Chapter Text
"Oh, Adrian. I think I love you. No, I know I do," the brunette, A-Class Esper with a mole under her left eye proclaimed.
She was the sixth Esper Vulture, Adrian's Guide agency, had sent to him today. It wasn't even twelve o' clock yet, and he was already dying to take his lunch break.
"We're meant to be together," the Esper went on, cradling his face against her bare breasts. "I can get you out of here. We can run away, just the two of us, as far away from this hellhole and this senseless war as we possibly can—"
Adrian sat up abruptly, prying himself from the desperate Esper's clinging arms and untangling his naked body from the sweat-soaked bedsheets. Being Vulture's most sought-after Guide, Adrian was no stranger to handling delusional declarations of love.
"Uh..." Damn. Adrian racked his brain. What was her name again? "Sweetheart, as nice as that sounds, the President has made it illegal for Espers to contract exclusive Guides since the start of the war," he said, trying to de-escalate the situation. "Committing such an offense is a capital crime punishable by death. If you were arrested by the E.M.F., who would brighten up my Monday mornings then, eh?"
Monday morning's Esper number six fell silent, looking crestfallen all of a sudden.
"As much as I enjoyed our little guiding session, you really have to hurry and get dressed. Security will be here to escort you out of the building in five minutes." Adrian combed his fingers through his dirty blond hair, then he grabbed his clothes off of the floor, where they'd been haphazardly discarded, and began putting them back on. He forced a smile. "I'll see you again next week...Darla?"
The day before Adrian Rosebarton awakened as a Guide nine years ago was the first and last time he had ever tasted freedom. Freshly eighteen, he'd finally escaped from the long shadow of his family name and the overbearing weight of his father's expectations. Then, a day after his birthday, he had the unenviable misfortune of awakening as an S-Class Guide. Whatever perks and benefits they showered upon Guides to lure them into the system were quickly outweighed by their delegated responsibilities, and the war only made things harder. Adrian was, essentially, a glorified prostitute, sold to Espers the government deemed needed his services the most.
Sink or swim. That was the ongoing theme of Adrian's life. With the high number of Espers Vulture required him to service in a day, physical guiding was the only practical method he could employ. Luckily, he was a glass-half-full kind of guy who wholeheartedly believed in making lemonade out of lemons. Being a Guide at Vulture had made it so that his father, even with all of his political influence and connections, couldn't touch him with a ten-foot pole. Plus, Adrian enjoyed the sex, for the most part. Sex felt good, and he was not a picky eater. He also considered himself pretty liberal when it came to doing the deed, open-minded enough to try just about anything once, and willing to take on Espers with reputations other Guides would steer clear of. That, and unlike run-of-the-mill Guides, he possessed the unique ability to put the Espers who pushed their boundaries in their place if need be...
Compared to Espers, Guides were practically normal people in terms of strength, speed, and stamina. They were human. Frail. Mortal. They got sick, and dropped dead like flies, especially in those early days before the world had adjusted to the endless monster-spawning Rifts. And to make the inherent power imbalance worse, Espers outnumbered Guides twenty to one. Guides were victims of stalking, kidnapping and, ever since the war started, assassinations because it was far easier to eliminate an enemy Guide than an enemy Esper.
Adrian briskly made his way to the underground dining hall. He was flanked by two security guards, one on his right side and one on his left. For Guides, privacy was a foreign concept best forgotten. Guides were observed by surveillance teams twenty-four-seven, even during physical guiding sessions—for the Guide's safety, of course. Adrian had never actually met the surveillance team in charge of watching him. Thank God for that. He didn't think he could look anyone who'd seen God knows how many hours of footage of him fucking or taking a shit in the eye.
The security guards following him backed off when he entered the dining hall, handing him to the basement-level's dedicated security staff. Vulture's dining hall had all the charm and atmosphere of a nuclear bunker. Adrian ignored the guards and proceeded to order the highest-calorie offerings from today's menu, regardless of his own food preferences. He had to keep his energy reserves up for later. The amount of calories one burned through during a sex marathon would petrify the uninitiated.
"Hi, Adrian."
"Oh, hey, Shannon," Adrian replied to the junior Guide. "Fancy meeting you here. You come here often?"
He set his food tray down next to Shannon and promptly dug into the chicken fettuccini Alfredo and potato salad.
Shannon jabbed a pointy elbow under Adrian's ribs. "Har, har, very funny."
"Ow."
It took Adrian longer than he'd like to admit before he noticed that there was something off with Shannon. His scrawny frame was hunched over. The tips of his fingernails were chewed jagged. There were dark circles under his hazel-green eyes, and his wheat-blonde hair, pulled into a sloppy ponytail, was fraying at the ends.
Adrian looked Shannon up and down critically. "Hey there, kiddo. You doing alright? You're not your usual chipper self."
"I'm fine."
"Yeah, and I'm the Easter Bunny. Come on, out with it."
"No, really, I am fine," Shannon insisted. "I'm just being stupid, is all. I mean, I knew this day would come. It's just...nerves, I guess? You know how I can get in my own head sometimes. I've gotta stop psyching myself out about this."
A lightbulb clicked on in Adrian's brain. Today was the thirty-first of January. The increase in Delilah's tax, a tax for Guides who refused to use physical guiding as a means to service Espers, went into effect tomorrow. There were Guides who wished to preserve the dignity of their bodies and avoided physical guiding despite the numerous penalties. Every single one of those Guides that Adrian knew of had caved eventually. The only reason Shannon held out for so long was because, as a minor, he was able to skirt most of the penalties. Well, as of two months ago, he wasn't a minor anymore.
