After at least a minute of no communication between them, the three-inch passenger reached into Lucy’s ear and tapped at her warm skin, which ordinarily served as a signal for the Alpha to stop walking, but it went completely unacknowledged.  He attempted it several more times until he realized Lucy didn’t intend on halting her determined glide down the outdoor shopping center sidewalk until she reached the house her best friend had been kicked out of that morning.

            “Luce… c’mon, you… you don’t need to-” Neil pleaded awkwardly, leaning into her ear to make sure it was heard clearly amongst the bristling fall wind and clamorous din of shoppers all around them.  An Omega, standing in the canyon-like primary passage canal that ran through the center of the area, bellowed appreciative laughter at something said by an Alpha perched in his hand with enough volume to shame stadium stereos.  The colossus would’ve easily drowned out Neil’s voice if the latter wasn’t seated so close to his friend’s ear drums.

            “Who did it?” Lucy demanded curtly, keeping her voice enough for the Beta to hear as she dodged between the people.  “Who?”

            “It’s not a big deal.  I didn’t have much.  You know how I am about keeping stuff around that I don’t use anymore.”

            This, too, was a gross mollifying of reality.  Neil had in his possession several small but prized collections of action figures from some of his favorite childhood comic books, and though Lucy would occasionally tease him about his plastic trinkets, she respected that they were the closest things to personalized treasures he’d ever own, considering how few Christmas and birthday presents he usually received from his family.

            Her blood was in serious danger of boiling over.

            “It was your sister, wasn’t it?  She tossed your things, didn’t she?” Lucy spat, and in the lack of a response, she knew she’d guessed correctly.  She scowled.

            “It was all she did.  Honest.  Nothing else.  It’s not a big deal,” he gasped, realizing what a rapidly losing battle this was becoming.

            “What about your figurines?” she asked.  “Did she toss those, too?”

            “Luce, everything’s… r-replaceable, you know?”

            “Neil, I know you’re technically related to her, but I need permission to do something.”

            “What?”

            “I need permission to break your sister’s fucking jaw.”

            As hyperbolic as the statement sounded, especially in the vigor of Lucy’s barely controlled stampede, Neil knew there had to at least be a grain of truth to it.

            The first time they’d ever tried the Beta-toting headband, with Lucy gleefully insisting that they test it out in public, a passing teenage Alpha had casually thrown them a comment about Neil making a cute accessory in the only real “job” his kind was intended to have.

            It hadn’t taken more than a few seconds for Lucy to pivot back around and land a beautiful right hook on the girl’s face with the grace and accuracy of a seasoned prizefighter.  The Beta was grateful their detractor had landed on grass instead of concrete, because otherwise she’d probably have ended up with even more legal grievances to bring against the unlikely pair, in addition to the black eye.  To this day, he knew the only reason Lucy hadn’t ended up with a mark on her permanent record was because the Alpha Aegis employee who’d reviewed the event happened to be engaged to a Beta.

            “I’m not sure I’m authorized to grant something like that,” he sighed after a minute.  “It doesn’t matter anymore, anyway.”

            “Doesn’t matter?” Lucy hissed.  She cupped a hand around her passenger as a bike messenger zoomed past near the edge of the sidewalk.  “She’s been pushing you around for years, doing whatever the hell she pleases, and then when they’re throwing you out in the cold, she goes and… and…”

            “She hasn’t been that bad that last couple years.  You know that!” Neil said, using up every possible paper-thin excuse to keep Lucy from blowing a gasket at his family’s final act of calculated emotional abuse.  He placed a reassuring hand on the shading wall of Lucy’s palm as it protectively covered him, but it didn’t seem to aid in cooling her off.

            “And I guess that just lets her off the hook for everything else, huh?” the Alpha snapped, the words of her rant spilling over one another.  “For all the times she spit in your food, or dropped you in a sock, or-”

            “Lucy, please.  I’m… I’m out of there now, see?  There’s no need for this.  It’s all okay now, I promise.  They even told me they never even wanted to see me again, so it’s not like-”

            Nearly choking on his poorly chosen words, Neil realized that in the process of hastily crafting a defense, he’d probably just made things worse.  Indeed, he could already feel Lucy’s pace quickening as she ducked between clusters of shopping Alphas.  Her jawline seemed to be vibrating now, most likely as she ground her teeth together like blades in preparation to chew through an offending party’s jugular.

            At last, nearing the Beta’s former place of residence, Lucy came to a stop before a crosswalk in the street.  “All right, are there any cars coming?  I don’t hear any.”

            “I c-can’t…”

            “I said, are there any cars coming?  You’re gonna just be kicking yourself so much if you didn’t tell me about one and then I walked right out into the road and we both got pulverized,” the Alpha warned, mostly facetiously, but still with enough fire that Neil at least had to question how much of it she believed.

