Chapter Text
It wasn't often they got together to talk. Never, really. Why would they? There wasn’t any reason to talk.
This wasn't a voluntary meeting. It was a random happenstance, really. They'd all gotten detention on the same day. A coincidence, but not a particularly suspicious one. None of them had ever really been good kids. At least as far as Lily was aware.
She’d been perfectly content to sit quietly and just wait things out, so she and Billy could go back to doing more important things. But Lily hardly ever got what she wanted when it came to these people, so they ended up chatting amongst themselves. Talking about what happened. And Lily was forced to listen by the vicious trap of proximity.
Jerome had started it. He seemed excited to see everyone together ‘after so long’. Like this was some sick reunion. Lily remembered him being loud, friendly, stubborn. A ‘cool kid’. Someone who had it all and didn’t question why. From the looks of it, he hadn’t changed much. She also remembered how Jerome had tried to kill her. How angry he’d been. He seemed to remember too, if how he carefully avoided looking at her was any indication.
He spoke about the past. It was more than a little awkward. He spoke about how angry he was. He talked about how his dad had messed him up. Even with everything, he didn’t seem to hold any pain towards his time at kindergarten. Lily wished she could relate. He said sorry and spoke about how much he’d missed everyone. She wondered if he had any friends. Probably not, if this was any indication.
At least it seemed that he’d given up on that resentment towards her. He mentioned something about therapy before launching into a ramble about the basketball team. He seemed well enough. All things considered. She wondered how he could just move on from everything like it never happened. His dad was a monster, but Jerome was acting like he was just a normal kid. He turned to the others, waiting for someone else to speak, like they were all just some long-lost friends.
She’d never cared that much about Buggs. He had always been large, lumbering, cruel. She’d expected him to hate this situation as much as Lily. After all, why would he want to talk to them? But to her surprise, when Jerome’s eyes scanned the room, Buggs was the first to step up and start chatting.
He started with banalities. He was on the wrestling team, he had a part time job doing something Lily had already forgotten. Then Buggs mentioned Nugget, surprisingly enough. Out of all of them, Nugget was the one she’d kept up with the most. He was Billy’s friend, which meant he was around a lot. He was the only one of them who hadn’t ended up here, lucky bastard. Buggs had bullied him back in the day, for being weird. She wasn’t sure why he brought it up, until he’d mentioned wanting to apologise.
He claimed he was doing better now. He admitted he used to be a dick. Said he’d been going through a lot at home at the time. Something about his dad. Lily wasn’t quite convinced. She wasn’t the type of person to believe people could change. She was far too pragmatic for that. At best, she thought, Buggs had just learned that being himself wouldn’t get him very far in the real world. But what did she know? Billy would have told her to give him a chance. Speaking of.
Billy spoke for them, when all eyes inevitably fell on them. They had the most interesting past, after all, so Jerome prodded him into talking about how they’d been doing. Her brother was too kind. She loved him for it, but he was. He was what she lived for, since the day she saved him from those labs. He was brilliant, brave, kind. And she was so glad she had him here with her. Maybe that’s what made her so reluctant to be around these people. The ones who didn’t help. The ones who would have let him die. Maybe that was too harsh, they were only kids, but she couldn’t help it.
Billy didn’t like to talk about the worst of it. It was easier to pretend they were heroes, rather than kids. Lily had saved him. And then they’d gone on to save many more kids. She tried not to think about the worst of it either, but it had always been harder for her. Those moments of loneliness, of not knowing if she’d lose her other half forever. It was hard to forget. She still bore some of the scars from back then. Even now.
She kind of liked hearing him brag about what they were doing now, even if she had to elbow him a few times to stop him from saying something confidential. They were still helping, they were still saving kids. They’d developed a system. A team with other kids to target multiple schools at once. There was so much corruption and evil in the world, and they were fighting it. He spoke like he was proud of them. She knew he wasn’t lying. Lily was proud of them too. She was doing so much better than when they last saw her.
In some ways, Monty looked better than when she last saw him. In other ways, much worse. She remembered him being quiet, sharp, cautious. He was no longer in a chair. Whether he’d healed or done something to fix it she couldn't tell. But he looked so much more tired. They hadn’t spoken since she got Billy back. They hadn’t needed to. Monty was the type of person you only ever spoke to when you needed something, and after she’d gotten into the business with Billy she couldn’t risk trusting someone else to get what she needed.
She hadn’t expected it from him, but he looked almost as uncomfortable as she did. There were a lot of mumbled words, a lot of ‘well, you know’s in his half-hearted retelling of what happened. She remembered him sitting at her table every lunch, people only coming to talk with him when they wanted to buy something. She remembered how everyone had watched, how they’d left him there afterwards. She doubted anyone would want to be stuck chatting with them after that.
Then, he moved onto something a bit more interesting, with Jerome’s incessant prodding. Apparently, he was mixed up with Applesoft business nowadays. He kept things vague, but Lily read into every word. Sure, to the untrained eye, it was just a normal tech company. But to anyone who kept an eye out. Well. Applesoft had always been looming in the background of their investigations. Providing chemicals and machinery to the worst of the worst. She knew Monty didn’t have many qualms working with whoever if it meant he got a good deal, but still. She thought he would have learned not to mess with dangerous people after it nearly got him killed the first time. But, if she could worm her way into his good graces, maybe she could use him as an in to expose the bastards…
Her thoughts were interrupted in the worst possible way. Lily hadn’t wanted to hear about Cindy. Didn’t even want to think about her. She was vicious, cruel, malicious. Fifty other synonyms for horrible. Outside of what happened to Billy, Cindy was the worst thing to ever happen to her. And genuinely the worst person she’d ever met. And Lily had spent the past few years battling evil, so that said a lot.
Call her biased, but Cindy was just as annoying as Lily remembered. She managed to conveniently leave out anything that was even remotely her fault. She whined about her mother, and her dog, and her weight, and how life had been soooo difficult for her back then. As if. There was no mention of the torment she put Lily through. No mention of the cruelties she’d inflicted on girls and boys alike, all for her sick amusement. No, those weren’t important to Cindy’s sob story.
But apparently, he was just doing so much better now. After her horrible years of struggle. She believed her even less than she believed Buggs. Then she went on to brag and brag and brag about her success as a model, her new boyfriend, her online following, her weight. It made Lily want to punch her, but the last thing she needed was a second detention, lest she get trapped with any of these idiots again. So she bit her tongue.
The bell could not have come soon enough. Lily would be happy to never see them again, even as Jerome was already talking about their next meet-up.
She watched Cindy, already on her phone, flouncing off to class. Monty making a silent bee-line away from them towards two mops of blond hair. Buggs getting greeted by a group of similarly large boys as he left the class. Jerome standing awkwardly as Billy led her away so they could discuss her next move. Yeah. Never again.