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Sly doesn’t hate his abilities. What would be the point? They have been a part of him as long as he can remember, and they aren’t going away. He knows they won’t. He doesn’t use them, especially at school where all of the teachers and faculty know what he is, but they’re still there. They snake their way through his blood, pulsing like electricity, pressing on the edge of his senses. They feel warm and soft and steady like the weighted blanket his brother bought him after they ran away from home when Sly was six years old.
The blanket sits on his bed at his foster father’s house, but Sly always has his abilities. They won’t go away. They can’t. He knows they can’t.
His brother’s won’t go away.
Divine is too stubborn for that, always has been. Every time they try to restrain his powers he breaks the machine. Even when he’s trying not to. Even when Sly visited and begged him to go along with it. Divine is the only one who has ever tried finding out how to suppress powers and succeeded, and Security won’t use his lab results, so they will never be able to.
Sly’s powers will never go away. All he can do is control them.
Sometimes he can’t.
It starts during practical lessons. Usually, Sly does anything he can to get out of them. Miss Maria knows what he is and doesn’t force him to, even though she knows he can control himself. He just - he knows he can be rude to his classmates, but he doesn’t want to hurt them. Ruka is the first person who actually tried being his friend and wanted to hang out with him. Patty is really smart and funny and doesn’t take his shit. Bob is nice to him, even when Sly is being a jerk. Rua somehow has the energy of three people in one body and always directs the attention towards himself, and Sly knows that’s more for Ruka’s benefit since she can be really shy, but he knows it’s a little bit for him too.
He doesn’t want to hurt them. So he sits it out until he can’t put it off anymore because Miss Maria has to put something in the grade book. He doesn’t notice that he’s shaking until Ruka touches his shoulder and he flinches back.
“I’ll test with you,” she whispers.
“I’m fine,” he says, his voice rough. “Nothing’s wrong.”
She frowns, and he realizes too late that she knows. “Please let me. I know how to protect myself, so you don’t have to worry.”
Shit.
“Okay,” he mumbles.
Ruka goes back to smiling and jumps forward to tell Miss Maria that she’s volunteering. Sly just tries to set up his duel disk through the static buzzing in the back of his head.
And... everything is fine at first. He focuses extra hard on controlling himself, and as far as he can tell nothing his monsters do is hurting Ruka. He doesn’t know how she is protecting herself, or how she knows what he is, but she’s okay, and that’s what matters.
Until a deafening sound rings in his ears and his skull and his hands hovering above his duel disk. Lights flash in even intervals, leaving a mask of blurry darkness in their wake. Everything in him freezes in place and roots him to the gym floor. Wind brushes at his arms and scatters papers throughout the room as everyone quickly files out past him. That pressure at the back of his head creeps down his neck and his shoulders and down to his hands.
His duel disk deactivates, though he doesn’t remember clicking any buttons, and the wind stops abruptly. Sly realizes, with a sinking sense of dread, that the wind was coming from him.
“Sly! Hey, we have to go outside, okay?”
Ruka touches his arm, still suspended in front of him with his cards in his hand. Most of the class is already gone besides them and Miss Maria.
“It’s the fire alarm,” Ruka says firmly. “Someone probably set it off by accident so we’ll be okay, but we have to get outside.”
He nods weakly. She takes his free hand and locks their fingers together so she can gently pull him out through the back set of doors with Miss Maria behind them. Outside, Ruka tries leading him to the rest of their class, but he resists. He doesn’t want to be around other people. The alarm is still blaring in his head and everyone outside is talking and teachers are taking attendance and-
She stops just a few feet away from their class. “We can stay over here until you’re okay again.”
With shaking hands, Sly slips his cards out of his duel disk and back into his deck, which he quickly removes. He isn’t going back to practicing after this. He won’t.
“D-did I hurt you?” he asks quietly. Ruka shakes her head.
“You didn’t. I told you I can protect myself.”
“How did you even know about that?”
She glances to the side, away from the crowds of people, and nods. Something furry brushes against his shaking hand and he startles back.
“You felt that?” He nods. “Most... Most people can’t. That’s my friend Regulus.”
She slips her own deck from her duel disk, flips through, and pulls out the card matching the name. “He looks pretty mean but he isn’t, just a little grumpy sometimes, kind of like you,” she teases.
Sly glances down to his hand as the lion materializes in front of him, and Regulus does his best attempt at sighing and rolling his eyes at Ruka’s comment. The lion’s soft fur shifts and glimmers in the light as it does on the card. Ruka is right that Regulus looks angry on his card, snapping and roaring at the player, but here he looks like an over-sized house cat. Sly has never been able to see spirits before. Some of the people at the Arcadia Movement could, but Sly can’t.
(Toby could. Sly tries not to think about Toby.)
“You have powers too,” he says.
“I do.”
“And you know about mine.”
Now she shifts awkwardly, and Regulus bumps against her. She drops her volume even more, looking around warily. “I... I was at the trial, with Aki. And before, at... you know.”
His heart sinks into his stomach and the static buzzes even louder. “I’m sorry.”
“No, no, I’m not mad! It’s not your fault at all, and I know it must have been hard on you too, I just wanted you to know that Rua and I understand.”
Sly nods stiffly. Regulus bumps into him and he stumbles to the side. When he looks up at Ruka, she’s smiling.
“As I said, grumpy.”
“Thank you,” he mumbles.
“You’re welcome.”
Ruka holds his hand again, and the static recedes. Eventually the alarm cuts off in the building and students file back in. His head still hurts from the noise and lights, but that’s okay.
He isn’t alone anymore.