Buried Treasure - 9. Part 9

I am embarrassed to say I panicked, big time.

I was on my own with the best friend I had loved for years and he was waiting for me to join him in bed!!

Suddenly everything from the last few days started hitting me at once.

I had dug my best friend up from under a landslide.

That best friend had then come to stay with me and needed full on care at first.

I had failed to find Crystal in time to save her.

I was now tasked with finding and capturing – if not possibly killing – her father.

I had spent the years since my abilities had manifested learning to push them down and to control them so no one would get hurt or be forced to do things they didn’t want to do.

Now I was expected to ignore all that learning and use my abilities to force someone to do what I wanted.

I had already used my abilities to make someone do something and that had sapped some of my mental strength.

Suddenly I felt a gentle touch on my mind, I raised my shields and flinched away from it.

The touch didn’t try to push against my shields it just remained still and seemed to be brushing my awareness as though caressing me. The small part of me that wasn’t panicking was curious and started to reach out to the touch.

Slowly my defenses seemed to fall and my mind opened to the touch. I suddenly felt as though I was enveloped in a feeling of warmth, comfort and love. I hadn’t felt those feelings since my mother had died and this seemed to be the final straw, I broke down right there and cried.

I dimly heard a voice telling me to undress and get into bed. Mechanically I followed the whispered instructions. As soon as I climbed into the bed I was pulled into a warm embrace and my head was pillowed on a warm chest.

I felt a kiss dropped onto the top of my head and heard a voice saying, “Sleep now and when we wake up we will have a long talk.”

Before the words could register I was falling into a deep dreamless sleep.

****

I woke up feeling warm and comfortable. I rubbed my face into my pillow and frowned. Since when did a pillow have hair?

“Good, you’re awake,” a voice said from above me.

I shot up and off the bed in one move. By the time I was aware of where I was and who I was with, I was on the other side of the room staring at Craig sitting up in bed.

Slowly he held out a hand and waited for me to calm down enough to take it. He drew me back in to the bed and pulled me back onto his chest.

“We need to talk. I’ll start.” I relaxed, knowing I had dodged talking for the moment.

Craig shifted till he was comfortable before continuing, “First I think there are something’s about healers you should know. It will help explain yesterday to you a bit better. Healers have various abilities to help us do our jobs. Among those abilities are ones to help calm patients and another is the ability to coax patients into doing what we want them to. Let me make this clear, we can’t make anyone do anything that against their nature or that they are strongly opposed to doing. But we can for example get people to calm down and get into bed when they are panicking, like I did to you last night. We can also get patients to keep still while medicine is administered.

“Now last night you started to panic, I calmed you down and got you into bed but something happened after I calmed you. Do you remember what?” I shook my head and Craig sighed, “You dropped your shields to me. You linked our minds and wouldn’t let go. I read everything you were panicking about. First, let me say it’s not your fault that Crystal died. You found her when no one else could, you did your part. Secondly, I know you like to control your abilities but using them to find and capture Basil is not misusing them and I know you would not go further than you had to in order to protect lives. If you continue to panic like you are, though, you’re a guaranteed ticking time bomb.”

As Craig went through the list of what I had been panicking about, I started to relax; maybe he hadn’t got to the rest before I fell asleep.

“Lastly, I know how you feel about me and I feel the same.”

It took a few moments for the last sentence to register and when it did, I’m certain I stopped breathing, because lights started to dance before my eyes.

“Oh no, you’re not passing out on me again.” I felt a touch on my mind and when I tried to put firmer shields up against it, I realized I couldn’t. Then the meaning of what Craig had said about our minds being joined hit me. I could feel his healing touch, but under that I could feel comfort, love and even worry being sent out to me. I lifted my head to meet his eyes.

“Yes, I can feel your emotions and even hear some of your surface thoughts occasionally. I must say we could have saved a lot of time if you had received that letter I sent you from university. In it I told you that I was a healer and that I was gay. I have loved you for years but I didn’t want to endanger our friendship. When you ignored what I had written in that letter, I figured you wanted to just carry on as normal and ignore me being gay.”

As I watched him, he leaned down and our lips met in our first kiss.