Chapter 1:15 TICS and TOCS Around The Clock, Xoxo Nyx

Nothing, and I mean nothing can erase or excuse the fact that I just creamed my pants from dry humping the largest dick I've ever seen on the most gorgeous man I've ever sort of met. However, if there ever has been or will be a trigger for me, it's someone like him screaming Italian. 

It's been a long time since I was exposed to the language, but I'm still fluent. Either way it doesn't matter. Call it prejudice or paranoid, but it is what it is. I've personally  been involved with Mafioso's in this city. So no one can tell me the Mob doesn't exist on our fair streets. 

Somewhere in my more rational brain, I know that not every one with an accent and or money is linked to some nefarious organization. It’s equally unfair that I have a weakness for Italians, given my history. 

Unlike most of my other idiosyncrasies, there is a real reason for that. Dramatic as my calling Dominic ‘he that shall not be named’ may seem. I assure you my ‘ex’ deserves to be linked with one of the most evil and auspicious villains ever written.

It doesn't make every hot Italian a death eater though. Not that I can process that. I'm not able to process much of anything with the shivers in my brain making my tongue numb telling me the over stimulation of well.... everything has me headed for a panic attack. 

Not aided by a cursing Spanish woman with as much plastic as gems on her mocha late skin. Even if most Hispanic people have their own dialect, once you know the base it's a fairly easy translation.  

Even if I couldn't interpret her threatening to hack us all to pieces and feed us to her father's pigs, it's pretty easy to tell that she's upset. More easy to pick up on the fact that a little cherub with swelling eyes being carried by a carbon copy of Joe from the Princess Diaries is part of it. 

Regardless of my upset, I internally mock her slamming the lobby button repeatedly. Understanding that no matter how many times you hit a button, gears and wires only move so quickly. 

Then again, I also thought that there was no turning a down going elevator with the lobby selected back up to the lair of a demon prince either. The cherub's sniff with something all over his face and clothes pulls my attention. 

I can tell the stuff all over him is not traditional paint just like I can see the wee artist's drawing is not on normal paper. Being honest, he reminds me a bit of a washed out mime. All the white and dark powder, I'm pretty sure it's make up, and the caricature is in lipstick. 

Eager for a distraction I focus on him rather than her, and the sparks that the ten carrot rock on her bony finger is splaying. Kids are another weakness of mine. Probably the ultimate one since I can't have them since.... 

“What do you have there mister man?” I tip up to him and his clenched masterpiece peaking over the taller man's shoulder. He's flushed, and a little cough tells me not feeling well at all. I imagine the baby is somewhere in the ten-month range. 

“Oh no, that cough sounds terrible. Do we have a nasty little buggy?”  I see him wiggling making grabby hands at me right before the Spanish lady screams at me to shut up, and the doors ding. Seeing the man I'd just cum on and linking the ring and the oh schnitzel glance between me and the woman, it's not a very far stretch get that this is his wife. 

I don't know why or how my brain makes assumptions like that, it's just part of my condition. ASD at its best, making me look like a shroom-head who can see the fabric of the universe tying the pair of them together.   

My trying to step off, step away, or otherwise avoid the situation has the Incubus stepping in. 

This, of course, makes me step back, unable to pull from the sheer inexplicable dominance equal to any King I could ever imagine. Raw power comes with his flex, and it's not until Cartel barbie sets in on him and the baby shrills that I can break it. 

“Hey, hey, hey.” I reach for him again, and I'm sure that normies will wonder how on earth I would do something so presumptuous. Again. Neurodivergent, I say to those with all the normal filters on what is appropriate that I was born without, and either have to observe to mimic or be told with clear instructions. 

The Cherub I'm shushing all but leaps the distance and his baby bath lavender scent soothes the deepest parts of me. A lot less than his cough, and fevered skin. “Oh my goodness,” I say when his fussing breaks after a somewhat rattled and winded explanation. 

“Well then what happened?” His tear filled eyes fill again as he goes on with the story in our descent. “I'm sure this nasty infection doesn't help matters now does it?” The wee cherub makes a non-committal sound, tucking into my neck and grabbing at my hair. 

Encouraging me to let down the wrecked sloppy for him to wrap around his fingers, while I do the baby dance. “Don’t worry. Momma and Dada will get you some medicine for that cough when.......” without warning, the lights go out mid-sentence. 

In the dark I feel Asmodeus snatch me to him. One hand on my hip and another on the boy's back. An embrace that changes with the drum of his heart beat, when echoing coils being to snap, and we're dropped several stories with the tracks skidding like brand-new brakes on a ice covered back road. 

Handing the cherub off to Dad. I'm sure that people are speaking, but I can't hear it. It's that underwater world of panic where the only thing that exists are worlds colliding in my head. When my body knows it has to do things that my brain can't remember learning. 

Whatever verbal diarrhea accompanies that, I am not liable for. 

First off, I have literally been buried alive. That doesn’t even take into account that Nicky made me watch the nineties action flick Speed with him over the weekend. You’d think the out and loud gay man would be about chick flicks. 

