An alarm beeped once and my eyes shot open, my hand already reaching towards where I usually left Riptide resting on the nightstand. It was still mostly dark outside, only the faint light of a street lamp shining in through the gap between the curtain and the windowsill.

Crystal shifted slightly and my hand changed course. The alarm managed one more loud, ear-piercing beep before I snatched up Crystal’s phone and clumsily jabbed the snooze button glowing on the too-bright screen. Squinting towards the phone, I found that it was only five in the morning, a solid two hours before sunrise and well before any reasonable person would want to be awake. Sure I’d woken up earlier before, but only if I had too. Sleepless nights and early mornings during the war had taught me to value not needing to be up till after the sun rose.

Still, if Crystal had set an alarm for five in the morning, that probably meant she wanted to be up at five in the morning. I dropped the phone back down onto the bedside table and looked down at Crystal.

She was still in much the same position that she had been when we’d fallen asleep together, her body spooned against mine and her head resting on my upper arm. A thin line of drool connected her mouth to the bedsheet beneath her and our legs were tangled together beneath the bedsheet we’d all but kicked off the bed at some point during the night.

I shook Crystal gently. “Crystal, wake up,” I whispered loudly, “your alarm just went off!”

Crystal mumbled something unintelligible and shifted again, the motion grinding her bare bottom against my crotch and making my heart flip flop in my chest as the memories of last night suddenly flooded in.

I swallowed heavily and wondered if maybe I should just let Crystal sleep. For all that Crystal had called what we’d done last night a ‘talk’, there hadn’t been very much talking involved and we did still need to have an actual conversation about…a lot of things, actually, now also including our ‘talk’ last night. Crystal’s kiss, what happened with Hookwolf, what we both wanted out of this, the whole possible mess with Vicky, what Crystal decided to do last night…

It was kind of a lot, and talking to girls had never really been my strong suit. Things I was good at mostly included making monsters very dead. Unfortunately there seemed to be a lot less of that going on around here and a lot more of all those things I wasn’t particularly gifted at.

I took a deep breath, Crystal’s hair tickling the tip of my nose and her scent filling my mouth, and strengthened my resolve. No, this was something that needed to happen. Putting it off would just make things worse, especially if I did end up taking Vicky up on her offer of patrolling with her or even just ended up spending time with her for some other reason. Dealing with Vicky was a whole other kettle of fish that I wasn’t sure how to start on, but figuring things out with Crystal first seemed like a step in the right direction.

I shook Crystal again with a bit more force, but all that ended up doing was making her wiggle even deeper into my arms. It was rather distracting, but I persevered and looked for more options. Shaking didn’t work, nor did loud whispers. I was a little trapped by her head on my arm, and anyway it was still quite dark outside, so opening the window to let the sun in wasn’t an option either.

As I considered what to try next, my hand instinctively moved down to one of Crystal’s breasts, cupping it gently as my thumb teased at her nipple. Crystal moaned softly and my morning wood twitched where it was digging into her butt.

I might be slightly biased, but I personally thought that Crystal had very nice breasts. They––

Focus Percy, not the time.

What it was time for was the nuclear option. I focused intently on my discarded hoodie where it hung loosely over the back of a chair. I could feel the plastic water bottle inside the front pocket and I very delicately twisted the cap from the inside until it popped off and the water inside could flow smoothly out into the air.

I directed the stream of water towards me until it was floating in a single long snake directly over Crystal, then let my control lapse for a moment.

“Gah!” Crystal exclaimed loudly, her head jerking backwards to slam into my chin. “Fuck!” she flailed around for a moment, then her hands went up to rub the back of her head.

Unmoved by the impact, I flicked my fingers and directed the water slowly soaking into the sheets beneath us and splattered all over Crystal to rise back into the air and return to the bottle from where it came. Unfortunately, Crystal wasn’t blind and very quickly noticed what I was doing.

Crystal sat up and slapped my arm. “Jerk,” she mumbled, “that hurt.”

I sat up as well and gently kissed the top of her head. “Sorry Crystal, I didn’t think you’d react like that. “Nothing else I tried was waking you up.”

Crystal collapsed back against my chest and rubbed her eyes. “Jesus christ it's way too early to be awake.”

“Well, it's certainly not my alarm that just went off in my ear,” I grouched back.

