Saph gave a nod, figuring she had this handled. If she was having trouble with substantial food, he came to the idea that she might not want to kiss him with bacon breath. He decided to hop up and run to the bathroom to brush his teeth.

Eric paced about the cage for a second as he thought of a response to her question.

H-E-J-U-S-T-W-A-N-T-S-T-O-K-N-O-W-W-H-A-T-Y-O-U-A-R-E-U-P-T-O

The long string was as vague as it was diplomatic. Saph wandered back into the room and took a seat next to Shelby, taking a sip of his orange juice.

"Bleh... Didn't think that through. Any news?"

This was fascinating. Think about it. Now they knew how the Roach was always a step ahead of people! He just had to keep an eye out for bugs, was all. No problem!

I mean, they were still small, and good at hiding, but it made the odds better, right?

Her voice dropped and octave and she clenched the note pad in her hands. "Why the %$#& does he need to know what i'm up to?"

Okay, maybe she had some justifiably unresolved anger issues about the whole mess. Saph stepped out of the room and she leaned in really close to the glass to get a look at Eric on a more equal level. "Seriously, why does he even care? He ruined my life already. He got his pictures. He got his sick joy. Why is he still coming after me?"

She wondered, somewhere in the back of her mind if it had anything to do with the research she had been doing. Had he been keeping tabs on her because he knew she would investigate?

"How many more of you does he have? How many more cockroaches?" Saph joined her again and she shot him a glance. "Not yet... I don't know if he will have answers to all of my questions."

The small bug had moved to the decoder again, and she jotted down what it wrote.

"He said, 'I dunno. He doesn't tell me stuff, I just do my job." She paused as he continued, trying to break apart the answers into separate blocks. Then, "There are a lot of us." 

That caught her attention, and she turned to look at Saph fully. "He doesn't seem to have a lot of answers... what should we do now?"

Saph humphed, and scratched the back of his head. The bug had to know something.

"Figure, this is an interrogation. This guy's being a little vague on purpose. We have to have leverage against him in order to get him to open up. When I was out and about doin some less than legal stuff, I would have threatened to break his legs or something. That was back in the day, though." Saph leaned in toward the tank.

"We either give him something he wants, or threaten him with a situation that ain't favorable. Either way, that's how you get leverage, and get em to talk."

He was honest about his actions in the past. He didn't figure he really had anything to hide. She seemed cool with that stuff, and the bug clearly wasn't going to go to the cops. He wasn't going anywhere.

So... I mean... What doesn't he like?" Saph winked to Shelby.

"We could always cover him up again?" And make some more noise. This was nice. For once, he was probably waking up his neighbor!

She hummed along, fiddling with the pen in her hand as Saph spoke. She was envisioning some kind of miniature torture chamber with a tiny stretching rack, iron maiden, and stock. The image made her chuckle. "Bug physiology actually makes it quite easy to survive without all six legs." She glanced at the tank with a half lidded gaze. Saph seemed to have a better head when it came with this type of thing, so she chose to follow along with his lead.

"So... I mean... What doesn't he like? We could always cover him up again?"

She couldn't stop the heated flush that decorated her face, and grinned shyly back at him. It was probably a little too late for 'shy' now, but she was also now aware that there was another being in the room who knew what they were doing. She swallowed thickly, and set the pen down.

"Yeah?"

She edged closer to Saph, tucking strands of vibrant pink out of her face as she moved. "I wouldn't be opposed to it, I guess." She grinned back, and side-eye glanced at the fish tank. She wasn't terribly far away from the x-man, so it didn't take her long to maneuver her way into his lap with her arms looped around his shoulders.

When she focused on Saph again, the grin melted into a content smile and she leaned in toward him...

Shelby was climbing on top of him. Holy hell. He leaned in to kiss her, grabbing the lower rim of his shirt.

N-O-W-A-I-T

He ignored it.

Saph grinned as she climbed on top of him, Quickly taking off his shirt, and tossing it onto the fish tank.

**Fade to Black**

Done! He caught his breath, laying splayed out on the bed, not even missing all of his clothes. The X-Man couldn't help but laugh to himself as he slowly climbed out from under her, got in decent shape, and pulled the shirt from the fish tank again.

The little bug was still sitting there, banging it's little head on the glass.

