Post by 𝕄𝕖𝕣𝕔𝕦𝕣𝕪 on Oct 2, 2023 22:52:13 GMT
“Do either of you want to explain in painstaking detail,” Clementine started, staring at the two teens before them with an exasperated look coating their features, “why you are only just now returning at-” They checked their watch, frowning and rubbing at their eyes, “1:39 am?”
Lucien and Luka, covered and caked in mud and suspicious red substances as they were, only stared impassively at the elder leader. The shorter of the two had her hair out of the ponytail it was previously in, the curls messy and damp. The taller of the two had a jacket overtop of his shirt that had mud caked into it and some holes in the fabric.
The silence lasted a few moments, before Luka not-so-helpfully looked back at the eldest, “Actually, it’s 1:40 a.m. Cleo.”
Instead of a vocal reply, the eldest took a very deep breath in, the anger came off them in waves, and the release of air and the tired look on their face was simply disconcerting.
“I don’t think they care,” Lucien commented, not-at-all helpful either as he pointed out Cleo’s annoyance, “but to be fair, it’s closer to 1:41 am now.”
Cleo took another audible breath. Their eyes flashed up in that dead-pan take-no-shit way that they somehow mastered. It kind of impressed Luka just how much disappointment radiated from Cleo anytime the elder leader glanced at either herself or Lucien.
Luka decided the silence was getting a little boring and held up a very torn-up plastic bag that lay limply in her left hand. “On the bright side, we got the groceries!” She commented, her statement accentuated by a can falling out of a hole in the bottom of the bag, popping open with a clang, and spraying a mist of tomato sauce in all directions. Cleo’s eyes looked even more dead, but Luka gave a bigger grin to the other, waving the bag around more, leading to another thing falling out, this time it was only a box of crackers that didn’t pop open.
“I can see that,” Cleo stated, raising an eyebrow. While it was true that Lucien and Luka had an accumulation of plastic bags carried limply in their arms, many of the bags shared similar states with tears in them. Like the people holding them, the bags were also mudcakes and wet.
Luka had a sneaking suspicion that Cleo knew full well that they lost many of the items they were supposed to have, but she wasn’t about to admit it, and based on Lucien’s quiet demeanor, she knew he wouldn’t either.
It was silent and awkward and Cleo wasn’t budging. Sweating a bit, Luka coughed out a fake cough, forcing a sniffle and looking up, holding her hand out as if feeling for rain. It was raining outside, but given they were indoors, this action made her look like an absolute idiot. “Lovely weather we’re having,” Luka commented, trailing off with a look at Lucien, not so subtly indicating for him to pick up the slack and help.
“Oh, yeah,” Lucien replied, rolling his eyes, his sarcastic draw causing Luka to facepalm, “real nice weather. Are we done yet?” He questioned, looking from Luka to Cleo with that grimace he wore so often around them.
“No.”
“Didn’t think so,” Lucien replied, huffing. Unceremoniously he dropped the bags in his hands and dramatically walked over to the cough in the living room, throwing himself on it and crossing his arms.
Luka huffed at him, “I worked so hard to get that,” she grumbled, before dropping her bags and stepping through them messily to jump into the cushion by Lucien. She could tell, even with the dim lighting, that they were getting mud and filth on the cushions, but that wasn’t a now-problem or a them-problem.
Cleo looked two seconds away from committing a well-deserved case of manslaughter.
After waiting a while once again, it was obvious neither Luka nor Lucien wished to explain the situation. Cleo stood before them, tapping their foot with their arms crossed, impatiently glaring between the two.
“It’s 1:48 a.m.,” Luka said conversationally.
“Shut up,” Cleo replied, immediately and automatically.
“Shutting up,” Luka said, nodding as if they were discussing a business deal.
For a few more minutes it was an absolute standstill, silent and calm. To be fair, Cleo didn’t look super panicked about them. Lucien and Luka had bombarded the leaders' group chat with memes about avocados for a large portion of the night, after all.
Still, that didn’t explain being gone for almost six hours when all they were meant to do was pick up a small list of groceries.
“You both left at 8 O’Clock last night, mind explaining to me where you’ve been for the last 5 and a half hours?” They questioned, sitting on the coffee table, folding their arms onto their legs and blinking the tiredness from their eyes.
“Technically it’s been 5 hours and 51 minutes,” Luka unhelpfully stated, causing Lucien to snicker ever so slightly, though Cleo’s glare got the chaotic teens to shut up pretty quick.
Lucien glared right back, pointing at the table Cleo was sitting at, “Oh wow, you’re breaking the rules and sitting on a not-chair, how disdainful of you.”
“Not-chair?” Luka scoffed, doing a terrible imitation of Lucien’s American accent.
The boy not-so-subtly elbowed the girl in the side, and it was returned with an elbow right back into the ribs. Before the two got any further with their petty fighting, Cleo cleared their throat. The two looked back at the disappointed young adult and looked at each other.
Lucien scoffed at Luka’s expectant look, glaring at his friend, “you’re the one who insisted on taking a detour,” he commented.
Luka glared at him, throwing her hand out, “Well you're the one who yelled at the-” Police was what she almost said, but a glance at Cleo had her switch direction, “the you know who!”
“Oh, do I?” He questioned back, looking about two seconds from fighting with the Australian girl once more, though he had humor present on his face, “Miss ‘Does McDonald's make their burgers from fucking American Kangaroos’?”
Luka succinctly elbowed him again, causing the boy to release an oof. “Listen, it’s fast food, how do you know what they’re making the food from?”
“Uh, because I’m not a fucking idiot?” Lucien replied.
“I’d beg to differ, fucking bogan,” Luka scoffed.
An audible slap drew the two back to Cleo, who had practically thrown their head into their arms. They abruptly stood, disappearing for a few moments before returning with what appeared to be a cold cup of coffee in a mug stating that they were the ‘Best. Daddy. Ever.’
They took a sip of it, sitting back down, and glaring back at them.
The two teens returned to a stare-off, before Luka seemed to concede, turning back to Cleo and sighing. “Fine, you wanna know what happened?” She questioned.
They didn’t offer a reply, instead glaring at her as if the question was stupid. It was, in fairness to them, but Luka was gonna be as obstinate as possible.
“It all started when we left the Pantheon last night…”
“I can’t believe Cleo is making us go shopping,” Luka whined, umbrella to her side as she walked alongside Lucien. The two hadn’t hung out much, but they did serenade River and Laurie, and that was kind of funny. Plus, they were the youngest leaders, which meant that they got delegated to the chores no one else wanted to do. Lucien was…well, not nice, but he was funny.
“If you didn’t use all of our spices to poison all of our food, we wouldn’t have to do this,” Lucien replied, his eyes looking dead. He kind of looked like he wanted Luka dead. With how much he fought River, Luka was starting to fear that reality.
“It was still edible,” Luka replied, looking back at him with an equally dead set of eyes.
“No,” Lucien replied, sounding tired and drained, “no it was not.” He reached out, roughly grabbing Luka’s wrist and starting to pull her in one direction, probably towards a store, Luka had no idea. This was Atlanta, after all, Lucien was going to know it better. He was from the United States after all, and these big cities were probably all the same anyway.
Luka glared at his hand, slapping it like she was slapping a pest, and sticking her tongue out at him childishly when he glared back. “You just couldn’t eat it because you’re a coward.”
“You put spice in the ice,” Lucien replied, voice edging into irritation as he turned towards her.
“Dunno why you’re so upset ‘bout it,” Luka replied, quickly looking over Lucien judgmentally, “you seem like the spicy type.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You have the disposition of a habanero pepper,” Luka tacked back, rolling her eyes, “that is to say, no one can stand being around you.”
“Could say the same about you, Cayenne Rogue,” Lucien piped back, and Luka snickered slightly at the callback to the Leaders’ group chat.
“Fair,” Luka conceded, looking away from the blonde to glare at the folded-up list in her hands. Technically the prank happened days ago, but that lowered the food they did have. They were low as it was, the milk was about to expire, and they were running low on a lot of things (Luka wasn’t going to waste stuff willy-nilly), and they had to get stuff soon anyways. She just…expedited the process.
“Still, you’re the one that caused this mess, I don’t know why I have to help you fix it,” Lucien grumbled, grabbing the list from her and stalking ahead. Given that Luka had no clue about the United States, she followed after him, fixing her ponytail so it was loose and didn’t pull as much. Her face felt weird too, from where Guinevere put light makeup on it just to make her look a little different and more unrecognizable. However, Cleo informed both of them to wear hoods over their head, as it was cool enough to do so without raising suspicion. Flicking it back over her head, she looked around the street, frowning at how busy it seemed for 8:00 p.m.
Luka didn’t give Lucien a reply, instead frowning at the busy street, “Is it always this busy at night in your freaky little American cities?”
Then again, Luka didn’t come from a particularly big city. Atlanta, Georgia was much larger and more people-filled than she was used to.
“How would I know?” Lucien replied, glaring at her and weaving between people, “I didn’t live in Atlanta.”
“You lived in Chicago,” Luka replied, raising an eyebrow at him as she sped up to walk by his side, “so like…close enough.”
“Not every city is the same, idiot,” Lucien replied, rolling his eyes, before he seemed to concede a bit, “but yeah, this isn’t that atypical.”
Luka thought about that, scanning her gaze around. She was bored, and she had no idea how long it would take them to walk to the store. They had to teleport a bit away because spawning into a busy location would be pretty, uh, hard to explain. As she looked around, she took notice of the people around them. Some were also in hoodies, some were in simple jackets, and others wore light clothing.
“Wonder how they can do that,” Luka commented, feeling the chill in the air and hugging her arms to herself to fight it off.
“What?” Lucien replied, eyes scanning the GPS app on his phone and looking over his shoulder to glance at her.
“Wear like…short-sleeved shirts and shorts when it’s this cold out,” She shrugged, rolling her hand emphatically as she spoke.
“It’s not that cold,” Lucien replied, scoffing, “you just have no sense of how to deal with weather that isn’t boiling your skin off your bones.”
Luka tapped her fingers along her arm but shrugged, maybe Lucien was right. She wasn’t used to colder weather. Sometimes nights could be cold, but typically she was inside. Especially this time of year it was much warmer back in Australia.
“Do you-” Lucien started from her side, seeming to think on his words as he led them around a corner, down another busy street with many shops lining the side, “do you ever miss it?”
“Miss what?” Luka commented, looking at a display case of creepy dolls in one of the windows.
“Home?” Lucien questioned, pocketing his phone as he seemed to memorize their directions and instead making small talk with the Aussie.
Luka pondered that for a second, before shrugging, “it wasn’t much of a home,” she replied plainly. When Lucien silently seemed to take that in, she continued, “So I don’t miss it a ton. Maybe the nature, the weather, the bloody animals were cool,” she replied, honestly, before shrugging, “but now we got weird pests like Daniel and River.”
Lucien’s lips curled into laughter at the jab at River, and he nodded, “I guess you’re right there. I think Cleo would consider Laurie among the pests too. And us.”
“Yeah,” Luka replied, snickering, “they would.”
They walked for a few steps before Luka looked back up at him, “And what about you, Sunboy, you miss home?”
Lucien’s face contorted slightly, glancing away from her line of sight before he let off a breath, “I miss some things. My mom, for one. I miss Elara too.”
“Whose that?” Luka prodded coolly, choosing to ignore his finicky behavior, she had a feeling he'd get upset if she tried to comfort him, and she sucked at comforting people as it was.
“Elara’s my annoying older sister,” Lucien commented, looking distant for a bit, struck by his memories.
“Huh,” Luka replied, dragging his attention back, and she flashed him a teasing look, “poor girl.”
He rolled his eyes, offering up a slight smile. His focus went to the street signs nearby, and he pointed to one, “We’re going to turn there. The store is right across the street on the other side.”
“Sick,” Luka replied, following Lucien as he led them to the small grocery store. It seemed innocuous enough, and the parking lot wasn’t very full, “Let’s give a burl then.”
“So you just…went to the store?” Cleo questioned as Luka began explaining their night, a skeptical eyebrow raised at the Australian, who simply nodded back at them.
Cleo rubbed at their forehead, frustrated, “Vocal answers, Luka.”
“Yeah, we went to the store,” the girl drawled, rolling her eyes, “why are you so dramatic about it? We did what you asked.”
Cleo glared back at her, and she seemed to furl under the pressure, looking back at Lucien and then back at Cleo, “Okay, so fine, not everything went as we predicted.”
Cleo’s eyebrows raised, both this time, and they grabbed their mug, cradling the warm thing in their hands, “explain.”
“So, we got to the store, right?” Luka started, sighing softly, “And we noticed Lucien’s missing person poster.”
