, visibly injured, and after nasty words between all three of them, Shatterstar found himself cleaning the worst of her injuries with rubbing alcohol as Julio bandaged her up. His head throbbed, but he ignored it. The pain seemed to slowly be diminishing with time.

“He knows,” she said, staring at her face in the mirror. “He knows someone is hiding you.”

“Does he know it’s you?”

“Not yet,” Spiral replied, not even flinching as Shatterstar wiped the blood from her split lip. “My spells are holding, but the fighters he’s sent to find you are difficult to control. Little more than animals. They make for poor television, but he’s almost frantic with the idea of losing you.”

“He seemed pretty intent on killing him,” Julio said, “the last time he found Star.”

“It was a glorious final episode,” Spiral agreed, smiling grimly, “up until the end, anyway.”

The entire conversation made Shatterstar angry, and he slammed the bottle of rubbing alcohol on the counter before striding out of the bathroom. Julio did not make him talk about it, just suggested they go outside and work on the house. With Spiral living between dimensions, it had fallen into disrepair. They knew nothing about home maintenance, which didn’t stop them.

They started with small things, like the gardens. The look on Julio’s face had been a mixture of relief and sorrow when he pushed his hands into the dirt for the first time. Shatterstar understood his pain and wished he could take it away or make it better or anything other than silently watch Julio’s mute suffering. Not surprisingly, Julio turned out to have a natural hand at gardening.

The eaves trough needed to be cleaned, which Shatterstar approached with enthusiasm, scrambling up onto the roof. Julio was less willing. “I’m not fucking going up there,” Julio said, shaking his head, but after fifteen minutes of silent judgement from Shatterstar, he climbed up the ladder. “If I break my neck, I expect you to care for me for the rest of my fucking life.”

“Deal,” Shatterstar said, grinning.

It became obvious that the roof needed to be re-shingled. Shatterstar decided to do it himself, despite Julio’s protests, but it seemed only right to ask Spiral first. “Just don’t screw it up,” she said, eventually, looking at them like they were insane. “Use my debit card for the supplies.”

It was hard work. Shatterstar spent a day pouring over library books, memorizing everything. Theoretical knowledge had always been easy for him. Given enough time, he could fix anything in existence, from a broken wristwatch to an interstellar vehicle. This annoyed Julio greatly.

“I’m the one she’s going to kill if it leaks,” Julio said, the morning they started, bandana tied around his head, pushing his hair off his face. He looked very attractive, but distracting as well.

“I’ll show you how,” Shatterstar promised, pushing back his hair with one hand, putting on his Boston Red Sox hat. “It will be an excellent workout, too,” he added, ignoring Julio’s snort.

Shirts were abandoned quickly. The roof itself seemed to be in good shape, no signs of holes or water leakage, which made the job easier. They worked tirelessly for three days, removing the old shingles and replacing them with new ones. Much time was spent showing Julio how to do the work, but Shatterstar did not mind. It was worth it to see the pride Julio took in his results.

They also took frequent breaks, and began to meet the neighbours. He always introduced Julio as his boyfriend, and very few of them even reacted. Most of them assumed he was Ben, and he did nothing to correct them. Newer neighbours, who had never known the boy, called him Star. “Old college nickname,” Julio explained sagely, and didn’t understand why Shatterstar laughed.

It was through the neighbours that he began to learn a little more about Spiral. They all called her Rita with obvious affection. The oldest neighbours remembered her first as a rebellious teenager, moved to Boston from the Midwest against her will, then as a woman. They remembered Ben as a baby, when she first brought him home, and watching him grow into a happy, friendly child.

They confirmed that he had been mostly raised by his grandparents. The grandfather had died when Ben was still a young boy, but the grandmother had died two days before he and Julio had arrived on Spiral’s doorstep. Though it explained some of her actions on that first night, it did not, in Shatterstar’s opinion, excuse them. He tried to remain angry, but it became harder.

He had never had to consider Spiral as a woman capable of love, or grief.

He no longer knew how he felt about her.

