Chapter Text
If anything, the process was largely scientific.
It would be in poor form for him to bother with anything that wasn't. Impolite, inconsiderate, hungrily selfish, whatever you'd prefer to call it. But he is, first and foremost, a man bound by logic, and so he finds himself, buried beneath manilla folders and ballpoint pens, at his desk.
Dark ink lays thick across his tongue, left to linger after countless nights spent gnawing on the ends of fountain pen tips and licking his thumb to turn a page. Which is fine, really. Thus is the way of the world, it seems. He'll rub his fingertips on a shirt already plagued with stains and pray that no amount of the metallic sting still clinging to the insides of his cheeks can dampen his pursuit. This is fine. This is normal. When a lightbulb splutters and pops somewhere overhead, spilling thin glass across the concrete, it's okay, really, that he flinches violently enough to make his back ache. All is as it was meant to be.
Here, in this room, he walks a tightrope. He breathes life into an experiment, a measure of just how far he can get before pulling himself from the ledge. There are things that need to be done, places to be searched and torn apart and then searched again.
He cannot afford a lack of scrutiny. For their sakes, he cannot afford a lack of scrutiny.
He hasn't eaten in two days.
It shouldn't bother him as much as it does. Maybe there's a voice, more similar to Roier's than his own, that needles him about the lack of self-preservation. Maybe, if he can get it to just shut the fuck up for a second, then maybe he could get some more work done.
Maybe, maybe, always fucking maybe.
Despite his best efforts, the dull whine of 'gohomegetsomerestsleeptilnoonleavethisplacegohomegohomegohome' seems to be steadily gaining ground over his waning rationality.
He swallows it down, chased by ibuprofen and stale coffee.
Slapping the keyboard in front of him with aching fingertips, he shoves a stack of frantically-written and utterly incomprehensible pages from his workspace, groaning aloud as the papers flutter down to settle at his feet. There's an uncomfortable moment or two where the room is silent save for his own breathing, and it's enough to startle a second, more diminshed groan out of Cellbit's empty chest.
He has never considered himself a lucky man. When he begs the universe to wash away that suffocating silence, the only response he receives in return is the gentle swirling of his mouse pointer before his screen darkens completely, the telltale jingle of unsaved files echoing softly within the room.
Cellbit can see his reflection in the dark fuzz of the monitor, lit only by the gently-swaying lightbulbs overhead. It's the first time he's seen himself in days, perhaps edging on a week by now.
He doesn't care for it.
Not at all.
Because it's harder to ignore the time he's spent away from home when he meets his own eyes, hollow in their sockets and ringed with ever-darkening circles. His hair is messy, his beard far too overgrown for his liking, and everything about him looks troublingly, profoundly, dead. He's all angles now, gaunt and hollow in all the wrong places. Walking corpse, his mind supplies, and the thought rises like bile in his throat. He certainly can't say it's the most put-together he's ever looked in his life. The low lighting and darkened screen do him no favors.
But for as much as he physically screams it, Cellbit finds that he can't actually feel the hunger, nor the drowsiness. Perhaps he's reached that blissful, over-tired state, where it all loops back around to being restless energy again. Everything is pleasantly dulled, the hunger pangs infrequent and much less acute than they would have been had he ever outlined a way to eat properly when left to his own devices. A low hum, maybe, if he were in a prose-y type of mood.
He's not in any kind of mood right now.
The thought strikes him as being far more serious than he'd originally intended, and he takes to drumming his fingers against his desk as the computer boots up again in an effort to sever the train of thought. Anything to keep him occupied, to keep the slip off the edge just that much further away. Feeling blank like this means his time is running out. However unfortunate in the present, a quick nap at his desk should keep that at bay, at least for a bit.
The thought of shutting his eyes, even briefly, is downright terrifying. The idea alone is motivation enough to keep him afloat, he thinks, at least for another day or so, which is good. It also promises an inevitable end to his fight, which is less-so, but he's learned to take what he can get. Anything to ward off another impending embarrassment, another thing that goes bump in the night.
God, he hasn't slept properly in days.
No rest for the wicked, he supposes. It doesn't make his eyes sting any less.
As the bright screens of his monitors flicker back to life, Cellbit squints at the blue light that fills his vision, blinking shifting spots out of the corners of his eyes. He shakes his head. Flexes the taut muscles of his hands. Cracks his neck.
He's ready for this.
He fucking has to be.
