who_is_she | (no subject)

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It was hard to believe it had been a year and half since the bank robbery, since he'd met Dimitri, especially when Owen saw the flames so often in his dreams. Not that he was sleeping enough to have regular dreams, though.

In the last eighteen months Owen had learned a lot about his body and his limits, most notably that whatever limits he had were far in the extremes. He could go for days without sleep and not feel it, and only have to eat once or twice a day and still be able to run and jump and be a hero. These had all turned out to be useful skills, as he could not sleep to avoid dreaming and push his body to the point where he could perform well without thinking about anything extra. Extra, unrelated things like... How he was feeling emotionally at any point.

Owen sat in the visitor's parking lot at the prison, summoning the will to face Dimitri when he didn't really want to see or talk to anybody. He flips down the shade and inspects his face in the mirror on the back of it, trying to decide how obvious his current lifestyle was. There were bags under his eyes, and he didn't exactly look sick, but he didn't quite look healthy, either. Recovering from a bad cold was what he told people, because they believed it, and because it was easier than saying I haven't slept in four days. Even though he'd never had a cold in his life, people believed it. He wondered if Dimitri would believe it.

At first, he'd visited Dimitri every week, to check on him and make sure he wasn't going to go back to his previous life, and then just because he really enjoyed talking to him. A month after Dimitri had been incarcerated Owen had gone back to being a hero, and about six months ago the pressure had started to build. It wasn't any one thing, just a mountain of getting up in the morning and doing the same thing every day, the same thing that was slowly wearing him down to nothing. Seeing Dimitri had been a beacon, at first, something to look forward to--but then Owen started feeling guilty for enjoying himself with someone when he felt so undeserving.

He's only seen Dimitri once in the last two months, and even then they'd only spoken for a few minutes before Owen had been called away by an emergency. He's called him a few times, mostly to spew excuses and make himself feel even more guilty. He's run out of excuses this week, but more than that, he just really, really selfishly wants to see Dimitri, wants to hear about all the drama in prison and wants to feel himself smile again.

It's that thought that helps him get out of the car and enter the prison.

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Dimitri was doing better than he had been in a long time.

Prison sucked, it really did, with the shakedowns and the strip-searches and the fact that he was living under the same roof as a bunch of murderers. But he was happier here, than he had been outside. There was food, always, terrible food, but food, and he didn't have to wonder where he'd be sleeping at night. He'd made friends with a few of his cellies, and tended to stay out of fights, and he'd had a lot of time to do some soul-searching over the past year and a half. He'd even reconnected with his cousin, Gavin, and it seemed like Gavin might actually have started to believe in his turn-around.

But by far the best thing about his time in prison had been the visits from Owen, which, to his dismay, had slowed in recent weeks. He still called whenever he could, to check up on him, but sometimes Owen didn't even pick up the phone. He was getting worried about him; he knew the guy had it rough, with the public eye on him all the time, and he was half worried that the attention he was getting for visiting a felon in prison might have finally deterred him from visiting anymore.

He's ecstatic to be proven wrong, however, when the warden comes to tell him he has a visitor. He drops the sketchpad he's drawing in and practically jumps into his shoes, and is escorted to the visiting area by two guards. He checks in, and takes his seat at the table assigned to him, his leg jittering excitedly as he looks around for Owen.

Owen steps slowly into the visitor's room when the guard tells him he can go in, apprehensive about seeing Dimitri in his current state. He's afraid that Dimitri will see right through him and immediately know what's going on inside his head, but then, on the other hand, he doesn't want Dimitri to accept his excuses at face value and just move on.

He's not sure what he wants, so he just smiles and sits down at Dimitri's table, setting a roll of quarters down on the table between them.

"Hi."

Dimitri's eyebrows shoot up, and his mouth hangs open when he catches sight of him.

"I -- Jesus, Owen, you look like...I'm sorry, you look like shit, man," he says, leaning forward with an expression of utmost concern on his face, "What the hell happened to you?"

His heart was breaking, because he could already imagine what Owen had likely been dealing with, and he felt that none of the shit he had to put up with could have happened to a less deserving person. He reaches out across the table and puts his hand on his arm.

"Talk to me, man," he says, more gently this time, "And don't even bother trying to deflect, because you seriously look like you just rolled out of Satan's asscrack."

Owen opens his mouth, the lie about the cold on the tip of his tongue, but he just laughs at Dimitri's colorful instead. His laugh sounds broken to his own ears and feels like a dam breaking in his head, and he leans his elbows on the table and rubs his face with his hands.

