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Chad was lounging on his couch when his phone buzzed.
You gonna stp ignoring me?
He huffed out a sigh, wondering if he should reply. He’d left Alice and the others while he was angry and hadn’t expected her to reach out so soon, but she was one of the few people that knew him too well. He looked at the time, already calculating if she’d be up for a visit based on how late it was on a Sunday afternoon.
Cooled off, if that’s what you’re wondering. Talked shit out. I’m fine.
Imma come over. I still owe you a new hairdo.
Please don’t bring dye
His message went unanswered, which he knew meant that Alice was on her way.
It took her a half hour to make it to his place. She lived in Carson, but he figured she took her sweet time because she wanted to make him wait. As always, Alice entered his condo without much fanfare, the only signs she was there was the sound of the door opening and her shoes being toed off. Chad had forbidden her to wear her boots in his home, knowing that she hated putting them back on after a long day of work, so the fact that he heard her soft footsteps on his floor let him know she wasn’t doing anything hero or popstar related.
Alice wasn’t wearing a wig, her hair in messy space buns. She was dressed in a loose shirt and sweatpants, her fuzzy socks part of her newest sleepwear release. She was holding her styling bag which Chad knew held every bit of makeup, brush, and haircare product she was willing to share with him.
He didn’t move from his seat as she took in the sight of him lounging, legs splayed over the majority of the couch. He’d been winding down for the day, so he was in a faded cropped shirt and extra large sweats, while he scrolled through TikTok. His hair was down from its ponytail, untreated, and curling around his shoulders.
He looked up at her with a raised eyebrow.
“I expected you to look more like shit,” Alice said, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Fuck you,” he muttered, raising up his right hand to flip her off.
Alice moved towards the couch and collapsed onto Chad, him letting out a wheeze at the sudden weight, her head resting on his lap. “No, fuck you for not reaching out sooner. I shouldn’t have to be checking in on you about shit if you’re saying you’re good after hours of no contact.”
He grumbled, but he knew she was right. She had every right to be angry at him for not reaching out after almost two days after a crashout like that. “I talked to my sister, therapist, and fucking Bob-Bob over the course of twenty-four hours. I deserve a pass.”
She blinked up at him with wide eyes. “Oh shit, you did some deep dives then.”
“Damn straight,” he muttered as she arranged herself a bit more comfortably so that she was laying her head on his chest, “Was all up in my feelings. Talking helped. Me and Bobert are on the same page; I’m not going to light him up.”
Alice closed her eyes. “Good. Took him a hot second, but Robbo’s got talent at being a dispatcher. It’d be a shame to lose him.” She looked back up at him. “And I won’t hold this against you. Sorry you went through all that shit, boo.”
“All is forgiven,” Chad muttered.
“Forreal, you need to tell me if you’re getting to that point. You know I don’t judge.”
Chad exhaled through his nose, feeling heat cling to his nostrils. “I know.” It was still hard to talk about things to people. His sister knew him best and could talk him down from most situations. Alice had known him for years, but he knew they both had secrets they weren’t willing to share with each other yet. It still felt hard to share things even with his therapist and Rosie was usually great at knowing what he needed before he even had to tell her.
The team was a different story. They hung out from time to time, but they all had their separate baggage and all tended to err on the side of caution if things got too personal, veering the conversation into more neutral territory (sans Ivisibitch, who seemed to make it her mission to know everyone’s secrets and push hard on boundaries).
“Do I have to worry about damage control tomorrow?” Chad asked. He could only imagine what the rest of the team thought about what happened Friday night.
“I think Visi might know something. Mal too, but you know she’s good people and won’t just blurt shit out. I’m sure Janelle might be smart enough to put two and two together…other than that, you’re good.”
At least he didn’t need to worry about being heckled over the comms. One less headache to deal with.
“But we did tell Robbo our genders to air things out when we got him to SDN. And our names.” She fiddled with one of her nails. “We thought it was fair after what went down at Sardines and after. Sounded like he was gonna hide his secondary gender until he couldn’t.”
“So, everything’s out in the open now.” Chad didn’t pose it as a question, running a hand through his hair.
