We defintely have muscles

Chapter 11

"You're WHAT?"

Gabriel's mother stared at him incredulously, forgetting the forkful of food halfway to her slightly open mouth. Up until this point Gabriel, his mom, and his sister had been quietly sitting at the table for dinner, when Gabriel had thought it would be a good time to come out to his mom. That and the fact that his sister was giving him her "I will cut you into tiny pieces and feed you to my snake if you don't do this" look. It wasn't going as well as he'd hoped.

Slowly, a piece of tomato covered pasta slipped off his mother's fork and landed with a slight squelching noise on the plate. It summed up the current mood quite nicely.

How's it going? Asked Quent inside Gabriel's head. Is she taking it okay?

I DON'T KNOW WHAT SHE'S THINKING! Yelled Gabe. She hasn't said anything yet. I'm looking right at her, and all she's doing is staring at me like she's frozen or something.

Unfortunately, since he wasn't thinking straight and still needed a little Moore practise with the whole kind talking thing anyway, he yelled the last bit aloud. His mom still didn't move a muscle.

Up until this point Gabriel had just been staring at his mom, waiting for her response. But just then he started really panicking and looking around everywhere, which was when he noticed that his sister had frozen as well. This didn't do much in helping him calm down.

QUENT! THEY'VE FROZEN, BOTH OF THEM. SHIT SHIT SHIT, WHAT DO I DO? HOW DO I MAKE THEM MOVE AGAIN? WHY AM I NOT STUCK AS WELL? WAIT, DID I DO THIS? AAAAAAAAAARGH, HELP!

This was really not going as well as Quent had imagined it. He'd expected some level of panicking, but not Gabe yelling "QUENT SAVE ME!" Inside his head. It was quite irritating actually, all the shouting. He was starting to get a headache, and Gabe was obviously no closer to solving whatever crisis he was currently in, and so it would benefit them both if Gabe relaxed a little.

Gabe. Calm. The. Fuck. Down. This is probably just more crazy soulmate shit, so if you relax, I'm sure we can figure this out okay?

THEY'RE JUST SITTING THERE, NOT MOVING. WHAT IF THEY'RE STUCK LIKE THAT FOREVER AND IT'S ALL MY FAULT? WHAT IF...

Quent sighed. This would be so much easier if Gabe didn't freak out so easily.

Okay, I'm coming over. See you in ten minutes. Bye, stated Quent, hanging up from their mind conversation.

Quent arrived five minutes later, out of breath and sweating a little. Gabe was clicking his fingers in front of his mother's face and tapping her lightly on the cheek, his hand shaking a little. She still sat motionless.

Quent walked over to Gabe and placed his hand on his shoulder. Gabe turned, his eyes glittering slightly in the light, and Quent pulled him into a massive hug.

"It's going to be okay," He whispered into Gabe's back, feeling a little of the tension in his shoulders ease. "If we can figure this out together, then I know it will be all right." Gabe made a small noise of agreement, and gripped onto Quent a little more tightly, feeling some of his anxieties drain away. Wrapped up in Quent's strong arms he felt like nothing could hurt him, that so long as they stayed in each other's tight embrace they could take anything on.

Fifteen minutes later they were on the phone to their "co-ordinator"

"Hello? This is Joy Addams speaking, how can I help?" She answered in her usual sugary tone.

"Hello. Um, this is Quent and Gabe, and we have a bit of a... situation here. Now we're sorry to bother you, but..."

"Help! What the fuck do we do, all my family has frozen, and we can't get them to unstick, and we don't know why they've gone like that and we're really freaking out!" Gabe interrupted, grabbing the phone off Quent.

"Ah." Said Joy, before Quent could wrestle it back. "I had hoped this wouldn't happen. There may have been some things that I... Decided not to inform you about. Don't worry, their state is entirety reversible, and they will be totally fine afterwards. But there are a few things now that you need to know. This is a sign that you may be slightly more powerful than normal. And if one of you is, both of you are. And that means that there are a few...tiny issues that may start to emerge."

"What do you mean, issues?" Quent asked calmly, snatching the phone of Gabe before he could yell unhelpful questions at her.

"Well, us and the US government have had a little bit of a... falling out. They're fine most of the time, with the less... "dangerous" ones, however very occasionally they decide that someone is not really suited to life with other people, and so they take certain...measures. You know how paranoid America is," She finished with a tinkling laugh at the end that sounded slightly forced.

"You mean to say," Quent clarified, "That the our government may suddenly decide to lock us up, and take us away from the outside world?"

