The lanky kid then picked up one of his mugs and took a sip from it before folding himself messily into a chair.

“Mr Peers,” Mancock began, “there’s no need to look at me so passionately.” I stole a glance at Duke and saw that he had a ten-mile glare and murder in his eyes. It was rather impassioned, I must admit.

“Mr Babcock, there’s no need to poke the bear,” I warned, since I would feel obligated to intervene if the two fought. It would be a one sided masacre in that case, because Mancock’s facial muscles weren’t the only ones that didn’t work. He looked like a strong gust of wind could knock him over. 

“Mr Tattersall, the bear wouldn’t get poked so often if its reactions weren’t so amusing.”

Well, yes, teasing Duke was pretty fun, but he’s too unstable for it to be fun for very long. In the interest of damage-control, I patted Duke’s head. That calmed him down.

“You two just have your meeting: pretend I’m not here,” I said before getting cut off by Duke and Mancock speaking in unison.

“Impossible,” they both said.

“Jinx, you owe me your best behaviour,” I warned, giving both of them a stern look. That was a tactic I used on my sisters many times before... with mixed results

Duke made some grumbling noise and rubbed his face into my hair.

“Do the girls visit you often? Mav said he wants the five of us to hang out again some time,” Mancock said casually. I figured their meeting wouldn’t be going smoothly while I was there. 

I was right. 

I basically just ended up chatting with Mancock, so the meeting was on hold until I left.

“Your sisters?” Duke whispered into my ear. I nodded. “I want to meet them.”

“Better not. Trin would eat you alive,” Mancock cautioned while taking another sip from his mug. 

“Yeah,” I had to agree. Trin would definitely make Duke cry within five minutes of knowing him. “Oh, speaking of Trin: I think she still has a crush on you,” I told Mancock. Unfortunately for my sisters, they had inherited my taste in men, and that meant they kept falling for gay guys.

“Well, who could blame her?” Mancock said in total monotone. I noticed his eyes briefly glance at Duke and then he placed a hand on his chest in a somewhat sarcastic way. “You know… Soot was my first crush.”

“... What.” I didn’t have to look at Duke to guess what sort of face he was making. His bloodlust just seeped into the room, like some sort of air de-purifier.

“He made me a great cup of coffee once and I was in love until the following Wednesday,” Mancock explained wistfully. I already knew about this because he’d told me at the time, and I knew he was clearly only bringing it up then to piss off Duke.

“Do you have feelings for him?” Duke sternly asked me, his face almost red with rage. I lowered my eyebrows.

“Are you kidding me? He’s a child. A baby. I don’t go for kids,” I firmly responded, my obvious disgust at the idea hopefully not being lost on him.

“I’m twenty-two now, you know.” Mancock ran a hand through his long hair and locked eyes with me. 

“Yeah, and I’m still not a cradle-snatcher.”

“Rejected again,” he said with a sigh. “I hope you plan to pay the drycleaning bill for my tear-stained pillow.” His emotionless face and deadpan voice made that line almost funny. I scoffed at him.

“No way,” I said with a faint smirk.

I then made some vague agreement with Mancock that the next time my sisters visited me, I would let him and Maverick know. While my mouth was doing that, my brain started getting more ideas for my comic, so after I finished speaking I turned to Duke.

"I'm gonna go back to the car: I left my tablet there."

"Head straight there. Tell Frank that I won't be long," he replied, giving me a kiss that's purpose was clearly to state a claim to Mancock. It seemed, and still seems, very silly to me that Duke could feel threatened by an infant like Mancock, but since he had a similar reaction to April, I figured that it didn't take much to make him jealous.

"Are you working on something new?" Mancock asked me, getting up as well to let me out of the door.

"Yeah."

"A comic?"

"Mhm."

"When'll it be finished? I'd love to read it."

"Have you read his other works?" Duke asked, trying his best to not sound as angry as he obviously was.

"Of course. I'm Soot's number one fan: I've read everything. You should really check his stuff out: it's enough to make the Karma Sutra blush."

"Shot in the dark, here," I began, turning to face Mancock. "But are you @honeyTRAP_XO?"

Mancock did a quick exhale from the nose, which was his version of full-blown hysterical laughter. I had no idea that Mancock had been following my works, but it wasn't all that surprising either. I did wonder if I should be embarrassed about it, what with all the graphic sex scenes he has clearly seen, but decided that it was equal parts embarrassing for the artist and the consumer. Since neither of us were embarrassed, that was the end of it.

The fact that he was one of my most loyal patrons did come as a surprise. He had personally commissioned a lot of NSFW works from me. I wasn't sure what to do with that information.

Anyway, I left after that, and got back to the car.

Frank briefly mentioned that his girlfriend enjoyed the milkshake and fries last night. I gave him a thumbs up while I continued working.

When Duke returned to the car, he kept staring at me. I didn't look at him, but did ask what he was staring for.

"You two seem similar," he mused. "But also opposites," he added, scratching his head. He was referring to me and Mancock.

I wondered about that. "People used to say the same thing at school," I told him. "I guess it's because neither of us is very expressive. The main difference is that Mancock is curious about everything, whereas I couldn't care less."

Even in school, Mancock seemed to be constantly asking questions or listening to things. I don't know how, because I didn't care to know, but he had information on practically every student there and their extended family. He occasionally tried to get information from me, and I'm not sure if he enjoyed that or not.

The issue with me was, and is, that I don't really mind telling people things if they ask, but if they don't ask in a specific and direct way then I will mess with them however possible. My dry humour was generally lost on people and came off aggressive, but Mancock did continue to hang around me and ask me questions regardless.

Frank dropped me off at Duke's place and then the two of them went to work.

Before leaving, Duke reminded me to get some rest. But, well, since he didn't return until the next morning, he never found out that I stayed up all night drawing.

He also told me to eat while he was gone, and I actually did remember to do that, though it was only snacks.