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"Leo, as emotionally constipated as ever," Grace guffawed, her chin raised defiantly as she took a step forward. It wasn't an insult, really; more of a provocative statement to shift the mood from boring. She ruffled the wealth of Jasper's white-and-black tresses -- barely contained in a red hair tie -- and gestured for Lucien to enter with her free hand. The boy, who had been tangibly pouting, brightened at the sight of Leon and stretched out two proportionately excited arms.

"Leeeooo!"

Grace, who had growled and pointedly rolled her eyes, pulled at the sleeves of her faded hoodie and swaggered forward, her ripped jeans tearing underneath her heels. Jasper followed closely behind with an expression that echoed frustration and displeasure at the prospect of even being here; forget the fact that he was barely stringing coherent sentence together, this kid was pissed and it was obvious. Grace, who had moved to lean a dirty elbow against the wall, raised an eyebrow at the white-eyed boy who had stretched forward, hesitated and smiled a louche smile before saying:

"You look like a person's a**."

"No," Grace replied meditatively, shifting her gaze to Tristan. "Apparently we're getting both smashed and hammered-- of course, I'm not complaining, but if you'd like to object, Leo? Hum?" She moved to stare pointedly at Leon, her arms crossed over her chest and her chin raised defiantly.

Jasper looked dolefully at Mara, his expression still screaming unadulterated umbrage at the situation. It took him a moment to notice the shyer of the two twins peering timorously from behind his mother's leg, doe-eyed and meek; well, it would be a travesty for him not to antagonize the child. The situation in and around itself was so beautifully constructed it was almost a piece of art.

"You're such a baby," he said bitingly, his lips puckered and his hands on his hips. "Baby, baby, bay-ay-by."

Lucien scrunched his face at Jasper, biting his tongue between his teeth and squashing a finger against his nose, his expression reminiscent of a run-over bulldog. "You're such a jerk-face," he said ruefully, sucking in a breath and looking up at Leon. He raised his arms above his head, artlessly jejune before asking:

"Up? Up? Uuuuup?"

Lucien hugged his arms around Leon's neck and rested his chin against the top of his head, all checkered scarf and innocence and those doe, heterochromic eyes before throwing himself forward and waving a frantic hand at Zephyrus. "It's okay, it's okay, don't worry about Jasper, he's just a Meanie McMean jerk face -- we can play some games like tag or pretend or patty cake."

Jasper clicked his tongue casually at Lucien, unamused by his attempt to comfort the twin. He rolled his eyes and began taking his heavy knot of white hair out, tugging the red band from his tresses and flicking it at his brother with a smug smile. Lucien rolled his face once more, his teeth pushing over his lower lip and his eyes squeezing shut; it was then that he bleeeeeh'd humourlessly at his lesser bred brother, unimpressed. His brother's droll gibes, which had slowly evolved from solely pertaining to him being a girl to a much wider vocabulary of insults, rarely perturbed him anymore. At least he tried to look as cool and unperturbed as possible.

Grace watched on, unconcerned, before nodding brusquely towards her own children. "Later, kids. Give Leo hell -- maybe he'll wake up more interesting."

It took Jasper a moment to realize exactly what was happening, and when he finally did realize, well, he just wasn't pleased at all; as if acting on instinct, Jasper shrieked in aggravated fury and bit down on the offending hand, simultaneously thwarting any efforts of escape by wrapping his small (but surprisingly strong) hands around Leon's wrist; it was then that he yowled his hardest, entirely red-faced and copiously drooling, his feet kicking and stamping in tantrum-rage before he sucked in a deep breath and yelled, much like air-raid siren:

"GET OFF MY FAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!"

Lucien rolled his eyes at his brother's anger seizure and wiggled against Leon's shoulders, determined to face Zephyrus comfortably. "Wha' would yoo like to play?" he asked around his thumb, yumming it happily. "I haff some yoo-ee-corns in my wuffsack if yoo like thum."

He fixed Zephyrus with a meditative smile, pulling his thumb from his mouth with a wet pop before returning it to Leon's neck. His attention as consistent as a broken telephone line, Lucien turned distractedly to Tristan and frowned at his loud and disreputable rummaging: obviously no one had told his that it was rude to so obnoxiously go through someone else's belongings. The boy leant backwards, his balance scarcely falling in his favor, before chirping: "I don't think you should be doing that," his voice was all work and no play, stern and not at all at the age it should be -- which, given his actual age, was hilarious in itself. "That doesn't belong to you."

It was almost like a horrible slow-motion replay; his fingers slipped from Leon's neck, the firm weight against his legs forswore and suddenly Lucien found himself airborne. He reached up his hands and desperately grasped for support that wasn't there, terrified and more than a little bewildered and, out of pure instinct, twisted his body on impact. The floor thudded and Lucien let out a fire-engine wail of jarring pain followed shortly by a gurgling wheeze, twisting like a suffocating fish. It was then that Jasper, who in spite of everything found himself in a very good mood, rushed forward to kneel beside his brother who was now making small huffing noises that may or may not have been please not a wedgie.

The room was suddenly thrown into a strange sort of quiet and awkward -- the quietness of confusion and upset and not knowing what to say in the vacuum afterward. Jasper had placed a hand behind Lucien's back and was gracelessly helping into a sitting position and both children were glaring daggers at Leon -- the two brothers, it seemed, had finally found a common ground; Lucien sulked red-faced at Leon, put-out and betrayed, and Jasper sulked red-faced at Leon because he could.

"We hate you," Jasper announced disparagingly, puckering his lips and squinting his eyes. "We hate you big."

"Don't," Lucien yelled, scuttling backwards like a wounded crab. "Don't."

Jasper flung himself forward to grab his abandoned hair-tie and flicked it, not at Lucien, but at Leon -- the band landing somewhere near his feet. "Can't touch him. He hate you mega-big. We hate you super mega big."

This was slightly unfair considering Leon had done nothing to offend Jasper -- yet there he stood, one eyebrow raised, his arms crossed over his chest and his chin raised provocatively; this was Jasper, everything was a reclaim. Lucien pulled at the sleeve of his jacket; idly, contemplatively, looking away from Leon, fine spikes black hair falling into his face. However, despite himself, his gaze was slowly crawling back to him and he was obviously interested as to what the man would say to explain himself. Jasper's interest had already wandered, his eyes narrowed upon Tristan and the package of purple condoms.

"WHAT'S THAT?" he hollered unnecessarily, slack-jawed and curious.

Lucien disregarded Leon and wiggled himself towards Zephyrus, pausing only to look over his shoulder and sigh exaggeratedly in the man's direction; he was more surprised than he was hurt, but more hurt than he was angry and he needed time to reassess his opinion of Leon. Two minutes at least. After he had returned his gaze to the slightly less obnoxious of twins, Lucien gestured towards his rucksack and gave a small sort of lopsided half-smile that may or may not have been meant to convince the boy that what he was about to propose was perhaps the most amazing thing in the world, ever. "U'corns? Yeah? Yeah? Yeah!"

Jasper stared open-mouthed at Tristan, contemplating the package; he then tackled the boy wholesale, aiming his flailing limbs at the boys hands to grasp at the accordion condoms. Once the tussling of limbs had worked in his favor and he felt his chubby fingers wrap around the packet, unconcerned that his hand was also wrapped around Tristan's, Jasper brought the condoms to his nose and grinned a roguish grin.

"Grace has this in cup-bored. COMBOMS!"