The accuracy of his assumption caught him off guard, but considering they were the only two people in the house actively trying to avoid the festivities, it wasn’t an unreasonable conclusion to draw; however, it was his choice of words that grabbed his attention. “Weird family bullshit” at an event thrown primarily for friends was entirely too specific. No, he thought with a small pout. He didn’t want to go back to it. Trev knew the last thing he wanted was to be needled and patted on the head and told everything would work itself out. All he had to do was ‘chin up and smile and play along’. They made it sound so disgustingly easy. Standing here letting himself be a target of another sort was hardly better, but in a way, this cursory annoyance was easier to bear. Trev’s fingers curled into fists and he let his arms drop from their folded position, shoulders hunched in clear aggravation. “Say I do. Are you going to follow me all the way back?” Undeterred, another shot snapped Trev across the hip, causing him to flinch and flare his nostrils. “Sure you wouldn’t rather do something fun instead…?” “I have my own idea of fun, and it doesn’t involve-“ Another shot slapped across the back of his hand before he could finish the thought, and he yelped quietly and yanked it out of the way a split second too late. “...rubber BANDS, for starters. “Then let’s do something else, ya wet blanket,” Fleur suggested in a mocking tone. “I am, I’m leaving, something you can’t-“ Another popped him square in the middle of the forehead. “Seem to-” Followed by another in the neck. “Grasp- for the love of- KNOCK IT OFF!” “Ah ah ah-” the man scolded with a smirk as he impudently wagged a finger and loaded another rubber band. “The punishment will continue until morale improves.” Trevor’s lip curled, the corner of his eye twitched in irritation and one finger lifted in idle threat as he warned, as calmly as he could manage, “If you keep shooting those at me, I am well within my rights to confiscate them as evidence of-“ But it only served to embolden his assailant’s taunting. One, two, three, then four pelted him in rapid succession, leaving Trevor flinching, backstepping, and sidestepping, as he attempted to block every last one. “-haraSSMENT!” The second half of his threat stuttered out with an angry huff. “Go ahead and try,” his opponent laughed, “But be warned, I have worse things in my pockets that’ll find their way onto your clothes before you can get to them.” As that constituted a fair warning, a second scanning look with a few extra filters layered on confirmed as much. His heads-up-display outlined about a dozen round objects filled with some sort of liquid, stuffed into the deep outside pockets of his cardigan, as well as a few unconventional inner pockets. Trev grimaced and shook his head at the sight, less perturbed by what the contents could be than the fact his mind engaged such programs on automatic -depending on the input given, like Fleur admitting to being armed for mischief- without his consent. Of course it would scan to see what concealed weapons there might be. Convenient as those features were, sometimes he missed the days when he was too naïve to have ever been aware of those programs. But now that they’d come to an impasse, he couldn’t get closer, as much as he couldn’t walk away- “non-negotiable nonsense”, as Spencer might have called it. Coining such a term to describe the paradox which typically triggered a deviant break had been astute of him. Trev’s expression soured at the reminder, and he turned away. “Go find someone else to pelt and laugh at. I’m-“ The redheaded, squinting blue-eyed face he almost stepped into stopped him cold. “You’re what, Langley? Off to places unknown?” He turned to hide the embarrassment flushing into his cheeks but found himself stuck between two people he didn’t want to speak to. Naturally someone had come looking when he didn’t return with a fresh drink like he’d claimed to have left for, and of course, that person was Dennis. Better go find your missing puppy, Lenore, before he trips and falls down a foxhole, Trev retorted inwardly. Interestingly enough, his company also seemed perturbed by Dennis’ sudden arrival. The Fleur rolled his eyes and exhaled a loud sigh. “Go away, Den,” he muttered as he turned his whole body and leaned back with his shoulders flat against the wall, slight tension evident in his tone and body language. The boy’s fingers stiffened and his jaw clenched as the Detective peered over at him from behind Trev’s shoulder. Not that Langley was curious enough to ask, but there was clearly more to the story there. At least, for now,, they could agree on finding Lenore’s presence a bother, albeit for different reasons. “Hmph. Knew you’d bite if I brought bait.” His choice of adjective was enough to get a raised eyebrow out of Trevor, if not a revolted frown. He did not appreciate the notion of having been brought anywhere without being told he was the lure in a given plan; but then again, Dennis couldn’t have counted on him getting fed up and walking away. Or had he? After a pause, he glanced back at his mentor and adjusted his frames in nervous habit. “I’m sorry, sir. I was on my way back before this one decided