He'd grinned when he'd seen them walk in covered in packing peanuts. He'd grinned wide and delighted and he'd been prepared to make a crack. Then the hug attempt was on and he was off scrambling, alternating between yelps and cackles.
Nekane's next trick is clever... but not clever enough. He walks out of that shower, wrapped in towels and grinning wildly.
"HA!" He shouts in their face. "Y-you f-forget! I d-don't have heated showers at home!" Of course, that meant boiling water the old fashioned way. Which was a bit of a pain now that he knew the good life.
Unfortunately, the bouillon cube does the trick and when he accidentally makes soup out of what was meant to be a bath, the next time they have a meal together he fixes them a flat glare in silence.
His next move is a simple one. He paints the bottom of their shoes with bright paint, to show where they walked. But of course, that wasn't enough. Nor was the glitter on their coat. He needed something more.
He puts up posters around Hell. They're stick-figure images of Nekane. The note declares; "It's my birthday! Sing me a song!" Leaving their number on it for people to call. Even if the sinners missed it, the demons wouldn't.
They may have forgotten but that doesn't stop Nekane from sitting down for a cup of (now un-glued) coffee every time Héctor has to boil the water to take a bath. Karma's a bitch.
And it continues to be a bitch when Héctor gets his revenge. The paint they can deal with and they deliberately walk all over Héctor's room once they realize what he did but the glitter takes multiple washes to get out. In the meantime their phone blows up with text messages and...interesting propositions from the demons for a 'birthday treat'.
"I don't even know when my fucking birthday is." Héctor might hear them mutter.
But they get back at him, as they do. Nekane knows the demons would be assholes if they switched their number with Héctor's so instead of doing that, they simply hide their phone in his room after cranking up the volume and setting the most obnoxious, high-pitched noise as their ringtone. Enjoy the well-wishes in their stead, Héctor.
They also move all of the furniture six inches to the right. Just because.
The muttering is like music. It takes everything in his power not to laugh and give it away. It's funnier the longer it takes for them to work out it was his doing.
Of course, Nekane being as clever as they are, it doesn't take too long. The phone is hidden in his room and he finds himself staring up with dark circles under his eyes as the phone rings again. He took back all he said of phones. These things were cursed, sinful objects worthy of the fire.
He finds it eventually because his hearing's good enough to work out what's coming from where, even with how it was shoved, but everything else is soon just slightly out of reach.
But it gives him hope. He knows this trick. They'd done it before. He's wearing them down. Or, simply going mad.
His next move is hanging all their belongings on the ceiling. Which isn't much, so he adds to it. He hangs eggs between it all, hard to remove without cracking, hard to miss, but also likely to spoil if left there.
They take one look at the cups of water and simply walk through it. The hell of wet socks is easily endured by the (hopeful) realization on Héctor's part that Nekane absolutely won't clean it up. They've let their own apartment go to shit with worse. And the eggs, after getting as many as they can without breaking them, half go to breakfast and half get whipped at his window.
Nekane admits it's a trick they've done more then once so they step it up. And recruit the dolls' help for when Héctor's out of the house for a long time. After sending a text they might be sleeping when he gets back. For reasons.
When he gets back all he'll find remaining of his bed is the frame. The mattress and covers are missing and in their place is a dirty shovel and a note that cheerfully says 'Happy hunting!'!
The reality is they moved the damn thing into their room and know Héctor wouldn't look there because Nekane is 'asleep'.
The cups of water at their door was a stupid idea in retrospect. The eggs... probably also stupid, considering cleaning them off his own windows was a nightmare.
When he gets the text that they're sleeping he knows immediately something is up. They've been doing better, but not by that much. Putting even a metaphorical "do not disturb" sign up wasn't how they operated.
But it works to their intent all the same because he's not thinking of their room when he sees the mattress missing, the dirty shovel there, the note. He simply... stares at it. As though, he were to look at it long enough, it might say something different. The shovel won't be a shovel at all. The bed will be a bed which he needs because he's tired. But it isn't, it doesn't show, he has a frame and nothing.
He regards the shovel, even takes it outside. But he knows what's going to happen. He is going to look and look and never find it and even if he does find it, the whole thing will be ruined with dirt or worse. The search will drive him mad.
And that's when he gets his idea.
