“It’s okay…” Dearan said slowly, trying to weigh his options. Ultimately he decided to go with it. “I can pick locks. Do you have a hairpin?”

Stephan looked up, at his short hair then replied, “Nope…”

“A pen?”

“Yup!” Stephan said, surprised that Dearan knew so much about picking locks, but he wasn’t going to question their good luck.

Dearan took a deep breath, taking the pen. He knew nothing about picking locks so he needed to make sure Stephan didn’t catch on. “I can’t concentrate if you are watching me.”

Stephan, blushing, turned away, Dearan put the pen behind his ear, envisioned the insides of the lock turning, moving, being pressed down like he had so many times before at his own home. He heard the familiar click before he let Stephan turn around.

Stephan couldn’t help but ask, “How do you know how to pick locks so fast?”

Dearan picked up the stuff he had had to set down, before nonchalantly said, “I forget my house key often,” he didn’t want to straight out lie to Stephan.

“Handy.”

**

After Dearan got his stuff all into the room Stephan set him up in, he went to the living room. The house didn’t have much personality, just a grey couch and a bland wooden coffee table to bring home the lifeless aesthetic. Stephan was not in the main area so Dearan looked around. The only thing that seemed to show any personality was a door with old stickers on it. It had ones from Dicney, My Little Horsey, Steamy the Bear, and a lot more.

Dearan had to chuckle at what he assumed must be Stephan’s door. The larger boy had a sort of tough-guy reputation, even though it seemed to be just rooted in how he hadn’t often reached out to others if their peers saw this his reputation would be completely flipped.

Dearan started peeking around a bit further. He found a bathroom with a weird toilet. It had a little panel under the sink ledge, and it was at an angle. After their long ride, he decided that using the toilet wasn’t the wasn’t a bad idea.

He preferred to sit down while peeing because he thought pee flecks going around a bathroom was disgusting and real. So, sitting down he opened his phone and opened his comics and novel app immediately… as one does.

He read all the updates on his subscriptions, getting all giddy when two of his favorite characters kissed for the first time. Sure they were tired and the author would probably be evil and not let them remember but it was still so wholesome and cute.

He then realized he had been in the bathroom a bit too long. He hurriedly looked for toilet paper. He only saw an empty roll on the little paper holder thingy. 

“Well fuck…” Dearan sighed to himself.