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Chapter Text

The Wellston royals encounter their first problem when they realise not a single one of them knows jack shit about running from the law.

Remi, Blyke, and Isen- who tagged along for the drama- have limited knowledge on the topic, entirely confined to mall chases, map-making, and disguises with questionable success rates. Seraphina, despite her reputation for being places she wasn’t supposed to be, had spent her month-long suspension mostly at her parent’s house.

Which leaves Arlo. Who has never done anything even remotely close to skirting the thin blue line in his entire life. Until now, obviously. But that was an accident- not that the police were likely interested in his explanations.

Seraphina is frowning at the red string-filled map they’ve pinned up on Blyke’s wall. Thank god the Jack’s assigned roommate is inexplainably never around, because they would likely look insane out of context. Not that they’re any more sane in context, Arlo thinks. This is all ridiculous. None of them have the slightest clue what they’re doing.

“I could see if my mom would let him stay,” Remi offers, sitting cross-legged on the unoccupied bed across from Blyke’s. “After what happened with Rei, I’m sure she’d be happy to help someone in need. And Arlo already knows her.”

It seems like a solid idea to him, but Isen shakes his head. “You live too close,” he points out, tapping a spot on the map well within what they’ve labelled ‘the nope circle.’ Which is also not a circle, as a side note, more of a wobbly rectangle-ish thing. As if they needed more proof this is a disaster. “Plus, the police know Rei was a vigilante, they’ll be watching your house too carefully anyway.”

“I don’t think it’s safe for him at any of our houses,” Sera adds, still staring at the map intensely. “We’re all labelled on that file as under close watch, which means our families probably are too. Even my parents, who live a plane trip away. Not that I would ever send anyone to live with them voluntarily anyway.”

“Maybe he could rent a hotel?” Blyke offers, leaning against the wall on his own bed. A notebook is open in front of him, where he’s been taking diligent notes on everything they’ve talked about. Arlo feels briefly safer at the thought of leaving the school in his hands. Very briefly.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if I didn’t have the funds for more than a few nights,” Arlo replies bitterly from Blyke’s desk. “The Bureau doesn’t- well, didn’t- pay much, and I’d be shocked if my parents haven’t long since disowned me and cut me off by now.”

Blyke looks just as put out by the realisation. “You’re right,” he sighs, tearing a frustrated hand through his hair. “Fuck, we’re bad at this.”

“Don’t beat yourself up,” Remi pipes up before Arlo can reply. “Even if he could pay for it, his card would get tracked. He’d have to have a ton of cash on hand, and I don’t think any of us do.”

Everyone shakes their head in agreement and Isen groans, stress-clicking his pan up and down. It makes Arlo’s brain hurt, but he decides that now is not the time to start an argument.

“So what we need is someone who isn’t a Royal, with a house outside of the district, and has a couple hundred in emergency cash lying around,” Isen lists. “Not to mention a reasonable alibi for missing school, assuming they’ll be going with Arlo, a parent who isn’t going to rat them out to the cops, and either a means of private transportation or a pretty damn solid knowledge of public transportation. And no planes, or renting cars, both of which need ID.” Blyke is writing furiously.

It feels like an impossible list of qualifications, a feeling that is confirmed when everyone falls silent, going through a list of everyone they know. Arlo has mostly resigned himself to trying to find yet another alternative when Sera speaks up- at the same time as Isen does.

“Believe it or not, I might know someone-”

“And they have to get along with, y’know, Arlo, enough not to kill each other.”

Sera winces. “Ah. Right. I might not know someone, actually.”

The rest of them ignore her backtracking. “You do?” Remi asks excitedly. “That’s fantastic! Whoever it is, I’m sure Arlo can figure out how to get along with them in a situation like this.”

“I-” Arlo starts to disagree, something instinctual disliking where this conversation is headed.

Isen cuts him off. “Dude,” he says seriously, which if Arlo has any say in this world will be the last time that anyone ever says that to him. “You’d have to be crazy to refuse to work with this chick. Did you hear everything I just listed? That’s a batshit qualification list that Sera’s friend is passing with, like, 99%.” He turns to Sera. “Can we talk to her?”

“Like, ASAP?” Blyke adds, setting his notebook aside.

Sera sighs. “He’s… he’s a he. Most of the time. And he lives off campus.” She sounds, if anything, almost as unexcited as Arlo at the breakthrough. Unfortunately, it doesn’t deter the other three, who start badgering her with questions instantly.

“Can he drive? Does he have a licence?”

“What’s his alibi? How long will it take for him to get out of school?”

“Wait, who do you know that has hundreds in cash lying around? Does he know that credit cards exist?”

“Guys-” Arlo starts, to absolutely no avail. The room has stopped listening to his input on his own attempt at running away. He leans back in the chair and stares at the ceiling, exasperated. I appreciate their help, I appreciate their help, I couldn’t do this alone, I couldn’t do this alone, he reminds himself, trying to relax the tension in his shoulders and literally everywhere. “Sera, can you-” He gestures.

Sera, thank god, hears him and nods. In what looks to Arlo to be the span of half a second, Remi, Blyke, and Isen are back in their respective seats, their mouths closed. Isen topples over, discombobulated. Blyke starts to laugh, and proceeds to fall off his bed. Internally, Arlo takes back a little bit of what he said about the Jack being competent.

“Okay, calm down,” Sera orders calmly. “It’s up to Arlo to decide at the end of the day, right?”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Remi replies with an apologetic glance at Arlo, who waves it off not unkindly. “So who’s the guy, Sera? Would we know him?”

A smile briefly lightens Sera’s face. “By reputation? Probably.”

He has a horrible, horrible feeling about this.

“Have you guys ever met John Doe?”

With no little regret, Arlo nods, suppressing the immediate urge to throw himself out the nearest window. Meanwhile, Blyke, Remi, and Isen shake their heads.

“Let me rephrase,” Sera clarifies. “You guys have heard of Joker?”

A chorus of “ohhhhhh”s echo across the room. Arlo groans.

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The first time Arlo met John Doe, he was throwing bricks at the admin office building.

It was a sight so absurd that Arlo actually stopped for a moment to stare in pure disbelief before he would eventually step in: some kid- a junior, from the fact that he looked too old to be an underclassman but wasn’t in any of Arlo’s classes, standing in the middle of the walkway with a pile of bricks next to him, throwing one after another with honestly impressive strength at the admin building. In broad daylight. In the middle of fifth period.

His uniform sleeves are rolled up, and he’s not wearing his blazer. At first glance, it seems to be crumpled on the ground behind him. On closer inspection, that’s actually a torn up blue flannel shirt that is definitely not a part of any grade’s uniform. Neither are the thick soled boots that make harsh clunking noises every time he takes a step forward or back. His black hair looks like it hasn’t been brushed in weeks. If it wasn’t for his shirt, partially undone tie, and slacks, Arlo would have thought he was some rando who somehow made it through Keene.

The kid throws another brick and it hits the wall just inches below a window with a loud thwack, breaking the spell. Arlo steps forward and raises his hand, a barrier flaring up around the kid, who had been reaching down to grab another. He stands, turning towards Arlo slowly.

“Hey,” he says casually, brick in hand. “Could you take that down?” He gestures to the barrier and Arlo narrows his eyes. On the contrary, he shrinks it slightly.

“You’re throwing bricks at the administration office,” he accuses.

“Yeah,” the kid replies, as if this is unnecessary. “And?”

For a moment, Arlo falters. “You… can’t do that?” He blinks a few times to make sure he’s not making this up. The kid is still there when he opens his eyes again. “It’s. Y’know. Property destruction?”

“Not yet,” the kid corrects him. He points at the building. “I didn’t hit any windows, so it’s all just been bouncing off, actually.” He raises an eyebrow. “Who are you, a campus copper?”

“A- what, like Keene?” Arlo is still fully convinced this isn’t a real interaction that he could possibly be having right now. “I mean. No? You don’t- you don’t know who I am?”

