Archive of Our Own

“Bob-Bob, we have a problem.”

Sat at his desk - with no time in this hell-shift morning to even stop and scritch Beef - Robert adjusted his reading glasses on the bridge of his nose, and clicked immediately through to the 1-to-1 window on his Dispatch screen, ready and on hand. “I’m on deck. What’s happening, Bae?”

“Well,” Flambae’s voice all but purred down the line, “there’s really no easy way to say this, but… I’m irresistible.”

The tension that had been slowly leaking into Robert’s shoulders immediately dropped, with an eyeroll, and a disgusted, half-amused scoff.

“Right, right. Everyone in the world lusts after you and your dumbass eyebrows, and life’s just so difficult, being what some might call a 'ten',” he drawled. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, Visi and Golem were fighting a literal living nightmare, so I’m going to-”

“-No, no, Bobert. Listen to me. I’m not joking.”

“-Uh-huh.” Robert said, as he moved the mouse to hover over the ‘x’ that would likely end this early April’s Fools prank.

“-Something seriously fucked up is happening. Robert, I think that… I think that crazy bitch hit me with something. ...Maybe.”

And Robert… paused.

Today was Valentine’s Day.

And, in the eighteen months since he'd started this stupid, fuck-ass job - that had literally no right being as rewarding as it was - he’d learned one thing. It was something all dispatchers learned from working their first February, and from the other haunted stories of the veteran dispatchers on his floor:

Valentine’s Day was the Dispatching equivalent, of holidays and full moons in the ED. 

It was Robert's busiest day, out of all 365. Shit inevitably got crazy, and then, it hit the fan. You had an uptick in villain activity of the worst possible kind (‘Maybe I wouldn’t even be this way, if only she’d loved me!’), a bunch of pointless puff-piece interviews - usually about the perks of metahuman dating, or the supposed ranks of metahuman hotness - not to mention a bunch of minor injuries and fights from broken hearts and messy breakups and love triangles gone wrong.

…But that was also accompanied by the confirmed peak, in all sorcerous activity for the year.

Forget solstices, which tended to be when your white magic users experienced their quiet, lowkey, granola-crunchy, ‘dance skyclad under the moon’ happy kinda zenith. Valentine’s Day was when all of the worst witches and warlocks and sorcerers gunned to wreak havoc, to make a cheap buck, or seemingly just chose to fuck with people for the hell of it. Of course, there wasn't much people weren’t willing to do, buy, or sell, for a chance at love - up to and including their soul.

And Robert had just sent Bae to fight Heartbroker. Because Heartbroker was on her third victim in hospital… and she was also a bitch with an ego. He’d figured if there was one way to goad her out of her hiding spot, it might be by fighting fire with fire.

Which, you know, considering that Flambae wasn’t actually using his flames-

“If you want me to take the threat seriously, you’re gonna need to use some plain language for me, Bae,” he said, “what’s your issue?”

“Ok, so right, so she’s fighting, and then well, we’re fighting, you know? And she’s trying to say some shit to seduce me back to the darkside - only I’m like, sorry bitch, I don’t swing that way, in either the gender or the moral direction anymore, and also there’s only one baddie in the arena right now and it sure as fuck isn’t you-”

“Flambae-”

“Shit. Sorry. I’m rambling because I’m panicking. I panic, then I ramble. But I… it’s relevant, I swear.”

“Did… you... get… hit?”

“Um… yeah. Basically. Because obviously I said that I was the baddie in question, just in case she didn’t get it, and then she like, looked at me? Like, properly looked at me. I was all like ‘take a picture, Broke-Bitch, it lasts longer, the jail time is gonna mean your ass will get real lonely real fast, trust me, and I don’t mind being someone’s sad-loser-wank material’-”

Robert could imagine the look that Heartbroker had been giving Flambae, with unerring accuracy.

It was the one currently on his face, right now.

“And then she just says, ‘Hm. I can work with this.’ Or some shit. Something else, about how she’s never gone down 'the fairy tale route', or whatever? At least I think. And then… yeah, then she hits me.”

“Hits you with what?”

“A spell.”

And this time, Robert could sense the stress and anxiety wavering right in the edges of Bae’s voice. It was usually heavily overcompensated for, but it became easily detectable about nine-months into working with him. You could tell, when a bunch of his other verbal tics got worse, or he started to run his mouth off, which… shit.

“Some big-ass pink cloud of glitter shit, and then I cough, and I fall on top of her out of the sky, and then I’m incapacitating her almost by accident and all her fight seems to have just… I dunno, left her. And she's looking at me all funny, and fucking smug, like she hasn't just gotten caught. And I put on the antimagic cuffs, and wait for reinforcements, yadda yadda yadda, and now. Robert. Listen to me. I have like, six police phone numbers.”

“Six? And this is… unusual for you?”

“Well… no bitch. If it was firemen, the pick-up lines practically write themselves,” said Flambae. “But… this was the fucking cops, man. At least four of them were MAGA-pilled, and you’d assume those guys would at least be pretending to be straight, so… now, I’m a little concerned. Plus, there’s also-”

Robert heard a voice he recognised, slightly fainter than he was used to hearing it - cutting across the background of Flambae’s own comms.

“Flambae, whilst I understand that my personality and form may not be pleasing to a seasoned, sought after, and well-loved man such as yourself, I am certain, that in other areas, I can be most pleasing. I shall, in fact, endeavour to do whatever it is within my power, to please you. Whatever it is you might wish, is what I shall do. If you could look past my many, many flaws, then perhaps-”

“Oh… wow,” said Robert. “So, Katon’s still in the ‘self-awareness’ portion of therapy, huh? But… hasn’t done any of the other steps, yet?”

“It’s like being hit on, by a kicked fucking dog,” Bae muttered. "Hell, it’s probably what it’s like, getting hit on by you.”

Robert rolled his eyes, again. Eighteen months into this job - and several life improvements later, thank you very much - he was still the loser normie dispatcher, and thus the recreational Z-Team punching bag. Most of the time, he didn’t mind. Most of the insults had lost any real venom months ago. But it would be nice to get some kind of affirmation - like once a month, or something, you know?

“Ok, alright then. You come straight back here and get yourself quarantined, ready for a contaminant evaluation, and I’ll just-”

Robert switched over to 1-to-1 with Phenomaman, cutting short his latest round of pleading.

“Hey man, we need you at the training centre immediately. We've got a session planned to continue your work on playing well with others. You know, not heading to calls early, not letting your mood inflect your sense of the team’s overall capability...”

“Ah, Robert Robertson. Normally I would comply with your orders immediately, but I am currently in pursuit of-”

“Yeah man, so you see, this will be training specifically designed to help you coordinate better, with other heroes,” Robert lied through his teeth, as he DM’ed Blazer through the work system to see if she was free. “On both a professional and an interpersonal level. So like, if you were say… wooing anyone-”

“Ah, yes, Robert Robertson! I see! Thank you for helping me, with my ongoing courtship. Considering that many amongst us think you shall die painfully alone, it is very kind of you to invest yourself in others’ successes even before your own.”

Which… coming from the man who’d just been trying to hit it, through the wetpaper bag of his own dismal self esteem… Ouch. Yeah, that one hurt.

But it also got Phenomaman to divert his path, which meant they’d also be checking the range on this fucking spell, so… yeah. A win overall - or so Robert tried to tell himself.

He watched as Flambae’s icon tracked itself back to base, whilst Katon went off at roughly a right angle in the other direction. They were both flying, at least, so that got some decent distance between the two of them quickly. The victims of Flambae’s suspected spell seemed as though they at least remained susceptible to logical reasoning. So, in a small mercy, that meant it wasn’t some kind of sex pollen gig.

Fifteen seconds later…

“I - Robert Robertson, I believe something exceedingly strange might have just taken place-”

“Hey P, you back with us?” Robert asked, already DMing Blazer again to tell her no faked training was necessary.

That meant the spell wore off in roughly half a mile... or in twenty seconds tops. One of those metrics was a lot more reassuring than the other.

“I… I fear that Flambae shall incinerate me, should we ever chance to meet again. It shall not kill me, of course, but as there may be bystanders who could suffer injury, and I do not have currently own a second outfit…”

“It's OK man, I'm sure he understands,” Robert soothed. “Besides, you know, if sexual harassment isn't happening somewhere in the Z-Team in some totally good faith, then hell has frozen over. And I'm, like… dead.”

𓆩♡𓆪

Once Bae was successfully quarantined, Robert removed his glasses, and passed his comms over to Galen for the rest of the shift. It didn’t seem right to leave his agent when he sounded so genuinely distressed - and Robert had his own set of concerns. Whilst he hadn’t been to quarantine himself, SDN Torrance was a small branch. He worried their contaminant procedure facilities might be... proportional. Which meant they might be claustrophobic.

Sensory-deprivation-chamber-esque, some might say.

Robert had now been here for over 18 months… which meant he’d been working with Flambae for over 18 months. They’d reached something of a lukewarm impasse, that came off the back of everyone telling Bae that punching Robert in the face monthly was pretty fucking juvenile, actually. Robert had been willing to let it slide (at least three punches, he figured, one per finger and then per arrest). But by the time it came round to the second one, Bae had taken one look at his wary, wincing face as he braced for eventual impact - and the new reading glasses perched on his nose in light of him finally starting to use SDN’s medical cover - and he’d said:

“Tchk. I can hit women no problem, but I won’t hit pathetic ass bitches like you.”

Since then, they’d gone from cautiously and reluctantly allied, to genuinely friendly - so long as there was a wider group around, to buffer out any of the awkward ‘sorry I put you in prison’ type energy. It seemed to be some kind of unspoken agreement, and as Chad kept it up at his end, Robert figured it might be preferable for the both of them. They could also circle each other silently in the gym, with perfect cordiality - and Robert figured that if nothing else, Flambae was grateful for the effort he put into dispatching. Effort that had helped Chad climb the leaderboard, make global, and get his hourly rates raise.

Robert wouldn’t say it out loud, but working together for this long also meant he also knew a lot more about Flambae, than Flambae perhaps realised.

He knew, for instance, when Chad was hiding some indiscretion on a call - usually conducted by Prism, and not himself - that wouldn’t plug through into the statistical success rate of the mission, but may affect when the customer next chose to call in. He knew when the man had hit his limits and lied about it, versus when he’d thought he’d hit his limits and Robert knew all he needed was a gentle push. He knew his weaknesses - perfectionism, dents to his ego, a missed-time insult at the wrong point in a long day, that could trigger a disproportionate grudge against a fellow team member til shift’s end and make everyone's lives harder - and what set off his anxiety - closed, confined spaces; intense, sudden drops in temperature; mistakes when they became public knowledge. The mistakes were usually never that bad - Robert thought it was the shame of hiding them from him unsuccessfully, that always got Chad’s back up.

Now, Robert had to wonder if he needed to add something about ‘control’, into that mix.

He arrived in quarantine, to see Equilibrium already there in the tank with Flambae, assessing certain aspects of his person. Bae saw Robert standing at the glass, and nodded, mouth quirking into a forced smile as he raised his hand in an ironic wave - which Robert returned. The glass currently kept in all sound - he waited until Equilibrium left, before turning on the two-way comms, in order not to violate any doctor-patient confidentiality. He switched it on, as a nurse entered to take Bae’s vitals.

“How you doing, in there?” Robert asked, “is the spell stuff still happening?”

“Hey man… do you work out?”

Chad gestured with a hand to the nurse stood next to him, who was currently squeezing his bicep appreciatively, in case and point. Robert shrugged, “...I guess that answers my question.”

“You think?” Flambae spat, before turning to the nurse, “And of course I fucking work out, idiot.”

The nurse simpered back, “Whatever you say, handsome. You ever need physio? I’m good with my hands.”

Chad physically blanched… which honestly surprised Robert. The man usually thrived on a little meaningless flirtation and empty flattery, to help get him through the day.

On Robert’s side of the glass, Dr. Ephemeral approached. He recognised them, from the occasional company-wide briefings on arcane risks or high-priority magic cases. They were a kind of… hazily formed cotton candy coloured galaxy, roughly shaped like a person, all shoved inside of a white labcoat. Robert could never work out if Ephemeral opted for the lab coat because they were actually a doctor, or if it was to help other people’s eyes to adjust, and see them as something closer to a person. They were SDN Torrance’s in-house specialist on all things pertaining to sorcery, and the arcane.

“Hi there, Robert,” they said. “We’ve confirmed that your agent has been hit by some kind of potent love spell - one of the strongest in Heartbroker’s career, but in good news, also one of her less fatal, given that there was no pact consented to by the recipient. I’ve yet to take any exact measurements to ascertain the parameters and duration of the magical effect, but it would seem that if anyone with a functional human or humanoid biology comes within close proximity to Flambae, they find themselves infatuated and physically attracted to him, regardless of their usual orientation. It is not an uncontrollable feeling, but it does seem to heighten and became less rationally inclined, dependent upon the length of exposure.”

“...How did you work that out?” Robert asked - Flambae had only been in here, what, like, twenty minutes?

“The girlie taking my bloodwork got real fucking handsy,” said Flambae.

“Which is why our nurses will now be entering and exiting on a strict two minute timer,” Ephemeral added on smoothly. “The bloodwork is at the lab, but based on our swab of nose and mouth, we can rule out particulate contamination-”

“-Sex pollen?” Robert supplied.

“Hmm. An outdated term, but yes,” Ephemeral nodded. “Given Heartbroker’s powerset, we would imagine that this is certainly a spell, but it may be that the magic itself is heightening physical and chemical markers in the body - pheromone or hormone production, for instance. If it operates on these mechanics, then we may be able to medicate, as a short-term solution. Otherwise, it seems that this effect must simply be weathered, until we have a counter-curse readily available.”

“Can’t we just get Heartbroker to fucking undo it?” Robert asked, “she got taken in like an hour ago.”

Ephemeral sighed, letting out a gust of sparkles from their roughly shaped mouth.

“Heartbroker has now been taken into police custody and is currently being processed awaiting trial. That means that any spell-working we might wish her to perform on our behalf must first be approved by a high court judge-”

“Hey! Hey! What the fuck?” said Bae, from inside the tank.

“Any spell-working that might be requested of Heartbroker can now be added to her legal representation’s negotiations for a plea bargain. Compliance with our wishes might further factor into her sentencing. Therefore, it all needs to be fully above board,” Ephemeral explained. “Without these measures and counterbalances in place, and without the legitimacy of court approval, there’s also no incentive to help on her part. Following correct procedure similarly prevents her from cursing you harder, in order to engineer a hostage situation. We need to follow due process - I promise you, it is etnirely for your safety.”

Flambae sighed, but fell silent. Robert watched as all his fight left him.

“We have our own sorcerers who could also work on the counter-curse, but…” Ephemeral shrugged helplessly, “you know, Valentine’s Day.”

Robert nodded: Valentine’s Day.

“So… there’s currently a 9-day wait period for in-house counter-cursing,” Ephemeral said. “We have a really crazy backlog. It’s gone up by five days, just since I woke up this morning.”

“Jesus.”

“It places it on about the same league time as waiting for Heartbroker’s lawyer to come back with an agreement, for the dismantling of her own spell. So we shall file for both, expedite, and see which one comes through quicker. Until then-”

“Until then… what do we do, exactly?” Robert said.

Flambae was sat with his head between his knees, rocking slightly in place like he was maybe fighting demons, or maybe just a faint. He raised his head at the question, dark hair falling down into his eyes.

“Well, I will take my measurements, so we can provide safe distances and parameters for interaction with others,” Ephemeral said. “But… I’m afraid he may just have to wait it out.”

“Fucking… Wait it out? Are you fucking kidding me??!”

“We cannot keep him in our own quarantine space indefinitely, only until our first round of checks are complete. As you can see, it’s not adequately outfitted for long-term board. But we can arrange it so he has his own ward room in a secure facility-”

“No.” said Flambae, standing up and glaring through the glass vehemently. Robert watched as his vitals started to rocket, at the mention of imprisonment. “Nuh-uh.”

“The effects don’t seem to be physically harmful, to himself or to others,” Robert was quick to interject. “I mean, if he couldn’t fend people off, I’d feel differently, but he can outrun them or overpower them, if needed. Containment seems like it might be a little extreme.”

“I agree. I offered, mostly for his own personal safety. So long as it aligns with his own personal preferences and his condition does not require consistent medical surveillance, we are comfortable releasing him into the general public. But if we do so, he would need to observe advised social distancing measures for the full duration of the curse,” said Ephermeral. “We would expect him to be suspended from active hero duty-”

“-What?!”

“It can tamper with arrest proceedings,” Robert explained to Bae, through the glass. “If there’s any chance people think you’ve mind-controlled them, it gives their lawyers a potential case to plead in court.”

Ephemeral nodded. “We would also strongly advise staying confined within your own personal space, reducing contact with crowded areas, or the outside world more generally. We cannot legally place you under house arrest, but we ask you for a strong exercise, in personal discretion. If you have housemates, they made need to temporally relocate-”

“-I live alone,” Flambae said, shortly.

“Ok then, so we treat it like the flu,” Robert said, calmly. “Keep him locked up in his house for a few days, shuttle in some groceries-”

“...A few days?! What about for over a fucking week!?”

“It is for your own personal safety, Flambae,” Ephemeral said. “We would not wish for you to undergo undue sexual or physical harassment, due to Heartbroker’s malfeasance.”

“You can probably still go out on flights and stuff,” Robert pointed out, “maybe hit some remote locations, if we get a clearer picture on your proximities? It’s probably going to involve a little social isolation, sure. But like Ephemeral says, not a house arrest.”

“Bitch, please. I fucking hate the outdoors.”

“Ok, then the princess will just have to stay in his tower,” Robert said, dryly. “But as he’s physically healthy, and we’ve made it clear that it’s all for his own protection, I’m sure he’ll be a good boy, and comply.”

Flambae glowered at him.

“The tests to determine the safety parameters of your social distancing should take roughly an hour, then we can let you go. As for you, Robert… you’re welcome to return to your shift, if you like?” Ephemeral asked.

“No…” Robert said. His gaze rested on Flambae, still clearly miserable on the other side of the glass. “...I’ll stay.”

Ephemeral nodded, and moved away. Robert shot a text to Chase asking him to share the load with Galen, then sat down on the bench in the viewing area.

He stayed there for the full course of Flambae’s corporeal and supernatural screening. Nurses poked and prodded at Chad - all the while asking him leading questions about himself - then Ephemeral and Equilibrium both entered the space at intervals to make their own series of scans - or, in the case of Ephemeral, survey incantations. They then returned together with a plastic box filled with random odds and ends. Robert realised that they were holding up difference swatches or pieces of material dipped in sorcerous indicator, to see which types of substances the magic could successfully penetrate.

Flambae only got more and more quiet, and more and more obviously uncomfortable, as the examination progressed. At one point, a nurse - a handsome, male-presenting nurse, so again Robert was surprised - tried to take his hand, and Bae jolted upright like the touch had stung. He darted himself out of reach. The nurse took a single step to follow. They stopped though, when Robert wrapped loudly on the glass with his knuckles, and motioned to them to come out, as if he had a question. 80 seconds in could still be reasoned with, after all.

Bae didn’t say anything, even after that situation was successfully diffused. That was another warning sign with him. When he was anxious, he overcompensated at first, masking to try and push through his disquiet. 70% of the time, that was usually successful: faked until made, etc. When he pushed over into some kind of burned-out, silent middle-distance, giving up any pretense of normative function, that meant he’d hit a dark place. He wasn’t even bothering to snipe at Robert through the glass, though Robert made a point of keeping the two-way communications on just in case.

More often, when Robert glanced up from whatever he was looking at on his phone, he saw Chad looking over to him, as if to check he was still there. Though Bae always immediately broke eye contact and looked away, the moment their eyes accidentally met.

