Silver stared into his eyes and mouthed, "We're trying to keep Cage away from Ben."
Miki grabbed him, hearing the noise and seeing the look on his face, and completely lost it. She laughed until tears rolled down her cheeks. "Sil… Sil… open… the door." She gasped.
The door unlocks from the inside and Violet opens it. “How did that happen?”
Cage stares, bewildered. “Whaaa… why were you in there..?”
She blinks before remembering he hadn’t seen Ben yet. “Just doing the laundry and remembered I forgot the towel in the bathroom. Fetch it for me?”
He nods. “Uh, suuure.” He runs up the stairs to the bathroom.
Violet lowers her voice. “Don’t tell him, please. He doesn’t need to know.”
Silver looked at her, all levity gone from her face. "Trust me, Vi, we're trying. I don't know how much longer we can keep it up. Hey," she turned to Gabriel. "Can't you make him go to sleep? Like you did to me that one time?"
Violet grabs a hand towel from the kitchen drawer. “Have him knock before he gives it to me please.” And she returns to the laundry room.
Gabriel stares. “Should I…?”
Miki leaned on the counter and slowly stopped laughing. "I would say no, because this is hilarious, but we can't keep this up for much longer before it comes apart."
Silver nodded gravely. "I think you should. We can explain it to him in the morning."
Gabriel sighs. “Okay.”
Cage heads down the stairs slowly. “Why… is Vi doing the laundry in just her robe?”
Silver and Miki looked up at him, confused. "No…?" Miki replied. "Why?"
Cage shrugs, “it looks like-“ his eyes rolls back into his head and he falls straight forward onto his face in the floor. Gabriel winces.
sorry
Miki leapt forward and tried to break his fall, only succeeding on slowing him down a little and dropping to the floor beside him. Silver heaved a sigh of relief and dropped her head into her hands.
"We can–" Miki grunted as she tried to pick him up. "–make it up to him later. Some help?"
Gabriel stands, lifting Cage up. “Make him some disgusting ice cream.”
Violet opens the laundry room door, “Alright, he’s…. what-“
Gabriel turns himself and Cage invisible reflexively and she furrows her brow.
“What did you do?”
Miki jumped back from Gabriel when he disappeared. "Ah, nothing. We just took care of Cage. You want a pancake?"
"How is Ben?" Silver asked.
Violet stares at the empty void of Gabriel and Cage for a second. “I… I don’t think I’m hungry actually.” She turns to Silver. “He should be okay.” She gives a small sigh and runs a hand through her hair, though it’s in a braid still. “Just overly exhausted and stressed. And his lungs are- were- bruised. And who knows how he got that cut. He’ll be alright though.”
Silver nodded, a frown of worry creasing her face. "Vi, you should–you gotta stop just healing all of us when we half kill ourselves. There's not enough of you to go around and fix all of us. You need to take care of yourself too or you'll get sick."
Miki pointed a finger gun at Silver. "What she said. If we die, it's our fault. You should go back to bed now."
Vi gives both the girls a less than thrilled face, blinking. “He’s my husband.” She states blatantly, “let me take care of him.”
Gabriel swallows, though her voice is calm and she doesn’t look threatening. He lays Cage across a chair and stares at her.
She crosses her arms, sighing and rubbing her forehead. “I’m not leaving him down here. I’ll stay in there till he wakes up, which should only be in an hour.”
Miki watched her for a moment before shrugging. "I mean I still have like 50 pancakes to make, so I'll be down here for a while."
Silver slowly pointed toward the living room. "You could, like, wait on the couch? He's not going anywhere."
She gives them a small wave with her hand and heads back into the laundry room. In a few moments, Kissa exits the laundry room, her pants stained and her arms a little bloody. She looks up at Gabriel as he slowly becomes visible.
“I’m disgusting.” She whispers.
He ruffles her hair. “You always were.”
Miki gave them a disturbed look. "No wonder Kissa calls us rude names if you raised her on those lovely compliments."
Silver got off her stool and ran water in the sink for Kissa. "Here. There's a rag and soap you can use."
Kissa growls and goes to hit him but he slips back into invisibility. She doesn’t bother to hunt him and instead turns to sil, taking the rag and scrubbing her arms. “That guy weighs a ton. Like a literal ton.”
"Well, yeah, have you seen him?" Miki said. "He's like a powerlifter. Except he doesn't lift weighs."
"Actually, I think he does." Silver responded absently, watching Kissa and holding the soap for her while she monitored the water temperature to make sure it didn't get too hot.
“He probably does.” She sets down the rag and pulls her hair back into a pony tail with great effort, straining from the weight of holding it up every now and then. She sighs once it’s finally up and takes her socks off. “Gabriel, I’m gonna wash my pants!” She calls.
Still invisible, he rolls his eyes and heads up the stairs.
She unzips and takes off her jeans, turning the water to cold.
"whOA WHAT'S GOING ON" Miki yelled, holding her spatula in front of her eyes. "Why are we stripping???"
Silver groaned and shoved her sister. "She warned us, Miki, shut up. How else is she gonna get cleaned up? She can't take them into the laundry room." Silver plugged the drain for Kissa and grabbed a bottle of dish soap instead of the hand soap they had been using. "Do you want like a brush or something to scrub the blood out?"
Kissa shakes her head, dipping the pants under the water, “I just use my knuckles, it works best that way.”
She tilts her head a little to see Miki. “What, you don’t like my legs? They’re really nice.”
Miki peeked out from behind her spatula. "I mean, there's nothing wrong with them, they were just revealed very suddenly and I got scared."
Silver rolled her eyes. "Like you've never stripped in front of me, Miki."
"That's different! It's not right in the middle of the kitchen!"
"There's no one else here!" Silver cried. "It's the same as when you change in front of me in our room."
"But it's the kitchen." Miki whispered again.
Kissa rolls her eyes, scrubbing at the stain with her knuckles, getting most of it out. “It’s not like there’s guys around. I mean except Cage but he’s passed out and will be for a very long time.” She blows her bangs out of her eyes.
"It's okay. I'm over it now. Your legs just shocked me for a minute there."
Silver ignored Miki. "Do you… do you want me to get your hair out of your face?" she asked Kissa.