May

Levi’s head was shaved clean, and it seemed to sparkle under the fluorescent lights of the surgery theatre.

He was cold in the thin hospital gown he wore, and he was surrounded by many doctors, many aides, and a few robotic aides, their appendages moving slowly, or some jerking erratically, and he closed his eyes because of the ones that moved suddenly made him nervous.

Even when he closed his eyes, lying on the uncomfortable surgery bed, the bright light filtered through his eyes and made them red-orange, his veins visible.

“Mr.Slater, it’s almost time,” said one of the aides. “Are you comfortable?”

“Yes,” he lied.

She put her hand on his shoulder and told him it was okay to be nervous, the surgery was experimental, but the doctors were well-trained, and there was nothing to fear. It would feel like taking a nap, and then waking up, not feeling anything in between.

The white room was filled with professional jargon as the anesthesiologist walked in, explained more things to Levi that made him sweat in the frigid room, and told him that everything was fine. He placed the white plastic nozzle over his mouth and told him to relax and count down backward from ten.

Levi made it to six, and the medical staff went to work.

They played relaxing music while they drilled his skull along the lines they dotted with a marker. Using precise technology, the specialists worked on his oversized Neuman gland. Too big to work, yet still releasing enough hormones that he should have an ability.

Yet there was none.

There were more doctors than necessary, the others there for research and documentation, a rare corrective surgery in an attempt to get an astral to fix a disordered brain that made their ability cease to function before old age.

They scribbled furiously on their pads, handwriting illegible, and typed quickly on their digital glass tablets, their fingers blazing so quickly it was a wonder if their fingertips even touched the surface. Pictures were taken, for science, of course.

It was rare that anyone would ever want a part of their Neuman gland removed, or the entire thing removed unless their ability made it impossible to live, or it hurt themselves, or other people, and had no use outside that scope. Even then it had to be approved, and many doctors believed that it was wrong to remove such a beautiful thing.

None of these factors was an impediment when one has personal doctors that will prescribe any medication, for any reason, for the amount the Slaters were willing to give, which to them was nothing, but to others was everything.

Carefully, methodically, a small incision was made, and half of his Neuman gland was cut out. It was slowly moved into place, closer to the pituitary gland, and Levi’s surgery was considered a success because he lived.

The only reminder that surgery ever occurred was a small scar on the side of his head, that soon would possibly fade with time, and if not, Levi planned on tattooing it over.

It had been a few months since the surgery, and Levi had considered it a failure.

He inspected his scar in his bathroom mirror, leaning over the sink, touching it repeatedly, like a button, the harder he pressed, the likelier his ability would work. He assumed it would be the same as Sara’s, that it would slowly trickle in, and he would take his time to understand how to master it in secret, of course, so no one outside of his family would know the lie.

Mary Jane would soon be, truly, his family, and he had to tell her.

But he knew that if his ability finally worked, then technically he never lied.

He wiped off the steam from the bathroom mirror, and it fogged up again, he tried to remind himself to get the heated mirrors installed in his new apartment like the ones he had at home.

Then he told himself this is my home now.

Standing naked in his small yet upscale bathroom he did not feel like it was home. He did not feel like his home was his back in New Springfield, but it was familiar. Levi wanted to recreate the familiar feeling as much as possible and decorated the apartment just the same as he did in his section of the house in New Springfield, but it wasn’t the same.

The blue, white, brown, and red, mosaic of tiles, reminiscent of Byzantine-era art was the same at home, but it did not feel like home, neither did the sparkling glass kitchen with his collection of fancy plates he bought that did not work very well as plates from their strange designs.

Mary Jane was in the other room, so he sat on the bed, in his birthday suit, still wet, upset about his failed surgery, because he could not control it, and the thing he could control, his new apartment, he did not like.

“Don’t give up,” Levi whispered to himself. “God helps those who help themselves.”

So he tried different things, squinting at objects, wiggling his fingers in the air, waving his arms around, jumping, screaming, grunting, any kind of exertion that would get his ability to spark, but nothing happened.

While waving his arms in the air, naked, Mary Jane walked in and she was utterly baffled, a grown man screaming, naked as the day he was born, his back turned in the door, saying something about doctors being nothing but con artists and charlatans.

“Leviathan, what are you doing?”

Levi didn’t turn his body around, ashamed of his nakedness, then feeling silly because she had already seen him naked before, and now he didn’t want to turn because she started to snort and giggle, her entire body shaking, her overly-sized golden bracelets jingling as she walked across the bedroom.

“If you’re bored we can just go out, you know, instead of whatever this is,” she giggled.

“I’m fine Jane."

“You trying to communicate with the dead?”

“No, really, I’m fine.”

Mary Jane knew he was embarrassed, rolled her eyes, and rifled through their blue dresser, found him a pair of boxers and shorts, and gently placed them in his hands while he turned away from her.

As he was putting them on, Mary Jane announced her intention to leave.

She sat on the bed, the swirl pattern sheets she chose when they moved into the apartment, and crossed her legs, ready to rip off the bandaid.

“Levi, I know you don’t want to marry me,” Mary Jane sighed. “You are afraid to be naked in front of me and your dick has been in my-”

“Don’t talk like that, you keep hanging out with those bad girls, and now you sound like them,” Levi seethed.