it was worth wasting time to interrupt me-” The next rubber band whizzed past him with a sharp fwip, picking up enough speed to make sure it would hit Dennis right in the chest. Olive green eyes leered over at him from the direction it had come. “Told you once, Detective- you’re not my type.” “Yeah…? Well, what about this one?” A thumb and a loosely closed fist gestured toward a slightly flustered Trev (who sputtered a surprised look of protest and puffed his cheeks) as Lenore took a few steps forward to stand next to him. The boy exhaled long and slow in response, eyes rolling even further into the back of his head before closing completely. “Still deciding,” he mumbled in blatant annoyance. “But I don’t need you to go shoppin’ around for friends for me.” “No, you probably don’t- but this one is a cut above the other kids you’ve been hangin’ around, even if he’s a tough one to crack. You think you could loosen him up? Without getting any of that stuff on the floor?” This much confirmed the balloons definitely weren’t full of water. Trev frowned again, only this time it was out of bewilderment. “What ‘stuff’ do you mean?” The boy sighed with an audible groan and turned to face them, pushing himself up on the wall to stand up straight. “I’m tryin’, but he’s not makin’ it easy,” he retorted as he shifted his weight and snapped another one at his thigh, at which Trev jumped aside with a half shrieked ‘STOP IT!’ Politeness be damned, this was getting to be too much, too fast. Dennis’ expression shifted from exasperated to something like smug as he glanced between them. Over what was the question. He looked like someone who had just discovered a reason to be proud of some unintended brilliance; or, much more likely, he was only making that face as to further addle the situation. “I could tell you, but that’d ruin the surprise.” The creeping grin returned, smaller than it was before, as he threw Dennis a skeptical squint laced with curiosity. “What a mood you’re in…” Fleur commented impishly, as if he was reluctant to see him go. “Why can’t you be this fun all the time?” Before he could answer or Trev could protest, he let one last band snap across his target’s neck, harder than he had yet, and braced himself for the impending reaction. A foot chase was the last thing Langley thought he would be doing tonight, but enough was enough. He had hit his threshold for dealing with irritation, however low or high said bar was set that day. Words clearly weren’t going to stop this assault, so the next best thing to do was make it stop. “I warned you- MULTIPLE times...” Trevor hissed as he stormed over, reached for his sleeve before he could get too far, aiming for the pocket from which most of that ammo had been drawn. “Now hand, them, over-!” But Fleur was far more nimble than he’d anticipated, and reflexively stepped back in the half-second before Trev could get a secure grip. With a low chuckle of delight, he blitzed out of the way of Trev’s hand, dipped under his arm and bolted through the door of the room he’d been in and out of all night, the hem of his cardigan flapping in the wind draft behind him. With a disgruntled sound somewhere between a groan and a shout, Trev rushed after him. Dennis might have said something to the effect of “mind the floors”, but in that moment all Langley was really interested in was a bit of payback. Secret weapon or not, if anything went his way he would get every one of those remaining rubber bands and stretched them until they- Langley stopped cold in the threshold as a water balloon struck him in the chest and exploded in a canary yellow mess all over his burgundy jacket, splashing a few large drops over his shoulder into his hair and into the hallway. Trevor held his breath until he could feel the thick liquid seeping into his shirt and dripping down his blazer. “What in the-” Paint. The little devil had filled them with PAINT, because of course he did. “I warned you,” the redhead scolded in a sing-songy tone as he tossed another balloon between his hands and flashed him a coy grin. “Follow me, and you’ll only catch another,” he warned with a wink as he trotted back a few steps toward an open door at the back of what looked to be an enormous art studio, furnished just as chaotically as he looked. Trev grit his teeth and clenched his fists as his face flushed a darker shade of red than ever, inwardly mortified at what Dennis would think of the now-spattered suit. Now he really wasn’t going to let this stand unanswered. “I said, get back- hey!” One unfortunately-placed puddle of paint foiled a second attempt at catching his sleeve. Trev’s lunge stopped short as he slipped, and his hand caught empty air as the boy laughed and skipped out of the way; another balloon filled with indigo pigment splattered onto his shoulder as he broke the fall with his left hand and right knee. Some of the smaller splashes of yellow on his suit morphed into an unsightly mahogany brown as the new color mixed in with it. “Watch your step,” his quarry chimed from the doorway, just before he turned, sprinted out onto the veranda, and vaulted over the balcony railing with an effortless hop. Trev did his best to up and follow, not wasting his breath on more