Robert was therefore already coming to his own personal conclusion, as Ephemeral came over to him to report their final surveyed results. Nothing in Chad's bloodwork showed a physical manifestation of the spell, which meant it was just magic - nothing that could be reversed by human or medical means. The spell couldn’t penetrate many materials, like brick or metal, so walls were enough of a deterrent against it. It seemed to affect people through physical proximity, but not through hearing or sight. So an open door would turn them - as would entering within a distance of 4.5m - but everything else was deemed safe enough, for right now. Face-time with family, Robert pointed out, was still completely on the table.

“You think this shit affects blood relatives?” Flambae asked, looking sick.

“In general, we advise maintaining a remote distance from your family as a default approach. It’s better that those aspects of the spell’s parameters are simply never tested,” Ephemeral said. They sounded sympathetic. “As we’ve already learned, being attracted to men is not a prerequisite for this spell taking effect, so… leaving the rest as a grey area may simply be for the best. Typically only 1 in 5 love spells affect family, but… Heartbroker is a villain, and known to have her occasionally vindictive moments. For that unlucky 20%, we can offer counselling, should an accident occur. But we’d strongly recommend simply not letting the risk come to pass....”

“...Fuck.” said Flambae, on the other side of the glass.

He slumped, put his head in his hands… and Robert came to his decision.

“And you said it affects people with… ‘functional human biology’?” he asked Ephemeral, quoting their earlier explanation.

“Indeed,” they said. “Constructs like Equilibrium and myself are unaffected - but then, we were never made to love, merely to serve our own singular purposes.”

“I’m not hanging out with Golem for a whole fucking week, Robert,” Flambae said into his hands, clearly misunderstanding Robert’s line of reasoning. “Kid’s chill enough as a coworker, but he spends every hour outside work playing fucking Fortnite. I’ll go fucking insane.”

“No,” Robert said, “I more meant… um. Me.”

He glanced over at Ephemeral, “Could I go into the tank for a sec? Maybe you can put on that two-minute timer?”

“I… I’m not certain I’d recommend it-”

“Are you - have you got something to tell me, Bob-Bob? Last time I checked, despite the big fuck-off penis-compensating robot, and all other evidence to the contrary, you were a real boy.”

“‘Functional biology’ - I mean, how are we defining that? Do you mean like… brain chemical-wise, or more within the anatomical ballpark?” Robert asked Ephemeral. “Cause I’m literally shot to shit, on both counts.”

Ephemeral paused in their protest, momentarily intrigued.

“Bobert, I’m serious,” Bae sounded panicked. “I cannot take another depressed bitch throwing themselves at me, least of all a- a fucking flat-assed, pathetic-”

“Phenomaman was affected,” Robert reasoned with himself, pressing the button that muted the quarantine tank. Just for sake of brevity. “But then, his meds are always working overtime to counteract his metabolism. Mine barely get me up to a base level of function.”

Ephemeral hummed, “I’m not certain if it would have much bearing on the situation, but it might be in Flambae’s interest, for us to check. If he wishes to not be totally isolated whilst under these conditions, then of course having a friendly construct who remains totally unaffected by magic would be ideal. But… I mean… if he likes you-”

“-Oh, you think he likes me?” Robert said, amused. “That’s not really the issue here. I was just thinking, it probably already falls under my remit as his dispatcher, to manage his off-work leave, you know, maybe his groceries and stuff? If I can be the point person, rather than farming it out to a team member, or someone outside our group, then that’s probably just easier all round, right?”

And it means Flambae gets at least one familiar face. he thought.

…And maybe the enrichment of tearing me a new one every two days or so, to distract from the boredom of his new enclosure.

Robert finally unmuted the tank, to say to Chad, “...I’m happy to at least check it, if you are? I wouldn’t want to try anything without your consent. Obviously.”

Chad looked cagey, but also… vaguely desperate. Robert’s initial instincts had been right. Man was already in clear need of an anchor - or maybe just a normative social interaction, after the state of his day so far.

“Are you… are you sure?” he said, “I mean, what if you-”

“-If I get handsy,” Robert joked. “Then I’m giving you full permission to punch me again. For anything else that makes you uncomfortable, too. I'll just take that as my cue to leave.”

“And I can remain on hand, to ring the alarm or distract as needed,” Ephemeral offered. “There is… well. No need for physical violence. I hope.”

“With the Z-Team, we can certainly dream,” Robert said, wryly.

“...Ok.” said Chad. Then to himself: “..ok."

He nodded, but still looked nervous as Robert walked round to the quarantine’s airlock, and its hermetically sealed door. Robert himself took a deep breath, then gave Dr. Ethereal a lame thumbs up, and opened it. It sealed itself shut behind him. The other side of the door clunked open after a brief 10 second gust of air, that smelled faintly like antibacterial cleaner.

Robert opened it up and entered the room. Chad looked up at him warily, from where he was still sat hooked up to his vitals monitor.

Robert met his gaze - stark and bright as topaz. He thought he felt a brief but sharp, aching pang of sympathy. He didn’t think he’d ever seen Chad look this shaken before. In fact, he almost looked afraid.

So Robert tried his best to offer a reassuring smile - one just bland and normal enough for him, that it wouldn’t seem to herald some incipient supernatural need to jump Chad’s bones.

Then… he waited for anything else to happen.

And waited.

And… waited.

Nothing about the way he felt for Chad changed.

He looked down at him, and conveyed all of this with a shrug.

“Nope. Nothing. I… I think we're good.”

“...Damn,” said Chad. “Guess you’re officially confirmed the straightest, most-boring fucking dude on the whole fucking planet. Congratulations, Robbo. They’re sending you your white picket fence and podcast starter pack in the mail as we speak.”

Well. That was practically three full sentences, after nearly forty-five minutes of tense, anxious, wretched silence. Robert breathed a sigh of relief. If nothing else, Flambae’s spirits could always be raised, by the offer of an opportunity to mock him.

“Man,” he said, awkwardly. “I really hate to break it to you, but I’m definitely bi. Just… you know. It doesn’t seem to have any bearing on this situation, apparently. Wait… haven’t we done this already?”

He swore he vaguely remembered coming out to the Z-Team at the Office Christmas After-Party hosted at Prism’s place, during a round of Truth or Dare.

“Ok, wow. I thought you just said that, to stop BitchGal feeling bad about admitting to her crush on Mandy in front of you,” drawled Flambae. He looked down at his feet, then back up at Robert. “Now I don’t know whether to be, like… offended. This is already a really fucking terrible day for me, you know? Why do you have to go out of your way just to make it worse?”

“Oh,” Robert smiled, “I’m sorry… do you want me to be into you? I can give it the old college try.”

“No! Ew! Gross!”

They lapsed into silence. Flambae was still looking at his feet, the set to his shoulders not entirely fixed.

Robert almost… felt bad.

“I think it might be the antidepressants?” he offered, as a consolation. “They can mute my reactions to things sometimes… so… I guess I kind of just figured…”

“...Is this where you reveal to me you’re too fucking depressed to fucking get it up? Cause I’m not sure we’re there yet, Bob-Bob. Not sure I even wanna know.”

Robert rolled his eyes heavenwards. Ok, so, that had happened, but like, three trial medications ago. He was lucky his doctor was more optimistic and dedicated to his wellbeing than he was. They’d gotten there in the end (to the benefit of Robert and… his ongoing mutual relationship with his morning shower, which… you know. Was kind of a depressing sentence. Thank god for the meds.)

“Oh, ok. I see. But making it the subject of a whole fucking song-”

“That was one time, and it was actually hilarious-”

“Right, right. That’s definitely the meaning of that word.” Robert waited a deliberate beat, before adding, “And… just checking: you’re sure you’re under some kind of spell that makes you…” he waved both his hands in Flambae’s general direction, “attractive?”

“Ok, well, now… fuck you.” said Chad, as Robert finally, finally saw the last of that tension leave his shoulders. The smirk that happened this time was less forced, almost approaching genuine. “You know, if it wasn't such a relief to have someone act normal around me, right now, you'd be so fucking dead already. Can’t believe I’m grateful, for this bland white fucking cracker-ass interaction-”

“Well, I know that's what you love about me,” Robert replied, serenely. “How normal I am.”

“Just glad I don’t have to deal with you feeling me up, and swooning over getting hold of some actual muscle. Guess you’ll have to spend another day, never knowing what a real man feels like.” Chad let out a gust of sigh, “so… just what the fuck do I do now?”

“I… guess we discharge you,” came Dr. Ephemeral’s voice, through the tannoy.

It sounded much tinnier, on this side.

Robert startled, the sudden interruption of their voice causing him to nearly jump out his skin. Flambae also seemed to snap to attention, spine straightening. It was the first time he hadn’t been watching the glass instinctively, aware he was constantly being observed.

…For some reason, Robert had forgotten Ephemeral was even there, watching the two of them as they interacted.

“That’s three minutes, by my timer,” Ephemeral added, needlessly, “we’re officially in the clear, Robert.”

“So… I’ll become your point of contact, for the next few days, til this curse gets countered,” Robert offered, gathering his composure and looking back at Chad. “You need help with anything - groceries or, you know, company - then… I guess I’m your guy, for right now.”

The look on Chad’s face suggested this news just made his already awful day worse. But Robert knew better.

Chad needed someone.

He only hoped he could help.

𓆩♡𓆪

Once he was discharged, and officially suspended from duty until his curse was lifted, Chad told Robert he wanted to see himself home. Apparently, he’d bought his groceries yesterday - being the kind of guy who meal-planned and batch-cooked over the course his weekend - and he’d driven himself to SDN alone, in the Firebird. So Robert’s help wasn’t immediately needed.

Robert didn’t feel any need to push. He guessed the poor guy probably wanted to spend some time alone, after his frankly hellish afternoon. The isolation might wear on him later, but right now he needed some time to process.

The next day was quiet. Robert made sure to take his meds so that his responses to things would keep being stunted, checked his phone for texts in the morning, saw there were none, then set off for work. The shift was stressful, same way it always was when they were one or two people down. They were running a tighter ship than any of them would like - least of all Robert, as its reluctant captain. Given that Flambae also did a lot of solo shit these days, Robert found himself missing his presence on more than one occasion - he didn’t miss any incoming calls, but a few got shaved closer down to the wire than he was now used to. He hadn’t done a shift by the seat of his pants like this since his first one, back in the day.

The gym was also… weirdly quiet. Robert guessed this was because SDN shifts typically started and ended on a thirty minute stagger, so that Torrance was never without at least one team of heroes even at changeover. But he hadn’t realised how often the gym was just him and Flambae. Normally, the other guy was the kind of asshole who put his music on blast, so Robert had gotten used to keeping his mouth shut, and just listening to that. Robert found himself stood alone in front of the treadmill, having forgotten to bring headphones. He had to work out in unbroken silence, like some kind of wannabe serial killer.

He checked his phone after the showers - still no texts. But as Flambae was a grown man, and probably hadn’t eaten his way through all his groceries, in just over 24 hours, it didn’t seem like something he needed to worry himself over. So Robert shrugged to himself, then placidly went home.

He was settling into his couch at half seven with a beer in one hand and Beef looped under his arm on the other side, when there was a sudden knock at his balcony window.

Robert had a fucking heart attack.

Beef simply went, ‘borf’.

“Ok, so if I was attacked, you’d just let me die,” Robert murmured down to him, rubbing his round side affectionately as he got up from the settee with an old-man groan, and peered nervously out into the dark. He kept the beer in hand, in case he needed to smash the bottle over someone’s head.

But no one had broken through the glass, so there wasn’t an immediate threat of imminent violence. But there was a silhouette, waiting out on the other side, there on the balcony - tall, intimidating, extremely built, and -

“Flambae?!” Robert said, incredulously, immediately pulling open the sliding door.

“...Yo.” said the man standing on the other side, raising a hand awkwardly in greeting.

Robert goggled at him. He was dressed more casually than he ever usually saw him, in a tank top and soft dark sweatpants that Robert guessed passed out of ‘gym wear’ and into ‘lounge wear’ - maybe even pyjamas. His hair was down, freshly washed and curling.

“Um, hey man,” said Robert. “...What you doing, out on my balcony? If you needed something, you could’ve just texted.”

“I’m… bored.”

“...Bored?”

“Yes,” Chad said, “bored. You gonna let me in, before I freeze my tits off out here?”

There was a tepid, lukewarm breeze on the air, and Robert didn’t think Chad could freeze - not unless someone tried to make him real hard. But him just mentioning it made Robert’s gaze drop unconsciously down the couple of inches to his chest, as if to check, and the mortification of catching himself doing that meant Robert immediately had to step aside and let him in, just to distract them both.

The moment Chad was inside, he let out this big sigh, and stretched. Robert watched the muscles in his back shift under his thin shirt, reminding him of the fluid movements of a big cat.

It was probably just the relief that he was no longer out in the open and causing ambient attraction - but for a second it was as if this was his home he was returning to, not Robert’s.

“Damn, place still lookin’ like I should expect to find bodyparts in your fucking freezer,” he announced, immediately ruining the illusion.

“Hey,” Robert reprimanded, “don’t be mean. I bought a rug.”

(And he had. After a couple of Red Ring insurgents who’d escaped initial capture had tried to take him out after Shroud’s incarceration. And failed. And… left stains.)

“Eh. You could’ve picked a better one,” Bae said with a shrug.

“So… um… what are you doing here, again?”

Beef wiggled on the sofa, tail wagging at the approach of a new person. Flambae reached down and started scratching underneath his chin. As Beef looked up at him with his big saucer eyes and his tail wagged even harder, Robert tried not to feel betrayed. Maybe the infatuation spell hit everyone but him, you know?

“I guess I just… I dunno. Wanted company.”

“Ok…?” Robert said, trying not to sound as confused as he was.

“Don’t let it go to your head, Bob-Bob,” Chad said, without looking up. “I just needed to see another fucking human being, and you’re the only one available to me right now.”

“...Right.”

Flambae looked at him, clocking his unconvinced and disapproving tone. “I’m an extrovert, Bob-Bob. And I gave myself a quiet fucking weekend because I knew Valentine’s Day was gonna be a shit show - which it was, but it’s not like I could predict I’d become some kind of fucking sex leper overnight, or some shit. I’ve got a shit-tonne of energy to burn. Usually, when I get restless like this, I just like, hit a club or a bar, or something. But I can’t do that without people throwing themselves at me, so…”

“And you… wouldn’t be ok with that?”

“Hey, fuck you,” said Flambae, glancing over at him. “I would never try to hit if there was anything placing consent into this much fucking doubt. Is that really what you think of me?”

“I wasn't thinking of you taking it that far,” Robert admitted, raising his hands in surrender. “I definitely don’t think you’re that kind of guy. I just meant… going to a club, if that’s what you needed. I know Ephemeral’s advice was pretty strict, but I think I’d lean more towards a ‘mileage may vary’ approach, wouldn’t you? I trust you to know what’s reasonable, and what is necessary for your own mental wellbeing - and I meant what I said, about you being more than equipped to fend off any pursuers. I guess to me, there’s a difference between getting hit on indiscriminately at work,” (a thing he was familiar with), “or in a random store” (less so), “versus going to like, a gay club for a couple of hours. A quick inoculation shot of being the centre of everyone's attention? I figured that might be right up your alley.”

“Even if it was, then I’d fucking want to earn it,” Bae muttered. “I can make everyone in a room want me, without any fucking magic. Right now, it would just feel cheap.”

Which was also… fair enough. Not exactly a life Robert was familiar with, but he wasn’t about to question it. It made sense to him that the attention would still be unwanted - after all, Robert wanted literally zero attention, as his baseline.

But if it was a choice between lowkey fucking with the atmosphere of an anonymous club for an hour, and coming here-

“So… face-time wasn’t cutting it?”

“Face-time is for bad covid crashouts, and relatives back in Afghanistan that I speak to like, once a year,” Chad sighed, sitting down next to Beef and startling as the little guy started trying to clamber across his huge thighs and into his lap. “You might like talking to people from behind a screen, Bob-Bob, but it drives me fucking crazy. Almost better not to speak to anyone - until it isn’t, and then I feel like I’m tearing my hair out.”

“Which is why you’re here, I’m guessing. You.. have told your family, though, right?”

“I let everyone know what was happening yesterday - my sister nearly choked on her own tongue laughing, the fucking bitch. Said that it was karma, for stealing all her boyfriends in high school.”

“-You stole her boyfriends? And here I thought you were a family man.”

Chad caught himself, looking almost embarrassed.

“It was like… one time. And he was so clearly not-straight, that it’s literally not my fault. You start crushing on someone in your fucking musical theatre class, there’s like at least a fifty-fifty chance, right? Sixty-forty?”

“I can’t say I’m familiar,” Robert replied with a wry smile. “But I’ll take your word for it.”

“Anyway, tonight is niblet’s dance class. Normally, I’d pick her up, but with this shit going on my sister had to fucking do it. And Prism’s got a gig, or some promo event or pop-up, or some shit. So even if I wanted to talk to people over the phone, everyone’s fucking busy.”

Which left… Robert.

A man terminally without plans.

Well, that actually made the logic behind this impromptu visit a lot easier for him to swallow. Robert would never once question his value, as a last resort.

“Well, I still don’t seem to be succumbing to a sudden intense thirst for your dick,” he said, gesturing to Bae in a way that left him briefly scandalised, “so I guess you can stay, so long as you want company. Just don’t bitch at me if I’m boring, ok? You’re the one interrupting my quiet night in.”

“Oh I’m sorry,” scoffed Flambae, “am I getting in the way of the world’s saddest, loneliest date with your favourite sock? What were you even planning on doing, bitch?”

Robert rolled his eyes, then lifted the beer he was still holding, and gestured it towards the very nice, non-serial-killer TV now mounted on the wall opposite his very nice, non-serial-killer futon. “I guess I was going to try and catch the tail end of the game.”

“The game?” said Chad. “...The ‘game’?! Dude… are you fucking sure you're not straight?”

“Just because not everyone is doing it like you, doesn’t mean they’re doing it wrong,” Robert replied, all prim and stern. “Do you want a beer, or do I have to give you a fucking iPad or something, like a misbehaving toddler?”

“You got an iPad, somewhere in this graveyard-ass joint of yours?”

Well… no. All Robert had was an extortionately expensive amount of software and an external hard drive for his once-Mecha Man laptop, not to mention a full server bank that he’d taken from the lab when Royd got some of SDN’s own hardware replaced, that now also doubled for heating in his bedroom. But Robert didn’t need to dignify that question with an answer, so instead opted to get another beer out from the fridge, and chuck it in Chad’s direction.

He caught it. Because of course he fucking did.

“So… which game are we talking?” Chad said warily, watching the TV like he could catch a bad smell emanating from it. “Ice hockey?”

“I don’t know… basketball, maybe?” Robert said, as he retook his own seat next to him. He shrugged. “I just tend to watch whatever's on.”

“Bob. You don’t even have a team?! You just… what... ‘watch sports’?! That’s your hobby?!”

“Well I didn’t really… have hobbies, until recently - just, you know, whatever helped me to wind down. And I didn’t have a consistent enough schedule as Mecha Man, to get too invested in one singular team, and their whole… narrative. Now… I don’t know, I’ve just got too many I want to root for. I prefer just enjoying each game as it stands, and not judging the athletes on anything other than their performance on the day.”

“Oh my god, that’s so fucking corny. How are you this corny, after hours?”

“I guess I just like watching people who are really good at what they do.”

“Then you must have to bring a spare pair of underwear to work each day, given that you’d cream your fucking panties, every single time I-”

“-And who follow the rules, to reach their win condition.” Robert added, cutting the opening for Flambae’s ego off at the pass.

Chad rolled his eyes theatrically, as if he could see this caveat had been thrown in there to ward him off.