Crystal pulled her hands away from her face and blinked rapidly. “Oh, right. Ugh. Well, it was either that or no cuddling last night. I might be an adult, but I don’t want my parents to know whose bed I spent the night in today.”

“I figured it was something like that.” I rubbed the sleep out of my own eyes, then wrapped both my arms around Crystal’s waist. “What time do your parents wake up?”

“Dad’s usually up at five-forty-five on work days to make––” Crystal yawned widely, “––coffee, then brings it up to mom around six, six-fifteen. So we have some time. I thought––” she yawned again and slapped her hand against the bed beside her, “––we’d need to run the laundry too, but these feel fine.” She sniffed loudly. “Maybe a little salty. That was a sweet trick, I didn’t realize you could do something like that.”

It felt bad lying to Crystal, especially after last night, but I managed to rationalize it away as just…putting things in terms she was familiar with. “I’m a bit of a grab-bag,” I said, using the term I’d come across a few times on PHO, “water control is my main power, but I can do a few other things too.”

Crystal laughed, “If mom and I aren’t grab-bags, I don’t think you are one either. Grab-bag capes usually have a bunch of unrelated minor powers, and I don’t think I’d call what you can do minor.” Her smile suddenly turned very lewd and she wiggled her butt. “Nothing about you is particularly minor.”

“Oh?” I asked, suddenly curious. I’d thought that she and Mrs. Pelham, along with her brother, did count as grab-bag capes, what with their three different powers. That was probably something I should look into if I ever wanted to reveal some of my other demigod abilities. “Why not?”

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

Crystal threw her arms up in the air, “Beats me, but we’re not apparently. You should ask Vicky, she’s taking Parahumans 101 at BU this semester so maybe she knows. As long as I know what I can do and what the other cape can do, I don’t really care what the stuffy eggheads decide to call it.”

My mood fell slightly as Crystal brought up her cousin. It wasn’t a great way to start the day, but this might be the only time today that me and Crystal could talk while everyone else was still asleep and she deserved to know.

“I’ll have to ask her then. Speaking of Vicky, uh,” I bit my lip, my tongue feeling like a lead-weighted practice sword in my mouth. How was I supposed to tell my––honestly I had no idea what to call whatever was going on between Crystal I, or even if there was anything namey going on at all––that me and her cousin had kissed just a handful of hours before we had sex.

“Um, I mean, uh…” Crystal leaned to the side and craned her neck to look up at me. In the dim light trickling through the windows, her eyes looked like the dark waters where the land fell away suddenly to reveal the inky depths of the sea, beautiful and mysterious.

My voice caught in my throat, and then Crystal suddenly winked. “Vicky told me she kissed you after your date yesterday,” she said simply. “She was so proud of herself, thinking she stole a march on me. Boy was she surprised when I told her she was an entire twenty-four hours late to the party.” Crystal paused for a moment. “That is what you were going to say, right?”

Crystal’s words left me reeling for a moment. “And you’re…not mad?” I asked slowly.

“At you? Nah, that would be dumb. It was her idea and I already knew how you respond when a pretty girl gives you a smooch.”

That was infinitely better than what I had been expecting. “So we’re all good?” I checked again.

“Yep. I’m not mad, you didn’t do anything wrong.”

I let out a huge sigh of relief. “Thank gods,” I mumbled. “So um, I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again?” I said tentatively.

Crystal smiled toothily. “Don’t worry about it, Percy. Seriously. Let her try. I’m better, I know I’m better, and I’ll fucking prove it every time.” Crystal grabbed the back of my head and kissed me hungrily, and, after a brief moment of surprise, I eagerly reciprocated.

After more than a minute, Crystal pulled back, her cheeks flushed and her breathing heavy. “Vicky can throw herself at you all she likes, I don’t care. I’m not really into girls and even I can see that my cousin’s smoking hot. I’d like to be with you, Percy, but I’m not going to pull you into something that maybe you don’t want just because you feel obligated after what happened last night. I want you to know your options, know what you’re getting into, and then choose me anyway because I’m better.”

Crystal stood up and turned on the lamp, illuminating her body in all its naked glory. “Last night was awesome, Percy. If you ever want a repeat…” she sensually ran her hands down her body, “I’m all yours and you know where to find me.”

Crystal winked again and walked away, her butt swaying back and forth with every step. I suddenly felt like I had a very good understanding of a line I’d once heard in a movie. ‘I hate to see you go, but I love to watch you leave.’