“You did?” Cleo asked in slight surprise, looking at Lucien who affirmed that they did.
“I just said that,” Luka grumbled, before shrugging, “so, being mature and smart, we decided we had to leave before we got caught-”
Cleo's face then screwed up, jolting slightly in place and giving the girl a curious look as they waited for her to continue, their eyes narrowing at the last words.
“Then what?”
In the middle of a small grocery store in Atlanta, Georgia, two 17-year-olds entered and one went to get a cart and start picking out groceries. The other lingered near the front, scanning flyers and posters stuck to the bulletin board.
When she found the one she was looking for, she grinned to herself and plucked it. She had faced away from the camera at the store’s entrance, but with how little those things were likely checked, she wasn’t super worried. With her selected piece of paper, she fished out a pen from her pocket, immediately drawing on the poster she stole.
Then she ran off to Lucien, who was looking between two types of bread with an absolutely confused look on his face. Laughing slightly to herself, Luka ran up behind him and when he turned back to the cart, she shoved the poster in his face.
He yelped slightly, causing some nearby people to look over in concern before they deemed it was just two weirdos. The blonde pulled the paper from his face and glared at Luka, “What was that for?”
“Look at it,” Luka replied, a mischievous grin on her face as she placed her hands on her hips.
He looked distrustful of that, and looked down at the picture, scoffing and glaring at her, before pulling it to himself and holding it by his head, “Why did you add devil horns to my hair?”
“Because you’re like an angry lil’ demon!” Luka replied, immediately being shushed by the others who gave a panicked look at their surroundings, but Luka was having none of it, “besides, consider it an upgrade!”
He glared back at her, pushing past her to return to the cart and crumbling up the paper, tossing it back at her and picking up both loaves of bread he’d been trying to decide between. Screw it, after all, Lorenzo was overly specific. Who was that specific on bread anyway?
Luka, however, reached out and walked beside him, growling in annoyance, “oh no, our mission is compromised, people might recognize us,” she said dramatically.
Lucien looked at her, then back at the cart, “No.”
“‘No’ what?” Luka replied, inspecting some food items and gagging before putting them back. Man, some of this stuff looked gross.
“No to whatever you’re planning,” Lucien commented.
Luka shrugged back at him, “what makes you think I’m planning anything?” she replied, looking somewhat aghast at the accusation.
“I’ve met you,” Lucien replied, tapping his foot as he crossed something off the list and grabbed a can of vegetables.
“Okay! Fine!” Luka replied, taking the canned vegetables he placed in the cart and placing them back on the shelf just to be a little shit, “but Luci. This is the first time we’ve been out since we fought with those weirdos. We should have fun while we have the chance!”
“Uh,” Lucien replied intelligibly, grabbing the can of vegetables back and putting it in the cart, to also be petty, “No.”
“Oh come on!” Luka replied, grabbing the vegetables and whatever else she could reach and placing them back on the shelf, much to Luci’s annoyance, “It’ll be fun! You can show me what you Americans do for fun! We could go to one of those sports games you guys like so much!”
Lucien looked back at her, raising an eyebrow and grabbing the stuff back, “We’re not going to watch Football, Luka.”
“Isn’t it weird that we call it football? The foot ever makes contact with the ball,” Luka replied, “whatever, Football reminds me of River pummeling you into the ground. Seems entertaining enough.”
Lucien glared at her, and she snickered in reply. Still, he quickly sighed, watching as she looked at him expectantly.
“You know what,” he replied, gaining his mischievous look as he crossed his arms and pushed the cart away, “I know something even better than football.”
“So you’re telling me that all you did was leave that grocery store, and went to a new grocery store?” Cleo replied, glancing between them and the clock, “And it took you over 5 hours?”
Luka looked between Lucien and Cleo, nodding once succinctly and unabashedly, “Yes.”
Cleo fixed them with a stare, and from beside Luka, Lucien sighed then nodded as well, “Yep.”
“So how was ‘grocery shopping?’” Cleo asked, bringing their fingers up in a quotation mark mockery on the words, fixing the two with a glare that indicated that they bought none of this bullshit.
“It went great!” Luka piped up, elbowing Lucien when he remained silent, and he too replied.
“Yeah, nothing went wrong, all went great, yay.”
“Everything is going wrong!” Lucien hissed as he ran around a corner, dragging his Australian friend with him as they turned the corner. He was followed by a series of giggles from the girl behind him and the smashing of cans and trash as they ran through the area.
“I think it’s going great!” Luka commented, yanking her hand back from Lucien as she hopped over a concrete block, speeding up to match his speed.
“Of course you would!” Lucien commented, right back, and he huffed out an amused noise before it broke off into an angry curse as he tripped over a plastic bag that got wrapped around his foot. He only stumbled a bit, but he glared at his friend regardless as if it was her fault for not warning him.
In retaliation, he elbowed her as he ran past her, laughing as she stumbled due to it. Her gaze flickered back up to him in a challenging glare, and soon the two had stopped running entirely, instead pushing at each other like children. It was nothing like the fights between River and Lucien and instead was more reminiscent of two cats having a slapping match.
“Get back here!” A yell broke their attention and both froze, staring in tandem at the end of the alley they took off down to see the poor middle-aged male police officer who had the unfortunate luck of coming across these two idiots destroying glass windows and random nicknacks in an abandoned building. The two had been in the process of mocking the other leaders and doing horrible charades of Cleo going on one of their erm…’ fits’ when the man peeked in, flashlight shining into the room.
Poor guy had squeaked in quite a high decibel while the two had collectively looked between each other and decided to run. Luka had thought they’d lost the guy, but not. He seemed winded though.
Lucien looked more put-off than she did, raising his hand to flip off the cop, voice going slightly high, “I’m not going back to jail!”
Luka barely had time to internally question that before Lucien was pushing her into another abandoned building and vaulting over obvious cracks in the foundation. She took off after him, staring back to see who she was now going to dub Rob Banker was huffing over but still following them.
“Hate to inform you, but our new friend is still following us,” Luka commented, raising an eyebrow as Rob Banker tripped over one of the cracks in the concrete, his arms pinwheeling out a bit pathetically. She winced when he landed in a heap.
“Oh fuck off!” Lucien yelled back at the man. He took a sharp left, running out of the building, luckily their hoods were still on, so the man likely couldn’t trace who they were, just some street vandals.
“Dude, that’s a copper,” Luka hissed out.
“Yeah, and he needs to fuck off!” Lucien said, stopping for a second to yell the words back into the building.
“That is no way to treat your elder young man!” the cop yelled from inside the building, and in reply, Luka raised an eyebrow at Lucien.
“He sounds like Cleo when he says that,” Luka commented, glaring back before them and tugging her hood a bit tighter around her head, sunglasses perched over her eyes, “do you think Cleo was a copper?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Lucien commented, grumbling out the reply and continuing on his path. He looked around a bit before crossing into a new alley, after all, there was no telling who was with Mr. Rob Banker.
They walked silently a bit, eyes scanning the area around them, being sure they were safe. For a long while they walked in a surprising silence, and when Luka got her phone out, she realized that some time had passed. It had taken them about 30 minutes to reach the grocery store and decide to leave, and it had been about 50 minutes since that time. They were nearing being gone for about an hour and a half. Pocketing her phone again and deciding they were pretty much in the clear, she looked over at Lucien with a very accusatory and curious glance.
“So, are we going to talk about you being in jail?” Luka questioned.
Lucien seemed to freeze slightly, glancing at her and then glaring ahead, “nope,” he commented, “we are not.”
“When were you in jail?” Luka resolutely ignored his reply, choosing instead to pester him.
Realizing she wouldn’t give up, Lucien rolled his eyes, sarcasm rolling off his tongue, “once,” he said, “in Monopoly.”
Luka didn’t need to have Cleo’s lie-detecting to call absolute bullshit on that.
Cleo was staring at Luka as she spoke, their face pretty much spelling their thoughts which were mostly now spelling out ‘the audacity of the bitch’.
“So yeah, we left the store because there was a cop and we didn’t want to be recognized. Just like you informed us to do!” Luka commented, arms folded in her hands and a smile on her face.
Lucien looked between Cleo and Luka and leaned back against the couch, arms crossed.
“Anyways, since we left that store, that meant we had to go to a new store!” Luka replied, elbowing Lucien to get him to reply, which was replied to with an ‘ow!’
Soon the two were back in a slapping match, only broke up with Cleo cleared their throat, raising an eyebrow silently at the two.
“Yeah, whatever,” Lucien commented, grabbing Luka’s wrist when she went to slap his arm as a final measure and forcing the offending arm down onto the couch, before slapping her upper arm for good measure and snorting at her offended gasp.
Luka glared at him, moving in a position to attack the boy, almost like a cat, before Cleo barked at her, “Luka, do not! Lucien, hands to yourself!”
Lucien glared at them, gesturing wildly to his friend. “She started it!”
“I’m ending it!” Cleo stated, exasperated.
“Pfft,” Luka replied, crossing her arms and leaning back into the couch like she was trying to melt into it, “buzzkill.”
“Explain. Now.” Cleo commented, rolling their arm in a gesture for one of the two idiots before them to finish explaining this frankly obviously fabricated story.
“We went to a new store,” Lucien commented, and it wasn’t entirely a lie. They did go to a store. Eventually.
“Yeah?” Cleo commented, glancing at their watch and back up at the boy with a glance that said they didn’t buy his words at all, “for five hours?”
“Yep.”
“Wanna go to Macca’s?” Luka questioned after everything had calmed a bit. There was a drizzle in the air now, and it was quite frankly much too cold for her tastes outside. The two had been sure they were clear of danger now, it had been over half an hour since they ran into Mr. Rob Banker, and frankly, Luka was hungry.
Lucien paused, glancing at her with a look that spelled out just how much of an idiot Luka sounded like to him, “what the fuck is Macca’s?”
“It’s bloody Macca’s!” Luka hissed, waving her arms around and staring at Lucien, “I know you guys have ‘em, they have ‘em everywhere!”
“Uh, no?” Lucien replied, “I’ve never heard of fucking Macca’s in my life, what the hell?”
As they walked out onto a street, Luka grumbled as the rain started to come down a bit harder, fishing into the strap that held her key and freeing her Umbrella, allowing the item to unfurl and cover her as she walked by Lucien. After a few moments of thought, she raised her arm higher and walked closer to Lucien, mostly protecting her friend from the rainfall too.
Her eyes narrowed down the street, focusing on something in the distance and crowing in victory, “Yes! You do have a Macca’s, you bloody bogan!”
“I don’t understand a word of what you just said,” Lucien commented, glancing at his friend with a skeptical and judgemental look.
“Macca’s!” Luka grumbled out, louder than she intended. Some kid down the street stared back at them in horror before scuttling off to their bike and quickly leaving the area. She pointed at the fast-food place, grin in place.
“Are we seriously still on about the stupid Macca’s?” Lucien groaned though he looked where she pointed and quickly rounded on her, pointing that way too. “That doesn’t say Macca’s, idiot, that’s a McDonald’s!”
“Macca’s, Mcdonald’s, whether you say it right like me, or wrong like you, doesn’t matter. I wanna see how you Americans make it!”
“It says McDonald’s you fucking idiot,” Lucien commented, though he seemed to digest her commentary, glancing back at her, “also, why would they be made different? It’s McDonald’s…they just make burgers?”
“Yeah but what if they made them from like…American Kangaroos?” Luka commented, and Lucien knew she wasn’t as stupid as she just sounded. Her shit-eating grin said she was trust trying to annoy the shit out of him. Good for her then, it was working.
“American kangaroos?” Lucien commented, rolling his eyes at her, “Ever hear of a fucking cow? Like…the thing that gave birth to you?”
Luka paused, her voice quiet as she stared off into the distance at the McDonald’s they had been approaching.
“What did you just say?” She questioned, voice somewhat soft and seemingly restraining something.
Lucien worried he insulted her for a second, and went to open his mouth, apology on his tongue. However, he was quickly unnerved by the slow turn Luka took towards him, her eyes hidden behind her sunglasses, though Lucien worried of what emotions hid behind them.
Then she laughed, doubling over and letting off a particularly painful-sounding wheeze.
“Dude that was good, where did that even come from?” She questioned, and he found himself doubling over at her laughter too. The two were now giggling in the middle of a rainstorm in front of a looming McDonald’s. “The thing that gave birth to you,” she giggled out, a painful set of laughs escaping her and her body doubled over. Her umbrella was held at a crooked angle that did little to keep her or Lucien safe from the storm. Not that she noticed too much, too busy laughing. “Dude what if that was a sensitive topic? How would you like it if I insulted your mum?”
Lucien rolled his eyes and grabbed the umbrella to straighten it, snorting, “Nothing you say could insult me.”