That night, he sleeps on the couch. He might make a hammock at some point, he hasn't decided, but for now the couch would do, as it had been for all the time he'd been letting the dolls have his bed anyway (hope Nekane liked that). Then, in the morning he greets them in the kitchen with a warm smile and breakfast done up for both of them. Coffee too.
"Buenos días, Sleepyhead. Did you rest well? Come on, sit, I've made everything just the way you like it," He says.
Much like everything in Nekane's life, getting the bed into their room after the dolls were done with it sucked...but it was totally worth it.
For an unrelated reason they didn't sleep last night. Partly because of their paranoia and mostly because of the dark. So when they stumble into the kitchen, all Nekane has in response is a grunt before heading straight for the coffee.
Their hell concoction of a drink hasn't changed much but they're not stupid. It takes them a few tries but eventually they pick up the sugar to check and see If he swapped it with salt.
Their coffee is safe. There's even sugar already in it. The food is fine. So far, everything is fine.
Yet, he keeps up his cheer. And it stays. All throughout the day he's the way he would be were he not in the middle of a prank war, though a touch more amused. He acts as if it was so generous that his bed was brought back. He thanks them and the dolls, smiling.
He offers their choice of movie at night. He offers to take on extra chores around the house. He's just... nice.
Nice, waiting, and watching. It keeps going, for he's figured it out. The perfect prank...
With their paranoia and all the chaos they've caused for each other these past few days, eventually, they'll start to wonder. They'll search. They'll look up and down. They'll be awake at night, listening. Because the perfect prank is the one that doesn't come.
The coffee is exactly the way they like it and the food is great. Héctor's not acting any differently then normal so that rules out Hell's bullshit. And nothing happens. Days pass and absolutely nothing happens. Their clothing is safe, there's nothing weird happening. It's quiet.
For a little while they think that Héctor just gave up and that was that. That's fine, they didn't really think that this whole thing needed a big celebration for who won. It was mainly something stupid born out of stupidity, after all. But as Héctor predicts, the fact that nothing happens itches in the back of their mind the longer it drags out.
Nekane's always gone on record that physical torture is useless when mental torture was 'better' This isn't quite that but it weighs on their mind. Nekane stays up listening to anything that might be moving and starts opening doors very slowly. They hide under their bed rather then flopping on top of it. And they pick through their food.
It takes a week before they crack. But Héctor's made one fatal mistake. Nekane, at the height of their paranoia, is nearly impossible to reason with. They're not going to go to him to ask what's up. They're going to start pulling pranks to strike first before Héctor 'makes' his move.
Again they wait until Héctor's gone for a long time before getting to work. Between the dolls being eager to 'help' and no longer giving a crap about not using their magic anymore, they get quite a bit done.
When he comes back he'll find all of his stuff up on the roof. The exceptions being his precious items, which are hidden in Nekane's room in a box labeled tentacles for some reason. All the entrances to the house have been rigged with the old bucket of water on a rope trick. The taps have been adjusted so that they only spray high pressure bursts of ice-cold water when turned on. Random door handles have an air horn for fun and profit and the soap have been painted over with clear nail polish. If he tries to get around that with hand sanitizer, he'll find out it's been replaced with clear glue.
Finally they've swapped all of the ketchup with the hottest hot sauce they could find. And it's hell, so it's pretty fucking hot. Nekane also swapped out the orange juice for watered-down mac and cheese powder mix.
But at the end of the day, Héctor will find Nekane face down on the couch. They're not asleep but they're not moving either. The dolls are busying themselves playing with the detective's now un-braided hair.
It's funny at first. They watch him oh so closely. And then there's that space where they're trying to work out if he's given up, which would be an easy conclusion to come to, but he hopes they don't because he's been enjoying the game.
And then it starts to really wear on him. It's hard to hide his concern and harder still to bury his guilt. Has he gone too far? Is it too much? It starts to feel less funny and more cruel. He knows this is a struggle of theirs after all, even if they did agree to this game. Maybe... maybe it's time to call it in.
He comes home to find all his things on the roof. Things no one person should be able to haul on the roof (even with the help of dolls) are up there. He finds himself torn between dismay and victory. It was indeed time to call it in then, but first, he wanted to settle in after a long day.
More the fool, him. He's hit with a flood of water as soon as he walks in and sets off no less than two air horns, heart leaping out of his chest every time. His attempts to clean up go even more poorly and when he gives up on that he finds they've even broken the unspoken rule of not messing with food. He decides he deserved that.
