"All right," Teddy said, folding up a newspaper as he came towards the dining table. He passed the paper towards the groping Tobias and took a seat beside his fiancé. Around his waist, he wore a sheet like a skirt, for the sake of Tobias, who was morbidly embarrassed that he couldn't fit any pants in the household. All three of them wore makeshift skirts together. "Let's play a game: 'Guess the next pom'."

Viola Mae moaned and leaned back in her chair. "Oh." She rolled her eyes. Her socked feet stuck out at Tobias's side of the table. "But it's so obvious."

Tobias looked blankly between them. He slid the newspaper into the pocket of his robe and wearily rested his elbows on the table. His moved his quivering hands away from his plate to silence a rattling.

"I'll go first," Teddy volunteered, ginning. He pointed his knife at Tobias, aiming for his attention. Tobias twirled his fork in circles, unaware. "Oetherium."

Viola Mae cupped her hands around her mouth and tilted her head back to heckle, "Obvious!" She punched his shoulder. "Everyone can see he's going. He's been pulling his hair out for weeks—that's a sure sign. That and how he's taken to public crying about the so-called 'grey line' between heroes and villains. But, to be honest, nine out of ten matter-molders—historically—have gone pom. It's a surprise that he's lasted this long as a hero. Remember, the last six generations of matter-molders picked the other side right off the bat."

Teddy shrugged, smugly glowing. "Your turn."

"Give me a minute to think. Way to pick the easy one, Teddy Bear."

He shrugged again, smirking, then leaned across the table to tap the wood next to Tobias's fork-fiddling hand. Tobias straightened, blinking out of a daze, and pushed up his glasses to try and make Teddy clearer. It had not been clever of him to take three of those painkilling tablets without reading the recommended dosage. He had foreseen fogginess, but had been mistaken to think that having a foggy head would keep him from thinking. It didn't stop the thoughts from coming, it only made them more infuriating.

"You look drunk, my friend," said Teddy. "Do you want to go back to your room and sleep it off, or—"

Tobias waved his hands in front of himself. Everything seemed to be spinning sideways. "No, no. I'm fine."

Viola Mae pursed her lips. "Tobias, please don't abuse those pills. Some people say they're addictive."

He gagged and shook his head. "No. I won't. I won't take any more."

"I mean, if you're in pain, I don't want..."

"Don't worry about me, please," Tobias said. He picked up his fork. "Tell me who you think will be the next pom."

Teddy grinned and raised his beer. "That's the spirit."

Viola Mae groaned and shook her head. "I don't know. I'll say... Zing."

"Interesting... Very interesting." Teddy nodded, stroking his chin. "I can see it. He's visibly shaking every time they get him on T.V and is always quick to anger. And hiccups all the time, which is just not right. Any thoughts, Tobias, my mummified friend?"

Tobias purred sleepily, poking at Teddy's cooking. "I don't think Zing is going power-mad. I've heard rumors of Parkinson's disease running in his family, and I wouldn't be surprised if he has it." He pushed up his glasses to rub his eyes. "Though I can't explain the hiccups. But, when have hiccups ever been sinister? Oetherium, on the other hand, is losing his mind. It's not his powers that's doing it, but if he gets carted away, I can definitely see him using them unwisely and getting sentenced to the P.E.N.T.house, rather than the retirement home."

He shrugged and shoveled a forkful of risotto into his mouth, where it melted satisfyingly. After two days on an empty stomach and one day on a stomach of raw fish scales without the fish, every meal the couple blessed him with filled him with overwhelming gratitude. The warmth in his gut helped against the dizziness, slightly. The neutral mauve colors of the cozy dining room were comforting and calming.

"If it's not his powers doing it, what is it?" Teddy asked.

"Society, the media, the backwards and outdated moral and ethical standards that we live by under the law and uphold in our government," Tobias muttered. "And celebrity status since birth."

He flew his hand over his head. "Over my head," he chuckled. "Just what I'd expect coming out of a Ph.D. like yourself."

Tobias moaned and sunk in his chair, pushing his fingers into his hair and grabbing a clump of locks. It hadn't fully hit him how much he was giving up on his—arguably destructive—new path. "I was so close to having my Ph.D. One more month and my thesis would have been complete. Not to toot my own horn, but my work was a shoe-in. Now, for what?"

Viola Mae touched his wrist. "You can go back."

"No!"

She withdrew and folded her arms. "You know exactly how foolish it is to fake your own death. If anyone finds out, you'll get put under a pom watch. The last handful of heroes that did it defected and ended up in P.E.N.T., apart from Geyser, who retired peacefully for four years before he was discovered and also sentenced for avoidance of duty. There are only three-hundred-and-sixty-six heroes total in every generation, Tobias. You are that special three-hundred-and-sixty-sixth, the leap year hero, the only future sight, and even if you manage to hide for the four years, they'll figure out that you're still alive when no new seer is born on the next February twenty-ninth. You'll be hunted down in a snap. You're playing with fire."

Tobias scowled and ate his risotto.

