So we meet for the first time Whose Expanse is this anyway ?
Dean mulls over what Barbara says. He crunches down some bacon, a few forkfuls of eggs, washes it down with some juice. As he cuts up his pancakes he shrugs.
"You know, with the tech that Skye has here for implanted learning you could free up a lot of that studying time and have more time for a social life, you know, get out and have fun and not have to be hitting the books all the time. Betcha you'd have guys falling all over you if you weren't cloistered away in the library all the time. I never went to college. I barely got my GED. That was the best I could do, what with being in juvie as much as I was."
He wolfs down a few more bites. "Surprised? Horrified? Well, it's the typical story. Mom got pregnant with me and dad became a ghost as soon as he found out. Things were good when I was little, me and mom...but I was always kind of a freak. Way too strong, way too tough. Mom got into this weird religious new-age something-bigger-out-there kinda stuff, and she started drinking because she could never quite seem to find it, whatever she was looking for. Around eleven I started acting out, by thirteen I was a bad kid. Real bad. Always fighting, running with a bad crowd, in and out of juvenile detention. Mostly in. That's where I was when my mom was killed. I was sixteen, and this big eighteen year old that bullied everyone started saying shit about her cause it was on tv. I beat him so bad he was in a coma, almost died. Because of my repeat offender status they were looking at charging me as an adult, and I was looking at twenty years for attempted murder. Judge gave me one chance, enlistment. I went into the marines, and they taught me stuff that decent people shouldn't know, but they turned me against the bad guys, terrorists. I went special forces right outta boot camp. Spent six years in the corps doing things I wish I could forget sometimes. Finally I walked away from it, went back to New Orleans, started working at Vixens, trying to figure out who killed my mom in my off time. Trying to do enough good to erase the bad I did before that."
He looks up from his plate, looks Barbara in the eyes. "I got a lot of flaws, and I don't know why I'm the way I am, but I'm still a freak, but I'm trying to be better."