Secrets

((Not everything is here, I’m missing some stuff, so if you wanna fill in the gaps, feel welcome to do that ^_^))

Mood Music: http://youtu.be/LkFot_Krc7w

 

“Vahaadi, what have they done to you?”

“I’m a prostitute Spark.  They pay me to pleasure them.”

“Pay you?  Vahaadi if you needed money, I could have helped you, I could have done something, we’d have figured it out, why didn’t you just–”

“I don’t do it because I need money.  I do it because I like it.”

“Wh–what?  You like it?”

 

“I thought you liked going on adventures and cuddling with me… I always thought you left me because you had really important things to do and the world needs you so I’d wait until you were free, but then I couldn’t wait anymore and I figured I could help you on whatever quest you were trying to finish, but all this time you were here?”

“Goodbye Spark.”

“Vahaadi…”

 

It was a different place by day. Hookahs, unused, gleamed gently in the hazy light filtering into the room, casting rainbow refractions onto the surrounding walls and ceilings, which had been draped with silks to hide the tawdry mismatched wood and stone beneath. It was quiet and had a sort of mystical air, and under different circumstances, Spark would have loved it. It felt like a place where adventures began.

But the clientele that visited as the sun went down had very different ideas.

Spark fidgeted. She had deliberately chosen a spot far from where she’d seen it happen the night before, on the other side of the room, but she knew that there was nowhere in the universe that was far enough away to allow her to forget what had transpired. Besides, he was still here, somewhere upstairs in one of the establishment’s private rooms. As much as the thought made her stomach turn, she would not leave without seeing him first.

A heavy, dull thudding announced the arrival of someone coming down the stairs. Spark tensed.

It was the man that had taken Vahaadi the night before. He emerged from the stairwell, stretching and scratching his beard.

Spark was on her feet and in his path in an instant.

“Where is he?” she demanded.

He started, taken aback, but he recognized her immediately. Skinny adolescent girls clad in masks and spandex were easy to remember, especially after this particular girl had made such a scene the night before.

“In the room,” he grunted, his voice heavy with fatigue. He stepped around Spark, shaking his head, and in parting left a growled suggestion. “You really ought to mind your own business.”

Spark clenched her jaw. She wanted to stick her tongue out at him as he left, but even she knew that was childish. And this was the last place Vahaadi needed her childishness.

She returned to her seat, and began to anxiously fiddle with her hair. She would have to wait for him to come down. What would she say to him when he did?

The minutes dragged. There were no clocks in the room, at least none that she could understand, but she was sure she waited for hours before she finally couldn’t sit in one place any longer and headed for the stairs. She didn’t know how she’d find him, since she hadn’t though to ask the man for the room number and couldn’t read the Zharian numerals anyway, but perhaps she would see Vahaadi come out.

In the meantime, all she could do was wait. She chewed her lip as she began to pace up the hall. She couldn’t stand this WAITING–

Spark lurched to a stop mid-stride, caught by a double take. The door she had just passed was slightly ajar. Vahaadi lay on the bed within, facing away.

 

“Vahaadi?” she called softly, dismayed by the tremulous quality of her usually sharp, clear voice. He did not respond.

Swallowing hard, she slid through the door and approached him. For the moment, she didn’t care that he not only appeared to be sleeping but also appeared to be fully undressed.

She drew up beside him, and her stomach turned horribly, accompanied by a gush of hot tears that almost escaped.

His eyes were half open, staring vacantly at the wall. His oil-rubbed gleaming skin was marred with bruises on his neck, chest, hips, and surely farther down his body, concealed from her view under the light sheet draped over him. Faint wounds on his wrists suggested that they had been held very tightly, and perhaps even tied. His neck bore a ring of marks, the remnants of a bite.

Vahaadi’s listless eyes flickered. He twisted to look up at her, drawing a long but shallow, painful-sounding breath, and their eyes met. For a short moment, they stared at one another, pity and dismay and hurt meeting fatigue and shame.

