"They can have me all they want," he said, turning to Ivy with a childish smile creeping up his face. "But I guess you're right. We will have to go deeper into it before we can actually make a mark on these people. It does entail great effort to do so, after all."
It seemed that today was a little more enjoyable. He knew he was against being with her all this time, but the excitement proved to be something new. Today, however, Ivy seemed mellower. He couldn't shake the feeling that he wanted something more than Ivy giving in. He wanted her to resist. It was what gave her that spark; that excitement that he'd longed for all of his life. As she lay her chin on his knee, his previous thoughts had disappeared. Nothing had really changed, after all. She was still trying to make him give in. Might as well play along again; hopefully any feeling of annoyance he had toward her would just go away and be replaced with a happy nonchalance.

"More and more raids everyday," he said blankly. He pulled out the pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lit it, taking a nice, slow drag, feeling the tobacco fill his lungs before he took an equally slow, deep exhale, the smoke forming delicate shapes in the air. "Absolute bullshit."

"Want a smoke?" he said, pulling out a cigarette and pointing it at her.

"You quit?" he said amusedly, as if he'd heard something funny. "Two... Or Three days ago I saw you smoke, and now you quit? How droll. Besides--" he paused for a moment to stretch out a bit, shifting Ivy's position in the process before sitting back up again. "-- nicotine patches are extremely hard to come by, what with the very little market and equally little want to quit burning one's lungs out with a nice, long drag." The following statement caught him unawares. There he went again, the laughs coming up from his throat and into the mildly windy air, a softer laugh that resembled his father's contagious one. Not that anyone knew that, of course.

"The thought of thinkpol like us getting better at our jobs is a dreadful thought," he said, not an ounce of worry in his tone. "Some of them have been breathing down my neck ever since I met you on the sidewalk that day. People are growing too suspicious these days."

"So's the world we live in, but here we are. A pack of cigarettes don't mean anything but battered lungs and a one-way ticket to the hospital. Life can kill you much, much..." he paused for a moment, enjoying the cloud of smoke rushing through his lungs. "...faster. So have a smoke. We'll die, anyway."

The look on her face that followed surprised him greatly. This girl was hard to go through. She had the smuggest of looks when he'd first had a conversation with her that night they first met. That spark in her eyes had disappeared. All he could see now was worry. Genuine worry like all the other pitiful fools in this world they lived in. He couldn't stand to look at her, his gaze shifting quickly to provide at least some excuse. "Leave it?" he said, raising an eyebrow at her sudden show of what he considered to be weakness. "No, we can't just let the dust settle. Not that quick. As you are probably aware, I have no regard for my safety whatsoever. All I need to do is to at least try and help this godforsaken Earth."

He stamped out the fire from whatever was left of the cigarette he had and immediately pulled another one out of his pocket. "We are rebels. You choose to feel the freedom of it, I'm looking for someone who's willing to help. We all have to do the bullshit work that is given to us. We signed up for this. I see no need to turn back now. Yes, we can wait, but we can plan. It's... It's just so hard to figure out how."

"I see," he said, nonchalantly taking a look around as he leisurely took another puff. "But if you're planning to carry on with this, I would suggest you get off that edge. One, you would either suffer multiple broken bones, ruptured organs, concussions, and-or a broken spinal cord, thereby rendering you unable to walk or move. We can't have ourselves in bad shape now, can we? Second, if you continue to walk nearer, what is the entire point of you requiring my help? Would you not want to help drive in our cause and take down the government? Honestly, Ivy, with this behavior, I could have easily mistaken you for someone giving up.

"Now please, come here before I consider pushing you off myself," he joked, the tiniest of laughs escaping as he stamped out his cigarette on the bench. He stood up, reached out a hand to hold hers, and with mild force, took her back to the seat to get back to their... Conversation. As soon as he realized his hand was still locked with hers, he calmly let go to stretch out. He let out a small groan as he stretched out and relaxed, continuing to stare at the sky.

"Perhaps," he said seriously, though it didn't appear so as he appeared as if he was just a woolgathering young school boy. "Perhaps we should look into details. We have to figure out this entire place, every inch of it. Figure out where their weak spot is. But, seeing the situation now, it looks as if there aren't any."

Amusement filled him as he heard her reply. It would just be fun to tease this girl, he thought. Maybe unscrew a few screws. "I wholeheartedly dedicate myself to the cause," he said proudly. "But I amuse myself too much. I should be serious. Very, very... Serious." And a few laughs came rolling out again. But as he heard her idea about finding others like them, who had the same mentalities as they did about the government, he couldn't help but agree. Immediately, he became serious. "We have a chance," he said. "Now, there is no safety in numbers, but at least we can all try to make a lasting impression that way."

Intently, Victor listened. While Ivy hid her unamusement behind her fringe, he hid the same seriousness and caution he had when he'd first met her under his amusement. "The look? If you can tell, then we must be sorely mistaken about him. However, the matter about letting him in is truly grave indeed. Things we have shared between the two of us should only stay between the two of us. Matters that could possibly be leaked to the government. We cannot have that."

He put a hand of reassurance on her shoulder and pulled away soon after. "We have time. Let us think. For now, let us loathe our surroundings."

He wouldn't lie -- his companion's comments were amusing him too much. Was their situation sad enough to make everything about it risible? Or was it the opposite? Here they were, musing on things everyone else thought about everyday, but not having a single clue as to how to topple down the government. There were just so many ideas in Victor's head that it probably would've exploded at any moment, but all of them were too risky. He'd decided that maybe now wasn't the time to be thinking about those. Sometime else, when this Ivy were to prove her trustworthiness. How sad, though. He'd never really thought about trusting her.

And there, after that few seconds of silence between the two, the awkward question came tumbling out of her sweet little mouth. He didn't know whether to fight back sobs, burst out laughing, scream in rage not unfamiliar to him or to simply just ignore her question. But then, he had to answer. It was what people back then had considered "politesse". His was... Well, let's just say that his attempts at making polite gestures weren't exactly the best, considering the people around him were practically devoid of any real politeness, and that made it hard for him to emulate that long-desired trait.

"I have," he said, staring out at the distance much like Ivy did, before turning to her and giving her a thousand mile stare. Not that she'd ever notice. "Several times." Again, he reached for another cancer stick, as if declaring nonchalantly his desire to die. "Three wiped out from existence. I was away from the scene, much like you were. It was god awful, but well, nobody knows what god awful is until you've lost something dear to you. Most of them haven't even grown up with anything 'dear'. I doubt they even know what 'dear' means. Or 'precious'. Some left out of fear. One went to Hate Week. Never came back to me after that. Life is full of shit. What we have to face."

At her first reaction, he felt surprised, but somehow unsurprised at the same time. He'd expected her surprise at his truly showing that he had humanity in him, however much he had left, but he'd never really seen anyone else's faces light up like that. At the moment, he was thankful to have her to talk to. It just took him miles away from his dreary, ordinary life.

He chuckled through a semi-pained face at her witty reply. "Ah, Ivy. There's more to love than you know. You'll have to find out for yourself."

Over time, he'd come to warm up to 
Ivy. She was unlike any girl he'd come to know. She was a smart, cunning young woman with a sense of humor. But she was like any other young woman who was raised in those environs. She didn't know much about being, well, human. To live for Big Brother was all they knew. Somehow, that depressed him more. For now, she would have to do. 

He'd finally found a friend. He'd shown a part of his trust to her, something rare in him. But he'd remain vigilant.

"A view of what's inside everyone's heads," he replied honestly. "Starting off with yours." He laughed gently. He hadn't had a fag in hours, but was tempted at the moment to do so.