Homelands Pt. 05 Ch. 02

"And kind of awesome," Veronica added before kissing him on the cheek.

"Wish you'd just told me," he said. "Though I understand why you didn't."

"You're not even going to make some wisecrack about how old he is?" she asked. "Or say something snide about his eyes?"

"Should I?"

"I don't know," she said. "Guess not. Just don't get how you can be so nonchalant."

He came to a stop and, after she followed suit, spun her around. With his hands on her shoulders and his face mere inches from hers, he said, firmly, "Because I love you."

Veronica might have collapsed if her brother wasn't holding her up.

"You...don't say that."

"It's true," he said. "And I don't care if it's against the rules. I'm madly in love with you, Veronica. And you don't have to say it for me to know that you feel the same way."

Her heart raced and her head spun and her lungs pumped like bellows.

"We can't," she said.

"Fuck that."

That felt good to hear, but it terrified her at the same time. All they'd ever heard from their mothers, since they day they'd been initiated, was that it was okay to have sex, but they weren't to make anything out of it. Weren't to go thinking it meant something.

Her brother was right. She did feel the same. She'd tried so hard to keep from thinking about it. Hadn't even dared to use the L-word in her own mind, lest she be tempted to one day say it aloud.

Now, though? How could she not?

"I...love you too, Nick."

He smiled and kissed her on the lips.

It was as if it was for the first time. The butterflies in her stomach were out of control. Her lips tingled pleasantly and a chill went down her spine.

"This is so wrong," she said afterwards.

"Be more convincing if you weren't smiling like that," Nick said, with a grin of his own.

"Like what?" she asked, blushing. Then added, "Am not."

Nick snickered.

Veronica looked away, still grinning. It was so liberating to say it openly. It was probably the stupidest thing her brother had ever said, but she was still glad he'd done so.

"What now?" she asked.

"We go kidnap some Bravo and-"

Veronica slapped his chest. "That's not what I mean and you know it."

He smiled at her, showing his stunningly white teeth, and however much she knew she should have been thinking otherwise, Veronica couldn't help feeling that everything would be all right. It was as taboo as anything could be among their kind. Destined to end in tragedy too, since they'd eventually have to marry other people, if they wanted to have families of their own. Nonetheless, it was okay. Because it just was.

She buried her head in her brother's chest. Reveled in the smell of him, the feel of his hard body, the soft sound of his breathing. He just stood there in silence, holding her.

Eventually, though, he asked, "Do you have any idea how we're going to do it?"

"Not really." With a weary sigh, she added, "Grandma's diary mentioned some things that might be useful. Doesn't sound all that different from using our powers in the bedroom."

"Grandma's diary," he said, voice flat.

He'd been no more upset when she finally told him about that than he'd been just now about their father. Though he refused to allow himself to keep secrets from her, he apparently didn't mind in the least when she kept stuff from him.

How was she not supposed to fall in love with him?

"Yeah," she said.

"Okay. Let's give it a shot," Nick replied.

#

"So," his mother asked him. "What now?"

Eric stood in the doorway separating his bedroom from the bathroom and stared at the beautiful woman lying in his bed. She wore a pink baby-doll, sheer white thigh-high stockings, and pink stilettos. He'd never before understood why some guys got so worked up over women in lingerie.

Then Gabby decided to play dress-up for him.

Most of the women he'd been with in the past didn't even own any lingerie. And even after his mother had initiated him into the family tradition, showed him a side of her that no son should ever see, he'd rarely seen her in stockings and heels.

It seemed so silly, that such a small thing could make such a difference. It wasn't like she was anything but incredibly attractive all on her own. But seeing her in outfits like that one, wearing just a little more makeup than usual, drove him insane with lust.

He drew a deep breath and tried his best to think straight. To clear his mind of the types of thoughts he didn't have time to indulge.

"We attack," he said.

His mother's blue eyes regarded him. She blinked once, twice, but said not a word.

"We've probably already wasted more time than we should. Our best shot is to catch him unawares. The last thing the king will be expecting is a headlong rush, so soon afterwards. He'll expect us to take time to plan and debate and prepare. To strike out at House Bravo's holdings here in the Playground."

