The cocoon pulsed softly in the corner of the room, casting hues of violet and gold across the concrete walls. Leonidas sat beside it, legs stretched out, back against the cold steel frame of the old cot. He hadn’t left the room in three days. Not since Cashel cocooned.
He watched the shell breathe—slow, rhythmic, like a sleeping heart. It was beautiful. Terrifying. Sacred.
And it reminded him of his own awakening.
Two years ago, Leonidas had collapsed in the middle of a training session. One moment he was sparring with Cashel, the next he was convulsing on the mat, his skin glowing, his body lifting off the ground. The cocoon formed fast—threads of kinetic light wrapping around him like armor. He remembered the heat. The silence. The feeling of being unraveled and rewritten.
When he woke, everything was louder. Sharper. His body hummed with energy, and every movement felt like a loaded weapon. He shattered a mirror just by looking at it. The air around him vibrated with tension. It took weeks to learn how to control it.
Cashel had been there the whole time.
He’d held Leonidas through the tremors, helped him breathe through the surges, kissed him when the fear got too loud. Their connection had always been magnetic, but after Leonidas Awakened, it deepened—became something raw and unspoken. They never labeled it. They didn’t need to.
Leonidas ran a hand through his curls, eyes still locked on the cocoon. “You better come back to me,” he whispered.
His job had changed after the Awakening. Before, he was just another security grunt for the city’s biotech division. After, he became a field operative—tracking rogue Awakened, escorting cocooned civilians to safe zones, neutralizing threats. The pay was better. The danger was constant.
He’d killed. Not often. But enough.
The first time was a woman who could manipulate bone. She’d gone feral after emerging, her mind fractured. Leonidas had begged her to stand down. She didn’t. He still saw her face in his dreams.
His family didn’t take the news well.
His mother cried. His father didn’t speak to him for weeks. His younger brother, Milo, looked at him like he was radioactive. They weren’t afraid of the powers. They were afraid of what they meant—of what Leonidas had become. A weapon. A symbol of everything the outbreak had stolen from them.
He hadn’t been home in over a year.
Cashel was the only one who understood. Who didn’t flinch when Leonidas’s skin sparked or when his eyes glowed in the dark. Cashel had kissed him in the middle of a blackout once, their bodies pressed together in the rain, the city burning behind them.
Leonidas closed his eyes, remembering the taste of that kiss. The way Cashel had whispered his name like a promise.
The cocoon pulsed again—brighter this time.
Leonidas sat up, heart pounding. “Cashel?”
No response. Just the steady rhythm of transformation.
He leaned forward, pressing his palm to the shell. It was warm. Alive.
“I’m here,” he said softly. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Outside, the world kept turning. The outbreak spread. More cocoons formed. More comas. More chaos.
But inside this room, Leonidas waited.
For the boy who loved him.
For the man who would wake up changed.
And for the chance to tell him—finally, without fear—that he was his.
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