“How about you pick one side, and I’ll pick the other. Winner buys the other’s drinks for a whole night, next time I can go outside without being fuckin’ manhandled.”

“...Sure,” Robert said, mostly to make his life easier, and then he switched on the TV. Beef somehow maneuvered his bulk into the space between the two of them on the couch, but it wasn’t quite big enough for his… total circumference, so Robert shifted and made himself smaller in order for there to be enough room. He grinned down at his dog, ruffled his head.

A glance over at Flambae saw him looking awkward and out of place, as Beef started to leave a patch of enthusiastic drool on his leg. He was trying to hide it, though - pretend as though he was totally at ease.

And from the way he quickly glanced away, eyes snapping over towards the screen, it seemed as though he’d been looking at Robert. Right up until the moment that he wasn’t.

Robert found the right channel - on adverts for right now - and finally took a sip of his beer.

“...Do you really go to the club on a Tuesday night?” he said. The very thought baffled him. “Isn’t it just… empty? Or I dunno. Full of fucking creeps?”

“Nah, not if you do your research. There’s always something decent going on. Like cabarets, or theme nights and drag nights, and shit,” Chad told him, “it’s the straight clubs that lack any midweek culture, Bobert. Maybe you are doing this wrong, actually.”

Robert snorted. “I think I’m good the way I am, thanks.”

Chad glanced around the apartment, looking unconvinced.

“Well, if you ever want to, you know, leave this closet space and go do something, I guess I could do one night of like, community outreach. Pop your club cherry, or whatever. You’d need someone else to dress you, though. I can’t be seen out with someone this lame.”

“I’ve been to a gay club, Flambae,” Robert said, obliquely, not bothering to look away from the screen, “I even went, in my own fucking clothes. I just don’t tend to make it out onto the dance floor. Someone tends to decide I’m doing something right, before then.”

𓆩♡𓆪

Chad was definitely restless - as Robert had predicted, but way more so than he’d initially bargained for. Getting cooped up in his house all day was leaving him antsy. The curse deprived him of both conversation, and attention. Robert knew he needed both these things to function - there was a reason he usually made sure Bae averaged at least two interviews a week when being dispatched, in order to get his requisite dosage of both.

This meant he came round to Robert’s apartment the next night, too. He was house-trained enough to text ahead this time. But when he arrived via Robert's balcony window, still not using the front door, his face was stormy, his eyes completely clouded over.

“Hey… you ok?”

“Saw Prism.”

“Right, she said she was going to check in on you, was she-”

“-In person.”

Robert paused, then cast a worried glance his way. “Oh. Did she…?”

“...Yeah.” Chad gave a short nod, folding his arms and looking tight. “I told her she wasn’t supposed to come in, but she said she only wanted to stay for five minutes and that it would be fine.”

Robert sighed - the Z-Team had a very unique talent for not only ignoring orders, and but never taking the reasons behind them seriously.

“She bought her cousin’s Switch for me, thought videogames or some shit would keep me distracted. Apparently, all she does when she’s sick is play Animal Crossing. It started out almost normal, but then a couple of minutes in, she started asking me who my one hall pass would be, if I had to pick a girl. Then she started to get this shark look in her eye. The one that she has when sees the person she wants to take home from the club.”

“Jesus.” Robert said.

“It’s… fine,” Chad said. It sounded like a lie. “She’s used to being treated like a princess and getting chased, so she didn’t lay it on too thick, or anything. I got her to leave before it got weird.”

“...At least it wasn’t Visi?” Robert tried to offer, in consolation. But it didn’t sound super comforting, even to his own ears.

“Yeah.” Chad said, still clearly miserable. “Don’t think I could take the offer of a one-woman conversion camp without hitting her, or burning something to shit.”

In sympathy, Robert gave Chad full remote privileges, only to listen to the man bitch at his dismal range of channels. He eventually settled on putting on the tail half of a romcom that made Robert’s eyes want to roll out his skull.

Chad came over the next day, and the next - though slightly later, after a facetime with his niece. They managed to catch another basketball game, this time from the very start of play. They made another bet: the winner this time was promised a free week of lunches paid for by the other man’s credit card. For all that Chad had playacted disgust and nonchalance initially, he was rising up out of his chair and shouting at the TV like an overly-invested middle-aged dad by the final few minutes.

Not that Robert pointed this out to him. He valued his peace.

And… his promised week of free meals. (Just because he didn’t follow one team religiously, didn’t mean he hadn’t picked up a few of their strengths and weaknesses by osmosis).

Whenever Chad visited, Robert tried to give him decent rundowns of what had happened in SDN on any given day, telling him whatever scraps of gossip he could think of. He wasn't the best at recalling every little detail, but Chad clearly had FOMO and hated being forcibly left out of the loop. He asked about Chad’s family, chatted in vague enough terms about his own not to raise too many eyebrows, and even managed to lend Chad a couple of Janelle’s books when Animal Crossing turned out to not be his thing. Robert didn’t think these books would be his thing, either… but at least it might burn up another couple days of his isolation, for him to reach the same conclusion.

It was… odd, in that it was fine.

Hanging out with Chad was actually totally doable - Robert had just never let himself find that out, before now. Although they’d long ago reached a peaceful equilibrium, Robert never really let himself hang out with Chad one-on-one that much. It was a precautionary measure - mostly for the sake of respecting and honouring what he’d done to Chad in the past, and not the other way around. He didn’t want to do anything to make the other man uncomfortable. That meant that whenever they saw each other, it was always as part of a larger group. Whilst Chad was probably good at making conversation with most people, Robert could get a little stilted if he got too in his own head, and that happened a lot - or at least, it felt like it did. He had no idea how visible any of his internal shit was from the outside.

And yet… that didn’t happen, here.

Maybe it was the low stake nature of the interactions, or the fact that no matter what he did, he was still better than Chad’s other option of ‘fucking nobody’ but… Robert wasn’t feeling self-conscious. He was actually… pretty chill. Talking with Chad wasn’t hard, when all Chad wanted to do was run his fucking mouth like he didn’t know what else to do with it. Robert basically got the cliffnotes on seemingly every thought the man had had on his own during the day whilst he was in isolation. Sometimes it was long-winded. But it was never boring. On occasion, Robert even had fun - laughing so hard that he felt it in his ribs the next day.

And every time Chad seemed to realise he needed to leave, he got up, and he seemed way more relaxed and calm than he had been when he arrived. Robert actually felt kind of… good. He knew that he had helped... which was all he’d ever wanted to do in the first place.

Which was why he let his guard down.

…Which is how they ended up here.

“This is such a fucking bad idea,” he muttered, sat in the Firebird, in the Whole Foods parking lot.

“You were all set to have me get ground up on into pulp like, two fucking days ago,” Flambae pointed out from the driver’s seat. He was wearing a face mask, as if that made a difference. “You’re ok with the club, but not this?”

“I said that the reactions you’d get wouldn’t be weird or out of place in a club,” Robert corrected. “This. Is a grocery store.”

“Oh wow, boy genius, I hadn’t fucking noticed.”

It was Day 5 of Chad’s curse, and there was still no news from anyone on the SDN Sorcery Team, about when that might be getting fixed. Tomorrow was the weekend, and Chad wasn’t allowed to have any plans, involving anyone other than Robert. Robert, upon reflection, should’ve realised this would be when he began testing boundaries again, and started acting out. In theory, Chad was halfway through his self-imposed isolation - but the first half had probably sucked ass. And with no directly confirmed end-date, a halfway milestone might cause more anxiety than it did reassurance.

So now, they were here. At Whole Foods. Twenty-five minutes before closing time - on Robert’s insistence. He wanted there to at least be as few people there as possible.

…Didn’t make it any less of a bad fucking idea.

“Listen, I know being stuck home alone is boring as sin, but if you just give me a list-”

“-I don’t trust you to know what half the things on my list even are,” Chad countered. “Incompatible ethnicities aside, you think I haven’t noticed you haven’t offered me food at your place, not even once? Either you have shit-ass manners, or no fucking food in the first place.”

Robert was actually hurt by that. He’d bought them take-out pizza last night. Chad had let him have the last slice.

“I… can google,” Robert said, weakly.

“Nuh-uh,” Chad said. “Branding matters, too. Even if you know what a thing is, you need to get me the good version of the thing. And I know your tasteless ass would have literally no fucking clue, then just go for the cheapest option-”

“-I mean, yes. Of course I would. If I’m spending your money.”

“Which is why I’m not letting you go in there without me.”

“Chad… the spell is going to affect people,” Robert felt the need to point this out. “Even with a mask, it’s reliant on physical proximity, not you know, seeing your face.”

But Flambae was getting the stubborn look Robert recognised from team meetings and missions. He could see his resolve settling into place, even with only half his face visible. “Better an hour of fending off desperate bitches, than $200 of unusable fucking groceries, and shit meals for a week.”

“Ok, well, we only have twenty-five minutes, so please don’t… wait, $200?! …For a week? You’re… but you’re one person!”

“How are you so fucking bad at taking care of yourself, that you haven’t even noticed inflation? The fuck are you living on, Bobert?! Nuts and berries, like a fucking squirrel?”

“I-”

But before he could someone a retort, Chad was already getting out of the car. And Robert had no choice but to follow him.

He had to powerwalk, to keep pace, as Chad picked out a shopping cart and breezed in through the store entrance. The security guard at the door went all dazed, for a second, blinking slow and wetting his mouth with his tongue as they passed by. Robert’s stomach tightened with anxiety.

This was such a bad idea.

Robert found himself hovering, checking all of Chad’s peripheries like a jumped up, antsy bodyguard, as the cause for his concern started fucking browsing the fruit aisle. The space had at least cleared out : only a couple of handfuls of people were in there getting last minute groceries. It was a middle-class enough neighbourhood, that most residents were either already at home, or had better things to be doing, at 8.45pm on a Friday night. Still, the first time Robert saw a woman dressed head-to-toe in Lululemon coming close to the edge of Flambae’s area of effect, he immediately pivoted them both down an adjacent aisle and further away from her.

“Damn Bob-Bob, you protecting my virtue or something? I’ve been hit on in public before, you know,” Chad smirked. “I promise to keep my hands to myself, around White Mom #37.”

“Why are we just suddenly pretending we’re ok with this?” Robert demanded. “It made you really uncomfortable, that first day!”

“Yeah, because it was fucking scary. And it was completely outside of my control. Now, I have a bit more of a handle on my own situation. Plus, I haven’t seen another person in days.”

Robert frowned, “I mean… you’ve seen me.”

“That doesn’t count.”

Robert frowned harder. “It doesn’t?”

Chad glanced over at him, almost dismissively. “You’re… I dunno. Routine.”

Robert felt something really unpleasant bloom deep and dejected in his stomach. Here he was, thinking he’d had a better time in this guy’s company than he’d ever have thought was possible, when they both first met. But… no.

He was routine.

Like a check-up. Like a chore.

Chad seemed to see him frowning, because he sighed, and hedged: “what I mean is, I already know you.”

You don’t know anything about me, thought Robert.

But what he said was, “sure.”

“No. I know this will be a fucking foreign concept to you, Bob, but listen: I like meeting new people. I like being around people. All kinds of fucking people. The good ones, the bad ones, the fucking annoying ones. Just, you know, chatting shit in the queue for something? Flirting with a random receptionist, who’s feeling up for it? Making conversation with your service worker, so that their day doesn’t totally fucking suck? Learning some random-ass facts, or sharing experiences with people from all walks of life? Even just some light people watching? That’s how you get fun stories and shit.”

“...You like talking to strangers. And being in crowds.”

“See, I knew you wouldn’t get it. You’re making that face.”

“And… you think having you as a customer… improves a service worker’s day?”

“Oh, ok, so fuck you,” said Chad, though he was chuckling appreciatively, despite himself. “Fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you. You suck so hard.”

“And doesn’t that hold just as much novelty,” Robert posited, “as White Mom #37?”

He found himself smiling, as they walked up into meat and dairy. Chad, he was quickly learning, was actually a service worker's worst nightmare. The kind of shopper for whom ‘closing time’ would mean sweet fuck all. He liked to examine the different packages, hum and haw over the different sell buy dates, go off on some pointless tangents in the cheese aisle, that Robert’s own bank balance would never afford.

The first curse victim came up to them, when Chad was deliberating over what might be the right kind of protein yoghurt to 'match his mood'.

“Um, hey there,” said a plump, red-headed woman in her mid-thirties. “You know, I love your hair! It’s gorgeous! It’s like you stepped straight out of a romance novel.”

“You know,” said Chad, turning his smile on full-wattage as he turned to look at her, “I was literally just saying to my friend here, how more people should be saying that. Like, literally all of the time.”

“Um. I don’t really do this, well… at all. Ever, really. But… could I have your number?”

“Oh, sweetie, I’m so sorry. I don’t really swing that way,” Chad replied, easily. “But… if I ever did, then you know I’ll think of you.”

He then breezed his way out the aisle, with a cursory, over-the-top wink. Robert was left standing alone with the woman… so he was the one who got to see the curse-induced heartbreak burst out across her face, before he trailed miserably after.

“See?” Chad said, as they moved on into dry goods. “I told you, I’m so fucking used to being hit on in public.”

“I think I’m going to be sick.” Robert said. His stomach was churning. He hoped they got out of range quickly, so that she could come back her senses and avoid like, bursting into tears or something.

In the next aisle, the person who approached them was a lithe girl with long flowing hair and a nose ring, dressed in an indigo poet’s shirt. Her and Flambae talked about music for roughly 90 seconds, before Flambae started making moves to get going.

“You sure you don’t want to come for a drink?” the woman asked him, “there’s this sweet little botanical cocktail place, it’s only like five minutes drive from here-”

“Sorry,” Chad said, slinging his arm up around Robert’s shoulders, and making the other man flinch at the contact. "It sounds cute, but me and my dumb bitch here have places to be.”

“Oh…” said nose-ring.

Then she took in the sight of them both, as if reassessing.

“You know. I could be into that.”

The only benefit of the psychic damage Robert took in that moment was that it hit Chad full-force as well, and rendered them both mute. They blinked at the woman, who smiled back at them, all cat-like.

This time, she was the one who winked.

Robert maneuvered himself out from underneath the arm draped across his shoulders, took the cart, and started walking. Fast. Chad faltered for another beat, then followed after. Neither of them could summon a graceful goodbye, for Whole Foods’ resident fujoshi.

“We only have nine minutes, to get round the rest of this store,” Robert muttered, grim as a war veteran.

Bae recovered quicker than he did. He started to laugh it off: “God, you’re so boring, Bob-Bob. You have so little game, that that’s all you can handle? She’s probably not even into men!”

“I… think she was probably bi, actually.”

“Oh, and you’d know?”

“Um. Yeah. I would.”

“I’m still not sold, on you playing both sides,” Chad hummed. “I think you’re just pretending, to fuck with me. And make your immunity to this thing weird me the fuck out.”

Then, there was twenty seconds of blissful silence, before they were approached… by a couple. Next to the pasta. It was Robert’s fault - Chad's arm was brushing up against his, and he hadn’t been paying attention to who else was in the aisle, or how physically near to them they were. The couple were closer to Chad’s age, than to Robert’s - in the sense that, well…

They were older.

Robert decided that his constitution couldn’t take whatever conversation was about to happen.

Plus, they barely had any of the groceries Chad had mentioned needing on the way here.

“I’ll go ahead and get your tea,” he muttered. It was mostly an excuse, but as he booked it, he tried to run through the list of most recent complaints from the last few days inside his head and work out what Bae was probably running low on - green tea? Turmeric? Chai, maybe?

He scurried away, leaving the cart behind. If Bae wanted to test the boundaries of his own affliction, then Robert didn’t need to have the damage inflicted second-hand.

He picked out a bunch of tea, then idled in the middle of the aisle, just to give himself some time to calm down. His chest felt tight for some reason. It seemed to ease, with a few deep breaths that were spent alone. The store was now quickly emptying out, and Robert found that to be a relief. He leaned up against the ground coffee, until a voice came over the speakers, telling shoppers to bring their carts to the checkout with only a couple of minutes til close. Then, he took a big breath, and went to find Chad.

Robert found him, in the wine aisle. Being spoken at, by the exact type of guy you’d expect to be in the wine aisle of a Whole Foods in California, at the start of the weekend, two minutes away from closing.

Some sandy-haired, Fortune 500 asshole in a suit with the tie loosened, an Apple watch on one wrist, carrying an expensive bottle that he was probably going to take to whichever booty call he was going to after this, in order to make the whole thing worth her while.

He was passingly handsome - if you liked polish, and pelotons - and Robert tried not to let that bother him.

He hovered alone at the end of the aisle, not quite sure of why. He figured that, as he’d mostly seen Chad get hit on by women in the last half hour, maybe he’d missed a bit of recreational flirting, or would prefer it if it was with his gender of choice. Would it be a welcome change when under this spell, to talk with someone you were actually attracted to? Even if this guy was an asshole, well… so was Chad. Maybe he liked that, you know?

For all that he’d seen him make out with a couple of random guys on Z-Team nights out, Robert didn’t actually know what Chad’s official type was. Other than, you know… not him.

The light-haired guy placed a hand on Chad’s arm, and Robert felt something in his chest squeeze unpleasantly.

Chad shrugged the hand off - deliberate, and yet done so casually it was as if he hadn’t even noticed it was there.

The guy immediately put his hand right back - and squeezed.

And Robert was moving, before he even knew what was happening.

He walked up, and dumped all the boxes of tea in his arms directly into the shopping cart - on the side with the suit guy, which meant that he had to drop his hand from Chad of his own accord, in order to get out of Robert’s way.

Then, Robert turned to Chad and said: “babe, didn’t you hear? We’ve got to get the fuck out of the store.”

Chad all but choked on his own spit, then turned to Robert, looking poleaxed.

“Uhhhh…”

“Oh, I’m sorry, man,” said suit guy, “I didn’t realise -” he let out an awkward chuckle that somehow managed to still be obnoxious, “don’t want to get you in trouble, or anything-”

“Why would you get him in trouble?” Robert asked, levelling him with a stare that he was sure looked calm and utterly disinterested. “You’re not my husband’s type.”

Both men stared at him, like he had grown a second head. But Robert wasn’t sure how long this move would last, before the spell kicked in stronger and cancelled out his play. So he nudged Chad with his hip, where he stood frozen with his hands still on the cart.

“Chad, hun.” he said. “Move.”

Mechanically, Chad moved. Robert casually placed a hand on the back of his neck, then moved it down to rest lightly on his shoulder, right up until they pivoted and moved round the end of the aisle.

“We’re not wearing rings!” Chad hissed.

“...That’s your only issue?” Robert asked him, mildly.

“I - you - bitch-”

“He just seemed like he was bothering you.”

“So you invented our fucking marriage?!”

“It looked like you were already trying to reason with him, which means it probably wasn’t working,” Robert said with a shrug, “when it comes to putting a damper on attraction, I find that a healthy dose of shame nearly always does the job.”

Chad’s eyes bugged out of their sockets.

“That’s the most concerning thing you’ve said all week, Bob-Bob. It is absolutely gonna get itself added to your Z-Team quotes board.”

Robert shrugged, thinking fair enough, then threaded his thumb through Chad’s belt loop on the far side. He felt Chad tense up next to him.

“Robert…”

“-He’s following us to the checkout,” Robert said calmly, not even looking back to need to check if that was the case. He glanced up at Chad, instead, “not in a stalker way, just because we all really do need to get the fuck out of this store. So let’s stay like this til then, ok?”

Chad’s shoulders were bunched up round his ears. There was more tension in him, than Robert on a bad pain day. Robert started to feel guilty, began moving his hand back-

“Fine.” the other guy said, through gritted teeth. “But if that hand moves any lower, it gets fucking burned off, ok?”