Nope, that’s me. While the Witch maintains his status as an action junkie. 

So I'm sure that the ticks, Terrified Civilians, are getting an ear full of the most random things ever to be said as the hot toddy, defective elevator, plummets into the darkness. With bobble head barbie and friends screaming, all I can process is getting out of the death trap created by Miles Otis. 

Him and the lot of retards with more money than sense who decided that hoisting a two ton metal box multiple stories in the air on a wire and a prayer was the accomplishment of a lifetime. 

I'm also sure that by the time that I get the doors open, drop the distance and roll to solid ground that I'm as hysterical as the cherub I reach for as the breaks continue to slip. 

He's in my arms, and I curl the wee thing as the gold doors on the box spit out the rest of them like a possessed hell mouth deciding not to swallow its own kind into the abyss. The soldier in me registers that the reason I am vomiting is the hike of adrenaline in my system. 

It also knows the sound of automatic rifles being racked before bullets fly past our heads. With precious cargo and selective mutism at best I buck against the hands trying to scurry me along as I strap the munchkin to his Dad's chest. 

Leave it to the witch to know when his curse is in full effect. 

As I hear orders being barked around the corner, Nicky’s latest ringtone on the new burner fires off, giving away our position. As the formerly fun and relaxing chorus of “everybody was kung-fu fighting….” goes off in my pocket, a herd of goons closes in on our position. 

A new, or maybe old gear clicks in my head. Letting me cut off the herd of stampeding elements before they get to the innocent little baby who has no business in any of this. One of the massive men in tac gear takes aim, while another radio chirps about another team coming up the stairwell. 

Joe catches up, helping me take down the last two before we charge into the dark stairwell. 

Years of my life may be missing, but I still keep a random junk drawer of facts that seems to magically pop itself open in detrimental situations. You know that one space of random junk you don’t know what’s for, but still can’t bring yourself to throw away. 

All fireman hoses being double the length of the floor their on, and having a thousand pound weight limit is not a fact I remember learning. Even if I did, what on earth would I have used it for as a low level field medic in the AF?

My tongue is as fat as it is numb, incapable of laying out the facts or my intention to ‘zip’ out of here. Using the hose as a rope to get us to safety before reinforcements arrive. Joe, on the other hand, seems to have AF training and works with me getting the lifeline over the metal rails. 

As ready to pull a floppy fireman as I am.

A shot from the neither dead nor fully incapacitated team rings out in a series of pops, and it's instinct to shield the baby. Adrenaline not letting me feel the hit while I tie off my own hands and spring towards the in tact lines, screaming that another team is coming. 

“It's the fastest way out Boss,” The service agent gloves up Vince while I rip my over-shirt and apply the same protective wrap on my palms that Joe is his. Once ready, I ditch the courier bag to use the strap as a harness for the cherub.

With him against my chest, I make a slip to control my speed as much as connect me to the hose in case I lose my grip. Clinging to whatever is left of the capable woman inside me, I go what feels like head first into the dark, howling tunnel of the abyss mid black-out.

They both act like I'm a howling hyena with two heads while I hold my position on the line trying to get to the ground. 

From sack of potatoes, to chimpanzee, Cartel Barbie wraps around Joe's neck like one of those crazy ladies crawling on someone trying to avoid rats. Leaping from the front corner line to the back, the Incubus joins with the Cherub, and I'm too far to release the wedge closing the doors behind us. 

Once over the edge, I use my boots to keep more friction than the rayon of my ruined uniform. Picking up the pace with voices as much as bullets rain down the shaft. By the time everyone lands, Cartel Barbie is passed again. 

Letting me hear every ping and echo of the maintenance tunnel like the hull of a ship. Every bit of strength feels like it's being sucked out of me, but I know we aren't out of the woods yet. I can hear the tension and again play a game of charades when my tongue fails me. 

“Red!” I shove the Incubus and point for Joe who has thus far been the only one successful in translating me. Falling to my knees in the hyperventilation when we get to the street and I fight the urge to kiss the ground when I collapse into a puddle of my own sweat. 

I'm lifted by the hips back in the Incubus’ arms. He doesn’t seem to have an issue with all the extra padding gained, being locked up at Doctor Cross’ house for three months. Even the sight of Big Red is too much to take. 

Flashes slice through my head as pain licks through my limbs.  Memories I don’t want mix with sounds and sensations I can’t forget. All conjoined with the flood of SUVs surrounding the paramedics. Confirming that no way, no how, no chance, I was being paranoid. 

Once he sets me down, getting the boy in the bed of the ambulance, it’s easy enough to evade the paramedics. Just not the fellow AF member standing between me and the alley way. I’m shaking hyperventilating, and will no doubt pass out from blood loss at any second. 

I can only guess the silent plea of my eyes or practically seizing body has him moving me to the back of an empty town car. Maybe we just recognize each other. Maybe it’s impossible not to recognize a psychotic break. 

Either way, I feel safe with the elder service member closing the door behind my tucked legs, and give into the black-out. Convinced that whatever I wake up to can’t be worse than the realities colliding in my shattered head.