His watch pings, and suddenly, he's nowhere again, nothing again, sitting in a stupor and not getting anything done.
He checks the thing anyway. It's a bad habit, one of many he intends to break if he wants his research to proceed in the ways that it needs to.
iRoier: GATINHO
iRoier: ayyyyy man
iRoier: q tal
iRoier: Where are you at right now?
Among other things, Cellbit is distinctly glad that he disabled read receipts a long, long time ago.
He stares at the string of messages and lets the screen grow dark, white text dissolving into nothingness.
It's almost possible to convince himself that his heart hurts more than his head, but logic always wins out in the end. They barely know each other. Getting lost in daydreams and could-be's isn't anything even approaching useful.
They haven't even gone on a real, proper date yet, and he's still hopeless.
Maybe that's just the way Roier is; a man hopeful enough, good enough, that the moon and the stars hang themselves in the sky to light his path. A man who cares enough to suck Cellbit, kicking and screaming, into his orbit.
Regardless, his distraction is equal parts welcome and loathed. For as much as Cellbit can delight in the warmth of the other man's eyes, the way his hair falls after he's been on a particularly exciting tangent, or the gentle touch of a hand on Cellbit's shoulder, callouses rough and grounding where they meet his dress shirt, it can't be good for him. It can't be good for either of them.
Cellbit is ruination, destruction, every mad scientist's vivid wet dream. He has had an entire lifetime to perfect the horrific and distasteful. He has a debt to pay, a mystery to solve, a hunger to satiate. There is no happy ending for men like him.
Indulging in a relationship, especially when he has responsibilities and obligations and work that's sitting directly in front of him, practically begging to be sifted through, is not "practical" or "scientific" or anything else Cellbit can claim to be.
He needs to call it what it is: a desperate, lonely man looking to dodge his workload by entertaining childish fantasies.
Fuck, man. He's doomed.
He pries his eyes away from his lap, where the watch now sits, cradled in stiff fabric. He'd removed it (hours?) (days?) a while back, once the material had rubbed his forearm halfway to raw after spending so much time against a keyboard. Apparently, its new position also makes it considerably easier to ignore the flickering light of the screen as new messages flood in. All he has to do is toggle his notifications to mute and turn the device over against his slacks.
The wall of messages grows, and Cellbit remains blissfully ignorant of the interference. All is as it should be.
He ignores the stiff ache in his legs, ignores the way his stomach churns, ignores the feeling of water sloshing around inside his skull. He pinches the space above his nose bridge and takes another swig of cold coffee. He sifts through decoders and stolen files and who-knows-whats with shoulders slouched and one arm gripping the worn leather of his desk chair. All is as it is meant to be.
All is as it is meant to be. All is as it is meant to be.
He gets about two more hours of work done before his head impacts the wood of his desk, consciousness bleeding out of his body at last.
All things considered, it's a solid effort. But it can never be enough.
No, he will not let it be enough.
He wakes up some time later with a gasp and a hastily choked-back sob, throat raw from a dream he can't remember. He can't tell how much time has passed, considering the lack of even digital clocks in his workspace, but he knows it's been too long. His eyes drift across ruined paperwork, cheek sticking to tiny puddles of ink where his writing has lifted off of the paper as he raises his head with a groan. Peeling the crumpled sheet off gently, he massages the bruise that has emerged on one of his temples. Where his head met the desk, most likely. He can't feel it, aside from the extra, fluttering pulse in his head, though he knows that logically, he should.
Maybe the act of acknowledging it will be enough for his body to make sense of itself?
It is not.
Cellbit wants to fall back asleep. Cellbit wants to keep tearing through his work until something, anything at all, changes. Cellbit wants a lot of things. A lot of things he cannot have.
A muffled thumping is coming from the door. As his world comes into focus, he can easily pinpoint it as being the cause of his rude awakening. Someone is yelling something, but through the thick metal of his office door, nothing even remotely comprehensible passes across the threshold.
He can't make out the exact voice behind the door, but he knows beyond any doubt that it can't be the soft, lilting hum of Cucurucho, and the realization drives equal parts shame and relief into his heart. Shame, because he has spent every waking moment on this island preparing himself solely for the purposes of confrontation, and here he is, quaking at the barest hint of it. Relief, because even Cellbit can recognize when he's worked himself up into some kind of state, and he knows that even a passing mention of that thing could send him into a rather unproductive spiral for the rest of the (day?) (afternoon?) night.
