Somewhere along the line between one class and the next, Violet just stopped.

She's being bad. She's skipping class.
She's sitting at a table in a remote corner of the library,... and she's trying not to be seen. She doesn't want to get caught, not that any of her professors know her by name, and they wouldn't be wandering around here anyway unless they were skipping class, too.
(Which is highly unlikely, in case you hadn't guessed.)
All the same, Violet doesn't plan on leaving this corner for a while. She's drowsing over a thin dog-eared paperback, idly flipping pages whenever she feels like it, regardless of whether she's actually read them or not. Incidentaly, this is a book for the class she's not in at the moment.
Just because she's skipping the class, doesn't mean she wants to fall behind...

"Hey."
Keye has an hour between the last one and the next one.
"What's up?"

There's something different about him. It's very slight. Hardly noticeable.
(He tried to comb his hair this morning.)

Though Keye's managed to sneak up on her, she doesn't jump.
Odd as it sounds, she's actually gotten used to it.

"Hey." Violet blinks up at him. Her smile's a little slow to come, having been given a lower priority while she tries to figure out why he looks different. She gives up before very long, and lets the smile grow. "Oh, you know. Just everything."
Gleefully, and a little guiltily, she adds, "Skipping class. I didn't feel like going." Pause. "How 'bout you? Are you feeling better?"

"You're skipping?" He giggles; Violet's being bad.

"Me?" Blink. "Oh. Oh, uh, yeah. Way better, thanks." Awkward grin. "I mean, really, thanks. Seriously."

Vi gives a nervous little laugh. "Hush, you."

"It was nothing." She shrugs, folds the book in her hands. "You'd do the same for me."
And she never, never, never wants to be in a situation where that's required.

"Of course."
Rapid nodding.
"But that won't ever happen."
'Cause it would suck too much.

"So what'cha been up to lately? Besides, you know..." he raises his eyebrows and leans in. "Skipping class."

"Right. It won't."
Saying things wiith certainty makes them true, of course.

"Um, well... classwork," she replies, with a wry grin, "A lot of it. And making sure Arthur does his. Oh. And-"
Now a thoroughly displeased sort of grimace.
"-My parents want me to come home for the weekend."
Snort.
Wanted her to come home? No.
Ordered her to, yes.

"You would do homework while you were skipping class. Is Arty doing good? Is he over his cold yet?"
This is crucial, for self-defense lessons to commence.

"They do?" he makes a face, since she doesn't seem too pleased about it. "How come?"

"Not yet. He actually had to stay home from school yesterday. He's better today, though."

She rolls her eyes. "I don't know. Might be because they haven't seen me in a couple of months and they want to make sure I haven't been hooked on drugs or gotten any facial piercings." Vi laughs again, but it's a small and rather pathetic laugh this time. "I made the mistake of telling them Dave drives a motorbike."

"Well, that's good. When he's all the way better, I can start teachin' him."
He nods slowly.
"Aw, man. It's that bad to them?" he sticks his tongue out. "Man, you should get a lip ring. Piss 'em off."
He contemplates this for a moment.

"Actually...don't. It hurts like a bitch."

"Nnngh. No." She covers her mouth with a hand, as if it's already done. "If I were going to do something to piss them off, facial piercing wouldn't be it." Pause. "Maybe I'll get a tattoo, though. Something small."
Evidently she's feeling rebellious today.

"...Teaching him what, exactly?"
No one told her anything about Keye teaching Arty anything...

"Those hurt too."
He has a little one. It's not a place he could show Violet, but he has one.
"But tattoos are better 'cause they can't get ripped out." He grins, proud to impart this little bit of wisdom.

"Huh? Oh, did I not tell you? I was gonna teach Arty a little bit of fighting, y'know, to defend himself. Seems important, 'specially since he got his shoulder dislocated. Plus he's pretty small." Wouldn't want him getting killed again.

"I know, but - eww, bad mental image." Violet winces. "Yyyeah. I'd definitely get a tattoo rather than a piercing, even if it hurt. Don't know what I'd get, though. I need to think on that."
If she's going to get a tattoo to piss off her parents, it's at least going to be one she likes.
"...You're going to teach him how to fight."
She's not sure how she should feel about this. On one hand - defense is good, and she can't protect him all the time (or at all, says a little voice inside). On the other hand, he's small and not very strong, and teaching him to defend himself might result in his going looking for trouble, finding it, and getting in over his head.
"I don't know if that's such a good idea, Keye."

Keye has his unintentional puppy 'what did I do wrong?' look on.
"How come?"

"Well,...this is Arty we're talking about."
A smirk tugs at a corner of her mouth.
"He overdoes everything. If you teach him how to fight, he's going to want to go find someone to practice on."

"He c'n practice on me."
Keye will warn him not to go looking for trouble! And of course Arty will listen, why wouldn't he?

Hmm, it couldn't be because he hardly ever listens to anyone without bribery or threats being involved?

"I'm sure he will." She nods, and the smirk vanishes. "Just... I don't know. I'm afraid he'll get overconfident,...do something stupid again. Like he always does."

Keye deflates.
"...but how's he gonna be able to protect himself?"
People take advantage of a little kid like that, they hurt him and...

Keye might be connecting himself with Arty a bit too much.