The words sounded surprisingly persuasive. At least, he hoped they did. He realized, of course, that he had no way of really knowing what the king would be expecting. But it still seemed to Eric like they had to gamble on a bolt from the blue strategy.

"Sweetie," his mother said, sitting up.

Before she could start in on what would undoubtedly be a long list of flaws in his plan, he asked, "Has the king got any reason not to sit there, on his stupid throne, feeling invincible?"

Gabby sighed. "You don't know what you're saying."

"You're turning on me now too?"

His mother looked pained. "No, baby. No." Her voice was strained. She slipped out of bed and started towards him, moving hesitantly, as if afraid he'd lash out at her. "No one's turning on anyone. I'm just not sure you've thought this through."

He allowed her to press up against his chest. The stubborn youth in him considered pulling away, but he didn't. Nonetheless, by way of protest, he stood stiff as a board as she ran her hands over his abs and chest, without putting his hands on her.

"I think we should talk things over with your Uncle Wes."

With Uncle Wes?

Eric's back stiffened and he clenched his jaw. Since when did his mother see her brother as the kind of man she could look to in times of trouble? As a take-charge kind of guy? Why was she questioning him like this?

But the look in her eyes told him that he was reading too much into it. This wasn't about who was more of a man. Nor was it about who she thought made a better leader. Wes might not be the one you expected to rally the troops and lead them into battle, but he was the one you consulted with first. A strategist, or maybe an adviser, if not a leader.

Slowly, Eric forced himself to nod.

"I'll call him," she said.

Eric kissed his mother's forehead, ran his fingers lightly through her silky blonde hair, then headed downstairs. He didn't want to hear what she said to his uncle. Didn't want to risk letting the mature side, the side that had temporarily gained the upper hand, to be routed by his inner child.

With Nick and Veronica gone, they were going to need help no matter what they did. Besides, Kurt was missing too. This was as much their problem as it was his and his mother's. No reason not to reach out to Wes. And if they were going to do so, of course they should ask for his input before deciding how to proceed. Only fair.

Didn't mean anything more than that.

Eric got as far as the kitchen before it dawned on him that he was still naked.

The house was empty now. No underage little sister around to keep them all honest. They could walk around wearing whatever they wanted, and as little as they wanted. Could have sex wherever they wanted.

It should have felt liberating.

Why then did the house remind him of a survivor camp?

He willed a pair of shorts and a tight white tank-top into being as he rifled through the fridge, looking for something decent to eat. But, of course, there was nothing. Or as close as made no difference. He should have remembered that. They'd already established as much that morning, when his mother made breakfast from less than scratch.

Why couldn't he do the same?

With a little effort, Eric conjured up an oversized burrito. It wasn't nearly as difficult as he'd expected it to be. Of course, in one sense, it seemed obvious that it should be easy to pull food out of thin air. After all, he could basically clone himself. But there was part of him that didn't really believe that he could use sexual energy, while not sexually aroused, to achieve non-sexual outcomes.

Veronica had explained to him once that the energy they contained within their Libidos really wasn't sexual energy. They only thought it was because of how they harvested it. And they only harvested it the way they did was because the moment of climax left people completely open and utterly incapable of resisting any attempt to drain them of their energy.

All of that made a certain sort of sense. In a nerdy way. But it still surprised him. Pretty much every time he used his powers outside the bedroom.

That was something he was going to have to fix right quick, if he was going to be of any good to Patty. Maybe his mother was right after all. Perhaps it was a bit crazy to plan on storming into Summer and laying siege to the throne, given that he still surprised himself when he managed to successfully summon a damned burrito.

A knock came at the back door.

Eric nearly dropped his lunch. As it was, he spilled more than a little rice, cheese, and hot sauce onto the floor. With a thought, he made it all go away.

Out on the back porch, bending over to peer through the sliding glass door, was a pretty woman in her mid-forties. She wore a loose pair of threadbare jeans and a long-sleeved shirt that fit her a bit more snugly.

Eric tried not to look at her breasts, or notice that she wasn't wearing a bra.