Pushing himself up from his desk chair on arms he's hesitant to admit shake slightly, Cellbit moves to answer the door. Assisted by first his desk and then the drywall, he makes his way over slowly, dress shoes clacking against the wooden floors.
He pushes off of the wall as he inputs the door code and turns the handle. He can't be seen as vulnerable, not now, especially considering that he doesn't feel like diving deeper into the knocker's identity before he welcomes them in. Pathetic that he can't, and still, he won't. He can at least make himself look half-presentable before ushering in his own death.
"Ay, man, missed you today!" exclaims a slightly winded-looking Roier as the door swings open fully. His hair is tousled and his shirt is askew, but it is, beyond any kind of doubt, Roier who meets him in the doorway. "Where were you at? Well, like, here. But I mean, in general. You-"
Cellbit has stopped hearing things, apparently, because whatever Roier says next is lost in a wave of internal static. His vision is quick to follow, swimming briefly until it, too, is consumed by fuzzy, incomprehensible darkness. Double whammy. That's a little fucked.
He indulges himself, allows the world to get a good, dizzying spin in before he really lets the urgency kick in. As soon as it starts, though, the ringing in his ears ceases, and he steadies himself as his eyes clear.
He's slumped back against the wall now, nearly doubled over with his palms braced against his thighs. Anything to keep him upright, anything to get this over with and get back to work. He dares to glance up through his eyebrows at Roier, and is mildly suprised to see that he's met with concerned confusion.
To be fair, he might be reading a little bit too far into the concerned part of the look, but confusion, he decides, is definitely present.
"Hooooly shit. Uh." Roier swallows, hands dancing in the air as he wrestles between wanting to help and not knowing how to. "That's bad, that's… ¡mierda!, ah, I'm going to have to… touch you, okay? Not like that. Not like that. I said it, and then I thought about it, and-"
Cellbit waves a hand in the other man's direction, the other coming up to rub at his brow. "Just a… just a little," He waves the free hand again, searching for the word he wants. "Headrush. Don't worry too much about it." He means for the words to come off as dismissive, carefree, altogether more coherent than Cellbit feels that he is at the moment. Through grit teeth, however, everything he says seems to filter through a layer of poorly-concealed pain.
Not too far from the truth, now that he can take stock of himself again. His scars dance with phantom pain, and the tightened skin bordering them cinches around his limbs in a decidedly unpleasant way. When he flexes his fingers, old aches melt into new ones, and Cellbit is fairly certain that he can expect much of the same from the joints in his knees and ankles, all in various degrees of failure. Hard to be sure, though, given the buzz that seems to hollow out his bones no matter how deeply his body might be hurting.
Now that he's slept, the hunger is back too, all-consuming, and apparently, headrush-inducing. Cellbit can call himself a lot of things, but an optimist is not one of them. He's on borrowed time before he crashes, and he knows it.
But Roier is an open wound of vulnerability and, perhaps even worse, possibility. The possibility that, if Cellbit just asked, Roier would let him stay the night, and they could fall asleep tangled around each other, curled in on themselves like they were always meant to be woven so thoroughly together. The possibility that his work could wait, if just for a night. A possibility he can not afford to chase.
He needs him out.
When Roier reaches to gently stabilize his still-shaking body, Cellbit bats his hands away, and yet Roier persists. And yet, Roier cups his face with one, warm hand, forcing Cellbit's gaze up to meet his own. And yet, and yet, and yet.
Every nerve in Cellbit's body is alight with something he can't name, but it burns through him all the same.
He's fucking doomed.
"I'm fine. Get out." The command could be called half-hearted on a generous day, but most days are not particularly kind to Cellbit, so he calls it what it is. Insincere. Wanting. Longing. Desperate. Pathetic.
"You're a fucking liar is what you are." Roier juts his bottom lip out in an almost comical pout. "And an idiot. My place is best, no?" The sentence ends as a question, but Cellbit knows that there is no question about where Roier is taking him as long as they both still breathe.
Roier wrestles with his bodyweight for only a second before the shorter man has Cellbit draped across one shoulder, a hand at his middle on either side.
"Really, I shouldn't. I'm sorry, but-" Cellbit is quick to protest, though the moment his words begin to slur into one another he knows that he has little ground left to stand on. Roier only shushes him (as if he were a child, can you imagine?) as the pair begin their slow trek towards Roier's home.