"So, they've finally cornered you into performing physical guiding, huh?"
Shannon's silence confirmed Adrian's hunch. A minute passed with neither one of them saying a word. Then, it was like a dam broke.
"Argh! I can't even make my Esper quota half the time. Now add the latest Delilah's tax increase on top of the fucked-up cherry sundae that is my life...I did the math. After taxes, penalties, fines, and whatnot—if I don't do this I'm not going to be able to earn enough to cover my mom's medical bills," Shannon ranted. "I'll be taking home sixty percent less than I did a couple months back."
"Tell me how much money you need to hold you over in the meantime. I can help you out," Adrian offered.
"Absolutely not!" Shannon slammed a fist on the table, causing Adrian's potato salad to jump into his chocolate pudding. "Thanks, but no thanks. You're a good friend, but so am I. You've been saving up for years to reach your own goals. I can't get in the way of that. I've made my decision. I just have to suck it up and follow through. Physical guiding is no big deal, right?"
"Then at least let me give you a few pointers you can use to deal with problem Espers."
"You did not just suggest that I have sex with you." Shannon's face contorted in horror. "Ew, gross. I think I'm gonna throw up."
"Pfft! Ack!" Adrian coughed, choking on his coffee. "God, no! I was going to tell you things like project confidence, no matter how shitty you feel on the inside. Don't act like a victim. Sex is something you do, not something that's done to you. Always be the one to take the lead and set the pace. Never let the Esper dictate what you should be comfortable with. Remind them that their every move is being monitored and recorded, and threaten to call the E.M.F. if they so much as leave a bruise on your skin. When in doubt, recite Article Two, Section Two of the Guide's Rights Mandate. Oh, and remember to use lots of lube and condoms. Cloud sixty-nine makes my favorite—"
"Ah! Stop! I get it."
A cheerful "ding" sound came from Adrian's right pocket. He pulled out his phone. It was a text from Shi-hyeon.
'How do I get out of these handcuffs without breaking them?' the text read, accompanied by a photo of Shi-hyeon's left hand trapped in a fuzzy pink cuff, snapped from an awkward angle.
'There's a small latch at the corner of the metal part on each cuff. All you have to do is press down on it to release the locking mechanism,' Adrian typed in reply.
'That worked. Thanks.'
"Ya know, for such a massive slut you sure do act like a giddy schoolgirl whenever Shi-hyeon is involved," Shannon said, leaning over Adrian's forearm to peek at his phone screen. "It's kinda sad, really."
Adrian sighed, having nothing to say in his own defense.
Shi-hyeon was an odd one, a twenty-nine-year-old Esper, two years older than Adrian himself, who stubbornly held on to the naïve notion of finding true love in spite of his line of work. Shi-hyeon didn't want to have sex with people he didn't have feelings for, even when, as an Esper, abstaining from physical guiding made him less effective in the field. Adrian might have laughed in Shi-hyeon's face the first time he'd spoken to him.
Somewhere along the way, during their guiding sessions, which consisted of no more than platonic handholding, and their shared conversations, which grew friendlier after each session, Adrian developed a bit of a crush. Okay, crush was an understatement. Shi-hyeon was cool, badass, and so, so hot, yet he also retained a sweet, irresistibly endearing, innocent goofiness to his personality—nothing short of a miracle, given everything he'd gone through. Shi-hyeon's perspective on love, which Adrian had once simultaneously mocked and envied, became the one part of him that he wanted to preserve at all cost.
He came dangerously close to confessing his feelings to Shi-hyeon last year.
He'd received an emergency call. Shi-hyeon had lost control of his telekinetic powers and was on the verge of rampaging. The S-Class Esper had specifically requested Adrian to come guide him. When Adrian arrived on the scene, Shi-hyeon, completely out of his mind, pounced on him, demanding to be physically guided. There was a time when Adrian wouldn't have hesitated, but Shi-hyeon was someone who dreamed of finding love, and Adrian was someone who harbored romantic feelings for him. Meaningless, mindless sex, driven by desperation and animal instinct, would destroy them both. So that day, Adrian had instead held onto Shi-hyeon for hours, guiding him platonically as he always had, taking Shi-hyeon's volatile energy into his body, stabilizing it, and then giving it back to him while wiping away the tears from the Esper's eyes.
When Shi-hyeon came to, he apologized to Adrian profusely and promised him a favor in return for saving his life.
Caught in the moment, Adrian almost confessed. Almost, because he wasn't an idiot. Shi-hyeon was an idealist when it came to love. He deserved better than a partner who slept with other people for a living. He would meet his special someone one day. Someone who could give him a traditional, monogamous relationship. Someone who was not Adrian. Even if it weren't for the ban on exclusive Esper-Guide contracts that made a monogamous relationship between them an impossibility, Shi-hyeon deserved better than him.
"Yoo-hoo? Is anybody home? You look like you're spiraling in there." Shannon waved his fingers in front of Adrian's nose. "Thinking of Shi-hyeon again?"
Adrian didn't deny it.
"Just tell him how you feel. Getting it off your chest might do you some good."
"And have him reject me? Maybe I'd rather not hear the words said out loud."
Shannon slumped in his seat. "Man, you're pathetic."
"It's too late anyway," Adrian muttered, sulking. "Shi-hyeon is seeing some normy college professor."
"Adrian Rosebarton, please report to the Director's office," a robotic female voice blared through the intercom. "Adrian Rosebarton, please report to the Director's office."
"Uh," Adrian groaned. "What does the chief want from me now?"