Robert snorted, bumping Chad with his hip again. “You wish, baby. I’m literally the only one right now who can keep his hands off you.”

“Sometimes,” Chad mused darkly, “I wonder if you want to die.”

The two of them were nearing the last two check-outs that were still open. Robert paused momentarily as they passed a promotion at the end of an aisle. It showed some of his favourite cookies, that were currently at a discount. He didn’t think he’d stopped for long enough for it to be noticeable, but given they were currently attached, it pulled Chad up short.

“What, d'you want some?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Robert said, still looking at the shelf, “they’re your groceries, not mine.”

Chad rolled his eyes heavenward, then batted two packs of the peanut butter and chocolate ones with an open hand, down into the cart.

𓆩♡𓆪

The next day was Saturday. Robert didn’t have any plans, but the weather was nice, so he took himself out for a run, then Beef for a much more sedate walk around the dog park. In the late afternoon, he received a text from Chad.

Flambae

15:12 I need u to come over.

Robert

15:16 …Ok?

15:28 do you need anything?

15:29 or do you have like. an address.

Flambae

15:31 [pin]

15:32 come over in the evening. Not right now.

Robert

15:33 OK?????

Flambae

15:35 like 6pm

15:36 bitch

Robert turned up as instructed, with Beef because leaving him behind had not been mentioned, thus invoking the clause of ‘if in doubt, bring Beef’. As the Uber dropped him off, he found himself stood outside a cute, compact 2-bed stucco house, with the validating presence of the Firebird parked up in the driveway to confirm who it belonged to. It wasn’t a huge property, but then… they were in LA. It was still a nice thing to have, all to yourself.

When Chad opened the door, instead of noticing anything particular about the man in front of him, the smells from inside the house launched a full assault on Robert’s senses, and took up his full attention.

“Oh my god,” said Robert, in lieu of greeting.

While his meds had initially dampened his appetite, upping his exercise regimen during gradual recovery had evened out the scales once more. He’d had a decent-enough grilled cheese after his run, but hadn’t been sure whether to eat before coming here, after everything Chad had said about visiting his house, and how he was lacking the skills of a good host. Whilst it would’ve been on brand for Flambae to be a total hypocrite and not feed him, after making such a big production about it in the other direction, that timeline was actually far more bearable, than the one where Robert showed up already full and couldn’t eat whatever he had planned.

Robert was glad he’d erred on the side of caution - but also immediately felt the hollow of his own empty stomach, as his whole mouth began to water. Chad’s house smelled insane. Like the best fucking restaurant he’d ever set foot in. The scent of spices and aromatics along with fresh baking came out of the house in a wave - the kind of smell you could imagine as a heavy cartoon fog. Beef did in fact start drooling onto Robert’s arm, dampening the sleeve of his shirt where he held him.

“Hello to you too, bitch,” Chad said, almost smugly, as though he thought the ‘oh my god’ was for him. Robert walked right past him and into the house, as if in a trance. He briefly registered the sight of a living room - with plain pale walls but a rich, deep carpet - before he walked straight through into the kitchen-dining area.

Flambae’s whole dining room table was literally covered in food. If they were in a fantasy novel, it would’ve buckled under the weight of it. A range of beautiful glazed terracotta ceramic dishes, all in red, covered the surface with their lids all still on as if to keep them warm.

“Uh, Chad,” said Robert, “what is this?”

“I kind of… cooked.”

“Um, yeah. I can see that.”

“I cooked,” said Flambae, “for like… eight hours.”

Robert looked at him, “...how?”

Normally, that question would’ve probably earned him derision (Robert knew that some dishes took that long, he just didn’t understand the appeal of something you couldn’t make in under half an hour). But right now, Chad just scratched at his neck awkwardly, and started listing things off-

“I marinaded then slow-cooked the lamb; I made the spice butter for the bread; I made the bread from scratch; I made pastry, laminated it, let it rest; I stewed the fruit and apple filling then baked it; I twice cooked the potatoes and roasted the vegetables in this like, homemade green sauce thing…”

Robert looked at him, as if he was speaking a foreign language.

“...I got real fucking bored, ok?” said Chad, when he was still only met with bewildered silence. “I got bored, I decided to make all this shit, and then I realised that I am only one fucking person, and my freezer can only hold so much. So now, you’re here. We have food.”

“We sure as fuck have food,” said Robert, intelligently.

“We’re going to eat it. And then you’re going to take home leftovers for the week, or some shit. I surpassed myself, here. I blinked and I’d cooked like, half the fucking recipe book. I feel like I’m going insane.”

Robert gave him a sympathetic look.

“It looks good, though. And at least you’re being productive. That’s probably a good thing.”

“Is it?!” Chad asked. “We’re getting sooooo fucking close to ‘begins a sourdough starter’ territory - which always goes terribly, by the way, my heat always fucking kills it off - and then, after that, we’re gonna start flirting with prison brain again.”

“I promise you it won’t get that bad. It’s only going to be for a few more days.”

“We don’t know that.”

“I mean... you can go outside.”

“But where, though? There’s nowhere!” Chad said. Then he sighed heavily, and pulled back one of the chairs at the table. “Forget it. I don’t want to argue. Eat, bitch.”

Robert sighed as well, and then realised that Chad was holding out the chair for him. He scurried over, and obediently sat.

“Is any of this food Beef-friendly?” he asked. “I feel like he’s gonna be the one doing the heavy lifting, out of the two of us.”

“He can have the rice and the vegetables,” Chad grumbled. “And I… defrosted some chicken, and then I fucking grilled it. In a whole separate pan. That’s when I knew I’d fucking lost it. Third dish on your right. Give him the side plate on your left to eat it off. Can’t believe I cooked food, for a fucking dog.”

What followed was by far the best meal of Robert’s life - pushing the Italian take-out Mandy sometimes bought the two of them if they were working late completely out of the water, in under one mouthful flat. There were so many dishes - it was clear that this had been an exorcism of some kind of neurosis, because barely any of them complimented each other. The menu felt a little like someone had gone at a dartboard, with a machine gun. There was a lot of food, and none of it coordinated…

...But the thing was, all of it was phenomenal.

There were so many things that Robert had never, ever tasted before - the fact that they were all also delicious was just a bonus.

He kept being unable to control the noises that he made. He’d try a mouthful, let out a moan, become self-conscious, feeling as though he was maybe being watched. He’d then eat silently, before having a mouthful of something that made him groan out loud again. And the whole cycle would begin anew.

In between bouts of conversation, Chad started looking at him, like he was a math equation he was trying to solve. Then, he started tensing up, whenever Robert reached for the lid on a new dish, and the potential to unlock a new noise hung heavy in the room. Robert wanted to apologise - there was enthusiasm, and then there was ‘pornographic’, even he knew this. But apologising would mean acknowledging it was happening.

He was just really, really hungry.

Even so, he could barely make a dent in the food that was there on the table. Not even after he’d pushed his tentative stomach to bursting, on seconds and then thirds.

“That was the best meal I’ve ever had,” he told Flambae.

“Yeah… I could fucking tell,” Flambae muttered.

“But there’s no way I can eat all this, in a few days,” he said, gesturing across the table with the hand not resting on his stomach, as the food coma started to dull his tact. “You really did cook for an army.”

“Yeah well, it sounded like you’d be fine with it,” Chad muttered. “Just stock up your fucking freezer, bitch.”

“I am going to hurt your soul, when I tell you this. But I only have one of those, like, freezer drawer compartments. Up at the top of the unit.”

Flambae grimaced - definitely offended, on some personal level. Then, he looked at his still-basically-full spread, and frowned, as he seemed to start calculating the food waste in real time.

“...Why don’t you box it up, for everyone? You could give some to your family, Prism… maybe some of the others?”

Chad gave Robert a look. “You mean, all those people I can’t fucking see or go within five fucking meters off?”

“Well, if we text ahead and try and do it tonight, then I don’t mind being the delivery boy,” Robert shrugged, “you can drive, and I can be the one to drop it off at the door. Like discount doordash, only with way better food. It’s really fucking good, Flambae. It'd be a shame to waste it. And they’d probably appreciate the fact that you’ve thought of them. Plus, gives us a long, convoluted journey to focus on - if you’re really feeling restless? Get enough people in the group chat, and we could make it last two hours in traffic, at least.”

Chad started giving him that mathematical equation look again.

“Yeah.” he said. “Ok… Yeah. There’s the pasta I made in the fridge, too. It didn’t really go with anything, so I just like, didn’t cook it.”

“You made pasta? From scratch??? But… we bought pasta. Literally yesterday!”

“I - It’s a very fucking soothing process!”

At the time Robert was simply feeling too smugly pleased at having once more trouble-shooted this situation successfully.

He didn’t quite think through the logistics of what he was proposing.

It was fine, when they boxed up over twenty different tupperware portions of various dishes, to hand out in the combinations Flambae deemed fit best. It was even ok, when Robert arrived on Sonar’s doorstep, and saw the goddamn awful state of his and Mal’s apartment.

…It was a little different, when he suddenly found himself face-to-face with Flambae’s sister.

With Flambae parked one block over, to ward himself against any accidental Folgers Coffee incidents.

The woman in front of him - Chad had told him she was called Baran - held a clear and obvious resemblance to her brother. They both shared the same proud nose and strong jawline, albeit now in front of Robert in a rounder face. Dark hair, tall build… standoffish demeanour with arms folded, and a familiar, near identical sneer pasted across her mouth. Her hair was shorter, with a few streaks of grey in the front, and her eyes were brown where Chad’s were amber, making her overall colouring darker.

Robert stood there, holding six boxes (four for Baran, plus two portions of strudel for Chad’s niece), and realised that he had absolutely no idea what to say to her.

“You’re the dispatcher, right?” she said, “Robert Robertson the… something? Mecha Man?”

“Oh, wow,” said Robert, “ok. Yeah, that’s me. I guess.”

If he showed any discomfort at having his secret identity unmasked thirty seconds out of the gate, then Baran showed no signs of registering it. Maybe she just didn’t care.

“He talks about you a lot, at family dinner,” she informed him, idly.

“All good things, I hope?” Robert drawled. He knew already that that wouldn't be the case.

“Hmm. I think you’re a better influence on him, than he’d ever like to admit,” Baran said.

She looked him up and down, speculatively.

“And… you’re the only one, who’s currently immune to this whole thing?”

“I mean, he could also hang out with constructs, and extra-human lifeforms, if he wanted to. He just doesn’t have many friends who fit that bill.”

“So… it’s just you.”

“Kinda looks that way.”

“And… you don’t currently want to hop on his dick?”

“Um. Uh. No. Not really. Not at this current moment in time… I would say.”

“...You just want to invent some random long-winded task for him to do, so he doesn’t tear his own house to pieces like a caged animal.”

“He seems to be taking this whole thing… pretty hard,” Robert said, with an awkward shrug. “I don’t really understand how extroverts work, but I don’t mind helping… if it, you know. Actually helps. But I can promise you, that it's all just out of friendly concern. Nothing more complicated than that.”

Baran examined him inscrutably for another second, then burst out into a huge smile, and took all the tupperware from him in one go.

“When this Heartbreaker or whatever her name is gets her ass sent to prison, I want to write her her first fanmail,” she said, enigmatically. “Maybe you could ask to add her to the Z-Team, or something.”

She took one final look at Robert, then said, still grinning:

“Best curse ever.”

And then she shut the door in Robert's face, leaving him stood on the doorstep, totally confused. Did she… hate him? For being Mecha Man, maybe? Was that why she wanted to have him try to manage Flambae and the person who’d cursed him, simultaneously?! Robert wouldn’t even wish that on his own worst goddamn enemy.

He trudged his way back to the Firebird and got in. Beef was power-posed on the central console while Chad scritched at his neck.

“So, your sister is weird,” Robert said. “Guess you guys are related.”

“Was she… ok?”

“Yeah, she seemed fine,” Robert replied, though he felt like he hadn’t been able to get a beat on any of Baran’s vibes, so his estimation might not be accurate. “Just wanted to check that I’m definitely immune to the curse, I think. I suppose there is a pretty concerning version of events where I’m just pretending, and doing all this to stay close to you, or something.”

Chad suddenly became very engrossed, in putting Visi’s details into Google maps.

“Why do you think it is?” he asked, after a couple of seconds passed.

“Think what is?”

“You being unaffected by this thing,” Chad said. “Do you think there's like some kind of a reason?”

Robert glanced over at the other man in the car. He’d pointed out it was fine for Chad to go out in his house slippers, given that he’d be staying firmly inside the vehicle - but Chad had insisted on getting changed out of his loungewear, even though no one else would even see him. He was dressed in a crop top and jeans, had removed his sunglasses as the sun started to dip below the horizon, and his hair was half up in a kind of messy bun. Robert hadn’t noticed. He hadn’t even marked it, when he’d turned up at the house. When had he gotten so used to seeing it down?

Usually, Flambae having his hair down was something Robert always took notice of - because of how much it suited him, and softened out the harsher lines of his face.

Robert didn’t feel any different about him, than he usually did.

“I really do think it’s the meds,” he promised. “I’m on like twice Phenomaman’s dosage, and I don’t exactly have his metabolism, or his constitution. For a while there, it was like everything was happening to me through a fog. It’s started evening itself out, finally - more of my operating systems feel like they’re online these days. But it makes sense, that anything trying to provoke an extreme reaction from me just… doesn’t get one. That’s exactly what they’re designed to prevent from happening.”

“Right, yeah,” Chad said. “Yeah. I guess that makes sense.”

He became intent on fixing his phone back onto the Firebird’s dashboard, and did so just in time for a series of texts to pop up across the top of the screen.

Your little dispatcher’s so *cute*, dadashi!

So soft-spoken! And so *polite*! All that lost dog rizz <3

Can’t believe you got your ass beat by a tiny little matchstick man.

Do you think he could still suplex you? Fold you in half?

Chad tensed up, then hastily swiped the long string of notifications off the screen as quickly as possible. His hair being half-up meant Robert noted the moment when his ears started going bright red. Robert didn't know much about siblings, but his time with the Z-Team had taught him to recognise pyschological warfare on sight. He quickly looked out of the window on the other side, so that both of them could do a decent job of pretending the messages hadn’t happened - or, at least, that Robert hadn’t seen them.

𓆩♡𓆪

The next day was Sunday. They’d made it through a whole weekend, of Flambae being cooped up inside his apartment. The group chat was filled with photos, of all the Z-Team eating from their various tupperwares. There was one with Herman and his grandma beaming up at the camera, holding bowls of the carbonara she had apparently made five minutes after the pasta got dropped off to them.

Robert kept smiling, whenever he looked down at his phone. His throat was also oddly sore - he hadn’t meant to sing along at full volume on the way back to his place in Chad’s car. But when a song had come on and he’d unconsciously started joining in, the look on the other man’s face had made it worth continuing, as he proved that at least one person sat in the Firebird could hold a fucking tune.

But Robert also got these occasional hits of unease. They were at nearly a week since this had happened to Chad, with no word on if Heartbroker had been shoved in front of a judge yet. Which seemed crazy, to Robert. But apparently, supernatural spikes in activity really did fuck with an already rickety justice system.

Any word on my agent’s countercurse?, he sent to Dr. Ephemeral, through the SDN messenger network… then shuddered, and quickly closed off his screen. He was a workaholic, but Microsoft Teams on a weekend was a step too far, even for him.

He nearly jumped out of his skin, when his phone started ringing, whilst still there in his hand.

“Um… hello?”

“Why do you sound so nervous, bitch? You knew it was me.”

Robert hadn’t actually checked the Caller ID, but he relaxed anyway. “Hey Chad, what’s up? Got another soup kitchen we need to distribute across-county?”

He checked his watch - it was just past 3pm. So Flambae must’ve gotten bored again.

“Do you want to go out tonight?”

Robert’s eyebrows crawled towards his eyeline. So… he’d been right. Boredom and poor impulse control had struck again, in another killer two-for-one combo.

“To… a bar?” he asked.

“Yes, to a fucking bar. Well, more like a club, but I know your ass can’t tell the fucking difference.”

“...On a Sunday.” Robert sighed, pinching his nose. “You know that one of us has work tomorrow, right? Is this another one of those times, where gay culture just magically ignores how the rest of the world works?”

“Yes, bitch, on a Sunday. And… no. You preferred the grocery store when it was empty and basically dead, so I figured…”

“I thought you didn’t even want to go to a club whilst you’re under Heartbroker’s enchantment?”

“Yeah well… that was last week. And I figured that, if we got into trouble, we could just do that thing again.”

“What thing?”

“You know… the thing where you act all possessive, and shit.”

At his end of the call, Robert was pretty certain that he blue-screened. While nothing he’d done in the grocery store was anything other than extremely chaste - and he knew Flambae’s own standards for what constituted 'non-platonic contact' would vastly exceed his own - Robert still couldn’t look back on what had happened two nights ago with anything other than baffled embarrassment. Intent mattered, he felt, and he’d still gone in for the fake-relationship play without checking with Chad first. He’d done quite a lot, actually, to try repress any memory of his behaviour. He still wasn’t quite sure why he’d done it.

The idea that it registered as ‘possessive’ to an outside observer honestly made him want to throw himself off his balcony.

Into the silence, Flambae sighed.

“Fuck, fucking forget it, if you’re gonna be a little bitch about it. I knew it was fucking stupid. I’ll just rot to another fucking season of Drag Race I guess-”

“-No,” Robert said, tentatively. Yep. It felt like a supremely bad idea, the moment it left his mouth. “No… we can. If you want to. If you’re definitely… are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. And you get to prove to me that you have an actual queer bone anywhere in that tiny body of yours. This is my charity outreach, remember? Can’t do any actual hero work this week, so gotta find another way to help the needy. The supremely, tragically fucking needy.”

Robert rolled his eyes. He would do this, if it would help Chad feel better. But of course Chad wasn’t going to admit that that’s what was happening here.

“Yeah - because showing up to a club where everyone is compelled to want a piece of your ass is really my idea of a good time. I really rate my chances. Definitely worth fucking up a whole Monday for.”

“Bitch, stop being whiny. Just don’t drink.”

“Oh, you think I can do this, when I’m not drunk?!” Robert sighed. “Maybe we really do club differently.”

He rang up Chase, got him to take Beef for a night (“A Sunday, Robert? Damn! And here I thought you were some sad lonely type bitch!”), then resigned himself to what would be a frankly terrible night. There was no way he could kid himself that something wouldn’t go wrong - and he was proven right, when, instead of texting him a time to meet like a normal person, Chad showed up on his balcony again, this time with a fucking change of clothes tucked in a Whole Foods shopping bag on his side.

Robert took the bag from him wordlessly, stared long enough to try and instil some sense of guilt, then just went to his bathroom and got changed. Why fight it, you know? This was already so monumentally stupid, that he might as well fucking lean in.

“...Do you really think this actually suits me?” he asked, tugging at the material sceptically while they walked up to the club Chad had chosen.

He had been allowed to keep his own jeans, because the stupid-tight trousers Chad had offered hadn’t sat against his hips right and looked all wrong. But he was in what he thought might be one of Chad’s work-out tank tops. It was the kind that was baggy rather than form fitting, charcoal grey with large gaps under the armpits that gave a revealing suggestion of each side of his body, and the slim curve of his waist. More of his midriff was laid bare at the torn hem that Chad had made shorter with Robert’s own kitchen scissors (“guess I have a new croptop”).

Robert could see how it might be attractive… on someone else. But all he had to offer was scars, discoloured skin, and ribcage. What hung large on Chad practically drowned him. Robert knew you couldn’t exactly make Harry Potter jokes anymore, but he wondered if he kind of looked like a scrubby twunk house elf who'd been shoved into a discarded pillowcase.

