"Fang?"
Dylan waited for a response. Inside, there was silence as the other boy deliberated, then: "Oh, fine. Come in."
He pushed open the door. It was dark inside, so he switched on the light. Fang was at his writing desk, and pointedly closed the lid of his laptop when Dylan's eyes went to the screen. "Writing?"
Fang's eyes hardened. "Not to you, if that's what you're thinking. I think you made it pretty clear what you thought of that earlier."
The other bird-kid looked troubled. "Did I?"
If anything, Fang looked angrier at this. He didn't reply, but his glare heated up to furnace level and Dylan had to look away.
The room was a mess: bed unmade, floor littered with old socks and empty pizza cartons. The air in the room was stale, the smell of sweat and old food masked by a layer of body spray. "You need to get out of here once in a while."
"You can leave now, Dylan."
"Seriously, it's not healthy for you to sit in here all day."
"Yeah, well we can't all be Mr. Wholesome. Go play house with Max or whatever you were doing before you came here."
"Nope, I'd be taking my life into my hands. I know not to interrupt her when she's sulking. The two of you are scarily similar sometimes." Dylan spoke mildly, regardless of the acid in Fang's tone.
"Well feel free to stop interrupting me anytime."
"We should hang out," he blurted all of a sudden.
The words stopped Fang in his tracks. Breathe, then speak, he reminded himself. "Hang out?" Stunned, not angry.
Dylan felt stupid for even suggesting it. "Yeah."
Breathe. Speak. "You mean, like a-" Fang stopped himself before the word 'date' left his lips. Because of course Dylan didn't mean it that way. And because it would have made him sound like an actress in a dumb teen movie, and then he would have been forced to shoot himself. "Uh, sure." He looked at the other bird-kid for a second, before adding casually, "What will Max say?"
"Max won't-"
Fang raised and eyebrow. Max would care. Dylan flushed; paused; reconsidered.
"Well - what Max doesn't know won't hurt her."
Fang's eyes snapped and flashed at this - in ways which made Dylan's heart pound and his thoughts turn sluggish - but he just nodded. "Sure. Why not?"