Insufferably, the kid crosses his arms and continues to give him attitude. “Well, right now you’re someone who’s violating Wellston District Police Code of detainment without probable cause or evidence,” he recites. “Which is like, the least fun law you could possibly break.”

“But I’m not… a police officer.”

“Eh.” The kid shrugs. “Guilty until proven innocent.”

“Guilty of- you know what?” Arlo takes a deep, calming breath. Playing into this kid’s game isn’t doing him any good. “This conversation clearly isn’t going anywhere until I do, so fine.” He lowers the barrier.

This turns out to be possibly the worst decision he had made in years up until that point. The kid, with the speed of someone who had been waiting for that moment the entire time, whipped around and chucked the brick in his hand. Arlo’s heart stopped, and he barely had time to curse himself out before the brick smashed solidly through the second floor window. The kid looked inexplicably pleased with himself.

Arlo, on the other hand, was explicitly very displeased with him. He took a few furious steps towards the boy, who didn’t even bother to look at him, and opened his mouth furiously before being preemptively cut off by a voice from above. Both he and the kid looked up.

“Who the fuck-” Keene started furiously, his head poking out the newly broken window. Then he paused, staring down at the two of them. Arlo steps back quickly, unwilling to be blamed for whatever the fuck that kid was. He half expects Keene to expel the kid right then and there.

“Oh.” He says instead, sounding much less angry and concerningly bordering on amused. He waves. “Hey, John. You know we have a phone, right? Did you need something?”

“Not at the moment, thanks Mr. Keene,” the kid- John- calls back up. Arlo stares at the two of them almost uncomprehendingly. “I’m just protesting the pro-intellectualist elite and their bureaucratic exercise of control over the lifestyles and actions of students. Specifically the nonconsensual use of our own money for the purpose of building the manifestations of our own systematic oppression from an early and impressionable age.”

He’s just. He’s just what.

Keene, somehow, seems to understand this nonsense and find it entirely permissible. He shrugs. “Alright. Go for it. Don’t hit Doc’s office.”

“I won’t,” John reassures him. “Not because you said so as an instrument of the oppressors but because I respect both you and Darren on an individualistic level.”

“Sounds good, kid,” Keene replies. He nods at Arlo. “Hey, Arlo. Hope your day’s been well.”

Arlo swallows. “You- you as well,” is all he manages before Keene ducks back into his office, closing the curtains behind him.

John finally looks back at him. “Brick?” He offers.

At a loss for what else to do, Arlo shakes his head. “No. Umm, no, thank you. I’m good.” He opens his mouth. Closes it again. Then he turns and walks away.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The rest of the room does not seem to find this story as morally reprehensible as he does. Even Remi laughs a few times. Arlo has never felt more betrayed in his entire life. He huffs and crosses his arms.

“I’m glad to hear that all of you find destruction of private property very amusing,” he says.

Isen sobers up first, which is probably the first time that’s happened ever, and shakes his head. “Nah, man, it’s Joker that’s funny,” he dismisses, sitting on the bed next to Isen. “Wild to hear that you crossed paths with him and he survived, honestly. He’s been frustrating the press office ever since he got here- he doesn’t go about hiding his opinions, but no one can ever actually catch him doing anything illegal.”

“He considers that one of his greatest accomplishments, actually,” Sera interjects. “The press has reported on him doing things that technically aren’t illegal, and they’ve reported on illegal goings-on on campus, but they’ve never been able to reliably connect him to anything illegal, even by the most arbitrary laws or school rules. He has a collection of newspapers hung up on his wall.”

As Isen gapes, Blyke jumps in. “I heard that the one random day off we had last month wasn’t actually because of staff meetings, it was because he pulled some elaborate prank that it took them all day to fix.”

Sera grins. “Not to confirm or deny, but he hypothetically prefers 'symbolic unpermitted protest in the form of anti-conventionalist art'. Although 'prank' sums it up pretty well too.”

“I actually heard that he started an unofficial low-tier-student’s-union that runs out of the Infirmary,” Remi offers. “They advocate for protection of students who get subjected to bullying and violence, and run defence training outside school hours. Like a safe house or something- most patients in the infirmary are low tiers, so it’s a natural meeting point that higher ranked students don’t really know about. I only know because Evie told me about it.”

“That one I can confirm,” Sera says.

Blyke shrugs. “I mean, that doesn’t make him sound half bad. Maybe a little outside the hierarchy, but if he’s hypothetically the one who got us that day off school I’d vouch for him,” he ventures. “I think he’s our best bet.”

They all turn back to Arlo, who lets out a long-suffering sigh.

“Fine,” he mutters reluctantly. He glares at Sera. “I want it made clear to him before I have to see his face that he was not my choice. And that I would not be speaking to him if I valued my life slightly less.”

Sera rolls her eyes, but nods. “I can already tell that you two are going to have a blast,” she comments drily. Isen bangs a book against Blyke’s nightstand.

“Meeting adjourned,” he declares. “Everyone out, I have a physics exam tomorrow.”

Chapter Text

Today, John Doe is in class.

This is a rare occasion.

He is sitting next to his best friend, who is also in class.

This is an equally rare, if not rarer, occasion.

Not him sitting with Seraphina. John sits with Sera for the vast majority of his time at school, and his time outside of school is similarly spent. They have sat in parks, bedrooms, libraries, restaurants, almost every roof on the school campus, quite a few roofs in the five mile vicinity of such, on kitchen counters, at poker tables, and on trains. Just to name a few. But classrooms are of the rarer sort.

“How human does it have to be to be considered human, though?” John is currently arguing, his notebook discarded along with the discussion topic the two were supposed to be talking about, of which he has long forgotten. “Like, is it still cannibalism if it’s, like, an anthropomorphized fox?”

Sera considers this briefly. “No,” she decides. “Because anatomically, the fox would still be a biological fox. After it died, it would be like eating a normal fox.”

“Hmm. True. But that does bring up the rule of beastiality vs the Harkness Test, if the implication is that the fox is categorised as human enough for eating them to be cannibalism while they’re alive.”

“You make a good point. I think-”

Whatever she thinks is cut off by their Maths teacher, who has suddenly appeared to hover over them (as Maths teachers have a habit of doing at the most inconvenient times). “John, Sera, it’s very kind of you to grace us with your presence,” she interrupts drily. “How are the logarithmic identifications going?”

That’s what they were supposed to be talking about, right.

“Transformations, and such,” John attempts vaguely. “Yeah.”

Sera stifles a laugh and tugs her blazer back up over her shoulder in a halfhearted attempt to look scholarly.

“Right.” Their teacher looks more vaguely amused than upset, probably because she knows Sera has too high of an A to worry about classwork and John too low of an F to worry about it either. “Well, carry on transforming then.”

“You know us,” Sera replies sagely. “Best students you’ve got.” Once the two of them are left alone again, she turns back to John. “Speaking of transformations, what about, like, shapeshifters? What would be the distinction of eating one while in animal form?”

This conversation, which has dominated most of their maths class today, continues until the bell rings for lunch. John and Sera had by then already left the classroom around fifteen minutes prior, after growing bored of the stiff desks, and wandered off through the hallways.

They’re on the roof now, obviously, and Sera is attempting to explain to a jokingly exasperated John the intricacies of exponential equations.

“So, when it’s inside the parentheses, a minus means a positive shift and a plus means a negative shift,” she explains between forkfuls of cake. John, who was less fortunate on the cafeteria lunch front and is now eating an apple, frowns at her. “Don’t worry so much. I would have cried a few years ago looking at these equations.”

“To be fair, I have also cried over exponential equations,” John points out. Sera laughs, which is one of his favourite sounds. He smiles and closes the textbook, kicking it off to the side, and leans back against the wall. “This is exhausting,” he groans. “There is so much school all the time.”

“Mhm.”

“Come on, let’s play that stupid pig house game instead.”

“What, so you can be bad at something else?”

John attempts his best mock-offended expression. “Excuse you. I will have you know I beat levels thirty-four AND thirty-five last night. And it only took me until, like, three in the morning.”

