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Aerostar had learned to be careful to not go back too far, Drago could always tell. Either he smelled wrong or he would mix up who they were fighting when to give himself away and have to come up with a quick explanation, and each time it happened the harder it was not to tell Drago everything, destruction of the time stream be damned.
This, though. This was very close, only a few days before the Reptiles would take him, and so far Drago didn’t seem to suspect. Areostar watched him bask in the sun on the Temple’s roof, waiting for nightfall and Cueto to open the doors. What happened in there could only take place in darkness. “What are you looking at?” Drago asked, his eyes closed.
The last time Aerostar had seen him Drago had a long, faint scar under his jaw that wasn’t there now. Wasn’t there yet. “Nothing.”
“I’m surprised you’re up here with me. You said you had to train for tonight.”
“I can afford a break.”
“You already know what’s going to happen, don’t you.”
For a cold instant Aerostar thought he’d been found out but quickly realized Drago was only teasing. “I don’t need time travel to know we’re going to win.”
“What’s wrong with your arm?”
Areostar flexed his hand. The break was almost healed, an ache he barely noticed. He hadn’t realized he’d been favoring it. “It’s nothing. A little sore.”
“Let me see,” Drago insisted. After a moment of hesitation Aerostar sat next to him and held out his arm; his breath caught when Drago touched him and Drago mistook it for pain. Areostar saw his eyes go hard as he sat up and examined the arm in earnest. When he put pressure on the point of the break it did hurt but this time Aerostar controlled his reaction. The pattern of Pentagón’s arm breaks was too well known, it would give him away and Aerostar had no idea how he could explain it.
When did Pentagón get a hold of you?
When you fed me to him and then watched it happen. You haven’t done it yet. But it’s okay, it wasn’t really you. The only thing you’ve ever been afraid of happening to you happened and I couldn’t stop it, that’s all.
Yes, that was a conversation that would go well and not break time at all.
To his relief Areostar managed to control himself enough to satisfy Drago that the arm was nothing serious; he stretched back out in the sun and invited Aerostar to do the same. “We can’t afford you getting injured when we have titles to defend.”
“Fénix could pick up my slack if it came to that.”
“And I couldn’t? We have a new partner and you’ve given up on me already?”
“I will never give up on you.”
Drago gave him a look and for a second Aerostar thought that was it, he had given himself away, but Drago’s expression just turned indulgent before he closed his eyes again. Apparently Areostar made dramatic pronouncements enough for that statement to not be all that out of character.
He hoped Drago remembered him saying that, wherever he was locked away now.
“If I fall asleep make sure to wake me before our match,” Drago said, interrupting his thoughts.
“Of course.”
He was running out of safe days. Each day he revisited was a day barred to him afterward, and it wouldn’t be long now before there would be nothing but days too far back to pass as his past self. He didn’t know what he would do when all of his doors finally closed.
He caught Drago staring at him, worry in his eyes again. “What is wrong with you today?”
Aerostar shook his head. “Nothing is wrong today. Thinking of things I shouldn’t be, that’s all.” He sat up and put one hand on Drago’s shoulder. “Go to sleep. I’ll wake you at sunset.”
Drago grumbled but complied, his eyes closing. Aerostar listened as his breathing grew deep and even, stroking his thumb along the curve of Drago’s shoulder.
He tried not to shiver as the sun dipped closer to the horizon, the shadows on the Temple’s roof growing longer and reaching toward them.