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Last night had gone by in a blur. Allan turned out to be a pretty stand up guy, once you ignored everything the man was saying. All that gibberish had gone right over Robert's head, and that was where it belonged. The labs had patched him up real nice, but he was still sore as hell - just not sore enough to keep him from enjoying a nice, quiet (HAH) night with his fiancee. He'd slept a nice, deep sleep after that, and dreamed ridiculous dreams where he was the king of France and made everyone do what he said just by waving a giant glowing wand.

It was pretty freaking cool.

When he woke up the next morning, the bed felt so good that he groaned and tried to fall back asleep. His arm curled up around Petra to pull her closer, and- well, what he assumed was Petra, but definitely did not feel like Petra. In fact it was cold, and far too soft to be any human, really.

"Baby?" He murmured, releasing the soft downy white pillow and turning back to look around the room with slit eyes, expecting to see that fine a** walking about. If she'd put her clothes on already, he was going to rip them back off and-

White.

"Holy ******** christ on a cracker-" He cleared his throat as he heard his own voice, which had exclaimed in surprise at all the BRIGHTNESS in the giant room he found himself in. Everything was so white, so clean, so RIDICULOUSLY PERFECT WHAT THE HELL. He felt like he was in a hospital. A big, super-clean, uptight, rich hospital.

Had his injuries at the hands of Cael and slice of Circe really been that bad? He didn't realize he'd needed to be transferred to a real hospital. Maybe he'd started bleeding overnight, and Petra had called for-

"Petra."

With that thought, he lurched himself up off the bed and put his feet on the floor, rubbing his head with both hands while he struggled to try and get out of the room. He had to find her and let her know he was okay. God, she was probably so worried.

When he stood, the world felt wrong. He realized everything seemed just a little too high for his tastes, and assumed it was just another factor in this stupid snooty hospital. At least he wasn't wearing a hospital gown, he was-

HOLY s**t WHERE DID ALL HIS SEXY MUSCLES GO.

"N-NUUUUUUUUUURSE??" He screamed, stumbling loosely to the door and flinging it open. What he saw was definitely not a hospital hallway - instead, it was a really familiar looking room.

Caelius' office.

And now, Robert was really scared for his life.

"Phone.. phone.. ******** where is my ******** phone.. what the ******** is even wrong with my voice god-damn I sound like such a p***y mother-"

He had turned around and started searching the bedroom for a phone, stopping only when he found it and flipped it open. This definitely wasn't his phone, that was obvious in an instant - but that didn't matter to him. It didn't even register.

His eyes weren't focusing on the images on the screen of the phone. He was staring, unfocused, at the reflection that just barely made itself visible against the light of the screen.

His own ********."

So, yes. Robert was in Caelius' body. He'd taken a shower, gotten a full view of what he had to work with, and he knew it could have been worse. Still, Circe's reaction was bothering him. And even worse, what did that mean for his body? And for Cael himself? Was Caelius walking around in Robert's body? And if so, was Robert going to have to kill his superior officer for sleeping with his fiancee?

Because he would. He ******** would. Especially now that he had Circe, and not Cael.

Well, he sort of had her.

WHAT MATTERED HERE, he convinced himself angrily, was that Caelius did NOT have Circe. That gave him the upper hand. Somewhat.

He tried not to think about the mere idea that Petra would bang Caelius in his body, and focused instead on how to rectify the situation. The first thing he did was dry himself off, and get a new pair of pants - the simple black pajama pants he'd been wearing to sleep would work, for now. He wasn't going to wear that stuffy white shirt, however - and when he looked through Caelius' scant wardrobe, he realized every single thing the man owned was stuffy.

So he went shirtless.

The office was pretty boring. Books, papers, important documents meant ~for Caelius' eyes only~, and probably lots of stuff Robert wasn't supposed to touch or see. Caelius was lucky, in a sense, that Robert was the type of man to keep his eyes and hands off of dangerous documents - he had no interest in the secret workings of Deus Ex Machina. He knew they were probably up to no good, maybe funded by some mafia or ridiculously old man who thought the world needed to be purged of evil in any form - probably used to be a Nazi or something. What mattered was, Robert didn't care. And so, as he flopped down in Caelius' chair, and lifted his feet up to rest on Caelius' desk, he stared at the suspicious looking door that clearly beckoned for a nosy person to enter it. He sat there, and he stared, and then he opened up his phone, and started looking for something interesting.

"Solitaire.. solitaire.. are you kidding me? What the ******** do you do in this office all day if you're not playing a game or something, just wank off?" Robert pulled his legs away rather quickly, and stuck his head under the desk, looking for stains. It was as pristine and clean as everything else in the room, so his feet went back up on the desk, and he went back to fiddling with Caelius' phone.

The man had 236 unread texts. Robert whistled low in awe. "The man's got a real problem checking his s**t.." He whispered to himself, before closing the phone without reading a single one.

The phone rang cold and distantly, as yet another text came through. He almost ignored it, if not for the name he saw on the front of the phone, indicating it's sender. He flipped it open, and read it, holding his breath.



Boner killer.

He clicked reply, and stared at the empty screen for a minute. What was he going to say? What COULD he say? Caelius' phone wasn't fitted with his spelling app, but it did have auto-correct on, so Robert's return message ended up even weirder than usual.