John Doe is quite possibly Seraphina’s favourite person in the world. He’s the reason she’s allowed herself to be happy, the person she turns to and the person she admires. He gives her hope for the world, sometimes.

That being said, John is absolute shit at video games.

As she pulls out her phone, Sera raises her eyebrows pointedly. “It shows.”

“Rude. The dark circles are a stylistic choice,” John protests as he loads the game on his own significantly more cracked phone. In fairness, the exhausted dishevelled look that comes from staying up until three am- even if it’s playing a pig-based video game to prove a point- do sort of match the rest of his general appearance. Paired with the too-large old flannel he likes to wear instead of his blazer, the hastily patched rips in his uniform pants, a pair of thick soled boots, and the various bits and bobs he likes to add onto his school-mandated outfit, the bruised eyebags are relatively par for the course. “And besides, no one gives a fuck anyway. Other than you.”

“Right, which makes my opinion that you should get to sleep earlier all the more important,” Sera rebukes, most of her attention focused on the frustrating new mechanisms in level forty-eight, which include explosive kamikaze birds and the addition of bomber jets. What this poor family of pigs has ever done to deserve a full frontal assault by paramilitary birds, they will never know. Perhaps the pigs were revolutionary leaders against a tyrannical government, as John had suggested several times before. Sera preferred the theory that they were charged with having eggs for breakfast and now on the run, which was why they kept needing newer, better houses.

“Sure thing, mom.”

All too soon, lunch ends (Sera having progressed four levels, John predictably none), and the duo begin their trek back downstairs. Mostly because school security had been making their rounds more consistently in the recent weeks, due to the spread of EMBER and vigilante activity closer and closer to the Wellston area, and they were exasperating to argue with. It was easier to just avoid them, hence the notorious class-skippers showing up to a few more classes than usual. Not many, of course. They had a reputation to uphold.

They reach the bottom of the stairs and John sighs, glaring at the hallway as if it’s personally offended him. “Do we have to?” he asks, glancing back at Sera. “Let’s go back up to the roof. Let’s not go to any more classes today. Actually, let’s never go to class ever again.”

He means it as a joke, but Sera looks momentarily uncomfortable at his suggestion. John frowns curiously. Normally, she’s all for skipping class.

“Sera-”

“Do you really mean that?” She turns to him, making that face she makes when she’s thinking hard.

“Mean what?”

“Given the chance, would you just… take off? For a while?”

John considers for a very short time. “Yeah, I would,” he decides. “I’m only here for you, y’know. And to spread my anti-bureaucratic message to the masses.”

That, at least, gets him a smile. “Obviously.”

“Obviously,” John agrees. Then he tilts his head. “Are you thinking about an impromptu road trip?” He asks. “Because you know I’m down in a heartbeat.”

Disappointingly, Sera shakes her head. “It’s not- it’s not for me,” she starts hesitantly. She glances down the hallway, where students are milling around, ambling slowly towards their classes, and sighs. “I need to talk to you about something important. Skip fifth with me?”

“Always,” John replies automatically.

To avoid the prowling security, they hide out in Doc’s office. It helps that John knows every single shortcut there is to get there, given the sheer magnitude of times he’s been there, and also that Doc turns a blind eye as the two clearly uninjured students pass him and take a seat in one of the curtained-off areas for the same reason.

Once John settles himself on the cot, leaning against the wall, and Sera has a seat in the adjacent chair with her feet propped up at the foot of the bed, it’s serious-talk time.

“You’re not upset with me,” John guesses, “but you need to ask me for something that you know I’m not going to like.”

Sera huffs, amused. “You know me too well,” she notes drily.

“Not as well as you know me.”

“Of course.” Actually, they know the same amount about each other by sheer virtue of the fact that they both know everything there is to know. Attached at the hip, their teachers enjoy telling them. It’s fine with them. “A friend of mine,” Sera starts carefully. “Is… well, he’s gotten into trouble with the law.”

“Ah.” John grins, but there’s a bitter tinge to it. “You came to the right place, then.”

“You know I wouldn’t ask you if it wasn’t an emergency,” Sera reminds him.

John’s smile fades. “I know,” he replies soberly. “And I’m your friend's… advisor? way out? Alibi?”

“Way out,” Sera confirms. She tugs at the knots ends of her hair. “He hasn’t been caught or convicted yet, but we know that they’re saying he’s wanted for unspecified reasons.”

“You know the reason,” John correctly assumes. “But it’s not your place to tell me.”

“Exactly.”

“Why me?” He asks. He considers. “Other than… y’know, the obvious reasons.”

“You carry a lot of cash,” Sera replies bluntly. “You know how to survive on your own. You know the public transportation he can get through without an ID backwards and forwards. You’re not a Royal, and you’re on nobody's watch at this point. And you have a house far enough away that he can hide in until we know what to do.”

John frowns. “Will it put you in danger?”

“No more danger than we’re always in,” Sera points out. Which is fair. “They won’t ask me about your absence, you have a built-in alibi, right? The-”

“-court mandated excused mental health absences,” John finishes for her. “I forgot about those. Although that’s probably why they haven’t kicked me out for skipping yet.” He shrugs. “I mean, why not? I’ve been getting bored of it here anyway.” He attempts the confidence that always seems to make authority figures scowl. “It’s past time to take this rebellion on the road. And I’m overdue to visit my dad.”

And beyond that, he knows that Sera doesn’t want to part with him any more than he does with her. Her own suspension had been hard enough on both of them- although him voluntarily leaving would be a little better, hopefully. Not much, but he knows that she wouldn’t even be asking if there was any other option at all. And it’s Sera. How can he say no to his best friend?

“So, who’s my travel companion?” He asks, sitting up. “I can’t wait to meet the only other delinquent in this damn school.”

Sera won’t meet his eye. He gets the feeling that he’s not going to like the answer.

“Arlo.”

And suddenly John likes the idea of this trip a lot less.

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The second time John met Arlo, king of Wellston, was honestly his own fault. He never should have gone to Advanced Chemistry.

Honestly, he never should have taken the class in the first place, actually, but he’s stuck here until the second semester because stupid school policies. Most of the time, he just sits in on other classes (which most teachers ignore as long as he doesn’t disrupt the rest of the class) or skips altogether.

He also never should have played truth or dare with Sera and the safe house members last night. It would be just like Roland to come up with a dare like sit through an entire chemistry class. And because John is NOT a quitter, now he’s here. On the one day they’re pairing up to work on an experiment.

The pairs are assigned. Truly the education system has become a tyrannical force.

And it gets worse from there.

“You.” The blond bitch manages to spit the word like it’s an insult- which in his mind it may as well be.

John pulls up a chair to their lab table and leans back against the wall, glancing briefly up from his doodle-filled sketchbook, which he had been entertaining himself with all class. “Me. A tragedy, really,” he agrees with entirely insincere sincerity.

“Watch your mouth,” Arlo snaps. “Your shock value has long since run out. I won’t tolerate being spoken to like that from the likes of you.”

At that, he actually does look up to glare. And fucking hell did John not mind forgetting the level to which Arlo is his antithesis until just now: from the coiled natural blond tips of his hair to the overgrown roots of John’s box-dye-black that refused to stay in place, a tabbed and probably chronologically organized binder tucked neatly under his arm where John lacked any papers at all, given that he hadn’t bothered to bring them today anyway, the list goes on for hours. It’s like a spot-the-difference game even children and their half-blind great grandparents could pass with flying colours.

John scoffs. “Right, that sounds like a suggestion I’ll be taking into consideration,” he replies flatly. “Chill out, your highness, it’s not like I threw a brick at you.”

“Please. As if you would dare.”

“Try me, asshole-”

They’re interrupted when their professor launches into a stream of directions that John understands maybe half a dozen words of. It doesn’t help that he’s actively not paying attention either. Once he’s done, Arlo turns back to him expectantly and John stares back at him blankly. Arlo rolls his eyes and starts to busy himself with test tubes and… the other ones. Y’know. Chemistry-ish things.