A dripping mess now, he hauls himself to the living room and drops down to the floor beside the couch. He just stares for a moment.
"Nekane," He starts, waiting to see if they move. He continues even if they don't. "I saw my bed on the roof. You used powers. Not to mention, wore yourself out." He pauses, waits. "We can call it in now, yes? No more pranks. Do you want to know what my last one was?"
The dolls back off when Héctor approaches, easily letting go of Nekane's hair. The detective raises their head to look at him. Their eyes are unfocused and the cracks on their face have opened up just a little bit. Not enough to make a mess fortunately, given their cleaning supplies are down the fucking tubes right now.
They do nod when he says they lost and Nekane's willing to admit they lost because logically they know there's no way they could have gotten everything up there without their shadows.
"Yeah, let's fucking call it." They sound hazy. Namely because all of the shit they pulled today was simply doing something rather then thinking about it. They only realized they were on the couch when the dolls started playing with their hair.
"And lay it on me. I still haven't fucking figured it out."
He reaches out, smoothes his hand over their hair in a half-pat. He's reminded of those times when Coco would dance and dance and dance until she was so tired she simply fell over. Even if they hadn't admitted defeat, the cracks in their face give it away.
"Nothing," He says. "The prank was nothing. I thought leaving you to guess would do more than the prank itself."
He waits. He wonders if they have the energy left in them to attack him.
They lean into his hand for a moment before dropping their head back against the couch.
"Smart move." Playing on their paranoia was a legitimate strategy and has worked well in the past. It's an easy mindset for them to fall into. But. "Please don't do it again."
Nekane says it much more gently then they would to a stranger, where they'd be cursing out the poor bastard for trying. For one, they know that Héctor wasn't doing it to be a dick or anything like that and for another it's clear he's already gearing to beat himself up for it. He doesn't magically know all of Nekane's problems and how it works in their head, or how it will manifest.
But they've also hurt people in the past when their paranoia was at an all-time high. So it's for the best that doesn't happen again.
"And I'm sorry for messing with the food. I'll switch it back tomorrow so it'll be normal again. I'll have to get all your shit from the roof down tomorrow, though."
They think about it and sort of try to throw up their hands.
"Fuck it, let's go camping. Haven't gone since John took me."
It takes a moment but they do drag themself into a sitting position. They'll have to stand up but they need a minute longer. It gives them time to elaborate a little.
"Grab all of our comfy blankets and shit. And a tarp if we've got one. And wood. Campfire."
He breaks into a grin. From their weak gesture to their suggestion, he knows Nekane's forgiven him.
"My first camping trip. Sounds like fun," He says.
He helps them to sit up, supporting them with an arm, then just a hand. He imagines they'll be passing out the moment they hit a pillow, but they'll manage until then.
"I'll be just a moment," He assures, before heading towards Nekane's room. Only to pause. "You had fun though, right? At least at first with the game?"
They snicker for some reason when he says that. Nekane just realized how much this sounds like when John first took them camping.
The detective leans back against the couch when Héctor says he'll be back after a moment. But despite how tired they are, answering Héctor's question comes easily.
"Yeah, it was fun. You're pretty fucking good at that." They wave a hand. "But it turns out we're both stubborn idiots when it comes to pranks."
Like anything else about either of them wasn't stubborn anyway.
He beams back at them. He didn't mess this up. They're happy and he's relieved.
"Would have to be, to keep up with you," He says.
He takes off then, going to gather this thing and that. He doesn't entirely want to take apart their fortress and he knows his things are already out on the rough, so he comes back with a modest amount. He's soon off again to the garage, pulling a tarp outside. He's not sure what Nekane intends to use the tarp for, but he's got his own ideas. He spreads it out for them to dump the gathered blankets on, right by the roof edge. He can see his bed up there and all his things.
If they don't follow him out, he goes to collect them himself, guiding them to that tarp too. He turns to them, then opens his arms for a hug.
Nekane snorts but doesn't argue Héctor's point. Their stubbornness is their defining trait. Without it they probably wouldn't have survived for as long as they did.
The tarp's mainly so the blankets don't get dirty. Nekane doesn't follow Héctor out immediately but they do come out eventually with some pillows. Just because.