"So... You ready to be a little more descriptive, buddy? We're running out of daylight."

She flopped over exhausted and snuggled into the blankets on the bed. Saph got up and headed on over to their captive. She was more than content to simply lay there in her t-shirt and bury herself in blankets.

Meanwhile the little roach had scurried back to the decoder and was busy spelling out a message.

"T-H-O-U-S-A-N-D-S"

From her spot over on the bed, she wriggled around so she could face them. "What did he say?"

Saph's merry grin slowly shrunk into a bit of a frown.

That had been awesome. He wasn't sure where she'd learned what she'd learned, but dang. this, though, was bad news. He got it right away.

"Thousands, Shelby... There are thousands of them." He walked over and sat on the bed, looking over to her.

"Damn. That's not a scouting force. That's an army. He has to be watching... most of the city."

He looked to the bug. "So what, he just... makes you watch us? You're his slaves then?"

The Roach jumped about, frustrated.

H-E-L-L-S-N-O-I-T-S-A-U-N-I-O-N-J-O-B-W-E-G-E-T-8-H-O-U-R-S-A-D-A-Y-W-E-E-K-E-N-D-S-O-F-F-U-N-L-E-S-S-W-E-A-R-E-P-A-R-T-T-I-M-E-R-S.


Uh... That message was 3^^@in long... He looked at the pen an paper.

"Eh... Say again?"

The little bug freaked out, and threw a few rocks around, before pausing for a good solid few seconds, waiting until Saph had the paper again, and slowly spelling it out.

"Shit... Roach is a good employer... Whoda thought?"

She sat up fully at the tone in Saph's voice. "S$%#." This was bad, very bad. Her gaze unfocused and she caught a knuckle between her teeth.

"so, hypothetically there are thousands of these bugs out there." She didn't like the odds. She also didn't like the fact that he basically made it out to seem like a good job that he was more than willing to work.

"Does that mean someone will replace you? If you are unionized and only work 8 hours... does that mean that you aren't here all the time? Do you work in shifts?"

She started, and her voice trembled slightly. Would that mean that Eric would be replaced? Did that mean that Roach would just send another in his place in order to keep tabs on her again?
She cursed under her breath.

"Maybe we should take him to the precinct that is dealing with this case. Maybe with his help we can get a definite location for Roach." She was thinking out loud, her hands clenched into the blankets in her lap. She was worried, and rightly so.

She eyed the little tank from across the room.

"That might be a good idea..." Saph muttered, looking over to Shelby. What had they gotten themselves into? He looked back to the roach, who was fiddling with the decoder He prepped the pad, and spelled out the letters.

T-O-O-L-A-T-E-H-E-K-N-O-W-S-I-M-C-A-U-G-H-T

"Shit. No way. They're probably watching us now!"

Saph jumped up, throwing the pad to the side. He looked around him room, standing on the bed, and spying the corners of the room. Nothing. He pulled out his desk. nothing. He gently ushered Shelby into the corner. Nothing. He paused, and looked to the light in the middle of the room.

One chair later, he was holding the bowl for the light in his hand, and staring at a little hole by the bolt for the fixture.

"... Wonder how many rooms have these... We're all being watched." He sat down, and looked over to the aquarium, sighing. "can't blame him for it... But damn. We gotta deal with this, Shelby... He could be keeping tabs on the whole mansion..."

He was. Shelby wasn't special in this regard. roaches had been watching the mansion for YEARS.

She watched as Saph jumped up and scrambled around the room with wide eyes. The possibility that there had been one of the little Roaches watching the whole time was certainly not what she had been wanting to hear.

When he found a small hole in the ceiling, her worries were confirmed and she hurried to the door. If there was one in his room, then there was an obvious possibility that there was one in her room as well.

She needed to get to her room as fast as possible, ignoring the fact that she was bolting down the hallway sans pants. Modesty came second on the importance list as far as she was concerned.

Bursting in through her door she set about dragging the only chair in her room toward the overhead light fixture and removed the glass dome. There wasn't a hole to be seen. She dropped from the chair, abandoning the glass dome on her bed, and set about removing paintings from her walls.