“Why are you even here?” the blond asks him without looking up from the two similar looking blue-ish liquids he’s holding, sounding exasperated.

John kicks his legs up on the empty lab chair next to him and watches. “Well, when my father was 23, he met my mother at a book fair-”

“In this class.”

No sense of humour, John notes. “Today? On a dare. In general? I used a random number generator to pick my classes.”

That gets Arlo to actually look up, if only to give him a frankly scandalised look, which he returns with a dry smile. Arlo scoffs. “That’s ridiculous. You can’t just do whatever you want forever, you know.”

“No, YOU can’t,” John corrects him. He snatches one of the chemicals that Arlo puts down slightly too close to his side of the table and squints at it. “I, however, am built different.”

The concoction on the desk fizzes and turns light blue. According to the picture up on the projector, it’s supposed to be entirely clear. Arlo huffs with frustration. “You’re delusional. My aunt says-”

“Whom?” John interrupts innocently.

“My aunt Valerie. She’s the Wellston police chief,” he says with a hint of pride. “She says that it’s kids like you with no futures who give her officers the most unnecessary trouble.” For the first time, Arlo’s voice is tinted with something other than distaste.

For the first time, John’s is laced with just that. He stiffens, looking away pointedly.

“Good,” he replies with finality. In one fluid motion, he shoves his books under his arm, tilts the contents of the test tube he had been holding in the pale blue mixture, and borderline storms out of the classroom.

He doesn’t wait to see the mixture lighten, completely transparent.

Chapter Text

It’s barely 6 AM, and Arlo is staring at his ex-co-ruler-turned rogue, two-mask sporting law-breaking vigilantes (one of whom is clearly his current co-leader), the biggest gossip in the school, and his unofficial sworn enemy, all crowded around the door to his apartment. He has told none of them his address in recent memory.

He isn’t wearing shoes. Even worse, his aforementioned worst enemy is wearing a pink sleep shirt with a bunny on it.

Remi takes off her mask, which sort of defeats the purpose of wearing one, and waves at him.

Arlo resists the urge to scream.

“Come back in five minutes so I can get dressed and drink every caffeinated beverage in my fridge,” he half-commands, half-mumbles. He turns around and shuts the door behind him.

Arlo has lost count of the amount of times he’s met John Doe, but he knows he would have preferred a number significantly fewer. And he would especially like one of those times to be not right now.

He ends up letting them in after only three minutes, on the grounds that a) it takes him a minute and a half to chug two energy drinks from his fridge and b) he feels bad about leaving Remi outside. Given the choice, he would let her in and leave the rest of them, but he had a feeling his co-leader was too “kind hearted” and “optimistic” for that. Ew.

Now John Doe is in his dorm room, and he is pointedly trying to ignore this. Which is a difficult feat to accomplish, because they’re supposed to be “working together.”

Ew.

“You guys should be gone by Thursday, I think,” Remi is saying. “But we have to move Arlo out to John’s during school.”

“Out to John’s?” Arlo echoes. “I don’t think moving into the dorms will help much. I’m supposed to be getting away from campus.”

Sera shakes her head. “John doesn’t live on campus either. The school lets him live in an apartment a few blocks away. For now, we just need to get you to an address that isn’t, y’know, yours.”

“Isn’t he a third year?”

“‘He’ is right here, prick,” John snaps from his position as far across the room as possible, leaning against the wall as if ready to bolt at any moment. “I have accommodations.”

Arlo arches an eyebrow disbelievingly. “Why, pray tell, would anyone go through such a futile effort?”

John sneers right back at him. “Trust me, it’s for the benefit of the rest of you lot,” he replies. “Besides, imagine the sort of press would get if someone found out their teenage prodigy was sleeping in a dorm with the kid who has a criminal record.”

Isen looks up from idly sketching, interested. “Criminal record?” He repeats in his reporter voice.

“Not now, Isen,” everyone, bar John, choruses.

That draws a slightly less brooding expression from John, who reluctantly uncrosses his arms and begrudgingly takes a few steps closer to the group, hovering nearest to Sera. “Listen,” he sighs. “I’m not doing this for any of you. Especially not you.” Arlo rolls his eyes. “This is for Sera. And because I fucking hate this school. But mostly for Sera.”

“Heartfelt,” Sera replies dryly- but in the teasing, affectionate sort of way. He could see the tightness in her face as she surveyed him, like it might be the last time. For a while, at least. He waves his hand in front of her face.

“Hey, don’t look at me like that,” he says. “I’m just going to be slowly bored to death by the antithesis of every moral cause that I stand for in close proximity for an undetermined amount of time.”

Sera laughs.

“Traitor,” Arlo mutters from the couch.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In the end (it took four hours, which was four more than John needed to be in that apartment), they decide to move Arlo in the next morning, John facilitating the beginning and then leaving for school so he and Arlo didn’t disappear on the same day. Arlo would stay there the rest of Wednesday and Thursday, and they would leave Friday afternoon- the weekend providing two days head start, hypothetically.

“Hypothetically,” Sera echos sceptically as they wait in the doorway, both still in their pyjamas. Her extension-less hair is stuck up in a dozen directions around her head, and her Pizza Shack logo-sporting shirt is wrinkled and has tea stains down one side. Still, she probably looks better than John, who has eyebags almost as dark as his hair and is swaying slightly, a third red bull in hand. He hasn’t slept since the morning before.

“Yeah, hypothetically,” John repeats. He yawns. “Murphy’s first law. Plus, we’re not exactly the most cohesive team.”

Sera starts to laugh before yawning herself and rubbing her eyes. “I have faith in you,” she shrugs.

“And my self constraint?”

“Eh. Less so.” She stares him down more seriously. “I mean it, though. I’m trusting you not to, like, get him killed for the bit.”

John downed the last of his drink. “Fair enough,” he conceded. “Come on, let’s go sit down before I pass out from the effort of standing up.”

“Let’s.”

He slammed the door behind them harder than was necessary, which drew him a confused look, especially when it made a dull thunking noise and another thumping sound came from the floor a second later. The door swung back open to reveal a very annoyed-looking Arlo, now tangled on the floor with his bags, and a bewildered looking Remi standing behind him.

Leaning against the doorframe, John smirked and his eyes flashed gold. “Oops,” he said innocently.

Sera sighed. “John, you can’t just take Isen’s ability and use it for bodily harm,” she scolded under her breath. “You literally just promised you wouldn’t hurt him for the bit.”

“Objection,” John replied. “Asslo wasn’t here when we did it, so he doesn’t count.”

From the ground, Arlo blew hair out of his face and slowly stood up, dusting off his uniform. He was taller than everyone else there, except John, who was equipped with several extra inches of boots and was thus elevated to the same height. “So,” he grumbled. “I’m stuck with you, aren’t I?”

“You’re stuck with me?” John objected. “I’m about to go on the roadtrip of a fucking lifetime and I have to lug your sorry ass with me the whole way.”

Arlo glared at him. “This is not a road trip. We are on the run from the government.”

“Same difference.”

“It is most certainly not-”

“Boys.” Remi interrupted sternly. They both went quiet, glaring pointedly away from each other. The girls shared a look and Sera sighed.

“I’ll go make us some tea,” she decided. “Everyone go sit down and refrain from hurting each other.”

They do, luckily, at least until Sera comes back with three cups of tea and a glass of water for John, who doesn’t like tea and will also probably explode if he has any more caffeine. She knows that he only keeps it in his house for when she’s around, like she keeps chocolatte in her backpack because John has a chocolate ADDICTION. Which is valid.

She sits down on the couch next to Remi, Arlo perched uncomfortably on the only other chair and John cross legged on the coffee table. She once asked him why, to which he responded something along the lines of unconventional habits being the best ones.

Both boys look to her and Remi to start the conversation, which Remi is having none of. “You two. Talk to each other,” she orders, sipping her tea. “We’re just here so you don’t preemptively kill each other before you even leave. Set some ground rules, or whatever.” It’s impressive how serious she can get people to take her, even with her hair in rollers and her uniform button up paired with pink pyjama pants.