At night, they continued their walks. Shatterstar’s story became grimmer, which he warned Julio of, but Julio insisted he wanted to hear everything. It was hard, to tell him of things better left forgotten. The first time he was attacked was especially hard and took an hour to get through. He kept trailing off and losing his place, but Julio urged him on with gentle, thoughtful questions.

In turn, and likely to give him a break, Julio began to speak of his own life. His time in X-Corporation, including the mission where he had almost died alongside Darkstar save for an unexpected immunity. “Sometimes,” Julio confessed, “I wish I had died there. Before M-Day.”

He spoke of waking up one day, and immediately feeling the difference, the loss, the emptiness. Of turning on the TV and watching the reports of mutants being de-powered across the world, and the despair that followed. How easy it had been, to decide to end his life, and the thoughtful notes he had written to people who mattered to him. Shatterstar, Wolfsbane, his madre.

He also spoke of when things went horribly wrong, or right, depending on the point of view. How his careful plans resulted in a crowd, a dozen police officers, and news coverage. How humiliated he had been, and how determined he had been to try again, except his team mates put him on suicide watch and insisted on spending every waking moment with him for weeks.

“I eventually agreed not to kill myself if they would just fucking leave me alone.”

Shatterstar smiled sadly. “I am grateful to them, even if they annoyed you.”

“So am I,” Julio admitted, squeezing his hand. “But don’t fucking tell them that.”

It was on one of their walks that he noticed a figure in the distance. He stopped abruptly, putting a hand on Julio’s chest and stepping in front of him. Though the figure was directly in front of them, he did not seem to notice them though he was clearly looking around, clearly on the hunt.

“How far away are we from the house?”

Julio checked his phone, which they used to track their movements. “We’re pushing it. Why?”

“That man over there, he’s from Mojoworld.”

“How can you tell?”

“The movement. The way he walks, like he expects people to be watching. The way he holds himself, like he wants to be seen from the best angles. We don’t move like humans. You’ve noticed it, too, even if you do not realise what you are seeing,” Shatterstar explained quietly.

“It looks like whatever Spiral did to this place is holding. That’s good, isn’t it?”

“They’re too close,” Shatterstar murmured. “We must head back. Now.”

They walked briskly back to Spiral’s house. She was on the couch, looking grim, and Shatterstar realised that she already knew. He wasn’t ready for it to be over. There were windows that needed to be replaced, a walkway that needed re-bricking, a door that needed fresh paint. There were nights to be spent with Julio, worshipping his willing body, enjoying the urgency of his desire.

There was so much life he still had left to live.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I tried.”

“There must be something I can do,” he insisted, feeling Julio’s arms snake around his belly. “Something to make Mojo lose interest. He must know I cannot win against him. He destroyed my swords weeks ago, and my mutant power has always been too weak to be entertaining.”

“Can you stop fighting?”

“I cannot go back to Mojoworld,” he said. “I cannot be a slave again.”

“Then die,” she said evenly, but finally, finally after weeks, he could seen the agony in her eyes.

“I want to live.”

He paused, a thought forming in his head, and he knew the answer. He knew deep down in his gut that this was the only solution. Everything she had told him had led him here, and she would help him, because she had helped him this far, and she loved him. He understood that now.

“Make me human.”

“Star,” Julio said sharply.

He loved Julio, but he could not take his opinion into account on this matter, so he ignored him. “Copy me and remove anything that gives me the power to fight him. Transfer my uemeur to that body. You said that he isn’t interested in humans, so make me human. It’s my best chance.”

“I’ve already transferred your uemeur once,” she said. “There are risks. It’s very dangerous.”

“But you can do it?”

Spiral hesitated. “Yes. But there are things you still don’t know, that might change your mind.”

“Tell me,” he replied, feeling Julio move away from him. He did not blame him for his anger.

“They did not abandon you,” she said. “Your friends. The X-Men. Everything that happened to you was scripted from the moment you left Mexico. Your life has been in production a lot longer than you realise. Mojo wanted you isolated, which is why no one helped you. They never received your messages, because your calls never reached them. They could help you now.”