Luka seemed to take that as a challenge, though she seemed to deflate, “Fine. Whatever. I would to insult your mother, but I’m afraid I won’t do as well as nature did.”
“Really!?” Lucien replied, chuckling, “A discount yo mama joke?”
“As if yours wasn’t?” Luka replied, “You referred to my mother as a cow. You aren’t wrong because, well, she was…probably,” she trailed off for a moment, deep in thought, but then smiled, “Oh my goodness, yo mama so dumb she thought having you as a son was a good idea.”
Lucien snickered at it but did his best to maintain a deadpan face that failed horribly. Instead, he had to look away, and he cleared his throat, “Okay. McDonald’s then, right?”
“Sounds good to me,” she agreed, and the two teens took shelter from the rain in a McDonald’s at a time very late into the night, one wearing a hood and sunglasses, the other wearing just a hood. They did get some terrified stares, after all, it likely wasn’t normal attire to see in a McDonald’s of all places, but such was life.
“-but such is life,” Luka finished telling that part of the story, tapping her hands on her lap and staring at Cleo expectantly.
“It started storming outside, so you, correct me if I’m wrong here, but you went to a McDonald’s to hide from the storm?” Cleo questioned.
“Yep.”
Cleo seemed amazed for a second, “wow, you’re not actually lying about that. Well…entirely.”
Luka smiled at that comment, and Lucien snorted at Cleo’s commentary. “The entire time she just kept yapping about how it was Macca’s and how weird it was that we called it McDonald’s.”
“It is weird, in entire fairness to me,” Luka commented, crossing her arms to shoot Lucien a mischievous look, “McDonald’s is such a long, boring name. Kind of like Lucien. Mc-Don-Alds. Luc-eee-en,” she exaggerated the syllables and triumphantly crowed her next words, “Macca’s. Luci. Makes perfect sense!”
“Luci?” Lucien replied, sounding somewhat aghast at the nickname.
“Yeah? Is that too girly for you?” Luka taunted, challenging Lucien.
He just huffed, rolling his eyes, “no,” he commented simply, “it just sounds stupid.”
“You know you love it!”
“I do not,”
“Children.” Cleo coughed out, gaining their attention back, in Cleo’s hand was their mug, nestled there, and they took a sip before continuing, “Get on with your frankly made-up exotic tale, please.”
“Yeah so as soon as the rain let down a bit we went to the store-”
“We’re lost,” Luka commented after they had exited the McDonald’s. Frankly, the two had been carelessly walking down the streets for about half an hour now and it was approaching close to…well late O’Clock. Luka ignored as her phone buzzed again, and instead stared at Lucien as he grumbled his annoyed reply.
“No we’re not,” he commented back, scoffing at her comment.
“Uh, yes we are,” Luka commented, gesturing to the area around them that looked frankly way too shady. Honestly, a lot of these buildings around them looked abandoned and dilapidated and Luka had seen people in an alley making some kind of drug deal.
“No, we aren’t!” Lucien replied, rounding on her and crossing his own arms.
“Fine then, Mr. Navigator,” Luka replied, gesturing again to the area that surrounded them, “where are we?”
Lucien paused, seeming to take in the surrounding area and paling just a bit as he took in the state of it, like, really took it in. Still, the blonde had pride, “Errr….we are right here.”
“Yeah, and where is that?” Luka pressed, glaring at him.
“I don’t know!” Lucien snapped back, glaring right back at her.
“My my my,” a voice said, scaring the crap out of the two teens, and they both rounded on the speaker. They were met with a group of people who looked rather sketchy, hoods on, some wearing masks on their faces, and each one with a visible knife on their person, “you two have gotten yourselves lost? I’m sure we can work everything out without…altercations.”
Lucien glanced between the approaching group and Luka and quickly grabbed her arm, placing himself between her and the group, his eyes narrowing at them, “fuck off.”
“You tell them Lucien, I’m sure they’re definitely going to listen to you,” Luka drawled sarcastically from behind him.
“Shut up,” Lucien hissed back, glaring back at her.
Big mistake there, the group got close enough to start circling them, and the two teens found themselves pretty much face-to-face with a looming mugger or gang member, they couldn’t be sure which.
“I’ll kindly ‘fuck off’ when you pay your dues,” the male before them stated, holding out his hand expectantly.
“What do you want me to do with that?” Lucien drawled, staring at their aloft hand, “Give you a high five?”
“Give me whatever you’ve got on you, smartass,” the man replied, his voice edging from faux friendliness to entire annoyance and threat, “the quicker this goes, the less you get hurt. I’d hate to hurt your little friend back there if you don’t give us what we want.”
Lucien went from slight anger to a larger boil, he went to guard Luka more but found himself getting pushed to the side by the 5’0 girl as she rocketed herself towards the man and sucker punched the guy straight in the nose.
“How’s that for an altercation!?” Luka questioned, voice dripping with dangerous intent as the man staggered back and dropped the knife he had been holding, which Luka quickly dived to retrieve. Lucien had the state of mind to realize the group of people slowly getting over their shock and instead grabbed Luka’s arm once more, pushing past the shocked male who was clutching at his face, and running off.
“I’m no detective,” Luka stated, glancing at the muggers who were now chasing them, “but I think we might have a problem on our hands.”
“YOU THINK?”
“You got chased…” Cleo commented, staring at Luka as she explained the next part of her story, voice disbelieving, “by a flock of geese?”
“Pretty much,” Luka replied instead of directly answering. Though in fairness to her comments, Luka did consider the group of muggers that had chased her and Lucien to be concerningly a lot like geese.
Cleo opened their mouth as if they wanted to comment further, but seemed to flounder for words a few times before eventually giving up. They instead stared at the two teens silently, waiting for the story to continue.
“We ran for a bit, but one of the mu-geese ended up cornering us and we had to split up,” Luka commented, and it was the one part of the story she finally seemed to deflate at. To be fair, she had been very concerned about Lucien when that had happened.
“A goose scared you into separating?”
“Yes?” Luka asked, sounding aghast, “Have you ever fought a goose? They’re mean!”
“Why would I ever fight a goose?” Cleo questioned, judgemental as ever, “I-actually, I don’t even want to know.”
Luka smirked in victory, and Lucien sighed tiredly. The boy grumbled slightly, “Yeah, the goose was a real asshole. Like River.”
“Man’s not ever here to defend himself,” Luka tutted, “he’s either sleeping or flirting with baguette boy.”
“So the ‘goose’...?” Cleo commented, rolling a hand in a motion for the two to continue the story.
“Well, the goose separated us, so we had to reconvene, so we both found ourselves hiding in the same alley-”
Lucien had been trying to find Luka after the girl had separated from him when one of the more speedy muggers had caught up to them. The girl had taken one look at Lucien, nodded, and the two had split off into two separate alleyways. The boy was still hiding behind a dumpster when a voice from right beside him caused him to jump.
“Hello Lucien,” the Australian said, drawing out his name a bit when he jumped and turned to her.
“How long have you been standing there?” Lucien questioned, voice slightly higher in pitch, though he’d never admit to it.
Luka smirked, shaking her head a bit, “longer than you’d like.”
In the small light of the alley, Lucien frowned as he looked at Luka, taking in the girl. Her hair was a bit of a mess, out of the hood and flying in every which direction. Her sunglasses had been taken off and clipped to her shirt collar and her eyes gleamed ever so slightly in the low light, much like a dog or cat’s would. However, on the cuffs of her right hand and around the knuckles was a smearing of scarlet that greatly concerned Lucien.
“Is that blood?” He questioned, reaching out to grab her wrist, and lifting it to inspect it.
“No?” Luka replied, voice just as much questioning and curious as she too inspected her knuckles and sleeve, yanking her hand away from Lucien to hold it closer to her face and poke at it.
“That isn’t a question you should answer with another question,” Lucien replied, voice deadpan as he stared at her, voice neutral and hiding his concern as annoyance began to trickle into his body from her stubbornness.
Luka picked up on it, scoffing slightly and wiping the blood off on her shirt, causing a smear of scarlet on the partly damaged fabric. “Don’t get your knickers in a twist, it’s not mine.”
Well, that was a slight bit of a relief.
“Where did you little brats go?” A new voice sounded, much too close for comfort, echoing through the alleyway. Both Lucien and Luka quickly quieted down, hiding beside each other and curled down on the outside of the garbage can.
The footsteps got concerningly loud, and Luka’s hand tightened around the pocket knife she stole from the mugger earlier. Lucien himself also crouched. He didn’t have a weapon, given the fact that he expected this to be a normal shopping trip and not a disaster of a night that led to.
The shadow of the mugger fell over the ground next to them, and it seemed he was about to investigate more, but then a sharp ringtone sounded. An oddly cheery theme for a mugger, if the teens were to be honest. His gruff voice sounded again, and he grunted an affirmative before hanging up and grunting again, “damn annoying kids.”
The footsteps receded, and when it was almost inaudible, Luka opened her mouth, only to be quickly hushed by Lucien throwing his hand over her mouth.
“Shut up,” he hissed out in a whisper.
Luka shook him off and glared, “I didn’t say anything.”
“Don’t care,” Lucien commented, “shut up.”
He got up to make sure the coast was clear, but Luka harrumphed in annoyance.
“Fifteen years of friendship and this is the way you choose to treat me?” Luka commented, glaring at him as she joined him in peering around the alley, “rude.”
“I’ve only known you for fifteen days!” Lucien retorted, rolling his eyes at Luka’s exaggerated pout.
Luka looked out, catching a figure in the darkness still. At the mouth of the alleyway was the mugger who had been looking for them just moments prior. It seemed he was stationed to stay there, and she cursed slightly under her breath. That was their one exit out of this situation without running back to the Pantheon and getting caught by Cleo.
“What’s wrong?” Lucien questioned, and this time Luka hushed him. He growled back at her in annoyance, “Listen, I get you’re sour-”
“Lucien, shut up,” Luka whispered out urgently, “he’s still there.”
“No?” Lucien replied, squinting his eyes and looking in that direction, before gasping a bit, “How did you see that?”
“Gift from Loki, I guess,” Luka commented, “most animals can see in the dark, guess that’s a perk of being the Champion of Loki.”
Lucien hummed to show he heard her, and Luka kept her gaze locked on the man. He wouldn’t be able to see them, given the darkness outside and the fact that the alley was unlit. He had a flashlight with him though, or at least his phone had a flashlight function. Luka only knew that because he used it earlier.
“So what exactly is our exit strategy?” Lucien questioned, crouching next to her.
Luka screwed up her eyebrows, turning to him and raising one, “Our what?”
“Oh blessed sun,” he said, sounding slightly morose, “we’re going to die.”
“So the ‘geese’ trapped you in an alleyway?” Cleo questioned, seeming even more exasperated than before, and took a large sip of their mug only to realize it was already empty.
Luka gave up on vocal answers, just nodding while Lucien began dozing off. She elbowed him to keep Cleo from noticing, and he woke with a start, glaring at her but then noticing Cleo was still there and muttering out a quick thanks.
Cleo just shook their head in annoyance, glaring at the clock on the wall and waiting for Luka to continue.
Luka paused before opening her mouth, glancing at the clock too, and looking at Cleo, “It’s 2 a.m. Cleo, are you sure you want to hear the rest of the story?” She questioned, forcing fake concern into her voice as she looked at Cleo, playing up an act of empathy, “You look so tired and overworked.”
“You look like you were hit by a bus,” Lucien grumbled. Apparently, his approach to getting out of the situation would be insulting.
Cleo shook their head, “No, you’re not getting out of this that easily. You chose to stay out forever, you’re going to explain why.”
Luka pouted, throwing her arms up dramatically and crossing them, “I’ve been explaining why!”
“The truth?” Cleo questioned.
“Whatever,” Luka replied, glaring at them and then continuing the story, “The geese had us cornered, but there was a building within that alleyway.”
Lucien piped in at this point, voice sour as he turned to Luka, “Yeah, and Luka said she could pick locks.”
“I never said that,” Luka replied, glancing ahead.
“That was a lie,” Cleo unhelpfully pointed out, causing the girl to groan at their input.
“So we went to the building to try and hatch a new escape…”
“I have a plan,” Luka told Lucien after they had sat for a bit, waiting for the guy to leave, though he seemed to be stubbornly keeping watch there. Luka had taken to examining the alleyway for any other potential escapes when she spotted it. Up on a banister, about 2 stories up was a balcony with a door to it.
“Is it a good one?” Lucien asked skeptically.
“It’s a plan,” she replied, “let’s not be picky.”
Lucien wordlessly seemed to accept that and looked to her silently for guidance on what it was. She pointed up to the balcony, a rusty banished leading to it. They’d have to climb a bit to get to the banister, but once they got there they should be good. The building seemed pretty abandoned as it was.
