Noah (hellboundlife) wrote in commandhq, @ 2018-03-25 18:18:00 |
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Cal had, since his less than pleasant 48 hours with Marshall, been like a bear with a sore head. Not helped by the fact that both Cassidy and Paige had felt the need to jump on him via the Network. Granted, they didn't know the full picture but truth be told they didn't need to: less chance of them getting dragged into trouble right along with Cal. He'd never been that great at compartmentalising information before, but Alejandro had sold him on the benefits of withholding information so others weren't guilty by association. He had, of course, informed Alejandro of why he'd done what he had and Sandy didn't need to be told, not when she could dip into his head whenever she wanted.
One of the things he'd done after being released from solitary was grab a shower, though he regretted that the moment the water hit the bruises on his back though he'd definitely had worse. His next stop after a shower, and clean clothes? Find Hotshot. Cassidy had him worried. He definitely wished he had the foresight of precognition because if he'd known that Sandy was going to go out on her first mission on the weekend he wouldn't have picked that particular moment to get his ass thrown in solitary. Alas, it was not a power he'd been gifted with so all he could do was follow up and pick up any pieces that hadn't already been put back together by the other Outsiders.
He was, however, quite stiff. The bruising had long since set in and Cal was most definitely feeling it. No pain, no gain, right? He stepped out of the shower a moment later and quickly dried himself off before simply slinging the towel around his hips and rubbing a smaller one through his hair. It was as he was doing this that he wandered across the hall and let himself into his room though immediately the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. He wasn't alone.
"One of these days," he drawled from somewhere in the towel currently draped over his head. "You're gonna give me a heart attack."
Sandy didn’t even lift her head from where she’d been lying down on her side on Cal’s bed, his pillow sandwiched against her side as she hugged it. She knew he was coming, could hear him, but the blissful dulled sounds that came along with being connected to his mind was like a balm over a burn. Her lips did twitch though and she lifted one hand to push her hair away from her face where it had fallen like a curtain, shielding her from the world.
He looked tired, she could see the edge of bruises along his side and she felt a swirling, twisting anger griping in the pit of her stomach. He’d been locked in solitary confinement and he was hurt? Had he been given anything, painkillers or ice? She could feel her jaw tensing but said nothing.
“As if,” she finally responded, sleepily pushing herself up right and sweeping her hair out of her face. “I’m not in here, naked with a boy. Long as you never walk in on that, I think you’ll be fine.” Her lips twitched up in the corner and she put his pillow back where it belonged, just looking at him carefully. It had only been a couple of days but those bruises looked painful. She reached out with her mind, just gently, brushing Cal’s.
Cal had to give her that, that would definitely kill him dead where he stood or wind up with him murdering the idiot boy for laying his hands on Sandy. He turned away to rummage out some underwear which he slipped on under his towel before the towel came away and was tossed over a nearby chair.
He turned his head when he felt the brush of Sandy’s mind against his own. “For the record let’s not do that,” he said with a smirk before he looked in a drawer for some sweatpants or whatever so he wasn’t just there in his underwear.
Sweatpants now on and Cal turned to look at Sandy, eyebrow lifted. “What? No hug?”
“Aw, but it was on my to-to list this week,” Sandy responded with a small smirk. Honestly, the idea of being intimate with a boy was a curiosity to her: she knew what it was like to be the boy in the situation having been introduced to that by accident one evening a number of years ago. But she didn’t have any practical understanding. Partially, she thought, because Cal would literally murder anyone who tried. Her thought was echoed in his head and she suppressed a laugh.
She tucked her hair behind her ear and wrinkled her nose at him. “You were naked,” she pointed out, pushing off the bed and getting to her feet, crossing the distance between them in only a few seconds, just leaning forward until her forehead rested against his collarbone and her arms looped over his shoulders gently so that she didn’t hurt him.
“Don’t even joke about,” Cal muttered in a low warning tone that indicated just how not amused he was by her teasing. He honestly didn’t know what he was going to do when Sandy finally found herself a boy but he’d cross that bridge when they got to it.
As she curled her arms around him his arms encircled in nothing short of a tight embrace and he used that hold to reassure himself that Sandy was right there and okay as honestly Cassidy had him shook.
“You doing okay, Hotshot?”
Sandy hummed against Cal’s chest as his arms came around her feeling like she was home again. She stayed where she was, wrapped in his arms and just comforted by the presence. She thought that it was inhuman to have locked him up for the weekend, but she supposed that his handler didn’t care about how Cal’s absence affected others.
“Mmhm,” she murmured quietly, just not moving and slumping where she was. “‘m okay now.”
She sighed heavily. “I went on my first mission,” she told him. She’d already told him once and she wondered what he’d been told before. “It sucked.”
“Yeah, I know,” Cal murmured against her hair before he dropped an affectionate kiss atop of her head because with the people he cared about, Sandy in particular, he was very forthcoming with physical affection. “But you’re in one piece and I can’t see any obvious signs of injuries so I’m taking that as a win.”
He still hated the idea that she’d gone out on her first mission without him being there but it had happened, couldn’t linger on it too long or he was liable to get even angrier than he already was.
“What else did I miss?”
“I wanted to say goodbye before I left,” she grumbled, not pulling away at first. “But Rachel wouldn’t let me come and see you and your asshole handler came onto the network to tell us what we could and couldn’t do like we’re meant to listen to what he has to say.”
She yawned and then withdrew only to return back to her position on the bed, leaning back against the headboard and hugging his pillow against her chest. “I met someone new, her name’s Grey. She let me sit in her head for a while ‘cause I didn’t wanna bother Cas but- it was hard. Like- like back at the beginning hard. And then the mission was loud and it sucked.”
Rubbing her face, Sandy tilted her head. “You get what you were looking for?”
Cal frowned when it became evident that Sandy was tired but then he wasn’t surprised, not when her normal hideaway had been thrown into solitary. He rummaged out a t-shirt and tugged that on so he was now completely decent dressed before he joined her on the bed, making himself comfortable against the headboard.
“Yeah, I did,” he said with a nod of his head. “Course what I didn’t expect was for the guy to go full wolfman on me and throw me across the room, but hey, it was worth the risk.”
He tipped his head to look at her. “You look tired.”
“So do you,” Sandy retorted childishly, snuggling under Cal’s arm once he was sat on the bed next to her. “Marshall let you sleep during that forty-eight hour bond-a-thon that he insisted on?” she asked. “And did you get your bruises looked at?”
Cal snorted quietly as he latched his hand around Sandy’s shoulder and squeezed softly but firmly. “I slept,” he assured her. “Not well though. I hate sleeping around somebody I don’t know and don’t trust.” As for his bruises? He definitely hadn’t had them looked at because they were just bruises at the end of the day.
“No need,” he said with a shake of his head. “They’ll fade.”
Sandy let out a disgruntled sound as she settled against Cal’s side, arm draped absently over his waist. “You wanna grab a nap?” she asked, “Provided some asshole isn’t gonna let themselves in and bother us. If they do, I can’t promise I won’t make them regret being born…”