He let his breath out in a soft groan and turned away from her once more, closing his eyes tightly. His hands curled up to his face and his legs shifted under the sheet, drawing upward and inward, closing himself in. Closing her out.

“Vahaadi,” Spark said brokenly, her voice thick with the tears she was holding back. “Are you OK?”

She saw him swallow, but he didn’t answer at first. It was a long, labored moment before his voice came, low and dry and depleted and so thin it was hardly audible. “I can’t…play with you today…Spark…I don’t…feel well…”

Playing had been the furthest thing from her mind. “He hurt you,” Spark said, looking at Vahaadi’s bruises. “He…He HURT you.”

He sighed through his nose. “Yes.”

“Why, Vahaadi? Why’d you let him? I’ve seen you take down bad guys three times your size! And he–”

“He was not a ‘bad guy.'” He looked up at her soberly, his eyes devoid of their usual luster and still dark on the lids with kohl. The night before, the cosmetic had made him look sensual and teasing, but in the morning light, it only made him look exhausted.
Spark stared at Vahaadi without seeing him as she dropped to her knees. The weight of her body felt unbearable, but she knew it was really the heaviness of her heart that was weighing her down. She drew her legs in, resting her chin on her knees and staring at her feet. “If you say so,” she mumbled. Rocking back and forth as she flexed and pointed her toes Spark searched for answers that didn’t come. This was too confusing and overwhelming and Vahaadi wasn’t acting like himself. Or maybe he was. Did she even know him at all?

She arched her neck to look at him over her shoulder. He had retreated behind his hands again and she had to fight the urge to pry his fingers apart. Her eyes wandered over him, deep affection for the djinni in front of her clashing with the feeling that she was looking at a stranger. Spark was too wiggly, impatient, and self-absorbed to spend much time communicating with the King, but she found herself sending him a quick telepathic plea. “King. Help. PLEASE. Please help my friend. I don’tknowwhatodoandI’msosadthathe’ssosadandIdon’tknowwhathappenedbutIlovehimandIthinkhelovesmebutIdon’tevenknowwhatthatmeansandhe’shurt.”

Suddenly Spark’s stomach grumbled violently, and a sharp cramp shot through her. She realized it had been almost twelve hours since she’d last eaten anything; an eternity to a metabolism like hers. Still, she didn’t feel like eating, not now. Besides, there was little to eat that would do her any good in a land where the people survived on oil and smoke. All of a sudden Spark’s thoughts about what she could scavenge in the foyer down the hall or if the Djinn would punish her for cooking one of their animals were interrupted by a sudden realization. Spark inched over to the side of the bed, lifting her head up to rest her chin on the edge. She gently wrapped her fingers around Vahaadi’s hand.

“Vahaadi, I’m going to tell you something. You don’t have to get up or anything, just listen, okay?” Spark was nervous, even though she and Vahaadi had shared so many secrets before. “But not all of them, clearly” Spark thought. “You know how I’m always eating all the time, and how I get so hungry whenever we go on adventures? It’s because I have a super fast metabolism, because of my powers. And while I like that it makes me light and quick, it can also be frustrating. Did you know that I never, ever feel full? It doesn’t matter how much I eat, I can always eat more. People talk about overeating, but I have no idea what that means. Even if I go for just a few hours without eating, my stomach starts to go crazy, demanding more food.”

Spark paused, taking a deep breath as she closed her eyes. Just talking about her appetite was making her empty stomach ache. “And sometimes, when I get so hungry I think I’m about to lose my mind, I am tempted to eat things that are bad for me. Rotten food or garbage just to stop my stomach from eating a hole in itself. But I know that would be wrong, and I’d just wind up feeling even more miserable later. I have to wait until I can eat something that will be nourishing for me, even though I feel like I can’t wait anymore. Sometimes it really does feel like I’m going to starve to death.”