Julio’s voice was quiet behind him. “You called the X-Men?”

“Of course I did,” Shatterstar said without looking at him. “I wanted to live.”

“They could help you now,” Spiral repeated. “I’ll go to them myself and explain everything.”

It was tempting, but he knew he would spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder. Mojo could not be killed, because there were always others waiting in the wings. He didn’t know the source, and he suspected Spiral didn’t either. He understood now, how much she hated him, even if she was bound to serve him. She was happy in this life; everyone who knew her believed that.

But as long as Mojo lived, she was as trapped as he was.

“Can Mojo be defeated by the X-Men?”

“No,” she replied. “There will always be another. Even I don’t know how to stop that yet.”

“Then this is the only permanent solution.”

“It may not be enough,” she warned him. “He might still want you if you’re human”

“I am willing to take that chance,” Shatterstar said. “There is no dishonour in being human.”

“I think your boyfriend disagrees.”

Shatterstar looked over to Julio, who stared back at him, mute agony etched in every line of his face. Cautiously, Shatterstar approached him and stopped in front of him. “Please,” he said. “Please support me in this. I can do this without you, but I don't want to. I want to be with you.”

Julio placed a palm on Shatterstar’s chest, over his heart. Shatterstar folded his own hands over it, holding it tight. “I need you to say it. If I wasn’t human, would you still make this decision?”

“Yes,” he said without hesitation.

Julio nodded, accepting even though he clearly disagreed. Shatterstar wrapped his arms around Julio’s shoulders, holding him tightly, and tried to make him feel better about this decision. It wasn’t an ideal resolution, but it was enough for him. In time, he hoped Julio would understand.

“How long will it take to grow the body?”

“Years,” Spiral replied. “You won’t even notice it. I’ll be back tomorrow to do the transfer.”

He nodded, nervous despite himself. Spiral stood up and walked over to him, placing the heel of her hand against his head. There was a flash of bright light. At first, he didn’t understand what she had done, but then he noticed the pain he had felt since first laying eyes on her was gone.

“Now you know everything,” she said, vanishing in another burst of light.

Shatterstar touched his forehead almost reverently. It wasn’t just his memories, but Ben’s as well. Of Spiral, as a mother, as a woman. Pieces filled in neatly, answering various questions he hadn’t even known he had. Memories of a dead man now, as his body would cease to exist soon.

“So tell me,” Julio said, “make me understand why this is the only way to save you.”

“I will,” Shatterstar promised. “I will tell you everything.”

Neither he nor Julio slept that night. In the morning, they watched the sunrise together.

ooo.

Once Adam was gone, Madripoor was no longer safe, so he left with only a knapsack on his back and swords at his side. He intended to go to Boston, where Ben had lived, to see it for himself. He had planned to anyway, and if things turned out poorly, at least he would have no regrets.

It would not be an easy journey.

They hunted him like an animal. The situation demanded constant vigilance, so he slept as little as possible and remained almost entirely off the grid. After arriving in South America by freighter, he travelled mainly by foot and rail, running and walking when he had the strength, hitching a ride on a train when he needed rest. He had very limited resources to work with.

When they found him and attacked, it was always in great numbers. It put him at a significant disadvantage, though he more successfully fought back with his swords always at the ready. The injuries were smaller, less catastrophic, than the first attack, but they were constant and unending. Whenever he came into the open to get food, they seemed to be there, waiting for him.

Hyper aware of his own mortality in a way he never had been before, he began to notice himself slowing down. The difference could be measured in seconds, but he took longer to respond to their continual attacks, and to heal from wounds that he would have brushed off in the past.

He knew, given enough time, they would eventually wear him down to nothing.

He tried to remain optimistic, but constant interruptions in his path added days to simple routes, and he could not seem to find the time to rest and recover from his ever increasing array of wounds. They treated him like an animal, and he slowly became one, out of step with humanity.

He stole, because he had no other choice, and broke into foreclosed houses for as much cover as they could provide him. He slept in abandoned factories, shivering and hungry. At first, his pride prevented him from seeking aid, unwilling to get anyone involved after what had happened to Adam, but as the weeks stretched into a month, he called anyone he could think of for help.

