"Lip."

"Yeah?"

"Text from Gene: 'All boys but Luz. Something about police but also not to do with disappearance. So not holding, not jail. Meet you at Recess.' Police? What did he do now?"

"Something about a body? I don't know. Asscrack of dawn, and I got a call from Muck and Larky… they were running and yelling for a cab. I couldn't make a word out."

"How about Harry?"

"Drank to death with Nix."

"Kitty?"

"Yep."

"Again?"

"Mhm."

"He does know it's all in his head, right? He's never said a word to her. She doesn't even know he exists."

"I know! Why get so hung up about it if-" Lipton was silenced by a harsh 'shhhh!' somewhere at the back of the class. Dick automatically produced a notepad, and the two kept on conversing by pen until the teacher arrived; who snatched up the pad on her way by, announced that reading time would take up all morning so her students could get into the term study text nice and early.

Harry was tired- and not the sleepy, groggy feeling that came with an all-nighter. No, he was out-of-his-head exhausted. Each limb must have a thousand kilo weight on it, because walking to the English class from his car, a bare hundred meters, took five minutes. The door took several tries to open- a passing teacher helped him as if he was some disorientated freshman. Please. He was a perfectly capable, functional, disorientated... not-freshman. Whatever the one up from that, he was it. You're looking at it. Harry didn't know what he was looking at when he walked into the class; but hopefully it was a mirror. If he were a rainbow kaleidoscope of affixes and Shakespeare faces, he wouldn't be in this state… and Kitty would have talked to him. Had she? He didn't remember. All he could recall was a nine o'clock chime and a fifth shot and Nixon, laughing, as he spoke of gnomes and fairies with a blank face.

Not a head turned to his bumbling entrance. Naturally.

He dragged his sorry corpse to the seat next to Winters. As always.

He leant onto the proffered shoulder. Uncommon.

He started speaking during reading time. That one was new.

"Dell."

Richard took a moment, flicking his gaze from scowl to scowl of the disrupted peers. This was English Lit, for crying out loud. The most important class to him, if he were to disregard his parents view on the matter. Harry was late, hung over, and loud. He'd expect this from Lewis, but not from Mr-perfect-and-rich-as-Bill-Gates-dentist-family-Welsh. Best to end whatever conversation Harry expected before it began, Winters thought.

"Like the computer?"

"No, were in one."

"We're in a computer?" Winters eyes widened and narrowed in the time that passed for Harry to blink, and he was asked a worried: "Did you watch The Matrix again?"

Because you know, you know what that dos to your mind, Harry. To all of them. This is why we avoid philosophically challenging movies. Yeah? The ones with subtext. And with reality-questioning theories. Let's stick with the Lion King and its connection to Hamlet. That does its job well enough.

Harry rolled his eyes at the dumbfounded ginger.

"No… a dell-dell. A… gnomes and shit…" At that, Winters nodded in understanding, as if Harry were one of his fancy-schmancy Latin teachers spouting old mediaeval astrology or whatever the fuck they did, and ruffled the unruly head of hair on his shoulder. It had dulled to a dirtier blonde over the Christmas holidays- lack of sun, most likely. At a whiff, Winters reconsidered the thought. Maybe it hadn't been washed in a while.

Backtracking a few pages to regain context, allowing Harry to regain cognitive-ness, he read about lost love and labor or whatever ingenious thing magnificent William was on about this time

Half way through the class, Lewis burst through the door, apologizing to the teacher, and practically hurled himself into Dick's other side.

"What's going on, Dick? Welshie?"

"Apparently… we're in a dell." Winters explained shortly. Nixon didn't seem to comprehend. Whether he got that it was a place filled with fairies and gnomes, or a supercomputer manipulating their lives, Winters may never know. But in any case, all Lew did was get them in the bad books by continuing the already frowned-at chatter. On the first day.

"We're in geograph-"

"Nixon! What have I said about talking in class?"

"To… not to, Miss?"

"Detention. All three of you."

"Mother of all F-fairies!" Harry shouted from under Winters armpit, who sighed and wondered how he had gotten to this position. Sure, the two men encasing him were defiantly not morning people- and that he was fine with, he had gotten used to it, it was okay. He was concerned with how Harry and, god forbidding, Lew ended up in English Lit. Harry was usually down in the lower standard with the rest of his mates, and Nixon couldn't tell Shakespeare from Dickens if his morning Irish coffee depended on it. He wouldn't know a sonnet if it was screeched to him from the PA system.

The three of them had always been the brains of the group- a constant, if you will. Each man to their own school specialty, and all with an innate quality to put themselves forward, accept that some were born to follow; and themselves to lead. This dynamic was what kept the world spinning, or so Dick heard, for if everyone was a leader or a follower, life would go out faster than an unpinned grenade.

Lipton was a little different- he wasn't all that smart in an academic scene. He could work words and explain, paint a picture through letters like a forgotten writing god. Poetry, analytical essays, public speaking, you name it- Lipton could do it with no preparation and no afterthought. The boys did take advantage of him at times, but it wasn't as though Lipton minded. That was another thing: Lip was fantastically calm, steeled, ready for opportunity. He was a teacher, a nurturer of others, not a leader. That he left to Winters, as far as Winters understood.

He could have been up with the popular kids, had he not been one-hundred-and-one percent gay. Lipton called it unfortunate. Dick called it a road less taken, as a joke. He said they could skip down it together, beneath a giant rainbow, feet kicking up daisies. Then, Lip would slap him and they would laugh through angry tears together.

This aside, Winters noticed how his duties had busied as high school poked him nearer to the cliff of graduation. Although they failed to see it, his friends grew less organized and in need of more guidance. That or they were targeted. Already, he had two cases of missing books, one case of a locker-shove. And it was only the first day.

Winters just slid his reading glasses further up his nose and kept reading Loves Labors Lost. Nixon wrapped his arms around Winters waist and pulled both him and his chair closer, away from Welsh; who flopped on the floor and was snoring softly. Across the room, Lipton chuckled under his breath.