Dark Gaia best father ever

Beau was back on track, both metaphorically and literally — as he was back on the road, now with Landon sitting in the passenger's seat and Daniel's CD collection in the back (Landon wanted to keep it). One of the CDs had been taken from the collection and placed into the CD player of Beau's car; the CD that Landon had been listening to when Beau had found him.

Both Landon and Beau had picked up from where they had left off. All was well.

Not long after the two hit the road, Beau grabbed his phone and tossed it to Landon. "Can you call Mr. Dunnington for me? His number will be in my contacts as 'Franklin Dunnington', shouldn't be too hard to find." They asked him, keeping their eyes on the road.

"… How do I get to your contacts?" Landon asked. When Beau looked up at the rear-view mirror, they saw that Landon was blankly staring at the smartphone with a look of unfamiliarity.

"RIGHT! You wouldn't know how a smartphone works, would you??" Beau exclaimed as the realization hit him like a speeding truck. "Just touch the screen to pull up the keyboard and type in my pass code — which is 8008—"

Landon snickered.

Beau snickered a bit as well. "Yeah, there's eights in my pass code… You know how it is—"

"It also spells 'boob'," Landon interjected. As if the statement alone wasn't enough to make Beau's cheeks turn red, he noticed in the corner of his eye that they could see Landon smugly smirking at them. "Did you not notice?" He added, his smirk widening.

"I… suppose I hadn't no…" Beau grumbled, trying to not let his embarrassment distract him from driving.

"Aww, come on! Don't be a prude, Beau!" Landon teased them.

"Just enter the pass code, Landon," Beau insisted, wanting to move things along.

"Alright, alright… Not a fan of that kinda humor, got it," Landon said, finally redirecting his attention to Beau's phone.

"Well, plus I'm gay, so—"

"Yeah I'm a fag too, you ain't special," Landon once again cut Beau off, almost like it was an instinct.

But this time, Beau didn't know what to say in response.

"Okay, I've put the pass code in, now what?" Landon nonchalantly continued on with the process of getting to the contacts in Beau's phone as if nothing had happened. On one hand, Beau appreciated that they weren't being made to linger on that for too long, but on the other hand, they had to admit that Landon's behavior was a bit jarring to bear witness to. Had there been some kind of hint towards this attitude of his in his journal that Beau had missed?

"Swipe upwards to access all of the phone's apps," Beau instructed. Landon followed suit without delay. "Now keep swiping until you see the app named 'contacts'."

"Is that the one with the bathroom sign bust shot?" Landon inquired.

"Yeah." At this point, Beau just resigned himself to approach the situation as nonchalantly as Landon was. "Tap on it."

"And now I swipe until I find Franklin?" Landon assumed.

"You got it." At least Landon was adapting to the 21st century relatively easily. That was a relief to see.

And just like that, Landon had found Franklin's contact and started a call. Pleased at the outcome, Beau took his phone back from Landon and secured it into the phone holder he had perched from the windshield.

"Good morning, Mr. Dunnington! How goes things?" Beau greeted Franklin, starting the conversation.

"A good morning to you as well, Mr. Montague! My morning has been rather uneventful so far, unfortunately. How about yourself?" Franklin responded.

"Well, as a matter of fact, my morning has already been VERY eventful!" Beau admitted, bordering on bragging.

"Is that so?" said Franklin, Beau being able to hear him perk up with intrigue from his vocal tone alone.

"It is!" Beau confirmed. "I'm happy to report that I have successfully facilitated the return of one of my brothers in the Eye all on my own~!"

"Ah, that's right. I remember Mr. Breckenridge telling me that he put you in charge of one of the souls when he came by to drop off that hard drive last week," Franklin recollected.

"Prophet's hard drive?" Landon interjected curiously.

"Maybe… Who's asking?" Franklin replied.

"Landon," Landon answered.

"… Fields, I presume?" Franklin queried.

Beau could see Landon's eyebrow raise. "Don't tell me I'm not the only Landon in the Eye."

"There's two of you, currently; Fields and Clark," Franklin explained.

"One of these days I'm going have to fight that 'Clark' guy for the title of The One True Landon." Beau had to hold back a laugh at that one, much to his own chagrin.

"… Welcome back to the realm of the living, Mr. Fields," Franklin stated with a heavy sigh, his voice dripping with the energy of him questioning why his father had ever employed the man he was talking to.

"Anyways, you still have Prophet with you, right?" Landon inquired, moving on from the last topic as quickly as what seemed to be usual for him.

"I have its hard drive, yes," Franklin answered.

"You haven't connected him to a computer yet?" Landon questioned, sounding a little like he was offended by Franklin's lack of action on Prophet's behalf.

"We weren't fully certain what the hard drive was until right now, Mr. Fields. With your conformation, we'll be able—"

"You better have him hooked up with a new computer to call his own by the time Beau and I get to where you're at, or you're gonna be a sorry motherfucker, you got that?" Landon demanded. Beau was both surprised and not surprised by how quickly he was willing to resort to threats like that.

"Was already planning on it. No need to get violent, Mr. Fields," Franklin responded sternly, unimpressed by such a stunt. "And by the way, if you did try anything, you would be the 'sorry motherfucker' in that situation," He continued. "We caught you once, and we'll do it again, Mr. Fields. Remember that."

"Well that was before I became the Eye's special little writer~! So you never truly know how things would play these days~!" Landon spat back, a large, stupidly proud grin plastered across his face as he spoke.

"Anyways. Where are you two currently?" Franklin inquired, forcing a change in conversation topic.

"We're on the road," Beau answered. "I assume you're at the station, yes?"

"As always," said Franklin.