He turns for a hug and they oblige. It's not a hard choice. "Your guitar and photo's in my room, by the way." Even in the heights of paranoia, Nekane didn't forget how important those things were to him. They're not sticking it on the roof where it can break.
They're not going to explain the box's label but that's tomorrow's problem. Everything is tomorrow's problem right now.
He hugs them tight. His arms wrap around under their arms, pulling them close. He says softly, "Thank you." But he doesn't make a move to get them. In fact, he grips them tighter.
"Hang on and don't let go."
They get no more warning. His knees bend. His wings flare. They go up and he kicks off the ground while holding them, wings beating once to push from the ground then again.
And he drops them to their feet on the rooftop, letting go to stumble, off-balance, with his own momentum.
They're not really surprised when Héctor hugs them tighter. It's just what he did and Nekane didn't mind it because he knew when to let go. But when he grips even tighter their brows furrow for a moment.
"Wh-"
Nekane doesn't get any farther. When they see his wings flare out they promptly grip the man and brace themself as best as they can. Possibly for impact. But it's a fairly smooth ride up, all things considered. When they see him stumble Nekane sends out a shadow claw to grab the back of his shirt. Nope.
He's caught by their shadow. A high laugh slips out.
"I've been giving it my best," He says. His breath is a little uneven, whether from the effort or the nerves. "Though, that's as high as I can really go."
A really big jump. At least for now. But it would do because now he can tell them what he had in mind.
"What do you say to sharing my bed up here for the night?" He asks, gesturing at the mattress and frame that have been set to balance on the rooftop. "I was thinking I could hop down and throw everything up to you."
"Ain't bad for someone who's new to this shit." It's actually better then what Nekane had managed when they first tried flying. It probably helps that they both weigh next to nothing but still. Good fucking effort.
His idea is an amusing one because of just how weird it is and Nekane snickers when they picture what some people might think if they walked by right now. Then again, the bed was up here for awhile so it's probably moot in point.
"Eh, why the hell not? We'll get a good view." And it's not like they have to worry about rain or other shit like that. "Hop down and start pitching shit. I'll try not to drop it on you."
He looks surprised at that, then proud. He beams with it.
Their snickering doesn't discourage him. If anything, that was a solid sign they were willing to go along with it.
He moves to the edge of the roof, leans over the edge like he's going to jump, only to sit down there before attempting to push off. His wings flare again and mostly stop the fall from being to hard on his feet. From there he can ball up each bit of fabric and toss it up, sometimes getting one of them caught tangled in a mess of blankets. He can't help laughing with it all.
They watch him go back down, keeping an eye on the way his wings flare out. Yeah, it looks like he's getting the hang of it. Héctor probably can't fly that far but at least he can get up and down easily enough.
Catching the blankets is a chore into itself, but that's mainly because they're both being stupid about it. Nekane isn't against dropping the blankets on top of him with their shadow claws, just to see his reaction.
But once everything is settled and Héctor is back up on the roof, Nekane does a few tests on the bed just to make absolutely sure it won't fall off the roof before flopping on top of it.
"I wonder what people are going to think when they stumble across this shit." They don't care in all actuality but it's fucking funny to think about.
The reaction mostly consist of squaks and splutters. Sometimes a moment of detangling and sometimes a pillow lobbed at Nekane's head.
But soon all is set and he joins them in flopping down. He's still wearing a grin.
"They'll think us loco. Worthy of the madhouse yet again. Then they'll go home to their beds and plain ceilings and they will wish they had been so crazy too."
Who wouldn't envy them? A fool, that's who. He looks to the sky.
"No stars," He muses, "But we can just as well spy pictures in the ash clouds and see light in the sparks. It would be its own sort of beauty."
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Nekane's next trick is clever... but not clever enough. He walks out of that shower, wrapped in towels and grinning wildly.
"HA!" He shouts in their face. "Y-you f-forget! I d-don't have heated showers at home!" Of course, that meant boiling water the old fashioned way. Which was a bit of a pain now that he knew the good life.
Unfortunately, the bouillon cube does the trick and when he accidentally makes soup out of what was meant to be a bath, the next time they have a meal together he fixes them a flat glare in silence.
His next move is a simple one. He paints the bottom of their shoes with bright paint, to show where they walked. But of course, that wasn't enough. Nor was the glitter on their coat. He needed something more.
