Oh, it's infuriating. Everything just... all the walls he spent so long building, all his life in fact, knocked flat by a snot-nosed child. A child who also happened to be him.

He stares down at his lap, rotating the child he was in his mind like some people rotate puzzle boxes in the tips of their fingers. So defensive, so prepared, so clever, damn it, and all of it destroyed the moment someone....

Again, he bites his lip. This time, he doesn't unpick it. "You know that isn't how it works," he says quietly, cold rather than cruel; Raven can probably tell he's going through the motions. "The differences between your friend and I should have been moderately obvious, and I don't mean that I'm past puberty and he's not."