fruitless shouts, but the paint on the sole of his shoe made for poor traction. One leg skewed out from underneath him and he made a few scrambling steps before he caught his bearings, then pushed off from the floor with one hand and charged after him. His target was already halfway to the tree line and pulling away quickly by the time he’d reached the balcony. This shouldn’t have been any contest, but it was quickly turning into a farce of a chase, like a fox trying to outrun a hare that was armed with paint bombs to keep its pursuer’s traction down. “We’ll see about that,” he huffed as he hiked himself over the rail in one smooth motion, absorbed the landing with a deep crouch, and took off again. The mansion wasn’t close enough to the lakefront that he could see it at a distance, with all the bands of trees between them, but he could tell where Fleur was headed- the northwest-facing property put the backside exits pointing southeast toward Lake Saint Clair. His target knew the area well enough that he didn’t even slow as he turned to glance over his shoulder, then took a sharp left turn into the tree line off the stone path. The road was well-trodden but unpaved, and he was running barefoot through god knew what; but whatever grit and sticks might have been poking into his feet didn’t appear to slow Fleur down. For a moment Trev thought he’d lost sight of him until a particularly loud crack of blue lit up the sky and traced a form moving through the trees to his right. “Got you! Come here, you bloody…!” In the middle of nowhere among the foliage were several rope and tire swings, a stone fire pit, and two wooden park benches that looked like they’d been there a while... But no Fleur. Langley paused momentarily in the clearing, only to be blindsided from above by another balloon full of orange paint, now coloring his right thigh. With a protesting groan of “Oh, come on!”, he lunged for the boy as he dropped from his perch on the rope-swing platform and managed to snag a handful of his sweater before yanking him back in his direction. Fleur took an off-balance slide in the dirt with a wild look and bumped into him shoulder-to-chest, as Trev reached into the pockets of his cardigan and pulled out three pieces of ammunition with a triumphant “HA!” But he only smiled back with a devilish grin as a crack of red and white light illuminated the area with successive loud booms. “Hey now, aren’t you coming on a little strong?” he teased as he reached into one of the inner pockets. “Well, I’m not about to stick my hand down your trousers to see if-” A handful of bright green paint slapped across his cheek while he was only halfway through his snarking, leaving him furiously gawking for a moment long enough for his prey to escape, laughing all the way. Somehow, he felt like the supercilious hare going after the cunning fox, not the other way around. It only took a few seconds for his aim to calibrate the weight of the paint balloon, and calculate the trajectory and speed necessary to hit him at a distance, but when he’d finished he wound up like a major league ball-player and pitched it as hard as he could- successfully clipping Fleur’s arm in bright red paint. It wasn’t a direct hit, but he was trying to throw around all those sneaky trees. Finally, he had made his mark, and with Trev now holding the majority of what remained of the paint bombs, it meant he had the advantage. The hunt was on. Another couple minutes of running beneath an increasing amount of fireworks popping off overhead yielded another brief victory resulting from a misstep on (who by now he was pretty confident was) Dylan’s part. In the darkening twilight, in between bursts of flashing light, the maintenance shed managed to sneak up on him. Wide eyes turned to look for his pursuer but spotted him a moment too late. A balloon overfilled with white paint burst open with a particularly large splash, drenching his right hip in white gesso. “And that’s for my suit!” Trevor shouted in vengeful victory; but just when he thought he’d won, Fleur threw his head back against the hollow shed with a soft, clanging thud and let out a rolling laugh. Dumbstruck as he was by his behavior (because being covered in paint didn’t seem to bother him at all), he was quickly learning that this was typical of him. In fact, if Trev didn’t know any better, the way he smiled looked like he was saying ‘This is exactly what I wanted’. Too distracted by the nuance, if only for a moment, Trev didn’t even notice as Dylan slipped away and chucked one of the smaller balloons still in his pockets, and matched his last hit with a small splash of blue on his hip. “How many of these things do you HAVE!?” he half-shrieked in dismay as Dylan sprinted toward the lake, and began the chase anew. Ten minutes and another shot to his left leg after they’d started, and Trev was about ready to admit defeat and call it quits; but by now they were so far from the house and so deep in the woods, he couldn’t tell which way would lead back. Even if his internal map of the property had updated the further on they went, like the unexplored canvas of an open-world adventure game, there were still too many blank spots to get lost in. And he would rather not have