"Ah, buh, buh, buh, Cellbo. None of that," Roier punctuates his fussing with a gentle poke at Cellbit's side. "A man who looks like you do right now should not be arguing with me like this."
Cellbit shoots his best attempt at a glare over his shoulder. Roier only grins and bats his eyelashes.
"You've got issues, man. That's all I'm saying."
Time slips through Cellbit's brain with troubling ease. When Roier returns to focus again, there are snapping fingers fizzling into view in front of his face.
"Mm, yeah?" He mumbles noncommittally, humming as his vision regains clarity.
It's a whole ordeal, really, speaking. Forming the words, working his throat to try and communicate the precision of his thoughts without losing his own meaning. But mostly, specific ideas escape him now. They float lazily by, waiting to be plucked out of the sky and chewed through.
Roier snaps into view rather abruptly, the hand in front of Cellbit's face now waving up and down in front of his eyes.
"Hey. We're here. Vamos, man, come on. Don't have a sword on me." Cellbit is brought back down to Earth only by the urgency in the other man's voice. Urgency. He knows urgency, he can do urgency. Urgency is palatable, urgency has protocols. This is good. Urgency is good.
Well, not good, good. But close enough.
Cellbit grips the sleeve of Roier's sweatshirt and nods as if he understands. He doesn't, not really, because he knows he's missed time, but the reassurance is all that Roier needs to return them to their previous pace.
As they trace the worn path across a stone bridge, Cellbit finally intakes his surroundings. They're at Roier's place now. To be expected, though he still startles a bit when he realizes how much ground they must have traveled. Even with a waystone, he's certain that it couldn't have been long enough.
It had to have been, though, because Roier has now paused under the cover of his porch to scan Cellbit's face again. He finds that he can't trust certainty these days, and this time is apparently no exception to that rule.
"Gatinho?" Roier prompts, dragging the vowels out as he rests a hand against Cellbit's shoulder.
"Hi, guapito. Is there… is there a problem?" He suddenly feels a little self-conscious, shrinking slightly under Roier's gaze.
"No! No, no, no. You just seemed a little out of it, yeah?" Roier tilts his head, dark eyes still flitting over every inch of the disheveled man at his side. "I was going to ask if you wanted me to grab some food, is all."
Cellbit begins to shake his head, but Roier has apparently already decided for him, because the other turns immediately to start fiddling with the door.
The moment he gets it unlocked, he ushers Cellbit in at a frankly ridiculous speed, one hand against the small of his back to help push him through the entryway. As quickly as it had opened, the door shuts behind the pair, and Roier claps his hands together as if to rid himself of imaginary dust.
The first thought Cellbit has is that he likes the place. A lot, actually. He likes it a lot. It's cozy, it feels lived-in even when every room is silent. Almost like the Favela, maybe, if Cellbit's company only slept a little more quietly.
Roier snaps his fingers again, and the illusion is lost in sympathetic smiles and crinkling eyes.
"I'm going to grab you a new set of clothes, okay? Don't go anywhere." Folding his arms before dashing out of the room, Roier exits on a quest for fresh laundry while Cellbit seriously considers slipping out of the front door while he's gone.
It'd be easy to leave. Painfully so. It would be easy to power his little flip-phone off and return his watch to an office corner to collect dust.
He hasn't eaten in two days.
Since when did that begin to matter?
Since Roier began to matter.
This fucking sucks, he decides succinctly.
Roier returns quickly and, true to his word, appears with a bundle of clothes. The entire exchange is wordless, though Cellbit tries for a tired smile as thanks. They still don't speak as Roier guides him to the bathroom, hand lingering on his back once more, as if the shorter man is still worried that Cellbit could crumble to dust at any moment. He briefly wonders if something had shifted, somehow, for the flow of conversation to have ended so suddenly.
Cellbit changes as fast as he can. He covers the mirrors with a bath towel. Even then, he still faces the wall as he redresses, unwilling to confront whatever he might see reflected back at him. It is, as most things in his life have become, a challenge reserved for future-Cellbit. Once he gets Felps back, everything else can fall into place. Once he gets Felps back, he can finally afford to get a proper breath or two in. Only then. Only then.
A knock on the door breaks him out of his stupor, and when Cellbit turns the handle, Roier is once again tipped against the doorframe, shoulder resting on a bit of trim as his hand hovers in the air, ready to knock a second time.
