— Rob —
Rafa blinked a few times and, with a barely-contained smile, shook her head. "You're smitten all right. Not that it could be any different. Childhood friends and enemies to lovers? Those are my two favorite tropes."
"What are you talking about?" Rob raised an eyebrow.
"You were a hero; he was a villain. No?" She rolled her eyes. "Ugh. Forget it. You're clearly not Phillip; you don't get my connection with the realm of fandom."
"I'm sorry I'm not your new best friend," Rob said with an attitude, making Rafa chuckle.
There was a plastic squeak outside, maybe the noise of shoe soles against the burnt cement of the floor. Before Rafa could react, Rob bristled like a scared bear and pressed a raised finger against his lips.
"Sh. Did you hear that?" he whispered. "Someone's there."
The crease between his eyebrows deepened as he turned to the door. It was ajar. Why the hell was it ajar? Rob pointed to the door, reached for the nearest weapon he could find—a big shard of the flower vase Rafa had broken earlier—and sneaked forward. With a gesture, he asked Rafa to keep speaking.
"Yeah, uh," Rafa began. "But I need to know your intentions, Robbie. I can't accept my little brother acting like a playboy in a romance book. If you're serious about that twink, you gotta put a ring on his finger."
Rob grimaced and sent a questioning look at Rafa.
"That, uh. Older... twink?"
He rolled his eyes. Now that he was closer to the door, he could see a shadow on the other side. Someone was definitely there. Rob held the knob and looked at Rafa. Keep going!
"Uh... like... Effer," Rafa said. "Effer is an older twink with little muscle. But for a woman like me, with abs like these—"
Another couple steps; then, with a violent jerk, Rob opened the door.
Two pairs of widened eyes stared back at him.
"Phillip? Satina?" Rob mumbled. "What are you doing here? I thought you were with Léon."
"We were," Satina said.
"And I, uh." Phillip glanced at his left towards the empty corridor. "Well, I thought he was keeping an eye on me," he added with a weak laugh. "You know. Cause I'm... sick?"
Rob frowned. "Mate, this is serious." He looked at Satina first. "I thought you said you wouldn't leave his side if your life depended on it."
"Well, you know, life surprises us all," she said with a shrug.
"And you, Phillip." Rob faced him. "You look like a hairless city-trash possum with varicose veins, but your health is, quote-unquote, good enough. Isn't that what you told me when I asked if you'd help me take care of my boyfriend?"
"Uh." Phillip glanced at his left again. Then, he focused on Rob. "I mean, I never used the word possum, but you got the gist of it."
"So?" Rob insisted—and this time he looked from Satina to Phillip in turns. "Where's Léon?"
"Uh. Yeah, he..." Phillip smiled. "Went to take a dum—"
Someone gave Phillip's arm a half-hearted punch.
"Ouch!"
"I did not," Léon growled. "Goddess. You had one job, Phillip."
Phillip grimaced. "You told me to pretend you weren't here; you didn't say how." He clicked his tongue and massaged the spot Léon had hit. "That hurt."
"I had a very convincing lie ready. You should've waited for my lead, dude," Satina added.
"Well, you should've said that earlier," Phillip snapped back.
Léon crossed his arms and huffed. He looked around and played with the hem of his sleeves before letting his gaze set on Rob.
"Don't be hard on them, Bhalu. They've been following me for the past minutes." Léon stepped closer to the door, and when he did, the light coming from inside the room showed how exhausted he was. Léon rubbed his bloodshot eyes and sighed. "I wanted to talk to you and Rafa, that's why I came. Can I... come in?"
"True for both of us too, right Satina?" Phillip said. "We met Léon on the way here; we weren't following him, that's ridiculous."
"Exactly. And none of us heard Rob's conversation with Rafaela either," Satina added with a satisfied smirk, raising her eyebrows.
Rob blinked once. Twice. As Satina's words sunk in, she mouthed a silent OTP and sent Rob a very exaggerated combination of a wink and a thumbs up.
Oh, Goddess. They heard him.
"Can we come in?" Léon asked, his gaze ducked and hidden underneath those long, dark eyelashes.
Blood still boiled underneath his collar when Rob managed to stutter a weak, "O-of course. Always. Please." Rob stepped away from the door in an invitation. "The house is yours. I mean, hospital. Room. Ugh. Forget it."
While Phillip, Léon, and Satina entered the room, Rob cleared his throat, trying to calm down his racing heart.
They heard him.
"So, uh. How are you feeling?" Rob asked and turned around to face Léon.
He opened his lips to answer, but Phillip was faster.
"My muscles are aching a bit, and I have a stuffy nose, hence the voice. Other than that, I'm fine." Phillip stopped at the same place he had stood earlier today, while Rafa was sleeping. He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. "No hallucinations, no fever, and apparently no life-threatening symptoms." He raised an index finger. "The more I think about it, the more I believe that Pipo's magical clay actually saved me."
"I suppose so," Rafa mumbled. "His companions seemed awfully serious while Pipo applied the clay—and our companions know about our powers better than anyone. Also"—Rafa leaned forward in bed, narrowing her eyes—"Thoughts about a childhood friends and enemies to lovers combo?"
Phillip grinned. "Oh, my favorite tropes."
"Good boy." Rafa smiled and used her healthy hand to pat Phillip's arm as if petting a furry friend.