“No superiority complex,” John says immediately.

Arlo narrows his eyes. “No unnecessary law breaking.”

John scoffs. “No complaining about the lack of five star services.”

“No public disturbances.”

“No dressing like a bourgeois asshole.”

“No dressing like a hobo.”

“Hey,” John protests. “Some of my best friends are hobos. I’ll have you know they have a good taste in clothes.”

“You must be joking.”

“Dry clean suits will do you no favours in the real world, prick.”

“Maybe not in your world,” Arlo snapped.

John paused to glare at him. “We’re in my world now,” he pointed out, “actually. So.”

Arlo pursed his lips and crossed his arms. His tea sat untouched on the floor next to him. “And what exactly is your world?” He asked, lifting one poised eyebrow. “Stealing, graffiti, and bothering reasonable people? Does it even consider personal responsibility?”

“I’m about to be personally responsible for gutting you with the stick up your ass,” John answered, completely serious.

“If you so much as get within three feet of me-”

“Woah!” John raised his hands in mock surrender. “Aren’t you already on the run from the law? What, you want to add physical assault to your list of charges?”

“Boys,” Sera interjects. Both of them look away and deflate almost immediately, because Sera.

John stands. “I have to go to school,” he declares. “If you touch anything,” he warns Arlo, “I will personally take the moral failing and turn you over to the police myself.”

“Duly noted,” Arlo snaps at his retreating back. Remi punches him in the arm.

Sera sighs. “It’ll be fine. I’ll talk to him.” It sounds more resigned than reassuring, but Arlo nods anyway. Because at the end of the day, he doesn’t exactly have much choice. She smiles back tightly. “There’s food in the fridge. Bathroom down the hall. Just text me if you need anything.”

And if Arlo spends the afternoon unmoving on the couch, struck by a delayed but altogether paralysing sense of unfamiliarity, listening to himself breathe in an otherwise silent and entirely unfamiliar house, that’s none of anyone's business.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Like most teenage delinquents, John spends most of his time when he is alone doing generally unobtrusive, non-delinquent-ish things. This becomes an issue when he has another person in his house.

It’s not as if everything he does is for show. He really, empathetically and passionately, hates the government. Also the school board, the police, and most forms of authority. He really does think the school system is fucked up and needs to be fixed. Etcetera. But he also likes angry pigs, and facetiming Sera, and ordering pizza for dinner on Wednesdays instead of making his own because Wednesdays are hard. He likes to watch stupid TV shows, and read old poetry. He likes to play cards. All of this feels entirely too private to do with Arlo in his house. No one told him having a mortal enemy came with so many expectations.

On Thursday, he doesn’t even stop at home, leaving his school bag on the roof and changing in the bathroom and going straight into a long run through the city. On the way, he stops by every shop and library and hideout in the city, pretty much, mingling with friends before taking off again before they can ask about his weekend plans. He successfully avoids setting foot back in his house until 6:45, by which point he’s picked his way through almost nine miles, and the sun is going down.

“Hello, John,” Arlo greets him offhandedly when he walks in, breathing hard.

John rolls his eyes. He would be the type to say hello. The bitch.

Looking away pointedly, he stumbles into the kitchen for a glass of water and does his best to ignore the stupid lanky fuck sitting on his couch. Ethically, he muses, he could get over turning Arlo in to the police just because it’s Arlo. But more importantly, it’s probably not worth Sera getting mad at him for.

He finishes off his water, pours himself more, and attempts to go about his normal after-school routine without stepping into the living room: texting Sera the picture of the dog he saw on his run, setting up his laptop and various supplies on the dining table, turning on the heat and the lights in his room, and running the dishwasher- which was an every other Tuesday and Thursday sort of thing. It isn’t until he automatically moves to go flip on the news for background noise that he actually remembers Arlo is there.

The prick looks up from his laptop as John approaches and scowls. John scowls right back, snatching the remote from the side table and ignoring him to turn on the TV. Normally, it always flicks back to the same news channel that he always watches- so his face contorts with disgust when it instead displays a different one.

NXGen Facility Shares New Breakthrough In Ability Detecting Technology, reads the headline. Above it, a placidly smiling woman sitting at a smooth metal desk informs them that “yesterday in Helio, the company currently at the forefront of ability-based innovative technologies approved a new procedure that will help move towards the ability to detect a child’s ability before it manifests. Let’s hear more from-”

Muting the anchor, John rounds on Arlo. “Did you touch my fucking TV?”

Arlo sighs, because he would be the type of bitch to sigh. “I haven’t been able to leave this house in the past twenty nine hours. You’ve been gone for the last eight. What exactly was I supposed to do? Wait for you to come back with news of what’s going on in my absence? Hope that the authorities aren’t going to come breaking down your door?” He doesn’t look up from his laptop. Because he’s a bitch. “Shockingly, I was not eagerly awaiting your return, nor am I dependent on you to function.”

“Whatever,” John replies, very generously restraining himself from saying you are dependent on me for a place to stay out of jail, though, because he’s being the better person or something. He flicks back through the channels to find his own and gestures to it. “It was already on the news, you know.”

Arlo shrugs. “I always watch channel 5 news. My aunt Valerie-”

“Rule number one,” John interrupts, “of this- whatever this is- rule number one is you are banned from starting any sentences with ‘my aunt Valerie.’” Fine, he has to be around Arlo. But that doesn’t mean he has to put up with a police propaganda spewing machine yapping away 24/7.

The bitch has the nerve to look affronted. “I thought you were supposed to be all about freedom of speech,” he snaps. “What, do I not have my rights while I’m on house arrest?”

John resists- barely- the urge to ask him if the people his mother arrests get to keep their rights. Instead, he turns back to the TV and flips through the channels until he finds one of his own usual news channels. “That protects you from the government, asshole, not me.” He turns away and hears Arlo make his annoying self righteous noise behind him.

“As if I would ever need protection from you,” he hears the bitch scoff.

Oh, yeah. This is going to take exponentially more than his usual quota of tolerance. John stuffs his earbuds back in and pulls up his maths homework. “Right,” is all he replies. “As if.”

Chapter Text

They successfully avoid directly interacting for the rest of the night via John DoorDashing pizza (three days in a row now, but who’s counting?) and leaving the half empty box out on the table wordlessly, taking his own plate and retreating to his room, where he locks himself in for an intensive crappy TV binge watching session to forget his problems. He ends up pacing back and forth in several half-hour long sessions with Ferris Bueller's Day Off playing in two times speed through his headphones before eventually passing out some time past midnight.

Unfortunately, the next morning is moving day, which means they’re about to stop having the luxury of wordlessly locking themselves in separate rooms and sulking. Which sucks. But also, John has just about reached his limit on sulking, because wallowing in anger only does you so much good before it just gets boring and stupid. So he wakes up at the respectable time of ten AM, rubs sleep out of his eyes, throws on a tshirt sporting the name of some band he’s never heard of but likes the logo of, and makes his way to the kitchen to face the day and also his houseguest.

The houseguest in question is sitting cross legged on the living room floor in front of a spread out map, eating a concoction of greek yogurt, granola, and some kind of mashed up fruit. There’s an open bottle of some sort of green juice next to him. This is all very odd to John’s barely awake brain, because he doesn't remember having greek yogurt or anything green in his kitchen when he went to bed last night.

“Hey,” he tries, because that’s pretty hard to start an argument with.

Arlo barely looks up from the map, which John decides not to take personal offence to. “Good morning,” he replies. “I couldn’t find anything in the pantry or the fridge, so I had Remi pick me up some real food.”

Well. That answered that. John opens the pantry and frowns. “We have Pop Tarts,” he offers.

“Like I said, no real food.”

John shrugs. “Suit yourself,” he says, popping one in the toaster and pouring himself a glass of orange juice.

“I will, thanks.” Arlo circles something on the map and writes something off to the side. “We leave today, correct?”