"I'm... I'm fine," he says finally, and he doesn't have to look to know that Dimitri doesn't believe that, "I've just been... Busy lately. With, you know, work. Haven't been sleeping enough," he says and shrugs, peeking across the table at Dimitri over his fingers.

"Don't bullshit a bullshitter," Dimitri says seriously, kicking his shin lightly under the table, "I know you deal with rough shit, you don't have to lie to me."

He gets up from the table with the quarters, and comes back with a couple of bags of peanut M&M's.

"Talk to me," he urges, tossing a candy up and catching it in his mouth, "It'll help."

"I'm not lying!" Owen protests, because technically he didn't, and then sighs, "All right, maybe I'm... exaggerating a little," he concedes, and then reaches across to steal one of Dimitri's M&Ms.

"It's not... Any one thing, you know? Well, aside from..." he pauses, and then shoots Dimitri a meaningful look, "That one... Thing. It's just... hard, always fighting, when I... Never really wanted to fight in the first place." He shrugs and then leans his chin on his palm and looks away.

"I didn't even like football," he says absently, "It was so competitive. I was supposed to hate the other team but they were just kids, like me. But they told me I could go to college if I played so I played." He sighs again, rubbing his hands over his eyes and face like he wants to rub away the melancholy feeling.

"You're cute," Dimitri says casually, leaning back in his chair slightly. He'd never heard anyone talk about football like that before "But I'm...sorry about that shit. I mean...you deserve to be something more than a weapon, if that's what you want. And you ARE more than that."

He sets the bag on the table, reaching out and resting his hand on Owen's.

"I've been...practicing something," he says, "It keeps me out of fights with the guys in here. I can...you know. Cheer people up, make them feel a little more relaxed, with my brain. I won't do it on you unless you want me to, but...it might help you sleep tonight."

Owen can't help but blush a little at Dimitri calling him cute, and he almost wants to comment on it, but Dimitri acts like it's the most normal thing in the world so he swallows it back. He almost misses Dimitri's encouraging words and focuses back on him, only to lose focus again when Dimitri touches his hand. Had Dimitri always been so... affectionate?

Owen blinks in surprise at Dimitri's suggestion, considering it. He's not sure how he feels about Dimitri poking around in his head, but the prospect of a calm, full night of sleep is tempting indeed.

"Can you... Would you be able to... Read my thoughts?" he asks, as casually as he can manage. It isn't that there's anything he'd want to hide from Dimitri, per se, just that... Some thoughts are private, and shouldn't be shared with anyone.

Dimitri laughs and shakes his head.

"No, I can only put thoughts and feelings in your head, I can't take them out," he explains, rubbing his neck, "Your dirty thoughts are safe, man, don't worry. So...yes? Or no?"

Owen flushes and opens his mouth to argue, but stops when he figures that anything he says will probably just end up with Dimitri laughing at him some more.

"Um..." Owen taps his fingers on the table and considers it for a moment longer, and then looks up and nods, "Yeah. ...Do it."

Dimitri takes his other hand -- it wasn't necessary, but it did help, and, well, holding Owen's hands was nice -- and closes his eyes, concentrating hard on feeling calm and at ease. With a little more concentration he focuses on broadcasting those feelings into Owen's head, putting him at ease, sending along his own positive feelings about Owen as well. He doesn't push it into full mind control -- just very powerful suggestion. When he's done, he opens his eyes, smiling a little as he lets go of his hands and pops another candy into his mouth.

"I sent you some positive vibes," he says, "New agey as shit, right?"

At first, Owen doesn't feel anything, and he's about to ask what it is Dimitri's doing when the melancholy, the stress, and the guilt all start to fade into background noise. He starts to feel good, positive even, almost embarrassingly confident in himself and his abilities. It's not overpowering either; Owen's sure he could reject the feelings if he wanted to--but he really, really doesn't want to. He grasps onto those cool, calm feelings like a lifeline and pulls them in until it's all he feels.

When Dimitri pulls his hands away Owen stays like that for a moment, squeezing his eyes shut and holding onto the feeling as long as he can. When he opens his eyes, they're a little glassy.

"Dimitri..." he says, his voice rough with emotion, "Thank you."

Dimitri's a little taken aback by his reaction, and he pats his arm. For all the crying he did, he was never sure how to handle it when someone else cried on him.

"Hey, don't sweat it," he says, scratching his ear, "Anytime, okay? You come see me any time and I'll be happy to do it again."