Dennis have to assemble a search party to come find them; he hated being the center of anyone’s attention enough as it was. Heedless of their antics, the fireworks show launched into its third, loudest, most explosive phase yet. Wherever they were shooting them off from, it sounded close. He could hear the shrill whizzing, screaming, and shrieking of each payload as they propelled into the sky, and felt the explosive percussive blasts in his chest cavity like an uncomfortable pressure in his gut. Only so much of the bursts of light from the fireworks illuminated the undergrowth beneath the elms and oaks, but it was just enough for him to notice Fleur’s footprints had disappeared from the path. The tracks came to an abrupt halt after a sharp right off the trail, as if he had grown wings. In addition to being nimble and quick, it seemed he was also stealthy enough to get the drop on him, quite literally. Langley figured out where Dylan had gone (or rather, not gone) a second too late. Trevor barely had time to brace himself as the boy leaped from his perch in the tree above and tackled him to the ground. Wrestling for several moments just to get a grip on the squirrely foe, he finally rolled him over onto his back and gripped both hands in as many layers of clothing as he could, stood, and hurled him back toward the beaten path, harder than intended. For being so observant, he’d failed to account for how light Dylan was. The boy flew further and longer than he’d anticipated, arms and legs flailing almost comically as he tried to flip himself so he wouldn’t land on his head. His back and shoulders took the brunt of the landing, momentum absorbed by the damp soil as he hit, but he just took it in stride with a tuck and roll and sprinted along the lakeshore. Much to his dismay. It was unbelievable that he was still running. How could he have so much stamina when he looked like he only ate enough to keep his family off his back? With a long, tired sigh, Trev wound up with the last balloon he had, and threw it right at the back of his head, hitting him with enough force that it knocked Fleur clean off his feet. A stumbling face-first trip into the damp grass and sandy dirt of the marshy lakefront was all it took for him to decide he was finally too tired to continue. So instead of getting back up, he lay giggling on the ground for a few moments. But at least he hadn’t been hit by a rubber band or paint balloon in almost two whole minutes. “Now will you please leave me be...?” Trev whined after him. “I just - ugh.” Now that he didn’t have to worry about any surprise attacks, he took a moment to absorb the disheveled state he was in. Between the mud on his shoes, the paint streaks over his body gummed up with bits of leaves and shredded rubber, and the half-covered lenses of his glasses, it all added up to one conclusion: he was a hot mess, but that wasn’t really news. The only difference was, the outside now matched the inside. Trevor frowned. “This is terrible. You’ve ruined my only suit.” “Nah, it looks way better than it did when you got here...” Dylan joked with a beaming smile as he rolled over, sat up and ran a hand through the back of his hair to fling free as much of the dirt and paint as he possibly could. Too mentally and emotionally exhausted at the moment to protest, Trev caved and plopped down next to him on the beach. “That shit’s acrylic, it’ll wash out with water,” the freckled imp explained, gesturing to the lake as he leaned forward over bent knees, pulled a hard-earned cigarette from behind his ear, and lit it. Already Trev had started to paw and scratch at the green paint drying onto his jaw with a grimace. Beneath it was a cool tingling sensation, as his projected skin hadn’t yet reformed from the trauma of the impact. “C’mon… you really still wish you would have stayed inside? You’ve finally loosened up a little,” he scoffed and mumbled with the cigarette between his lips as he capped the lighter, then looked over at him with a small sigh and an expectant look. The faint cloud of smoke that puffed into his face stung his eyes and nose, but he cringed for another reason. Trev held his breath until it had passed before answering with a hearty dose of sarcasm. “It didn’t loosen anything up. If anything, I’m in an even better mood than I was before, only thanks to - oh, come on, it can’t have dried that fast!” The sarcasm gave way to real dismay. He rubbed at the bigger smear covering one eye and left an impressive track along the side of his face, though didn’t make any real progress to clean off any of it. The thought rankled instantly. “Are you happy now, then? Got what you were looking for?” “Yeah, actually,” Fleur confirmed as he tapped at the end of the cigarette and folded one arm over his knee, then directed a big grin his way. “You know- you’re not bad for a stick in the mud.” The sun was gone. The fireworks hadn’t stopped, they’d only changed in location- now instead of them launching from the Fleur estate, they’d begun firing off on the other side of the lake’s impressive horizon. For a few quiet minutes, they sat and watched the faraway spectacle, until Dylan brought up a sore subject, unintentionally. “Guess I should’ve figured you were