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("I'm going to ruin you.")
He steadily rises from the depths of sleep. Consciousness greets him, but it's clear as his eyelids slowly open that he's still partially submerged in the shallows, feeling the dreamy waves coast along his face. A glance at the moonlight seeping into the room from the unveiled window assures him that he can fall right back to sleep. He almost does, too, but then he remembers that he's not the only one sleeping in this bed.
Robert is not lying down. He's sitting upright. His legs are covered by the comforter, but it isn't tangled together. He's not trapped. He doesn't grip the blanket or the pillow he once laid his head across, either. He's looking toward the window. The moonlight colors his features in bright silver, yet his eyes remain shrouded in the same darkness that clouds together behind his back. He's searching for something in the black sky on the other side of the glass.
Sleepily, Chad murmurs, "Where are you going?"
Robert startles as if he forgot there was someone in the room with him. He pulls himself out of the thoughts he was getting lost in to look down at Chad. The pyrokinetic does his best to raise his eyebrow given how little energy he's currently operating with. He does, however, have enough to decipher the confusion on Robert's face. "I'm not… going anywhere."
Chad hums. Even if he were more awake right now, he wouldn't tell Robert about how sometimes it feels like he's leaving even when he's rooted in place, like he's disappearing despite still being in the room with everyone. He slips, not in any physical sense but away from their attention. It is unnerving. It's also sickening, and at this point, a little annoying.
Chad throws his arm around Robert's waist, tugging him closer. "Then, go back to sleep. It's too fucking early for this."
An argument sits on the tip of Robert's tongue. Only a sigh ends up leaving him as he shuffles into place. With only a minimal amount of manhandling from Chad, Robert lies on his side. He almost curls up into a ball, putting himself back in that distant state, but Chad's arms wrap around him in such a way that curling up would only be uncomfortable. He also makes certain to almost match Robert's body language so that Chad will always be aware of where he is. It also helps that the heat and pressure seem to be good for Robert's bodily pain, so he never complains about being cuddled (only sometimes claims that he feels like a rotisserie chicken or whatever hot food item he's been thinking about lately).
And with everything where it's supposed to be, Chad lets himself fall asleep again until the morning, content in the knowledge that Robert will, too.
("I'm going to ruin you."
"Eh, I'm already ruined. There's not much more you can do, I'm afraid.")
The bathroom light is bright, somewhere between pale yellow and white. It splashes across the white tiles and the soft blue paint on the walls. Chad runs his fingers over the patterns that separate those tiles and paint. He thinks, idly, that it's due for a change, but the likelihood that he's going to start actually looking into other tiles patterns or paint colors is very low. Still, it's an easy exercise for his brain to ruminate on it to both help him wake up and keep him preoccupied as he goes through the motions of his morning routine.
"Don't forget to take your medicine," He mentions, glancing over his shoulder. Robert slumps against the countertop, nearly dropping his head into the sink. Chad isn't sure if it's sleepiness or pain that's causing this, but it doesn't change what he needs to do either way. He lightly kicks Robert's ankle, uncaring of the glare he receives in return. "Get off your lazy ass. Normies with fucked up bodies have to take their medicine."
Robert grumbles. Chad rolls his eyes. He turns his attention to the shower. The water is as hot as it can be, filling the room with steam. It doesn't make him feel much of anything as he steps into the stream. He slides the translucent door behind him. He can still partially see Robert through the material, more as colored blobs than a genuine person. Chad focuses more on his shower routine. Thankfully, today isn't an extensive day, so he isn't in for a long one.
Partially through the shower, he hears Robert's voice. While he can't exactly tell what's being said, the tone is clear. If that wasn't enough, Chad sees the cabinet over the toilet open. He rolls his eyes, yelling over the sound of the water, "Shut up, Rob-bob! My niece takes medicine better than you!"
"Good for her!" Robert yells back, slamming the cabinet closed. At least he did actually take his medicine, though, and Chad is just going to hope he took all of them and actually used the cup for water instead of taking the pills dry.
When he's done with his shower, he steps onto the bathmat. Robert tosses his towel at him. It bumps against Chad's face before falling into his awaiting arms. Robert snorts, looking at Chad through the mirror. Chad sneers, but he uses the towel given to him. Robert turns his attention to brushing his teeth, face scrunching up a little at the taste of the toothpaste. Chad dries himself off completely in the meanwhile. When he's done, he wraps the towel around his waist and steps over to his scale right beside the door. He checks himself as he does every morning.
After finding out the number, he should head back into the bedroom to get dressed. He pauses today, looking back at Robert spitting out toothpaste into the sink. "Hey, bitch, come over here."
Robert snorts into the towel he's using to wipe his mouth. He turns around, leaning partially onto the countertop. He inclines his head at Chad. "I think we can be a little nicer than that, hmm?"