“Yeah.” Juice in one hand and napkin-wrapped pop tart in the other, John walks over to hover behind Arlo, glancing over the map in front of him. It’s a pretty detailed map of Wellston and the surrounding counties, stretching all the way north to New Bostin and west to the coast. He recognizes a few of the circled locations: Sera’s house, a few cities like Lovuntown and Grasshill. There’s also a wobbly rectangular-ish thing labelled ‘the nope circle,’ which was very un-Arlo. He assumed it had been written by someone else- probably Isen, from the looks of the handwriting. Grabbing a discarded pen, he carefully circles the general area of his own house in New Bostin as well as two other spots near it in green. “My place,” he explains.

Eyes darting down major highways between them and their destination, Arlo makes a few more careful arrows and dashes. “And the other two?”

“That one is a secondary safe house, just in case.” He points to the one slightly further north and Arlo makes a shorthand note. “And that one is a Woba Boba.”

Arlo rolls his eyes. John snorts.

“We leave at noon,” he says, standing up straight again and shoving half his Pop Tart in his mouth. “Pack your things, your highness. It’s road trip time.”

“Yay,” he hears Arlo mutter sarcastically as he heads off to his room to do his own packing. The feeling was mutual.

---

When John returns, he’s holding his mostly full backpack and also a deck of Uno cards in his hand. Arlo takes one look at them and promptly shakes his head. “Absolutely not, no.”

“You’re no fun,” John complains. “You’re like, negative amounts of fun. Anti-fun. The enemy of fun.”

“I’m anti-us killing each other,” Arlo corrects him, crossing off the last item on his own list neatly. “We can barely stand being in a room together, much less playing a notorious relationship- destroying game.”

“It’s not like we have a relationship to destroy,” John points out.

Arlo rolls his eyes. “We have bones, which are equally if not more destroyable.”

“Speak for yourself,” John mutters, but throws the Uno cards aside in the pile of items Arlo has also thus far banned: a taser, a switchblade, his platform boots (which would apparently “take up too much space” or some other excuse he came up with for not wanting John to be as tall as him), a jar of cinnamon, and the Communist Manifesto. Banning the Manifesto felt just a little excessive. He deserved reading material too, didn’t he? Arlo was bringing his boring textbooks. In the end, though, he had decided there were other battles to pick.

“I was speaking for you, actually,” Arlo corrects, sliding yet another colour-coded binder into his backpack (who the hell insisted on doing homework while on the run from the law). “You frankly couldn’t scratch me.”

John stares at him. For the third time in the last no more than five hours, he weighs the pros and cons of throwing his houseguest off the balcony. Yet again, the cons win, because ‘disappointing Sera’ is pretty much a veto to any decision. She’s like 90% of his impulse control. “I actually have marginally stronger than average bones,” he replies instead, unplugging his phone and shoving the charger in his backpack. “You know how they get stronger when you break them?”

“Yes?”

“Yeah.”

He doesn’t elaborate. Instead, he checks his phone just as a notification pops up on his screen. “Come on, ride’s here.” Sweeping a last glance around the apartment, John flicks off the kitchen light and shoulders his backpack.

Arlo trails behind him, lugging his suitcase and a backpack of his own while asking annoying questions like “what ride?” and “how many times can you have possibly broken your bones?” and “where’s your suitcase?” and other irrelevant points like that. No wonder he’s so pissed off all the time, John thinks, it must be a headache being so constantly caught up in the details.

“I have clothes at my old house,” he replies, choosing to answer the most recent question. “And I know how to pack light.” Locking the door behind them, he lets Arlo and his suitcase go down the stairs first.

“Oh.” To his credit, Arlo is actually fairly strong, so maybe he won’t slow them down with all of his material possessions (gag) after all. “What, did you go camping a lot when you were younger?”

Ugh. The questions never ceased. “No,” John replies, waving to the car parked halfway up the curb on the street. He looks back at Arlo in a vaguely amused sort of way. “My dad hated camping. But I did run away twenty-three times.”

The blond has also gotten better at processing his shock faster and letting half the things that John says slide. The confusion flits briefly across his face as he opens his mouth, then closes it again. “Yeah. That’ll do it, I suppose,” he mutters.

He also doesn’t protest when John clambers into the front seat of the car without any further explanation of, for example, who the hell is driving it. Instead, he sighs, opens the back door, and climbs in, dragging his suitcase in with him.

The man in the front seat is relatively unremarkable, but Arlo suspects that’s just because he’s sitting next to John. He had the same grungy, patchwork look about him: his shirt must have been yellow at some point but was faded and torn, his arms looked like they’d been rubbed by sandpaper in quite a few places, his nails were caked in dirt. Arlo met green eyes in the mirror and received a tired but wry sort of look and a silver studded piercing in raised eyebrows. Overall, he looked like the sort of person Arlo would have crossed the street to avoid. Or, given that he couldn’t have been older than twenty five, the kind of person a teacher would take one look at and seat in the front row lest their classroom catch fire within a month.

“Thanks again for the lift,” John was saying to him. “This is the guy I told you about. Arlo.”

The engine grumbled to life more shakily than Arlo would have preferred, which he did his best to ignore. John’s friend waved off the thanks. “Not a problem, mate. I’ve nothing better to do on a Tuesday afternoon.” His voice was strongly accented, but clearer and softer than Arlo had expected looking at him. One hand on the wheel, he ran the other through shaggy brown hair. The rings on his fingers were tarnished. He smelled vaguely of weed. “Good meeting you, Arlo. I’m Dylan, friend of John’s from the city.”

“He works at this library where I volunteer,” John interjects.

Arlo stares at the man’s dirty hands on the steering wheel as they turn onto another street. “A library?” He echoes dubiously.

As soon as he says it, he realises it’s bad form. Luckily, Dylan doesn’t seem to mind. “Today’s my day off,” he says in a way of explanation. “I took a shift in the park this morning instead. They’re trying to build a garden around the big ugly telephone poles they ran right through it to some new apartment complex.”

That explained the dirt. John breaks in again, his feet kicked up on the dashboard. “I thought the city scrapped the garden plans.”

Dylan laughs. “Come on, mate, you’ve been on the scene long enough to know what we think ‘a what the city thinks we should do,” he replies. Arlo stares out the window and watches run down apartments and two-to-a-lot houses go by, keeping his mouth shut. “They wouldn’t give us the grant, nah, so we’re just doing it ourselves. Amie, my girlfriend, she works at this fancy boutique flower shop downtown, so she gets discounts on seeds and little potted plants. We all took tea in the library and read up on how to plant ‘em, too, so it looks really nice for everyone.”

Oddly enough, Arlo feels himself relax. The whole story was… really sweet, actually. Different. He clears his throat. “The, umm. The boutique. Is that the one on sixth, across from the big office building with the statues out front?”

“Big sign that says ‘Rosie’s’ and a pink awning out in the front?” Dylan asks in return. Arlo nods.

“Yeah, that one. I- Well, I go there to buy flowers for my aunt on her birthday,” he says. He watches John’s face twist with distaste the way it always does when he brings up Valerie, but for once he says nothing. Arlo feels the slightest (the SLIGHTEST) pang of gratitude. “It’s very nice, is all. If the flowers in the park are anything like theirs it’ll be a beautiful garden.”

Dylan gives him a grateful look in the mirror. “Well, Arlo, I appreciate that. I’ll let Amie know.”
Arlo nods absently and refrains from asking why the city would veto such a simple, kindhearted project. Financially, it would hardly make a dent in the public service bucket- after all, these people were out here doing it themselves. And- from an objective standpoint- if they all looked like Dylan, they probably didn’t have much extra money to go around. If they could figure out a way, why couldn’t the city?

I should ask Valerie, he thinks instinctively. Then he frowns, because there would be no asking Valerie anything. Not in the near future, at least. Maybe not ever. That was… frightening, a little bit. Arlo resumed staring out the window and trying not to think about it.

