Chapter Text
In wavering fire light, he stumbled through the treehouse as silently as could. Tentatively, Mitchell opened a cupboard. Slowly got what he needed. Then just as carefully closed the cupboard. Then immediately startled at the person sitting in the dark.
"Forking thunderstorms Bobby, I thought the cat got back in."
Rather than the quip he'd been expecting, Bobby was quiet. Which on the one hand, good, she'd learnt from the Swift incident, but also, that meant something was wrong.
"I was literally here before you," her feathers bristled.
That was when he noticed the sandwiches. Lots of sandwiches.
"How many emergencies?" Mitch asked as he sat down.
Bobby sighed, "Just tomorrow."
"Oh yeah, that's why I'm, can't sleep either. Told tea helps."
"Wait, that's your gross stuff?" she made a face before destroying what was left of her (first?) sandwich.
"It's not gross. It's normal tea." He heated up the mug.
She rolled her eyes. "Right, normal tea that smokes when you knock it over."
"Really, you don’t have anything to worry about, you're the best rider here." Flickering flames reflected in his glasses.
"Sure," Bobby sighed. “Falcon will be perfect, I just feel like I’m going to mess up.”
"Even in that impossible scenario, there’s lots of stuff you could do, anyone would want to take you on." Mitchell shrugged. "Even if you don't, I'm sure you could stay with my family or Flo’s."
"Right, I bet Mr ban-the-spirit-element-and-probably-the-Mainland-too-if-he-could would be happy to have me," Bobby snorted.
"I mean, I meant more my mother, but honestly, you're everything he wanted in a kid." He was too tired to think before talking.
Flushing, he downed his drink and then tried not to choke on tea.
Bobby blinked. But it was true. She was confident, a good rider, good at pretty much everything. Including not fraternizing with spirit wielders now.
“Think I’ll stick with the Shekonis.”
She pushed a sandwich to Mitchell, but he vehemently shook his head. They sat there for a bit in silence.
"Real uno reverse," he murmured.
“Huh?” Bobby grabbed another sandwich.
She regretted introducing him to that game. It was the one thing they were neck in neck at.
He laughed, then caught himself before quietly adding, "It's just sort of funny, isn't it? This time last year it was you telling me not to avoid Skar. What's next, is Flo going to hand him over to the Sentinels?"
She couldn't help but laugh at that too; like that would ever happen.
"Can I ask why?"
"Well, everything is about him," she huffed in the manner familiar to someone overshadowed by siblings.
"But that's not it."
"The Sparrows-" she got it wrong on purpose.
"Peregrines," he corrected.
"Their whole thing is being fast and winning the Cup. And it just hit that this is real and I could mess it all up. So I have to give it my all. I can't do that if I'm always getting dragged into his mess like a magnet, even if it's not his fault."
Mitch hmm-ed in thought.
"You know, statistically, over half of riders didn't win the Cup on pure speed," he motioned as though he was reciting Chaos cards, "Sometimes it was wielding their element effectively, sometimes it was sky battles, sometimes it was just pure dumb luck. So even I have a chance," he smiled.
Bobby didn't return it, "You're just saying that to make me feel better."
"Maybe."
Mitchell managed to navigate towards the sink without tripping, before letting go of the mug. Grossed out by the sandwiches, he grimaced as he passed them.
"If your strategy is to poison everyone, you need to be less obvious about it. Please at least put these somewhere else if you're not going to eat them."
In the darkness, the Marmite looked like mould. Bobby shrugged, but then nodded.
He was reacting more than when Red caught something. That did get a smile out of her.