"You eat like… people-food, right?" Roier blurts, his outstretched hand shifting to rub at the back of his neck. "I'm sorry if that's a weird ask, or whatever, it's just, I know Jaiden likes some odd stuff sometimes because she's got like. Bird stuff going on, but I didn't know for sure if you had other needs or something, and I don't want to assume, so-"
"Yeah, man. Anything you're willing to give me is more than enough," Cellbit interrupts, fondness seeping, unbidden, into his words.
Roier brightens again, and he latches on to Cellbit's arm, dragging them both out into the kitchen. Cellbit is immediately coaxed into a seat at the small kitchen island while Roier juggles two plates and two bottles of water across the room, tongue stuck out of the corner of his mouth as he concentrates.
Cellbit almost moves to intervene, but by the time his body can cooperate with his command to stand up, a steaming bowl of soup, a sandwich, and some bottled water are being slid in front of him.
With a practiced ease, Roier claims the spot across from him, leaning against the countertop and resting his chin on one hand.
"So," He starts, and Cellbit only barely resists rolling his eyes. "Care to explain?"
"Explain what, exactly?"
Roier dishes out an impressively unamused stare.
"This!" He gestures towards Cellbit's thin frame, hunched over his plate as a result of both weariness and wariness. "It's not healthy, and I think… I think you know that."
"It doesn't matter what I think. Felps is still missing, and nothing I'm doing is getting me any closer." Cellbit shoves a spoonful of soup into his mouth with considerably more force than necessary. "Something had to give. I appreciate the concern, really, I do. But I was and will continue to be fine. Tudo bem. Really, man. It's alright."
"Por los clavos de Cristo, güey, just eat your fucking food, then." Roier's voice is soft despite the melodrama, a stark departure from his usual tone. "We can talk later."
Cellbit resists rolling his eyes again and continues to shove food into his mouth. They don't speak again, but he can feel the crawl of Roier's eyes across his body as he eats, and Cellbit wonders whether it ever gets tiring, studying someone so mundane for so long. Then, he wonders if perhaps there's something in his hair or teeth or whatever that has captured Roier's attention.
Again, he feels his face heat with his sudden self-awareness. Shoving a final bite in his mouth, Cellbit rises from his chair and pushes the dishes towards Roier, not quite brave enough to meet his eyes.
Towards Roier, who is still fucking staring at him.
He doesn't care. He doesn't.
He feels his cheeks warm for what seems to be the millionth time this evening.
"Thank you for your, uh… hospitality, but I should really go. My clothes are in the other room still, but I should be out of here in a couple of minutes. Thank you again, guapito. I mean it."
"What the fuck are you saying right now, man? You're tired. You're not going to get anything done without some sleep. Trust me." Roier grabs onto his arm again, tugging the sleeve of Cellbit's borrowed shirt into one fist.
"We have the space. Jaiden and Bobby won't mind if you stay here. And I can't, like, morally let you go. Bet you'd fuck back off to your office and maybe die in there if I let you." Roier sighs, releasing his grip at last and stepping back. "But it's your choice. I'm not going to keep you here. But I won't feel good about you leaving, you know? You… you gotta take better care of yourself, man."
Fuuuuuuuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
"That's… thank you. Thank you, Roier." He doesn't mean it as acceptance, not really. He just wants him to understand how much the gesture means. Cellbit considers it, because of course he does, and God, does it sound incredibly tempting.
The thought of curling up, even just on a couch, as Roier snores quietly in the other room, hair drifting across his cheekbones as he breathes, is enough to make his heart flutter strangely. Privately, Cellbit wonders if the warmth creeping up his face has taken up permanent residence there.
This is a bad decision. This is a shitty, shitty decision, and his hesitancy to even answer the invitation directly indicates that he has been compromised. There is work to be done. There are people who are counting on him to do the right thing here.
Everything still hurts. The weight of exhaustion pulls his thoughts down every time he so much as blinks. It would be easy to allow Roier to lead him to warmth, and soft linen sheets, and quiet admiration. It would be easier still to leave the pain of his work behind tonight, even if he didn't stay as per Roier's request.
But regardless of any argument Cellbit can build for himself, Roier has already taken his non-answer as just the opposite; he returns both hands to Cellbit's shoulders and begins to steer them both towards another doorway.
Cellbit doesn't have enough fight left in him to protest, much less break free of whatever descent into madness has incurred him.
When he examines the thought further, he finds that he doesn't even mind that much.
God, this is fucking pathetic.