an android if you came with Den and Dahlia.” To anyone else it was a casual enough observation. These days it tended to matter who was what just as much as it didn’t. Trev wasn’t so political about it as others were, owing to his seemingly-unique situation. Their opinions didn’t line up with his, but as much as it felt like the case most days (being an anomaly), he hated to think he was the only android who had ever been fooled so completely for so long. Nevertheless, daily reminders were bad enough without someone putting it into words. He cringed again as the skin projection finally dialed in on the missing portion along his jaw, feeling a faint spreading of warmth as the false epidermis melted back into place. It gave him away, if nothing else had up until this point. “Great. Just when I was starting to fool myself into thinking it wasn’t true all over again...” he muttered under his breath as he tried to unbutton a loose cufflink and use it to scrape more paint out from under his eye, only taking his glasses off as an afterthought when he realized they were in the way. A look of pure confusion crossed his company’s face. “Sorry- what? Fool yourself?” He dodged the need to answer that with another slightly-ridiculing question. “And so long as we’re comparing, what does that make you? Some kind of - French-African type?” The redhead’s smile faded just a little, and he rolled his eyes. “Take it easy... alright?” There was a real gentleness in his eyes as he looked at him and reassured. “Doesn’t matter to me either way what you are, I just wasn’t aware of it.” “And there you have discovered my reasoning for wanting to be left alone. Bravo.” After everything he’d endured since arriving at the Fleur’s estate that evening, he wasn’t exactly in a frame of mind to be placated by that. Trev took another dig at the caked-on acrylic, and his skin receded like water being pressed out from under a sheet of paper. “I don’t want to talk about it, to you or anyone else, understand?” “Fine, I get it- I won’t ask,” he replied, apparently un-insulted by his curtness. Of the small handful of redeeming qualities he’d discovered thus far, this was one of them. It was extremely hard to offend him, though it was proving to be more of a curse than a blessing. Just when he thought he was safe, Dylan took one last balloon out of his pocket and smashed it over the back of Trev’s head with a couple of fond pats to his shoulder before laying down in the dirt. Instead of wasting energy on a hapless wail, Trev sighed deeply and lulled his eyes shut to brood. Another silence passed between them, though that time it was just a little more comfortable, as opposed to tense and awkward. Instead of prodding further, Dylan had actually made true on his word not to ask; in spite of what he may have thought about the boy, it was one more small thing to be grateful for. “So, what’s your story…?” Fleur asked after about ten minutes of watching the distant fireworks and listening to the humming and chirping of insects in the night. “I mean-“ He paused mid-thought to tap the butt of his cigarette and knock the ashes into the dirt on the other side of him. “How’d you end up here, with Detective Lenore?” It wasn’t as much of a change in topic as he would have liked, but it was just enough. Trevor hesitated to answer, but Dylan’s silence as he took another drag on the cig was as insisting as asking the question over and over, without being as demanding. Trevor drew his knees to his chest looked away as he fidgeted and leaned over them. As much as he had kept to himself over the last few months, the desire to talk to someone about his trauma eventually overcame the shyness. It was more than most in the academy had bothered to do. Keeping everything to himself hadn’t exactly discouraged developing a reputation as a misanthrope. Appealing as it once sounded, the more time went by and he realized he missed people as he once knew them, that want had to win out somewhere. Besides- by the looks of him, it appeared Dylan Fleur wasn’t that far off from a kindred spirit. Trev stopped fidgeting after considering the offer to speak freely a little longer, then slid the paint-spotted glasses back on. “I’m from… out east. Boston.” One word there sufficed to explain the where and why of the equation in a single breath. If Dylan was really stuck on the idea of getting to know him, he’d have to work harder. “It’s where I met Detective Lenore. He found me- wandering the streets, trying to get out as they were… headed in. I wasn’t thinking straight at the time. He clocked me over the head and handcuffed me to a water main behind a laundromat for safekeeping. They found me again after Nicodemus was arrested. The rest is… well, here I am.” His company froze visibly, stared at the horizon and held his breath for a moment longer than planned before he turned and exhaled the smoke in the opposite direction. It hadn’t quite been six months since the Horsemen -a violent group of android supremacists- had rolled up on the unsuspecting city of Boston and turned it into hell on earth overnight. For two weeks they’d held the city and all its inhabitants hostage under threat of nuclear detonation in the form of a dirty bomb that would