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"Kinda. He was with us when we did the whole barricade in the lighthouse bit," Dawson explained. "Him n' Maebe. But mosta what I know's from her since they used t'date. N' yeah, she gotta sharp tongue, but she honest like you. So."

He braced both hands around a water bottle and tapped his fingers idly against it. "M'jus' sayin', you ever get in the datin' scene? Make sure they ain' the cheatin' n' runnin' away when ya need 'em most type, kay?" Dawson was careful to use gender neutral pronouns. The island was slowly teaching him to be mindful of those now.

"You got a good head, though," he went on with a fond smile. "Don' think yer someone I gotta worry 'bout s'far s'that's concerned."

"'Course I know that," Dawson said with a snort. "I gather my own info. s**t, I wouldn' be friends with some people f'I only took what people said 'bout 'em at face value. M'jus' sayin' he's a stupid selfish p***k, n' I'm waitin' fer the day that goes n' blows up in Chance's face so I could say toldja so."

But the words sounded a little too harsh in retrospect. Pursing his lips, he went on, "Well, not like tha', obviously. Not prayin' fer bad s**t on Freddie or nothin'. Jus' sayin' I warned him." He snorted again. "Not like tha' matters, y'know. Alla us, we some kinda awful stubborn..."

Dawson drank some more water and considered it for a moment.

"You hear anyone talk about clones, Cap'n?"

He froze for a moment at the first comment and then gave a half-hearted laugh, as if it had taken him a moment to understand she had been teasing.

"What'd you hear?" he asked. "Seen any personally?"

"Mmhmm." He nodded grimly. "Lotta people I know dont got good experiences with 'em. Me, though, uh..." He hesitated, trying to decide how to phrase it. Dawson scratched under his chin using the water bottle cap.

"I saw one in passin' on a mission, a while back. Different from the others. Like, uh..." He gesticulated like it somehow helped explain himself. "Normal ones got just like this one thing from the original they fixate on, but this one was almost the 'zact same when I, uh, engaged it...N' it weren't a bad danger or nothin'. Just had the same memories n' s**t. So I guess what m'tryna say is, uh, keep yer guard up but don', like...I dunno. Write 'em off completely I guess?"

Dawson fidgeted. "S'not a popular opinion 'round here, but fightin' students s'kinda the same. They ain' all bad, I think."

He paled in fear and immediately summoned his weapon, knocking over the food in his lap as well as the water bottle. The panic he had seen when people had thought Rep was a clone a while back made him worry of starting something else.

"Her name is Syn," Dawson started babbling quickly, "She's a chimera, she knows like ancient Greek o-or some s**t, she makes an extra shield when she got a charge--"

He gave a shuddering sigh of relief and desummoned Syntyche back into her bone necklace totem. "Sawry," he said automatically, knowing he shouldn't have panicked like that. But this was serious s**t.

Dawson's brow furrowed as he picked up his mess. "They're fine," he replied. "S'not really somethin' I wanna talk about, Cap'n, if y'don' mind. Just wanted t'put that open mind thing out there s'all; not erryone gives it a chance here." He sighed again, smaller, less positively. "Hate all this gray area s**t. They made it sound like we just had the one clear thing t'do: get rid a'all these shadow things n' be done with it."

He gave her an apologetic look. "Lemme rephrase. I ain' allowed t'talk about it more." Dawson dragged a hand anxiously down his chin and neck, continuing, "I shouldna mentioned it at all, t'be honest. Classified s**t from Ms. Edith n' stuff. Otherwise, hell, you know me, Cap'n, I'd blab six ways t'Sunday all about it to ya." Maybe this had been a bad idea. He should have known better than to try and do only partials with Claude.

"F'you care 'bout me at all, you won' mention I talked anythin' 'bout that t'no-one, okay?"

One could see the metaphorical sweat he suffered under that gaze. He exhaled only after Claude crossed her heart.

"Naw, you look like the kind who'd beat someone up with them killer looks," he joked. "Thanks, though, Cap'n, ferreal. Dawson raised his waterbottle like it was a glass of wine. "Now let's you n' me savor this nice day 'fore some titan comes n' ruins it or some s**t."