Apart from the freak at Red River Institute, Dustin knew for a fact there were no other supes in the world that matched or exceeded 7 ft in height.
Heck, even among the normal population, there were at most 3000 people on the entire planet who were that tall. His work didn’t just involve supe statistics but regular human ones as well, comparing them to the former to be precise.
So he knew what he was talking about.
This confidence drove him to spy on Mason with his powers, undressing the former with his no hesitation and no restraint. He had nothing in mind when he went looking. That was one of the things he loved about his powers.
The fun came from the lack of expectation. It made any interesting discoveries all the more mouth watering. Though in Mason’s case he wouldn’t call it that.
‘Appropriate’ was the word he’d use to describe when he took a gander at the dude’s johnson. Anyone who assumed he had a big one based on his physical proportions would be one hundred percent correct.
It was nothing new to him though, so was the gun tucked in a small holster on the former’s back. He still wondered why a supe would carry one, especially into this place where they were all kin.
Wasn’t he bulletproof? With that size, he had to have super strength, and that always came along with some level of durability. Usually higher than that of regular supes.
Dustin himself had nothing of the sort, but he’d been shot before. Multiple times actually, by parents of some of the girls he’d taken inappropriate looks at. The bullets didn’t even sting, and he was 15 back then.
This and his anonymity made him so assured of his safety that when Mason caught his stare, he played it natural and raised his glass. That glance didn’t surprise him. Some people were more perceptive than others.
Women, ninety percent of the time, grew uncomfortable when he stared at them too long. Men, not so much. Maybe because he wasn’t interested in what their private bits looked like. So Mason noticing it in less than a minute piqued his interest further.
He kept watching as a result, observing him savor his drink while trying his best not to stare at Elena’s honkers. Ha! That girl was breaking her back for nothing!
Things started to get boring until Mason stood up all of a sudden.
Dustin didn’t know where he was truly headed until he watched him disappear behind the speakers after the security dude. His powers came into proper play here, piercing through the speakers and walls with familiar ease.
Shock gripped him at the first thing he saw. Blue fire engulfed the glass in Mason’s hand for a few seconds before the latter set it down. The vibrant blue pulled a news bulletin from the recesses of his mind with surprising quickness.
When Mason put the guard in a chokehold, he came back to reality and blinked a few times, looking transfixed as he gulped his drink and ran his hand across his mouth. This… this was the break he was looking for.
More motivated than ever, he continued spying on Mason beyond the door of the security room, even when the latter had become a blurry mess to his senses. This was one of the secrets he’d kept close to the chest.
Though his X-Ray vision had no weaknesses with regards to what it could see through, the more matter placed between him and what he spied on, the worse his vision got.
Still, the fact that Mason used blue fire just now and boasted a height that matched the suspect in that news report was enough.
As a frequent patron of the club, he knew it like he knew his mom’s exact sizes and the increases and decreases she’d experienced throughout the years. This let him find a corner and make a call that could possibly change his destiny and propel him to stardom.
It had been nine years of pencil pushing hell. Wasn’t that enough punishment for simply looking up a few skirts?
“Hello? Ashley?”
“Who is this?”
“Wha—it’s me, Dustin, from Analytics. We’ve met dozens of times.” He sounded aggrieved.
“Oh right, I remember you. What do you want? I’m busy with this A-Train shitshow and Miss Stillwell is breathing down my neck.”
Dustin felt the sun shine on him even though it was nighttime. “Yes! Miss Stillwell. I want to speak to her. It’s about the crazy guy who killed all those people and burned down that place. What was the name… something Grove something.”
“Dustin!” Ashley’s voice pierced his ear like a thousand needles. “Talk clearly. What the hell are you on about?”
“I’m saying I saw the guy, he’s here. Right now.”
“That’s impossible—”
“He used blue fire. I saw it. Know any other supes who can shoot blue fire?”
“…”
“Ashley?” Dustin looked at his phone like it was the problem.
“How sure are you about this? The guy knows we’re looking for him. Why will he use his powers where everyone can see him? I need more than this.”
Looks like it was time for the secret to come out.
Taking a deep long breath in the real world, Dustin psyched himself up, reminding himself why he was doing this in the first place.
“Hello? Dustin? Sonuvabitch. Wasti—”
“I’m a supe,” he whispered while looking around.
“What?”
“I-I’m a supe. I have X-Ray vision. That’s how I saw him.”
“....”
“Ashley? Hello? Are you—”
“Listen to me carefully. We are gonna have a long discussion about this later. For now, I want you to find him.”
“Right now?”
“Yes! Right now. Use your powers.”
“O-Okay.”
Closer to the security room than before, Dustin expected to get a clear sight of Mason and maybe even what his goal here was. However, when his penetrative vision swept through the now clear room, he found only the stirring guard.
Shit.
“Um…”
“What is it?”
“Um… he’s–he’s gone.”
An extremely loud sigh and a groan of utter disappointment came over through the phone. Dustin cringed inwardly at the memories the sounds stirred up. His parents practically had this as a chorus whenever they spoke to him after the incident.
“You’re telling me, that a guy whose powers are perfect for spying on people, lost sight of someone as tall as the statue of liberty?”
“Um… it’s not my fault—”
“Is it mine? Useless! You’re useless!”
Wincing, Dustin moved the phone away from his ear and hastily brought it back when he heard mumbling.
“I said where are you?”
“I’ll send you the location.”
“Good. Stay there. We’ll send someone who is not a total fuckup so they can actually do their jobs.”
The call cut abruptly after that, and Dustin alternated between pressing the phone to his ear and looking at the screen multiple times. “Hello? Hello?”
