Morning came all too quickly, and I wish that I could say that was only the case for myself and not for everyone else.
Lindsey was practically a vibrating pile of nervous energy, Rudy's tail had tucked itself between his legs the moment he emerged into the main room and hadn't come out since, and Rajan's tail was swishing in a way I knew from owning cats meant he was agitated. I could understand all of those reactions, of course. I just tried very hard not to show them that I was just as close to freaking out as they were.
To be a successful thief, one needs to be calm.
… But this was a big job. This was an important job. It was a job t hat could either end in us reigning triumphant over a bomber with our city safe, able to go back to work post haste, or in Paris laying in ruins and our lives crumpled to dust and potentially swept away just like that. It was high stakes, high reward, and I've always had a bit of a gambling addiction but this was ridiculous.
I forced myself not to shiver at the thoughts of failure and just waited for Rudy or Lindsey to report in, as they'd left to do recon a couple of hours ago.
It had been a tense, quiet couple of hours in the meantime. Rajan and I weren't talking much, not that we really talked a ton anyway, and I don't think holding a friendly conversation was really on his mind at the time. It definitely wasn't on mine, seeing as I was preoccupied worrying my head off about my two best friends.
"How are you so calm?" Rajan's voice, at last, broke the silence.
He sounded disbelieving and maybe even a little annoyed, which was, you know what? Understandable.
"I'm not," I said, truthfully, because I didn't have it in me to sass him at the time, "I'm scared to death… Just trying to ignore it so I can do my job when that time comes."
Resuming drumming my fingers on the table, as I had been before, I saw him giving me a good looking at from the corner of my eye. It was then that he seemed to notice how much I was moving around―as a thief, I'm hardly ever still without reason, but nervous me borders on outright hyperactive. I was, as I said, drumming my fingers on the table, constantly shifting my feet and bouncing my leg, and my tail, well… It tended to twitch, sure, but not this much.
"Oh," He said, very succinctly. "... Guess I was too nervous to notice?"
I snorted, but didn't otherwise reply. I just sat and waited for any kind of contact from my best friends. I wasn't going to calm down until this was over, but it'd at least settle me for a couple minutes if I knew for sure where they were and that they were okay.
After a few more minutes, the radio in front of me crackled and Rudy's voice came through, "Soph! Gonna be back later than we intended. Found a really good spot―can see the whole base from here. Gonna take as many pics as we can."
I sighed in relief instantly. Finally, good news.
"Okay, cool," I acknowledged after grabbing the radio, "Stay safe!"
"Roger that," Rudy said, tone light.
There was nothing else from the radio, and I continued to fidget.
Nothing else to do, really. If I got too distracted this would all just hit me like a bus the next time that I thought about it and tried to get ready. We didn't need that.
"Hey," Rajan's voice broke me out of what was more or less a thought-spiral of worry, laying his hand on both of mine and stilling them instantly with very little pressure, "It's gonna be fine."
His tail was still swishing, but overall he did seem calmer, himself, than he had been prior to the contact from Rudy. And, sure, I wasn't convinced it'd be fine. How could I be? But I appreciated the attempt.
He brought up his other hand when I just kind of stared at him, placing it on my cheek and gently squishing. I cracked a smile, and so did he.
"Listen, even if it goes bad, I know you've got this in the bag." He said, squishing my cheek, "You're small and squishy and too soft on all of us, but I know you're damn terrifying when you want to be."
He grabbed my other cheek, immediately disproving his point of me being scary by squishing it as well and making me giggle.
"You're just saying that," I said, feeling a little relaxed just by the confidence he had in me.
"Oh, no," He said immediately, shaking his head, "No, I'm serious. To use a recent example, you remember what you did to Muggsy when he insulted Sly? Yeah. Scary stuff. You're on my list of people I don't ever want angry at me."
I laughed, a little taken aback, and laughed again when he squished my cheeks yet again. "Where on that list?"
"Second spot," He answered, smiling a little sheepishly, "Henry's got the first slot, sorry."
"Dang," I said, snapping my fingers.
Now, I should… I should mention that while I was very amused by the words coming out of his mouth and him squishing my cheeks every few seconds like he couldn't help himself, the part of my brain that wasn't amused or wigging out about the upcoming job was short-circuiting for a lot of teenage-hormone overload-type reasons. Like the fact that he was touching me, and he was only inches away from my face, and I could smell his shampoo, and he was being freaking cute.
Thank God I have such stellar self-control.
Still, with him right there and sort of breathing in my face, I couldn't help wondering what it'd be like to kiss him. Mind seemingly mirroring mine, I saw his eyes flick down. He leaned a little closer, then stopped.
"Soph," He said, "I…"
He stopped, seeming stuck, and that was uncharacteristic of him. Like… It was weird for him to not know what to say. Or for him to have trouble articulating himself.