Chad gave him an assessing glance out of the corner of his eye - that might have just been pinned carefully to the wall behind his head - then nodded.

“Yeah,” he said, then cleared his throat. “Your arms got like, bigger and shit. And your shoulders. When the fuck did that happen?”

Robert raised an eyebrow at him, “you give me a running fucking commentary, every time I’m in that gym, and you didn’t notice that I’m finally benching more? Guess I’ll just stop waiting on that ‘you recovered from your coma’ surprise party, then.”

“Bitch, like I’d notice what you were lifting,” Chad said, looking away as Robert missed his blush, before hastily adding… “All your little bitch baby weights feel the same to me.”

Robert sighed, clocking the club as they arrived by the neon lights flashing outside. There was no line at the door, just a scattering of individual groups in the cordoned-off smoking area. Most people were sensible - all the out-of-towners had gone home, and everyone else was, you know, hungover from Saturday, accepting that it was no longer the fucking weekend.

It really did look kind of dead.

“...You actually want to do this?” Robert checked for one final time. For some reason, his stomach soured with every step they took towards the doors. He didn’t like the idea of Chad being swamped by people. Which was weird, because a second ago he'd been thinking how it would practically be empty. But... there would be people. Some people. And they would all want him.

...What if he got uncomfortable again?

“Yes, Robert. Stop being pathetic.”

Robert sighed, as they reached the door, and the bouncer’s eyes suddenly honed in on Chad with a laser, predatory focus that lay entirely outside the boundaries of his usual job description. He tracked the loose hair in waves around Chad’s face, flaring out at his jacket collar; the deep vee of his shimmering burnt orange dress shirt, that led down to a flame belt buckle that Robert wanted to think was tacky but understood was actually part of the mystique.

At the end of his updown, he just nodded them both through. Without asking for the door fee. He seemed to try to slap Chad's ass as they passed - Chad ducked out of the way easily, a second before Robert could step between them to parry.

Whatever. Robert would get enough drinks in himself to be tipsy, then wait it out for however long Chad needed to blow off steam, before collapsing into bed as quickly as possible. He’d survived so many SDN shifts on four hours’ or less sleep. Everything would be fine.

“Hey!” said a pretty guy with hair to his shoulders, possibly young enough to be a student, stood behind them in the smoking area. Robert glanced at him over his shoulder - he was leaning over the barrier, arms out, eyes fixated on Flambae, while the other guys around him also looked on with varying degrees of obvious interest. “Hey, do you want to get out of h-”

Within the space of the next breath, Flambae had slung his arm casually around Robert’s neck. He reeled his body in against him, making Robert startle at the feel of the other man’s warmth all across his bare shoulders. He was given no time to adjust as they kept walking.

God. Robert could feel a heat that wasn’t entirely unpleasant prickling all along the back of his neck, as they descended the stairs into the club’s semi-basement. He was so fucking touch-starved, that even a casual hold like this could throw him off-kilter. This was so fucked. Why had he agreed to this?

“Do you want me to…?”

He started to inch his own arm around Chad's waist.

“Oh… sorry,” said Chad, who checked behind them, saw that they weren’t being followed, and dropped the arm immediately.

And that was… good.

That was good, Robert tried to tell himself, as his arm dropped back this side. He trailed aimlessly after him, and tried to ignore how all that flustered heat had gone immeidately cold.

The club they’d come to wasn’t one of the handful Robert had been to before. It was emptier than he’d expected, with a decent crowd at the bar but only a scattering of men out on the dancefloor. The posters on the walls had advertised events for loads of different LGBTQ+ groups, but it seemed like the Sunday vibe was ‘students who have no self-preservation, and no idea what day it is’, and ‘gay man in his more advanced years, still feeling desperate to get laid’.

On that theme, Robert did a quick scan of the bar and the dancefloor, and immediately clocked the door at the far end that likely headed towards the backroom. It really wasn’t the day for it - but that didn't stop it instinctively from happening. That was what Robert had trained himself to do.

When he glanced back Chad’s way, the man was giving him a surprised, newly-assessing look, telling Robert that his scan hadn’t been all that subtle.

“Damn bitch, were you raised in a barn?” he asked over the music, “Don’t you want to at least buy someone a drink, first?!”

“Sorry,” Robert said, sheepishly, “that was… force of habit. Usually when I came to places like this, it was kind of only for one thing.”

And it was true. That had been in Robert’s early twenties, when he’d done what he affectionately thought of as some soul searching, some experimentation, and then a brief city-wide tour. Relationships as Mecha Man… well, they hadn’t really happened, save for once in a blue moon. But the urge to let off steam had come and gone in waves - at least, in the earlier years, before what turned out to be his extremely crippling clinical depression set in.

And in those years, gay clubs had an efficiency to them that Robert had appreciated - the hookups were just so much easier. They lacked a pretense, compared to what happened in other clubs. There had never been any expectation that it would lead anywhere further than Robert needed it to go. No awful, fucked requirement to pretend you were fishing for a relationship, or even an expectation of moving to a secondary location. When he weighed up a quick, dark tryst when he was drunk enough not to mind some potentially wandering eyes, against taking a woman back to his shitty ass apartment and explaining to them that he really wasn’t looking for commitment - but not in a way that made him an asshole - the ‘fondle and quick, dirty fuck in a communal room’ had nearly always won out. Just for practicality’s sake.

Sometimes, it had even been good. Robert found himself getting a little nostalgic over the memories, here in the present.

Chad catched that glimmer of something in his eye, and scoffed.

“Ok, bitch, I believe it: you’re fucking gay. And feral, apparently. Jesus.”

“And here I thought you’d struggle to imagine that I’d ever even gotten laid,” Robert drawled, as he followed over him to the bar. Chad rolled his eyes at him, then quickly looked away.

They ordered drinks from the bleached blonde behind the bar. The guy’s eyes never left Flambae’s chest, the whole time they ordered and watched their drinks still somehow getting made. Apparently, attraction to his clientele wasn’t an unusual occurrence for the guy, who’s professionalism stayed in place right up until the moment when he told Chad he definitely didn’t have to pay for his own rum and coke.

“What about his drink?” Chad asked, nodding towards Robert’s double whiskey where it rested up on the bar.

“Uhhhhh….” (Still directed to his chest).

Chad leant forward, and flashed the… assets more. “That’s my boyfriend, so if you’re gonna hit on me in front of him, I think he deserves some compensation, baby. You know?”

Both Robert and the bartender went bright, bright red. They even exchanged a look of mutual, almost-companionable suffering, a split second after Chad had finished talking. Thank fuck for the dim lighting.

“Um, sure,” said the bartender, stuttering, “whatever, man. Um. Good for him I guess.”

Robert downed his now-free drink, all at once.

Then, he turned back to the bartender.

“Another, please.”

“Damn, Bob. I know you’re a broke-ass bitch, but kind of mean to just take advantage of-”

“-That’s not what this is,” Robert said to Bae, as he waited for the next drink. In fact, as he waited, he took money from his wallet, and started prepping for a hefty tip. And… actually: “make that two more.”

He downed both these drinks as well, while Chad watched him, all confused.

…He just had to make it through a couple of hours.

The song that was playing changed, from some pop song Robert didn’t recognise to another pop song he didn’t recognise, only more upbeat and slightly more compelling. He glanced across the barely half-full dancefloor, then gestured to it vaguely.

“So… you wanna go… do that? Get it out of your system?”

Chad cast him an amused look, as he only sipped at his own drink. “You look like you’d rather eat glass right now. So don’t worry, we can take our time. I’ll ease you into it. You’ll be hammered in like twenty minutes, from the looks of things. Might as well wait until then.”

“Er… I don’t understand what it has to do with me-”

“Well, Bobert, I’m gonna need you out there, in case you need to run interference,” Chad pointed out. “So if I’m dancing, then you’re dancing with me - you lucky son of a bitch.”

“Noooooooooooooo.” said Robert. Then, looking at Chad, he felt the need to repeat himself: “No no no no no no.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t dance,” Robert told him. Chad looked totally unmoved by this. “...God. Can we please go back to the days, when you wanted to fucking murder me?”

“Please, bitch. We’re way past that - I’ve grown, and blossomed, as a person. And I’m a good dancer, so this is gonna be awesome for you. Don’t be a pussy, Bob-Bob.”

“What I’m being, is realistic. You’re going to make me dance, I’m going to be bad at it, you’re going to make fun of me. Rinse, repeat. That’s the scenario ran - I don’t feel the need to put myself through it, do you? I’ll be right here - can you please just go out there alone?”

And Chad pouted - pouted!

“But… I don’t want to be on my own. I’m never alone at the club, Robert. Alice always makes sure I have another person to dance with!”

The glare Robert gave him was venomous. “Yeah, well, I’m not Alice. And you’ll fucking live.”

“What about my wellbeing, Bobert? Are you really gonna let me get fucking mauled - all because you’re just a rhythmless little white boy?”

“There’s many, many things that I will do, to make this week not suck for you. This is not one of them - I, hey!”

Robert had just enough time and reflexes, to put his third empty glass on the bartop, as Chad’s hand closed warmly around his wrist, and dragged him out towards the dancefloor. Robert dug his heels in: predictably, it did sweet fuck all. If he’d actively fought Chad, there was still every chance he could probably win, but a weak protest was barely enough to even warrant being ignored.

“I thought we’d just take it easy, but if you’re gonna be a little bitch about it, might as well rip the band-aid off and get it over with!” Chad yelled over the music, as it changed again. “Come on, bitch! Get ready for the best night of your sad little life!”

This, Robert felt, was a very definition of overpromising, ahead of underdelivering. The dancefloor felt kind of haunted. There was a lot of empty space. Not enough to allow Bae the full five metre distance that would avoid the spell’s activation entirely, but enough that only a couple of people were caught in its periphery.

Robert had never really liked that crush of bodies around him - overwhelmed, overstimulated, unable to see any threats coming, or distinguish friend from foe under the flashing lights. But that version of clubbing at least had some anonymity. This was exposed and vulnerable, in a new and entirely different way. He tried to leave immediately - Chad’s grip tightened on his arm.

“It’s ok, Robert,” he said, taking in his obvious discomfort and startled prey look with a sigh, “listen - you danced at your housewarming, didn’t you? Just let go a little. It’s fucking Sunday night at the club - if you look like an idiot, it’s not gonna kill you. No one’s even here to notice. You might even have a little fun - if you let yourself.”

I don’t want to embarrass myself, in front of you.

But all Robert said was: “Can’t we all live by my definition of fun - just once?”

“Bitch, I watched sports for you! I think you can fucking lock in!”

Robert will admit that with that argument, he wavered a little.

Then, he also noticed a guy glancing over at them, behind and a little to the left of Flambae’s shoulder. He was definitely older, but hot - in a sort of salt and pepper, not-yet-fully-confirmed-slimeball kind of way. Dressed in a nice purple shirt, with a kind of… wealthy aura. He was standing right at the edge of the spell’s influence, and already inching his way further in. His eyes raked down Chad’s body appreciatively.

Robert’s hand shot out, and immediately grabbed hold of Chad’s waist. It was Chad’s turn to startle - but then, Robert figured his hands were cold.

He leaned in. Right up on tiptoe. His eyes were trained on random older man the whole time, as he said directly into Chad’s ear: “I’ll kill you for this.”

He only moved himself back, when the other guy got the hint, and went back to dancing with the person he was already with.

“Aww,” Chad grinned shamelessly down at him, “you could certainly try.”

Then he stretched, and placed his arms easily, over the top of Robert’s now-apparently-wider shoulders, interlacing his hands somewhere at the back of Robert's head. Robert hadn’t expected that - had been about to drop his hold on Chad’s waist. He felt immediately out of his depth.

And yet some part of him thought, might as well fall in.

What transpired was horrifying for Robert on a personal level… but relatively tame, in terms of the curse Chad was actively under. They danced - sometimes together, more likely apart - until his whiskey started kicking in, and then it became easier. His moves were, predictably, bad: in some places, enough to make Chad wince, but in others just corny enough that they made him laugh, instead. Twice he threw his head back, exposing his throat and guffawing at the ceiling. Other times, he just shook his head, smiling to himself like he couldn’t believe someone like Robert was actually real.

Which Robert felt weirdly ok about. He didn’t like Flambae laughing at him, but… he didn’t mind making Flambae laugh.

The fact that they’d arrived here together and stayed together seemed to dissuade a bunch of people from even making a move towards either of them. Those who did come over usually did so because they’d veered accidentally into the spell’s radius, on their way to the bar or the bathroom. They always made a direct beeline to Chad. They normally shouted or murmured a question into his ear whilst Robert watched on, feeling small, like a useless spare part.

And each time, Chad said, “buy us both a drink, and I’ll think about it!”

The spell was strong enough that everyone listened. Sometimes, them going over to the bar would be enough to break its hold - Robert would catch them out of the corner of his eye, coming out of it suddenly aimless, wondering why they’d been about to blow an extra $20 on expensive drinks. Other times, their motivation persisted, and the drinks found their way back to them. They weren’t all whiskies, and Robert quickly lost track of what he was drinking.

One guy lingered, after bringing back a tray of shots. He tried to put his hands on Chad’s hips from behind - Chad stepped out of reach, and directly into Robert’s space.

“Sorry, my guy, you auditioned!” he threw over his shoulder, “and it’s a flat out no!”

Robert heard the guy trying to argue his case. The music was loud, but he thought he made out, “-ou’re the most beautiful guy I’ve ever seen-”

He tried to put his hands on Chad’s hips again. Robert’s made it there first, slapped one of the other hands away, and pulled Chad in closer to him - further out of the reach of his cursed suitor.

“Yeah, we both know - and he’s taken.” said Robert. They were stood close enough together, that his chin brushed the top curve of Chad’s shoulder as he spoke, and glared at the man venomously, “so back off.”

Chad tensed up slightly, on the initial tug inwards. But he swiftly comprehended the vision, and put his arms back around Robert’s neck, before shouting back, almost gleefully, “yeah, back off!”

Then, for some reason, he decided to languidly grind on Robert’s body. Probably providing more evidence of their imagined relationship, or whatever.

But the thing was, Robert hadn't been ground up on, since he was like… 25.

Which was, now, quite a fucking long time ago. If Visi had ever tried, then she hadn’t gotten close enough for him to fucking notice. And what became abundantly clear, as Robert moved instinctively, then overcorrected, then froze - and the guy behind Chad threw up his hands and left, at some point in that awkward mix - was that he had no fucking clue how to coordinate his own movement with someone else’s.

For some people, it was natural. For Robert, it led to outright panic.

Not in a sexual way.

Purely from a fucking… choreography standpoint.

“Pfft. Idiot. You’re so fucking tragic,” Flambae said, glancing down at the awkwardly wide space now left between their bodies, after whatever aborted, mismatched motion had just taken place. The look he gave Robert, for being so rusty that he had no idea what to do with a man bodyrolling, was almost… fond.

“And yet, you invited me here,” said Robert.

Even if he couldn’t successfully dance with him, they were still close. And his arms were still round Flambae’s waist, so when he leant in so his retort could be heard over the music, it almost became an embrace: “so what does that say about you?!”

Chad blinked owlishly down at him. Robert grinned lazily back, feeling as though he’d just won the argument. The alcohol had really kicked in by this point. He could almost say he was having fun.

Some time later, he found himself needing the bathroom, so asked for Chad’s permission - checking if he wanted to come with, or if he’d be ok out here on his own. Chad scoffed, then stuttered, then looked close to hitting him, before Robert asked again if the spell would be ok without him, and Chad confirming that yes, the spell would be fine for him to manage alone in the time it took to piss. Robert nodded, then extricated himself. He noticed that the radius of empty space around them had actually widened, since they’d fended off that last guy. Maybe people were finally avoiding the weird aura, that made them want to buy more drinks for no real reward.

Robert let himself into the men’s restroom, relieved himself, then started washing his hands in the sink. Three basins down, another handsome man - younger, with a few piercings that suggested ‘student’ - glanced over at him. Then, a couple of seconds later, he glanced again. Robert couldn’t be sure, given the way that his vision was starting to swirl at the edges, but he thought he was being given an up-down.

“Can I help you?” he asked, before his filter took over and stopped him.

“Dude… I know this is rude, but where the fuck did you get all the scars?”

The other guy spoke with an Australian accent, so changed from ‘student’ to ‘tourist’ in an instant. His eyes were on Robert’s ribcage… right. Because Robert was in a stupid fucking nigh-useless shirt, that now clung to him with sweat from exertion he was sure to feel in the morning.

Robert looked down at himself, and snorted.

“I was part of a Best Buy Fight Club. Became its reigning fucking champion, in fact.”

“What… seriously?” the guy stared at him. “That’s… that’s hot.”

Robert looked at him blankly, marvelling at what that thought process said about him as a person.

And he looked back at Robert, now with a lot more intent.

“Sorry,” he blurted, when neither of them made another move to speak. “I know you’re. Um. Quite obviously taken.”

“Oh, Chad and I aren’t together.” Robert wondered what compelled him to even keep speaking. “He just doesn’t like it when people get handsy.”

Except when Robert did it, apparently. (Woah… where did that thought come from?)

The other guy was looking at him some more.

“Right, then,” he said, almost hungry, “so… do you want to…?”

And then, he tilted his head towards the nearest stall.

…It had never occurred to Robert, that he might be the one getting hit on, on this night out. After all, he’d arrived with the hottest guy, in this whole entire club - and that was true, with or without the spell.

It didn’t really occur to him, to be interested, either.

…Kind of for the same reason.

Shit.

“Sorry man, I’m good,” Robert raised his hands, and started backing up towards the door with practiced nonchalance. He tried to imagine getting a cubicle blowjob from a stranger on a Sunday night, before going back into work the next morning. But his imagination failed him, for he was an adult with a job. This other person was an adult, but his credentials maybe stopped there. “You have a good night, though.”

He went back through to the main room. Chad was now stood by the bar. Robert sidled up to him, and found himself weaving a little on his feet.

“Guess who just got propositioned in the bathrooms,” he said, grinning widely as he leaned up against the counter on his elbows, in a way that arched his back suggestively without him even realising. “At least some people can tell that I’m bi.”

Chad blinked at him. Robert realised how close they were standing. He moved, and their hips touched.

“And I don’t have a spell on me, making him ask,” he added, playing off the distance between them as more of an excuse to tease, before rocking away and backing off as subtly as possibly. He was drunker than he expected - the movement went further than he meant it to, and then he fought for balance. “Guess I’m just hot like that.”

Saying some inane fucking bullshit gave Chad that little amount of extra time he needed to recover, exactly as planned.

He glowered, and said, “Yeah, no shit. Of course you get clocked, when I’m the one who dressed you, and you’ve just danced with a hot guy in a gay club for like ninety minutes straight. Jesus, Bob-Bob.”

“It can’t have been that long,” Robert said, bemused. He tried counting out drinks on his hand as a measurement, and quickly lost count. “Shit. If it’s that long, then I’ll die tomorrow. My joints just don’t have that range of movement, these days.”

“Wow. That how you turned down your new boyfriend in the bathroom, too?”

Robert blinked at Chad, trying to place why his voice suddenly sounded more combative than before. It couldn’t be jealousy, so…

“Wait.” said Chad. “...You did turn him down, right? This isn’t like, you coming over to tell me that I don’t get a chaperone for the rest of the evening? Or asking me to guard the door, while you drop your little dispatcher panties?”

“If you guarded the door,” Robert responded automatically, “then he’d start coming on to you.”

Also you’d hear me, which doesn’t seem like it would be very professional.

Thankfully, some filter was still in place, and this stayed an inside thought. But what it left him with, was Chad suddenly looking uncertain, as if he’d actually expected Robert to abandon him. Abandon him, after he’d asked for help. All for some untested backpacker twink in the toilets that Robert didn’t even find particularly attractive.

