Dylan took his perch at the window, shadow-stepping to the ledge and vanishing there. He was hoping in this case that Vaughn would know he was there, and yet doubt he was still there. That was how Dylan did his job: let the person you're tailing undermine ther own confidence. He chuckled to himself and waited for Avery to come in.
"Okay," said Avery as she walked into the room. "What're we doing now?"
Vaughn followed the group, looking at the new message. It was the link to a website, the sender saying that this was a good follow up site. He clicked on the link, and it was a news article on his mental state. He skimmed over the first part and his throat clenched when it began talking about his childhood, even showing a photo of him at about the age of 8, smiling brightly and hugging his toddler sister. He shut the phone off, not wanting to read the rest of it at the time.
"Dylan, Vaughn, why are we here?" Avery questioned. She couldn't see Dylan, but she knew he'd be there somewhere.
Dylan jumped down, landing lightly on his feet in one of the darker corners. He reappeared in front of Vaughn, gently placing a hand on his shoulder, "We're here, Avery, to see if this guy know anything about the Flame. Element, would you like to lead the charge?"
Vaughn frowned at that in confusion. What was he talking about? These people were obviously insane if they thought that he knew something.
"Hold up," Avery said, putting her hand up to stop them. "It's like, five pm. Are any of you hungry? 'Cause we've got some pretty sweet snacks in the kitchen."
Vaughn shook his head, feeling wary about taking food from strangers.
Avery glanced at Vaughn and sighed, "I'm not going to poison you, doofus. I'm just trying to be a polite hostess. Speaking of hostesses, we've even got some Twinkies somewhere, I'm pretty sure."
"I'm not much of a fan of Twinkies, but I'll take a soda if you have sone, thanks," Dylan said, turning away from Vaughn, "Or maybe some coffee?"
"Yeah, we've got pop and coffee," Avery said, making her way to the kitchen. "C'mon, follow me, and you can figure out what you'd like."
"Soda sounds fantastic!" Element cried. "And so do twinkies. I didn't think it, but when you said 'food' I was suddenly starving."
Avery laughed. "Yeah, me too. I totally forgot about food for the past few hours."
"Its kind of hard to remember food when you find information about a group of murders, get shot, and get knocked out." She gestured to both the girls bandages while they walked into the kitchen. "A lot has happened today."
Vaughn kept silent, stern on the fact that he wouldn’t trust them that much, not now. All he wanted to do was rest, as he was sure he had dark circles under his eyes from lack of sleep. He had been so busy recently in his work that it has kept him up on certain nights.
"Oh, yeah. For sure," said Avery as she opened the fridge. She gestured for Element to look inside. "Here, you can have whatever's in there. My team won't mind." Turning to Dylan, she asked him, "You still want coffee? I can make some right now. We've got creamer and sugar, too, if you want it. Oh! And we've got an espresso machine if you want an extra kick in your coffee."
Element pulled out a Dr. Pepper, a Hershey's bar, and some Twinkies. "You have an espresso machine?" she said, taking a bite out of her Hershey's as she sat at the table. "This is legit." she muttered.
Vaughn leaned back against a counter, looking down at the blood spotted along his white shirt. He would need to wash it before visiting the family, and he checked his watch once more, his foot tapping on the floor.
Avery chuckled. "Yeah, my team and I really wanted our hideout to feel like home, so we've got everything we could ever want here. Well… almost everything. My cat is at my real house. But we've got fish downstairs!"
(Such a healthy dinner, lol.)
( YES )
"Oh my gosh. Whats your cats name? And you have FISH?"
"My cat's name is Strawberry, and, yes, we have fish," laughed Avery. "They're downstairs. If you want to go check them out, feel free to."
(I've gtg)
( nooo okay )
Vaughn exhaled sharply. “I don’t mean to interrupt this.. interesting conversation, but we should get this talk about whatever this flame-thing is over with.”
Dylan poured himself a cup of coffee, sighing happily as the smell wafted up to his nose. He may have powers and all that, but that didn't change the fact that he was still human.
Wait,
That might not be true. Dylan shrugged inwardly. His unlocked memories drew some unsettling parrallels to the murderers of Element's parents. But Dylan didn't feel as strong a connection with the voices. He had become addicted to coffee, went to school, tried to find a girlfriend, the whole nine. If the recent discoveries of his history were supposed to be traumatizing, or lead him to a self-discovering revelation about his alien origins, he didn't feel it. As far as he was concerned, he was still very human.
The whole light thing, though. That he didn't like. He decided he would ask Vaughn about that. And Element, afterwards. As he was discovering, the girl was practically a walking library. And Avery…
That thought he smiled at. Never had he seen someone so good at being good at everything. And witty. He hadn't been able to crack a joke around his last date.
He looked down into his coffee mug, where he had poured a tablespoon of sugar. The stir stick leaned on the edge of the cup idly, and it was only then that Dylan realized he had been staring off into space as he thought. He stirred his coffee and turned away from the coffee pot, "Thanks for the coffee, Avery."
Vaughn exhaled, turning Dylan's head, “I don’t mean to interrupt this.. interesting conversation, but we should get this talk about whatever this flame-thing is over with.”
"Ok," Dylan replied, eager to get down to it, "so let's start simple. Does it ring a bell? The Flame? They're apparently a multi-species cult, or something, but that's all I have."
(Woah. Did not mean for that to be so long….)
“Mm, not necessarily.. May have heard a friend mention the name, but that’s about it. I tend to stay away from gatherings and groups of any kinds,” Vaughn responded, crossing his arms.
(Awe, Dylan's smitten! It's so cute! I ship it!)
(Oh, and I'm back for a few minutes.)
"Well, Oscar searched for anything he could find on the Flame, and he should have printed out a list. Let me go run and grab it, and I'll be right back," said Avery as she ran to the silver mustang. She grabbed the papers and raced back into the warehouse. "Here they are! Hope I didn't miss anything important."