Will

"WILL!"

He ignored the loud banging about down the hall with a small sigh and stayed on the task of rubbing ointment into his aching right thigh, trousers pulled down to his knees.

"WILL!" Sam repeated as she staggered into the kitchen, half-dressed and wearing a wild grin. "IT'S A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE!"

"It's summer."

Sam jerked her head back in mock offense. "You know what I mean. A Midsummer miracle, then. Anyway, it doesn't matter 'cause LOOK!" With manic enthusiasm, she hefted her chest and added: "I've got boobs!"

Without needing to move his head, Will sharpened his attention on his Detect [Air] sense around Sam's outline, and eventually cast Detect [Heat] to complement it.

"Looks that way," he said neutrally. It wasn't a huge difference, but she certainly wasn't flat anymore. "Congratulations."

"You don't seem excited."

"Of course I'm not. You just wasted four attribute points on a boobjob."

"Hey! Rude and untrue!" She stormed over to the table and stood in front of his chair, forcefully juggling her new bits while bending down with her brows knitted in a stern scowl. "Here. Give 'em a squeeze and let me know if you still think it was a waste."

"I refuse out of principle," Will replied, glad that she could not read his eye movements to see where he was looking. He couldn't claim to be entirely disinterested in the soft handfuls she was dangling in front of him, and that made him even more bitter about the whole thing.

Sam refused to back down. "Touch 'em! Touch 'em!" The impish smile on her face suggested that she knew perfectly well that she was sawing on his nerves like a bad violinist.

With forced calm, Will set aside the pot of ointment and carefully hiked up his trousers, leaving them unlaced. "You're such a brat."

Sam stood abruptly, dropping her breasts with a loud huff. "I'm nice enough to let you have my boob virginity, and all you can do is insult me? I think you're the brat here."

"I'm not insulting you. I'm insulting your build choices."

"Same shit."

"What did the Ghost tell you about Mediator? I take it he didn't let you pick it, since you're here with Trader."

Sam crossed her arms. Even with the hazy vagueness of his extrasensory vision, he could tell that she was making an infuriatingly smug face. "I'm not telling you anything. If you want me to do something for you, you gotta do something for me. Tit for tat—pun absolutely intended."

Will sighed, and had to admit to himself that he was being a little unreasonable. After all, regardless of whatever he thought of Appeal in terms of practical application, he had agreed to let her pick it. He had already conceded the point, which meant that the time for objections was over.

"Fine," he said, chewing on the bitter pill he had to swallow. "I'm… sorry." Even though he wasn't really looking at her, he still turned his face away reflexively at the same time that he intentionally blurred his Detect sense so he could spare himself the embarrassment of seeing her reaction in detail. "I'll give them a feel, if that's what you want."

Sam frowned enough for him to notice. "What I want? Do you not want to?"

"I mean…"

"What kind of guy turns down the opportunity to squeeze a nice healthy pair of boobs?"

"This sounds more like the kind of philosophical conversation Mongrel would be interested in."

She took a step back, and for some reason he thought she looked hurt. "Do you really hate them that much?"

Will frowned deeply. "No, not really."

"Did you prefer me how I was before? Did I mess up?"

Will went cold with shock, then hot with anger at himself. As soon as he'd regained his composure he stood up and went to Sam and took her in his arms. Her body was still, but after only a second she melted into him.

"I'm sorry," she said in a voice thick with repressed tears, chin resting on the top of his head. "I didn't know you'd dislike it. I just thought everyone likes boobs so why wouldn't you like it? I mean I know you can be a little autistic about numbers and stuff sometimes so I knew you'd be annoyed but I thought you'd get over it especially if you could see the difference you know? And then you'd be fine with it but I didn't think about if maybe you like girls with small boobs better? I guess there are guys like that I just didn't think about it but that would sort of explain why you like me and everything so I should probably have thought of it before now. If there's any way to go back on putting in those points then you should tell me because I don't want to look ugly to you and I'm lucky that you saw anything in me to begin with so I don't want to do anything to ruin that or at least—"

"Please stop talking," Will murmured against the side of her neck.

"Okay."

He hated how meek she sounded just then.