My eyes followed her as she threw her bathrobe over her shoulder and slipped out, closing the door behind her. Crystal had been right. Now that was the hottest thing I’d ever seen. The utter confidence in her voice and the resolve shining in her eyes…they did things to me.

I slowly raised a hand to my chest. My heart was pounding a mile a minute and I could feel the divine ichor in my blood rushing through me like I was in the middle of a fight. Apparently I liked hot, confident women. Who would have thought?

----------------------------------------

Crystal’s heart was racing as she slipped out of Percy’s borrowed bedroom. She could almost feel Percy’s eyes burning into her back and prayed that he couldn’t see the blazing-hot blush on her cheeks or the faint shaking of her hands.

On one hand, she couldn’t believe she’d just done that, said that, just…everything. She’s been planning to come talk to Percy last night, but had kept chickening out. Every time she’d looked in the mirror and tried to open her mouth, she imagined his stern, handsome features, his warm, inviting smile, and turned into a stuttering mess. By the time she finally mustered her courage, it was getting late and she’d been worried that Percy had already turned in for the night. Just imagining peeking into his room and finding him asleep after she’d spent an hour hyping herself up sent waves of embarrassment through her body and had left her standing outside the door for nearly ten entire minutes.

And then her speech just now…well, she meant every word but she had no idea where she’d grown the confidence to say them. Well, no. She knew exactly where that confidence had come from.

On the other hand, holy shit, holy shit, holy shit…She remembered the feeling of Percy’s strong hands on her body, his tongue and lips, his cock…He was everything she’d been imagining and so much more. The way he’d held her this morning, the feeling of his muscles against her back and his warm hands on her belly…

Well, she certainly wasn’t going to be lacking for fantasies anytime soon. She needed a shower. A cold shower. Otherwise she had no idea how she was going to get through the day. She was sore, but that couldn’t bother her because she was walking on clouds and oh god, she wanted to turn around and go back right now but what would Percy think if she…

“Hey sis. You look like you’ve had a nice night, huh?”

Crystal tripped over her own feet and barely caught herself with her flight before she could faceplant onto the floor. “Eric?” she hissed, equal parts shock and fear filling her voice. She turned around in mid air, and there he was.

Her little brother was hovering down the hallway in his pj’s, his toes barely a millimeter above the hardwood floor and smirk on his face.

It took her a moment to process what she was seeing, and then her hands snapped up in a futile effort to cover up her breasts and privates, her bathrobe falling from her shoulder at the sudden movement.

One of Eric’s blue shields caught it before it could hit the ground and he averted his eyes. “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,” he mumbled.

Eric waited while Crystal hurriedly shrugged on the robe and tied it closed at the front, then turned back towards her and grinned. “So, how was Perc––”

“Eric,” Crystal said flatly, “if you say one more word, I’m going slap you.”

He raised his hands in front of himself defensively. “Sorry, not sorry!” he sang, floating back a step. “I was just up to run to the bathroom, and it's not like there are many other doors down this way. I doubt you were dressed like that in parents’ room, so there’s not really another option.”

Crystal sighed, suddenly feeling very self conscious. “Don’t tell dad?” she asked hopefully.

“Course not,” he hurriedly reassured her, miming zipping his lips. “My lips are sealed. But tell me, those biceps, is he compensating for something?”

Crystal felt her blush darken even more than it already was. “Percy doesn’t need to compensate for anythin––” she said defensively, then slapped her hand over her mouth as she realized what exactly she’d just said and before anything else could slip out, but the damage was already done.

Eric chuckled, then held his hands up in front of him about half a foot apart. “So like this? Bigger? Smaller?” He moved his hands back and forth, searching her face for a reaction.

“Nope, I’m done. Go see for yourself if you’re so interested,” she fired back.

Eric snorted loudly. “Fine, fine, I’m done. I’ll go downstairs, the shower’s all yours.”

Then he floated away, leaving Crystal alone in the hallway. Almost without meaning to, her eyes closed and she imagined Percy in all his glorious…glory. Her hands rose into the air as she tried to estimate what she’d seen. Her eyes opened and she looked down at the distance between her two hands, then down at her belly.

Crystal swallowed heavily, rubbed her throat, and hurried off towards the bathroom before someone else decided to be up at five in the freaking morning.