He puts up posters around Hell. They're stick-figure images of Nekane. The note declares; "It's my birthday! Sing me a song!" Leaving their number on it for people to call. Even if the sinners missed it, the demons wouldn't.
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And it continues to be a bitch when Héctor gets his revenge. The paint they can deal with and they deliberately walk all over Héctor's room once they realize what he did but the glitter takes multiple washes to get out. In the meantime their phone blows up with text messages and...interesting propositions from the demons for a 'birthday treat'.
"I don't even know when my fucking birthday is." Héctor might hear them mutter.
But they get back at him, as they do. Nekane knows the demons would be assholes if they switched their number with Héctor's so instead of doing that, they simply hide their phone in his room after cranking up the volume and setting the most obnoxious, high-pitched noise as their ringtone. Enjoy the well-wishes in their stead, Héctor.
They also move all of the furniture six inches to the right. Just because.
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Of course, Nekane being as clever as they are, it doesn't take too long. The phone is hidden in his room and he finds himself staring up with dark circles under his eyes as the phone rings again. He took back all he said of phones. These things were cursed, sinful objects worthy of the fire.
He finds it eventually because his hearing's good enough to work out what's coming from where, even with how it was shoved, but everything else is soon just slightly out of reach.
But it gives him hope. He knows this trick. They'd done it before. He's wearing them down. Or, simply going mad.
His next move is hanging all their belongings on the ceiling. Which isn't much, so he adds to it. He hangs eggs between it all, hard to remove without cracking, hard to miss, but also likely to spoil if left there.
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Nekane admits it's a trick they've done more then once so they step it up. And recruit the dolls' help for when Héctor's out of the house for a long time. After sending a text they might be sleeping when he gets back. For reasons.
When he gets back all he'll find remaining of his bed is the frame. The mattress and covers are missing and in their place is a dirty shovel and a note that cheerfully says 'Happy hunting!'!
The reality is they moved the damn thing into their room and know Héctor wouldn't look there because Nekane is 'asleep'.
Have fun.
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When he gets the text that they're sleeping he knows immediately something is up. They've been doing better, but not by that much. Putting even a metaphorical "do not disturb" sign up wasn't how they operated.
But it works to their intent all the same because he's not thinking of their room when he sees the mattress missing, the dirty shovel there, the note. He simply... stares at it. As though, he were to look at it long enough, it might say something different. The shovel won't be a shovel at all. The bed will be a bed which he needs because he's tired. But it isn't, it doesn't show, he has a frame and nothing.
He regards the shovel, even takes it outside. But he knows what's going to happen. He is going to look and look and never find it and even if he does find it, the whole thing will be ruined with dirt or worse. The search will drive him mad.
And that's when he gets his idea.
That night, he sleeps on the couch. He might make a hammock at some point, he hasn't decided, but for now the couch would do, as it had been for all the time he'd been letting the dolls have his bed anyway (hope Nekane liked that). Then, in the morning he greets them in the kitchen with a warm smile and breakfast done up for both of them. Coffee too.
"Buenos días, Sleepyhead. Did you rest well? Come on, sit, I've made everything just the way you like it," He says.
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For an unrelated reason they didn't sleep last night. Partly because of their paranoia and mostly because of the dark. So when they stumble into the kitchen, all Nekane has in response is a grunt before heading straight for the coffee.
Their hell concoction of a drink hasn't changed much but they're not stupid. It takes them a few tries but eventually they pick up the sugar to check and see If he swapped it with salt.
Just in case.
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Yet, he keeps up his cheer. And it stays. All throughout the day he's the way he would be were he not in the middle of a prank war, though a touch more amused. He acts as if it was so generous that his bed was brought back. He thanks them and the dolls, smiling.
He offers their choice of movie at night. He offers to take on extra chores around the house. He's just... nice.
Nice, waiting, and watching. It keeps going, for he's figured it out. The perfect prank...
With their paranoia and all the chaos they've caused for each other these past few days, eventually, they'll start to wonder. They'll search. They'll look up and down. They'll be awake at night, listening. Because the perfect prank is the one that doesn't come.
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For a little while they think that Héctor just gave up and that was that. That's fine, they didn't really think that this whole thing needed a big celebration for who won. It was mainly something stupid born out of stupidity, after all. But as Héctor predicts, the fact that nothing happens itches in the back of their mind the longer it drags out.