Slowly, Spark separated Vahaadi’s fingers so that she could see his eyes. “I know that you get hungry too,” she whispered. Her brown eyes searched his golden ones, her breath warming his knuckles. “Not for food…for other stuff. But just because you’re hungry doesn’t mean you should eat things that are bad for you. Or do things that are bad for you. Or let other people do bad things to you. You don’t have to let people treat you like this, because you’re worth more than that. I think–” Spark stopped, her eyes filling with tears again and her voice choking on the aching lump in her throat. “Vahaadi, I think you’re the greatest person in the world, and you are too important to just throw yourself away like this. I mean,that guy hurt you and he didn’t even stay to see if you’re okay and I just–” her voice grew so high and thin that it broke and she pulled away from him, covering her own face with her hands as hot tears trickled down her fingers.

The young heroine was too hungry, tired and overcome to continue, so she slumped against the side of the bed with a sigh and closed her eyes. She didn’t have the energy to keep talking and she’d run out of words anyway.
You’re worth more than that.

Vahaadi stared back into her earnest eyes, the miserable, anguished wish that she would just go away and leave him alone evaporating in that instant. Even after she broke down and turned away from him, his eyes remained fixed on the spot where hers had been. He hadn’t heard her words so much as he had felt them, and they continued to move within him, spreading through his pained body, diffusing into his drug-addled mind, and washing against his strained heart.

“Spark,” he said on an exhale. He allowed the word to hang, struggling to put meaning to the emotions that surged within him.

“No one…has ever said anything like that to me before,” Vahaadi whispered, more to himself than to her. His eyes flicked without seeing. Was it true? Why would she say something like that? He was nothing. He was a slut. A whore. A thief. A sham. He was a hole, he was defined by his very lack of being. All he ever did was glut himself on debauchery and lucre, trying to pretend that he HAD something, but those things fell right through him, water in a seive. No one had ever expected BETTER of him. His parents, his lovers, his friends…not even Lanthriel, who had been the most blind to Vahaadi’s nature, had been surprised to find out what Vahaadi was really like. He’d been disappointed and angry, but he hadn’t been surprised.

The only one who was ever surprised was Spark.

That was why he liked to sneak off to visit her. She held him on an impossible pedestal, convinced that he somehow belonged in her pantheon of superheroes. He could never actually live up to her ideal of him, but the novelty of knowing someone held him to anything at all was striking.

But the game was over, now. The moment she’d seen him the night before, her deluded version of Vahaadi had been lost. When he left the stunned girl on the street, he thought he’d never see her again. And he’d resigned himself to that. He’d known all along that it wouldn’t last–Spark was an anomaly, a sweet diversion, but no more than that. She wouldn’t want him back when she finally understood.

And yet, here she was.

Vahaadi watched his young friend grapple with reality. The pain and fatigue of his aphrodisiac-tortured heart seemed to grow heavier and sharper with every word that crossed her trembling lips, and he felt himself beginning to tremble too. When at last she couldn’t say anymore, she turned away, leaving Vahaadi reeling.

You don’t have to let people treat you like this, because you’re worth more than that.

No one had ever said anything of the sort to him before. Tryvnah had expressed his disapproval, once, but hadn’t been willing to do the one thing that would keep Vahaadi out of a place like this forever. Many scorned and some even worried for him, but no one loved him enough to keep him from seeking this crude, edgy, miserable counterfeit. Nobody, it seemed, but Spark.

He stared at her crumpled figure as the hot tears began to well painfully in his eyes. He opened his mouth, trying to put words to the deep sensations of gratitude, affection, shame and unworthiness, but they wouldn’t come.

“Spark,” he said softly, reaching a trembling hand out to touch her hair. But his hand froze, wavering. He felt disgusting. He didn’t want to touch her with hands so stained with indulgence, so quick to take money for anything from a kiss to abject humiliation behind brothel doors.