He stays that way for most of the drive, tuning in and out of John and Dylan chatting in the front seat. From what he does hear, they mostly talk about the garden, how much John hates school, bands with odd names that Arlo has never heard of (who in their right minds names a band ‘worst party ever’), or poetry that Dylan has recently read or heard at the library, which apparently has a weekly tea that doubles as a poetry slam. When Arlo asks him what sort of poets he reads, he and John share a look that makes Arlo feel like he’s missed something.

“If they’re respected enough by the literary bureaucracy to be called a poet, I probably don’t read them,” he replies- not in a demeaning sort of way, more as if he’s patiently explaining something he knows isn’t exactly a logical train of thought for Arlo. Which it isn’t. He has questions, but he just nods and goes back to staring.

It takes twenty, maybe thirty minutes for them to pull over next to a curb- a safe distance from it this time, thank god, because if they had parked the way that Dylan had back at John’s house, they probably would have run over several pedestrians and at least one or two rat-looking dogs. John takes his feet off the dashboard and stretches, grumbling about chronic joint pain. Dylan shoves him and grins.

“Wait till you’re my age, kid, then you can start complaining about your bones,” he jokes.

“Sure thing, old man,” John replies. He reaches into the front pocket of his backpack and pulls out something small that Arlo can’t see- but he recognizes the clinking of John’s house keys when he tosses them over to their driver. “Here. You’re still looking to move out of that shithole, aren’t you? Me and him will be gone for a while, go crash at my place. Hell, clear out my shit, you’ll be doing me a favour.”

Arlo stares at him. To be fair, Dylan is also staring at him. “John- I mean, mate, this is- listen, I can’t-”

Yes, listen to the man, Arlo thinks. You can’t just give someone a house. I know you have no concept of financial responsibility, but for the love of God.

John cuts him off with a wave of his hand. “Listen, I don’t want the place. It’s too big for me all by myself, it reminds me too much of home.” He shakes his head. “Take Amie and the girls with you. It’s a thank you for the ride.”

A house seems like a little bit of an overkill thank you for a twenty minute drive to Arlo, who watches the exchange silently while gathering his things. Then again, John does a lot of things he would consider overkill.

Dylan looks like he’s going to protest more, but John physically puts a hand over his mouth. “Dude,” he says seriously. “If you don’t take it, it’s just gonna sit there empty like another one of those fucking summer homes. Are you really going to make me a summer home owner?”

Arlo rolls his eyes, but it seems to get through to Dylan, who finally takes the keys. “No, of course not.” In a slightly choked voice, Dylan finally gives in to John’s insistence to hand over his house (he’s getting the feeling this is sort of how things normally go with John). “That’d be a right fucked up thing to do to a friend.”

“Exactly,” John agrees.

On that bizarre note, they get out of the car. As soon as Dylan merges back into traffic (thankfully without incident), he rounds on John, who is checking his watch, unconcerned. Arlo clears his throat. “John.”

“Yes?”

“Why.”

There seems to be no end to his unfortunate companion’s audacity. “Dunno. Just felt like it,” John shrugs. There is no further elaboration. “Come on. The train leaves in ten minutes, your highness. Public transportation awaits.”

Chapter Text

Arlo hates a lot of things.

He hates graffiti. He hates being annoyed. He hates grapes, and itchy fabric. Contrary to popular belief, he also hates his physics class. Just because he’s good at it doesn’t mean it’s enjoyable. But let it be known for the record that there are two things that Arlo hates more than anything else in the world.

The first thing is disorder.

The second thing is public transportation.

And yet, here he is. Walking up a set of stone stairs to get on a public train, along with several dozen other people- including his unofficial sworn enemy. It really isn’t fair. He finds, with horror, that he misses Dylan’s beat up and questionably functioning but still decidedly private car. It’s clearly a sign that he needs to give himself a reality check. He might have to be on this trip, but that doesn’t mean he has to lower his standards. If he keeps himself at a resting ‘slightly miffed’ level, he should have enough annoyance left for several rounds of disgruntled arguing, followed by a stream of passive aggressive comments before he settles back into aloof silence.

John, being John, near immediately screws up his plan by turning around (Arlo is trailing a few steps behind him- slowed down less by his bags than by sheer reluctance) and asking if he has a metro pass. Arlo stares at him.

“Of course not,” he responds. Obviously. He takes the train once every few months out of necessity, for turf wars, but even then it’s not this train. It’s a nicer, smaller one that runs out of a station a block from the school and only ferries students and residents of the surrounding neighborhood to places within the Wellston district. He’s never taken… a city train.

“Of course not,” John echoes under his breath, sarcastically. “Why did I even ask, really. How rude of me to assume.”

“It was.”

“You,” John tells Arlo as he leads him off to the left, where there’s a booth labelled ‘day passes,’ “are my least favourite person I’ve ever been on the run with.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, your highness.” John digs into his back pocket and gives the woman in the booth a tight smile as he pulls out his wallet. “One pass, please. For the B Line.” Her reply is garbled by the shitty speaker embedded in the glass that separated them, but John is already pulling out a few bills and through the slot. He’s clearly done this a time or two. In return, she passes him a flimsy green card, which he passes to Arlo over his shoulder. “Thanks. Have a nice day,” he adds, in a surprisingly polite way that makes Arlo double take.

His surprise heightens as they make their way through the turnstiles and mingle on the platform with everyone else waiting for the 12:04 B Line train to arrive. He waves a woman carrying two squirming children in front of them in line, waits patiently behind an old man who can’t quite seem to figure out the pass scanner, and calmly points out directions on a large wall-mounted map to a boy a little older than them who doesn’t seem to speak a lot of English. Also, he does this all with a gentle, unbothered sort of manner that Arlo has never seen, and never breaks it, despite several other people around the platform casting disapproving or downright disgusted looks in his general direction- not at his actions, but more likely at his attire, which is in usual John fashion shabby at best and a ragged tapestry of rips, patches, pins, and stains.

For his part, Arlo mostly stays quiet and lurks just far enough from John as not to associate himself with him but to still keep him in sight. He holds his head high, but he’s in unfamiliar territory. Unlike John, every passing glance someone gives him- scrutinizing or not- makes his heart beat a little faster. He has to take a moment to collect himself when everyone turns around to greet the incoming train before he follows John onto it.

The commute is light, probably because it’s a Saturday afternoon and most people are coming into the city, not out of it. They shuffle to the very back of their particular car- which they’re sharing with the women with two children that they’d met briefly earlier and a gaggle of probably college students, given their matching sweatshirts- and sit down with a seat of space between them.

“You’re being uncharacteristically acceptable,” Arlo informs his travel partner as the doors close. John, who is digging through his bag, momentarily pauses to pull a face at him.

“Ew. What was I doing, tell me so I can change it immediately.” He pulls out a pair of tangled earbuds and a book so torn up that Arlo can’t even tell what it is.

“Better already,” Arlo snaps in reply, leaning up against the window, as far away from John as he can. He sighs. “Just… you know, with the passes, and helping that guy who was lost.” He nods at the woman, who is sitting on the other end of the car. “And her.”

For a moment, John looks confused. “What, being a decent person?”

Arlo crosses his arms. “Yeah. I didn’t know that was something you did,” he replies dryly. “I thought having manners was beneath you.”

“No, following arbitrary social norms is beneath me,” John corrects him, idly flipping through the book to find where he’d left off. “No one is above being nice to people.”

“The word ‘nice’ does not come to mind when I look at you,” Arlo tells him, glancing out the window as they begin to pick up speed.

“I know,” John shrugs. “That’s ‘cause you’re a bitch.”

“Wow. I changed my mind, go back to minding your pleases and thank yous.”

John scoffs. “Yeah, we’re well past that.” He glances up from his book to raise an eyebrow at Arlo. “You don’t remember the first time we met?”

“I can only hope to forget it someday,” Arlo informs him. “You were throwing bricks at windows, that’s hardly a shining example of niceness.”

