WHO: Kaden and Ash, with some Marcie, Much and Little John WHEN: Way back in the middle of summer WHERE: Little John and Elaine's cottage (real world version) WHAT: Enforced friendship WARNINGS: Nah
He hadn’t thought to watch out for any kind of trap; he hadn’t thought he needed to, not when he was with Marcie. Marcie and, well, Much, but Kaden was pretty sure Much didn’t have a devious or conniving thought in his head (but then, Kaden was very uncharitable when it came to Much and having thoughts, because any that he did have, Kaden was certain, were too friendly toward Marcie for Kaden to be at all comfortable with and therefore, all other thoughts were unacceptable too.) Anyway, Kaden wasn’t saying no to a ride home from Merlin’s because it was hot as Satan’s tit outside, and if Much and his van were offering then yeah, why not. It wasn’t like he had to engage, he could just push open the back window, stick his foot out of it, plug his headphones in so the music would cut out the noise of the rest of the world while his brain kept on processing Merlin’s latest lesson.
Not that it was doing much processing. Mostly it was melting. The van had no AC and the wind wasn’t coming through the window fast enough to cool him down any. He wasn’t even watching the road, so the first he knew of the trap was when he opened his eyes and Much had stopped the van down a street he didn’t recognise. Then the Merry Man was turning round in his seat, looking annoyingly casual and innocent, all “Just gotta make a pit stop here while I run something past Little John” like he didn't know that phones existed for the running past of things, and “you want to come in and say hi?” like this all wasn’t part of some scheme.
“m'good,” Kaden muttered, slouching even deeper into the seat to get comfortable (or at least, since comfort was unobtainable, to look like he was becoming one with the back seat) phone out, back of his neck sweating against the seat. “Imma wait.”
“Come ooon,” insisted Much, who tried far too hard, all the time, it was kinda exhausting. There were times Kaden himself tried, hard, too hard, but not like, publicly. “He’ll have something cold in the fridge, you can bet on it. Cold and delicious. Marcie, coming in?”