Chapter Text
Robert's eyes slowly flicker open to see Beef licking his nose. He giggles before playfully pushing the dog away, he looks up and sees the ceiling staring back down at him. Just then his alarm starts beeping, he hurries to turn it off so he can stop the buzzing in his ears.
He stands up and realizes he must have fallen off of his chair in the middle of the night. He looks over at Beef who is over at his bowl seemingly asking for food. Robert stands up to grab his food.
After getting himself ready he gets into his car and starts driving down to the SDN so he can start his shift. Even though he was Mecha Man again his team still wanted him to be their dispatcher, they said it was because he “Was the only dispatcher who actually knew what they were doing.” Prism had said that which Robert thought was weird considering what she had said about him during their first team meeting.
He agreed to be their dispatcher on the condition that he could leave to help just in case anything bad happened. Mandy had thought this was reasonable and had Chase be the co-dispatcher for when he was off as Mecha Man.
He takes his seat at his cubicle and sets Beef down in his bed that he had stolen from Chase’s cubicle. He picks up his headset and turns it on.
“Hey team-” Robert didn’t even get a chance to finish before he was interrupted.
“Hey Roberto!” Prism’s voice echos through the headset along with everyone else’s voices welcoming him.
After the voices calm down Robert finally gets the chance to speak again.
“Thank you for that team, anyways it looks like today might be a boring day. We still haven’t gotten a call yet.” He hears a few members of the team groan in annoyance.
“Alright Flambae, I need you to go to the oil refinery.”
“Again? Seriously, why do you always send the guy who can manipulate fire into an area full of oil. No one else is doing anything like bitch are you trying to get me killed?”
“Maybe I am.” Robert whispers but then quickly realizes that they could definitely still hear them. Flambae doesn’t respond. Prism takes this opportunity to talk to Flambae as he flies towards the refinery.
“So Flambae… have you been seeing any guys lately?” Prism asks. Robert quickly cuts in to stop Flambae from answering.
“May I remind you all that these conversations are recorded?”
“Yeah I know dumbass, I just wanted to know sheesh.” Prism scoffs into the mic.
“No, I have not. I think most of them are either too scared to approach me. As they should be.” Flambae snickers and Robert rolls his eyes.
“Maybe you need to look out for other people.” Prism giggles after she says this which leaves Robert wondering why.
“Like who?” Flambae asks.
“You know who.” Prism says suggestively and Robert decides to cut this conversation short.
“Alright that’s enough, you two can talk about this later.” He hears Prism sigh but surprisingly no sound came from Flambae. Robert chalks this up to the fact that he had just arrived at the refinery.
On their break Robert goes over to the vending machine to get himself some Twinkies, luckily Sonar wasn’t there to scare him into bursting them so he was thankful for that. But unluckily Prism enters the room just as he sits down.
“Ohhh look at that, our dispatcher is eating… Twinkies?
“I like them.”
“Hmm, well I do wonder why you were so quick to stop me and Flambae’s little chat earlier.” Robert laughs. As if there could be some other reason that he didn’t want Flambae to keep talking.
“Because I don’t need to be hearing that and neither do SDN trainees.”
“Look, all I’m saying is that Flambae has been struggling recently. Especially since that Danny guy said he had chapped lips.”
“And I should care, because?”
“Because Flambae doesn’t hate you anymore… well I mean he still needs to punch you every now and again but I know he’s doing it less.”
“Lucky me.” Robert whispers, causing Prism to close the fridge she was looking in.
“I’m gonna tell you something.” Robert looks up at her. Prism continues, she moves closer to him.
“He likes you.” Prism quickly steps away and leaves the room with nothing. Robert realizes that she must have entered just to tell him that.
He didn’t know what to feel. Sure he knew that Flambae liked him, but he had only assumed that it was as a friend, and even then that was pushing it.
After the break is over he walks back over to his desk and puts on his headset.
It was awkward to say the least.
He had stuttered while talking to Flambae and he could hear Prism and a few others snickering at him while Flambae just asked why he was “Acting like such a little bitch.”
As soon as the shift is over he breathes a sigh of belief, thankful that he’ll finally get a chance to think about all that has happened.
“Hey why were you nervous when you were talking to that fucker?” Chase asks while Robert picks up Beef.
“I just got told some interesting news about him, that’s all.”
“When someone gets told ‘interesting news’ they're usually more confident, they don’t act like a little baby and start stuttering on the mic like that wet baby bitch boy.”
“His name is Waterboy.”
“I know what his name is motherfucker now go on, tell me the news that you got about him.”
“Nothing, it doesn't matter and it’s private.”
“Somethings telling me that it’s actually embarrassing for you.”
“No it’s not.”
“Yeah it is.”
“Shut up.” Robert walks off towards the exit while he listens to Chase laugh at him.
It didn’t make any sense.
How could Flambae like him like that? Why did he like him like that? He had cut off two of his fingers and knocked one of his teeth out, he should hate him. But he didn’t.
Unless Prism is lying. Robert thinks to himself, but he just couldn’t see it. He didn’t think Prism would lie to him about something like that. He knew how close Flambae and Prism were. Which only meant one thing.
She was telling the truth.
He places Beef down on the ground of his apartment, watching him run along the ground. He looks around the place and starts making himself dinner.
He had a lot to think about.