Three paintings in and she found it. Behind a large painting of sunflowers with smiling skeletal faces was a hole dug through the wall. She glanced behind herself and noted that it was the wall that faced her desk. Above her bed. Anything that might have snuck in from that hole would have been behind her and out of sight as she was scouring the internet for clues on the giant cockroach of her nightmares.

She dropped onto her knees on her mattress, settling on her tush with the painting leaning against her lap. He knew... he most definitely knew what she had been up to the last few days. If not from Eric, then from one of the other thousands of roaches out there. The color drained from her face as she thought of possible consequences.

Had she put everyone in danger? Had she put herself in moredanger? What did all of this mean for the investigation? The future?

Saphirus followed her to her room, walking in and staring around at all of the macabre art on the walls. "Woah." Skulls and flesh abound. Stuff was morbid. No wonder Roach liked it. Seemed like something he would paint. Still, it was good art. He could see rich people buying it.

"These are all yours?"

She was busy tearing them off the wall. It wasn't long until she found the hole. "Damn... we have to assume they know everything." He reached over to grab the painting from her, and pull her into a hug. She was clearly freaking out a bit. It was his job to make her feel more at ease.

"Don't worry... We'll get him, and now that we know, we can stop this." The spying, that was. It was jarring, to know that someone had been watching them the past week. Now that they'd been discovered, he knew it wasn't very likely the spies would stick around. Still, he could get some RAID and spray the holes, and plug things up for now.

"Prolly best we keep our walls bare for a while. You know... Just in case." He tried to remain calm... A close look would show signs he was furious.

"These are all yours?"

Turning her chin, she glanced at him and nodded. "Y-yeah." 

She allowed him to remove the painting from her hands, but tracked it with her eyes. Then her vision was flooded with his chest and she leaned into him. She nodded mutely to his confirmation of her own thoughts. There really wasn't much she could say.

"Don't worry... We'll get him, and now that we know, we can stop this."

She nodded again but wrapped her arms around him and lifted her head. Small, frustrated tears were gathered in her eyes and she had a frown pressed on her lips. "I know. I believe that." She couldn't stop the crushing feeling of defeat that came along with the news, though. It felt like she had taken one giant step forward, slipped, and then careened all the way back down to the bottom.

She struggled with what to say for a moment, glancing around her room. It didn't feel safe anymore. For the last week she had been there she had felt safe. Like nothing could get her. Now, because of the spy, parts of that safety net had holes in it. It... angered her. It pi#$%ed her off that Roach could just wiggle into her life whenever he felt like it and break all of the things she loved.

It felt like he was trying to destroy her, body and soul.

Her brow creased. "It doesn't matter if he knows, he can't stop this." She couldn't let herself start to slide into depression. She couldn't give up. "I refuse to let him win." She dropped her head back onto his chest, forehead pressed into his collar bone. An angry tear escaped and made a break for it down her cheek. 

"I know... Not while I'm around."

Saph wondered how he could comfort her. Sh was putting on a brave front, but this was a scary situation. He came to a solution that was rushing things a little bit, but... Well... In this situation it seemed almost necessary.

"If you want, you can stay in my room. We'll have better luck stopping them from spying on one location rather than two. That and I don't mind having you around... You know, if you're into it."

He was asking a girl he'd met a week ago to move in. That really had escalated quickly, huh?

They would have to get to work on roach-proofing the room. He could think of a few good things to use to make it happen. From there, they could find a way to clear the rest of the mansion.

"Sound alright?"

Pulling back slightly, she squinted up at him uncertainly. He had just asked her if she would want to move into his room with him... normally she would have said no, if there wasn't a murderous cockroach spying on her. She wanted to say yes, but also wanted to know exactly what he had meant when he said he wouldn't mind having her around. Like... was there a smutty connection to that?

She blinked at him, lashes wet from her brief episode, and laughed. "Yeah, that sounds alright." She smiled and wiped at her cheek with a wrist to remove the moisture that had managed to escape. "I'll even leave all of my art stuff in here. No use cluttering up your room with a bunch of junk, huh?"

She would need to take her computer though, as well as a few other key items. Things she didn't want people rooting around in. Thankfully all of it could fit in her backpack. She shifted to her knees again so she could look him in the eye, curled her arms around his shoulder and grinned.

"Thank you Saph... it means a lot to me." She planted a kiss on his cheek.