It is childish perhaps, playful, juvenile and yet in these moments the boy is very much the child instead of the man, seeming to have reverted entirely into this fragment of himself, a more gentle, enjoyable side that is so rarely seen beneath the façade of violent intent he wears. He has not aged a day, it would seem, his mind just as it was when his home and pack and family were taken away, as if this moment had defined the creature entirely, as if he has refused utterly to move one without those he had left behind. His body held every mark of his twenty one years, the creature physically a man in every sense of the word and yet so much of him lingered within the past, still a child- as if he had refused to live a childhood alone. He had clung to that part of himself, that beautiful, innocent naivety- waiting perhaps, for the day he was finally reunited with his family, as if he too had expected to find them just as they had been that fateful day, as if he sought to return to the world he had known and pick up exactly where he had left his life on pause and yet....Tetra and Nadya had moved on, grown up or been forced to grow up perhaps, the man unable to understands to some extent this change in his family. He wants them to be children, wants them to be just whom he had lost and perhaps in some ways they are. Tetra is still Tetra, Tobias entirely capable of seeing beneath every layer the older man has covered himself with, just as Nadya is still Naddy. He knows them still, saves this childish side of himself for those few precious moments in which they too are given to be the people he remembers- even if it is only fleeting.

His loyalty, it would seem, has extended far beyond the norm, his fractured existence and broken mind the result of so long spent alone. Perhaps he would have been a different person had Tetradore never been taken, perhaps he may have had a life, a job, a family....something, perhaps he would have been...someone. There are glimpses, on occasion, so rare and fleeting of the man he could have been, a word, a phrase, an action that indicates something or someone existed, once and yet whatever remained was little more than a fragment of what he should have been perhaps, one pressed further and further back with each day he spent beneath Risqué and her determination to crush every part of him that still held any glimmer of spirit. It is merely fortunate perhaps, that the creature is so very good at hiding....himself. So very used to being whom he must be, when he must be it, the truth of his nature so hidden entirely that perhaps the boy himself does not know whom he truly is. He is a selfish being indeed, content to demand things of those around him, to force his personality upon them and yet within the same moment he is....selfless....entirely so, remaining beside Tetradore despite the harm it brings to him, offering to Naddy every bit of money he makes through his desire to please those around him. To be needed perhaps, for something, by someone. Perhaps he cannot chase the monsters from beneath Tetra' bed anymore, but some childish part of him remains determined still- to protect him from the fanged monsters that haunt his nights now.

Her filling in of the next line to the song sees a grin touch his features once more, pleased to understand she knows this tune, this boyish look flickering across his form as he sits abruptly beside her, naked form leaning into the fur of the wolf before she too returns to her human frame- though he hardly seems to notice, attention held upon the dirt beneath him, fingers trailing a pattern within the sand and earth, lips muttering further words with no real meaning, seemingly not having heard her promise not to tell anyone about his moment, dark eyes shifting suddenly towards her with a look of...confusion perhaps, as if he simply does not know what she is talking about, as if he has totally forgotten the past ten minutes of his life. The woman's sudden desire to lie down within the dark grass and beneath that canopy of stars sees his head tilt slightly in curiosity, fingers lifting from the dirt he has been so diligently tracing patterns in as those dark eyes move to regard her as she speaks, asking what else he might like to do. For a moment he remains simply content to stare, expression blank- before he move suddenly to roll onto his knees, kneeling beside her, over her almost as one hand moves to suddenly snatch at her hair, capturing a curled ringlet within his fingers, pulling it softly, before releasing it, snickering in delight at this game he has seemingly invented, evidently entranced in this moment- by her hair, as he toys with it. He moves once more, scrambling about until he kneels just behind her head, leaning over her now, grinning once more in evident delight at this...upside-down position he has found himself in as he leans his head over her still.

"I know a...trick. Do you...want to see?"

He hardly waits for a response, head lowering softly and yet suddenly in that moment to press his lips against her own in an rather unique upside-down kiss, demanding, forceful as always and yet with a sweetened edge sure to catch the girl entirely off guard as his teeth move to nip teasingly at her upper lip before he quite suddenly.....leaps away, a snicker hissing within the air as he lunges, disappearing once more into the lengthy grass behind her, Birdie unable to see unless she has managed to suddenly roll back over, though surely she is too shocked to do so, the world around her silent once more, the boy hidden yet again within the grass somewhere around her......cheeky bastard.

madness, as you know, is like gravity: all it takes is a little push