No one ever answered, and he never stayed in one place long enough to be found.

It was an elaborate game of cat and mouse, one that would have entertained him greatly when he fought in the Arenas. On some level, he admired the dedication and efficiency of the attack, and he was disgusted with himself. But it was working, and he was slowly being run into the ground.

He had frequent nightmares when he did sleep, and he used his journal to keep his mind focussed on surviving. The happy memories and images it held, so hard to cling to in the face of such endless violence, but on the pages, against the stark white paper, he remembered being happy.

He remembered being loved.

They wore him down and chipped away at his humanity, all to the inevitable conclusion. By the time the end came, he had resigned himself to it. He had been utterly abandoned by everyone who had ever shown him kindness. He tried not to resent them, because it was simply a bad time. It was not their fault that, in the middle of losing so many mutants, another one got lost.

He made it all the way to New Jersey. He had taken refuge in an empty factory, hidden in the deepest corners of the building, desperate for sleep. He was sick with a fever, infection burning hot over his skin, and was halfway to delirium when he heard the scrap of a sword on concrete. He reacted instantly, narrowly missing being beheaded. His swords, already in his hands, made quick work of his attacker, but their brief fight alerted others, all desperate to claim his life.

He wondered what they had been promised, and if they were capable of feeling remorse. He had been a symbol of hope to his people once, but it was clear that the tides had turned. How were they selling his death? He had tried to end Mojo and failed, so perhaps this was his punishment.

Too many of them, and he was exhausted, and sick, and injured. He fought, of course, but he was outnumbered and outmatched. Inwardly, he raged at the unfairness of it all, but outwardly, he remained stoic, reacting to nothing, refusing to entertain. When one snapped his left arm and crushed his hand, he did not utter a sound. Nor did he react when they destroyed his swords.

He blinded one with his fingers, and bit another on the face, tearing flesh. If they wanted to treat him like an animal, he would act like one. No dignity left, no pride remaining, just will to survive, desperation to live. Another drove his face into the concrete, fracturing his skull, and he blacked out for seconds, long enough to awaken to find his hands and feet pinned to the concrete by four swords and a fifth one in his belly, splitting him open. It was only then that he howled.

The release of energy was rapid and unexpected, and he did not even attempt to control it. If he killed himself with his own mutant powers, so be it, but at least they would die, too. He kept it up for as long as he could manage before the nausea and weakness overcame him. All five bodies dropped to the concrete, flesh charred beyond recognition. It was almost like he had won.

It was a hollow victory.

He lay there, broken, on the cold concrete floor. The blast had dislodged the swords from his extremities, and he turned onto his side into the recovery position. He would have laughed if his mouth had not been so thick with blood. He pressed his right arm against his split belly, attempting to keep the contents inside. There were ways he preferred not to die, and disembowelment was very high on the list, though he suspected he would die of blood loss first.

He knew his body, and he knew he was dying. He wasn’t afraid; he just wished that he wasn’t so alone. He thought of Julio, and hoped he was happy, that he was deeply loved by someone who would respect and understand and cherish him. And he hoped someone would tell Adam that he could come back, that it was safe for him again, and that Shatterstar was grateful for all his help.

It had been a good life, though far too short.

He drifted in and out of awareness, often waking to a mix of vomit and blood dribbling down his chin. He pitied whoever discovered his body; it would likely ruin their life, and he regretted that. Death was never pretty, but he knew this was particularly gruesome. He doubted he even looked human anymore. He had never been to a dentist. Would they be able to identify his remains?

Would anyone even know that he had died?

He was almost gone when he heard the sound of footsteps. The boots stopped in front of him and the person knelt down, gently stopping his hand when he pushed at her. “Shh,” she hummed soothingly, and set down a bag and opened it, withdrawing a set of syringes. Without preamble, she slid each of them, one by one, into the fleshy part of his arm. “This will stop the seizures.”

