There were a hundred things Soren could have said the first time he saw Leo in her regal attire. You look beautiful - because she did, with her braided hair and gown that cinched where it was meant to, the burgundy complimenting her perfectly. How do you feel? - it was fun, the situation they were in, but a bit awkward at that. Or maybe that was just Soren - he didn’t love people gowning him, tugging at his unruly curls and working product into it, slathering creams across his face as if he were suddenly desecrating on the spot and every moisturizer under the sun was the only thing stopping him from wilting away. Wanna go for a smoke? - Leo would scoff at him, and then lecture, again, about how he would die in the next ten years from how much he smoked. But she would have appreciated the excuse to take a breather away from everyone else. Instead, Soren had taken in the sight of her and blurted, “Oh my god, you look like a girl.” A bit mean, the way an older brother was, but that was how Soren viewed her at this point. His baby sister, suddenly and undeniably beautiful, in a way that he couldn’t bat around. Momentarily, he wished they were kids again. He wanted her to be 10, unruly and snapping at him the way she still continued to do to this day, but he longed for the novelty of her attitude. Distantly, Soren recognized that he always ached for their youth when he saw Leo in a different light, because it felt wrong to experience anything new without Reese. But where his brother had carved something ugly and brutal in his trust, Leona had repatched it - it only felt right that Soren bullied her as much as he could, the way any sibling would. “Christ, shut the fuck up,” He immediately blurted, before Leo could even open her mouth - he could read her too well at this point. Soren knew she was ready to snip at him.
He’d shown up late, and when they’d been asked to take a before picture together to compare to the after in their full get ups, he’d been less than cooperative. Cackling under his breath as he continued to present the shocker in one picture, before giving Leo bunny ears in the next. The photographer had eventually smiled commiseratingly at Leona, frustration at the corners of their mouth, before saying they could take a break. They didn’t actually return. Soren had taken it in stride when Leo had reamed him out for it earlier, telling her to relax, to have fun. It didn’t seem like she took his advice in stride. “Come here,” A small demand, holding a hand out towards her from where he sat on the couch in whatever back room of Caesar Hall they’d made up to be a costume area. He was fitted with a cream blouse, donning a cloak that matched the burgundy of Leo’s dress. Their outfits complimented each other perfectly. It was like wearing a Halloween costume - the only difference was that actual care had been done to his hair. Coarse curls had been tamed into something of noble standard, straightened and then moulded into waves. It didn’t really look like him, but Soren supposed that was the whole point. It took a while for Leo to shuffle forward, but once she did, he first pinched at her wrist - barking over her at her immediate protest, “Don’t be a fucking asshole, I wasn’t even that late!” He didn’t even hear what she was yelling at him, as he was sure she wasn’t listening to him. Their voices reverberated through the room, and Soren could only imagine that anyone outside the door could hear them in all of their hooting and hollering glory. And then - he was over it, got what he needed off his chest, instead continuing to tug Leo by her hand until she settled on the couch beside him, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and resting their temples together. Both staring off into the distance, a comfortable moment of dissociation, before returning to their bodies, “My safe word if I wanna fuckin’ ditch this shit is, uh - tequila,” he had a flask of it in the pocket of his ridiculous get up, “what’s yours?"