Phillip scoffed and rolled his eyes with a tiny smile.
"And you, Tiger?" Rob asked. "Feeling any better?"
All faces in the room turned to him, and for a moment, Rob saw Léon shrink. That made his heart ache a little.
Léon shrugged and muttered, "As well as I can be, I guess. But..." He took in a deep breath.
In one fluid motion, Léon closed the door at his back and crossed the distance that separated him from Rob. Léon wrapped his arms around Rob's chest and hugged him tight—tighter than any hug they had shared in the past decade. Rob's sight jumped from Léon to Rafa, Satina, Phillip, and back to Léon again.
Finally, Rob sighed and hugged him back, placing a warm kiss on the crown of his head.
"We're here, Tiger." He caressed the fine hairs on the back of his head, trying to ignore the way Léon's body trembled in his arms, so small and scared.
After taking a moment, Léon said, "Rio showed up to see me."
Rob's entire body tensed as a mix of anger and frustration hardened his voice. "Rio did what?" He looked downward to meet Léon's eyes. "When? Where's that piece of shite?"
Rafa had her eyebrows furrowed in interest, while the crook in Satina's lips looked nothing but troubled. And if Léon's tiredness had really marked Rob before, Phillip's fury almost scared him.
"Can't believe that fucker had the courage to enter here and look for you," Phillip growled.
Satina stopped biting the corner of her thumb. "What did he say?"
"He gave me these." Léon shifted around in Rob's arms and showed them the datadrive and the vial with the purple dust. "He told me to give this to Rafa, and that he could buy us at most ten hours. I don't know what for." Léon lowered his gaze and scoffed. "He also told me he was helping us... but I'm not sure if we can trust him." He locked eyes with Phillip. "I'm not sure if I want to."
They spent a moment in silence. Then, Satina took a step forward.
"We need to be very careful," she said. "Cause we don't have any way of knowing if this"—she pointed at the datadrive—"is real or not. Nothing is stopping him from giving us a formula that will fucking brainwash or kill you, Leo."
By then, the morning sun was already filling the room. The light it brought, despite being soft and warm, spread cold shivers over Rob's arms. Rob gave Léon another gentle kiss, on the forehead this time. Then, he crossed the room back to the desk where he had spent last night. He had been sleep-deprived for at least twenty-five hours, but the adrenaline kept his body well going.
"You know, I've been doing some research too." Rob gestured at the datapads on the table in front of him. "This is part of the info that Dr. Bree inserted in her own personal data storage back in NC." Rob glanced at Léon. "Kali has an old contact in the Barbarians who steal data from some of the extranet servers in the capital, and they managed to get their hands in Dr. Bree's research on Cosmic Trace Wielders." Rob sighed. "Back then, I was still trying to find a way to help you recover your powers, Leo—no matter what." Rob lowered his gaze. "But I know it was pushy on my part, and I—"
"I know," Léon cut in. "I..." he stopped and took in a deep breath as his cheeks darkened again, tinged in red. "I heard you talking to Rafa. I know... uh. I know you're sorry, Bhalu."
"Oh. Yeah. I assumed you had." Rob cleared his throat. "All right, all right." Rob scratched the back of his neck. "Anyhow, Dr. Breen's research seems incomplete and it's riddled with grammar mistakes that make the reading even harder—so yeah, I understand it now, stop looking at me like that, you two"
Léon chuckled. "I didn't say a word."
"And I just wished Mary was here to see this moment," Satina added with a wink.
"So I couldn't go far," Rob continued. "But if Rio has more data about the cosmic trace and their serum, maybe we can not only compare the data and see if Rio was telling us the truth; we could also come up with a different way of finding this cure—something that won't force Léon to be used as an experiment."
"What if the datadrive itself is dangerous, huh?" Phillip asked. "What if Rio is using it to spy on us or to... I don't know."
Rob hummed and massaged his chin. "Is there any safe way to check what's on that data drive? What do you think, Tiny?"
"Hum. Let me see that," Satina said.
Léon tossed the datadrive to her. Satina studied the small device and twisted her lips this way and that. Without a word, she fished in her pocket and pulled her phone out, along with a small blue box. With a gesture, she shooed Rob and Léon out of her way and sat down at the wooden desk.
"Okay, I think I can interface this with my phone through a protected instance of my gadget's OS, so I can use my sweetie to show us the datadrive's contents." Satina furrowed her brows and typed away in her phone. With quick fingers, she opened the blue box and plucked from it a very thin, very small, and very blue screwdriver. "This datadrive is ancient, though. I'll have to tinker with it a little." She turned around in the odeon chair and widened her eyes to say, "You are very lucky to have me here."
"But... do you think you can do it?" Rafa asked.
"Pfft. Please." Satina winked and said, "Are you attractive?" She chuckled, turning around again. "Yes, Rafaela. The answer is yes. Give me twenty minutes."
***
Hello, everyone! Thank you all so much for reading this chapter! This one was a little more on the lighter side, so you can breathe for a while after all the tension of the previous chapters... and before everything starts to get dangerous again! :X
Quick Q: Are you proud of Rob's new view on grammar? XDD hahaha I know Léon and Satina definitely are.
I hope you enjoyed this chapter. <3 If you did, please don't forget to vote!
kisses, Ligia.