“You know, if you did want to... y'know… I’d understand. It’s a free country, and whatever. You can totally…”

“You’re such an idiot, Chad,” Robert suddenly felt the need to inform him. He felt the world lurch, as he let go of the bartop. Some odd impulse led him to lift both those same hands up, to cup either side of Chad’s face - first to cradle him, and then to just kind of smush his cheeks together, like he was an adorable child, not just a man-sized one. “You’re just so silly.”

“Wow,” Chad said, as evenly as he could whilst his cheeks were still being squished, “and you are like, super drunk.”

“You used all your newfound powers for evil, and got us free alcohol,” Robert felt obliged to point out.

He kept trying to stare deep into Chad's eyes, like a serious, sober person would, but his gaze veered off to the left without his permission. He still didn’t take his hands off Chad’s face - not until Chad gently took hold of his wrists, and removed them for him.

“Let’s… get you some air, Bobert,” he said, carefully.

He led him out of the club by the hand.

The late night breeze outside the club was not cold, but chill in a way that at least woke Robert up a bit. He didn’t feel as stupid in these borrowed clothes anymore, but they meant more of the air got to him than he was used to. He fought a shiver, just from the unexpected sensation more than anything. Chad gave him a wary glance, before shucking off his own jacket. Robert didn’t remember when they’d picked it up from the cloakroom. But he was grateful when it landed on his shoulders, already freshly toasted.

“Shit. You gonna be able to go into work, tomorrow?”

“Yep,” Robert said, stressing the ‘p’.

He saw the smoking area was full, so tried walking them in the other direction to avoid it. Slipped completely off the curb. Chad caught him round his waist with a curse, and a grip hard enough to make Robert feel like he could lose his breath.

“You stong,” he murmured, mostly to himself.

“Ok, let’s get you like, your own alleyway, or something,” Chad said. “You gonna puke?”

Robert frowned at him. How dare he - Robert was a grown man. He could hold whatever seventeen different liquors he’d been fed tonight.

“Ok… so… just let me know if you’re gonna puke, ok?”

Bae kept his arm around Robert’s waist, and led him up the now empty street, until they ducked into an alleyway behind a Chinese restaurant. The restaurant still had their backdoor open, with voices coming from inside, so Robert just kept moving them even after Chad started protesting. They followed it all the way out almost to the other side, which was behind a laundrette that was now closed.

“We’re both safe here,” he tried to explain, gesturing back at the lights still on in the restaurant, and hoping Chad would understand. Then, he thought for a second, and asked, “...why did we leave, again?”

“Um, I think I was kind of done with going out.”

“Oh. Ok,” Robert squirmed himself out of Chad’s hold, then let himself relax into the wall he was up against, with a big, injured dog sigh. “Let’s just go home, then. I was only there for you.”

The look Chad gave him then was one he probably wouldn’t have understood even when he was sober. So it was a relief to be drunk, and already have a ready excuse. Half his face was in shadow from the angle of the nearest street light, making him hard to read.

“...Why are you doing this, Robert?”

“Doing what?” Robert frowned at him. His words were slurring a little, but the air was helping him in the fight to stay awake. “Standing here? You put me here.”

“All this week you’ve been like… nice to me,” Chad said. “Even that first day, when you volunteered to babysit me…”

“Well, I’m your dispatcher. You’re my responsibility.”

“Yeah, maybe in sense of dropping like, one text a day, to check in on how I’m doing. And adding a ‘sorry you got hit on my watch’. But-”

“-Ok, so, it wasn’t my fault that you willfully antagonised a whole-ass spellcaster-”

“-But not… not this.” Chad continued. “You’ve ended up keeping me company, like, every single day this week. All I needed to do was stay in my fucking apartment. It wasn’t going to kill me. Golem could’ve gotten my fucking groceries, and probably been paid overtime for it. Why you? Why the fuck do you care?”

Robert shrugged.

“You just looked kind of… sad.”

“‘Sad’?!”

“That first day, when everyone was all up in your business, and objectifying the shit out of you,” Robert explained. “You looked super fucking lost. I could tell you were on the edge of some kind of anxiety attack, and desperate for any kind of a normal conversation. I thought I could give it to you - turned out I was right.

“And every time you’ve needed me this week, I’ve just been… well… that. What you needed. If you needed nothing, I would’ve given you nothing. I just didn’t want you to be alone - not if that’s hard for you.”

“So it was all… what? Out of some fucking misplaced sense of duty?” Chad asked him. “You came, just because I called?”

“I guess...”

Robert shrugged again.

But from the look on Chad’s face, that seemed to be the wrong answer.

So something possessed Robert to add, “I mean, I also missed you.”

That seemed to be close to what Chad was looking for. And just like every other time this week, when Robert had made Chad feel better, it gave him this deep-seated satisfaction, low and warm and deep in his chest and in his stomach. He liked saying the right thing. He liked to see Chad happy.

“You… missed me?”

“Yeah, at work,” Robert nodded. His tongue was loose with the alcohol. “You make my job so much easier, you don’t even understand. You’re all top of the leaderboard and shit, sure - but you’ve also started to troubleshoot the mission stuff that normally gets escalated to me. Last week was so fucking stressful-”

He kept talking, “I know the others miss you, too. Prism’s going lowkey insane - I keep having to put her with Phenomaman, since he’s the closest to your profile. But there’s no like, banter, and none of her jokes land, so she doesn’t bother telling them. So she keeps getting off focus or being on her phone all the time, and it means she keeps losing points for bad punctuality and she’s messier on missions. But I can’t call her out on it, when she’s just… bored. That’s not exactly a crime, is it? But it’s not just her. Coop’s not been pushing herself as hard, without someone to bounce her competitive streak off of. Sonar was saying things were quiet, without you there. Herman’s really tired, handling all the disaster shit on his own. It’s just… it’s different, without you there. We don't fit together as well as we should.”

“...Right. So you missed me, because I’m a good fucking employee.”

“I mean, I missed you, because you’re you,” Robert said, like it was the easiest thing in the world. “It’s just that… I only really know you, when we’re at work. So… that’s basically my only point of reference. The gym feels empty, too - but that’s not exactly the kind of shit you lead with, is it? That I miss your shitty music choices.”

Chad fell silent, then.

“I’ve liked talking to you this week, though,” Robert admitted, to the air. “Most of the time I’ve just kind of assumed you still hated me, honestly. That you were just getting along with me as best you could, for the sake of your career. We both know you won’t be with the Z-Team forever. But… I had a nice time. Babysitting you hasn’t exactly been difficult. It’s not even remotely a chore. Not til you tried to make me dance, anyway.”

The silence continued. Robert shifted uncomfortably, stumbled over his own feet, then squinted upwards at the stars.

“Um… is the sky moving for you, too?”

He slumped backwards to look at it. Everything around him was starting to shift, sludgy and disorienting, the way it did when he hit full, real, black-out drunk. He wondered if this was what every night out was like for Flambae - getting plied with free drinks from attractive men until he had a devastating cocktail in his system, that made him just say shit.

…He didn't want Chad talking about things like this with other people.

“Robert.”

Robert blinked, and then he was bought back again. Dragging his attention back into his body was hard. Chad was standing much closer than he realised, one arm boxing him in against the wall. He leaned down over him, searching deep into his face - Robert wondered if it was out of concern.

His eyes were so bright in the dark.

And Robert was tempted, to try falling again. Just to see if Flambae caught him, as quickly as he did last time.

“Hey,” Robert said back. He wasn’t able to control the way his voice came out of him, raspy and thick in his mouth.

“Are you going to be sick?”

“No,” Robert smiled up at him. “I promise.”

“Do you… Robert. Do you like me?”

“...I dunno. Do you like me?”

Chad glared at him, all grumpy. So… Robert hadn’t said the right thing. Again.

Again. He had to try again.

“Sometimes, I think I want you to like me,” he confessed, in a low voice. “I think that… do you ever wonder what it would’ve been like, if literally anyone else had found you, in that mall? If we didn’t have this… this thing that had happened between us, before I even knew you?”

He searched Chad’s face, desperately, with these big mournful eyes, hoping he would understand. Who else in the world could understand? They were literally the only two people who’d been there. The only ones who knew.

“Because I know that I had to stop that place from burning… but… but anybody could’ve done that. And I’m… I'm not sure I’m proud of anything I ever did as Mecha Man, these days. Not anymore. And sometimes - sometimes I just wonder if it would be you know, easier - nicer - if you knew me as me, and not like, the asshole who ruined your-”

Robert stopped talking.

Because Flambae - Chad - had kissed him.

It was so unlike a kiss Robert would’ve ever expected to receive from Flambae - after all those painful eyerolls on early morning comms, as he listened to him brag about whatever had been happening in his bedroom the night before - that it took him a second to realise it was even happening. It was a soft, tentative press that seemed insanely cautious, not to mention frustratingly fucking chaste. Robert froze up under Chad’s mouth, confused, then in the next second responded as enthusiastically as possible, throwing his arms up and around his shoulders. He shoved a hand into Chad's hair from the bottom, angling deep into the roots, and yanked him down closer to him.

Chad let out a surprised huff against his lips as he was roughly tugged closer, then wrapped his arms round Robert and deepened the kiss on command. One hand went to Robert’s head, the other straight in and through one side of Robert’s borrowed shirt, so that his bare warm fingers were immediately on Robert’s waist, pressed against his bare skin. Robert hummed into his mouth, then groaned when the heat ratcheted up in response, in all the places they were touching. It felt good, actually. He wished he could make Chad feel good in the same way, but he had no powers at his disposal.

So instead, he bit at Chad’s bottom lip, and tried to get his tongue behind his teeth as soon as possible.

With his sense of time basically lost, Robert didn’t know how long they stayed like that, making out open-mouthed against the wall. All he knew was that this time, when the instinct came to grind along Flambae’s thigh, which had at some point insinuated itself there between his legs, it was really fucking easy. In fact, it was not that difficult at all, when the only rhythm you need to chase was the one that gave you pleasure, and not the beat of any music - least of all fucking Troye Sivan.

Chad broke away from his mouth, then.

Robert whined, confused as to why they had stopped.

When he opened his eyes, they felt heavy. Above him, Chad certainly didn’t look like someone who wanted to stop - all dazed and red-mouthed, and breathing hard with his hair falling into his face, in soft, rumpled, sweat-damp wisps. Inhibitions lost to his own drunkenness, Robert tightened his arms at his neck, leveraged himself closer, and whined again - just to see if it would get him what he wanted. He watched it make Chad’s resolve visibly waver, which he supposed was a good enough consolation prize.

“Robert,” Chad’s voice was ragged at the edges, but also soft, which Robert supposed made sense, given how close the two of them were standing. He didn’t exactly need to raise it, in order to be heard. “This isn’t - you’re definitely not under the spell, right?”

Robert laughed, a deep-throated chuckle that had his head clipping back against the wall behind him.

“No,” he said, certain this was the absolute truth. He lifted his head up from the wall, as best he could when he felt boneless, and tried to pin Chad with his tired, heavy-lidded gaze. The pleasure and heat was all the way through him now. “This isn’t anything to do with that. You’re pretty, and you’re being nice to me. Honestly? I think I’m just really drunk.”

Chad paused.

Chad frowned, brows pinching together.

And then, Chad stepped back.

…Robert had said the wrong thing again.

𓆩♡𓆪

Robert dragged himself to consciousness the next morning with a brutal headache, and a mouth so fluffy it felt like he’d chewed through a tumbleweed to soak up all the alcohol. His heartbeat was still racing to purge his body of poison, leaving him anxious and jittery and wretched. He looked at his phone, and confirmed that he’d be late into work, even if he mustered the motivation to get himself off of his mattress. When he sat up anyway, the world span itself off-kilter. Unclear if he was still drunk.

The rules and no-doubt real-world laws surrounding dispatching whilst inebriated - occasional coffee from Mr. Whiskey aside - warred with Robert’s knowledge that he’d not skipped a single day at SDN, not even for his own fucking coma. To do it for a killer hangover, when he hadn’t even done it for Chase - that seemed to him, to be a bit tawdry.

He pulled himself out of bed, and in doing so let out the longest, most-broken groan he’d had to give in a long time. Every single part of him fucking hurt. There was no one in bed with him, so it had been the dancing that fucking did it. What had he been doing, letting Bae convince him to do that - to even go out in the first place? What had he been thinking?

Asking himself that question revealed some big fucking gaps in his memory. Robert remembered dancing… he remembered some things that made him want to blush, glaring at strangers like he owned someone, when that hadn’t been in the fucking brief… telling Chad his body was going to hurt from… from what?

A brief spinning sky… cold air… hands on… wait, where had those hands been?

God. Just how the fuck had he gotten himself home?

“I. Am a grown man,” Robert announced to himself, in a voice rough and deep and tired from shouting at the top of his lungs all night. He was 32 years old, and he’d gone out and gotten wasted, on a fucking Sunday. And then broken his own fucking knees, dancing to bad music.

He sighed, before miserably putting himself in the shower. Better to be late to work by half an hour, but actually functioning, than arrive with five minutes to spare as the very picture of unprofessionalism.

…Not that it mattered that much to the Z-Team.

“Ohohohoho,” said Punch-Up gleefully, once Robert’s wrecked voice came in over comms. “Look at what the fucking cat dragged in.”

“‘Sup bitch,” said Visi, “We totally thought you’d been murdered.”

“I thought - guessed - diarrh - food poisoning!” said Waterboy.

“Hey team. Sorry I’m late. Just… a small issue with my commute.”

(In the sense that Robert had had to jump off his already later bus, to throw up in the trashcan by the awning. He’d then had to hire himself an Uber, to get him the rest of the way in.)

“Wow,” said Malevola, “Robert, you really do sound like shit.”

“If you committed any crimes last night, Bobby, do you need an alibi?” Sonar piped in, “because… um… I could be that for you. If you could be that for me. Not that I was committing any crimes on a Sunday, or anything. Ahahahahahaha.”

“Have you broken off a misadventure with another amorous yet misaligned paramour, Robert Robertson?” asked Phenomaman, genuinely concerned. “Did you awaken in a dumpster, by means of the ill-advised drink they call Mezcal?”

…Which of course resulted in the team grilling Phenomaman about the embarrassing history of Robert’s one and only five-month long relationship. Robert dissociated, and entered into an intense staring contest with his own waste paper basket - trying desperately not to throw up, every time the word 'Mezcal' was mentioned.

Somehow, he white-knuckled it til lunch. It was about then that he realised how much he needed some kind of food in him. Normally having nothing except the vending machine’s finest wouldn’t be a problem, but it was the only way he’d get through today.

He was starting to wince preemptively as he opened Doordash on his phone, when suddenly there was a thump, and a burrito deposited itself at the open end of his desk.

“Yo, Robert,” said Prism, who was stood next to it, tapping on her phone and only glancing at him out of her periphery, “what meds you on?”

“Er… hey there, slugger. You want to try taking a second shot at appropriate workplace conversation for me?”

“Nah, I’m serious, what are we talking here? SSRIs? SNRIs? MAOIs? Anti-anxiety? Anti-psychotics? Lithium?”

“Lithium?!”

Prism looked up from her phone. “Just covering my bases, boo. You got that sad Victorian child aura ‘bout you.”

“I… don’t think I’m interested in telling you what things I take.” Robert said, eventually. “Nor am I entirely clear on why this is a question you’re asking.”

“Roberto, you remember how my last album was all about the verifiable shit I was doing to try to get better - and how the breakout track from that was literally about me managing my own mental health breakdowns?”

“You mean, do I remember the week where the Team chanted ‘he ain’t getting no head’ at me on comms, every time I tried to fucking speak?” Robert prompted. “Vividly. Continue.”

“So all I’m saying is, I’m like, 3 for 6, on all the things I just said to you.”

“Ok…?”

“And I still thirsted after Bae, after about ninety seconds exposure to his Hocus Pocus problem,” Prism continued, flipping her shades lower down her nose to give him an assessing look, “so, like, what you on, that got you immune?”

Robert blinked at her, helplessly. Why was this a question, that came with a burrito as a bribe?

“Cause you know, it’d have to be some seriously heavy duty ass shit. I only went in there, in the first place, cause I figured that if your meds got you dry as the desert, maybe it’d be the same for me.”

“...Oh.”

“Yeah.” said Alice. “Oh.”

“...I don’t know,” said Robert, too tired to be diplomatic. “It’s not like I know how any of this works. I guess you’d have to ask Dr. Ephemeral, if you wanted an actual intelligent answer. But maybe it’s because you’re a metahuman, and I’m not? Maybe it’s the normie biology in combination?”

He sighed, “or maybe I’m just wrong about the meds things. Either way, it doesn’t really matter, does it? The countercurse will be ready in the next couple of days. And whatever the reason might be, it doesn’t change the fact I am still immune.”

“But are you, though?”

Robert squinted up at her, “I mean… yes? Last time I checked?”

Prism glared at him. Robert gave her a flat stare back.

“...Nothing about the way Flambae and I act around each other has changed?”

Prism glared some more.

“Baby, d’you remember how you got home last night?”

And, given that the answer was ‘no’, Robert was sure his face fell.

But, before he could grapple with a way to discretely ask the question, ‘was the back pain I attributed to throwing ass badly from sleeping with Flambae instead, yes or no?’ Prism saw his stricken expression, and sighed, shaking her head at him. She didn’t seem angry, at least. More just… disappointed.

Wow. Was that what that felt like, to be on the receiving end of that expression?

“Just eat the burrito, Robert, ok? He said you’d need something in you that wasn’t additives today.”

Which frankly, left Robert with more questions than it answered - but Prism was already walking away.

He was about to yell at her to come back, when a ping came through on his PC. He glanced down, and:

(12:47) Dr. Ephemeral ✨

A notification should already have pinged through directly to your agent, but Heartbroker finally came to an agreement with her lawyer!

[elmodancing.gif]

Countercurse scheduled for 10.15am at the Secure Metahuman Wing of the Metropolitan Detention Centre. I made them schedule the appointment as early as possible :)

There’s no need for you to attend, but I wanted to keep you updated! :)

𓆩♡𓆪

In her prime (as in, what was now nine days ago), Heartbroker had been a beautiful woman of vaguely Jessica Rabbit style proportions, with crimson dyed hair and a vermillion, oversized mafioso-style suit that she’d kept popped at the collar, to show off a chest tattoo piece of two dark hands cupping a heart, in the space between the beginning of her breasts. Robert would’ve loved to say the penchant for v-necks hadn’t factored in his decision to send Chad out to face her. But… honestly. It had. Because he had been aiming for an ego-on-ego altercation.

Now, even behind glass and barefaced as 27-year-old Amelia Lochart, Heartbroker was still pretty stunning to look at. Her cosmetic enchantments had been dismantled, but she was still pretty - a broad forehead in a heartshaped face, bleached eyebrows against pale skin, pouty lips in a practised moue. Her red hair clashed badly with the new orange outfit, though.

Robert was just glad Shroud had been moved upstate, a couple of months back. This whole place was already setting him on edge.

He’d arrived late. The sleep after a hangover was always some of the best, and it seemed his body had been running on starvation mode for too long. He’d overslept his alarm for the second morning in a row - this time by nearly over an hour. He’d already been pondering whether to show up at Chad's appointment - at this new personal milestone, it provided an ample excuse for his own lacking professionalism. Chase promised to take his calls for the morning.

Robert texted Chad to tell him he’d be there. Robert wasn’t sure if he’d read it in time, given his own rush to get out of the house. He thought he’d seen him walking along the first floor in his supersuit, on a separate walkway for those currently affected by ambient magic, just as he made his way through the front entrance of the building - he’d tried waving, but with no effect.