Nekane's always gone on record that physical torture is useless when mental torture was 'better' This isn't quite that but it weighs on their mind. Nekane stays up listening to anything that might be moving and starts opening doors very slowly. They hide under their bed rather then flopping on top of it. And they pick through their food.
It takes a week before they crack. But Héctor's made one fatal mistake. Nekane, at the height of their paranoia, is nearly impossible to reason with. They're not going to go to him to ask what's up. They're going to start pulling pranks to strike first before Héctor 'makes' his move.
Again they wait until Héctor's gone for a long time before getting to work. Between the dolls being eager to 'help' and no longer giving a crap about not using their magic anymore, they get quite a bit done.
When he comes back he'll find all of his stuff up on the roof. The exceptions being his precious items, which are hidden in Nekane's room in a box labeled tentacles for some reason. All the entrances to the house have been rigged with the old bucket of water on a rope trick. The taps have been adjusted so that they only spray high pressure bursts of ice-cold water when turned on. Random door handles have an air horn for fun and profit and the soap have been painted over with clear nail polish. If he tries to get around that with hand sanitizer, he'll find out it's been replaced with clear glue.
Finally they've swapped all of the ketchup with the hottest hot sauce they could find. And it's hell, so it's pretty fucking hot. Nekane also swapped out the orange juice for watered-down mac and cheese powder mix.
But at the end of the day, Héctor will find Nekane face down on the couch. They're not asleep but they're not moving either. The dolls are busying themselves playing with the detective's now un-braided hair.
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And then it starts to really wear on him. It's hard to hide his concern and harder still to bury his guilt. Has he gone too far? Is it too much? It starts to feel less funny and more cruel. He knows this is a struggle of theirs after all, even if they did agree to this game. Maybe... maybe it's time to call it in.
He comes home to find all his things on the roof. Things no one person should be able to haul on the roof (even with the help of dolls) are up there. He finds himself torn between dismay and victory. It was indeed time to call it in then, but first, he wanted to settle in after a long day.
More the fool, him. He's hit with a flood of water as soon as he walks in and sets off no less than two air horns, heart leaping out of his chest every time. His attempts to clean up go even more poorly and when he gives up on that he finds they've even broken the unspoken rule of not messing with food. He decides he deserved that.
A dripping mess now, he hauls himself to the living room and drops down to the floor beside the couch. He just stares for a moment.
"Nekane," He starts, waiting to see if they move. He continues even if they don't. "I saw my bed on the roof. You used powers. Not to mention, wore yourself out." He pauses, waits. "We can call it in now, yes? No more pranks. Do you want to know what my last one was?"
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They do nod when he says they lost and Nekane's willing to admit they lost because logically they know there's no way they could have gotten everything up there without their shadows.
"Yeah, let's fucking call it." They sound hazy. Namely because all of the shit they pulled today was simply doing something rather then thinking about it. They only realized they were on the couch when the dolls started playing with their hair.
"And lay it on me. I still haven't fucking figured it out."
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"Nothing," He says. "The prank was nothing. I thought leaving you to guess would do more than the prank itself."
He waits. He wonders if they have the energy left in them to attack him.
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"Smart move." Playing on their paranoia was a legitimate strategy and has worked well in the past. It's an easy mindset for them to fall into. But. "Please don't do it again."
Nekane says it much more gently then they would to a stranger, where they'd be cursing out the poor bastard for trying. For one, they know that Héctor wasn't doing it to be a dick or anything like that and for another it's clear he's already gearing to beat himself up for it. He doesn't magically know all of Nekane's problems and how it works in their head, or how it will manifest.
But they've also hurt people in the past when their paranoia was at an all-time high. So it's for the best that doesn't happen again.
"And I'm sorry for messing with the food. I'll switch it back tomorrow so it'll be normal again. I'll have to get all your shit from the roof down tomorrow, though."
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He shuffles closer and leans in. He rest his head against them.
"Don't worry about it. Had that coming. I'll sleep on the couch. Though sleeping outside might be cool for a night."
It's a joking tone that slips in there, lighter. He shifts again and his wings rustle.
"Want me to help you to your bed?"
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"Fuck it, let's go camping. Haven't gone since John took me."
It takes a moment but they do drag themself into a sitting position. They'll have to stand up but they need a minute longer. It gives them time to elaborate a little.
