#mighty med

Oliver couldn't stop noticing that Kaz had been lying a lot more this year. He didn't understand why. He asked Kaz about it, but he only ever shrugged it off. Oliver would be more angry about it, but he'd seen the confusion on Kaz's face after lying to his mom about what he'd eaten for lunch, so Oliver was pretty sure that Kaz didn't know why he was lying so much anymore than Oliver did. He was more concerned about it than anything, since he was pretty sure it was going to get him and Kaz in trouble.

Kaz's parents never called him out, and neither did their teachers, so eventually Oliver's worry lessened enough to start being annoyed again. Kaz said things that weren't true right to Oliver's face! Even about things that didn't make sense to lie about, like he was just allergic to honesty all of a sudden.

It just kept happening.

They move classrooms from social studies to math, and Oliver can't find his math pencil, so he asks Kaz, "Did you take my purple pencil?"

Kaz says, "No," perfectly casual, and then he hands Oliver's purple pencil back to him.

--

The language arts teacher asks Kaz to answer a question about the book they're reading, and Kaz pretends to faint out of his chair. Mrs. Russell rolls her eyes and tells Oliver to take him to the nurse after class. Kaz gets an earful for that one, since Oliver is mad at him and at Mrs. Russell for ignoring him.

--

After school, Kaz asks if Oliver's read the newest Tecton comic yet, and Oliver hasn't, so he says, "Not yet."

Kaz says, "Yeah, me neither."

Later, while they read it together on Oliver's bed, he gets distracted by the background details in the panel, and Kaz pokes him in the shoulder impatiently. "The next page is the best part, Ollie."

--

Oliver knew that just telling Kaz to stop doing something made him want to do it more. He needed to approach the problem differently, but he didn't know how; he asked his mom and the internet how to get a liar to stop, but neither were very helpful.

Eventually, he came up with an idea. Kaz was more likely to do things if someone told him not to, so maybe the opposite would be true. Maybe if Oliver encouraged him to lie, Kaz would stop doing it.

"Tell me a lie."

Kaz's eyebrows nearly disappeared into his hair. "What? Why?"

"Why not?" Oliver shrugged as carelessly as he could, which meant he was still very stiff, but it was the thought that counted.

"You don't like it when people lie to you. It doesn't make any sense."

"Does it need to make sense? Tell me a lie, Kaz."

Kaz's shock was pretty funny. Oliver waited him out, biting his smile down as Kaz floundered. "Um, there's a secret fastest animal called the double cheetah. It has eight legs and its fur is red, but scientists are paid by Big Cheetah to hide it."

"That's so dumb."

"You didn't say it had to be believable."

"No, I guess I didn't." Oliver laughed. "This is better, crazy unbelievable lies are more fun."

--

"Tell me a lie."

"The pirate king is rapidly approaching your location."

"My location in the middle of the city? Is he on foot?"

"Get with the times, Oli-pop, modern pirate ships have wheels."

--

"Tell me a lie, Kaz." He felt awful this morning. Oliver's mom had missed dinner the night before and he'd had a hard time falling asleep. Nonsense sounded nice compared to his scattered, anxious thoughts.

Kaz spun a more elaborate yarn than normal, like he'd understood Oliver was asking for a distraction. "Umbrellas were invented by Charlotte Umbra, the most famous actress to ever play Cinderella, and she cobbled together the first umbrella when it rained before an outdoor show. The show must go on, you know? So she makes an umbrella. Everyone thought it was awesome, and she started carrying one every show even when they were inside. She called it Charlotte's rain cane, but that was stupid and no one liked it, so after she died they renamed it the umbrella."

Oliver stopped walking for a second. Kaz stopped with him. "I did not get enough sleep to make sense of that," he decided.

"Sleep in math."

"I can't sleep in class!"

"We've been doing the same thing all week and you've already figured it out."

"What if we start something new today?"

"On a Friday?"

"Kaz!"

"What?!"

--

"Tell me a lie."

Kaz was moping. He'd say he wasn't, but he hadn't even touched his lunch yet, and they only had ten minutes left.

"Tell yourself a lie," Kaz muttered. Oliver rolled his eyes.

Oliver's plan to reverse psychology Kaz out of lying didn't work. Kaz still lied about stuff he didn't need to pretty much every week, so Oliver had privately admitted defeat. It had sort of become a game, though, one they both thought was fun. Chances to be outlandish made Kaz happy. He must've felt worse than Oliver realized if he didn't want to play.

"Did you know Skylar Storm is getting a new backstory soon?" Oliver asked. "They're gonna retcon her being an alien and make her a time traveling ninja."

It took a second, but Kaz turned toward him, and he was totally trying not to smile. "That is not true," Kaz declared. "You made that up, Ollie."

"Whaaaat? No way."