Wish you were Sober || Boat Boys

10: Roller-Coaster

TW Summary of Chapter 9:
Etho goes to BigB and snitches on Joel's investigation on Etho about Jimmy's case. BigB says "I'll look into it" and informs Etho Joel's not on Jimmy's case or any of the missing persons' cases at all. Joel gets invited by Tango to join Team BEST (plus Impulse) at their team dinner. He gets nauseated and goes to the restroom. He has some thoughts about his looks (de-transformed) before he gets walked in on by Bdubs. We're picking up right after Bdubs opened the door and sees Joel de-transformed.

Joel is caught off guard.

He quickly squats down and brings his hands up to try and hide his face, but to no avail. Bubbles has seen him, for sure. He hears the door click, lock even. But he doesn't hear Bubbles shuffle out of the room. Joel peeks through the gaps between his fingers, there stood the other hero. Perfectly still, staring at him. He can't hear much over his own breathing, "Are you... Why didn't you lock the door?!"

That was a good question. But Joel doesn't answer, he doesn't move or talk at all. His heart beats louder to cover the painful silence. He watches as Bubbles steps closer, Joel holds his breath. How stupid, a rookie mistake. He's been doing this for how long? 13 years? And up until now the only other person who knew his identity is BigB.

"Why didn't you leave?" Joel manages to ask, slowly getting up. He notices how Bubbles seems to be analyzing his face, attire, and body. "I know I look ragged. Don't need to give me whole judge-down." Joel finds himself giggling away at his pathetic attempt at a joke. Gosh, he's become unfunny. Another thing he should work on.

"I didn't leave because Atlas is attacking this restaurant as we speak. I came to get you, aren't you the Chief for Atlas's case?" Bubbles glances behind him, he looked scared and uneasy. "Alright then, I'll just—" There was a loud noise outside of the restroom, the building floor tilted. Joel immediately slid to the wall opposite of the restroom mirror, Bubbles did the same.

The building was being kicked around like a soccer ball. Joel noticed how Bubbles seemed to be more stable than him, having a better grip on the wall they were on and barely flinching to the earthquake they were experiencing. Joel let out a short scream—he shut up as he realized that was not allowed when under attack. Be as quiet as possible to avoid the villains noticing your presence.

He had to transform, quickly. He was trying to get a grip of himself to transform with his ring. Stupid ring—why was it so small? Joel was shaking trying to tap the surface enough times (literally just 3) to transform, He got 1... 2... and he was jostled around a bit. He couldn't get the 3rd one in for some reason.

"Hurry up! We gotta get out there!" Bubbles whisper-shouted at him, still trying to hold his own against the sink. Eventually Joel got it, maybe slower than he would've liked, but still; he got it. Joel transformed, he felt the tingles again. His hero attire felt fresh again after taking it off for a bit. Sometimes if you stay transformed for too long, you get a bit crumby.

Joel raced to the door, going against gravity itself to try and leave the restroom. He clutched the door handle, trying to unlock it. Joel tried his best to ignore the ringing and flurry of noises streaming into his ears. It was going to bite him back later, but he seriously didn't have time to be silly right now.

Joel unlocked the door, it swung open and he almost hit the wall next to it upon impact. Joel maneuvered his way out of the restroom, leaving Bubbles inside. He jumped on the sides of the walls, climbing over tables (while trying to avoid the mass amount of spillage and food waste) as fast as he could. Joel made it out. Finally.