“Yeah…I think it’s ‘cause we all like him. He’s been with the team the longest and actually gives a shit. Like, with everything. He’s talked to all of us at some point, one on one, and I know you know we don’t usually get that.” Alice had found the afghan along the back of his couch, grabbing it to drape around her as she turned so she was looking up at him, arms crossed over his chest.
Chad rolled his eyes. “Yeah…I like him too.” He looked away, feeling his cheeks heat up and he swore he could hear Alice’s grin.
“Oooh, you’re down sooooo bad.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
Silence settled between them for a few minutes, something comfortable. Chad could feel Alice’s nails tapping against his shirt, her other hand moving up to his shoulder.
“You’re getting some greys, Bae.”
Chad rolled his eyes again. “I’m fully aware.”
Alice hesitated, then continued to move to curl her finger around the bit of his hair she could reach. “You’re gonna go natural?”
He scoffed. “I’m already going natural. It’s not the end of the world if I get a few grey hairs.” He shook his hair out, Alice releasing it from her fingers as she sat up on his thighs. “Besides, they’re coming in all over, easy to miss.”
“You do you, but if you need a touch up, you know I gotchu.” She bent down towards her bag. “Speaking of, I wanted to try out this cute braid that I think you’d rock.”
“If it means that I’m going to have to take out a fuckton of bands from my hair, I don’t want it.”
“But Bae, you promised!
“Not if it’s gonna be a fu-”
Chad’s phone suddenly buzzed in his grip, making him almost drop it on the floor. He checked the screen, a bit surprised at the contact that popped up.
“Hello?”
“Hey,” a deep voice answered back.
Chad sat up, making Alice let out a curse as she got off of his legs. He moved to sit properly on the sofa seat, shuffling himself towards the left armrest. “Hey, everything alright?”
Robert let out a small sigh in his ear. “Yeah. I’ve been officially discharged. Just got home and wanted to let you know. In case you were worried or some shit.”
“I wasn’t worried,” he muttered, watching out of the corner of his eye as Alice gave him a wide grin, wiggling her shoulders as she settled further into her blanket. “...but I’m glad you called. You settled back in?”
“Yeah. Chase is gonna bring Beef back over and we’ll be hanging out for the rest of the afternoon.” There was a pause. “Thank you again for hearing me out and being there yesterday.”
Chad rolled his eyes. “I’m the last person you should be thanking and you know it. But I’ll accept it, especially since you just got out of the infirmary. I’m sure that nurse couldn’t heal all of the brain damage you got.”
That got a small huff of laughter out of Robert. Chad tried not to dwell on how that sound made something warm settle in his chest. “You know,” he said, voice going soft, “I wasn’t sure if I should even call you. But I’m glad I did.”
The alpha part of Chad’s brain let out a pleased purr at that, the warmth intensifying. He tried not to preen as he let a grin flit onto his lips. “Another first for you?” he asked, genuinely curious.
“Yeah. And don’t let that go to your head, you’ve already got an ego.”
“What I have is confidence, Bob-Bob. It’s not ego if I know I’m that fucking good.”
“Right.” There was another huff of laughter on the end of the line. “Enjoy the rest of your weekend. And thanks for picking up.”
“Have fun with that bowling ball you call a dog and Einstein."
Robert hung up first and Chad set his phone down on the table in front of the couch.
He could see Alice out of the corner of his eye making grabby hands and resigned himself to his fate. He mirrored their previous positions, his head resting on Alice’s lap this time. She started to run her hands through his hair.
“Say whatever you want to say, but don’t be a dick about it,” he muttered, shutting his eyes.
Alice didn’t say anything at first, letting his comment hang in the air as she combed through his hair with her fingers.
“Sounds like you're good,” she said, her voice quiet. He could feel her working his hair into semi-even portions, giving his scalp a scratch whenever she moved up. “And if he’s got you blushin’, Bae, this might be something.”
Chad scrunched his eyes tighter. It took a lot to make him blush, something his PCP had said that he probably wouldn’t be able to do unless there was significant blood flow from intense emotions fueling it. His blood pressure was already higher than a normie’s, but it had to be a reaction from his brain to his nervous system that fueled his heart into pumping a few extra bits of blood into his fucking cheeks to get him to fucking blush.