He could barely see her, his eyes were almost swollen shut, but the outline of her body was distinctive. He was wanted to ask why, but when he opened his mouth to speak, all he got was a gurgle of hot blood. She looked at him for a moment then stood again, walking away from him.

He reached after her with his mangled left arm.

When she returned, she had his knapsack in her hands. She knelt beside him again, this time sliding her arms under his body, gathering him onto her lap. It barely hurt at all, and he leaned into her. It was the first time in weeks that anyone had touched him without trying to kill him.

He bubbled blood at her, trying to form words, and she whispered, “shh, somewhere safe.”

A flicker of light, and they materialised in a bedroom. Carefully, she laid him down on the bed, making sure his good arm was securely against his belly. The door to the room was closed, but he could hear two voices in conversation beyond it. He recognised one of them immediately.

She bent down to him and kissed him on the forehead before she laid her hand there.

“I need you to live if you can,” Spiral whispered, “and I’m sorry, for everything. I’m so sorry.”

Another flash of light, and she was gone.

For a moment, he was confused, as if he had forgotten something, and then the door opened, and Julio stood there, hand to his mouth, retching. Shatterstar wanted to assure him that everything was fine now, but he still could not speak, yet the words were there, inside him, deep in his heart.

vi.

Shatterstar woke slowly, squinting at the slice of sunlight across his eyes. He took a deep breath then shifted on the mattress, causing it to squeak. Julio jolted awake, knocking his book off his lap, and immediately transferred to the bed, perching on the edge. Shatterstar reached for him, surprised at how much effort it took, and Julio quickly took his hand. His arm felt like lead.

“How do you feel?” Julio asked, kissing his fingers

“Heavy.”

“Here,” Julio said when he saw him struggling to sit up, slipping his arm against Shatterstar’s back and using his other hand to help Shatterstar’s feet settle on the hardwood floors. Shatterstar leaned over, nearly toppling off the bed, and Julio braced against him, keeping him upright.

At the look at on his face, Julio smiled and kissed him deeply. “Hey, you’ll get used to it, I promise. I was a klutz, too, when I hit my growth spurt. I eventually stopped tripping over shit.”

“I remember,” Shatterstar murmured. “I thought I would be stronger.”

“You are,” Julio said. “You’re strong, but it’s a regular sort of strong now. It’s just different.”

“Yes,” Shatterstar agreed.

Standing and walking was harder: he hit his head on the bookshelf and tripped over a box by the desk. Julio hovered around him, sliding in to support when needed, but otherwise standing back and letting Shatterstar get the feel for this strange new body. It was less agile than he expected.

He felt huge and heavy, but otherwise okay. There was an emptiness in him where everything he was used to be, a place ripe for regret and remorse, but he did not dwell on it very long. He could not change what he had done. He was fully human now, and he would adapt.

He put his hands up to his head, grabbing the long braid. “My hair?”

“I didn’t know what you wanted done with it,” Julio explained with a shrug. “I shaved everything else.” He rolled his eyes when Shatterstar instinctively looked down. “Not there, you pervert. Your face. Star 3.0 arrived with a full on red Viking beard. I was pretty traumatised.”

Shatterstar could easily imagine how ridiculous he would have looked. “Were you?”

Julio nodded, solemnly before breaking out into a grin. “I did it for the good of humankind.”

Shatterstar smiled back, still holding onto his braid. It was the longest his hair had ever been.

“What do you want me to do with it?”

“Cut it off,” Shatterstar decided. He sat down at the desk and looked at himself in the mirror for the first time. Though they had discussed it before Spiral made the switch, the sight of his face shocked him. Without the star on his face, he looked so ordinary. He trailed his fingers over it.

“That was the hardest thing for me,” Julio admitted.

“But you are still attracted to me?”

Julio snorted, reaching for the scissors. “The thing I was attracted to made it through in tact.”

Shatterstar tilted his head. “My penis?”

“You, you idiot,” Julio replied, kissing him on the crown of his skull. “Ready?”

Shatterstar nodded, watching Julio in the mirror as he snipped through Shatterstar’s braid then worked on fixing the rest. “I love you,” Shatterstar said, meeting Julio’s eyes in the reflection.

