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Cabanela waltzed into the Professor’s office filled with a pulsing, murky energy. Cabanela, of course, waltzed into rooms as a general rule. He didn’t know any other way. And to the naive bystander, all white-coated twirls and hops were a simple symptom of the man having too much energy, more than anyone would know what to do with, and making it everyone else’s problem. Not so the Professor. The Professor had been taking notes (for science if nothing else. Hard to resist the urge to put the guy under a microscope and see if he came from space just like the rock). So it did not escape his attention that in that night’s overwrought peacocking, there was a tense edge to Cabanela’s smirk and, more importantly, he was only showing him his right side, like a very animated cardboard cutout.
“That’s all fine and well,” he said, cutting through some nondescript ‘great news’ the Inspector was rambling about. “Turn around.”
“I don’t know what you meeean.”
“Boy. Turn around.”
“Or?”
“Or I’ll acknowledge that you are behaving like an infant and address you as such until the end of our days. Come on, you weirdo.”
Cabanela made a valiant effort to stare him down, but the gig was up and he eventually accepted it with his usual good sportsmanship. Bowing to his public of two, he raised his arm and knee to pirouette around until the Prof could get a good look at his left side. Lovey chirped. There was a thin gash under his left shoulder, brimmed in red. Would you look at that. The man was not invincible and he bled like mortals.
“Did you take care of it?” said the Prof.
“I was waitin’ for a safe haven.”
“That’s... not too ludicrous, as far as your risk assessment usually goes.”
“Thank you, baby!” he beamed.
Another bow, out of respect and friendship, and he slid out of his white coat, balancing it on his right arm. He trotted toward the back, where the Professor kept his first aid kit, fetched a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, flipped it like a bartender and promptly applied it to the stained fabric.
“I meant your wound,” groaned the Professor.
It was, truth be told, little more than a scratch. A bullet had grazed his coat, his shirt, his skin (nominally) and then went on its merry way. All throughout the Prof’s disgruntled care – antiseptic, cream, gauze – Cabanela could not stop smiling.
“Where does THAT come from,” asked the Prof, pointing at that unshakable grin. “Is this what it looks like? You got shot at? You’re not the sort to find it funny, are you.”
“Means I’m doin’ something riiight...”
“Means you got shot at, Cabanela.”
“I knew it was coming and I ducked.”
“And that makes you immortal.”
“Makes me aliiive!”
“Unless they shoot at us through the window as we speak.”
“Prooof, you wound me more than any silly ol’ bullet. Have a little faith, baby, will you? I shook ‘em off. The park wasn’t safe, but they don’t know about this place. Our HQ’s is the best, I wouldn’t blow it for the wooorld… Isn’t it wonderful?”
“I’d say that’s the adrenaline doing the talking but that would fail to account for the baseline. We need to get you your friend back so someone will know how to handle you for more than five minutes in a row.”
That got him to sit down for a second and, almost imperceptibly, sigh. “You’re doin’ fiiine yourself, prooof...”
“Shush. Don’t make me blush. But please, keep digging: what’s wonderful about this?”
“Smell it, baby, it’s the sweet scent of success comin’ closer. I’ve stepped on enough toes, means we’re doing something right. All we gotta do is double down and we’ll get there. Easy-peasy, we’re on the path.”
“Eager fool.”
“That’s my other naaame...”
“You bet it is, that’s what I’ve been calling you for months. So you’re seeing the finish line? Good for you. Make sure it’s not a tunnel painted on a cliff.”
“It’s a vibrant, detailed fresco of us givin’ Jowd his coat back… let’s seeee… there’s a halo of those little angels, and clouds, and flowers. And an explosion livenin’ up the background. Two explosions!”
“Painted on a cliff.”
“Painted on a cliff, yes.”
“Gods, you’re a headache on legs.”
“And you’re lucky to have me, baby!”
The Professor smiled. He let Lovey Dove hop on his outstretched hand and led her to brush up against his cheek.
“He is lucky to have you. But you can’t help him if you’re dead.”
“You really think we’ll pull this off?” he asked as he put the finishing touches on a frankly excessive amount of bandages. Would it that they could protect his friend. The man knew how to look fabulous as he tilted at windmills alone against the world (almost alone: he had an old coot and a pigeon on his side), but he had no sturdier defense than the legend of his coat…
“Not a question. We have to,” came the curt answer.
“Owe you one...” Cabanela flexed his arm and stretched, his body unaccustomed to keeping a limb still for more than thirty seconds in a row.
The Professor stepped off the table he had been sitting on to reach that high. “I’m keeping tally. So what’s next?”
“Eeeasy. I go back to the office, drag the radio boys out of bed and intercept the...”
Cabanela stopped mid-sentence, capping it with a sudden pout instead. For all his derring-do and unrelenting optimism, the man was not incautious.
“They know who you are.”
“They better.”
“You shook them off, odds are they’re still out there. Home and work are not safe.”
“Maaaybe.”
“Stay here, you fool.”
“But the case...” He turned to look at the green coat hanging by the wall. His pout melted away, shifting for a moment into a genuine sadness.
“Do you want to prance around with a slashed coat?”
“You got sewing supplies around here?”
“I might.”
“Then it’s a deeeal… for tonight.”
“I got a debt to pay...” Cabanela mumbled, staring at the ceiling from the makeshift bed the Professor used once in a while. His feet stuck out, but it would do. On the cluttered desk, his coat lay next to scissors, pins, needles and white thread, waiting for tomorrow’s sunlight.
“And you can only do that if you stay alive,” said the Professor. Lovey chirped in strong agreement. “And get some rest. Now.”
“Dunno, Prooof… your pillows are too soooft… Goldilocks would have a word…”
“I’m going to hit you with a frying pan.”
The Professor ran a hand through Cabanela’s hair. He did not budge. If he’d ever wondered how this infinite burning firework of a man slept, it turned out that the answer was ‘efficiently’, concentrating as much of it as possible in what little time he could disentangle from the harsh demands of his mission. Young fool in love.
“Hey, Lovey. Do you think he knows?”
The pigeon gave them both a vacant stare, which the prof took to mean as “Obviously. Who do you think he is.”
The pigeon had a point. For all his quirks, the Inspector seemed at ease with himself. If he felt so strongly, and by the gods he was bursting with this longing, he was the sort give a name, an address and a tax code to those feelings. He knew, and he yearned. The prof thought of Jowd, and how easy it was to fall into that man’s dark orbit, the power he commanded in any room he walked into, how safe it felt to be in his shadow until he opened his mouth. What that’d do to a young man who lived for the thrill… He looked at the dark October night outside his office’s window, strangely cold and unforgiving, filled with danger, and patted his sleeping partner’s shoulder. They would pull this off. They had to.