Now, Chad was on the other side of the glass of a two-way mirror in an appropriated interview room, sat opposite Heartbroker, and improbably, her lawyer - the balding approximation of ‘just some guy’, who looked bland and grey when sat there next to her. There was another superhero in the room, in state-sanctioned colours, just in case any harmful magic was cast - and one stood next to Robert, on this side, ready to press the button that activated power-dampening technology in the interview room, as a contingency for the same potential risk.

The detective managing her case was also on this side. While the position Chad was in this last week had sucked, Amelia’s three previous victims were still currently in hospital. They’d all suffered cardiac arrest, after each of them made a deal which they unfortunately hadn’t succeeded in keeping their end of: achieving their hearts’ desire by Valentine’s Day.

Inside the room, Amelia was smirking.

“-sure you want me to get rid of it?” she was saying, as Robert entered the viewing area and started tuning into the conversation, “And here I thought you’d relish all the attention.”

“Yeah, I’m real fucking sure, bitch. So let’s just get the fuck on with it.”

Amelia shared a weighted glance with her lawyer, shrugged, then raised her arms in front of her and began chanting. Instead of power rising up between her own hands, it started to glow around Flambae’s outline, then raise off his shoulders and back in a thick, shimmering fog. It seemed like Amelia was lifting it off of him.

The curse took about two minutes total to… um… Robert struggled for the phrasing… ‘cook off’?

The process seemed just as underwhelming for the people in the room. Once Amelia lowered her arms, everyone went silent, until Chad said: “so… is that it?”

This time, all eyes turned to the metahuman guard stationed in the corner of the room. She cast a sigil pattern in the air, and… absolutely nothing happened.

“...Nobody’s jumping you,” she said, after a ten second pause, “and according to my third eye, all magic traces have been removed from your person.”

“Thanks for shaving four years off my sentence, hot stuff,” Amelia drawled, then waved a dismissive, manicured hand, “if you’d had the patience to last a month, it would’ve faded anyway. You can go now.”

Robert couldn’t see much of Chad’s face from how he was positioned in the room, but he expected him to at least ignite, under provocation. The fact he didn’t showed real progress, just generally. With a heavy sigh - not even another comeback - he ignored Amelia's jibe, and raised himself half out of his seat.

Then, he paused.

Sat back down, and faced Heartbroker.

“...Oh?” said Amelia.

“I… maybe I have, like, a question,” said Chad.

“Ms. Lochart is not required to answer any questions pertaining to the any of the outstanding charges currently on her record,” her solicitor immediately began to intone like a mantra, “I should also note that this is not an official police interview, and nothing that is said and done here outside the already-confirmed parameters of our agreement can impact her-”

“-Oh, shush," Amelia tapped her lawyer on the arm with one fingertip. “Quiet now. This could be fun. Go on then, handsome. If you have a question, I want to hear it.”

Robert couldn’t see Chad’s face. But… he didn’t know when it had reached this point in understanding the man’s body language… something in the set of his shoulders suggested that he grimaced.

“Just before you cursed me, you said something about ‘fairy tale bullshit’, or something like that. So like… what the fuck does that mean?”

“Hmmm.” said Amelia, still with that enigmatic smile. “Well, I don't know. What do you think it meant?”

“Nuh. Nuh-uh. I asked you a question-”

“And as my little lawyer just reminded you, I’m under no legal obligation, to answer it. And maybe that’s the whole point, hmm? To see what lesson you learned from it all. Don’t fairy tales tend to have morals from the perspective of the reader, or… ‘something like that’?

Robert put his hand tiredly to his forehead. To an outside observer, it was clear Heartbroker was just taunting him. But Chad was… kind of easy to get a desired reaction out of. Robert did so successfully, on a daily basis.

“Well, I don’t fucking know, otherwise I wouldn’t fucking ask! Obviously, I was bragging about how everyone already fucking wants me, so maybe you were trying to make that suck? Which like, ok, but literally everyone has already seen Misfits, you know? Like, did you think I’d just get groped to death, or some shit?”

“Or you'd give into the power immediately, and prove yourself scum?” Amelia offered, off-hand, like she was spitballing.

“But then, if that was your whollllllllle fucking plan,” Flambae continued, as if she hadn’t spoken. “The fuck you make an exception for?

“...An exception?”

“Like, was that the point?” Chad demanded, and oh, how Robert really wished he’d stopped talking. “Everyone’s horny for me, except for one fucking guy? Was that the fairy tale bullshit in action?”

Heartbroker was frowning.

“ ‘Give me everything I want, except the one thing I can’t fucking have’, or ‘everyone except the one thing that matters’, or some shit? Like seriously… what was the fucking point?”

The words didn’t sink in for Robert at first.

Then, when they did, his first thought was the jackrabbit panic of, ‘I really shouldn’t be listening to this’. He instinctively looked towards the door. Maybe he should get out, in time to avoid invading Flambae’s privacy any further?

In the room, Amelia frowned, then pouted, as if weighing up what answer would hurt Flambae more, before saying to him:

“But… I didn’t make any exceptions.”

Both Robert and Chad froze in place.

“I didn’t engineer there to be any, anyway,” she continued. “Not consciously. It wasn’t that complex or refined a spell. Just a plain old little lovebomb, at my end. You know, blanket scattergun infatuation? Makes everyone around you go crazy, cuts you off from all existing relationships, makes your life unlivable, takes your ego down a peg - unless you’re a shitty person, in which case you learn that about yourself, or people learn that about you. And either you have to carry it with you - or you enjoy it until the magic runs out, and everybody you hurt comes for you, til you’re right there behind bars with me . Thought it would be a fun couple of week’s payback, for the fact that, thanks to you, I’m going to prison.”

Robert was currently running an insane number of calculations in his head, trying to reevaluate. Recalibrate what was happening - shit, what had happened - there in real time.

For better or worse, this meant Chad was the first to recover.

“So… so it was the fucking meds?!” he said, incredulously. “You’re telling me your powers don’t work, on the fucking mentally ill?! That’s… that’s fucking crazy! Is your magic fucking ableist?”

Heartbroker’s frown got even more puzzled, to the point of outright entertainment.

“Sweetie…” she leaned in, “completely off the record? My powers work on anything - so long as it’s got a functional, beating heart. If it’s alive, got blood and a pulse, then I can break it, ensnare it, turn it for profit. It falls for whatever I tell it to fall for. The mind has simply nothing to do with it.”

Heartbroker paused, then added, “kind of right there, in the name, you know?”

𓆩♡𓆪

Chad blazed his way out of the interview room. Ten minutes later, Robert silently let himself out of the separate office, then slunk his sorry way to a backdoor fire exit. If Chad checked his phone and got his text, Robert would just pretend he hadn’t made it in time. That he was too late to be let in. It was a believable lie - his dispatcher credentials hadn’t gotten him into that room late, and without his subordinate’s express permission. A quick phonecall to Blazer and a confirmation of his Mecha Man identity had done that.

Chad wouldn’t be back at work until tomorrow. So if Robert got to SDN now, he had a day to process.

So…

He hadn’t been immune to Heartbroker’s love spell.

…But his feelings towards Flambae hadn’t changed.

Not once. Not even in close proximity to him.

Right. Robert thought, dully.

Then. Shit.

…It wasn’t like he hadn’t noticed a little, you know?

You work out next to a hot guy for long enough - someone for whom working out is effortless, who never goes red in the face and barely even breaks a sweat, glistening with perspiration like an underwear model as he makes the occasional grunt, with no other signs of a struggle - and, then if you also happen to be on your third medication with a doctor who cares about preserving your libido, you maybe occasionally think, ‘fuck. He’s fucking hot’.

…And consider asking your doctor for the previous fucking medications back. Only to realise that is, in fact, a crazy, self-punishing thought, that justifies the use of the current ones further.

Maybe you also notice that his laugh means more to you than others on comms, if something you say happens to startle it out of him. Particularly if you didn’t mean for it to be the thing that gets him, burrowing underneath the practiced facade. And especially if you notice he’s having a bad day - and you think back to all the bad days you probably caused for him, without realising, and you wonder if ‘maybe, just maybe, this one helps to even out the score?’

Maybe you keep your distance, because it’s easier to watch from a remove and not do anything stupid - not ruin anything for yourself, simply by being yourself. And because your shared past is already real fucking awkward, but now you can think of a thousand ways things could go, to make it even worse.

Which just isn’t worth it - not when you’re nothing special; not when you’ve got the first good thing going for you in your life, literally ever; and not when it’s real fucking clear that the other person isn’t interested. You’re above just setting yourself up for a messy, painful rejection, you know?

But… these were all small things.

Robert didn’t think that if you added them together, you got love.

…Love?!

Robert hadn’t been sure it was a crush - he hadn’t ranked it even as that much, on the inside of his own brain. It just hadn’t felt attainable enough.

And, as he hailed himself an Uber and started to overthink, he could see some of the subtle shifts in his own behaviour - that were there, if you saw this whole spell thing as operating on a spectrum, rather than flipping the ‘horny’ switch off and on like clockwork. He’d been more open, in the last week - more chatty, more honest, more accommodating. Drained his social battery to the point where he’d been getting more sleep from the sheer exhaustion of each day - more open to doing new things, just to make Flambae happy.

Clingy. Possessive.

The spell hadn’t made him feel like he was in love - it had just taken some of the shame away, about all the things he was already feeling.

...Fuck.

- Chad was already back at work, when Robert dragged himself out of the haze, and finally got round to clocking in.

On the one hand, it made sense. Chad had been cooped up indoors for over a week without any of the things that gave his life meaning and self-worth - and also hadn’t texted Robert since Sunday, so had a full day of no-contact laid out on top of that.

On the other hand… fuck Robert’s life.

“Robert, that’s two days in a row now you’re coming in late, are ye fecking dying, lad?”

“Is SDN trialing the institution of flexible working hours?” Coupe asked, “If so, I would like to work more on other days, then have Thursday evenings off from 3pm.”

“...Book club?” Malevola hazarded.

“Rope bondage class.”

“O-kay,” said Robert, as various people on the call choked on their own spit, and something genuinely medically concerning started happening to Sonar. He tried to boot up his PC as quickly as possible. “I’m not dying, I’m not doing that, I just tried to get to get to the Detention Centre in time for Chad’s uncursing-”

“Wait… you were there?!”

“I was waiting for you, in the lobby,” Robert said, lying through his teeth.

“I didn’t fucking see you.”

“Apparently, not only did I miss the right bus, but I chose precisely the wrong time for a bathroom break,” Robert continued to lie, “guess I thought that shit would take longer. Of course, if I had seen you, I would’ve reminded you that you need to be cleared by Dr. Ephemeral, before coming back into the field.”

“Pfft. That’s not a thing.”

“That is absolutely a thing, Flambae.”

“Fucker certainly acted like he knew it was a thing, when I asked about it twenty minutes ago,” Chase contributed, over the top of the office divider, loud enough for Robert’s mic to pick it up.

“...In that case, you wanna try telling these fucking civilians that? I was about to save ‘em from their burning car wreck, and none of them are offering to suck my dick about it, but if you think I should fuck off again just to be cleared by a fucking medical professional, then-”

“Wow, you really think that you’re so fucking smart,” Robert drawled, trying to sound stern but unable to keep the smile out of his voice… then he all but kicked himself under the table, wondering how nobody else had worked it out yet. “Fine. Get yourself cleared at lunch. I’ll let you work the morning shift, but I won’t let you back in the game until you’re checked for cooties.”

Everyone started cooing at Bae on the line, as if on cue - hey, if you ever needed the Z-Team to run a distraction for you, just give them the opportunity to act like Sixth Graders. Chad grumbled, but listened to him, and spent his lunch break once more in the quarantine tank with the falafel bowl Prism had bought him.

Robert spent his, face down on a breakroom table, wondering if it was time for Mecha Man to just get the fuck out of California.

Maybe things weren’t that serious. Maybe he could find some kind of equilibrium, between apparently harbouring hopeless feelings for a coworker and ex-nemesis, and burning down his apartment, changing his and Beef’s name, and leaving, never to come back.

Halfway through the second shift, he cleared his throat on comms and said, “Chad, given that you weren’t even supposed to be in today, you can finish up after this mission.”

“Oooooh, that’s one step closer, to Coop-Professional-Dominatrix in our future,” said Sonar. “Thank you for endorsing my newest of wettest dreams, Bobby.”

“...I will cut you.”

“Yeah, but how will you tie me up, first? Please describe it for me, in extreme detail-”

“I'm fine, Bobert.” said Bae. His terse reply cut across the Z-Team’s latest HR violation. Sexual harassment really was the backbone of their whole entire operation.

But Robert counted the days inside his own head again, came to the same conclusion, and pushed: “Today's the day your niece has her dance class, right? You haven't been able to see her for over a week, so… if you want to go and watch the class, maybe, have a little more time together than just a pick up, then…”

He trailed off, feeling stupid. The back of his neck burned, kind of like he'd been caught in some sort of crime. But… he was just trying to be nice.

“Yeah, ok... Thanks. I guess.”

“No worries. Least I could offer. Thanks for coming in, you did good work today.”

Robert wondered if the silence that followed his words felt weighted, to anyone else but him.

“And… the teacher's pet is back in the fucking building,” Visi said, with a heavy sigh.

Half of the Z-Team sighed along in chorus, as if in agreement. Robert adjusted his glasses, then flirted with the idea of putting his head straight through his desk.

“I- I'm not!” Sputtered Flambae. “Y-you are!”

“Oh no, Flambae,” Visi purred, “I’m just ‘hot for teacher’ - I was never a pleasure to have in class. Or can you not tell the difference?”

𓆩♡𓆪

Robert managed to successfully avoid his feelings right up until the end of the week.

His body was still so fucked from the dancing (and subsequent vomiting, and the dry heaves) that skipping out on the gym wasn’t even a pretense. After that, it was just a matter of making sure he took Beef out at lunch, rather than spending any time in the breakroom. Operating in his normal deadpan over comms, and giving absolutely nothing away.

It shouldn't have been difficult. What had happened this last week had apparently relied on him acting naturally disinterested, to the point where no one would even suspect him of harbouring any kind of feelings. So long as Flambae didn't do the mental arithmetic too successfully at his end, and Robert stayed subdued and ultimately realistic, it should be fine. He didn't know why it was so hard, all of a sudden - finding himself blighted by a wave of self-consciousness that made him wish he'd never gotten self-aware, and earned it in the package deal.

“Yo, I can't do drinks tonight, because your babygirl has got herself a hot date, but what about drinks at the Sardine tomorrow?” Prism said, as the final shift of the week closed out.

There was a chorus of yeses, as there always was when the Z-Team encountered the concept of alcohol. A beat later, Flambae also chimed his ascent.

“Got to celebrate our boy’s re-entry into society!” Punch-Up said, with a smile down the line. “You still like arson don't cha - we could find you something fucking class to burn.”

“What about you, Bobito?” Sonar asked.

“Sorry but… hard hard pass,” Robert admitted, with a groan, “I still can't look at the beers in my fridge without feeling queasy. Sardine would probably kill me.”

“This all to do with your ‘bus malfunction’ and definitely-not-Mezcal-fuelled-dumpster-bender on Monday?” Punch-Up goaded.

“C’mon Robert,” said Mal, “don't be a baby. You don't have to drink.”

“...In the Sardine?” Visi interrupted, incredulously, “I think that it might be compulsory actually.”

“Yeah, who d'ye think you're kidding? The whole place smells like a bottle of tequila somebody already sicked up. Kinda hard to enjoy that kinda ambience, teetotal.”

“Yeah… I'm gonna need to sit this one out.” Robert admitted, glad to have the excuse to lean on, even if he had turned all the beer labels in his fridge inwards so they faced away from him. “Maybe in a week or two I'll be brave enough to venture out again. Maybe in a month, depending on how long it takes me to repress. Sorry, Team.”

“That you're a pissbaby? Don't ever apologise, Robert,” said Visi. “After all, you're our pissbaby.”

“Yeah!” said Sonar. “Joint custody!”

“You still haven’t told us who broke your heart, Robert,” said Coop. “If you give us this information, perhaps we can send photos of us trashing their house, so that you still feel included in the festivities.”

“Please don’t commit any felonies. Particularly after talking about them on a recorded line.”

“Wait,” said Chad, “what d’you mean, someone broke-”

Robert detached his headset under the pretense of a sigh, then logged off with a tired chuckle. He’d leave Flambae to clear up the misunderstanding, if he felt so inclined - if he even wanted to disclose that he and Robert had hung out outside work.

And so, Robert made it to the weekend.

It could only get easier from here, right? These kinds of things dulled and numbed themselves, over time.

On Friday, he flirted with the idea of downloading some kind of dating app as a distraction, before pussying out at the last second and wondering if what he was actually feeling was desperation. Saturday, he helped Chase fix some issues with his car, before inviting himself inside to make a similar tour of the man’s apartment, repairing every wonky shelf and burnt out lightbulb and leaky faucet - building a shoe rack, (now that Track Star was back in action, and kept burning through multiple pairs of sneakers a week).

He kept searching for ways to distract himself, under the pretense of making himself useful, until Chase finally turned to him and said, “you realise I’m not actually your fucking grandpa, right kid? I have plans for my fucking Saturday evening. Fuck off now, back to Beef.”

But there was nothing as blissfully uncomplicated, as manual labour - so Robert couldn’t even regret it as he returned to his empty flat, and collapsed with just the right amount of blank, pleasant exhaustion, down onto his couch.

Doing so sent this strange resonance through him. It was almost dark outside, and that combined with the momentum had him suddenly catching an echo of something… something almost comforting. Robert thought he remembered being held up, with warmth around him and warm skin resting against his forehead where his head felt heavy (was he being carried?) only to be deposited right here, down onto his sofa. Falling back bonelessly with a sigh like a ragdoll, in a way that reminded him of every tired bone in his body. Fighting the cold that came when he found his arms to be suddenly empty. Shivering, until he was picked up again with a curse, and moved through to the bedroom.

…A memory, maybe?

The Robert-of-now frowned up at his ceiling. He’d pretty conclusively decided that he hadn’t fucked Flambae, the night that he’d blacked out - from a scouring of any evidence present (or in this case, very much not) in his apartment. And also from what Chad had said in the interview room with Heartbroker. Didn’t sound like they’d fucked.

But… Robert still didn’t remember how he’d gotten home.

He’d assumed another Uber, and that maybe Prism’s meaningful look was about how he needed to pay Chad back, or something. Maybe reimburse him for a killer surcharge, based on how fucking wasted he’d been.

…Which, in hindsight, was probably stupid.

But Robert didn’t know how to feel about the idea that he might’ve been bought back here personally, rather than just stuffed unceremoniously into the back of some unlucky taxi. His stomach flipped traitorously - but even then, he knew that that wasn’t out of character for Chad. While he had strict rules surrounding what state of drunkenness was allowed in the Firebird, he’d definitely taken the messier members of the Z-Team home on more than one occasion. He was kind of a mother hen, even though he liked to pretend he wasn’t. If he’d looked after Robert and gotten him home, it didn’t mean anything.

None of this means anything, he tried to remind himself. Even if he had feelings, harbouring them within himself didn’t matter. Not so long as he kept them to himself.

It was then that Robert’s buzzer went.

Robert winced himself out of his chair, and went over to open the door. He wasn’t expecting to see the person that was standing on the other side.

“...You wear your glasses outside of work?”

“...Aren’t you supposed to be going out?”

Chad stood there alone on Robert’s doorstep. From his outfit, it was hard to tell whether or not going out was still his eventual plan. He was dressed relatively tame by his own standards, in a close-fitting yet long-sleeved dark v-neck, and some deep red trousers. But then, he still looked pretty enough, that if he decided that was all that was needed for a night out, most people would probably just nod along and agree with him.

His hair was down and - yep.

