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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.

Threaded | Flat

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."

Better Kyle blindly trust Kellen than others, such as the lurking Ness who hovers in the doorway to watch as they pass, giving a perfunctory lecherous wink and receiving an odd smile in return from Kellen, one that perhaps suggests amusement and exasperation, or maybe just complicity. Whatever it is, he continues on without a word to the monster, not speaking again until they reach the stairwell.

"Really? I thought you spent tons of time elsewhere." Peering up for a moment, he decides on the opposite and starts heading downstairs, away from the living areas and towards classrooms and offices. "Or are you going to explain how everywhere is actually the exact same place, and all time is really one second?" Though Kellen sounds a little mocking, it's mostly harmless, and he does look back up the stairs at Kyle as if awaiting an answer.

Luckily, Kyle's eventual answer draws him from his morbid inner thoughts before too long. "Living on the beach? In a tent, or what?" He doesn't know much about Kyle, really, and realizes this now. What beach? There are beaches of a sort around Boston, of course, but most of them wouldn't be pleasant for living on.

Eye caught by the movement of Kyle's hand, Kellen looks down to watch those fingers encircle the bottle. His mouth twists some in response to what the other kid says, an unprecedented self-consciousness making blood course to his cheeks, but maybe the resultant blush could be blamed on the wind. "Ahh...I didn't mean I don't...well. I like hangin' out with you, too. Just, some things..." He makes a dismissive motion with his hand, forgetting that it's still partially attached to that bottle, too, and releasing his hold on it after some of the wine slops over his hand.

The liquid's lukewarm, but the wetness of it chills his skin anyway, so he reflexively lifts the hand to lick it off, then wipes it on the leg of his pants. Kellen doesn't respond, whether the question is one he doesn't want to answer, or Kyle's prior words took precedence.

Since he's still got his lighter out, he reclaims the pair of candlesticks from where he'd set them down and shifts around to keep out of the wind as he lights one. Holding it sideways he lets some of the wax pool on the floor, in the very corner of the space, to keep the candle upright once it's stuck in. He repeats the process with the other candle afterwards, then sits back, facing Kyle more now and leaning on one shoulder against the wall.