            “N-No.  No cars,” he said after thoroughly checking.  “The light’s about to change anyway.”

            “Cool,” the Alpha said, swiftly making her way across the street, practically pile-driving through pedestrians going the opposite direction.

            “Puddle,” Neil peeped suddenly, just in time for Lucy to keep her foot in midair for a few more seconds and avoid splashing into the mud.

            “Thanks.  See, you’re getting the hang of it again,” she said.  “Curb?”

            “Three.  Two.  One,” the Beta counted down obediently, not wanting his sputtered protests to get in the way of Lucy’s safety when she was so clearly intent on arriving at her destination regardless of how much guidance he provided her with.  Trusting completely in her friend’s timing, Lucy took a higher step at the bottom of the count and landed smoothly on the sidewalk, where she continued power-walking without missing a beat.

            Neil knew Lucy would be perfectly capable of safely catching him if she were to take a tumble due to a misconstrued directional suggestion, as she had demonstrated several times in their youth before she was quite so talented at sightless locomotion.  Of course, those occasions had always come at the cost of a few scabs on Lucy’s knees, as she always put his safety before hers when carrying him, and it never failed to leave Neil feeling guilty for weeks after.  He certainly didn’t need that being repeated today, on top of his already heavily heaped stress from his familial expulsion.

            “Don’t do this, Luce.  Please,” he whispered desperately after another few minutes of silence.  His tone had shifted from one of anxious imperiousness to outright fear, and this, finally, couldn’t go ignored by his friend.

            “You don’t have to be scared.  I swear to God, none of them are ever going to touch you again.  We’ll find a good place for you to stay hidden outside,” Lucy explained with sudden rigidity.  “But I am going to do this for you.  And a little bit for me, too.”

            “Why?  I don’t want it to turn into anything else.  I’m out now.  I don’t want you to do something that might…” the Beta trailed off, pain evident in his voice, and at last Lucy began to understand the real reason he was afraid to go back.

            Sighing, the girl reached up to her ear and scooped Neil into her palm, cradling him on her curled fingers as she brought him back in front of her face to hear better.  Those silvery eyes, once again, trained down on him even if it didn’t do anything for Lucy herself.

            “They can’t hurt me,” she promised.  Gently, she stroked her pinky finger down the Beta’s arm, until the tip of her digit could be placed atop Neil’s trembling hand.  “I’m a big girl.”

            He hugged her finger back to his chest.  The blood seemed to be pumping under her flesh just as rapidly as his own heart, and for a moment they were synced.  “Yes you are.”

            “You know I can handle myself.”

            “I know.”

            “So why, when you help me find my way so often…” Lucy pleaded, softening in her previously fuming tone.  “…can’t I help you find yours right now?”

            There wouldn’t be any contesting that one.  Neil bowed his head to relent at last and, taking a deep breath to steady himself in this act he’d been too terrified to make for the past several years, planted a kiss on the Alpha’s fingertip that startled and flooded each young adult with a tidal wave of goose bumps.

            “Maybe you already did,” Neil mumbled sheepishly as he pulled away.  He looked back up just in time to see Lucy’s lips looming closer and closer, puckered like soft pink pillows as they found his bashfully awaiting face to return the favor.

            The kiss lasted for upwards of thirty seconds as each gave themselves fully to the moment, despite standing out in the open on the sidewalk, but neither would’ve cared even if they were doing it on a stage in front of a thousand leering onlookers.  Neil hugged himself against the plush wall of Lucy’s gentle mouth, leaving smaller pecks on her skin, and she smooched back with the kind of incredible tenderness the Beta didn’t think would be possible to bestow on a being so much smaller than herself.  At last they pulled apart with some reluctance, allowing a dazed Neil to flop backwards in the girl’s palm, and the Alpha herself to dreamily catch her breath again.

            “All right, all right, Mr. Smoothie,” Lucy sighed, having seemingly had the edge taken off her rage by this long-overdue gesture, but still no less determined.  “What can I do to convince you that nothing is going to happen to me in that hellhole you used to live in?”

            “I think some back-up would be good,” Neil offered with some effort, unable now more than ever to let go of Lucy’s finger.  She, too, relished the contact with renewed zeal.

            “No offense, but when I said none of them are ever touching you again, I also meant they don’t even deserve to talk to you again, so that’s probably out,” Lucy admitted.  “Plan B?”

            “I… didn’t mean me, actually,” Neil chuckled.

            “Who, then?  One of your buddies from the volunteer place?”

            He winked and dug through his pocket for his cell.  “Before you go kicking that door down, give me one minute to make a call.”

            “Okay, fine, you have one minute,” Lucy groaned as she leaned begrudgingly against a storefront and allowed herself to be calmed again by stroking Neil’s shoulder with her finger.  “But don’t go getting a swell head.  It’s only because I like you a whole lot, got it?”