[OPEN] If I were anyone else, I'd have stayed away

Dylan blinked. He wasn't sure if he was supposed to feel offended but he did.

"Hold? Tch." He scoffed, shaking his head. "She's nothing but a pain in the arse. A brat who doesn't know how to take no for an answer." He'd had his hand on his leg and was now holding the part of his jeans his hand had been on tightly. Just mentioning the girl made him angry but he had every right to be.

She'd humiliated him.

"I just want to get back at her."

He was interested, though. Who else could possibly like a girl as annoying and nosey as Anabelle Mulciber? "You sound jealous. She's not that popular, is she?" He laughed. "I just can't see it. Anyone actually liking her, that is."

That was a new one.

She had a feeling that Mulciber fancied herself to be up against the world, but she wasn’t sure she had actually ever heard a word against the Gryffindor, the opposition probably a fanciful fabrication to make life more interesting. But there was actual venom in Davies’ words, and she couldn’t remember if he had always been so mean-spirited, but she wanted to guess he hadn’t.

What had changed?

She didn’t immediately address him, instead taking to her Butterbeer as a pleasant deflection, relaxing her throat with the sweet liquid. She swallowed as he asked his question, and she let out a good-natured laugh. “Oh, no, not at all. I was never really into the whole ‘compare yourself to every other girl’ thing. Hardly a way to foster good vibes between fellow ladies. No, I’m just a bit bored of hearing about her, honestly.” Her mind flicked towards the Yaxley boys – but she was only just hatching her plan for them anyway.

“But I’m less bored now. What did she do to get you so loony?”

Maybe she was more popular than he remembered.

Then again, it had been almost three years since he'd last been in the castle and seen her. Anyone really. So that pretty much explained why she seemed different. The last time they'd crossed paths she would have been a third year, one of the awkward years when you just kind of floated around because you weren't new to the school anymore but you weren't completely used to it either.

One side of Dylan's mouth curled upward into a smirk. He remembered those years, but he didn't care for them. "Say what you want. Sounds like jealousy to me." he waved her off, accidentally sounded a lot more casual than he'd ever intended to. The smirk fell from his face and he sat forward, placing his chin on his hand as he looked at Margo.

He raised an eyebrow. "I told you. She took something from me." It wasn't like he cared about what had been taken. It was the effects that mattered to him. "Because of that, I'm in deep sh*t. And I'm losing an important person's trust."

She rolled her eyes, smiling over her glass. "You speak with such confidence for being so out of the social loop," she reminded, her eyebrow quirking slightly as she said it. At least he was smirking now. Before, he had seemed so disinterested, as though he could have been talking to a wall. He sat forward and her lips flickered thoughtfully. If he wasn't so gosh darned cute he'd almost look dangerous.

Alas.

"And I told you," she parroted, swallowing down another drink, "What exactly? Can't exactly help with vague threats that you shall be avenged. C'mon. Give me some wiggle room. I've got nothing to do today. Let's seek vengeance or whatever."

Man, she really was bored.

Dylan bit his lip in thought.

"It's complicated." It wouldn't be a bad thing to have someone help him, would it? It would kind of hurt his ego more, though. Dylan liked to think he could do things on his own, but that wasn't always the case.

Getting help involved letting people know your business and that was something Dylan hated doing. Without a viable way to get into Hogwarts, though, he had little choice in the matter. He sighed. "See, Anabelle came to my home a few nights ago while I was watching a little girl for someone." That made him sound like a softie. "She took the girl. I don't know where and now the person I was watching her for is super pissed at me."

His eyes wandered to Margo's, searching them for a sign that she believed what he'd just said. It was sort of the truth, he just twisted the details a little bit.

He sure was committed to this whole Man of Mystery illusion. She wasn't so sure it was an illusion, actually, as he wasn't exactly forthcoming with information, and had basically fallen off the face of the earth. But he seemed to enjoy it at least.

And his tale certainly lent itself towards a mystery, and her mind wanted to whisk off with thoughts of a thrilling escape, Dylan cursing the air, swearing vengeance as Hitame took off into the darkness, a helpless innocent clutched to her side.

And then it struck her that none of that made sense.

Her head cocked. "Mulciber kidnapped a kid from you? Who in Merlin's name gave you a kid?"

Probably not the best way to go about that but Margo didn't care how she got it done.

"Yeah, I know."

Sh*t, that response had to mean that she didn't believe him. He'd hoped she would just believe it, without looking into the details. So much for wishful thinking.

He sighed. "I told you it was complicated. It wasn't like she did it on her own, either. She had help." Again, he wasn't lying. "I don't know who they were, though. I was more concerned about the girl." That was a half-lie but Margo didn't have to know that.

"You sound like you wouldn't trust me with your kid." he let out an accidental laugh. But looked over her face quickly, "If you had one." The tone in his voice sounded.. sad. It made him remember the kid he and Nessa were supposed to have.

Yeah, that still weighed heavily on his mind, all the time. Maybe that had been why he'd gotten attached to Ekko.

No. He wasn't attached to her.

"Everything is complicated," she sighed, a slight roll in her eyes as she slid her hands off the table to fall onto her lap. "Except it's not. Not really. The only thing that complicates something is people trying to make it sound like something it's not." Reader, it surprises more than just Margo's company how strangely perceptive she could be sometimes. "Everything's really simple when people stop bullshitting."

Margo wasn't even directing the thought to his situation, nor to the situations in her life for which it was wildly appropriate. It was one of those nuggets of truth buried deep in her breast that made Margo the perfect case of accidental sincerity.

She grinned. "I wouldn't trust you with a kid. I mean, I wouldn't trust me with one either. We're basically kids ourselves. Anyone who claims to be anything other than useless before they're thirty is lying their asses off. You included." But there was almost something fond in the way she said it.

"To be fair, I never said I was useful." He shrugged.

At least that was something Dylan could admit. He knew there wasn't much use for him anywhere besides the pack. And even then, he felt like he wasn't very useful, especially since he couldn't even keep a ten year old girl within his grasp. But he'd just let his guard down at that moment, that was it.

"You're right, though." He leaned back in his seat. "Things would be a lot more simple if everyone stopped bullshitting. But no one will. It creates more.. excitement." Or pain. Dylan figured that he could at least give her an honest answer once. But that meant exposing the pack and the fact that he was in it. Would Moira do it?

If not, what would she do?

"Have you ever thought about what it would be like to not be human?" He asked, eyes flickering to her momentarily then back down to his hands.

That might not have been what Moira would do, but it was definitely a very Dylan Davies action.

Had he ever smiled? Did he remember that the muscles in his face worked that way? Did he know she was teasing? Or was she actually just offending him at every turn? Maybe he was one of those blokes that thought he looked better when he was brooding.

Whatever. It was getting boring.

"Trying to make everything sound nice isn't exciting," she argued. "Telling the truth and letting it be ugly and twisted - that's exciting. Doing something for the simple reason of wanting to - that's exciting. Bullshit just makes more bullshit."

His question held promise. Her lips, always cocked and ready for a smirk twitched, interest flickering in her eyes as her lips rolled inward and outward, trying to find the words to respond.

"No," she admitted. "I haven't. That's the truth. Tell me yours." She leaned forward, eyebrows quirking dangerously. "And excite me."