have killed all human inhabitants and left Purgatory to the Androids. Nicodemus and his Horsemen had eventually been taken down by Archangel brass (with the help of one rogue RK900), but it was only after the military’s efforts to save the city had resulted in the deaths of nearly a thousand people, humans and androids alike. It was considered a national tragedy and had again fanned the flames of prejudice spread by gangs like the Watchdogs (human supremacists, hell-bent on making sure the line between human and android remained defined). Clearly, it wasn’t the answer he was expecting, but it sure explained a lot. To his credit, Dylan didn’t divert from the heaviness of the subject right away. One dark, freckled hand lifted to run through the longer lengths of hair as he turned back to him and grimaced sympathetically. “You were there…? Fuck… I’m really sorry...” His response was more genuine than Trev had expected from the family misanthrope. But then again, based on the way his family had been talking about him, he’d assumed little more than to expect nothing short of a spoiled brat. So far, though, Dylan was proving to be the opposite. Impish did describe him well, but so did kind. “Sorry’s not your name, either,” Trev muttered in a muted, underwhelmed tone, arms folded once again. The weak impulse to joke, he couldn’t quite rise to; just as well, Dylan didn’t take him up on that. “Look- say no more, y’don’t have to if you don’t want to,” he assured as he put his mostly-spent cigarette out in the dirt, stood and waded into the water up to his knees. The cardigan came off, followed by his shirt, revealing several tattoos in addition to the branches wrapping around his right wrist and thumb- across his shoulders and the back of his neck was a lotus flower, the petals spreading out and around the sides of his neck in inky black brush strokes. The other, on his upper left arm, an ornate floral piece, and an hourglass on the underside close to his body; all of them were in black and white, and still a few years fresh, no greening or bleeding of the ink to indicate their relative age. It seemed he wasn’t afraid of a little pain if he was willing to sit long enough to have such detailed work done. “So, what’s your name?” came the question as he stooped down to rinse the paint off his shirt, then wadded it up into a sopping heap and scrubbed at his jeans with it to remove as much of the white paint as he could. Trev attempted to wipe some out of one eye, but only smeared the coagulating mess back above his ear in an unintentional homage to Nicodemus’ bullet. He could still feel the furrow in the panels there, even if it wasn’t visible with the skin projection running. “Trevor,” he replied, a little less annoyed than before, even with paint gunking up his hair and sticking to his fake skin. “...That’s it? Didn’t Dennis call you somethin’ else?” “Langley,” he added as a begrudging afterthought. No use in hiding such a crucial detail if it had already been revealed once. “And you are?” “What- you mean you didn’t hear my name bein’ thrown around by my disappointed family?” he teased with a quiet smirk thrown over his shoulder. “It’s Dylan. Fleur. Unfortunately.” It was true- their response to his absence was nothing short of exasperation, borderline apathy, and irritation, but Trev knew that giving someone the chance to introduce themselves, apart from what others had said of them, was key to understanding them. Archangel had afforded him the same courtesy once they had gotten back to Detroit. “You were clearly intent on doing something else tonight,” he noted instead, elbows propped on his knees, eyeing him warily from his spot on the ground. Dylan nodded and gave a crooked shrug. “What can I say? I got tired of big dinners and parties a long time ago.” Trev squinted, tilting his head so as to look out from behind sullied lenses. “Why?” he persisted, curious rather than judging. “Aren’t you one of them?” It kind of defeated the point of family to separate oneself from the pack. Dylan stopped from scrubbing the last of the paint off his pants and half turned toward him in deep consideration. It was clearly a loaded question with a multifaceted answer that he wasn’t yet willing to give. As he slung his shirt over his shoulder, he reached for the sweater that was still floating in the water a foot behind him, rolled his eyes and shrugged. Trevor knew a sore subject when he saw one, so he dropped it. Seemed they were both a study in living removed. “Forget I asked, then.” “It’s a long and boring story,” Fleur replied dismissively as he rubbed the pink paint off his face with the dripping wet sweater. The bright color transferred to the cotton fabric in a wide swath, leaving a slightly opaque layer smeared across his cheek until he swiped a clean sleeve over it again. “So boring, you’re carrying around balloons full of paint for laughs?” Dylan scoffed, popped his brows and shook his head as he dunked the cardigan in the water again to wash out the paint. “No- I was getting ready to do something else when you found me, but this sounded more fun.” Naturally, that only raised more questions than it answered. What purpose would water balloons filled with paint possibly