Antiheroes

Chapter 27: Room

Philza POV.

For three days, the two heroes had locked themselves in their room. I don’t think either of them had even left for food or water. It had been hard to find time to talk to either of them, since Tommy had been pestering me about training to be a hero every second that he had spare.

Every once in a while I would knock on the door that belonged to either of them, and neither of them answered. I was honestly getting close to grabbing an axe from the armoury and just knocking the door down. At least for George’s room, since I knew that Karl would probably just teleport to get himself something if he needed to.

It was early afternoon, and I was standing in front of the door to George’s room. Tommy was at school so I had a couple more hours without anyone bothering me. I knocked lightly on the door, and heard shuffling inside the room, just like I always did. Every time I did try and talk to him he would shuffle around in there, probably considering if he should answer or not.

Every other time, he had decided not to. This time however, it was different. I stood waiting for a couple of minutes, just in case he decided to change his mind and let me in, although I wasn’t confident that he would. Fortunately though, I was wrong. After waiting for a few long minutes the door opened and I saw the british brunette peering out of the gap at me.

George POV.

My stomach rumbled again and I curled in on myself slightly more. I was starving and I couldn’t deny that, but I didn’t want to leave my room. It felt like I wouldn’t be able to move if I tried anyway. It seems stupid but I struggled to even walk to the bathroom.

For the past three days I had just been laying on my bed, trying to avoid breaking down crying every couple of hours. All that I had done was sleep, occasionally go to the bathroom, and lay on my bed looking at different news articles on my phone.

I had been listening as Philza came to try and talk to me several times, he’d knock on the door and wait for a few moments before walking away, and I felt guilty every time I heard him. He didn’t do anything to deserve a silent treatment from me, he probably wants to make sure I’m alright.

This felt stupid. I was crying over the fact I was exposed after I had stupidly gone and fallen in love with a criminal. But not just any criminal, the biggest one in the fucking country. Like some sort of idiot I had thought that a relationship between me and him would work.

To distract myself from my self hatred, I had buried myself in my phone. All over the internet were reports of Wilbur’s heroic feats. Him saving people from collapsing buildings, stopping small robberies, and having news interviews. It made me feel disgusted at how I had trusted him, and now at how he was acting.

The further into the news I looked the more stressed I was. After scrolling past several interviews of the new ‘superhero’, I found interviews with some of the hostages from the other day when Wilbur exposed Karl and I. Now they were telling everyone who we were, and that neither of us were actually heroes, instead traitors.

Suddenly there was a knock on the door, and I shifted slightly on the bed to glance in the direction the sound was coming from. It was probably Philza again, since he had come to check on me several times over the past couple of days. I hadn’t answered the door to him once though, mainly because I was worried he’d chew me out for falling in love with a criminal.

Part of me wanted to ignore him, since I was worried about what he would want when I opened the door, but my stomach began rumbling again and that was enough to convince me to get out of bed and talk to him. I trudged over to the door, stumbling slightly as I did, before opening it, just wide enough for me to peek out at the older blond.

“George,” he smiled, seeming relieved that I finally answered him for once. I stared at him, expressionless, waiting to see what he wanted but he didn’t say anything else.
“What do you want, Phil?” I questioned quietly, my voice feeling weak since I hadn’t said anything to anyone in the past couple of days.

“I wanted to check up on you. You’ve been in your room for the past seventy two hours without leaving to get food or anything. Are you feeling okay?” He tried to move slowly closer to me and the door but I only closed it further. He sighed, but seemed to understand, deciding to instead offer if I wanted to go out for something to eat.

The last time I had gone out for food with him I went to see Dream afterwards. At the thought of the blond criminal I felt myself growing much sadder then how I currently was feeling, however before I could allow myself to cry about what happened I felt my stomach rumbling again. “Sure, we could go out for dinner,” I responded, deciding I’d wallowed in my own pity for long enough.

Philza smiled softly at me, then told me he’d leave me to get changed and shower. I allowed a small flicker of happiness to light up inside of me at the thought that I could do something after days of being unproductive. I grabbed a change of clothes and headed into the bathroom connected to my room.

Philza POV.

As George shut the door of his room to go shower I couldn’t help but feel a small sense of pride over the fact that I had finally managed to get him to come out of his room. Well I was about to get him out of his room, but it would still be good after he had been cooped up for a while. But I also wanted to make sure Karl was okay too.

I walked down the hall to the teleporters bedroom, knocking on the door lightly just like I did with George. Unlike with George however, Karl didn’t answer. There was always the possibility that he had teleported somewhere to get something to eat, so I wasn’t as concerned about him but I still took my time to talk to him.

“Hey Karl.” I greeted quietly, unsure whether he was there and listening or not. “If you are in there and you are awake, George and I are going to go out for dinner if you want to join.” I offered. Part of me felt bad about the fact that I let the two of them stay hidden away in their rooms for so long, because I still care for them as much as I care for my own kids.

And I know what heartbreak is like, lingering memories of the past and of things that went wrong was enough to make anyone overly stressed. It wasn’t good to stay focused on the past and I should know, but if he wasn’t going to answer then I wouldn’t force him to join. Instead I went to wait on the couch for George.
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