They were a fair bit smaller than his mother's, but so were most women's. They were about the same size as Annie's, or Jennifer's. Maybe bigger. It was hard to say, because they sagged the way women's breasts were supposed to, especially after women got past a certain age. The women of his family had spoiled him. He'd almost forgotten that ordinary breasts did that. He wasn't sure if it was turning him on or not.

One thing was clear though. He wasn't doing a very good job of ignoring her breasts.

When she saw where his eyes were focused, she turned her lips up in a faint smile and folded her arms under those saggy breasts.

Shaking himself out of his reverie, Eric went and slid the door open for her.

"Sorry," he said, as she walked in.

As if he hadn't just been caught checking her out, he gave the rest of her a quick look.

Her hips were narrow, the way he'd once liked. And she was fit. Not like Jennifer, who had thick muscles in her lower body. No, she was just thin, firm and toned. Yet her ass, such as it was, drooped low. And she'd have been a lot prettier if her skin was tighter. She had that sad look that some older women get, where even though they're thin, their cheeks look like jowls and their eye sockets seem sunken and hollow. Still, she had a narrow waist, thin legs, and a face that had obviously once been been strikingly beautiful.

For a mortal woman, especially one of her age, she was attractive. If he was being fair, he'd probably even say that she was far more attractive than the average mortal woman her age. Her brown hair and relatively fair skin weren't quite his cup of tea, but the overall package wasn't half-bad at all.

He just couldn't help but compare her to his mother. Or even to the woman that he'd once thought of as his other mother. He'd never look at older women the same way again.

Of course, if Eric forced himself to remember what his mother and Jennifer had looked like in their mortal guises, he'd admit that neither looked much better than this woman. Gabby had been considerably less attractive, truth be told.

"I'm Nina," she said, extending her hand.

He tried not to squeeze her little paw too tightly in his. "Eric."

"I know," she said.

There was something odd about her skin. A warmth to it. Except it wasn't warmth, really. Wasn't even physical. From the moment his skin came into contact with hers, his Libido had started to gently pulse. It wasn't quite arousal. Not yet, anyway. But it was whatever came just before that.

"Aunt Nina, I should say."

Eric's breath caught.

His aunt? Why hadn't his mother--

Oh.

"That's right," she said, presumably seeing the dawning comprehension on his face. Her amused smirk only reached half her face. "Your father's sister."

"A Fisher," he said.

She shook her hair out, and as her brown locks flailed about, the rest of her appearance changed. She grew a good twenty or twenty-five years younger. Her skin firmed up and lost all sign of wrinkles and imperfections. Her lips got much, much fuller, and her soft brown eyes grew brighter and wider. Though her hair was still a boring medium-brown, it was shinier, straighter, and free of all strays, grays, and split-ends. Suddenly, the face that had struck him as having once been beautiful but not only sorta kinda pretty had become gorgeous. If not for his preference for blonde hair, bronze skin, and blue eyes, he probably wouldn't have hesitated to say that she was every bit as pretty as Olivia, in fact.

On top of that, her already thin waist came in by several inches and her breasts regained most of their perk. If it had been hard not to notice them before, it was downright impossible to keep from salivating now. She still had narrow hips and thighs that could have benefited from being fuller, but with her waist being so tiny all of a sudden, there was an illusion of voluptuousness that was doing a right good job of fooling Eric.

In short, she'd gone from reasonably attractive to smoking hot.

True, she still wasn't quite the type of woman he'd have gone crazy over a few months ago, back before his mother had set him straight. Nor was she the type that would appeal to him now that he'd had his awakening. But a guy with slightly different tastes would have considered her divine.

"Yes. A Fisher," she said.

Eric almost forgot that he'd asked about that.

Could he really have doubted her? She didn't have the look of a Moody or a Hardt, but she was quite obviously from the Homelands. Immortal, like him and all his family.

"Wh-what are you doing here?" he asked.

He never stammered. What the fuck was wrong with him?

Nina -- Aunt Nina -- looked over his shoulder. Not finding whatever she was looking for, she turned her doe eyes back to him. "I've come to help."

"With?"

She planted one hand on her hips and stared at him, flatly.

"Did my father send you?"

"Of course not. He doesn't want us to get involved."

"Suppose that's why he tipped us off," Eric said.

Nina rolled her eyes. "Doesn't want us to get more involved."