"Grab all of our comfy blankets and shit. And a tarp if we've got one. And wood. Campfire."
They're thinking about what else they'll need.
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"My first camping trip. Sounds like fun," He says.
He helps them to sit up, supporting them with an arm, then just a hand. He imagines they'll be passing out the moment they hit a pillow, but they'll manage until then.
"I'll be just a moment," He assures, before heading towards Nekane's room. Only to pause. "You had fun though, right? At least at first with the game?"
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The detective leans back against the couch when Héctor says he'll be back after a moment. But despite how tired they are, answering Héctor's question comes easily.
"Yeah, it was fun. You're pretty fucking good at that." They wave a hand. "But it turns out we're both stubborn idiots when it comes to pranks."
Like anything else about either of them wasn't stubborn anyway.
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"Would have to be, to keep up with you," He says.
He takes off then, going to gather this thing and that. He doesn't entirely want to take apart their fortress and he knows his things are already out on the rough, so he comes back with a modest amount. He's soon off again to the garage, pulling a tarp outside. He's not sure what Nekane intends to use the tarp for, but he's got his own ideas. He spreads it out for them to dump the gathered blankets on, right by the roof edge. He can see his bed up there and all his things.
If they don't follow him out, he goes to collect them himself, guiding them to that tarp too. He turns to them, then opens his arms for a hug.
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The tarp's mainly so the blankets don't get dirty. Nekane doesn't follow Héctor out immediately but they do come out eventually with some pillows. Just because.
He turns for a hug and they oblige. It's not a hard choice. "Your guitar and photo's in my room, by the way." Even in the heights of paranoia, Nekane didn't forget how important those things were to him. They're not sticking it on the roof where it can break.
They're not going to explain the box's label but that's tomorrow's problem. Everything is tomorrow's problem right now.
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"Hang on and don't let go."
They get no more warning. His knees bend. His wings flare. They go up and he kicks off the ground while holding them, wings beating once to push from the ground then again.
And he drops them to their feet on the rooftop, letting go to stumble, off-balance, with his own momentum.
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"Wh-"
Nekane doesn't get any farther. When they see his wings flare out they promptly grip the man and brace themself as best as they can. Possibly for impact. But it's a fairly smooth ride up, all things considered. When they see him stumble Nekane sends out a shadow claw to grab the back of his shirt. Nope.
"Christ. Guessing you've been practicing, hun?"
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"I've been giving it my best," He says. His breath is a little uneven, whether from the effort or the nerves. "Though, that's as high as I can really go."
A really big jump. At least for now. But it would do because now he can tell them what he had in mind.
"What do you say to sharing my bed up here for the night?" He asks, gesturing at the mattress and frame that have been set to balance on the rooftop. "I was thinking I could hop down and throw everything up to you."
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His idea is an amusing one because of just how weird it is and Nekane snickers when they picture what some people might think if they walked by right now. Then again, the bed was up here for awhile so it's probably moot in point.
"Eh, why the hell not? We'll get a good view." And it's not like they have to worry about rain or other shit like that. "Hop down and start pitching shit. I'll try not to drop it on you."
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Their snickering doesn't discourage him. If anything, that was a solid sign they were willing to go along with it.
He moves to the edge of the roof, leans over the edge like he's going to jump, only to sit down there before attempting to push off. His wings flare again and mostly stop the fall from being to hard on his feet. From there he can ball up each bit of fabric and toss it up, sometimes getting one of them caught tangled in a mess of blankets. He can't help laughing with it all.
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Catching the blankets is a chore into itself, but that's mainly because they're both being stupid about it. Nekane isn't against dropping the blankets on top of him with their shadow claws, just to see his reaction.
But once everything is settled and Héctor is back up on the roof, Nekane does a few tests on the bed just to make absolutely sure it won't fall off the roof before flopping on top of it.
"I wonder what people are going to think when they stumble across this shit." They don't care in all actuality but it's fucking funny to think about.
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But soon all is set and he joins them in flopping down. He's still wearing a grin.
"They'll think us loco. Worthy of the madhouse yet again. Then they'll go home to their beds and plain ceilings and they will wish they had been so crazy too."
Who wouldn't envy them? A fool, that's who. He looks to the sky.
"No stars," He muses, "But we can just as well spy pictures in the ash clouds and see light in the sparks. It would be its own sort of beauty."
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