serve, if not to be thrown at other people...? “By the way,” he added as he lifted the sweater out of the water, still sopping wet, and hurled it at him. Trevor jumped as it slapped over his face with a loud, hollow PLOP and pushed his glasses uncomfortably high up on his nose. “You should wash up before it dries.” Trev tugged the wet fabric free with a grudging groan, but took his advice and started scrubbing at the paint on his cheeks. Most of the lighter streaks were easily saturated and wiped from existence. On a whim of a program recommendation, he sampled the substance out of curiosity and determined it was exactly what Dylan claimed. The molecular formula ghosted across his vision to add itself to the pile of data still compiling. His company snorted in amusement at the sight of him licking paint off his finger, not at all subtle in calling attention to it. “You can’t get high off that shit, if that’s what you’re wondering,” Dylan teased, then bent forward to submerse his hair in the water. Hands rubbed vigorously at his head for a few seconds before he whipped it back and pushed as much of the water as he could out of the thick mop of auburn red. “How far out here are we, anyway?” Trev asked in idle thought, rubbing the glasses between the folds of the sweater as he looked out over the lake at the last fireworks going off in the distance. Dylan shook the water out of his hair and wrung out his shirt as best he could, then pulled it back on and ran his hands through his hair in a futile attempt to push it out of his face. “Far enough that no one would hear you scream.” It was a joke. Obviously. But he delivered it with such deadpan finality Trev couldn’t help a bemused pause, eyebrows hiked up in mixed skepticism and concern. Scream? Because…? The look said this plainly enough without him putting it to words. The devilish smile returned to its rightful place below squinting green eyes as the boy stepped out of the water and stopped beside him, reaching down to take back his cardigan. “Relax, I’m only half kidding…” Again with the comical vagueness. Trev didn’t smile back through bent, paint encrusted eyebrows. The suit was still a wreck, but at least his face was mostly clean again. He indulged in one last wipe across the brow with the improvised rag as best he could and handed it back. “About which part…?” Dylan sighed and rolled his eyes, draped the cardigan over his shoulder, and extended a hand in an amicable offer to help him stand, but Trev just leaned back and eyed him warily. “Don’t you wanna get out of those clothes and clean up?” As badly as he did, to fuss and bemoan over his current appearance wouldn’t do. Even after an impulsively-sparked, borderline-foolhardy chase, he wanted more to pretend he had retained some kind of composure, a stab at maintaining a shred of dignity. Other than that, it wasn’t as though he had another set of clothes readily available. “It can wait until we get back.” Trev pushed off the ground and grabbed his outstretched hand in the same movement, as Dylan leaned back and helped him up. “I’m not about to go wading and end up smelling of lake silt.” “There are worse things to smell like,” his for-better-or-worse company mused as he slipped his hands into his pockets and turned up the path back toward the mansion. It was a clear enough trail, even if at a walk it would still take them a quarter-hour to return. “But that’s what showers are for- first you live a little, then you deal with the mess later.” There it was again, Dennis’ sage advice about getting out to experience what chaos existed beyond the walls of the academy dorms. Right about now -as he trekked back in muddy, slippery loafers- Trev missed the clean, orderly nature of the place. Langley rolled his eyes, out of sight as he was following Fleur’s lead, and avoided mentioning what a mess Boston had turned into. And how, prior to that, he thought that lie of a life was all he needed. “Detective Lenore is still not going to be happy with the state I’m in, half clean or not.” He laughed, in a way that spoke of how little he cared. “Yeah? Well, if he isn’t, he can eat my ass. He knew what was coming, and he practically endorsed it.” The flagrant disregard with which he said it made Trev’s impression of him do a slight flip-flop. On the one hand, Dylan was obviously more perceptive and sensitive than he led others to believe; on the other, it was because of such nose-thumbing the rest of the family probably found him so tiresome, and therefore regarded as a lost cause. But in the most cursory of ways, Trev simply found the use of vulgarity annoying. “Be that as it may. There’s no need to be crude about it.” “You’re right, there isn’t.” The agreement came without explanation or apology, and the way he smirked as his voice trailed off said all he needed to let him know he couldn’t care less about how he was perceived. They walked on in silence for a minute more before Dylan thoughtfully asked, “Do you miss it…? Boston, I mean, not Purgatory…” Purgatory seemed like less of a place and more of an event the country would just as soon forget. Even if those files could be selectively deleted, Trev didn’t fancy letting go of them. Without that reference how was anything now