𝑲 𝑰 𝑻 𝑻 𝑬 𝑵

“Does that typically happen for you all?” Naomi didn’t remember anyone setting anything on fire when she was here, or maybe it didn’t happen in front of her. “I would hope that no one sets anything on fire, I don’t want to be that adult that has to deal with it.” That would be bad and she wasn’t prepared or trained to deal with something like that. At the other’s warning, Naomi set down her cup, not even trying to take a sip. “I guess that’s one thing that is still the same,” she said with a small laugh. “Thank you for the warning… I’m sorry, what is your name again?”

    “NOT REALLY. THINGS just eventually start n o t going according to plan. Whether that be us getting a little too drunk or...” she trailed off, almost on the brink of saying ‘someone getting murdered’. It was a little morose, even for Katerina. “Either way, we’re a crazy bunch,” she laughed it off before holding out her hand. “Katerina, third year. I transferred here in the fall. You?”

“Oh please,” Lou said with a roll of her eyes before knocking more of it back. If a little bit of spiked iced tea, which didn’t even taste that strong to her, was what was able to knock her onto her ass than she didn’t deserve to be at their school. “And if you’re thinking about setting fire to something later I ain’t gonna stop you.” It would be an interesting end to the night, as long as it wasn’t the cherry trees.

    “NOT TOO FAST,” she urged Lou with a giggle. If it was something as simple as alcohol she wouldn’t mind since her friend was one to always be able to handle her liquor. But weed tea, like pot brownies, took time to show effect. Too much, too fast, would result in a rather...intense high once it started to hit in an hour or so. “Oh wow, senator’s daughter f a v o r s  ARSON. I’ll remember that for stories to tell at your funeral,” Katerina joked.

              “ WHY, would you like me to set something on fire ? “   she’s teasing, PROBABLY.  delilah knows better than to start a fire at a party that is literally all about trees.  still, the suggestion of chaos does stir something in her.   “ did you make the punch ? “   just for that, the brunette goes to pour herself a cup of it, trying it out immediately.

    KATERINA THOUGHT ON it for a moment. “As long as it’s not a PERSON I’m down,” she joked. Hell ─  why not. This event had to go down as something more than just an average afternoon picnic. Her own concoction of weed tea was Katerina’s effort to amping this party up a bit. “I see you’re not one to hold back,” she commented with a laugh. So far it’d been all convincing and encouraging people to get out of their own head, stop testing the waters, and just try it. The fellow brunette, like herself, dived right in. “How’s it taste?”

maeve couldn’t help but huff at the other’s statement. “would it be wrong for me to say i am also kind of waiting for that to happen. the stupid things people do under the influence.” glancing at her slightly before going back to the chaos that was the picnic around her. she had to admit, she wasn’t quite used to having this many people on campus. times, indeed, have changed. “don’t worry,” she chuckled. “i took a whiff and kind of noticed. just holding this as props to blend in.” 

    “IT IS KINDA funny isn’t it?” She agreed with a laugh. At this point, something going wrong during Gallagher events was practically a given. Not watching the students completely go wild would almost be a letdown. “Oh c’mon,” she huffed. “I promise the strain of weed I used isn’t THAT strong, it’ll only give you a slight buzz...okay, maybe more than SLIGHT but you have to try it,” Katerina encouraged.

           “ NO NO, get back here, “   he grabs her wrist before she can leave, pulling her back beside him.   “ i’ve never done it either, to be honest, but when in japan… kinda, right ?   c’mon, we’ll chug these bad boys and i’ll get you something less…  whatever this taste like. “   caden has no idea what he’s getting themselves into.   “ i’m going to count to three in japanese, and then we bang on the table and chug the beer once the shot drops into it.  what do you say ? “  caden’s never tried the PUPPY DOG eyes before, but there’s a first for everything.

    “DON’T GIVE ME that look,” she warned. There were a lot of things Caden could get from her if he wanted, without even trying. The last thing Katerina needed is him knowing that he had yet ANOTHER weapon to use against her. “Okay fine,” she sighed as she stepped closer. “But ─  you’re taking me for a walk to see the cherry blossoms AND you’re going to play a game with me, DEAL?” She held out her pinky, though the brunette had a feeling he was one to seal deals with a k i s s.

       he’s quite attuned the ominous feeling that lurks, but it’s not a byproduct of the school, just something he’s settled with since young. the more you try to repress it, the more eager it is to surface, so he keeps it close, like he would his keys or wallet. ‘   an accidental fire’s better than murder. well, most likely.  ’ one time his dad had fallen asleep on the couch and he’d woken up to a raging chip pan fire. his sister’s had been, threatening to take him out of the house even though it was legally impossible. ‘   no ?   ’ he peers down at his tea, held like an accessory. he hadn’t been that thirsty anyways. ‘   what’s it spiked with ?   ’

    “NOT ALWAYS,” SHE muttered into her cup. There’d been a lot of instances in her line of work that required many of ‘accidents’ to be put in place in order to take out a target. It only reminded her that not all accidents were just that. “Just some regular ole Mary Jane,” the girl glanced at him before continuing. “You should TRY it.”