"Hmm, 'the station', huh? Couldn't handle carrying on your Pa's legacy?" Landon inquired. At this point, Beau couldn't tell if Landon was just being Landon, or if he was actively antagonizing Franklin.

"I…" Franklin clearly seemed thrown off as well. "I tried, but there were other things that needed my attention too," He did his best to explain himself. "… You remember Prophet saying that the Eye's children had begun infecting people in Cate's Crossing back then, right?"

"Of course."

"Their infection continued to spread after the two of you went to The Eye, and it reached a point where people started to… notice things. Long story short, we had to take control of the FPTV broadcast station in order to keep things in our favor," Franklin elaborated.

"And FPTV became the favorite child of the two?" Landon asked.

"… I suppose you could word it like that if you wanted to," said Franklin, clearly starting to become worn out.

"We'll talk more when we get there, okay?" Beau interjected, figuring that Franklin would appreciate the gesture.

"Of course." It definitely sounded like he did, just from his voice alone.

Beau hung up the call, and redirected their attention back to Landon. "… No offense, but could you maybe tone it down a bit when we meet up with him face-to-face?" They requested.

Landon sighed. "Yeah. I suppose the threat was a bit uncalled for. Just got frustrated was all. My bad."

Beau squinted in annoyance. "That includes everything else as well, Landon," They added sternly.

Landon looked back at Beau with an expression of rather genuine confusion. "Everything else?" He echoed, as if clueless to his own actions.

"The sass??" Beau specified.

Landon's eyebrows raised with surprise. "Oh, fuck, is that how I came off?" His face distorted into a look of regret, his eyes darting away from Beau. "I guess that explains some things, huh…?"

"You… Didn't realize?" Beau inquired, re-approaching the conversation with a gentler tone, now that they realized that Landon wasn't meaning to be an asshole.

"I was just curious, really," Landon explained. "I was kinda surprised to hear that Dunnington Construction wasn't still going, ya know?"

"I… I see…" said Beau. "… And the stuff about Clark?"

Landon sunk into himself a bit, curling up in a manner not unlike a defensive hedgehog. "That was… supposed to be a joke…" Beau swore they could hear him sniffle a little, which honestly did break their heart a little.

"I guess you could say it didn't… Landon very well, huh?" Beau remarked.

Landon snickered slightly. "That was stupid…"

"Really? Cause I thought it was a Beautiful pun!" Beau continued, getting another light snicker out of Landon.

"That one was a bit better… Still corny as hell, though…" Landon scoffed.

"And yet, you're laughing!" Beau pointed out.

"Barely," Landon argued, rolling his eyes as he began to slowly unfold himself.

As Beau continued to drive, he noticed a convenience store coming up on his path, and got an idea.

"By the way, Landon. Have you eaten anything today?" He asked.

Landon went blank faced again. "… No," He admitted.

"Then why don't we go grab a quick bite real quick?" Beau suggested, pointing out the convenience store to Landon. "And drinks, while we're at it."

"Sure!" Landon replied, finally fully perking back up at the idea.

Once the two had gotten out of the car and into the convenience store, they had split ways, heading in two completely different directions. Beau didn't mind the arrangement, as he was happy to handle the process of ordering the food for the both of them on his own. But once he had completed the order and was left waiting for the food to be prepared, they did start looking for where Landon had wandered off to.

They found him over by the soft drinks, just staring at the refrigerated shelves, having not picked anything out for himself.

"Looking for something specific?" Beau asked him.

"Yeah, actually…" Landon replied. "You know where they keep the Jolt Cola?"

Beau just stared at him for a moment, trying to think of a response. "I… Have a feeling they discontinued that a while ago, cause I've never heard of that brand. Sorry."

"Well shit…" Landon frowned.

"… Tell me about what made it distinct from Pepsi and Coke. Maybe I can help you find a substitute?" Beau suggested.

Landon seemed to like the idea. "Honestly, it didn't taste all that different from the big two, in my opinion. What Jolt did have over those guys was the caffeine," He told them.

"Oh! If caffeine's what you're after, there's a bunch of different types of energy drinks right here next to me!" Beau replied, stepping over to the right slightly to give Landon a better view of the section they were referring to. Landon leaned over to peer inside. "I think there's at least one of these brands that has a cola flavor, dunno if this place carries it, though…"

"Ooo, pretty can…!" Landon muttered to himself while Beau was still trying to look for that cola-flavored energy drink, squatting down to grab one of the cans from the section. Beau turned their attention back to Landon to see what he had his eyes on, and saw that Landon had grabbed a can of guava flavored Monster.

"Or you could do that," said Beau. "I will say, be careful with those things. I think there's, like, 160 milliliters of caffeine in just one can?"

Landon looked up at Beau with wide eyes. "Really??" He reacted with excitement.

Part of Beau began to feel like he had just made a terrible mistake.

"I'm gonna be sooooooo focused today…!" Beau heard Landon continue to mutter to himself as he got up and began to walk towards the cash register.

"Focused?" Beau echoed with curiosity, joining Landon's side after grabbing himself a drink of his own.

"Isn't that why everyone drinks caffeine?" Landon replied. "To get through the day?"

"I mean, yes, but it's supposed to keep you from becoming tired and falling asleep. That's why they call them energy drinks," Beau explained. "Not to go all psychologist mode on you, or anything. But if caffeine is reacting differently with you, that might be a sign of ADHD—"

"Food's ready," Landon bluntly announced, cutting Beau off.

Come to think of it, Landon did display a lot of symptoms of autism as well, even in just the short time the two had spent together — which ADHD is often co-morbid with…

They pushed aside the thoughts of armchair diagnosing their new friend, and instead just made a mental reminder to perhaps try and suggest the idea of evaluation to Landon in the future.