Robert was back to registering that like a gut punch, every single time.

At least now he was well trained enough not to let anything show on his face. To not falter, and to swallow the saliva that immediately flooded his mouth at the sight. He removed his reading glasses - which must have been left on since looking at the finer details of a plug socket at Chase’s - just to take some time looking at his own hands. He told himself it would calm him down. It didn’t do much... but he could always pretend it did.

“I haven’t decided, yet,” said Chad, then glanced nonchalantly down at his phone, “plus it’s like, only 7pm.”

Robert frowned. That didn’t exactly explain why he was currently stood at his door.

“I’m surprised it’s even up for debate. I thought you’d be excited to see everyone?”

“Well, I actually already saw everyone, this week.” Chad said, before looking meaningfully at him. “Except for you. Almost like you're avoiding me, or something.”

“We spent so much time together, I kind of figured you’d be sick of me by now.”

“Well, I’m not. So let me in bitch.”

Robert hesitated, then moved from where he was leant up against the doorframe, and let Chad past. Beef immediately started wiggling and yipping at his ankles, until Chad dipped and scooped, with a soothing sound. He carried Beef under one arm until he could be deposited onto the couch. In his other, three-fingered hand, Robert noticed he was carrying a white picnic bag, which was dotted all over with horses. Its presence was kind of confusing. Given the print, Robert didn’t think it actually belonged to him.

“You bought… food?” he said, frowning.

“Yeah, I stress-cooked again.” At Robert's alarmed look, Flambae course-corrected, “jokinggggggggg. I hosted family dinner today, ‘cause I missed last week’s. Calm yourself Bob-Bob. I’m literally fine - it’s just leftovers.”

Robert watched as he placed the horse bag on the counter. “And they’re… for me?”

“Yeah. Baran told me I should bring some over. To say thank you, for um… taking care of me last week.”

“Your sister bullied you into making food for me?”

“Pfft. Please. Like she could ever fucking do that. This food was literally already made.”

Flambae’s words sounded like pure bluster, but Robert was still staring bemusedly at his gift. He was staring at it so hard, he didn’t notice when Chad hadn’t moved - the way you’d maybe expect, for just a quick care package drop-off.

“Well,” Chad said, breaking the awkward silence, “...Have you fucking eaten, bitch?”

“...Why? You want some?”

“No, I’ve eaten. I just said. Fucking keep up.”

“So… you want to… watch me eat?”

“I’m just saying, shit’s actually coordinated this time. There’s a fucking flavour profile, and everything. So… if you were hungry, then… you should get in on that.”

Robert sighed, then obediently moved and started making a show and tell of unpacking the fucking bag. Inside there were several neatly packed tupperwares with different meat and vegetable curries - he waited patiently, as Chad instructed him on which ones paired best together - along with rice, wrapped naan and roti, both of which had been folded thin to ‘fit in his freezer’.

Chad looked horrified, when Robert moved past him to put his two chosen containers in his microwave. Robert then had to explain that he only owned one saucepan - which horrified Chad further, in new, exciting ways.

“There’s no need to reheat the bread right now, cause it’s so fucking fresh. But I would if you were like, eating tomorrow. Just put it under the grill. And then there’s like, a yoghurt dressing thing, at the bottom of the-”

Robert’s plate ended up being piled as high as last time. He wondered if Chad’s notion of portion sizes was proportional to his physique. The food once again smelled amazing - but Robert didn’t know how to feel, perching himself on one of his two breakfast bar stools with his plate there in front of him, and Chad watching him from the other side of the counter like a hawk, with arms folded. Little too reminiscent of meals with his father, for Robert's liking - one of those moments where you knew there was a proper and right way to behave, but hadn’t been given any kind of handbook. So all you had was anxiety to guide you… it didn’t exactly pair well or go hand-in-hand with sustaining an appetite.

All you have to do, Robert thought to himself, is not make any weird nois-

“Oh my fucking god,” he groaned, around the first mouthful, unable to help himself. He looked at Flambae, and said, as sincerely as he could with his mouth full, “mmms’good.”

The other man uncrossed his arms and leant his hip on the counter, trying and failing to not be smug, “so that’s just gonna happen every single time, huh?”

Robert didn’t blame him. He’d kind of been hoping it was a love spell thing.

“Listen, it’s not my fault,” he said, between bites, “I think the last time someone cooked for me outside of a restaurant was like… fucking Chase, when I was a kid. Which was just fucking… mmh. Box mac’n’cheese, made by a sixteen year old. This is literally as far as you could get from… nggggggh fuck that’s good.”

Flambae goggled at him, momentarily floored.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“...What?” said Robert, warily, pausing with his fork halfway from his plate. “Is that another new addition to my sad-sack quotes board?”

“No, I just… I mean… what about the other people you've dated?”

Robert frowned, “there… haven't exactly been that many of those.”

“No one's ever taken care of you?” Chad looked scandalised. “What about like… breakfast? You’ve had hook ups, haven’t you? They didn’t make you fucking breakfast?!”

Robert could feel his neck was getting warm. He had a feeling that his and Chad’s dating experiences were wildly different. There was a reason one of them got the five star treatment, and it was probably because his lovers never wanted him to leave. And yes, Robert realised he did feel oddly jealous about it, which was even more embarrassing. Not like he could offer much, even if he was in those other people’s places.

Meanwhile, Robert had felt like such an intrusion on other people’s lives that he’d outright avoided ending up in their homes, if at all possible.

“I… didn’t tend to stay the night, without it being an accident… I think someone gave me a bagel once?”

Robert watched Chad's dawning horror, before he frowned and said:

“...Wait. ‘Other’ people?”

Chad startled and started to go pink, as if caught, while Robert simply laughed: “you think Visi was out here, making meals for me?!”

“Oh.” Chad looked a little grumpy… maybe even crestfallen? “So you guys did…”

“No. Um. We didn't, actually. I didn't think - like yeah, she definitely needed someone to love her. But I figured it might be better for the both of us, if that was just given unconditionally for once. Adding sex or romance into the whole deal would've just made it messier than it needed to be, and it didn't feel… I wasn’t really feeling it,” Robert shrugged. “But… I just wasn't sure who else you think I'd have been…”

Oh.

He was sure the heat at his neck climbed to his ears, and he ducked his head, hunching his shoulders to try and shade and hide it. That was silly. There was no way-

“So,” said Chad, clearing his throat. “You don’t know what you’re like, in relationships.”

Robert nearly choked on his food. “What?!”

“From the shit you've just said out loud to me, Bobert, you've clearly never been in any relationship worth a damn-”

“-I mean, I just didn't really have time, as Mecha Man-”

“-So, like, does that mean you don't know what it's like to be in love?”

Robert stopped talking, feeling overwhelmed.

He knew why Chad was asking, of course. But Chad didn't know that he knew.

And he was probably still trying to work out why Robert hadn't been visibly affected by the spell. Robert tried to remind himself that he was lucky, if Chad hadn't worked out the answer. But it was hard to rationalise that agaisnt the dark, heavy weight that settled into the pit of his stomach at the question. Clearly, Chad thought Robert was some kind of freak, who didn't-

“I've been in love before,” Robert said defensively, hunkering down further in his chair.

“Right. Mezcal-burnout-dumpster bitch. So… what was that like?”

“I don't know.” Robert wished he could disappear. “...Nice?”

“Nice?!”

“Like I… liked them. They were kind to me. We were compatible, in conversation and… other things. And it… kind of started to get close to what you're told it’s supposed to feel like, in books and in movies and shit. Like, you start imagining futures together, you know? And seeing all the things that, in an ideal world, could fit.”

Robert looked down at his plate. He realised he hadn’t really felt that way, whilst under Heartbroker’s spell - not when he was near Chad. Actually… it had been kind of the opposite. For once, he hadn’t been thinking, worrying, or contemplating all the ways he could fuck up his future at all. He’d been stuck firmly in the present, and it had been… easy. Maybe that had been the magic, achieving the impossible. Freeing Robert from any thought of his own legacy.

He could feel the weight of Chad's gaze resting on him.

“But then it was gone, and I was a mess for way longer than I needed to be, considering how long it actually lasted,” Robert admitted. “So then, I just found myself wishing I hadn't become so reliant on it in the first place. It shouldn't have gotten in the way of everything, the way that it did. I was making them into someone they never were, and didn’t want to actually be. I was only hurting myself.”

“...Huh.”

“...That’s all you have to say?!”

“No, that actually makes like, total fucking sense, for you,” said Chad, almost thoughtfully. “You ever talk about that shit with a therapist?”

“...Not really? Not yet. We're still unpacking all the childhood shit.”

“Yeah, they’ll probably be dining off of that paycheck for a good few years yet, ey?”

Robert lowkey wished he could die, or that the ground would do him a solid, and at least swallow him whole.

But though Chad’s words were callous, they weren’t exactly cruel. He suddenly moved around to Robert's side of the counter, plucking another item out from the picnic bag. It was a large, recycled smoothie bottle, now filled with a bright pink drink that had mint leaves crushed into it.

“Drink this,” he instructed, out of the blue. He took Robert’s fork from him, setting it on his plate, and placed the bottle in his hands instead.

Robert frowned, confused, but was once again obedient. He wiped at his mouth with the hem of his t-shirt, before twisting the cap and tipping the bottle towards his mouth, taking a drink. It was a sweet, strong raspberry lemonade, laced with sugar and a botanical, minty aftertaste. It would be better ice cold, but even at somewhat room temperature (after the bag and Flambae’s own grip) it still flooded all the spices out of his mouth and overlaid them with an overpowering sweetness.

“So, Bobert. When was the last time your flat ass got any action?”

Robert spat up the next mouthful of his drink, choking after inhaling half of it.

“-I’m sorry?”

“When was the last time you like… you know. Had some sexy bitch’s tongue down your throat, for instance?”

“...I really don’t have to answer that.”

“Fucking humour me.”

The stuff with Visi hadn’t counted, there was that one moment with Blazer he’d chosen not to act upon… Robert felt his ears burn, as he hazarded. “When I was like… 29?”

Actually, it had been when he was 27. But Flambae didn’t need to know that it had been five years since-

Chad slammed his hand down on the table, and made an incorrect buzzer noise with his mouth.

“Wrong! It was last Sunday, bitch.”

Robert was still choking, so he figured he might as well let death take him.

“I… what? Oh god, I’m so sorry. If you had to see me make out with someone whilst I was blacking out and you were just trying to take me home, then that’s honestly just-”

-But of course, Robert had been under the spell, just as much as anyone else.

And he vaguely remembered the bathrooms - thinking how he didn’t want anyone but…

Once he stopped hacking up a wet lung, he looked up at Chad’s face, wide-eyed with his hand covering his mouth. “Oh, shit.”

“...You seriously don't fucking remember?” Flambae demanded. “That’s so genuinely offensive to me, do you know that? Imagine seeing the eighth fucking wonder of the world and like, just blacking it out from your memory. You looked a gift horse in the mouth, and then you told it to fuck the fuck off?”

“I'm… sorry,” Robert wheezed. “If I threw myself at you… then I can understand why you'd be pissed… I'm sorry… I was really, really drunk…”

“No, bitch,” said Chad, incorrect noise and all. “Wrong a-fucking-gain. Like yeah, you said some shit. But I kissed you.”

Robert was no longer choking on the lemonade.

Robert was still struggling to breathe.

“But… that doesn’t make any-”

“-Only, now I'm scared that I totally did it under some severely fucked levels of consent, that you're just too fucking repressed and emotionally constipated to even fucking register or ever fucking communicate-”

“-Um.” said Robert, weakly. “About that-”

“- And that's on top of the alcohol, you fucking lightweight normie bitch-”

“- If you want to talk about it, we can-”

“-So we're just going to run that shit again, alright?” Flambae said, ignoring him. “Are you fucking drunk right now?”

“...No?”

“And I'm not fucking cursed, I’m just this hot naturally. So… put the fucking drink down.”

At this point, Robert was unable to keep track of where the conversation had landed. He obediently put the bottle back down on the counter, with the cap half on.

“Um,” he said, “what does this have to do with-”

A confident hand took hold of Robert’s chin and jaw, with just the right amount of force. It tilted his face upwards… and the rest of his sentence was basically swallowed, with tongue.

Robert froze, there under Chad’s grip. There was an odd flash of déjà vu, that seemed to hint at his missing memory, and left him wrong-footed. It took him a second to even realise what was happening - Flambae’s face and strong brow suddenly at a new weird close-up angle, warm lips pressed down on his -

And then, Robert melted.

His body lost all its resistance. His eyes closed. He fell, in time with the swoop in his stomach.

…If Flambae had bad taste, Robert really wasn’t about to question it.

Messy, open-mouthed, wanting. This kiss was all the good shit - suddenly, and all at once. And even though Robert had certainly worked on himself, these last couple of years, there were some places in his life where he was still just starved, right down to his very core. The first time they paused for breath, he all but panted into Chad’s open mouth. Chad’s hand on his chin kept him in place, then pushed him back unsteadily in his own chair. Robert could’ve fought it, but he tried to stay exactly how and where he was wanted - otherwise, he’d just jump him. At his end, he already wanted too much.

And he was so used to keeping it all locked down.

Robert thought this plan was really working out for him - sat still and pliant, getting thoroughly kissed as his reward. Then, Chad stepped in closer to him, just enough so that their legs brushed against each other where Robert’s knees were parted on the stool. And Robert made a noise then that actually left him embarrassed - just a contented hum, but from deep, deep in his chest.

Chad pulled back, and Robert paused. Successfully held himself still. Bit down on a whine, not wishing to expose himself further.

“You made different noises, last time,” Flambae observed, looking down at him - as if critique was the natural next step from licking into the roof of someone’s mouth.

Robert could feel his ears burning. He was glad he couldn’t remember what the love spell had turned him into.

“...That was probably because of the alcohol.”

“You still taste kind of garlicky,” Chad said, running a thumb along his own mouth. Then, he shrugged, “but it’s my cooking, so it’s fine.”

“Oh, shut the fuck up.”

This time, Robert kissed him. Mouths still firmly connected, and hands on Flambae’s chest for leverage, he quickly clambered off the stool and up to standing. All this earned him was the mortification of knowing that it did absolutely nothing to alter the height difference. He felt Chad try to pull away to gloat, lips already smiling where they were placed against his. Robert decided to fast-track the shit-talk portion of the make out session entirely, by just kissing him harder. Hard enough to keep him quiet.

Hands on Chad’s hips, Robert maneuvered himself to the side and pushed the taller man up against the counter. He didn’t kid himself that that positioning was anything other than mutual and voluntary, but the illusion of power was enough to send heat running like sparks through his blood. Robert didn’t try to lift him up onto the counter, because he was a realist - if that happened, it would be because Chad lifted himself, and Robert’s hands would just happen to be there. But the solid surface at Chad’s back gave Robert enough traction to push himself entirely into his space. The lower half their bodies pressed together as all his weight surged forward. Robert could feel his thumbs leaving indents in the pleasing, stark curves of Chad’s hipbones as he gripped tighter, and tighter, marking up his bare skin.

They broke apart, mostly from necessity. It was either that, or fuck nasty, right there in front of Beef.

“So like… still good for you?”

Chad’s breathing was unsteady. They were standing so close together that Robert could feel his chest heaving against his own.

Robert gave him a nod, accompanied by a weak thumbs up. He couldn’t speak - barely comprehend words, over the pounding of his own pulse in his temples, and all throughout his body.

Yay, he thought, for doctors that go above and beyond to find you the right medications.

“...Cool,” said Chad, articulately as ever.

𓆩♡𓆪

Improbably, Robert actually finished his food. Chad made a point of watching him eat.

Robert kept drinking the lemonade after each mouthful, in case Chad wanted to kiss him. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. Robert resented his self-control.

“So… you coming to the Sardine, or what?”

Robert levelled Chad with a look, as he put his now-washed singular plate away. “I promise I didn’t turn down the Sardine, just to avoid you.”

Chad levelled a glare right back at him.

“Ok… so, I was avoiding you,” Robert admitted, awkwardly. “But I wasn’t backing out of the Sardine, for that reason. They’re separate issues. I really have felt like shit this week, every time me and alcohol happen to make eyes at each other. That fucking hangover has made it’s way firmly into my Greatest Hits.”

“Ok then. So, like… what do you want to do?”

Robert glanced guiltily, towards his couch, and then towards his TV.

“Oh, Robert,” Chad said, forlornly. “Not sports.”

“You go out without me,” Robert said. “Seriously. It doesn’t affect anything, at my end. You’ve been trapped inside - I’d completely understand.”

“Yeah but… I don’t mind being trapped inside. Not if it’s with you. You’re the person I want to spend time with right now, anyway.”

That was such an insane sentence, that it took Robert a few seconds to process it.

“...We could find a gameshow, maybe?” he offered, dumbly.

He was already thinking that it wouldn’t matter much. They’d probably be making out on the sofa again, ten minutes into whatever they ended up putting on and watching.

“Tchk,” said Flambae, smiling fondly, as if he’d maybe come to the same conclusion. “You’re such a fucking nerd.”

But he swiped something into his phone without barely looking anywhere other than Robert, and moments later Robert’s own phone buzzed in his back pocket. Sorry bitches, raincheck. had come through on the group chat - to an immediate round of thumbs down from everyone in the Z-Team except Alice, who added sparkles and a sunglasses emoji (after deleting an eggplant in under two seconds flat).

The two of them collapsed onto the couch, seemingly happy to keep up the pretense for a little bit, even as Chad threw his arm casually across the couchback and it brushed all along Robert’s shoulders. They found a Jeopardy! rerun just starting - and yet neither of them moved to make any kind of a bet on it. Proof they were both on the same page, about what they’d be doing by the end.

They settled in to watch it anyway.

“...This ok?” Chad asked, as his arm came fully around Robert’s shoulders and pulled him in against him.

Robert nodded, surprised that he was the one asking the question. He found it almost funny, and fought down the urge to laugh. He’d never done Netflix + Chill before - he didn’t know the etiquette. How long were they supposed to fucking pretend?

But at the same time, he got comfy. He let himself relax into the side of Chad’s body with little to no complaints. He was kind of prepared to have his own fun with it.

In a game of performative neutrality chicken, Robert was in fact fully equipped to win.

They got through roughly seven minutes of charged silence before Chad caved, and spoke up.

“D'you know that you were probably under the spell, the whole fucking time it was happening?” he told him, like this was a casual in, on a par with chatting about the weather. “You’re just clammed up so fucking tight, that we didn’t fucking notice. Could probably continue your dispatching and hacking gig during phone sex, or fucking real sex, or something, the way you’ve got a handle on your own fucking professionalism. We’ll need to work on making you a romantic, out of hours.”

“Hmmm. Not what happened, actually.” Robert said, serenely.

“Everything you say to me when you are wrong is deeply, deeply fascinating to me. The fuck do you think you are talking about?”

“Ok, yes, I am repressed,” Robert told him, “and I am also capable of completing a shift in our workplace without hitting on anyone, unlike the rest of the Z-Team-”

“Yeah yeah, you’re boring as fuck, as we’ve already established-”

“-But the spell didn’t actually make me fall for you,” Robert interrupted, smirking up at Chad as Chad looked back down at him in confusion. “That’s not what happened.”

“Um, actually. She said that it affected literally every living thing with a heartbeat, so…”

“-Turns out, I was kinda already there.”

Robert paused for a beat, then added with a blissful smile, “that’s why I stayed exactly the same. Apparently, this shit has been going on a lot longer than either of us realised. Spells can’t alter your natural state, if there’s nothing there to alter.”

And… yeah.

As Chad pushed him back into the sofa cushions, kissing him with a newfound urgency, what was on the TV opposite them really didn’t fucking matter.

Robert reached out blindly before his hands became occupied, and put that shit on mute.