Because You Live ❦ Doe

"I’m sure he liked you fine…maybe."  She shrugged, not really sure what else to say.  "You weren’t really.  I mean, no offense or anything, you know I love you.  But when it comes to that, there just really isn’t any competition."  Shaking her head, she moved on, "Besides, everyone else liked you.  You’re that sort of guy.”

He rolled his eyes dramatically. "I know that, but I was the closest thing to competition he had. I mean, you might not have known at the time. But I knew you loved him a lot. I just had always kind of hoped at the time you'd get over it and we could've happened." Duncan shrugged his shoulders. "I mean, I wasn't that likable before. It just came that way I guess."

"What exactly are you trying to say to me here, Duncan?  You were only nice to me because we were cooped up in the same house together?  Whatever happened to the whole thing about absence making the heart grow fonder?"  She shook her head in disappointment, letting out a world-weary sigh.  "No, seriously.  I mean, seriously it was a joke.  How anyone could get tired of you is beyond me."

"That's exactly what I was hinting at, thanks for not being oblivious." Duncan smiled, letting out a small chuckle as he did so. "I don't know, people could not like me. I got the feeling that Jace never really liked me but I think that was just because I was competition." 

I came when I was 18 and now I’m 21.

I don't know how it's going to be going back to the real world.

"You mean being kidnapped? - Awesome.. missed cheeseburgers to most mainly."

"Cheeseburgers are an important thing to miss."

"Because I literally just said the same thing to you.  Or something similar, anyways.  Honestly, if we can all be stuck together in one house for months at a time, I don’t see how we can get sick of each other at all.  We’ve already lived through the worst, nowhere to go now but up."  She looked at him, shaking her head, a small smile on her face.  "Come on, we both know that I was only kidding."

"Oh, you did?" He said in almost the same tone. "We have been but I feel like since we were in the same house we got over it. Now that we'll have free range on whether or not we'll see them ever again we'll all be a little less nice." Duncan commented, cocking his head to the side. "Sure.

Archie hovered over the other boy, his eyes moving around the room, just as Duncan’s were. “Yeah, man. It’s pretty surreal, right?” he scratched his chin, looking from the walls to the suitcase and back again, “you need any help? Or, like, even a distraction or summat.”

He nodded his head. "Yeah, man." Duncan rubbed the back of his neck watching Archie look around as he spoke. "I mean, it won't take me that long. I didn't really unpack. More like, moved it into a drawer. But I could use a drink? Want one?" 

"Feels like we been here a life time…"

Yeah, no kidding.