Chad doesn't like how Robert is throwing the words Chad would say to his niece back at him, but the idea that Robert was paying attention and remembered is enough to offset the upset. "Hey, bitch, come over here please."
"Good enough," Robert shrugs. He steps over to Chad. He glances around, unsure about what to do. Even though he didn't explain, Chad still feels a flicker of annoyance as he has to push Robert onto the weighing scale. The brunette balances immediately, crossing his arms over his chest. He arches a brow at Chad, but the man is looking down at the number presented on the screen. Robert, eventually, looks down at it as well. A curious hum slides through his pressed-together lips. "Huh, I haven't see that number in a while."
It still isn't a good number, but it's much better than what it was when Robert first walked into Chad's life (years after Mecha Man stepped into Flambae's life). Of course, Chad already knew this. As someone who touches Robert all the time—both for affection and for fighting and for working out—he has quite literally felt Robert's progression toward this number.
"Am I good to take my shower now?" Robert asks, snapping Chad out of his thoughts.
"Take a long one. You fucking need it," Chad says. He leaves the room with Robert's laughter following him through the halls.
("Fuck, you're not understanding! We can't just—be together, okay? Against all my better judgment, I do kind of like you, but I still hate Mecha Man's guts. And I'll… I'm going to ruin you."
"Eh, I'm already ruined. There's not much more you can do, I'm afraid.")
The kitchen is Chad's favorite. It doesn't matter whose house or what building, the kitchen will be his favorite room. This is especially true for the kitchens of his favorite people's places. He has many fond memories in his sister's kitchen, after all, back when they were living together. He was perfecting his craft because of pride, he told her, because if he was going to do something, he was going to be the best. And that's certainly true, but he thinks they both knew it was for so many more reasons that just that.
As he cooks breakfast, he knows that he loves the kitchen in his own apartment, too. There was a time when it was too cold and bleak for him, but joining the Z-Team—whose members include people that need food but don't want to cook it themselves and think that giving Chad kitchen supplies is a worthy trade—has allowed him to feel it out. The gifts are usable, and he does make them food, sometimes even going so far as to learn a dish from their cultures and heritages (though he will never admit that is was for them, just a happy coincidence that they should shut up about if they ever want food again).
He also makes Robert food. He has for a while, even before what they are now came to be. And in those time, Robert has sat in the kitchen with him a lot of the time. Part of it certainly was his overwhelming paranoia that left him believing Chad was going to poison him (as if Chad would ever use poison—that's the cowards way of killing others. His flames are the perfect weapon and the only one as far as he's concerned). Chad thinks that eventually, Robert began enjoying the banter and conversations that only ever happen in the warmth of the kitchen, just like Chad does.
Speaking of Robert, the freshly washed and dressed man pads down the hallway. Based on the sound accompanying him, Robert's little fat fuck—Beef—has woken up and decided to grace his owners with his presence. He's probably just looking for breakfast and affection, though. Robert gives the latter in spades, and Chad already has the former set up in the corner. Once Beef has gotten enough of Robert and smelled the food, he's barreling off on tiny legs that can barely support his own weight (they've got to have a serious conversation about putting the chihuahua that looks like a corgi on a diet).
Robert leans against the island. He sniffs the air with his eyes falling shut. After a second, a rumbling noise comes from his body. His eyes lift open and his brow furrows together. He takes a step back, tucking his hands over his stomach. He tilts his head curiously at it. Chad points the spatula he was using for the pancakes at Robert. "It's your stomach growling cause you're hungry, dumbass."
"I know what it is," Robert defensively responds. He crosses his arms over the island's countertop, slotting himself back into place. He smiles ruefully at Chad, "I just forgot it knew how to do that."
Chad looks back at the pan where he's flipping pancakes. More to himself than Robert, he says, "What the fuck would you do without me?"
All the same, Robert answers him, "Starve, probably." Casual yet genuine, the way Robert always delivers concerning statements that would be a joke for everyone else but are the truth for him.
They do not linger on that. Chad changes the topic, and Robert goes along with it. Eventually, Chad is done with the food. He sets Robert's plate in front of him with slightly larger portions than what is on his own plate. Robert notices, but he's stopped arguing against it. He just eats the food that's been given to him, thanking Chad all the while and more often than not giving the pyrokinetic's ego a stroke.
"Are you excited for today?" Robert asks after eating a slice of bacon.
"What kind of question is that? Of fucking course I'm excited," Chad responds. There has never been a time when he wasn't happy to be spending the day with his niece. He's already missed so much of her life, after all. He needs to make the most of all that his sister is willing to let him have (as if there's a hard limit or something).
"Well, that's sweet." Chad glares at Robert, but the brunette is looking back down at his pancake. "I'm excited, too. I've never been to an aquarium."
