[PurpleBox]

Ian and Tristan had never gone to school….well Ian had been to kindergarten, learning all the colors numbers and shapes… he never got farther than that, the outbreak, or the Reckoning as some had taken to calling it happened the summer before he was to start grade 1. Their mother had done her best to teach then, she had been a teacher after all before the end of the world, Tristan’s father had done his best to teach the boys how to keep in shape to stay alive in this new cruel world. The young ginger man had a routine he kept to unless he was planning on going outside the brick walls of the city.

After he had woken Tristan up to start the routine the brothers had a small breakfast before taking the stairs up to the roof for some exercise, stretches and some yoga from a book that Ian had found after their mother had passed away. Then it would be laps around the rooftop, Ian on the outer rim, the ginger would never put his younger brother in danger like that… though he had to admit that Tristan was rather bendy and quick for his age. Skinny too… though who wasn’t nowadays.

The siblings paused when they got to the roof, seeing another person from the apartments there already, and Ian knew that this man had not been here just an hour ago. A faint memory from a few days ago came to time… someone who had gone out with the soldiers had not come back… leaving their apartment with only one occupant… a younger brother, that made a small pain lance into Ian’s heart….One of the reasons he never went out under military watch was because they tended to overlook the normal citizens that came out with them… favoring their own over those they were supposed to protect.

The young man before them was a stark difference to the two brothers, where Ian and Tristan where pale and lightly colored, Tristan more then Ian as the ginger man had a very light tan form his time outside. The man before them was dark skinned with knotted hair...dreadlocks was the name that came to mind.

“Sorry, we didn’t think anyone else would be up here yet.” Ian said calmly, his accent was not common that was for sure, Ian’s mother and father had been scottish, Tristan’s was weaker as he’d had less time with their mother who used to sing old scottish lullabies to the two brothers. It was a little known fact in the apartment that Ian could get outside the walls...could get his freckled hands on things that the military counted as contraband, old books, guns, and he sometimes smuggled things out to drop points in the wild space outside the city now.

As he could do all this and didn’t charge a arm and a leg, the apartment residents don't tattle on his to the military. The McLocke brothers kept to themselves as best they could while being friendly without making actually friends, favors yes, but not friends. Ian had a jagged scar over his hip that was from the last ‘friend’ the brother’s had… Ian’s old partner that had left Ian for dead after attacking him. The only place Ian refused jobs from was sector 8, the sector his old partner resided… in this city… it boiled the ginger’s blood when he had to even get close to sector 8.

“Just a couple more Tris, that’s it come on, only 5 more.” Ian was spotting his younger brother who was shakily doing some pull ups on a over hanging pipe on the roof, Ian never pushed his brother to always be fit… just enough to stay healthy as he knew his little brother was more into the old comic books that Ian managed to bring back every time he ventured outside the walls. Green eyes would occasionally move over to the other man on the roof, always cautious about people he didn’t know.

Tristan was panting and his face a little blotchy by the time he was done. “D-Do yo-you thin-think i’ll be able to come with you soon Ian?” Tristan panted out and Ian paused in his own stretching up for the pull up pipe. It was a touchy subject between the brothers now that they had been in this city for a while now.

“Not yet Pup, don’t give me that look, I don’t like you out there… remember the raiders?” Ian said as he began his own pull ups, about 20 more than he’d given Tristan to do. Tristan was pouting as he sat cross legged on the roof, carefully stretching his arms to ease the ache of pulling himself up on the pipe. Bright blue eyes looking over towards the darker skinned man with knotted hair curiously.