"Oh heavens no!" She exclaimed,.

"Well, that's a relief," Quent sighed.

"They wouldn't do that yet. You're minors."

"WHAT?" Gabe yelled, having successfully gotten the phone off of Quent.

"You mean that they won't do anything yet, because we're minors. However, when we get to eighteen, which for me is in ONE MONTH, they can do what they like?"

"Weeell. There are lots of ways we can prevent that from happening. I'm sure you can do plenty to protect yourselves. For some people they're not entirely wrong with the whole "dangerous" thing. But you should be fine. Most of the time they just keep an eye on the ones that they think could be potentially unstable. And you only have three powers anyway. Don't expect to start shooting lightning bolts or anything."

"THREE? What's the third one? Is there anything else important for our continuing survival that you neglected to mention, or is this it?"

"Well, since you so kindly asked, the three powers that human beings can potentially gain if they find their soulmate are as follows: one, the telepathy, or mind reading. This happens to all people who find their soulmate, and it is very limited since it can only be done with their other half.

Two, what you just did. You basically froze their brains, so that for them time isn't passing any more. You haven't stopped time, that's impossible. They will still continue to age while in this state, you just halted their mental functions. This one works with any living thing, however mostly it can usually only be done in a highly stressful situation.

The third one is telekinesis, the ability to move things with your brain. This one needs lots of training before it can be done properly, however you may be able to move, small light things fairly soon. And that's all the powers that you can have, and it seems you have at least two of them. Congratulations."

"That's all you're going to say? Congratulations? This is not a good thing. In fact, this is a very bad thing. I don't want to be seen as potentially unstable!" Gabe yelled.

"Ah, it should be fine. They'll most likely ignore you two, you seem perfectly harmless to me." Reassured Joy.

"You have met us right? We play football, which means we have some pretty serious muscles. I don't think anyone looking at us will really believed that we couldn't hurt a fly." Quent stated, staring at Gabe's arms for a little longer than entirely necessary. The compulsion to lift up Gabe's shirt under the pretence of confirming they both had muscles was strong, but he succeeded in resisting the urge. Unfortunately though, Gabe didn't.

"Yep, we definitely have muscles," Gabe declared, his voice a little deeper as he traced the hard plains of Quent's stomach. Quent sighed a little, and leaned in to his touch. In a totally manly way, of course.

"I hope you're not doing anything sexual while on the phone to me." Joy cut in, totally obliterating the increasingly steamy mood going on.

"Of course not." Gabe yelped, his slight shortness of breath giving him away.

"Well, it's best I be going now, I think. All you need to do to get your family moving again, is relax, and then calmly tell them to move again. I think you can get him suitably relaxed Quent, can you not? There are things I need to be getting on with, just call me if you have any more questions or if anything happens. Cheerio!" She chirped, ending the call.

Before Gabe could even begin to freak out about all the information they had just been told, Quent turned to him and kissed him sweetly on the lips, wrapping his comfortable arms around Gabe's waist, making him forget all about the slightly disturbing things Joy had just told him, all the anxieties he had about coming out to the world.

They needed to take things one step at a time, and the first one was unfreezing Gabe's family, and successfully coming out to them. And Gabe was just starting to remember how terrified he was about doing just that, so Quent stepped in to reassure him.

"You can do this." Quent whispered. "Even if this all goes wrong, even if everything ends up failing, as long as we have each other, I know we can face this together. It's time to get up, and show the world who we really are. Because no matter how hard you pretend to be flawless, the only person you're fooling is yourself, the real you is more perfect than some fake, imitation could ever be, okay? And never let anyone tell you different. Now I'll go hide in your room while you talk to your mom."

Quent gave him a final peck on the lips, before darting up the stairs to his bedroom. Gabe took a deep breath, then sat down back at the table, silently commanding his family to wake up.

Sorry this chapter is a bit late, I had stuff to do. But can I just say,

OMG 1000 READS THANK YOU GUYS SO MUCH I HONESTLY CAN'T BELIEVE IT ASJDGJKGFSFGSJGDKFHXLDYJL!!!

Especially that reader who commented on nearly every chapter THANK YOU SO MUCH! I would reply to my comments, but then that would trick me into thinking I have more comments than I actually do. And yes, I know that's a stupid reason, but whatever. I don't write for reads and comments and votes, but it's nice when I do get them.

IF YOU SEE ANY GRAMMAR/SPELLING MISTAKES PLEASE TELL ME!!!