Candace had been sleeping quite peacefully in her bed. She'd just finished a good book, cuddled up to her little Jerr the Bear and fallen right asleep. It'd been a long day and she was tired. She had even been having a very, very nice dream when she was suddenly startled awake by her phone going off with a new text. She made a grab for her phone, squinting against the bright light of her screen.

miss..CANDACE...yo? word?

...What the <********>? She double-checked who the text was from, staring incredulously at the screen. Why her? Why did he want her to tell H...what? But...what? He had to be drunk. He just had to be. That explained the text itself but the content..

Why her? Did someone say something? How did Caelius of all people..

He had to be drunk. He just had to be. Maybe it was just her because..she was near the top of the trainee contact list? It was alphabetical, right? He could've just picked a random name...it was coincidence. It had to be coincidence.



She put the phone down and then snuggled up to the teddy bear again.

..No, that wasn't enough.



There. She felt better now. Come what may, she felt damn good about that text. Aria would be proud.

Candace dreamed happy dreams after that.

Robert yelped and fell out of the chair when the door was knocked on, but he quickly recovered and stood up, one hand slamming down on the table as he posed dramatically in an effort to look professional. Despite being shirtless.

Then he changed his pose, and put both hands down, before raising one of his hands up to his hip and tilting his body slightly. When that didn't feel right, he stood up straight, put both hands on his hips, and spread his legs out mightily.

He felt like a superhero. It was kind of cool.

Finally, he settled on walking around to the front of the desk, leaning back on it, and putting his hands on the edge behind him. His lean body stretched out languidly, and his shook his head, letting the long, badly cut hair flow like a hair commercial around him.

There may have been some sparkles.

"Come in, Miss Reine. Come in."

In all the years Robert had ever known Reine, he'd never seen her like this. She looked demure, and shy, and just plain calm. ******** Caelius for having this power on the trainees. <********> him. It wasn't fair, he was just one man. One man with a giant weapon and a tendency to kill people who put the wrong amount of sugar in his coffee. So what? He shouldn't be able to make Reine blush. Not when Robert never had that ******** him.

"Oh, Reine, Reine, Reine," 'Caelius chanted, as he pushed himself off the desk and started pacing the room. It was a very Caelius thing to do, but Robert's movements were slower, more predatory. He kept looking over at the girl, to see if she was looking.

She wasn't.

"It's a lonely life, you know." He sighed melodramatically, and waved his hand in the air. "Big man in charge of all this.. madness. People coming to and fro, asking me what to do, where to go.." Was he talking in a British accent? Stop that, he told himself. Caelius didn't have an accent. Just because he was an uppity b***h didn't mean he was going to start going 'Wotcher, pip pip cheerio wot care for a spot of tea'. He had to play this cool, or he'd be outed in a moment, and what would be the fun in that?

He stopped pacing in front of Reine, and picked her chin up with one hand so she could look at him. He wanted to see what she saw, in the reflection of her eyes. What was so special about this guy that made people shake in their boots?

"I'm not so awesome, you know." He murmured, in a genuine tone that Caelius had probably not used his entire life, as far as Robert knew. "I'm just a guy. I wake up, I brush my teeth, I put my pants on one leg at a time. I'm nothing special."

Listening to Reine go on and on about Caelius was just pissing him off. Amazing? Wasn't this the man who slammed her into a pod and left her there, awake, aware, and for all she knew, forever? How ******** up was Reine, to think a man like this was amazing?

It hadn't sunk in that she'd called him hot, yet. He was too busy staring far too deeply into her eyes, trying with all of his might to figure out just what the ******** was going on in that mind of hers. How could she. How could she.

And then it hit him, and launched backwards in disgust.

"HOT?" He sputtered out incredulously, hands waving wildly in the air. "Are you SHITTING me? Look at this body! I've got like, nothing. NOTHING." He kept slapping his chest, until the skin started to turn red. "Maybe if I took to the gym more often.. but come ON Reine, you've got to be kidding me."

He'd completely abandoned his facade, and regretted it instantly. His face sobered up, and he sighed in a dramatic fashion. "Well, maybe you should look again. I think you've got all the wrong ideas of me, trainee, and maybe if you knew me better, you wouldn't say such things."

Hot. Him. Him. He looked back at the reflection of Caelius in the glass of a cabinet, and frowned. As if.

Robert didn't like this game anymore. He'd already come to accept Reine was a different person from the girl he'd practically obsessed over for most of his life, but to be so completely different, and to be so gentle to a man who didn't even deserve it, was starting to make Robert's eyes sting with sadness. If Reine was going to soften up and make goo-goo eyes, it should have been.. well it shouldn't have been with Caelius, that was for sure. She deserved better.

At least, he thought she deserved better.

He didn't know what Reine deserved anymore. Every day was just another reminder that he didn't know his best friend the way he thought he had.

And this game was really starting to hurt.

"No, go ahead." He slumped against his desk, though the sexy pose was long gone. Now he just looked dejected. "I'm literally dying to know what you really think, Reine. I haven't got a clue, anymore."

There was a distance in her voice, and Robert felt a heavy weight suddenly lift his heart. Maybe, just maybe, as sad as this had been, he'd actually done some good in a roundabout way. Maybe she would stop looking for trouble with a guy like Caelius, and go find someone who wouldn't kill her as quick as he'd look at her.

Maybe.

Or maybe Reine would never change, and Robert should have given up on her long before he actually had.

"Yeah, k-" He sobered up, trying to act the part of Caelius once more, and gave her a narrowed glare. "You can go, trainee."

He should have told Deryk to come with the beer earlier.