[Bob the hobo] A Celestial Wars Spin-Off Part 0137

PART ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-SEVEN

Robbie’s mind scrambled. Thanks to spending six months in his imagination with his Pop and Aunt Collette, he had a dozen different ways of getting off this roof. He’d have even more if he were able to access the ranged shifting that they’d shown him he had. His thumb rubbed against his ring, knowing he could never bring himself to take it off willingly, but really wishing in this instance that he could.

Even without range, he still had options. He could grow wings and fly them all off of the roof. Or he could realm-step once they were on the move and put them back on the street in two steps.

Either way, he was pretty sure Lucas was gonna notice. Because Lucas noticed everything.

Maybe he could put some sort of chloroform in the air? Not enough to knock anyone out, but make them all woozy for a few seconds. His pop had shown him how the ring-rules could be bent when it came to shifting (All pun intended). While he wouldn’t be able to change the air itself into chloroform, he could change his lungs to breathe out the said substance instead of CO2.

Chit! He was running out of options, and roof space.

Between the two of them, Angelo put very little weight on his feet. He hadn’t said anything since Lucas slapped the cuffs on his right hand either and that worried him more. His pop had gone a long way towards encouraging his bending ability to see into the thoughts of people, but Collette had been more reserved on that front.

“The only time you’re officially allowed to take your ring off is when you’re one of the littlest fish in the room,” she’d warned him. “Old bloods like Dad still waffle on about its uses, but the rest of us aren’t so keen to do it. Especially not at the annual family get-togethers, which is the only time we’re supposed to.” She’d then winked at Robbie and moved on.

So, they did it – they just didn’t get caught doing it. Another reason to keep their rings on during family get-togethers. Because that’s when they’d really be busted. Robbie had no doubt the paranoia that he’d seen in his pop went right through all the old bloods, and everyone (including each other) would have that year scrutinised, looking for breaches.

At the time, Robbie couldn’t picture a single reason why he’d want to take off his ring and access the mind-bending and poke around in someone’s mind. It was … wrong. An invasion of privacy of the worst possible kind, no matter how it was presented. That being said, he was sorely tempted to have a peek into the mind of his best friend, to see what would be the best way to help him.

He was still trying to work out the best approach to get them to the street level as they rounded the old air conditioning units.

“How long has that been there?” Lucas suddenly asked.

Robbie lifted his head and saw an open doorway into the rendered wall, right beside the chimney. A doorway that hadn’t been there ten minutes ago.

Immediately, his heart picked up and he lifted his line of sight to include every shadow and surface around them; even the sky itself. “Errmmm…I don’t know,” he said, fudging his honesty. Whoever was helping them could literally be anywhere, and in some cases, anything. “It wasn’t something I was paying attention to.”

“Well, that certainly makes our way down a lot easier. Come on,” Lucas said, getting a bounce in his step now that a solution had presented itself.

Yeah, Robbie thought to himself, still searching the surrounding area for the identity of their secret helper. The last thing any of them needed was his pop walking into this mess and unilaterally deciding on behalf of everyone what he was going to do to fix it.

Actually, as much as he really didn’t want to, the best person he could reach out to now would be detective douche. The only Nascerdios who had a foot in both camps from the very beginning.

The doorway led to an old stairwell that led down into the back room of the health centre. A woman in a white clinician’s uniform met them on the stairs and gasped. “I’m a cop,” Lucas said, probably in case her fear kept her from noticing the uniform.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, immediately spotting the rough bandages around Angelo’s feet, though professional enough not to critique.

“This is police business, ma’am, though if you could render any assistance medically, it’d be greatly appreciated.”

“We have the money to pay for it,” Robbie added, knowing that would probably be a deciding factor for the woman. Not that he could blame her. Businesses didn’t run on charity. He saw the look of surprise Lucas shot him, but never recanted his offer. Through various conversations over the six months of internalising, his pop hadn’t been thrilled to learn that he’d made a living as a sex worker and had told him while he didn’t care if he had a lot of sex because he enjoyed it, his days of doing it to pay the bills were beyond ancient freaking history.

And he’d seen with Sam just how seriously the Nascerdios took that side of things. They had pride in spades. He had no doubt that if he didn’t already have a whole lot of zeroes in his bank account, they’d be there in a matter of hours. “Please, Sonya,” he added, again breaking Mystallian tradition by using manners to further his request. The clinician’s name was on her uniform. “Our roommate here has cut up his feet really badly, and although I’ve done the best I can, do you think you could take a look at it?”

The clinician looked at the time. “I do have a little while before my first patient,” she said, ushering them down the rest of the stairs and into one of the two suites that were set up like a GP’s office. She pulled on blue gloves and applied a medical mask, then gestured for Angelo to sit on the edge of the cot.

Robbie and Lucas sat on either side of him, with Lucas’s right hand discreetly holding Angelo’s in a way that the clinician wouldn’t notice the handcuffs.

As it so happened, the clinician wasn’t an idiot either. “I don’t suppose you can tell me what he’s done?”

“Protective custody,” Lucas answered, without a hint of a lie. “He’s a good guy that we need to put away some really bad guys.”

“Hmmm,” she said, drawing a syringe full of local from a vial and applying it to Angelo’s feet. “Give that a minute to numb, and then I’ll stitch you up.”

Angelo's whole body melted with his head falling limply against Lucas' shoulder in a dreamy sigh of relief. Robbie hadn’t realised how much pain he’d been in.

“Thanks, Sonya,” Robbie said, gifting her with a dazzling smile. “Keep tabs on your time and what you’re using and I’ll swing back later today to pay the bill.” Still receiving that look from Lucas, he added, “Sam’s not the only one with access to family funding. I met my pop this morning, and I don’t have a Miss W to try and tell me not to use it.”

“You met your pop?” The question escaped Lucas’ lips and from the way he pinched his lips and shook his head, he hadn’t meant to say it aloud. “Yet another conversation to be tabled for another time.”

Robbie saw no reason to wait. “Yeah. Turns out he’s a wine connoisseur, as is my Aunt Collette. Wine from their vineyard in Monaco can go for upwards of half a mill a bottle.” More, if he were to add what the family would pay for ambrosia. The irony that his pop supplied the family with the very drink that Sam said he wouldn’t be allowed to try because it was DNA sequenced was both sad and adorable. Because technically, it wasn’t wrong …

“Fuck,” Lucas swore. “They certainly don’t mess around, do they?”

“No, and he wasn’t altogether thrilled to learn what I did for a living, I can tell you.”

Lucas’ lips twitched in amusement. “I’ll bet.”

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PART ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-EIGHT

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((All comments welcome))

I made a family tree/diagram of the Mystallian family that can be found here

For more of my work including previous parts or WPs: r/Angel466

For those who want to read this from the very beginning: Part One

FULL INDEX OF BOB THE HOBO TO DATE CAN BE FOUND HERE!!