"I...I thought it was a good idea. I thought it would help."

"I'm sure you did." Vi offers a smile.
See? She's not mad.
"I don't know." She sighs, and shakes her head. "I - if you can teach him how to defend himself and keep him from thinking he's invulnerable because of it, then seriously, go right ahead."

"The easiest way to do that would be to punch him in the face every now and again, but I won't do that." He frowns. "I dunno how to talk 'im, I'm not good with words."

"He wouldn't listen." Violet's quite confident she knows him, now isn't she? "Maybe you should punch him in the face every so often."
Pause.
"Kiding." Yet another pause. "Or you could just threaten to stop teaching him."
See, it's all threats and bribes. It's rare that anything else works.

"I don't wanna threaten him."
On the other hand, he couldn't go on teaching Arty with a clean conscience, if Arty seemed like he was going to go off and pick fights or something, because then Keye would just be blithely allowing him to get hurt.
Too difficult!

Vi shrugs a shoulder and restlessly taps her book against the desk.

"Okay, so then you should - oh, who am I kidding. I don't know."
She was not cut out for dealing with a brat like Arty. She'd like to think she knows what to do with him, but quite frankly, she doesn't.

"Can't win--he's either gonna get hurt because he can't defend himself," and yes, that is absolute certainty, "Or he's gonna get hurt because he thinks he can and goes looking for trouble."
He sighs, resting his head in both hands.
"Fuck."

"Yeah," Vi agrees. "What you said."
Sigh.

"...You know what? Teach him anyway." She reaches up and nudges his arm. "At least then if something happens, he'll have a chance."

"It doesn't always work that way. He'll be able to deal with a random attack better, but if you hit the right kinda person lookin' for a fight, you're liable to get knifed or shot."

It's worth noting that this is Bayfield, not New York City, and Keye is perhaps being a little paranoid.
It's still not safe, though. After all, there's always the chance that you run into someone like Logan or Douglas or Enrique.

"Yeah. Maybe."
Vi chews on her thumbnail, biting until it starts to hurt.
"We'll just have to make sure he doesn't go looking for it." She wilts a little. "Somehow."

"I guess everyone figures you're entitled to be stubborn when you get old. At ninety...we're only surprised 'cause he looks like a kid."
Sigh.
Doesn't make it any easier.
Doesn't make it any safer for Arty.

Absently, he taps her hand. "Don't do that."

She just laughs. "I never thought of him as old. I think he's just making it up as he goes along,... there's no way someone that old can be that stupid." Pause. "Okay, that was mean. But seriously. There's just no way."
Vi take her thumb away from her mouth and looks at it for a moment - she hadn't even noticed what she was doing.
"Oops."

"He's not stupid, he's dumb." There's a difference!

One eyebrow quirks upwards.
"...What's the difference?"

I don't think Arty would be all that pleased with this conversation. No one would, really.

"Well, I'm not stupid."
Beat.
"Actually, I am. I didn't use to be. But I did use to be really dumb which is part of the reason why I'm stupid now. But I'm not dumb as I used to be."
This makes sense, I swear!

There's a shadow of comprehension in her eyes,... no, wait. It was just a blink.

"I don't get it."

"I wasn't stupid, but I did dumb shit. I took drugs and picked fights and stuff and drank."
A lot.

He was basically a delinquent.

"Ohhh." And now it starts to make sense. "...I see."
Keye's past frightens her a bit. She wonders sometimes what keeps him from going back to it.
"I,...god, I hope Arty never gets into any of that."

Sometimes, it's a fight not to go back. Sometimes he remembers that he doesn't ever want to be in that place mentally ever again. Sometimes it's as simple as the physical distance from where it all happened.

"Me too." he nods solemnly. "Worries me."
Arty reminds him of himself.

"You'd think he'd know better." Pause. "If he's actually as old as he says he is. He can't have lived to be that old without seeing a few things, but, y'know, I've never asked him."
...
"Oh. That reminds me." Deep breath, now, Vi. "Um,... you know how I said my parents want me to go visit them this weekend? They asked me to bring Dave with me, so..."
She squirms a bit. She hates to ask, but it wouldn't really be fair to unleash Arty on some hapless babysitter. Not that it's really fair to do this to Keye, either, but... "Do you think you could possibly babysit Arty for us while we're gone, please?"

Oh, shit.

To Keye's credit, he gets the blank look of shock under control fairly quickly
"Uh...Vi, I...really, it doesn't bother me, but...I...I'm not the one you wanna put that kinda trust in." he shrugs uncomfortably, looking at his hands. "I'm only just figuring out if I can keep a houseplant alive."

"Well, Arty's not a houseplant. He can at least feed himself."
She looks pleadingly at him. Please, Keye? Pleeeease?
"I know this is a lot to ask, but I don't know anyone else who can take him," Violet explains, knotting her fingers together to keep from chewing on her fingernails again. "Just keeping an eye on him,... that's not so hard since he's come back, you know."
Pause.
"...I'll tell him not to give you trouble?"
Pretty please?

Keye wrings his hands.
"But Violet...can't you take him too? I...I know I'm not up for that, I'm just...I'm not...not stable enough to trust myself. And...and if something happened, I'd never forgive myself..."