2.29 Down With Everything

Hanging out at the ice cream parlor. Because why would a snow storm keep this generation from ice cream, when it's a perpetual snow storm that's been going on since they were in diapers?

Aw yeah, snowcones! Reve remembers these from Bridgeport.

Nice of Hidden Springs to finally catch up with the times.

"These snowcone flavors aren't going to review themselves, Newt."

"Dooooorks!" Dexter Abbot makes it known what he thinks of Newton's bookworm trait.

"Hey," a girl greets them.

"Harriet?" Reve stares. "Your parents let you out of the house like that?"

"Like what?" she laughs.

The low-cut shirt, the makeup, the collar thing... the low-cut shirt...

"Like you're hot," Reve sputters.

"We're in high school now," Harriet reminds him. "I need to do my own thing. Express myself. Et cetra."

All Reve sees her expressing is a desperate attempt to ditch her scaredy cat reputation, the one that had people picking on her all through elementary school, but he has no objection to new beginnings.

"Are you going to join art club or anything?" Harriet asks. She's aware of his artistic talents.

"Nah, eff that noise," Reve tries to sound cool. "I do my own thing, too."

As the two talk, Newton watches, perfectly accustomed to his classmates acting like he doesn't exist.

Jasmine Shawkti. She'll graduate long before Reve does. She has no reason to speak to him or the newly aged-up crop of teens... that's what Reve tells himself, when he's feeling paranoid about how she stands off to the side, unreadable. Literally unreadable. She is able to dim her psychic presence, and shield her thoughts from him. Reve hates to be anywhere near her.

"You okay?" Harriet's question cuts through Reve like a chainsaw. Startles him. She's been talking, he realizes, but he hasn't heard the last three minutes.

"Yep!" Reve recovers, scanning her mind for the response she wants, though not deep enough to know why she wants it. "I completely understand where you're coming from."

"Only raccoons understand her pain!" Dexter mocks Harriet's heavy makeup.

Jasmine watches the human teens interact.

Her expression doesn't even twitch. No smiles. No frowns.

For a moment, Harriet seems to look at Jasmine... but really, Harriet is looking at the door, a coward girl plotting her escape route.

"You're just being an asshole for the sake of it now," Reve accuses.

"You want a piece of me, Archer? I'll gut your soft little body like a fish."

The absurdly violent comment stuns Reve into silence, but only for a moment. "The fuck is wrong with you?!"

"Just leave Harriet alone," Newton grumbles. "Seriously."

"Look at you two white knighting," Dexter laughs derisively. "Pathetic."

Harriet, terrified of confrontations, has already escaped.

With another chocolate ice cream.

Check sink!

Sink check!

Check all the sinks in town!

"I think playing this game is making my nerd score higher," Reve grumbles.

Newton ignores the weird comment. "What are your parents doing?"

Reve glances at Finley and Junpei. "One, my uncle is not my father. That's disgusting. Two, they're trying to embarrass me into an early grave, I think?"

Dignity? What's that?

While dancing, they are having an important political discussion.

"We're voting for Vanderburg again, right?"

Too young to vote, but inspired all the same, Reve wastes most of the next morning recording himself protesting things. School was canceled due to heavy snow, again, so he didn't have anything better to do anyway.

DOWN WITH EVERYTHING.

Later, Reve is out for round two of operation Deface Colby's.

This time, Reve's antics attract attention from the cops, instead of from girls.

Reve seems overly ecstatic about his new criminal record.

Officer Smith drops Reve off at the Archer residence, no doubt expecting Finley or Junpei to administer justice with a strong scolding.

"You're not really going to punish me, are you? I was only expressing my artistic side."

"Meh." Junpei shrugs, not really up to administering justice today.

Reve nods. "Okay. We're cool then."

Interviewing teenagers. Slow news day, Finley?

Reve takes his turn talking to Parley. She was clumsy and awkward as a child, but she thinks she can overcome those stage presence problems and be a famous singer someday. "My parents have loads of connections," she reminds him. "I'm Parley Colby."

"I've never heard you sing," Reve says.

Parley smiles flirtatiously. "We'll have to rectify that. There's going to be an open mic on Friday."

Jasmine!

Oh, like we didn't have enough pictures of Junpei playing with magic.

If only Junpei's magic could make the snow go away.

Newton wasn't invited to stay the night, but once his butt hits the rocking chair he's out like a light, and nobody is interested in chasing him home.

Officer Smith has been parked outside for a couple of days now.

Over time (and without Junpei's magic), the snow stops falling, the ground thaws, and things begin to look... green.

Junpei is ridiculously happy about the return of the wildflowers.

The kids are just confused.

"It's so..." Julie struggles for words. "Green. Like someone puked all over the place."

"I guess we're all gonna die," Reve says casually.

"I remember things looking like this, actually!" Thisbe Vanderburg chimes in. "Maybe now we'll be like other towns again."

"Well I've seen it look like this too." Newton shrugs. "In pictures."

"Speaking of pictures," Julie mutters, glancing towards Reve and his camera, "Are you ever without that thing?"

Reve grins and points the camera at Thisbe. "I call this one... surveying her father's kingdom."



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Etc.: I don't know what the point of the cop dragging Reve home was. Nobody yelled at Reve. And then the cop sat there in his car just outside the house... and never left. He's still there.