"Look, I…" He cleared his throat. "This is a weird conversation to have, but I don't want you to get the wrong idea. I don't dislike boobs, on you or anyone else. I've never been into you because you had small boobs. I told you before that I'd like you the same whether you were four feet tall or ten or whatever. Well, the same goes for the size of your chest. I'm just not a very visually oriented person—which I guess is lucky, considering I don't have working eyes anymore.

"Uh, but it's not like it doesn't matter at all either. I like the way you look. You're beautiful to me. I might not have a strong opinion on breast size, but if you prefer yourself that way—which you clearly do, or putting points in Appeal would not have changed you to look like that—then I'll come to prefer it, too."

"So right now you don't prefer it?"

"That's not what I'm saying. I haven't had enough time with this version of you to form an opinion, that's all."

"Hmm."

"Not convinced?"

"No, I think I get it. Sort of." She waited a while, then added: "So, wanna touch 'em?"

Will smiled into her. "I'll give it a shot."

They stood away from each other. Sam took his hand and, grimacing, put it up under her shirt and placed it on the softness of her right breast.

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"What does it feel like?"

He thought about it for a second. "Like a bag of sand, I guess."

She let out an offended squawk. "Bag of sand! You really suck at reassuring people, you know that?"

He gave her breast another appraising squeeze. "Or maybe like a loose bread dough. I mean, it's nice—I'll admit that much."

She grinned at that. "It's nice? You think so?"

"Mmhmm."

"Hehe." He took his hand away, and she went back to playing with her new bits while he set about rubbing ointment on his stomach scar. "Oh, and just wait until you get to see these babies in a nice dress or something."

"I'm sure it'll knock me flat."

"Hey! That didn't sound sincere at all!"

With a laugh, he said: "I mean it."

She seemed to buy that, and went back to looking smug again.

After that, Will sat Sam down to interrogate her about her reward allocation and figure out the specifics of her new upgrades. The Ghost had told her nothing of value—indeed, had told her nothing at all outside his customary catchphrase of 'Choose'. She had saved her Level 10 upgrade point like he'd asked her, and as expected had put 4 attribute points into Appeal and 4 into Presence.

The effects her new attributes had on her—aside from the obvious change in bust size—were difficult to evaluate. He couldn't really gauge any of the more minute adjustments Appeal had made to her body considering the imprecise nature of his not-quite-sight, and it was difficult to tell if Presence was making him pay more attention to Sam than usual since he was usually thinking about her all the time anyway.

"Are you hungry?" he asked in the middle of their conversation, already standing to man the cooking station since he already knew what the answer would be.

Unsurprisingly, she replied that yes, she was. "Even more than usual, I think."

"That's probably from the Appeal integrating with your body. You'll notice an increase in appetite for most of today, but it should have settled by tomorrow. If it hasn't, let me know."

While tangible changes were hard to appreciate, he did find it strangely pleasurable to regard her through Detect. The dull, colorless tracing provided by his skill was no different than usual, but something about the outline seemed to give him a sense of being at ease, and he found his focus lingering on her often while he prepared a high-volume brunch. The food was supposed to be for both of them, but he'd already decided to let her have his portion since he didn't feel very hungry anyway.

As for the unusual allure of Sam's presence, he couldn't tell if it was placebo or something actually worthy of consideration. If it was real, though, that meant the mental benefit of Appeal didn't just affect visual observation of the user, but could apply to other senses as well.

It strengthened an idea he had been playing with for the last day or so.

On that note, he said while watching her eat: "You know, I had a thought."

"No way, really?" Sam said with a mocking gasp that let chunks of hash brown fall out of her mouth and onto her plate. "That's great news, man! It's not every day you have one of those."

"Yeah, yeah. Just listen, will you?"

She just grunted in agreement while she kept on shoveling food in her mouth. He swapped her plate out for his once she'd emptied the first one, and she hardly seemed to notice the switch.

"So, there's been something on my mind," he started off. "It's this thing that happened while I was fighting Brimstone. You got a valor surge when you showed up to bail me out. But I didn't, even though I was fighting him—well past the point that, frankly, I should have been dead—to keep him from killing others. For some reason your intervention was enough, and mine wasn't."

Sam looked up from her food for the first time in maybe ten minutes, fork sticking out of her mouth—frozen mid-bite—and he could tell her eyes were round with something like guilt. Maybe just pity. Something along those lines, in any case.

