Theodore was so caught up with seeing Aristotle that he hadn't caught the expression on Vivian's face before Philip had dragged him away. If he had, he would have put everything down and helped his precious stepson out immediately. Theodore knew the signs to watch for, but his focus had slipped to how Aristotle would react to his reappearance.

The relief of Aristotle looking at him as a happy surprise made Theodore start beaming at Ari. Unfortunately they didn't have a lot of time to catch up since other parents started to stop by, looking for the history teacher who wasn't in his room and had only left a brief sign on his door.

"I'm sorry we can't talk longer Theodore, but we can meet up after the actual open house to catch up." Aristotle smiled at Theodore, setting his heart fluttering again for the hundredth time in the ten minutes they had chatted. Theodore also noticed that Ari still had a habit of tugging at his ear when realizing he had gone on a weird tangent or been distracted by something. For a delinquent Aristotle had always been quick to get embarrassed, or at least around Theodore he was.

“Of course, I’m sorry for taking up so much of your time while you are technically working…” Theodore also felt a little embarrassed by the realization that he had held everyone around them up. He motioned towards Ann. “We still have to go around to all the other teachers anyways.”

“Meet me at the old pick-up spot when the open house finishes up and we can arrange from there a time to chat some more.”

Theodore nodded and dragged Ann away to continue the open house. As they were leaving the music wing, a flustered girl in a bright pink dress with sneakers ran past them. Theodore thought it was odd, but didn’t actually take much notice of her.

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Ann on the other hand did give a slightly worried look, especially when Theodore got a text a few minutes later from Philip saying that Vivian was with him and not to worry about them and just go exploring themselves. Ann didn’t say anything though to Theodore, waiting for a text from her nephew to inform her of the situation.

She tried to convince herself she was just being paranoid and Azazel just had important information to pass on to Aristotle. Ann knew though that Azazel wasn’t the type to run for a small reason like that, or to be easily flustered.

Ann knew both of the twins, and also knew their eccentricity. She even knew the whole backstory behind their upbringing. Philip was one of the first non-family members they had opened up to in school, and Ann was the first non-family or teacher adult they had confided in. Azazel was over at her place to hangout with Philip almost weekly. So when she saw him flustered she knew something had happened.

She quickly connected the dots between what she heard about Vivian from Theodore, the text from Philip, and the rushing Azazel. Since she didn’t get an SOS from her nephew, she figured the two boys had taken care of the situation, but she still couldn’t help nibbling her bottom lip discreetly every so often throughout the afternoon.

Ann only started to calm down when her phone notifications started going off about the Eccentrics and Alumni group chat. Then Theodore got another text from Philip, this time it was about a “surprise slumber party” that was being held for Vivian and asking Theo to prepare an overnight bag to send with Ann. Ann knew ahead of time thanks to the group chat and ran with the story her nephew had come up with.

Theodore pouted that he was left out of the surprise, so Ann had to remind him about his tendency to let things slip when he was really excited. Once Theodore was taken care of she sent a text to Philip that he had better explain everything when she dropped off the overnight bags.

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Theodore sat down at the benches that were between the school's front parking lot and the public playground. They were worn down now, but they still brought back so many memories of waiting for Ari to come pick him up from drama club practice.

Theo’s parents didn’t have time to come and pick him up right as he got out of practice, so Ari had offered to fetch him everyday and bring him to his place until they could come get him. They didn’t see anything wrong with it at the time so they quickly agreed. Aristotle Lawson came from a respectable household after all, so he must also be a gentleman. Not to mention he grew up beside Theodore so he had met Theo’s parents several times already.

Little did they know at the time that Ari had just started to go down the wrong path and get mixed up with the wrong group of people. He still brought Theodore back to his house, but after Theodore was safely escorted back he stayed less and less often. He would go to a whole bunch of ragers the next town over that his upperclassmen had invited him to, and as time went by he slowly started actually being labeled as one of the delinquents. Then, due to his association with Ari, Theodore also got labelled a delinquent, even though Ari refused adamantly to let Theodore get anywhere close to the trouble that he was a part of.

The worst thing of that time was the fights Aristotle would get in. Theo already started to feel disconnected from Aristotle, but it got worse each time Ari would show up in front of these benches with cuts, bruises, and a bloody nose, yet just brush it off as nothing. Theo would constantly try to pry out as much info as he could from Ari, yet get nothing. He could only find out exactly what went down each time later from Mari’s boyfriend Tristan. As the situation started to slowly escalate, Theo started to see some fights first hand at the school, and still Ari just took a nonchalant approach to everything.

Thinking back to Aristotle’s fighting phase, Theodore remembered one more person he was nervous about seeing again. One that the longer he waited the harder, and more painful, it was probably going to be. Before he could actually dwell on them and how to actually go about greeting them later, Aristotle jogged out with his briefcase barely closed, and his tie blowing behind him with the small amount of wind.

Theodore stood up and chuckled. “And here I thought you had already fully emerged from the cocoon of teenager years as a fully professional, no hair out of place, professor type.” Theodore pulled the tie that had wrapped around back to the front and straightened it.

“I did too, but lately I’ve found myself back to the clumsy preteen that you fell in love with all those years ago.”

“As long as the muddled delinquent goop doesn’t show itself, it’s fine.” Theodore didn’t mean to show a slightly pained look, but he did. He wanted to erase those years for both of them and not bring it up, but it was still a gaping hole in their relationship that left them both on rocky ground.

Theodore glanced at Ari, to see that his face had also fallen. Obviously worried that Theodore really hadn’t forgiven him and was just back to finally take revenge for the crap that he had dragged Theodore through.

Theodore tried to bring it back to the happy moment they had been sharing right before the elephant came crashing itself into the conversation. “So your place or mine? I’m sure we both have a lot to catch up on since I’m sure a lot has happened in your life in these past fifteen years we haven’t seen each other. Plus I would also bet you are curious about Vivian as well.”