The door creaked, pushed open by the large man that had been guarding the door the night before. Vahaadi looked up, and the tremulous emotion that had been hovering in his face retreated almost immediately. It was as if every glimmer of awareness and hope had swiftly retreated, drawing back into the shadows. Cowering. Only a shell remained, hollow and dead-eyed. He forced himself to sit up, but didn’t look at the man as he approached, stepping over Spark to sit on the bed beside him.

“Thought you’d still be up here,” the man grunted, completely ignoring Spark as he took a wet cloth from his bowl and began sponging Vahaadi’s skin. His touch was gentle enough, but his manner was everything but. As he continued to sponge at Vahaadi’s skin, his expression grew darker. When his eyes fell on the bite marks in Vahaadi’s neck, his eyes grew livid.

“Vahaadi,” the man snarled slowly, starting in a low voice and landing forcefully on accusing note. He grabbed Vahaadi’s bangs and pulled them back to look more clearly into his face. Vahaadi’s expressed no emotion. His stare remained blank and distant.

“How much of the drug did you take?” he demanded.

Vahaadi didn’t answer. The man released his grip on his hair and smartly struck him across the face.

Vahaadi let out a gasp, more from the startle than from pain. The man had no intention of hurting him, merely to shake him out of his drug-induced daze. Vahaadi shrank slightly, but his manner remained submissive and quiet. It appeared that he was used to being hit.

“Dammit, Vahaadi, how many times do I have to tell you to go easy? Just because they shove it at you doesn’t mean you have to take it! Look at you! that guy beat the crap out of you! Do you ask for it, or WHAT?!”

“I gave him what he wanted,” Vahaadi responded quietly.

The man swore. He gripped Vahaadi’s chin roughly and leaned threateningly into his face. “Vahaadi. YOU AREN’T YOUNG ANYMORE. Many more nights like this one and you’re going to end up broken beyond repair. And where will that leave me? I pay you to pleasure my men, not to let them kill you, dammit!”

Vahaadi turned his face away, clenching his jaw as one trying to swallow pain. “I know,” he whispered.

The man let out a long, annoyed sigh. “Well, let’s get you cleaned up,” he said witheringly. “And as for you,” he snapped, finally acknowledging Spark’s presence, “GET. OUT.”

Spark leapt to her feet when the man struck Vahaadi, her arms braced to swing a punch at him. She froze, however, when she saw Vahaadi’s demure response. Biding her time Spark slowly lowered her fists and watched soberly as the man lectured Vahaadi.

“– I pay you to pleasure my men, not let them kill you, dammit!”

The hair on the back of Spark’s neck rose as a shiver ran down her spine. This was the man who employed Vahaadi to do these demeaning ‘services’?! Spark had been under the impression that the clients were paying Vahaadi directly, and that this man was a regrettable bystander. Instead he had apparently recruited Vahaadi, deliberately exploiting him and then feigning concern only when his profits might be compromised by Vahaadi’s debilitation. “What a monster,” Spark thought, her lips drawing back into an expression of hateful anger.

“And as for you, GET. OUT.”

When the man addressed her it took every ounce of self restraint Spark had not to lunge at the man with her bare hands.

“Please go, Spark.”

At Vahaadi’s plea her anger subsided, slightly. “Ok, Vahaadi,” she murmured. “But only because you said so.” Striding coolly past the man she spoke softly, almost tauntingly but with a steel edge behind her words. “You aren’t fooling anyone, you know.” She wheeled around, glaring at him with ferocity barely contained. “So you can quit it with the caring and concerned act. If you really cared about Vahaadi, you’d want him out of this place as badly as I do, but you pay him to stay in it, you two faced snake. You use him, telling him to be safe and be careful so that you can make a bigger bankroll. I hate you, and you’re lucky I’m a hero or I’d gladly kill you in your sleep.” She pulled her shoulders back, the palms of her hands beginning to glow. “You will patch him up like your life depends on it, and maybe it does. I’m a lot more destructive than I look.” Spark strode out the door, her cascading ponytail flashing behind her like a whip, demonstrating her fury.