“What if it’s locked?” he questioned, glancing up at it, still skeptical.
“I can pick it,” she replied, looking down the alleyway to make sure the man was still preoccupied with his phone and keeping watch, she then silently climbed on top of the garbage can they were by, balancing on the lid and looking down at Lucien, “let’s go.”
He sighed but followed after her. The two silently made their way scaling the building, using railings and the trashcan’s lid to climb up. Luka reached the banister first, yanking her feet up a bit unceremoniously and keeping her body weight low as there was a loud creak from the stairs.
She winced, looking down, but it seemed the mugger hadn’t noticed. She nodded at Lucien, and soon both of the teens were perched in a crouch on the balcony.
Luka then tried the door that was there, groaning in annoyance at the fact that it was indeed locked.
Lucien, however, was confused. His gaze locked on it and then Luka, and soon realization caught up with him.
“I thought you knew how to get inside!” He whispered out, though it was like a quiet little shout, agitation clinging to every word.
“Yeah,” she agreed, “well that was a lie!”
Lucien groaned, trying to think of a new plan and looking around. However the sound of breaking glass drew his attention, and also the man’s. He heard a yelled out shout from the mugger below, and he turned to see what caused the noise.
Luka had her umbrella’s handle through the window by the door, clearing enough of a path for them to squeeze through, the glass shatters sprinkled across the floor.
“Right then,” she said calmly, gesturing at the opening with a crooked grin, “after you.”
“You’re fucking crazy!” He hissed at her, looking downwards at the mugger who was trying to find a way up in a panic.
“News at fucking eleven,” Luka said, impatiently pointing at the opening, “ask me if I give a fuck.”
“It’s past Eleven!” He replied, but still entered the room, grossed out by the dust and cobwebs but glad no alarms were going off at least. Still, a shout from outside had him glancing at his friend and beckoning her to enter the room.
She glanced behind her and quickly followed him, squeaking when cobwebs stuck to her skin and hair and shaking them off, glaring at them as if they had personally wronged her.
“Careful there Luka,” Lucien commented, raising an eyebrow at her, “they might just attack you again.”
“Oh shut up asshole,” she countered, wiping her arms off. “So, what’s next?”
“What do you mean, what’s next?” he questioned, glancing back at the brunette in confusion.
“I mean, I made the last plan, it’s your turn.”
“Your plan included scaling a wall just to break open a window and get ourselves lost in some weird creepy abandoned building with a bunch of muggers chasing us!” He pointed out, crossing his arms, “You can barely consider that a plan.”
“Sounds to me like you’re being picky,” Luka sing-songed, “Anyways, either way, it’s your turn.”
She took to feeling along the walls and looking at random things within the building, and Lucien seemed to make up his mind on a plan.
“Fine, want a plan?” He asked, barely giving her a chance to reply before he started down the creaky stairs and started towards the broken and dilapidated door.
“Uh, care to share with the class?” She questioned, chasing after him quickly and trying to figure out just what the blonde was thinking.
“We’ve wasted the entirety of this night just hiding from people,” Lucien commented, and Luka had a bad feeling about his plan, “so we’re going to just face the guy and get out of here.”
“Okay, no, wait,” Luka commented, running to place herself in front of him to stop him, “I was under the impression that I was not going to be murdered today. You want to go out and fight the guy?”
“It’s just one guy, right?” Lucien pointed out, trying to maneuver around her and failing when she threw her arms out to stop him. His annoyance showed on his features as he glowered at her, “he’s asking for it.”
“This isn’t one of your fights against River, Lucien. This is a real guy who can and will hurt you,” she argued, for once using a little bit of reasoning, “then I’ll have to carry back your useless hunk of a body back to the Pantheon like I had to do with Chiara, I’m not doing it again, nuh uh!”
“This way is more efficient than just hiding!”
“No,” Luka retorted, pointing into his chest like the angry little spitfire she was, “this was is going to get us killed!”
“We won’t die,” Lucien rolled his eyes, and pushed past her, approaching the door. Reproachfully, Luka followed him. “Anyways, it’s not like it’s gonna be that bad. We don’t even have to fight. We just gotta run faster than him.”
“Yeah, I’d agree with you, but then we’d both be wrong,” Luka grumbled, “you really think he’s gonna be alone out there? He had his phone with him and we know he’s got buddies.”
“Only one way to find out,” Lucien replied, opening the door with a flourish. It seemed quiet and empty outside from what they could see, and so Lucien stepped outside, smiling a cocky smile and gloating to his friend, “See, what did I say!?”
His gloat was cut short when a set of figures stepped from the shadows, led by Mr. Broken Nose Pete and his cast of merry muggers.
“Hey Lucien,” Luka’s voice piped out, annoyance and satire dripping from her voice, “what was that about there only being one guy?”
“You fought geese?!” Cleo replied, so enraged it was almost like they knew full well that the two didn’t fight any actual geese.
“Yeah, mean fucking buggers, them.”
Lucien had the audacity to look a little sheepish this time, piping up in his own defense, “To be fair, I didn’t expect to fight them.”
“What did you expect, a tea party!?” Luka snapped back.
Cleo groaned, rubbing at their forehead and glancing at the two. “Stay here, you troublesome idiots, I need more coffee.”
They left to refill their coffee. The two teens watched as they turned on the coffee machine, both silent until Cleo had refilled their mug and returned, nursing it in their hands.
“Now, you fought people?”
“Geese,” Luka corrected.
Cleo groaned more, rubbing at their forehead with the forefinger and thumb of their left hand, “I believe that was the exact thing I told you not to do.”
“And you thought we’d listen?” Lucien fired back, shaking his head, “Honestly this is more on you for having an expectation set.”
“Yeah, you should know we’re the master at letting people down,” Luka added, snorting slightly, “why do you think our parents didn’t want us?”
Cleo didn’t even know what to reply with, seeing slightly perturbed by that train of thought and instead placing their mug down and burying their face in their hands, sighing long and hard.
“What happened next?”
“How do we keep getting into these situations!?” Lucien yelled out, uncaring of the weird looks some of the muggers gave him when he shouted.
Luka didn’t seem that surprised, shrugging, “15 years of friendship and I still don’t know!”
The main guy she punched in the face earlier glared right at her, and the one who had trapped them in the alley spoke up, “You know kids, this could have been easy,” he started, “We just wanted some cash, a little payment for you crossing our territory. Then you decided to attack one of us.”
“Attack you?” Luka laughed, “I did you a favor.”
“Excuse me?” the guy who was punched piped up this time, and his voice was muffled due to the cotton he had shoved into his bloody broken nose.
“Well it still hurts to look at your face,” She replied, scanning him for a second, “but this is a definite improvement.”
“Yeah,” Lucien agreed, seeming so absolutely done with this situation that he was just fine turning to insulting, “adds a little flare.”
“It is not an improvement!” The man yelled out, and some of his group seemed stuck between laughing or attacking the kids, instead choosing to wait, “you take that back!”
“Well, it seems you were offended my good bitch!” the Australian girl shot back, laughing at the man’s plight. Lucien snickered too. This situation was going from scary to funny, oddly enough.
Well, it was, until the guy took another knife and threw it between the two, missing the kids by only inches. Luka stared at it in concern and backed up, eyes wide. Lucien himself glared at the man who threw the knife, feeling very ill-prepared for a fight.
“Okay, time to run!” Luka replied, reaching out and grabbing Lucien’s wrist this time, breaking off in a full-speed sprint towards a road up ahead that seemed to be busier and less sketchy. The rain started coming down again in powerful drops, a downpour that made the ground slippery. Once Lucien began running, Luka let go of his arm to run faster herself.
One of the more speedy muggers caught up, though she was apparently stationed over here, having run from a nearby alley they just passed. This mugger took a lunge at Luka, one that she was able to avoid, though they also swung a knife at her. She backed out of the way but slipped as she stepped back, landing on her butt in the cold rain with a woman glowering down at her, one with a mask on and hair pulled up into a bun. Luka winced at the ache in her tailbone, her agitation catching up to her.
“Pardon my French,” Luka hissed out, her hair falling into her face due to the rain, “but you’re being a real douche-baguette!”
“What?” the woman replied, seeming confused by the insult, and Luka smirked back, glancing up at Lucien, who was running over to help Luka.
Lucien didn’t have a weapon though, so he instead grabbed the woman’s arm as she was distracted and tried to get her to let go of it. The woman and the boy wrestled for a bit. The woman freed her arm and tried to punch Lucien, but her hit failed and missed, and Lucien grabbed the arm she punched out with, trying to either pin the girl or get her to drop her weapon.
He eventually wrenched the girl’s hand open, and the knife fell to the ground. Lucien kicked the weapon and pushed the girl away from himself, running to his friend.
The girl seemed relentless though, and the others were catching up. It was then that Lucien spotted the knife Luka had still, and he hid behind her for the moment.
“Hey, Luka?” He questioned, he and his friend at a standstill, for if they turned to run they would leave themselves vulnerable to the attacker ahead of them.
“Yeah?” She replied, not even sparing him a glance as she held the knife in her hand.
“Can you, oh I don’t know, hit her with your knife?!” He shouted the question.
Luka shrugged, the knife pointed at the girl still, “I believe the technical term is ‘stab’,” she replied calmly.
The girl, seeming annoyed with their arguing, lunged to punch at Luka. Luka skillfully relied on some stuff River taught her, stepping to the side and swinging her knife out, slashing the other woman’s arm open.
The woman yelped in pain, grabbing at her injured arm and glaring at the kids. She was in no position to follow anymore, after all, she was unarmed and the two teens now had a knife.
“Luka, that was cool and everything, but can you either do it again or RUN?” Lucien yelled out as the others got close, starting to surround them again.
She took note of their surrounding and followed the boy when he ran through an opening they still had. Her back stung a bit as she ran, and Lucien seemed to favoring one arm over the other. However, all seemed well for how it could have gone.
They hadn’t escaped yet though, and they both knew it. They had to find their way back into a more populated area to dissuade these people.
“We have five people trying to kill us! What are we going to do?” Lucien questioned, having to yell to get his voice to be heard over the rain.
Luka glanced back, despite the fact that they were by no means the fastest people in the world, the muggers had slowed down a bit, seeming to realize the teens were prepared to attack back.
“It’s more like 8, honestly,” she replied, looking back at him.
“Oh, sorry I wasn’t specific enough!” Lucien snapped back. However, he too looked back and seemed to realize the muggers were starting to give up. That meant they dissuaded them, but it also likely meant they were getting closer to a safer place.
Luka had her phone in her hand and was scrolling through it. Lucien gave her a questioning look, and Luka simply grinned back at him.
“What are you doing?” he questioned.
“There’s a supermarket in about 3 blocks,” she said in lieu of a reply, “It’s currently nearing 1 a.m. and Cleo is planning our very slow slaughter.”
“Lucky us,” Lucien replied sarcastically, following the small Australian girl to their destination at long last.
“So you escaped the ‘geese’ and finally got the shopping done?” Cleo questioned, raising an eyebrow at the two.
“Yes?” Lucien replied this time
“Why did you phrase that like a question?”
“It’s been a long night,” was all Lucien said.
Cleo stared at them for a solid 3 minutes without saying a thing. Lucien and Luka both squirmed a bit under the scrutiny and eventually, Cleo shed some mercy on them.
“You are aware that I’m a bullshit detector, right?” Cleo finally piped up, looking at Luka as they said this.
“What does that have to do with anything?” Luka shot back, seemingly confused by their statement.
“It means I know when you lie and that entire story was a lie,” Cleo clipped back, narrowing their eyes at her.
“I have no idea what you mean,” she said, shrugging and crossing her arms, crossing her legs as she stared right back without shame.
“According to you, all that happened in your five-hour trip was almost being recognized in a store, needing to find a new one because of it, hiding in a McDonald’s because of rain, getting attacked by geese, and you finally got to the new store. Am I correct?”
“Okay well in a very simplified form some of those things are actually true so I don’t know what your issue is,” Luka replied.
“If they didn’t have an issue, I think I’d be convinced they were replaced with a clone,” Lucien grumbled in annoyance, just wanting to sleep.
“My issue,” Cleo started, “is that you can be recognized by doing…whatever the fuck it is you two ended up actually doing,” they commented, and they wanted to reprimand them more but yawned.
“Actually, no, I can’t do this anymore tonight,” Cleo started before Luka interrupted them smugly.
“It’s like 3 a.m. Cleo,” she replied like the smug bastard she is.
Cleo glared at her but gave no vocal reply, instead pointing between both of them “Alright, you both come to my office tomorrow so I can explain in painstaking detail how much of a dumbass you both are.”