After a second he just sighed. Closed his eyes, and I thought he might pull away, but all he did was take a deep breath, open his eyes back up, and swallow. Hard. He made eye contact but didn't move in the slightest.
I tried not to be obvious when I swallowed as well.
"Reggie," I made an effort to sound as calm and unruffled as I could, and failed rather miserably, "What were you gonna say?"
At that, it seemed the tenuous thread of his self-control broke, and he leaned forward, closing the distance between us and pressing his lips against mine. My brain bluescreened immediately, then spluttered a little bit back to life when he pulled back. He looked unsure. And I felt bad for probably giving him mixed signals but all I could do was blink at him while my brain rebooted.
"Oh," I said, lamely, "Uh. Wow?"
Yeah, I know. I'm incredibly articulate. Laugh it up, I encourage you.
He watched me warily for a moment after that top-tier comment before he seemed to look hopeful. "... You're not mad?"
I managed to summon something reminiscent of a smirk and said, "God, no."
I grabbed his shirt to pull him back to me, and he came willingly, squishing my cheeks again as he did so and just smiling the whole way. We kissed for real this time, and I couldn't have been happier. Not only had I not had to make the first move, but we at least seemed to be on the same page here.
I wasn't going to put all my chips on black and assume he actually really felt the same for me, but I could get behind kissing him!
Had my poor little optimistic, overly-romantic Cooper heart soaring, you know? And who could blame me? I'd had a crush on this guy for a year and my poor brain didn't know what to do in the meantime.
Oh, and actually kissing him? It was way better than I'd been thinking it would be before it happened. Just thought I'd say that.
My love life aside, it wasn't long before Rudy reported in again, radio crackling and startling me.
"Soph, we're on our way back. Should be about 30 minutes."
"Alright, be careful!" I replied, albeit a little breathlessly.
Rudy didn't seem to notice, which did not surprise me in the slightest, "Roger."
Rajan smirked at me once I'd sat the radio back down and continued to do so after Rudy had apparently set his radio aside. I fidgeted a little under his smug gaze and tried to summon some small scrap of pride or anything similar.
"The hell are you staring at me for?" I finally asked.
"Small and soft and squishy," He said, almost sing-songy, and quickly ducked out of my range when I made a half-hearted swipe at him. "Are we, uh… Are we like… Official?" He asked, after a moment.
"Do you want us to be?" I asked in return after considering it.
Again, I wasn't putting all my chips on black about this. Even if we were dating I didn't think I was going to. Needed more proof than a teenage boy implying he liked me, you know? Like… Have you met a teenage boy?
"Yes," He said, leaning down and pecking me again, "I do want us to be. But it's up to you."
I forced myself not to get awkward about it. "Then yes." I said, "But let's just… Keep it on the down-low for now, okay?"
He smiled a bit, kissing me again, slow and soft, and I melted a little as I kissed back. I felt more than heard him chuckle at the nervous, unsure way I did it. And after a moment, he pulled away to smile at me and squish my cheeks yet again.
"I'm okay with that." He said, answering my question at last.
He kissed my forehead, then, squished my cheeks one last time, and promptly went back to his seat and got back to whatever he'd been doing before.
He was good, damn. Didn't even seem ruffled.
I knew I must be a disheveled pile of goo, personally. After a moment, though, Cooper delivered a much needed mental swift kick in the shins (with appropriate physical sensation, somehow) to get me back in gear. I managed not to yelp or flinch in response, but it was close.
As Rajan had booted up one of those games that Rudy got him, I chose to grab my laptop and open up a word document to, well, document the events that had just occurred because that was some shit I needed to have ready evidence of for myself later.
By the time that Lindsey and Rudy at last returned to the hideout, I had calmed down completely, finished writing that little drama, and was working on transcribing the Thievius Raccoonus from memory… To the best of my ability.
Understandably, I wasn't having much luck.
"Well," Said Lindsey once she'd dug out my camera from her bag, "Here." After I accepted it and had looked through the most recent pictures, she said, "See anything you can work with in there, Ringtail?"
I looked through the pictures again, setting my laptop aside and grabbing a sheet of paper and a pencil as I tried to arrange a mental map. Nodding carefully once I'd begun free-handing that map, I said, "Yeah." And shut back up until the map was done.
It took a few minutes, and no one said a word during that time.
"Okay," I said, once I was done, "Assuming this is unguarded and doesn't have any alarms," I tapped a spot, "I can get in through here, find my way to the main control room to turn off the security, and let you guys in through here."
Lindsey listened, then nodded her approval, and I knew it was a done deal.
We were going to the Krack Karov Volcano, and there was no better time than now. Any longer of a delay and, well…
I'd break out in a nasty rash of procrastination, don't you know?