Never in her life had Spark threatened to kill another living being, and her words startled even herself. Still, she wasn’t sorry. For Vahaadi, she’d be willing to kill someone who wouldn’t stop harming him. Even heroes understood there was a time for that. Spark stormed down the stairs and as angry as she was she hoped it would never come to that. Ending a person’s life changed you, even if it was for a noble cause, and she didn’t want to change. Not like that, anyway. Deciding now was the time to fuel her cramping stomach she scavenged what she could from the establishment’s cupboards and waited for Vahaadi to emerge.

===============================

The Vahaadi that emerged from the stairwell some time later was unlike anything Spark had seen of him before. He wore no jewelry. His neck and wrists, usually sparkling with gold, were concealed with bandages to hide the marks. His usual bright, fitted garments were replaced with loose, drab clothing. In fact, if Spark had not been watching so intently for him, she might not have recognized him.

He had to brace himself on a table when he saw her.

“Spark…you…waited,” he said haltingly. He swallowed, and gingerly approached her. When he came level with her, he dropped his gaze in humiliation. “I…I never wanted you to see me this way, Spark. But…” he drew a silent, steeling breath. “Now you know what I really am,” he said hoarsely. He raised his eyes to hers, and she could see that they had filled with tears. He took her hands. “Thank you for staying, anyway.” Then he pulled her into a weak embrace, his face buried in her shoulder.

With one hand gently entwined in her hair, he began to sob brokenly.

==========================================

Spark held Vahaadi as tightly as she could without hurting him, wishing she would never have to let go. What did he mean “Now you know what I really am,”? It seemed to Spark like she and Vahaadi had suddenly found themselves in the midst of some twisted fairy tale, in which he perceived himself to be an ogre but she knew he was really a king. In the stories, a kiss always seemed to break the spell, waking the slumbering princess or transforming the frog into a prince. Knowing it wouldn’t summon a magical transformation, Spark leaned forward and kissed him anyway. She touched the bandage that covered teeth marks left in his skin with her lips gingerly. She kissed his wrists, remembering the raw marks she had seen in the room. She kissed his cheeks, still wet with tears and his hand roped in her hair. With all her might she wanted her love to erase the damage. She wanted her healing powers to somehow transfer to Vahaadi, repairing him.

“Vahaadi, I don’t understand. Why didn’t you ever tell me?” Spark whispered, her face so close to his that her breath touched his lips. “Don’t you think that I do crazy things too when I miss you and everyone else is busy and no one has the patience to ‘handle’ me and I think I’m about to lose my mind from being stuck in Lunarious? Don’t you think I’ve been *this* close to throwing the whole hero thing out the window and just doing what I want to do no matter who gets hurt? Don’t you know that Flint and Van have to stop me from trying to wound myself just to see how fast I can heal? And all the time all I really want to do is run away and find you and go treasure seeking or whale hunting or just magic carpet riding with you.”

Spark sighed. “But… we’re from different worlds. I can’t always be with you, I know that. I know that Lanthriel isn’t always there for you, and neither is Tryvnah. But Vahaadi even when you are all alone and you think you can’t stand it anymore, this isn’t the place for you!” She held onto him desperately, as though worried he would suddenly disappear and go somewhere she couldn’t reach him. “You and I have a sickness, some sort of irrepressible hunger that makes us do crazy things. Even I don’t want to always eat constantly or fly around everywhere and blow things up but I have to or I’ll lose my mind. I know you have to do things that feed your hunger too. But please, please, please,” Spark shut her eyes, her throat feeling raw and hot as she tried to fight back tears. “Promise me you won’t stay here,” she whispered. “Promise you won’t let anyone treat you like this anymore, that you won’t let people use you just to get what they want. Promise me that I can know when I’m missing you so badly I think my heart is going to burst that I can know at least you’re out there and you’re okay and we’ll see each other again because you’re Vahaadi and there is no one like you because you’re the most amazing person I will ever know in my whole life.”