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After a few hours of unsuccessfully trying to sleep, Kellen abandons the couch to which he was relocated (in deference to Ruckus' continuing convalescence) and takes instead to roaming the night-empty corridors of the school. He had stepped into the bedroom to let Leech know he was going, but seeing the pair of them peacefully drowsing peaked his irritation, and instead Kellen merely snagged a pack of cigarettes and his boots before leaving.

The first of the nightly dorm checks has passed, and the second is yet to come; therefore, the dorm halls are not entirely silent when he reaches them. Most of the students might be asleep, but pausing near Ness' door to listen assures Kellen that not all of them are. Smirking faintly at the completely unashamed noises carrying through the door, he keeps moving, lighting a cigarette along the way. Eventually he stops again outside another closed door, and though the room beyond is silent, there is a strip of dim light showing under the frame.

Without much consideration, Kellen pushes the door open, sticking his fuzzy head around it before entering fully. The smirk returns as he spots his 'lab partner' on his bed, looking half-asleep over a thick book, of which Kellen could probably only understand one word in ten. "Must be an exciting read." He enters the room uninvited, closing the door behind himself and crossing to the desk near Kyle's bed, hopping up to sit on the edge of it and looking expectantly at the other boy.

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Kyle is one of those strange little owls that stays up all night to have a good time, but does so through work. Okay, so the book wasn't assigned, and he checked it out along with six others from the library (and two from around the school, he can't abide books looking orphaned and homeless).

He's managed to turn the noise of Ness' activities into a sort of white noise by now, and wonders, sometimes, if he wouldn't be able to carry on his routines of reading and sleeping without the constant soundtrack, but he's quickly losing interest in this one anyway when Kellen seems to appear out of this air.

There is just a hint of a jump at his unexpected company, but Kyle is getting used to the strange fuzzy boy showing up now. Blinking some of the sleep haze away and turning the book to stare at the cover like he'd only just realized he was reading it, he shrugs and places a marker in his place, "Thought it would be. They like, vacuum seal people right before they die, keep measurements the whole time, and then when they die, there is unexplained mass displacement." Finally making eye contact, he licks over his lip once nervously and scratches at the back of his head, working out the translation quickly, "They think they've worked out how to measure the human soul."

Since he received a response, Kellen seems to assume that his presence is welcomed and makes himself comfortable, scooting back on the desk (with little consideration for the stacks of books he has to nudge out of the way with his hip) and hooking the heels of his unlaced boots on the edge of it. He's quite glad that Kyle's trained to translate already, because none of that would have made sense. As it is, Kellen still looks a little bewildered.

"They vacuum seal them before they die? Like, shrink-wrap?" He squints an eye in confusion, or maybe to avoid the smoke from the cigarette that hasn't been moved from his mouth. "Where the hell do they do this?"

Kyle scoots over enough to accommodate Kellen and save the book pile from launching onto the floor. He looks thoughtfully at the cover of the one he just closed for a second, wrapping an arm around himself for the newfound sleepycold feeling he's just now feeling from lack of blanket nest. "Haverhill, Massachusetts. Real long time ago, like... start of the 1900's. Not shrink wrap, just... like those tents for bubble people with no immune systems."

Kellen seems more confused than genuinely interested, so he carefully places the book back on the pile, chewing on a thumbnail. "Also said dogs don't have souls."

"Oh." This is a little disappointing; he was interested in people being shrink-wrapped, like Easter eggs. Kellen shrugs and throws a dismissive glance at the book as Kyle sets it down, but the following statement garners a loudly derisive snort. "Well, that's total bullshit. If people have souls, dogs definitely do. What do they base that judgement on?"

"Shrink wrap, or a version of it, wasn't invented til' six years later." He adds, despite the fact that it really doesn't matter, but he knows it, and all that information has to leak out sometime or the poor kid will explode. Or start making bombs. "Cause he did the same thing with dogs he poisoned, mass didn't change." He looks sort of upset, but also confused, like he's watching a plant that isn't growing fast enough, "Dogs can't donate their bodies to science."

The snort this time is pure amusement; Kellen's reminded of just why he enjoys spending time with this kid (or one of the reasons, anyway). "You would know that."

Having sat still for roughly five minutes, it's far past due time for Kellen to fidget, so he does so, propelling himself onto the floor by shoving his feet against the desk's edge, and paces to the window to peer out. "Well, maybe the poison interfered with the displacement, or something. Maybe dogs keep their souls elsewhere." After a bit of work, he inches the window open enough to toss his cigarette out through the metal bars on the outside. Shutting it again, he turns and heads for the door, tossing an inexplicable "C'mon" in Kyle's direction along the way.

Of course he knows that! From the first time he saw one of those easter baskets with the cellophane over the whole thing he had to know what the hell that was and how it worked. Kellen seems intent to prowl, and even before the invitation Kyle assumes he's going to be recruited. The fact that he's missing one of his socks makes for a mad scramble around the room to find it and his zipup hoodie. The sock is marking another book, but he removes it anyway and tugs on his untied shoes, hopping on one food after Kellen, hazel eyes wide and alert now, "Where we goin?"

Kellen pauses at the door when Kyle starts skittering around, half-turning to watch him with a partially amused, fond smirk. Once the kid's finally got his shoes on, he turns and continues into the hallway. "I dunno. Elsewhere. You have any suggestions?"

He has to halt momentarily when the door to Ness' dorm opens, disgorging a half-clothed freshman kid Kellen knows vaguely, but not by name, who blushes ridiculously at the pair of witnesses before scampering off to his own dorm.

Socks, shoes, and jacket in place, Kyle trots after Kellen like a corgi dog thats been promised a ride to the park, not really minding the blind trust that he probably shouldn't be using. "No, but... I've never been to elsewhere. So... that."

He knows Ness only through brief things. Mostly sounds. Occasionally see's half of him in passing through doorways. Ness is like the Roommate That Almost Was, and so far Kyle hasn't had much reason to further their acquaintance. Looks like that is all up in the air now.