supposed to make sense? The rapid-fire slideshow played over his retinas again, but instead of focusing on any one frame too long, he tried to shrug off the resulting discomfort; whether it had resulted from this train of thought or the chaffing of the paint-saturated fabric was hard to tell. Regardless, how interested could Fleur actually be? “Sometimes- there are fewer boats here, obviously.” The bustling Boston harbor made the Detroit River look like a carnival ride of a channel. “And I probably won’t miss the winters. Although Detroit isn’t much better on that front, is it?” “It’s worse,” Fleur chuckled with a quiet grin. “Guess you haven’t heard about the ice storms and freezing rain… make sure you get a thick coat, it gets so bad it’ll freeze even an android’s joints.” Trev stomached the reminder with only another shrug and batted a thin branch out of his way as they turned a corner along the path. “Boston has the same issue, only here it’s lake effect snow you have to worry about. You’re sooner to get buried in and freeze if your car breaks down.” He hadn’t spent all that time shut in simply not doing any research. Both cities were at the same given latitude. “By what I’ve heard the spring thaw came early this year, though…” In a manner of speaking. One near-silent minute later, he blinked down at his company, who had stopped to stare with an exhausted grin. “What?” “I’m sorry, but- are we really doing this…?” Dylan stopped, held up a hand, then covered his face and laughed under his breath. “Doing what?” Trev scowled, ever so slightly, not seeing the humor in a simple discussion about the weather… Until he did and slowed to a stop just a couple steps ahead of him. The hardness in his brow dissipated. “Oh.” It seemed it wasn’t as easy to derail uncomfortable conversations with this one unless he outright stated he didn’t want to talk about something. “I mean- I’m glad you’re talkin’, Trev, but the weather…? Really?” Meteorology was the one subject most near-strangers went for when they weren’t quite sure what should and shouldn’t be touched on. The more benignly, the better. But it was the former half of that statement that set him on edge all over again. “You’re glad? /What difference does it make to you that I don’t care to discuss much else?” The last time he was so familiar with anyone it turned out to be a sham, and he wasn’t eager to relive it in any capacity. The man sighed deeply and rolled his eyes again. “Because being a killjoy is no fun, and the weather is boring, but you’re the most interesting person I’ve laid eyes on all day. Is it really so bad to just want a little social interaction that doesn’t lead into a lecture about god knows what…?” Interesting didn’t always necessarily mean good for getting to know. In hindsight, Trev could see so many occasions in which he might have strayed and wondered, had Spencer not kept him on task and none the wiser. He missed that arrangement more than the city itself, that steady presence, and as yet Dylan Fleur was at best a fifteen percent match to Langley’s former partner. Of course, it would mean looking at compatibility issues, front and center. Dylan hadn’t the first clue at what an inner wreck lay under the hood; but as of yet, he didn’t need to know, either. It was safer for everyone if they just left it alone. Time to reiterate that. “I’m afraid all I’ve got are amended lectures at the moment. The rest is too much to go into, like I said. Would you care for it if I started picking your brain apart just as thoroughly?” “Who said y’had to tell your story?” The look on his face bore no hint of playfulness so he’d get the message across loud and clear, and boy did he. When he really wanted to, Fleur could be downright convincing, and genuine, contrary as it seemed. It wasn’t as tiring trying to keep up, but it was a little jarring how easily he could switch between carelessness and seriousness in the blink of an eye. “Didn’t I say I wouldn’t ask…?” Dylan turned on heel in front of him and took a couple of steps back, holding up his arms and lifting his brows. “I get the feeling you’re not too practiced in conversing for the sake of entertainment, ‘cause there’s plenty more we can talk about without rippin’ open old wounds- like why the hell you decided to wear a suit to one of the most casual holiday parties of the year,” he gestured with a teasing grin. Trevor shuffled his feet and crossed his arms, glanced down and tapped a toe into the dirt to hide the embarrassment in his expression. Admitting he didn’t own any respectable clothes besides his cadet duds was yet another confession he’d sooner avoid. How had he not grown tired of hearing what he didn’t want to talk about yet? “Hey-” One hand reached out to give a soft pat on Langley’s upper arm, and he flinched back instinctively. Touches of that nature were not his preference, either. “You wanna know what I was really doing with all those balloons before you showed up? C’mon...” Hitting something with them would be the logical assumption. And given what acrylic was meant to do, color and cover in equal measure, it wasn’t a stretch to parlay something into someone. All in all, Dylan appeared to have gotten some enjoyment out of it. Good for him.