It felt good, helping him, and he'd gotten so carried away by making sure Owen felt okay that he almost forgot to tell him the news he'd gotten this week.

"Oh," he laughs, a little sadly, "I, uh, I'm elligible for parole. Not that it matters, but...you know. At least they think I've been good enough to think about releasing me."

Owen startles a little, a huge grin breaking over his face at the news.

"It doesn't matter? Of course that matters! That's huge!" he says, reaching over to give Dimitri's hand an encouraging little shake, "I'm so proud of you! What are you going to do when you get out?"

Dimitri laughs at his enthusiasm, and runs his hand back through his hair.

"Well...I'm not," he says, with a sigh, "Getting out, I mean. You've got to have a place of residence they can monitor when you're released, and you, like...gotta check in with your officer and shit every week or month or whatever, and...I've got nowhere to go if they were to let me out now."

He twiddles his thumbs on the table.

"So, you know. What can you do."

Owen's face falls, and he frowns, thinking about that.

"What if..." Owen starts to suggest, somewhat unsurely, "What if you lived with me? I mean, I've... Got this big apartment all to myself, and it's too quiet anyways, and I could... give you rides and stuff if you needed it." He shrugs, a little embarrassed by his own suggestion but not sure why.

Dimitri is taken aback by his suggestion, and his eyes go wide.

"What...seriously? Live with you? Me? Live with you?" he scratches his chin, and he can feel his face flushing a little at the suggestion.

"You don't...have to offer me that at all, man, you know you don't owe it to me, right?" he says, "I mean...no way I deserve you even thinking about this. I mean...that sounds...great, and I'd love to be your roommate, but...me?"

Owen frowns deeper, a little offended that Dimitri would think he would only offer out of obligation.

"I don't... think I owe you anything," Owen says slowly, still frowning, "I think... If they say you can go, then you should be... you know, free. And you're... my friend. So I want to help." Owen flushes again, glancing away, feeling awkward now.

Dimitri frowns, leaning forward across the table.

"Hey, I didn't mean to offend," hs says, "I just...I dunno, it doesn't feel...deserved. But...if you really want to, I'd be happy to move in with you. That sounds like...more than I ever could have asked for, I...I don't know how I could ever..."

He was getting emotional, now, and he's barely able to stop his eyes from watering up.

"Thank you," hs says, "for everything, seriously. If you...don't change your mind later I'll call you and give you the number you need to call to get your address listed as my place of residence. I'll...be the best roommate ever, I swear to god."

"It's okay, I mean, I don't even pay for it. It's... part of my contract. And you don't... I mean, it's not a favor you have to repay or anything. My apartment's really... Quiet. It bothers me sometimes. So, you're doing me a favor, really," he says, quirking a smile and reaching out to put his hand over Dimitri's again.

"And moving in with a superhero's gotta be a plus for you, right? I mean, parole wise? You'd be, like, obligated not to do anything illegal or else, like, end up on the news or something," Owen says, chuckling.

"Yeah," Dimitri laughs, looking down between his legs and smiling, "Well, I wouldn't want to let you down."

He's thankful when one of the guards walks by to inform them of the time, drawing the attention away from how thoroughly gay the words he had just said were. They spend the remainder of their visit talking and eating, and Dimitri is elated to see that Owen seems to be feeling much better than he had when he'd arrived. When the guard comes back to tell them their time was up, he stands up, giving Owen a prolonged hug and clapping him on the back several times.

"Come see me again next weekend, okay?" he mumbles into his ear, "I missed the hell out of you."

Owen nods into Dimitri's shoulder, a shiver going down his spine, and then turns and leaves in something of a daze. All the way home his ear kind of... tingles, and no scratching or rubbing will make it stop.

When he lets himself back into his apartment for the first time in months he doesn't feel a wave of loneliness and despair; he imagines Dimitri in every corner of the place and starts to smile. He throws himself down onto the couch and hugs a cushion to his chest, grinning into it.

He imagines Dimitri is here with him now, watching daytime soaps and making fun of them, slinging his arm over the back of the couch and turning his head to smile at Owen.

Then, suddenly and without warning, hi imaginings take a turn and Dimitri is leaning in to kiss him, pushing him onto his back and sliding his palm up Owen's shirt.

Owen stands abruptly, the cushion rolling across the floor as he stares wide eyed at the wall, his breathing coming in too fast and his pants a little bit too tight.

Then, for the first time, Owen considers what a colossal mess he's gotten himself into.

"Oh... frick," he swears, with feeling.

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