“Do we get a choice?” Lucien questioned, seemingly hopeful that the answer would be no.
“No.”
“Didn’t think so.”
Lucien and Luka, covered and caked in mud and suspicious red substances as they were, only stared impassively at the elder leader. The shorter of the two had her hair out of the ponytail it was previously in, the curls messy and damp. The taller of the two had a jacket overtop of his shirt that had mud caked into it and some holes in the fabric.
The silence lasted a few moments, before Luka not-so-helpfully looked back at the eldest, “Actually, it’s 1:40 a.m. Cleo.”
Instead of a vocal reply, the eldest took a very deep breath in, the anger came off them in waves, and the release of air and the tired look on their face was simply disconcerting.
“I don’t think they care,” Lucien commented, not-at-all helpful either as he pointed out Cleo’s annoyance, “but to be fair, it’s closer to 1:41 am now.”
Cleo took another audible breath. Their eyes flashed up in that dead-pan take-no-shit way that they somehow mastered. It kind of impressed Luka just how much disappointment radiated from Cleo anytime the elder leader glanced at either herself or Lucien.
Luka decided the silence was getting a little boring and held up a very torn-up plastic bag that lay limply in her left hand. “On the bright side, we got the groceries!” She commented, her statement accentuated by a can falling out of a hole in the bottom of the bag, popping open with a clang, and spraying a mist of tomato sauce in all directions. Cleo’s eyes looked even more dead, but Luka gave a bigger grin to the other, waving the bag around more, leading to another thing falling out, this time it was only a box of crackers that didn’t pop open.
“I can see that,” Cleo stated, raising an eyebrow. While it was true that Lucien and Luka had an accumulation of plastic bags carried limply in their arms, many of the bags shared similar states with tears in them. Like the people holding them, the bags were also mudcakes and wet.
Luka had a sneaking suspicion that Cleo knew full well that they lost many of the items they were supposed to have, but she wasn’t about to admit it, and based on Lucien’s quiet demeanor, she knew he wouldn’t either.
It was silent and awkward and Cleo wasn’t budging. Sweating a bit, Luka coughed out a fake cough, forcing a sniffle and looking up, holding her hand out as if feeling for rain. It was raining outside, but given they were indoors, this action made her look like an absolute idiot. “Lovely weather we’re having,” Luka commented, trailing off with a look at Lucien, not so subtly indicating for him to pick up the slack and help.
“Oh, yeah,” Lucien replied, rolling his eyes, his sarcastic draw causing Luka to facepalm, “real nice weather. Are we done yet?” He questioned, looking from Luka to Cleo with that grimace he wore so often around them.
“No.”
“Didn’t think so,” Lucien replied, huffing. Unceremoniously he dropped the bags in his hands and dramatically walked over to the cough in the living room, throwing himself on it and crossing his arms.
Luka huffed at him, “I worked so hard to get that,” she grumbled, before dropping her bags and stepping through them messily to jump into the cushion by Lucien. She could tell, even with the dim lighting, that they were getting mud and filth on the cushions, but that wasn’t a now-problem or a them-problem.
Cleo looked two seconds away from committing a well-deserved case of manslaughter.
After waiting a while once again, it was obvious neither Luka nor Lucien wished to explain the situation. Cleo stood before them, tapping their foot with their arms crossed, impatiently glaring between the two.
“It’s 1:48 a.m.,” Luka said conversationally.
“Shut up,” Cleo replied, immediately and automatically.
“Shutting up,” Luka said, nodding as if they were discussing a business deal.
For a few more minutes it was an absolute standstill, silent and calm. To be fair, Cleo didn’t look super panicked about them. Lucien and Luka had bombarded the leaders' group chat with memes about avocados for a large portion of the night, after all.
Still, that didn’t explain being gone for almost six hours when all they were meant to do was pick up a small list of groceries.
“You both left at 8 O’Clock last night, mind explaining to me where you’ve been for the last 5 and a half hours?” They questioned, sitting on the coffee table, folding their arms onto their legs and blinking the tiredness from their eyes.
“Technically it’s been 5 hours and 51 minutes,” Luka unhelpfully stated, causing Lucien to snicker ever so slightly, though Cleo’s glare got the chaotic teens to shut up pretty quick.
Lucien glared right back, pointing at the table Cleo was sitting at, “Oh wow, you’re breaking the rules and sitting on a not-chair, how disdainful of you.”
“Not-chair?” Luka scoffed, doing a terrible imitation of Lucien’s American accent.
The boy not-so-subtly elbowed the girl in the side, and it was returned with an elbow right back into the ribs. Before the two got any further with their petty fighting, Cleo cleared their throat. The two looked back at the disappointed young adult and looked at each other.
Lucien scoffed at Luka’s expectant look, glaring at his friend, “you’re the one who insisted on taking a detour,” he commented.
Luka glared at him, throwing her hand out, “Well you're the one who yelled at the-” Police was what she almost said, but a glance at Cleo had her switch direction, “the you know who!”
“Oh, do I?” He questioned back, looking about two seconds from fighting with the Australian girl once more, though he had humor present on his face, “Miss ‘Does McDonald's make their burgers from fucking American Kangaroos’?”
Luka succinctly elbowed him again, causing the boy to release an oof. “Listen, it’s fast food, how do you know what they’re making the food from?”
“Uh, because I’m not a fucking idiot?” Lucien replied.
“I’d beg to differ, fucking bogan,” Luka scoffed.
An audible slap drew the two back to Cleo, who had practically thrown their head into their arms. They abruptly stood, disappearing for a few moments before returning with what appeared to be a cold cup of coffee in a mug stating that they were the ‘Best. Daddy. Ever.’
They took a sip of it, sitting back down, and glaring back at them.
The two teens returned to a stare-off, before Luka seemed to concede, turning back to Cleo and sighing. “Fine, you wanna know what happened?” She questioned.
They didn’t offer a reply, instead glaring at her as if the question was stupid. It was, in fairness to them, but Luka was gonna be as obstinate as possible.
“It all started when we left the Pantheon last night…”
“I can’t believe Cleo is making us go shopping,” Luka whined, umbrella to her side as she walked alongside Lucien. The two hadn’t hung out much, but they did serenade River and Laurie, and that was kind of funny. Plus, they were the youngest leaders, which meant that they got delegated to the chores no one else wanted to do. Lucien was…well, not nice, but he was funny.
“If you didn’t use all of our spices to poison all of our food, we wouldn’t have to do this,” Lucien replied, his eyes looking dead. He kind of looked like he wanted Luka dead. With how much he fought River, Luka was starting to fear that reality.
“It was still edible,” Luka replied, looking back at him with an equally dead set of eyes.
“No,” Lucien replied, sounding tired and drained, “no it was not.” He reached out, roughly grabbing Luka’s wrist and starting to pull her in one direction, probably towards a store, Luka had no idea. This was Atlanta, after all, Lucien was going to know it better. He was from the United States after all, and these big cities were probably all the same anyway.
Luka glared at his hand, slapping it like she was slapping a pest, and sticking her tongue out at him childishly when he glared back. “You just couldn’t eat it because you’re a coward.”
“You put spice in the ice,” Lucien replied, voice edging into irritation as he turned towards her.
“Dunno why you’re so upset ‘bout it,” Luka replied, quickly looking over Lucien judgmentally, “you seem like the spicy type.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You have the disposition of a habanero pepper,” Luka tacked back, rolling her eyes, “that is to say, no one can stand being around you.”
“Could say the same about you, Cayenne Rogue,” Lucien piped back, and Luka snickered slightly at the callback to the Leaders’ group chat.
“Fair,” Luka conceded, looking away from the blonde to glare at the folded-up list in her hands. Technically the prank happened days ago, but that lowered the food they did have. They were low as it was, the milk was about to expire, and they were running low on a lot of things (Luka wasn’t going to waste stuff willy-nilly), and they had to get stuff soon anyways. She just…expedited the process.
“Still, you’re the one that caused this mess, I don’t know why I have to help you fix it,” Lucien grumbled, grabbing the list from her and stalking ahead. Given that Luka had no clue about the United States, she followed after him, fixing her ponytail so it was loose and didn’t pull as much. Her face felt weird too, from where Guinevere put light makeup on it just to make her look a little different and more unrecognizable. However, Cleo informed both of them to wear hoods over their head, as it was cool enough to do so without raising suspicion. Flicking it back over her head, she looked around the street, frowning at how busy it seemed for 8:00 p.m.
Luka didn’t give Lucien a reply, instead frowning at the busy street, “Is it always this busy at night in your freaky little American cities?”
Then again, Luka didn’t come from a particularly big city. Atlanta, Georgia was much larger and more people-filled than she was used to.
“How would I know?” Lucien replied, glaring at her and weaving between people, “I didn’t live in Atlanta.”
“You lived in Chicago,” Luka replied, raising an eyebrow at him as she sped up to walk by his side, “so like…close enough.”
“Not every city is the same, idiot,” Lucien replied, rolling his eyes, before he seemed to concede a bit, “but yeah, this isn’t that atypical.”
Luka thought about that, scanning her gaze around. She was bored, and she had no idea how long it would take them to walk to the store. They had to teleport a bit away because spawning into a busy location would be pretty, uh, hard to explain. As she looked around, she took notice of the people around them. Some were also in hoodies, some were in simple jackets, and others wore light clothing.
“Wonder how they can do that,” Luka commented, feeling the chill in the air and hugging her arms to herself to fight it off.
“What?” Lucien replied, eyes scanning the GPS app on his phone and looking over his shoulder to glance at her.
“Wear like…short-sleeved shirts and shorts when it’s this cold out,” She shrugged, rolling her hand emphatically as she spoke.
“It’s not that cold,” Lucien replied, scoffing, “you just have no sense of how to deal with weather that isn’t boiling your skin off your bones.”
Luka tapped her fingers along her arm but shrugged, maybe Lucien was right. She wasn’t used to colder weather. Sometimes nights could be cold, but typically she was inside. Especially this time of year it was much warmer back in Australia.
“Do you-” Lucien started from her side, seeming to think on his words as he led them around a corner, down another busy street with many shops lining the side, “do you ever miss it?”
“Miss what?” Luka commented, looking at a display case of creepy dolls in one of the windows.
“Home?” Lucien questioned, pocketing his phone as he seemed to memorize their directions and instead making small talk with the Aussie.
Luka pondered that for a second, before shrugging, “it wasn’t much of a home,” she replied plainly. When Lucien silently seemed to take that in, she continued, “So I don’t miss it a ton. Maybe the nature, the weather, the bloody animals were cool,” she replied, honestly, before shrugging, “but now we got weird pests like Daniel and River.”
Lucien’s lips curled into laughter at the jab at River, and he nodded, “I guess you’re right there. I think Cleo would consider Laurie among the pests too. And us.”
“Yeah,” Luka replied, snickering, “they would.”
They walked for a few steps before Luka looked back up at him, “And what about you, Sunboy, you miss home?”
Lucien’s face contorted slightly, glancing away from her line of sight before he let off a breath, “I miss some things. My mom, for one. I miss Elara too.”
“Whose that?” Luka prodded coolly, choosing to ignore his finicky behavior, she had a feeling he'd get upset if she tried to comfort him, and she sucked at comforting people as it was.
“Elara’s my annoying older sister,” Lucien commented, looking distant for a bit, struck by his memories.
“Huh,” Luka replied, dragging his attention back, and she flashed him a teasing look, “poor girl.”
He rolled his eyes, offering up a slight smile. His focus went to the street signs nearby, and he pointed to one, “We’re going to turn there. The store is right across the street on the other side.”
“Sick,” Luka replied, following Lucien as he led them to the small grocery store. It seemed innocuous enough, and the parking lot wasn’t very full, “Let’s give a burl then.”
“So you just…went to the store?” Cleo questioned as Luka began explaining their night, a skeptical eyebrow raised at the Australian, who simply nodded back at them.
Cleo rubbed at their forehead, frustrated, “Vocal answers, Luka.”
“Yeah, we went to the store,” the girl drawled, rolling her eyes, “why are you so dramatic about it? We did what you asked.”
Cleo glared back at her, and she seemed to furl under the pressure, looking back at Lucien and then back at Cleo, “Okay, so fine, not everything went as we predicted.”
Cleo’s eyebrows raised, both this time, and they grabbed their mug, cradling the warm thing in their hands, “explain.”
“So, we got to the store, right?” Luka started, sighing softly, “And we noticed Lucien’s missing person poster.”
“You did?” Cleo asked in slight surprise, looking at Lucien who affirmed that they did.