He can't bring himself to care.
Once Roier realizes that he isn't fighting their trip down the hall, the hands that had been pushing him sloppily through the house instead come to rest gently on his shoulders. A reassurance that, if Cellbit were to fall, Roier would be there to catch him.
Maybe he's reading too far into this again.
He really, really hopes that he isn't.
When Roier breaks the contact to twist open a doorknob, Cellbit's trance drops once more, daydreams fading into vague thoughts again. He fiddles with it for only a moment before beckoning Cellbit into the room.
"Welcome, welcome," Roier says as the two step fully inside.
When Cellbit says nothing, he continues:
"It's nice, no? Jaiden says I need to decorate more, or something, but I think it looks fine. Anyway," And there's that searching look again, "You've got the right side, I'm on the left, okay?"
"What? That's-" Cellbit pauses, searching for the right way to phrase what he means. "Hey, I can't just take your bed, man, that's- I couldn't."
"That's great! But we're sharing, dumbass." And God, does Roier look so triumphant, teeth flashing in one of the widest grins that Cellbit has ever seen.
"I- okay. Okay," Cellbit agrees, stunned and more than a little bit embarrassed. For what, he doesn't know, but it's almost overwhelming, suddenly. Nothing about this conversation feels real, feels possible. "It's- I sleep on the left, though. Usually. If that's- uh, if that's okay? I don't- stupid question, stupid question. I-"
"Aw, shit, no problem! No te preocupes. Don't worry about it."
Cellbit blinks, slowly, as he comprehends the absurdity of what he's just said. Oh, God. He's gone off the fucking deep end. Officially.
Maybe when they wake up he can blame it on the sleep deprivation. Or something.
When he lingers in the doorway for a little too long, Roier makes his way over again from the side of the bed, gently placing a hand on Cellbit's arm.
"You okay? Still with me?" Cellbit just hums in response, shoulders slouching as Roier once again leads him slowly across wooden floorboards. As soon as Cellbit's knees hit the bed, he knows he's down and out for the foreseeable future, because Roier's bed is ridiculously comfortable. Some of it is the exhaustion talking, but considerably more of it is the money talking. Sometimes he forgets how well-off Roier is, resources-wise. The bed makes it that much easier to remember.
Either way, as Roier tucks himself under the covers next to him, Cellbit can already feel himself dozing off.
"Goodnight, Gatinho," Roier manages through a yawn. As he reaches over to tug the lamp cord, the room is bathed in darkness, and Cellbit slips even further into unconsciousness.
"'Night, guapito."
Just as Cellbit fully succumbs to sleep, he can feel an arm drape hesitantly behind his head. Even if his body burns at the touch, he leans into it without a moment of thought. It's as easy as breathing. Easier, maybe.
And then he's out.
When he cracks his eyes open again, sleep lingers heavily within his body. The sun has risen, though only just barely, light from the dawn streaming through massive, circular windows. He guesses that it's around 6 or so, give or take.
There's something weighing down his torso.
It takes everything Cellbit has not to fling himself from its grasp, whatever has seized him in his sleep. It takes even more in order to swallow the cry that the thought brings.
But when he slowly twists his head to face whatever it is that has him trapped, he's both startled and deeply embarrassed to find only Roier, one arm circling Cellbit's head while the other, offending arm rests on top of Cellbit's chest.
Oh.
The other man is snoring softly, and Cellbit has half a mind to lay in bed until Roier wakes on his own, but he knows when he's overstayed his welcome.
And he has really overstayed this time. There is no doubt in his mind.
Carefully, he peels himself from the sheets and out from under Roier's embrace, still blinking the drowsiness out of his eyes. He's still in Roier's clothes, but he finds that his own are now washed and folded neatly on the floor near the foot of the bed. The thought that someone had touched his belongings while he slept sends electricity buzzing through his body, but he relaxes only when he realizes that Jaiden was likely the one responsible.
He'll have to thank her the next time they talk.
Once again, he changes quickly, leaving the borrowed clothes folded in place of his own after he finishes. He spares the sleeping form of Roier only a glance. It's still a longer pause than he would've liked.
He contemplates writing a note, just out of courtesy, but decides that a text would be sufficient. He needs to be back at his desk. He can't linger here any longer than he already has.
Cellbit: thank u for letting me stay last night.
Cellbit: i'm sorry for disappearing this morning. if u need me, u know where i'll be
Cellbit: sleep well, guapito.