"Well? Tobias? Right now, it seems as though you are trying to fake your own death. Your funeral is next week, and I have to write a eulogy."

"Well," Tobias sneered. "I can't wait to hear Benjamin's."

"Tobias!" Viola Mae cried. She threw her hair out of her face and stood up. She pointed her finger at him and he stubbornly glared downwards at his dinner to avoid it. "Tobias, forget Ben. You are faking your death and bringing Teddy and I into it. I swear that I will lie for you for the rest of my life because you are important to me, but this path is dangerous. I don't want to see you in the Penitentiary!"

He guiltily lifted his eyes, expression pinching apologetically. "I..."

She slowly lowered herself back into her seat and pulled a Berry Belt from her hoodie. Despite her dinner being unfinished, she twisted the long strawberry-flavored string around her finger and nipped a bite. "You don't belong in the P.E.N.T.house and you never will."

"You've got to admit, he does look the part," Teddy mused offhandedly. "Tobias MacClain, the next pom."

Tobias raised his head, eyes bulging and brows pinched. The man may have lost one eyebrow in the blaze, but the other was as bushy ever, and his look of offense was painfully evident. The caterpillar pulled down the wrinkles of his brows like shutters, bared against menaces.

Teddy covered his mouth with his hand, his own eyes bulging right back. He swallowed an insufficiently chewed mouthful and pounded his throat to get it down, then hastily spoke. "I'm kidding, Tobias! Don't listen to me." He smiled sheepishly, looking to Viola Mae like a bad dog seeking forgiveness. "You are too sane to go pom, and too noble, and too kind. I could go on. You always make the right decisions, even when you get hurt from it, and then when you get hurt, you always get back up and keep going."

"Yeah, well..." Tobias felt a flash of anger behind the fog. A part of him wanted to blurt out "I'm sick of getting hurt from it." A part of him even wanted to cry, "I'd like someone else to get hurt next time." He sighed and exhaled the anger away. Instead, his shoulders relaxed, and he melted coolly back into his chair. Calmly, he replied, "Thank you, Teddy."

Teddy awkwardly rubbed his jaw.

Viola Mae glared at him. She threw a handful of peas at Tobias's head.

He gaped at her, batting the greens away. Teddy frowned at the abuse of his cooking.

"Don't you dare dwell on how you look, Tobias," Viola Mae ordered fiercely, because she knew the man and his insecurities all too well. Central Benediction may not have understood why Chance wore a tunic rather than something fitting, but she did. "You are a beautiful man and you are loved. Say it back to me."

"Viola Mae—" Tobias began snidely.

"Say it, or I'll keep throwing peas at you."

Teddy folded his arms. "You had better not let her throw all those peas at you, my beautiful friend. I slaved over the stove making those peas for my beautiful loved ones and would hate to see them wasted."

"I'm..." Tobias pressed the ball of his hand to his brow and huffed. "I'm a beautiful man and I am loved," he rapped quickly, dagger eyes to the table. His cheeks burned—one especially—so in sullen embarrassment he refused to look up again for a long while. Viola Mae let him carry on with his meal, and lighter conversation resumed on the topic of Viola Mae's work at the Elementary for Non-Typicals, where she worked with many bright young pupils.

When their meal concluded, Tobias timidly offered his assistance with cleaning up, but his friends sent him straight to bed on account of his poor balance, grumpy disposition—which they blamed on his tiredness—and obvious lack of focus. His thoughts kept returning to what Teddy had said. A pom? Could Tobias be going power-mad? Was it possible?

He closed himself in the bathroom and stared at his reflection. In the white lighting, the pink and purple puffiness surrounding his eyes stood out starkly. He sat down on the edge of the bathtub and leaned his crutch against the wall. Then, he carefully began to unwind the bandages from his face. He stripped off his borrowed shirt and humiliating skirt to remove the last of them. The spool of non-stick cotton bands lay in one tall mound on the floor, caked in brown scabs and flakes of skin.

Tobias grabbed his crutch and stood before the long mirror, feeling small and vulnerable and scrutinized. One half of his body was so unlike the other that he could not recognize it as his own. It was a shriveled shadow of himself, gnarled and messy. Dark and damaged, welted, blistered. It was irreversible. Maybe a healer could have removed the scars had he accepted rescue on his first day, but that chance was gone. As he stared hopelessly at himself and his face and the other one, feeling his ribs, wincing at his chest, he started to weep all over again.

"I do," he whispered, gasping choked breaths as he met Tobias and the other half. "I really do look the part."

Because heroes don't have scars. Heroes are perfect in every way, invincible to the public eye, and as a reporter, I resent it. I've spent enough time in the media to understand how we carve their images to be either perfect, or scandalous, depending on how big the paycheck is. Benediction is corrupt. It is so corrupt that the heroes that aren't perfect and stop trying to be start believing that they shouldn't be heroes. Tobias MacClain was not the first, nor would he be the last, to say it.

"I'll never be a hero," he breathed. "Never again."

But, this time—and you'll be warmed to hear it—Tobias was very, very wrong.