“Julia and Annie are not bad,” Mary Jane insisted. “You’re just kind of a prude. ”

Levi grumbled something incoherently and sat next to Mary Jane on the bed, his ridiculous height looking bigger by her small body. She was in her yellow one-piece bathing suit, ready to head out for the beach, and wanted to convince Levi to come with her because he never wanted to go.

Levi never tanned, he just burnt.

His face was now burning, red like a lobster without the help of the sun as his fiance was blunt about their lack of romance and their parents' strange obsession with their love lives.

“Stop deflecting and just listen to me, Levi,” Mary Jane begged. “Don’t you think it's like, it's super weird that they keep trying to push us together? Like, like were some pandas in a zoo or something?”

“I don’t question anything my dad does, that man is insane.”

“Yes, but Uncle Max doesn’t do anything for no reason,” Mary Jane insisted. “What is his deal?”

“He’s a total control freak. That or he’s trying to live through me,” Levi suggested.

“Gross. Does Uncle want to fuck me? ”

“Oh, Jesus. Oh no. That cannot be it.”

“So let’s try and see this through the lens of a sociopath,” Mary Jane reasoned. “What happens when people get married? Let’s start there since he keeps pushing it.”

“I mean, they have kids?”

Mary Jane was now a lobster as well, and they knew there would be no mating ritual, no dance between them, they were not interested even though they were stuck in the same tank together as the zoo patrons watched expectantly.

“Jane, this is getting us nowhere. If my parents want kids they could have another or adopt. This is-”

“Levi, if you don’t want to stand up to your dad, it's okay, I get it, he’s kind of scary.”

Mary Jane held his hand, and Levi sulked, he mumbled, he groaned, and Mary Jane understood all of his machismo and bravado, so she went along with some of it, and told him that even though he was nervous it would be fine.

“I think we should just live our own separate lives is all,” Mary Jane huffed. “I want us both to be happy, and I’m tired of my mom controlling me as well!”

“Auntie Sue? What are you talking about!?”

“You wouldn’t understand,” Mary Jane sighed.

She got up from the bad and started to pace, her bracelets jangling again, clasping her hands, and then she stopped, made an abrupt turn, and ripped off the entire bandage.

“Uncle Rico did not assault me.”

Levi groaned.

“Jane, what- ”

“He came into my room to wipe my memories. I know what they’re doing, I know why Rikka hates him now! I know why you’re afraid and it's okay,” Mary Jane said. “We aren’t really together, but you’re still my partner, and I still love you.”

“You said we shouldn’t stay together though,” Levi replied.

“There’s different kinds of love.”

Levi looked at the beige, off-white carpet he forgot to get replaced with wooden floors, then back at Mary Jane, and he wanted to be honest because the two women in his life he cared about the most had been honest with him.

“I love you too, Mary Jane,” Levi said.

He got up and hugged her, and she giggled into his chest, holding on, and her voice was muffled when she said, “I’ll drop the charges because he didn’t do it, but this doesn’t mean I’ll let them hurt you.”

“I don’t need you to protect me,” Levi laughed.

“I mean, I guess since you can fry anyone.”

Levi let go, and then he stared at the ceiling, causing Mary Jane to groan, letting out an audible What now, what do we have to deal with now, is nothing normal around us?

“Jane, I’m a liar, I didn’t get surgery for a tumor,” Levi said, still staring at the ceiling. He couldn’t look her in the eyes, because it was too scary, her opinion of him weighing too heavy.

“So they cracked you open like an egg for fun? Levi is this a lie inside another one,” she asked.

“Jane, they did surgery in an attempt to make my ability work.”

Levi finally looked down at her, and Jane was squinting at him, in disbelief.

“I am honest with you, I try to work this out, and you are lying to me again,” Mary Jane shouted. “I cannot-”

“Jane-”

“Will not-”

“Mary Jane can you-”

“Shut up!”

She walked over to the bed, collapsed into it face down, and told him to leave while clutching the mismatched pillows and sheets because they did not get the right secondary set.

“Jane, I have never had an ability. My powers are borrowed.”

Jane refused to look at him because it was another lie. The lie became even more outlandish, stories of gods, monsters, two-horned men trapped inside his earrings, a key with a very shy personality, an overly friendly ring, and apparently, Ace had one as well.

Levi slowly walked across the carpet towards the bed as he told her everything he knew, and she still kept her head in the sheets, until he was staring down at her, and she was compelled to glare back.

“You mean to tell me the idiot that has an evolutionary ability, that cannot evolve because he's so dumb, has the power of a friendly knight inside his bracelet, and you think another one of your teammates has one as well and is trying to kill you?”

“I mean, I don’t think Harmonia’s trying to kill me, but she’s trying something, ” Levi shrugged.

“Levi, you are so full of shit! Do you want to keep lying? Why?”

“You know what! I’m going to prove it! I am not lying, I am not lying about any of this Mary Jane!”

Mary Jane braced herself for another tantrum as the entire house’s electrical objects shone bright, flashed, and then fizzled, exploded, shattered, and ceased to work for the third time that week, and she was grateful that there was no small house fire this time.

“Stop your bitching and do it,” Mary Jane goaded him. “You always go on about being strong. Show it to me. Show me your amaz-”

Her voice trailed off as the room, which was already dark from the exploded light bulbs faded and she froze up. Levi looked around, panicking, and he wasn’t doing it. It was impossible. He hadn’t started yet.

“Mary Jane, this isn’t me, this is someone else who can do it too,” Levi said.