Reality dawned on him not long after and he just stood there, shoulders slumped and head hung low. With a sudden yell he flung the phone at the wall to his side and had a cold bucket of ice water splash on him the same moment.
‘Shit. The location. Fuck fuck fuck.’
He rushed to pick up the phone only to find it had become totally unusable. Ashley’s scathing remarks returned like an avalanche, crashing into him as if they’d been waiting for this moment.
He found it hard to refute them.
.
.
.
.
Oblivious to all this, Mason made the final jump to his destination, trusting in the cover of night and the forest he was about to enter to mask his movements completely.
By pressing both legs together and turning up his weight all the way the moment he reached the apex, he shot down like an anvil. The wind whooshed against him, even when he crossed the tree line.
The moment he entered the forest however, he quickly turned down the weight dial and landed in a crouch.
There was no loud impact, just a faint thump and the sound of the whooshing wind that cleared the forest floor around him in a messy radius.
Straightening himself from the superhero landing, he brushed the dead leaves and detritus out of his clothes and took out his phone, confirming that the two GPS tags were a few meters ahead.
Due to Manhattan’s crowdedness, buses like the one Ezekiel spent most of his time in could not be parked anywhere. However, what would be an inconvenience for most turned out to be a “blessing” for the gay pastor.
Because being thirty minutes outside of the main city meant his real life would be much harder to uncover. Since most people assumed he’d be on his bus somewhere outside the city, they’d never think to look for him within it.
Two, no one would notice if he sneaked a man toy or two onto his bus for quality time.
The hotels he stayed at always provided premium confidentiality services when he used their parking spots, and since his bus didn’t have any identifiable features, posters, or designs linking it to him, his life was practically paradise.
Too bad for him someone had intruded where no man—or woman, should.
His mind clouded in a haze of lust and drugs, Ezekiel’s pleasure addled thoughts only cleared up after the tenth knock on the bus’ window.
Nothing like this had ever happened.
His private sessions with Jared, or was it Jerome? Always went uninterrupted and ended with him waking up on the floor the next morning, memories choppy and body tired as hell, but thoroughly willing to go through it all again.
Unwilling to move from his current position, he kept his spindly arms coiled around the slut grinding in his lap. Whoever was knocking would go away if he ignored them.
They didn’t.
This ruined the excitement. So much so that the peak he’d be working towards just… flatlined. Retracting his arms from around Jessie, he let the pretty boy fall face first and stopped to enjoy the view.
Another knock wiped the stupid, hungry smile off his face and stopped the blood rushing down south in its tracks. Scowling, he staggered toward the window, pulling back the pitch black curtain to see the person ruining his fun.
He didn’t know what to expect but it certainly wasn’t a guy wearing a baseball cap with a black mask covering his lower face. His look of confusion immediately turned to horror when a thump on the window drew his gaze.
Mason had pressed his phone on the glass while playing a recording where he, Ezekiel, gorged himself on a generous serving of man meat. It took a few seconds for the implications to slice through the drugs holding the pastor’s thoughts hostage.
He looked back at Mason and found nothing but cool eyes and a finger gesturing at the window for him to open it. At a complete loss as to what to do, he complied and Mason waved away the smoke that took their first and only chance at freedom.
Stepping back, Ezekiel almost tripped over Jensen, eliciting a faint moan and a mumbled “pork me daddy” from the tooted up man. On normal days, this would have turned him into a raging animal, but Mason’s presence and the latter’s goliath height when he stood straight numbed his blood cold.
“Get dressed,” came the silent command. “And move him out of the way.”
Mind still stuttering, Ezekiel obeyed like a robot that was slowly discovering it had human emotions. While covering up his “friend” and putting on clothes, the haze cleared up enough for him to remember he was a supe.
Yeah. Why was he letting some punk order him around?
After putting on a pair of loose white pants and a sleeveless shirt, he spun around and flung his arm at Mason. The limb elongated and flew with precision, only to miss entirely when its target performed a simple head tilt.
Not willing to touch that arm or let it touch him, Mason crossed the space between him and Ezekiel and hoisted him up by neck, ruthlessly squeezing the rubbery thing like an actual rubber ducky.
The only thing missing was the loud squeaks.
Cough! Cough!
The guy in the bed coughed and turned over, prompting Mason to react. He dropped Ezekiel and hit the boy toy in the temple with two fingers, stopping all of his movements.
Not even the violent wheezing of his partner for the night could undo the forced unconsciousness.
“Up here,” Mason waved at Ezekiel while holding up the phone with the video in his left hand. “I’m gonna ask you some questions. You answer, this does not get out. Understood?”
Ezekiel rubbed his reddening neck and nodded profusely.
There was some hesitation at some of the questions, but whenever he felt like speaking up that Vought would destroy him, his hand would always go to his neck, then he’d give the answer.
In the end, he spilled everything and managed to keep his life. He thought Mason would just leave after that but he instead looked around the bus, pausing on the open bible and the bottles of drugs and lines of coke near it, and finally at Jeremy.
“Last thing.”
He perked up. Since he’d sold his soul, he might as well do whatever the man wanted. It wasn’t what he expected though.
“Practice what you preach, and stop calling people demonic when they don’t. Got that?”
“Y-yeah, I got that.” He nodded and swallowed, cringing at the pain.
“Speak a word of this to anyone…”
Ezekiel found himself nodding like a chicken even before Mason finished. The last thing he remembered after this was the largest fist he'd ever seen taking up the space in his face and planting his nose at the back of skull.