"No, I don't mean it like that," he said in what he hoped was a reassuring voice. "It's not like I'm bitter about it. I just want to understand why. There are probably a lot of factors that go into triggering a surge, on the Concord's end or the individual's—probably both—and not a lot of data to go off of to figure out what those factors are, exactly.

"Now, you've gotten two in the short time you've spent on the Frontier. That's two more than, like, 99,9999 percent of people. A lot of nines, anyway. Why? Sure, you've got your whole semi-delusional superhero shtick that you clearly enjoy backing up with uncomfortably suicidal actions, but it's not like you have a monopoly on self-sacrificing displays of altruism.

"Case in point, the Brimstone fight. Now, again, I'm not trying to downplay what you did there. You beat the odds getting to the city on time, and you put yourself in harm's way to save me. Your run from Greensby from Sheerhome was the windup—maybe even your whole two-week trip considering the way you worded things—and your arrival was the discharge. But, I mean…" He gestured helplessly, not sure how to word things to avoid making it sound like he was just trying to stroke his own bruised ego.

Sam swallowed and let her fork clatter to the pewter plate, nodding forcefully. "I know what you mean! I've actually thought about it a few times myself while you were really ill. I'll admit it even if you won't—I was bitter. Why would the Concord reward me and not you when you did more to save those people, and sacrificed more besides? That's what you were trying to get at, right?"

"Pretty much," Will admitted, letting his hands drop.

"It's not really fair, is it?" Sam picked up her fork again but just sat scowling at her food and stirred it around a little, her appetite evidently ruined. "I don't get why. Maybe the surge was for both of us, somehow? Like a tag-team deal."

Will nodded thoughtfully. "I suppose that's one possibility."

"You got any other bright ideas?"

"I've got one. It's possible that the system gave the valor surge to you because it just… likes you more than me, for lack of a better word."

"The system likes me," Sam repeated dully.

"Yes. Now, I think we can both agree that the Concord would approve of the action I took that day by defending those people. That's the 'what'. Now, I don't consider myself a particularly moral person, but I can genuinely say that I wanted to save lives that day. That's the 'why'." He spread his hands. "What's missing? What difference is there between you and me that would have caused you to get a surge and me nothing?"

"The system likes me?" Sam said once more, this time as a question.

"Yes, maybe," Will said. "Because you don't just talk the talk and walk the walk, you somehow…" He gestured at her uselessly, still struggling with how to frame his point. "...you embody those ideals. You do the right thing, for the right reasons, and you look right doing it."

"Um…"

He could tell that she didn't quite get it, and held up a finger to hush her. "Let me finish, okay? The thing that got me thinking about this was something you said, actually. You said…" He squeezed his eyelids shut, searching for the exact wording. "You said, 'A hero can't just be strong. They've got to be iconic, too.' I'm thinking maybe you were right, even where the system is concerned.

"You've got this way of making people like you. Giving them hope. Winning them over. Meanwhile, I scare people shitless even when I'm not trying to—even when I'm trying to do something good. And I think maybe the Concord notices things like that."

"Uh-huh."

"Which brings me to my main point, and you'll like this. Let's say the Concord is kind of a shallow bitch who cares about appearances, and let's say both Presence and Appeal affect not just visual perception, but act in a more deeply metaphysical way. That might mean, possibly…"

Sam cracked a grin that grew wider and wider as he talked. "You're saying me picking up those attributes wasn't such a waste after all. It'll help me get more valor surges in the future."

"I'm saying it's possible. That doesn't mean it's likely to be the case. It's just one theory. But yes, if we assume that the Concord has something close to an emotional aspect, that might mean Appeal would make it appreciate you more while Presence would make it take notice of you more easily."

Sam didn't say anything—didn't have to. She just leaned back in her chair, crossed her arms, and noisily smacked her lips while basking in her own self-satisfaction. Will didn't bother reiterating that he didn't actually think this theory was true, he just thought it wasn't completely implausible. In her mind she was already vindicated, and anything he said at this point would just go over her extremely thick head.

When Ember came into the kitchen a little bit later, Sam bounced off her seat and threw her hands up. "Guess what!" she said.

"What?" Ember grumbled sleepily.

"It's a Christmas miracle!"

Ember looked at Will. He just shrugged and blew his cheeks out in weary defeat. He knew Sam would probably be acting insufferable for the next few hours no matter what he did.

At least she was nice to look at. He had to admit, her new breasts suited her somehow.

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