Previously
"Seriously, what am I doing?" Skylar muttered under his breath. "Sam said everything would be fine so everything will be fine."
"Just believe in yourself. You've prepared for today for too long. Yeah, that's right," Skylar whispered, light finally igniting back in his eyes.
"You can't let the past take over the present. Or your future," He looked at himself in the mirror, noticing the marks around his body. His fingers traced the playful bite marks around his neck before he gripped his hands into fists. "Not anymore."
Skylar closed his eyes, breathing in deeply, recognizing the scent of Eve on him and knew that before anything else, he had to take a bath. After all, he had to let the past be the past.
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The cold shower stimulated Skylar into taking deep breaths as he raised his face up, closing his eyes. The rainshower of water pitter-pattered onto his face - making light, rhythmic, tapping noises as it reminded him of when he'd been but a child rocked to sleep in his mother's arms as she tried to protect him from the world. It'd just been the two of them back then and it was still only the two of them until now.
As he relaxed and closed his eyes, the uncomfortable feeling in his chest reminded him of when he was just a simple highschooler, attending U.C High, a time when he had perhaps been the most depressed and confused in. Everyone knew why high school was full of depressed, overworked kids nurtured by teachers who only cared about their minimal salaries but the depression and bullying only got so much worse when superpowers and the A/B/O physiology was introduced to the world.
Luckily for him, he had been born in a time five centuries AFTER the New World, but it wasn't as if the bullying and treatment of Omegas went extinct - no, it simply decreased but it was still there. After all, he was a subject of such bullying.
He had been reminded and warned constantly by his family, especially his Alpha father, that he would be bullied due to his special constitution as an Omega male - something considered out of the ordinary or a freak as he was called. His family had been very accepting of him as his parents always protected him, telling him never to listen to the other children and even went so far as to report the kids for bullying him. They told him to always be proud of himself and to never look back, most importantly - never to resort to violence. His Alpha father especially warned, seeing as both him and his wife had been one of the few people struck by their generation's 'Desolate Calamity' when a full blown war between Tartarus and the Association occurred.
He listened to them like the good, obedient Omega boy he was. But the moment he started growing into his. . .adult body by his junior year, his bullying started to lean more towards the sexual side. Skylar sighed. His body was both a blessing and a curse, a blessing because he had learned to love himself and everything he had, but a curse because it attracted perverts like Eve and his bullies.
It didn't take long for him to notice that he was beginning to look different from the rest of the slim, slender Omega kids. Unlike them, his hips started to grow wide, his waist thin and body soft - a comfortable plump even but back then, his low self-esteem had made him think he had become fat from stress eating all those burgers. Later, he noticed that he was beginning to make a name for himself, observing the other kids' glances turning from pity to lust, like he was a piece of meat by the Alphas/Betas and received looks of envy directed by the other Omegas.
Sooner or later, his highschool Alpha bully had stopped bullying him and changed into a blushing teenager whenever he saw Skylar, always looking the other way when they made contact. He didn't know why back then but Sam had laughed and told him the bully had a crush on him. But, he wasn't safe yet. The Alphas and most Betas stopped bullying him but the Omegas on the other hand, suddenly went hell on his butt.
Skylar sighed as he remembered those days, perhaps the lowest point in his time. He remembered when he'd go back home, all sullen and beaten up by the main Omega bully - Trissy - who made it a show to blast him full of water - compressed water created by her ability.
Turning off the shower, he washed his milky skin with soap, remembering how it always used to be red and throbbing in pain. Those days where he was bullied by the other Omegas, he would always wash himself at school and put on a smile to avoid his parent's worries before crying himself to sleep, hoping one day that it would all stop.
Thankfully, that one day did come in the form of his beautiful savior Paragon herself on a very eventful prom night. That night, he had been so humiliated by Trissy and her goons that he rushed out of the prom building and went to the roof for a quiet sob. Heart blinded by frustration and self-hate, he walked to the edge of the roof, took one look at the cars flashing multiple meters below and with a sad, apologetic smile for his parents, he jumped.
Or, at least that was what he thought as he realized he couldn't hear the whish of wind against his ears, only the flapping of a cape. Opening his eyes in shock, he came to the visage of his beautiful, smiling savior, Paragon, carrying him in her arms as she floated atop the roof.
He remembered their conversation.
"You okay, partner?" Skylar mouthed the words said by Paragon.
". . .Wh-Who are you?"
"Just your friendly, neighborhood superhero!"
". . . .Spider***?"
"Who?"
At this point in remembering the conversation, Skylar couldn't stop the smile from forming onto his face as he turned the shower on again and closed his eyes. O h, how the warmth of the shower could never compare to the warmth he felt in her arms that night. He went along with the conversation in his mind, mouthing everything she had said before he opened his eyes.
He remembered the words she told him that saved his life that night. The words that he held and muttered whenever he was in deep poop. The words he would never forget for the rest of his life.
The words that made him fall in love for the first time in his life. Paragon turned to him and flashed a warm smile. "Everything will be okay."
Those words. So beautiful, yet so simple.
Just like her.