"Do not lie to me, Roberto. I saw the news about Mecha Man. You stopped that fat water horse."
"First of all, hippopotamus." Fucking smartass. "Second of all, that was a zoo, not an aquarium. And third of all, that doesn't count, either. I was there for all of thirty minutes helping them put the hippo back in its enclosure, and then I left. I didn't see any of the other animals."
"No school field trips? Mecha-daddy never take you?"
"I'd prefer if you didn't call my father that, and no, he didn't. I was lucky enough to get a conversation with him, let alone go on trips with him. He never signed any of my permission slips, either, so I just hung back at the school. At least until I was switched to home-schooling." The words themselves are bad, but Chad hates the way Robert says them most of all. All factual and emotionless, like yes, it happened, but it doesn't matter. Like Robert didn't care back then and he doesn't care now, even though he said he's excited to go to the aquarium and genuinely sounds like he means it.
"We're going to have a fucking blast today," Chad murmurs, stabbing into his pancake like it's that motherfucker Robbie Robertson's body (because this isn’t the first fucked up thing that man has done if Robert's words are to be believed, which Chad does, unconditionally, believe).
"That's the spirit," Robert snorts, as if unaware that Chad mostly means that statement for him, for the childhood he never got have.
("Fuck, you're not understanding! We can't just—be together, okay? Against all my better judgment, I do kind of like you, but I still hate Mecha Man's guts. And I'll… I'm going to ruin you."
"Eh, I'm already ruined. There's not much more you can do, I'm afraid. And hey, full disclosure, there are times when I hate Mecha Man, too, so we have something in common. We also have kind of liking each other in common. So… let's give it a shot. You probably will ruin me, but it'll be an interesting story, if nothing else.")
Chad picks the fat fuck up. He carries the wiggling pound of flesh across the room. He puts Beef in a sectioned off area in the living room with tons of toys, his bed, and a bathroom mat (like the little shit even uses it). Beef enjoys being here more than he does being in a cage. Robert is the same one, refusing to get anything of the sort for his precious little one. If he wants Robert to like him—or love him, even—he has to agree with them… and he does, after Beef has grown on him, but he's never going to admit that embarrassing shit.
"Be good. Defend the apartment. Shit on the pad over there," Chad orders Beef. The dog stares blankly at him, but there's almost a smile on his canine face so Chad lets it slide today.
"Hurry up!" Robert calls. "Do I need to remind you what your sister said she'd do if you were late again?"
"Shut the fuck up. She said nothing because I am never late," Chad says over his shoulder. He gives one more glance at Beef (who has suddenly found his tail to be the most interesting thing in the world) before setting off for the mud room.
Robert already stands there. He's wearing something other than his Mecha Man suit and his SDN uniform; it's something Chad forced him to get because they couldn't go out on dates otherwise. He's starting to fit into the clothes properly, too, gaining enough weight to fill it out. Some of this weight has settled into his cheeks, puffing out with only a faint eye-bag to crown it. Above the eye-bag, Robert's eyes are sparkling with a giddiness that he rarely lets himself feel, showing off the excitement he claimed to have about going to the aquarium. He's likely still feeling pain, but it isn't so much that he's crumpled by it. He's entirely present in the moment, smiling in confusion at Chad. "What? Why are you looking at me like that?"
"I'm going to ruin you," Chad once told Robert, scared that every relationship he was going to have would dissolve in regret and bitterness, worried that Robert would be undone by him, nothing but ashes and rue left in Chad's destructive wake.
Chad steps forward. Instead of putting his shoes on, he grabs Robert's arms to tug him close. He kisses him, somewhere between soft and passionate, a press of their lips that carries all of his unspoken words and emotions. When he pulls back, Robert crosses his arms behind Chad's neck, cheeks pleasantly pink from being so close to a furnace. "What was that for?"
"You probably will ruin me," Robert had agreed in the midst of telling Chad that it was fine, that it was worth it to try, admitting to being unbothered by the prospect of being hurt, physically and emotionally, without actually saying those exact words all for some self-destructive reason Chad thinks he always vaguely knew about.
"Just cause," Chad shrugs. He gives Robert another kiss, but it's more like a peck as he's overcome my the words, "Just cause I love you."
You're going to ruin him, Chad used to tell himself.
"I love you, too," Robert smiles. He lets the moment linger before shoving against Chad's chest. "Now put your shoes on. We really are going to be late."
"Fine, just stop bitching about it," Chad remarks, tugging his shoes on. Robert, in a bright mood, laughs under his breath. He opens the door for Chad and himself. They step through it together, heading to Chad's car so they can pick his niece up and head to the aquarium together.
You're going to ruin him, the past still whispers.
But the present and the future respond, No… no, we don't think he will.