“I just said that,” Luka grumbled, before shrugging, “so, being mature and smart, we decided we had to leave before we got caught-”
Cleo's face then screwed up, jolting slightly in place and giving the girl a curious look as they waited for her to continue, their eyes narrowing at the last words.
“Then what?”
In the middle of a small grocery store in Atlanta, Georgia, two 17-year-olds entered and one went to get a cart and start picking out groceries. The other lingered near the front, scanning flyers and posters stuck to the bulletin board.
When she found the one she was looking for, she grinned to herself and plucked it. She had faced away from the camera at the store’s entrance, but with how little those things were likely checked, she wasn’t super worried. With her selected piece of paper, she fished out a pen from her pocket, immediately drawing on the poster she stole.
Then she ran off to Lucien, who was looking between two types of bread with an absolutely confused look on his face. Laughing slightly to herself, Luka ran up behind him and when he turned back to the cart, she shoved the poster in his face.
He yelped slightly, causing some nearby people to look over in concern before they deemed it was just two weirdos. The blonde pulled the paper from his face and glared at Luka, “What was that for?”
“Look at it,” Luka replied, a mischievous grin on her face as she placed her hands on her hips.
He looked distrustful of that, and looked down at the picture, scoffing and glaring at her, before pulling it to himself and holding it by his head, “Why did you add devil horns to my hair?”
“Because you’re like an angry lil’ demon!” Luka replied, immediately being shushed by the others who gave a panicked look at their surroundings, but Luka was having none of it, “besides, consider it an upgrade!”
He glared back at her, pushing past her to return to the cart and crumbling up the paper, tossing it back at her and picking up both loaves of bread he’d been trying to decide between. Screw it, after all, Lorenzo was overly specific. Who was that specific on bread anyway?
Luka, however, reached out and walked beside him, growling in annoyance, “oh no, our mission is compromised, people might recognize us,” she said dramatically.
Lucien looked at her, then back at the cart, “No.”
“‘No’ what?” Luka replied, inspecting some food items and gagging before putting them back. Man, some of this stuff looked gross.
“No to whatever you’re planning,” Lucien commented.
Luka shrugged back at him, “what makes you think I’m planning anything?” she replied, looking somewhat aghast at the accusation.
“I’ve met you,” Lucien replied, tapping his foot as he crossed something off the list and grabbed a can of vegetables.
“Okay! Fine!” Luka replied, taking the canned vegetables he placed in the cart and placing them back on the shelf just to be a little shit, “but Luci. This is the first time we’ve been out since we fought with those weirdos. We should have fun while we have the chance!”
“Uh,” Lucien replied intelligibly, grabbing the can of vegetables back and putting it in the cart, to also be petty, “No.”
“Oh come on!” Luka replied, grabbing the vegetables and whatever else she could reach and placing them back on the shelf, much to Luci’s annoyance, “It’ll be fun! You can show me what you Americans do for fun! We could go to one of those sports games you guys like so much!”
Lucien looked back at her, raising an eyebrow and grabbing the stuff back, “We’re not going to watch Football, Luka.”
“Isn’t it weird that we call it football? The foot ever makes contact with the ball,” Luka replied, “whatever, Football reminds me of River pummeling you into the ground. Seems entertaining enough.”
Lucien glared at her, and she snickered in reply. Still, he quickly sighed, watching as she looked at him expectantly.
“You know what,” he replied, gaining his mischievous look as he crossed his arms and pushed the cart away, “I know something even better than football.”
“So you’re telling me that all you did was leave that grocery store, and went to a new grocery store?” Cleo replied, glancing between them and the clock, “And it took you over 5 hours?”
Luka looked between Lucien and Cleo, nodding once succinctly and unabashedly, “Yes.”
Cleo fixed them with a stare, and from beside Luka, Lucien sighed then nodded as well, “Yep.”
“So how was ‘grocery shopping?’” Cleo asked, bringing their fingers up in a quotation mark mockery on the words, fixing the two with a glare that indicated that they bought none of this bullshit.
“It went great!” Luka piped up, elbowing Lucien when he remained silent, and he too replied.
“Yeah, nothing went wrong, all went great, yay.”
“Everything is going wrong!” Lucien hissed as he ran around a corner, dragging his Australian friend with him as they turned the corner. He was followed by a series of giggles from the girl behind him and the smashing of cans and trash as they ran through the area.
“I think it’s going great!” Luka commented, yanking her hand back from Lucien as she hopped over a concrete block, speeding up to match his speed.
“Of course you would!” Lucien commented, right back, and he huffed out an amused noise before it broke off into an angry curse as he tripped over a plastic bag that got wrapped around his foot. He only stumbled a bit, but he glared at his friend regardless as if it was her fault for not warning him.
In retaliation, he elbowed her as he ran past her, laughing as she stumbled due to it. Her gaze flickered back up to him in a challenging glare, and soon the two had stopped running entirely, instead pushing at each other like children. It was nothing like the fights between River and Lucien and instead was more reminiscent of two cats having a slapping match.
“Get back here!” A yell broke their attention and both froze, staring in tandem at the end of the alley they took off down to see the poor middle-aged male police officer who had the unfortunate luck of coming across these two idiots destroying glass windows and random nicknacks in an abandoned building. The two had been in the process of mocking the other leaders and doing horrible charades of Cleo going on one of their erm…’ fits’ when the man peeked in, flashlight shining into the room.
Poor guy had squeaked in quite a high decibel while the two had collectively looked between each other and decided to run. Luka had thought they’d lost the guy, but not. He seemed winded though.
Lucien looked more put-off than she did, raising his hand to flip off the cop, voice going slightly high, “I’m not going back to jail!”
Luka barely had time to internally question that before Lucien was pushing her into another abandoned building and vaulting over obvious cracks in the foundation. She took off after him, staring back to see who she was now going to dub Rob Banker was huffing over but still following them.
“Hate to inform you, but our new friend is still following us,” Luka commented, raising an eyebrow as Rob Banker tripped over one of the cracks in the concrete, his arms pinwheeling out a bit pathetically. She winced when he landed in a heap.
“Oh fuck off!” Lucien yelled back at the man. He took a sharp left, running out of the building, luckily their hoods were still on, so the man likely couldn’t trace who they were, just some street vandals.
“Dude, that’s a copper,” Luka hissed out.
“Yeah, and he needs to fuck off!” Lucien said, stopping for a second to yell the words back into the building.
“That is no way to treat your elder young man!” the cop yelled from inside the building, and in reply, Luka raised an eyebrow at Lucien.
“He sounds like Cleo when he says that,” Luka commented, glaring back before them and tugging her hood a bit tighter around her head, sunglasses perched over her eyes, “do you think Cleo was a copper?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Lucien commented, grumbling out the reply and continuing on his path. He looked around a bit before crossing into a new alley, after all, there was no telling who was with Mr. Rob Banker.
They walked silently a bit, eyes scanning the area around them, being sure they were safe. For a long while they walked in a surprising silence, and when Luka got her phone out, she realized that some time had passed. It had taken them about 30 minutes to reach the grocery store and decide to leave, and it had been about 50 minutes since that time. They were nearing being gone for about an hour and a half. Pocketing her phone again and deciding they were pretty much in the clear, she looked over at Lucien with a very accusatory and curious glance.
“So, are we going to talk about you being in jail?” Luka questioned.
Lucien seemed to freeze slightly, glancing at her and then glaring ahead, “nope,” he commented, “we are not.”
“When were you in jail?” Luka resolutely ignored his reply, choosing instead to pester him.
Realizing she wouldn’t give up, Lucien rolled his eyes, sarcasm rolling off his tongue, “once,” he said, “in Monopoly.”
Luka didn’t need to have Cleo’s lie-detecting to call absolute bullshit on that.
Cleo was staring at Luka as she spoke, their face pretty much spelling their thoughts which were mostly now spelling out ‘the audacity of the bitch’.
“So yeah, we left the store because there was a cop and we didn’t want to be recognized. Just like you informed us to do!” Luka commented, arms folded in her hands and a smile on her face.
Lucien looked between Cleo and Luka and leaned back against the couch, arms crossed.
“Anyways, since we left that store, that meant we had to go to a new store!” Luka replied, elbowing Lucien to get him to reply, which was replied to with an ‘ow!’
Soon the two were back in a slapping match, only broke up with Cleo cleared their throat, raising an eyebrow silently at the two.
“Yeah, whatever,” Lucien commented, grabbing Luka’s wrist when she went to slap his arm as a final measure and forcing the offending arm down onto the couch, before slapping her upper arm for good measure and snorting at her offended gasp.
Luka glared at him, moving in a position to attack the boy, almost like a cat, before Cleo barked at her, “Luka, do not! Lucien, hands to yourself!”
Lucien glared at them, gesturing wildly to his friend. “She started it!”
“I’m ending it!” Cleo stated, exasperated.
“Pfft,” Luka replied, crossing her arms and leaning back into the couch like she was trying to melt into it, “buzzkill.”
“Explain. Now.” Cleo commented, rolling their arm in a gesture for one of the two idiots before them to finish explaining this frankly obviously fabricated story.
“We went to a new store,” Lucien commented, and it wasn’t entirely a lie. They did go to a store. Eventually.
“Yeah?” Cleo commented, glancing at their watch and back up at the boy with a glance that said they didn’t buy his words at all, “for five hours?”
“Yep.”
“Wanna go to Macca’s?” Luka questioned after everything had calmed a bit. There was a drizzle in the air now, and it was quite frankly much too cold for her tastes outside. The two had been sure they were clear of danger now, it had been over half an hour since they ran into Mr. Rob Banker, and frankly, Luka was hungry.
Lucien paused, glancing at her with a look that spelled out just how much of an idiot Luka sounded like to him, “what the fuck is Macca’s?”
“It’s bloody Macca’s!” Luka hissed, waving her arms around and staring at Lucien, “I know you guys have ‘em, they have ‘em everywhere!”
“Uh, no?” Lucien replied, “I’ve never heard of fucking Macca’s in my life, what the hell?”
As they walked out onto a street, Luka grumbled as the rain started to come down a bit harder, fishing into the strap that held her key and freeing her Umbrella, allowing the item to unfurl and cover her as she walked by Lucien. After a few moments of thought, she raised her arm higher and walked closer to Lucien, mostly protecting her friend from the rainfall too.
Her eyes narrowed down the street, focusing on something in the distance and crowing in victory, “Yes! You do have a Macca’s, you bloody bogan!”
“I don’t understand a word of what you just said,” Lucien commented, glancing at his friend with a skeptical and judgemental look.
“Macca’s!” Luka grumbled out, louder than she intended. Some kid down the street stared back at them in horror before scuttling off to their bike and quickly leaving the area. She pointed at the fast-food place, grin in place.
“Are we seriously still on about the stupid Macca’s?” Lucien groaned though he looked where she pointed and quickly rounded on her, pointing that way too. “That doesn’t say Macca’s, idiot, that’s a McDonald’s!”
“Macca’s, Mcdonald’s, whether you say it right like me, or wrong like you, doesn’t matter. I wanna see how you Americans make it!”
“It says McDonald’s you fucking idiot,” Lucien commented, though he seemed to digest her commentary, glancing back at her, “also, why would they be made different? It’s McDonald’s…they just make burgers?”
“Yeah but what if they made them from like…American Kangaroos?” Luka commented, and Lucien knew she wasn’t as stupid as she just sounded. Her shit-eating grin said she was trust trying to annoy the shit out of him. Good for her then, it was working.
“American kangaroos?” Lucien commented, rolling his eyes at her, “Ever hear of a fucking cow? Like…the thing that gave birth to you?”
Luka paused, her voice quiet as she stared off into the distance at the McDonald’s they had been approaching.
“What did you just say?” She questioned, voice somewhat soft and seemingly restraining something.
Lucien worried he insulted her for a second, and went to open his mouth, apology on his tongue. However, he was quickly unnerved by the slow turn Luka took towards him, her eyes hidden behind her sunglasses, though Lucien worried of what emotions hid behind them.
Then she laughed, doubling over and letting off a particularly painful-sounding wheeze.
“Dude that was good, where did that even come from?” She questioned, and he found himself doubling over at her laughter too. The two were now giggling in the middle of a rainstorm in front of a looming McDonald’s. “The thing that gave birth to you,” she giggled out, a painful set of laughs escaping her and her body doubled over. Her umbrella was held at a crooked angle that did little to keep her or Lucien safe from the storm. Not that she noticed too much, too busy laughing. “Dude what if that was a sensitive topic? How would you like it if I insulted your mum?”
Lucien rolled his eyes and grabbed the umbrella to straighten it, snorting, “Nothing you say could insult me.”
Luka seemed to take that as a challenge, though she seemed to deflate, “Fine. Whatever. I would to insult your mother, but I’m afraid I won’t do as well as nature did.”