And that seemed to happen whenever Robert was involved.
“It is something,” he murmured. He left it at that, allowing Alice’s soft hum to let him know she heard him. “I don’t hate him. Like, we got to that point that I don’t hate the fucker that took my fucking fingers. That’s fucking something, right?”
“Def something.”
“Even when I talked to him yesterday, I didn’t want to punch his face. Instead, I, ugh.” He put his hands over his face. “I fucking said the corniest shit about he’s not gotta get rid of me that easily and that I still wanted to court him. Because I do. Is that weird? This isn’t some sign that I’m into some weird, kinky bullshit, is it?”
“No, Bae. You’re accepting what you’re feeling and talking to the guy you like about it. That’s growth, baby.”
She took a breath. “Bae, I’m proud of you, you know that, right?”
Chad lowered his hands. “Mhm?”
“I know you’ve got your image, but you’re admitting that you’ve forgiven someone for something shitty that happened to you in the past. Like, that’s fucking progress. Good for you. And you’re finding something more in a relationship with someone too. That’s gotta feel weird, but in a good way.”
Chad opened his eyes to watch an upsidedown Alice grinning at him.
“...Zara’s got a recital this Thursday. You wanna come?”
“I’ve actually got some studio time booked, so I can’t.” She paused and he could hear the smirk in her voice as he rolled his eyes. “You know who probably could go, tho?”
Chad hadn’t even thought of asking Robert. They’d only just gotten their shit together, or as much as they could get it together after everything they’d gone through.
“Wouldn’t it be too quick?” he asked, rolling his eyes back to try and get a glimpse of Alice, then blinking to refocus on the ceiling when she tugged on a patch of his hair that she was braiding. “We finally talked things out, but that’s all we did. What if it’s too much?”
Alice paused in her braiding. “The fact that you talked out your shit from almost five years ago seems like too much. It doesn’t have to be a date or some shit, you don’t have to let it be that. It can just be two people who know each other hanging out.” She snickered. “Besides, I’m sure Tahmina is just waiting for you to introduce her, so the sooner you get on that the better or she’ll do it herself.”
Chad hadn’t even thought of that. For Robert to meet his sister without proper preparation was something he didn’t want to think about. Maybe it would be better to introduce him sooner rather than later, if only for his sanity’s sake.
“Chad, you’re serious about him, right?”
“Mhm.”
“Then just ask. He can say no and that’s still okay. It’s not the end of the world if he needs some time to settle into whatever you guys are trying to get into.”
Chad closed his eyes. “...I’ll think about it.”
Alice let out a huff, but left it at that. She settled into a pattern of braiding and Chad was slowly being lulled into a nap.
“I’m seein’ someone,” Alice said, far too casually. If she’d lulled him further in with braiding his hair, he would have missed it.
Chad’s eyes popped open and would have sat up if she didn’t have a death grip on a section of his hair. He settled on whacking the back of his hand against her thigh. “Spill.”
“Nah, not yet.”
“Bitch, you’ve been privy to all the shit that’s gone down between me and Rob-Bob, I deserve retribution!”
“We’re not making it public yet, Bae. He’s traditional.”
“And you care about that?”
Alice hummed again as she sectioned off another portion of his hair in her hands to start braiding. “He’s got his own things to go through. We’re both working through some shit, but we’re making progress. He’s not used to someone like me in his life.”
Chad’s mind worked through a list of potential suitors, most of them being nobodies from work or normies that Prism interacted with daily while on Insta or SnapChat. “At least tell me he did something amazing to get you interested. I know you wouldn’t settle for less, but I need to give you my opinion if you fucking did.”
“Of course he fucking did, I’m not settling for a random asshole off the street. Boy got me out of one of the toughest binds I was ever in. Even hurt himself when it happened.”
Something stirred in Chad’s memory, something that happened back around the time when Robert first joined SDN. There’d been word around the halls, a rumor about something that’d happened at the beginning of the week. Something that’d happened outside of the office, that included someone that hadn’t been on a hero team at the time.
Oh.
OH.
He waited for the moment when Alice loosened her grip, then sat up and turned towards her, a toothy smile on his face.“
I know who it is. And holy shit, really? Out of everyone, it’s fucking him?!?”