“The other part.” John corrects, although he looks fully disinterested in proving his point, now settled into his book around halfway through, earbuds hooked around his ears. Arlo scowls, but takes a moment to think back.

‘Could you take that down?’ He’d asked calmly in the face of Arlo’s barrier.

‘No, thank you Mr. Keene,’ he’d replied when the administrator had called down to them from a few floors above. Then he’d agreed not to take out Doc’s window out of ‘individualistic respect’

‘Brick?’ He’d offered politely, despite Arlo’s aggression.

It technically wasn’t until the next time they met that he displayed any signs of aggression or anger, and that was mostly when Arlo had brought up his aunt, which had led to the dramatic storming out. And that had marked just about the last time John had ever shown him some semblance of ‘niceness.’ Arlo just hadn’t noticed because he’d been focused on his frankly outrageous actions otherwise.

Huh. That’s information that’s going to take a little while to process. It doesn’t change most of his opinions on the boy sitting next to him, but it’s strange to think of John as polite. Luckily, John himself doesn’t seem to mind him lapsing into silence, continuing to read after tapping his phone a few times. Very faintly, when the rest of the car is quiet, Arlo can hear indistinct screeching playing from them. He frowns. Deciding not to pass comment, he elects to do some more window staring instead.

Staring out of windows has always been an oddly fascinating thing for Arlo. He likes to imagine the lives of every person he sees, or that of the people in the cars and houses that pass by, and then slot each life neatly into the cleanly arranged hierarchy he’s kept stacked in his head since he was old enough to spell the word ‘hierarchy’ (younger than you would think, on account of how often it was used in his household). On this particular window-staring session, however, he notices with increasing annoyance that he’s second-guessing the imagined lives more than usual. It’s screwing up the levels in his head.

A few minutes in, for example, while they’re still local, headed for the city borders, he watches a woman with dark hair and ripped up jeans walk by, headphones resting around her neck and carrying a backpack. He spots red streaks in her hair as they flash by. Half of it is cropped short, the other half longer and wild. Combined with the jeans, he goes immediately to put her somewhere near the bottom. The backpack, he would normally reason, means going to class. Maybe she’s a student at the community college in Wellston. Community college means not smart enough, not enough money, or not high enough of an ability to get into a better one. And how unprofessional- even her hypothetical classes must be worth dressing somewhat professionally for (Arlo silently thanks the mandatory uniforms at his own school whenever he sees other students in casual clothing. If that’s the sort of thing they'd wear to class, he isn't sure he could stand being around them).

Only before he can get through this train of thought, Dylan’s face grinning at him in the rearview mirror pops into his head and he hesitates.

Because what if the backpack is filled with books, and she’s headed home to read them after a long day of volunteering someplace messy- like that garden- messy enough to dignify wearing clothes she wouldn’t mind ruining with dirt and stains. Or maybe she works at the library, reading books to kids. Maybe she’s thinking about how happy she’s made people. Maybe she didn’t even get paid for it, but she wanted to do it anyway because it was the right thing to do. Maybe she’s okay with being perceived as different by people on the street because those kids at the library love her hair and think it’s cool and want to touch it. Maybe she donated that money for new clothes somewhere else.

And now a freeze frame shot of her walking down the street is stuck in Arlo’s head as he hesitates to move her up or down. There are too many what ifs and unanswered questions. Arlo scowls at his reflection in the window. He can’t remember the last time he felt uncertain about this sort of thing.

Then he glances at the boy sitting next to him. Yeah, okay. He can.

But still. It’s annoying. He tries staring out the window for a little longer, but it’s boring when there’s no end goal or story to tell. It’s just buildings. Every once in a while they stop, and he has to stare at the same building for a few minutes. The lady and her kid get off. Later, so do the college students. They’re replaced by a trio of men, who stand in the middle and talk loudly about something finance-bro-ish. Being classmates with a lot of future finance bros does not help Arlo to translate, nor can he drown it out. He stares at the back of the seat in front of him, annoyed.

It takes maybe three minutes for him to be annoyed enough to strike back up a conversation with John. Which is pretty damn annoyed.

He’s not even sure if John can hear him through the music, which has continued in an unending stream of screams broken up by the occasional more upbeat, jingly tune, but he clears his throat anyway. John looks up.

“Hey,” he says, his book open in his lap.

“Hello,” Arlo replies before realizing he has no clue where to go from there. He glances down. “What… are you reading?”

John shoots him a slightly surprised look, but doesn’t comment any further. “It’s called How To Blow Up A Pipeline,” he replies, holding it up. Arlo squints to confirm the words. Well. That’s. A slightly concerning title. He nods slowly.

“Oh,” he says. John is staring at him like he’s expecting a bitchy comment, so Arlo refrains from making one out of sheer protest. “What’s it, umm, about?”

John chews his lip for a moment, formulating a summary in his head. “Kind of like, how private property and agressive corporate growth and capitalism are killing the earth,” he supplies. “And how non-violant reformism is both misguided and dangerous when you hold it as, like, the standard of morality.”

“Non violent reformism,” Arlo repeats slowly. “In opposed too…”

“Violent protest. Intentional, targeted property damage. Deflating SUV tires. Blowing up oil pipelines. Hence the name.”

Arlo stares. John shrugs. “Not exactly your cup of tea, your highness,” he adds dryly.

“An understatement,” Arlo mutters, wondering what could have possibly possessed him to ask at all. Today is apparently full of surprises. First John being polite to people. Then John reading what sounds like some sort of radical theory. The radical part, he’s not surprised by. It’s the theory, which sounds intellectual if very violent and slightly concerning, and would probably be met with closed doors and disapproving glares in most intellectual circles. Also, he was until this point only like, 60% sure that John could read. So there was also that. He opens his mouth to ask another question, then stops short.

Distracted, he hadn’t noticed that the finance bros on their right had gradually stopped talking and were eyeing them in looks that ranged from neutral to blatantly suspicious. He meets John’s eyes, who had clearly noticed it too. At first Arlo assumes that they’re staring at John, because… obviously. But when Arlo moves away slightly to distance himself from his unfortunate companion, he watches their eyes follow him out of the corner of his and forces himself not to panic.

It’s fine. He’s fine. What are the chances that one of them could have possibly recognized him?

Pretty high, actually. His face has been broadcasted on TV multiple times over the past few days, during which he’s been watching the news non-stop. Nothing specific, just a reporter informing the general public that he’s gone missing and finding him is a priority of the Wellston police in a sympathetic poor kid sort of voice. So clearly no one else knows the details either.

In his pocket, Arlo’s phone chimes. He fumbles to pull it out and attempts nonchalance as he opens it.

we have to get off, reads a text from John (the first he’s ever received). they def know

No punctuation. All lowercase. It’s a miracle there are no spelling errors. Under normal circumstances, Arlo would roll his eyes and make a bitchy comment. Now is unfortunately not the time, so he presses his lips together tightly and send back we’re not out of the radius of danger yet. They’re about four or five stops away.

not out of the what? John texts back. Arlo takes a break from panicking to shoot him an unamused glare.

We’re not out of the nope circle yet, he corrects himself. Happy?

very much so yes. John glances up quickly. yeah, time to get off

As if on cue, the train slows down. A calm voice announces their arrival in Grasshill, Agwin County. John stands quickly, Arlo close behind.

On their way out, one of the finance bros tries to get their attention. “Hey,” he says, pulling out his phone. “Are you kids-”

John shoots him a withering glare and Arlo instinctually ducks behind him. “Not interested,” John snaps in his don’t fuck with me sort of voice that he reserves for assholes on the street, high tiers at his school, and also Arlo, who counts as both. The guy freezes momentarily, which is the usual effect. John likes to think his thought process is going something like, My Chemical Romance was right, even though he acknowledges that logically, this pocket watch sporting, finance talking man has never listened to My Chemical Romance in his life. “Fuck off,” he adds for good measure.

The doors open and he grabs Arlo by the arm, who doesn’t protest, dragging him out of the train so they can disappear into the crowded platform of Grasshill, Agwin County.