“I know,” Julio replied, brushing the hair from his neck. “I love you, too.”

Julio helped him get dressed, nearly getting crushed when Shatterstar fell over trying to get his jeans on. Julio started laughing, wheezing his merriment, and Shatterstar kissed his happy mouth, mostly trying to get him to stop. Eventually, he even managed to get his shirt on as well.

Julio stopped him at the door. “I have to warn you before you go down there. Spiral isn’t alone”

Shatterstar paused. “Who else?”

“Adam,” Julio said, “and Longshot and Dazzler.”

Shatterstar reeled back. “Why?”

“I think you might be the only person in the universe who can make Spiral feel guilt. I don’t know why she did it, but she did, and hey, come on, it’s okay,” Julio said, leading him back to the bed. He was shaking uncontrollably, and finding it impossible to breath. “Relax, okay?”

“I don’t want them here,” Shatterstar murmured, burying his face in his hands.

“They’re your parents,” Julio said softly, rubbing his back. “They’re really excited about it.”

“I’m not their son. Their son is dead.”

“That doesn’t matter to Spiral, and it doesn’t matter to them. Can you try thinking of Ben as your twin? I know it’s not the exact truth, but it’s close enough.” Julio took his hand between his, bringing them to his mouth. “We all have weird families, Star. It’s part of being human.”

“It’s a shitty part,” he muttered, but he got up and headed downstairs anyway.

He saw Adam first, and then Longshot and Dazzler. Spiral stood by the kitchen, away from the others, but he saw her, too. Dazzler had one hand pressed to her stomach, the other to her mouth. He had never actually met her before, but the familial resemblance was strong. Of the three people who had contributed to his genetic makeup, it was Dazzler he looked the most like.

“Hi,” he said, feeling vaguely ridiculous, and she wrapped him in a hug. “I had your powers.”

“I know,” she said, laughing and squeezing him. “It’s so nice to meet you, Shatterstar.”

“It’s nice to see you again, Star,” Longshot said. “Sorry I didn’t know I was your father.”

“It’s okay.” He paused, unsure of what to say next. “Sorry I didn’t know I was your son.”

“You guys speak exactly the same,” Julio said, and Shatterstar was a little bit pleased about it.

He talked for a bit with them, his parents. It was a bit uncomfortable, but it was bearable. Julio stood next to Adam, but they were not talking to each other. Eventually, Shatterstar excused himself and went to greet Adam. Adam smiled at him, and Shatterstar took his outstretched hand.

“You look good,” Shatterstar said, eyeing the length of him before noticing the cane.

“It was worth it,” Adam replied, using it to tap him in the side. “I’m just happy you’re alive.”

“How’s your jaw?”

“Significantly impedes my ability to give head, but I make do,” he replied with a laugh. He held out his arms, and Shatterstar stepped into them. When Adam spoke again, it was quiet enough that only he could hear it. “Be happy, Star. You deserve it. I’m glad he came to you willingly.”

He pressed his face to Adam’s neck. “I owe you so much.”

“I know you’re good for it,” Adam replied, squeezing him. “I’ll probably need a place to stay.”

Shatterstar grinned against Adam’s skin. “Julio might kill you in your sleep.”

They separated, laughing, and it was a great ending to an unexpected romance. Julio only looked slightly annoyed, and Shatterstar knew he understood how important Adam had been to his life. Shatterstar hoped he and Adam would remain lifelong friends. He had very few of those.

Spiral looked up as he approached. “You’re safe now,” she said. “Mojo is angry, but you gave him an even better ending than he could have hoped for. To him, being human is worse than death, so he’s more than happy to believe you’ve received your punishment for ruining his fun.”

“You saved my life,” he said, offering his hand, and she took it. “You didn’t have to.”

“The only thing still human about me is my capacity to love my sons.”

“You underestimate yourself,” he said.

She shrugged and turned away, and that was the end of it. He returned to Julio’s side, and looked at the people in his life. They were a strange, wonderful bunch, and he no longer minded so much that his family was a little unorthodox. This human life was already proving interesting.