“Really!?” Lucien replied, chuckling, “A discount yo mama joke?”
“As if yours wasn’t?” Luka replied, “You referred to my mother as a cow. You aren’t wrong because, well, she was…probably,” she trailed off for a moment, deep in thought, but then smiled, “Oh my goodness, yo mama so dumb she thought having you as a son was a good idea.”
Lucien snickered at it but did his best to maintain a deadpan face that failed horribly. Instead, he had to look away, and he cleared his throat, “Okay. McDonald’s then, right?”
“Sounds good to me,” she agreed, and the two teens took shelter from the rain in a McDonald’s at a time very late into the night, one wearing a hood and sunglasses, the other wearing just a hood. They did get some terrified stares, after all, it likely wasn’t normal attire to see in a McDonald’s of all places, but such was life.
“-but such is life,” Luka finished telling that part of the story, tapping her hands on her lap and staring at Cleo expectantly.
“It started storming outside, so you, correct me if I’m wrong here, but you went to a McDonald’s to hide from the storm?” Cleo questioned.
“Yep.”
Cleo seemed amazed for a second, “wow, you’re not actually lying about that. Well…entirely.”
Luka smiled at that comment, and Lucien snorted at Cleo’s commentary. “The entire time she just kept yapping about how it was Macca’s and how weird it was that we called it McDonald’s.”
“It is weird, in entire fairness to me,” Luka commented, crossing her arms to shoot Lucien a mischievous look, “McDonald’s is such a long, boring name. Kind of like Lucien. Mc-Don-Alds. Luc-eee-en,” she exaggerated the syllables and triumphantly crowed her next words, “Macca’s. Luci. Makes perfect sense!”
“Luci?” Lucien replied, sounding somewhat aghast at the nickname.
“Yeah? Is that too girly for you?” Luka taunted, challenging Lucien.
He just huffed, rolling his eyes, “no,” he commented simply, “it just sounds stupid.”
“You know you love it!”
“I do not,”
“Children.” Cleo coughed out, gaining their attention back, in Cleo’s hand was their mug, nestled there, and they took a sip before continuing, “Get on with your frankly made-up exotic tale, please.”
“Yeah so as soon as the rain let down a bit we went to the store-”
“We’re lost,” Luka commented after they had exited the McDonald’s. Frankly, the two had been carelessly walking down the streets for about half an hour now and it was approaching close to…well late O’Clock. Luka ignored as her phone buzzed again, and instead stared at Lucien as he grumbled his annoyed reply.
“No we’re not,” he commented back, scoffing at her comment.
“Uh, yes we are,” Luka commented, gesturing to the area around them that looked frankly way too shady. Honestly, a lot of these buildings around them looked abandoned and dilapidated and Luka had seen people in an alley making some kind of drug deal.
“No, we aren’t!” Lucien replied, rounding on her and crossing his own arms.
“Fine then, Mr. Navigator,” Luka replied, gesturing again to the area that surrounded them, “where are we?”
Lucien paused, seeming to take in the surrounding area and paling just a bit as he took in the state of it, like, really took it in. Still, the blonde had pride, “Errr….we are right here.”
“Yeah, and where is that?” Luka pressed, glaring at him.
“I don’t know!” Lucien snapped back, glaring right back at her.
“My my my,” a voice said, scaring the crap out of the two teens, and they both rounded on the speaker. They were met with a group of people who looked rather sketchy, hoods on, some wearing masks on their faces, and each one with a visible knife on their person, “you two have gotten yourselves lost? I’m sure we can work everything out without…altercations.”
Lucien glanced between the approaching group and Luka and quickly grabbed her arm, placing himself between her and the group, his eyes narrowing at them, “fuck off.”
“You tell them Lucien, I’m sure they’re definitely going to listen to you,” Luka drawled sarcastically from behind him.
“Shut up,” Lucien hissed back, glaring back at her.
Big mistake there, the group got close enough to start circling them, and the two teens found themselves pretty much face-to-face with a looming mugger or gang member, they couldn’t be sure which.
“I’ll kindly ‘fuck off’ when you pay your dues,” the male before them stated, holding out his hand expectantly.
“What do you want me to do with that?” Lucien drawled, staring at their aloft hand, “Give you a high five?”
“Give me whatever you’ve got on you, smartass,” the man replied, his voice edging from faux friendliness to entire annoyance and threat, “the quicker this goes, the less you get hurt. I’d hate to hurt your little friend back there if you don’t give us what we want.”
Lucien went from slight anger to a larger boil, he went to guard Luka more but found himself getting pushed to the side by the 5’0 girl as she rocketed herself towards the man and sucker punched the guy straight in the nose.
“How’s that for an altercation!?” Luka questioned, voice dripping with dangerous intent as the man staggered back and dropped the knife he had been holding, which Luka quickly dived to retrieve. Lucien had the state of mind to realize the group of people slowly getting over their shock and instead grabbed Luka’s arm once more, pushing past the shocked male who was clutching at his face, and running off.
“I’m no detective,” Luka stated, glancing at the muggers who were now chasing them, “but I think we might have a problem on our hands.”
“YOU THINK?”
“You got chased…” Cleo commented, staring at Luka as she explained the next part of her story, voice disbelieving, “by a flock of geese?”
“Pretty much,” Luka replied instead of directly answering. Though in fairness to her comments, Luka did consider the group of muggers that had chased her and Lucien to be concerningly a lot like geese.
Cleo opened their mouth as if they wanted to comment further, but seemed to flounder for words a few times before eventually giving up. They instead stared at the two teens silently, waiting for the story to continue.
“We ran for a bit, but one of the mu-geese ended up cornering us and we had to split up,” Luka commented, and it was the one part of the story she finally seemed to deflate at. To be fair, she had been very concerned about Lucien when that had happened.
“A goose scared you into separating?”
“Yes?” Luka asked, sounding aghast, “Have you ever fought a goose? They’re mean!”
“Why would I ever fight a goose?” Cleo questioned, judgemental as ever, “I-actually, I don’t even want to know.”
Luka smirked in victory, and Lucien sighed tiredly. The boy grumbled slightly, “Yeah, the goose was a real asshole. Like River.”
“Man’s not ever here to defend himself,” Luka tutted, “he’s either sleeping or flirting with baguette boy.”
“So the ‘goose’...?” Cleo commented, rolling a hand in a motion for the two to continue the story.
“Well, the goose separated us, so we had to reconvene, so we both found ourselves hiding in the same alley-”
Lucien had been trying to find Luka after the girl had separated from him when one of the more speedy muggers had caught up to them. The girl had taken one look at Lucien, nodded, and the two had split off into two separate alleyways. The boy was still hiding behind a dumpster when a voice from right beside him caused him to jump.
“Hello Lucien,” the Australian said, drawing out his name a bit when he jumped and turned to her.
“How long have you been standing there?” Lucien questioned, voice slightly higher in pitch, though he’d never admit to it.
Luka smirked, shaking her head a bit, “longer than you’d like.”
In the small light of the alley, Lucien frowned as he looked at Luka, taking in the girl. Her hair was a bit of a mess, out of the hood and flying in every which direction. Her sunglasses had been taken off and clipped to her shirt collar and her eyes gleamed ever so slightly in the low light, much like a dog or cat’s would. However, on the cuffs of her right hand and around the knuckles was a smearing of scarlet that greatly concerned Lucien.
“Is that blood?” He questioned, reaching out to grab her wrist, and lifting it to inspect it.
“No?” Luka replied, voice just as much questioning and curious as she too inspected her knuckles and sleeve, yanking her hand away from Lucien to hold it closer to her face and poke at it.
“That isn’t a question you should answer with another question,” Lucien replied, voice deadpan as he stared at her, voice neutral and hiding his concern as annoyance began to trickle into his body from her stubbornness.
Luka picked up on it, scoffing slightly and wiping the blood off on her shirt, causing a smear of scarlet on the partly damaged fabric. “Don’t get your knickers in a twist, it’s not mine.”
Well, that was a slight bit of a relief.
“Where did you little brats go?” A new voice sounded, much too close for comfort, echoing through the alleyway. Both Lucien and Luka quickly quieted down, hiding beside each other and curled down on the outside of the garbage can.
The footsteps got concerningly loud, and Luka’s hand tightened around the pocket knife she stole from the mugger earlier. Lucien himself also crouched. He didn’t have a weapon, given the fact that he expected this to be a normal shopping trip and not a disaster of a night that led to.
The shadow of the mugger fell over the ground next to them, and it seemed he was about to investigate more, but then a sharp ringtone sounded. An oddly cheery theme for a mugger, if the teens were to be honest. His gruff voice sounded again, and he grunted an affirmative before hanging up and grunting again, “damn annoying kids.”
The footsteps receded, and when it was almost inaudible, Luka opened her mouth, only to be quickly hushed by Lucien throwing his hand over her mouth.
“Shut up,” he hissed out in a whisper.
Luka shook him off and glared, “I didn’t say anything.”
“Don’t care,” Lucien commented, “shut up.”
He got up to make sure the coast was clear, but Luka harrumphed in annoyance.
“Fifteen years of friendship and this is the way you choose to treat me?” Luka commented, glaring at him as she joined him in peering around the alley, “rude.”
“I’ve only known you for fifteen days!” Lucien retorted, rolling his eyes at Luka’s exaggerated pout.
Luka looked out, catching a figure in the darkness still. At the mouth of the alleyway was the mugger who had been looking for them just moments prior. It seemed he was stationed to stay there, and she cursed slightly under her breath. That was their one exit out of this situation without running back to the Pantheon and getting caught by Cleo.
“What’s wrong?” Lucien questioned, and this time Luka hushed him. He growled back at her in annoyance, “Listen, I get you’re sour-”
“Lucien, shut up,” Luka whispered out urgently, “he’s still there.”
“No?” Lucien replied, squinting his eyes and looking in that direction, before gasping a bit, “How did you see that?”
“Gift from Loki, I guess,” Luka commented, “most animals can see in the dark, guess that’s a perk of being the Champion of Loki.”
Lucien hummed to show he heard her, and Luka kept her gaze locked on the man. He wouldn’t be able to see them, given the darkness outside and the fact that the alley was unlit. He had a flashlight with him though, or at least his phone had a flashlight function. Luka only knew that because he used it earlier.
“So what exactly is our exit strategy?” Lucien questioned, crouching next to her.
Luka screwed up her eyebrows, turning to him and raising one, “Our what?”
“Oh blessed sun,” he said, sounding slightly morose, “we’re going to die.”
“So the ‘geese’ trapped you in an alleyway?” Cleo questioned, seeming even more exasperated than before, and took a large sip of their mug only to realize it was already empty.
Luka gave up on vocal answers, just nodding while Lucien began dozing off. She elbowed him to keep Cleo from noticing, and he woke with a start, glaring at her but then noticing Cleo was still there and muttering out a quick thanks.
Cleo just shook their head in annoyance, glaring at the clock on the wall and waiting for Luka to continue.
Luka paused before opening her mouth, glancing at the clock too, and looking at Cleo, “It’s 2 a.m. Cleo, are you sure you want to hear the rest of the story?” She questioned, forcing fake concern into her voice as she looked at Cleo, playing up an act of empathy, “You look so tired and overworked.”
“You look like you were hit by a bus,” Lucien grumbled. Apparently, his approach to getting out of the situation would be insulting.
Cleo shook their head, “No, you’re not getting out of this that easily. You chose to stay out forever, you’re going to explain why.”
Luka pouted, throwing her arms up dramatically and crossing them, “I’ve been explaining why!”
“The truth?” Cleo questioned.
“Whatever,” Luka replied, glaring at them and then continuing the story, “The geese had us cornered, but there was a building within that alleyway.”
Lucien piped in at this point, voice sour as he turned to Luka, “Yeah, and Luka said she could pick locks.”
“I never said that,” Luka replied, glancing ahead.
“That was a lie,” Cleo unhelpfully pointed out, causing the girl to groan at their input.
“So we went to the building to try and hatch a new escape…”
“I have a plan,” Luka told Lucien after they had sat for a bit, waiting for the guy to leave, though he seemed to be stubbornly keeping watch there. Luka had taken to examining the alleyway for any other potential escapes when she spotted it. Up on a banister, about 2 stories up was a balcony with a door to it.
“Is it a good one?” Lucien asked skeptically.
“It’s a plan,” she replied, “let’s not be picky.”
Lucien wordlessly seemed to accept that and looked to her silently for guidance on what it was. She pointed up to the balcony, a rusty banished leading to it. They’d have to climb a bit to get to the banister, but once they got there they should be good. The building seemed pretty abandoned as it was.
“What if it’s locked?” he questioned, glancing up at it, still skeptical.