"Whatever. Anyway, don't take this the wrong way or anything, but-"

"You're not going to ask me why I'm here again, are you?" she asked.

Eric scratched his head. "Well, yeah."

"You're cute."

In spite of himself, Eric blushed.

"He said your brother was the cute one. That you were closer to gorgeous, but entirely too serious. I disagree. I think `cute' is exactly the right word for you."

Finally catching on to her tone, Eric stopped grinning.

His aunt tossed a lock of hair behind her shoulder, looked him up and down, and said, "Point is, like I said, I came to help."

Eric pressed his thumb and forefinger against the bridge of his nose. "With?"

Nina giggled. Tittered, even.

He was not amused though.

His aunt laid a small hand on his arm. Everything about her was small, really. Except her eyes. And her lips. And her breasts. But she was a small woman. More than a foot shorter than him, and that insanely thin waist made it seem like she might float away if she wasn't careful. Why wasn't that turning him off?

"My dear brother wants you to play it safe. Ransom one of their own back to them." She took a step closer to him, and Eric felt his pulse accelerate. "You're not particularly inclined to do that, though, right? You'd rather gun for the king himself."

"You're here to talk me down, then, huh?"

"Not at all," she said. "I'm here to make sure you follow your heart."

Eric raised an eyebrow at her.

Nina licked her lips. Eric shuddered, imagining what that tongue might feel like. To say nothing of her luscious lips.

"You see, Hank doesn't want to get dragged into a bloodbath. If you go for the jugular, he's going to be forced to act. To defend the king he's sworn to protect. Maybe even end up taking the lives of his own children. And though I'm sure he tried to give you the impression that you don't mean much to him-"

"Can say that again."

"-my brother doesn't like shedding anyone's blood, least of all his own. And make no mistake, his blood does course through your veins."

Eric glanced nervously out at the back deck. He sort of expected to find his father there. Though he barely knew the guy, he was pretty sure that putting his sister up to something like this would be exactly like him.

None of what she was saying fit with what he'd said, though.

Maybe Eric was just being paranoid. His father might be an asshole, but what did he stand to gain from telling them to be discreet, only to send his sister to tell Eric to come out swinging? And why did Nina look like she was trying pretty hard to project a confident, cool demeanor, while masking genuine fear? What could she be afraid of, if not her brother discovering that she'd come here?

"So why should I follow my heart?"

Nina frowned. And, for a brief moment, there was a look of panic in her eyes.

"My mother doesn't think I should," he continued. "Pretty soon, I'm likely to be outnumbered. What can I tell my family to convince them?"

"You can't tell them about me, that's for sure."

Big surprise there.

"All I can say is that Phil won't play ball. If you do what Hank suggested, try to get the king to trade you your sister and your cousin back, he'll just go on the offensive. He's obsessed with the idea that everyone thinks he's weak. The last thing he'd ever do is give in. You'll have to kill every last Bravo before he'd ever consider surrendering." She paused. "And I think Hank knows that. He'd just rather see you try something that will leave him some chance of staying relatively uninvolved."

Eric nodded. It fit his impression of the king, superficial as that impression was.

"Anyway, I better go. But you'll see me again," she said. Then she went up on tiptoes, planted a kiss on his cheek, and disappeared.

#

The air around the office building shimmered. Not the way asphalt seemed to shimmer on a hot day. Not even visibly. It was only in the same sense that he felt fear in his sister's Libido that Nick knew something was off about the miniature tower.

"Why am I suddenly not so sure this is a good idea?" Veronica asked.

Despite the turmoil in her Libido, her voice was calm. He was proud of her for that.

"Dunno," he replied.

She took his hand in hers.

None of the windows had blinds, but they were all dark. Nick figured that the people inside could see out, even though they could not see in. There were men in dark uniforms walking around the security gate, the entrance, and, he thought, on the roof. That last part was hard to judge though, with so much glare from the midday sun.

With any luck, they were all mortals. But the first time either he or his sister had tried out combat applications of their powers had literally been an hour ago. In principle, firearms gave them very little to worry about. But if it actually came down to stopping real bullets? He was not at all confident that their powers would give them the edge that they should.