“I can pick it,” she replied, looking down the alleyway to make sure the man was still preoccupied with his phone and keeping watch, she then silently climbed on top of the garbage can they were by, balancing on the lid and looking down at Lucien, “let’s go.”
He sighed but followed after her. The two silently made their way scaling the building, using railings and the trashcan’s lid to climb up. Luka reached the banister first, yanking her feet up a bit unceremoniously and keeping her body weight low as there was a loud creak from the stairs.
She winced, looking down, but it seemed the mugger hadn’t noticed. She nodded at Lucien, and soon both of the teens were perched in a crouch on the balcony.
Luka then tried the door that was there, groaning in annoyance at the fact that it was indeed locked.
Lucien, however, was confused. His gaze locked on it and then Luka, and soon realization caught up with him.
“I thought you knew how to get inside!” He whispered out, though it was like a quiet little shout, agitation clinging to every word.
“Yeah,” she agreed, “well that was a lie!”
Lucien groaned, trying to think of a new plan and looking around. However the sound of breaking glass drew his attention, and also the man’s. He heard a yelled out shout from the mugger below, and he turned to see what caused the noise.
Luka had her umbrella’s handle through the window by the door, clearing enough of a path for them to squeeze through, the glass shatters sprinkled across the floor.
“Right then,” she said calmly, gesturing at the opening with a crooked grin, “after you.”
“You’re fucking crazy!” He hissed at her, looking downwards at the mugger who was trying to find a way up in a panic.
“News at fucking eleven,” Luka said, impatiently pointing at the opening, “ask me if I give a fuck.”
“It’s past Eleven!” He replied, but still entered the room, grossed out by the dust and cobwebs but glad no alarms were going off at least. Still, a shout from outside had him glancing at his friend and beckoning her to enter the room.
She glanced behind her and quickly followed him, squeaking when cobwebs stuck to her skin and hair and shaking them off, glaring at them as if they had personally wronged her.
“Careful there Luka,” Lucien commented, raising an eyebrow at her, “they might just attack you again.”
“Oh shut up asshole,” she countered, wiping her arms off. “So, what’s next?”
“What do you mean, what’s next?” he questioned, glancing back at the brunette in confusion.
“I mean, I made the last plan, it’s your turn.”
“Your plan included scaling a wall just to break open a window and get ourselves lost in some weird creepy abandoned building with a bunch of muggers chasing us!” He pointed out, crossing his arms, “You can barely consider that a plan.”
“Sounds to me like you’re being picky,” Luka sing-songed, “Anyways, either way, it’s your turn.”
She took to feeling along the walls and looking at random things within the building, and Lucien seemed to make up his mind on a plan.
“Fine, want a plan?” He asked, barely giving her a chance to reply before he started down the creaky stairs and started towards the broken and dilapidated door.
“Uh, care to share with the class?” She questioned, chasing after him quickly and trying to figure out just what the blonde was thinking.
“We’ve wasted the entirety of this night just hiding from people,” Lucien commented, and Luka had a bad feeling about his plan, “so we’re going to just face the guy and get out of here.”
“Okay, no, wait,” Luka commented, running to place herself in front of him to stop him, “I was under the impression that I was not going to be murdered today. You want to go out and fight the guy?”
“It’s just one guy, right?” Lucien pointed out, trying to maneuver around her and failing when she threw her arms out to stop him. His annoyance showed on his features as he glowered at her, “he’s asking for it.”
“This isn’t one of your fights against River, Lucien. This is a real guy who can and will hurt you,” she argued, for once using a little bit of reasoning, “then I’ll have to carry back your useless hunk of a body back to the Pantheon like I had to do with Chiara, I’m not doing it again, nuh uh!”
“This way is more efficient than just hiding!”
“No,” Luka retorted, pointing into his chest like the angry little spitfire she was, “this was is going to get us killed!”
“We won’t die,” Lucien rolled his eyes, and pushed past her, approaching the door. Reproachfully, Luka followed him. “Anyways, it’s not like it’s gonna be that bad. We don’t even have to fight. We just gotta run faster than him.”
“Yeah, I’d agree with you, but then we’d both be wrong,” Luka grumbled, “you really think he’s gonna be alone out there? He had his phone with him and we know he’s got buddies.”
“Only one way to find out,” Lucien replied, opening the door with a flourish. It seemed quiet and empty outside from what they could see, and so Lucien stepped outside, smiling a cocky smile and gloating to his friend, “See, what did I say!?”
His gloat was cut short when a set of figures stepped from the shadows, led by Mr. Broken Nose Pete and his cast of merry muggers.
“Hey Lucien,” Luka’s voice piped out, annoyance and satire dripping from her voice, “what was that about there only being one guy?”
“You fought geese?!” Cleo replied, so enraged it was almost like they knew full well that the two didn’t fight any actual geese.
“Yeah, mean fucking buggers, them.”
Lucien had the audacity to look a little sheepish this time, piping up in his own defense, “To be fair, I didn’t expect to fight them.”
“What did you expect, a tea party!?” Luka snapped back.
Cleo groaned, rubbing at their forehead and glancing at the two. “Stay here, you troublesome idiots, I need more coffee.”
They left to refill their coffee. The two teens watched as they turned on the coffee machine, both silent until Cleo had refilled their mug and returned, nursing it in their hands.
“Now, you fought people?”
“Geese,” Luka corrected.
Cleo groaned more, rubbing at their forehead with the forefinger and thumb of their left hand, “I believe that was the exact thing I told you not to do.”
“And you thought we’d listen?” Lucien fired back, shaking his head, “Honestly this is more on you for having an expectation set.”
“Yeah, you should know we’re the master at letting people down,” Luka added, snorting slightly, “why do you think our parents didn’t want us?”
Cleo didn’t even know what to reply with, seeing slightly perturbed by that train of thought and instead placing their mug down and burying their face in their hands, sighing long and hard.
“What happened next?”
“How do we keep getting into these situations!?” Lucien yelled out, uncaring of the weird looks some of the muggers gave him when he shouted.
Luka didn’t seem that surprised, shrugging, “15 years of friendship and I still don’t know!”
The main guy she punched in the face earlier glared right at her, and the one who had trapped them in the alley spoke up, “You know kids, this could have been easy,” he started, “We just wanted some cash, a little payment for you crossing our territory. Then you decided to attack one of us.”
“Attack you?” Luka laughed, “I did you a favor.”
“Excuse me?” the guy who was punched piped up this time, and his voice was muffled due to the cotton he had shoved into his bloody broken nose.
“Well it still hurts to look at your face,” She replied, scanning him for a second, “but this is a definite improvement.”
“Yeah,” Lucien agreed, seeming so absolutely done with this situation that he was just fine turning to insulting, “adds a little flare.”
“It is not an improvement!” The man yelled out, and some of his group seemed stuck between laughing or attacking the kids, instead choosing to wait, “you take that back!”
“Well, it seems you were offended my good bitch!” the Australian girl shot back, laughing at the man’s plight. Lucien snickered too. This situation was going from scary to funny, oddly enough.
Well, it was, until the guy took another knife and threw it between the two, missing the kids by only inches. Luka stared at it in concern and backed up, eyes wide. Lucien himself glared at the man who threw the knife, feeling very ill-prepared for a fight.
“Okay, time to run!” Luka replied, reaching out and grabbing Lucien’s wrist this time, breaking off in a full-speed sprint towards a road up ahead that seemed to be busier and less sketchy. The rain started coming down again in powerful drops, a downpour that made the ground slippery. Once Lucien began running, Luka let go of his arm to run faster herself.
One of the more speedy muggers caught up, though she was apparently stationed over here, having run from a nearby alley they just passed. This mugger took a lunge at Luka, one that she was able to avoid, though they also swung a knife at her. She backed out of the way but slipped as she stepped back, landing on her butt in the cold rain with a woman glowering down at her, one with a mask on and hair pulled up into a bun. Luka winced at the ache in her tailbone, her agitation catching up to her.
“Pardon my French,” Luka hissed out, her hair falling into her face due to the rain, “but you’re being a real douche-baguette!”
“What?” the woman replied, seeming confused by the insult, and Luka smirked back, glancing up at Lucien, who was running over to help Luka.
Lucien didn’t have a weapon though, so he instead grabbed the woman’s arm as she was distracted and tried to get her to let go of it. The woman and the boy wrestled for a bit. The woman freed her arm and tried to punch Lucien, but her hit failed and missed, and Lucien grabbed the arm she punched out with, trying to either pin the girl or get her to drop her weapon.
He eventually wrenched the girl’s hand open, and the knife fell to the ground. Lucien kicked the weapon and pushed the girl away from himself, running to his friend.
The girl seemed relentless though, and the others were catching up. It was then that Lucien spotted the knife Luka had still, and he hid behind her for the moment.
“Hey, Luka?” He questioned, he and his friend at a standstill, for if they turned to run they would leave themselves vulnerable to the attacker ahead of them.
“Yeah?” She replied, not even sparing him a glance as she held the knife in her hand.
“Can you, oh I don’t know, hit her with your knife?!” He shouted the question.
Luka shrugged, the knife pointed at the girl still, “I believe the technical term is ‘stab’,” she replied calmly.
The girl, seeming annoyed with their arguing, lunged to punch at Luka. Luka skillfully relied on some stuff River taught her, stepping to the side and swinging her knife out, slashing the other woman’s arm open.
The woman yelped in pain, grabbing at her injured arm and glaring at the kids. She was in no position to follow anymore, after all, she was unarmed and the two teens now had a knife.
“Luka, that was cool and everything, but can you either do it again or RUN?” Lucien yelled out as the others got close, starting to surround them again.
She took note of their surrounding and followed the boy when he ran through an opening they still had. Her back stung a bit as she ran, and Lucien seemed to favoring one arm over the other. However, all seemed well for how it could have gone.
They hadn’t escaped yet though, and they both knew it. They had to find their way back into a more populated area to dissuade these people.
“We have five people trying to kill us! What are we going to do?” Lucien questioned, having to yell to get his voice to be heard over the rain.
Luka glanced back, despite the fact that they were by no means the fastest people in the world, the muggers had slowed down a bit, seeming to realize the teens were prepared to attack back.
“It’s more like 8, honestly,” she replied, looking back at him.
“Oh, sorry I wasn’t specific enough!” Lucien snapped back. However, he too looked back and seemed to realize the muggers were starting to give up. That meant they dissuaded them, but it also likely meant they were getting closer to a safer place.
Luka had her phone in her hand and was scrolling through it. Lucien gave her a questioning look, and Luka simply grinned back at him.
“What are you doing?” he questioned.
“There’s a supermarket in about 3 blocks,” she said in lieu of a reply, “It’s currently nearing 1 a.m. and Cleo is planning our very slow slaughter.”
“Lucky us,” Lucien replied sarcastically, following the small Australian girl to their destination at long last.
“So you escaped the ‘geese’ and finally got the shopping done?” Cleo questioned, raising an eyebrow at the two.
“Yes?” Lucien replied this time
“Why did you phrase that like a question?”
“It’s been a long night,” was all Lucien said.
Cleo stared at them for a solid 3 minutes without saying a thing. Lucien and Luka both squirmed a bit under the scrutiny and eventually, Cleo shed some mercy on them.
“You are aware that I’m a bullshit detector, right?” Cleo finally piped up, looking at Luka as they said this.
“What does that have to do with anything?” Luka shot back, seemingly confused by their statement.
“It means I know when you lie and that entire story was a lie,” Cleo clipped back, narrowing their eyes at her.
“I have no idea what you mean,” she said, shrugging and crossing her arms, crossing her legs as she stared right back without shame.
“According to you, all that happened in your five-hour trip was almost being recognized in a store, needing to find a new one because of it, hiding in a McDonald’s because of rain, getting attacked by geese, and you finally got to the new store. Am I correct?”
“Okay well in a very simplified form some of those things are actually true so I don’t know what your issue is,” Luka replied.
“If they didn’t have an issue, I think I’d be convinced they were replaced with a clone,” Lucien grumbled in annoyance, just wanting to sleep.
“My issue,” Cleo started, “is that you can be recognized by doing…whatever the fuck it is you two ended up actually doing,” they commented, and they wanted to reprimand them more but yawned.
“Actually, no, I can’t do this anymore tonight,” Cleo started before Luka interrupted them smugly.
“It’s like 3 a.m. Cleo,” she replied like the smug bastard she is.
Cleo glared at her but gave no vocal reply, instead pointing between both of them “Alright, you both come to my office tomorrow so I can explain in painstaking detail how much of a dumbass you both are.”
“Do we get a choice?” Lucien questioned, seemingly hopeful that the answer would be no.
“No.”
“Didn’t think so.”