“At least not until after the alumni leave, I hope?” Or never, is what she really hopes, and to an extent expects, but Gallagher is a bit more rambunctious than any of her previous schools. She can’t help but feel the boys are to blame. She glances down at her tea, unsure what to do, before awkwardly pouring it out on the grass. “Um…thank you Why spike the tea, though?” Isn’t alcohol and caffeine a bad idea? “I know they make alcoholic tea but it’s not real tea, I thought.”

    IT WAS TRUE, it wasn’t until the wandering eyes of the wardens left would the students really let loose. A shame, though ─ Katerina figured they were probably hard partiers. “It’s not alcohol,” she corrected. “It’s WEED. Takes a bit longer to hit but it’s worth the wait. And no nasty hangovers tomorrow, so, BONUS.”

“Come on– let’s not get that far,” he says, drunkenly pointing a finger at the girl. Sure, there were assassins around, there were a few baby drivers too, but pyros? He wasn’t aware there was any major related to fire. He felt safe. Maybe. Now there was that idea in his mind. “Oh– the tea?” Which he had been drinking for the past thirty minutes. “Is this spiked?”

    OH, IT WAS clear they’d already gotten THAT far. The guy barely able to stay still while STANDING STILL showed that. “Sure,” she snorted. “You haven’t noticed that you’re high as f u c k, dude?”

         he   blocks   it   out   .   not   all   of   it   .   a   lot   of   it   .   because   she’s   pretty   ?   somewhat   .   because   she’s   scary   ?   yup   .   “   i’m   sorry   —   ”   camp   stammers   .   “   WHAT   about   the   tea   exactly   ?   ”

    AN EYEBROW RAISED at his stammering, Katerina had thought she’d been PRETTY clear. “Don’t drink it,” she warned. “Not unless you want to be b a k e d out of your mind.”

Rowan let the question sit for a long moment, unsure of her answer. She didn’t know what to say, because everything she did and said lately bit her in the ass later on. She had avoided Kat this entire time, even as she kept contact with Caden. In her defense, though, he had reached out to her to begin with, and I think both she and Kat had been avoiding one another. “I don’t know,” she finally admitted, straightening and pushing her hair out of her face. “Part of me feels that you should have known. The other part of me knows it was only obvious to Jo and Lou.” Her best friends, and yet Rowan believed that both of them didn’t see it coming. “I believe that it was my fault this happened. That I was the one that screwed everything up because I…” She stopped herself from saying she loved Caden. She hadn’t said it since that one time, when he had moved past it without acknowledging it. And it wasn’t that she was in love with him, but she cared for him deeply. “I caught feelings for someone who definitely doesn’t feel the same way.” She licked her lips. “And I know that it’s stupid to let this… stupid guy come between our friendship but I… Knowing that he hurt me and went straight to you, I just…” She trailed off, shrugging her shoulders bitterly. “I don’t blame you. But I also can’t decide how to act around you anymore.”

    IT WAS HARD hearing something like this. Facing the fact that someone you considered a friend doesn’t even know if they wanted to be bothered with you anymore. All over a situation that could’ve been prevented. “If I had known, I wouldn’t have even entertained it. I SWEAR,” Katerina admitted. It was a truth Caden didn’t like to hear, but it was one. No matter how much she enjoyed being with him or how he made her feel SAFE for once. It’s not even a question of how things would be so much different if she’d known the honest truth. “And him and I, we’ve had our ups and downs too. I don’t want you to think that I let him come to me while you were hurting,” she confessed. Katerina thought back on those weeks of avoiding him, not even thinking of caving until she’d heard that he and Rowan were friendly again. She’d unexpectedly played part in her friend getting crushed, the last thing she had wanted to do in those moments was make it worse. “If you can’t decide how to be friends with me again at least do so knowing that I never meant to hurt you, Rowan. And I’ve actively tried not doing so ever since I found out.”

     landon shakes his head, lips pursed together at her disbelief. “oh, i’m high as hell. but i fortunately didn’t come up with the idea of the BEE movie,” he chuckles but rolls his eyes slightly. “have you seriously never seen it?”

    SHE GIGGLED AT his confession. At least somebody here was unabashedly themselves. “Nope,” Kat shook her head. “And thank god for that. I thought the CATS movie was the worst thing ever but, apparently NOT.”

“Three, four more minutes, I’m guessing.” Honor tucks a flower behind her ear and looks over at Katerina. “Tea?” Honor asks, her lip curling up into a smile. She serves herself a cup and then sniffs it. “What’d you do to it?”

    HER FOLLOWING SNORT couldn’t be held back. It was a surprise that nothing had gone to shit so far, honestly. “Oh nothing,” Kat said feigning innocence. “I just might have heard of someone adding their own...herbal remedy to it.” And if her following smirk didn’t confirm it, that ‘someone’, was her.

“Hopefully not one of the cherry blossoms”, Zach comments with a smile, although he is being VERY serious. Harming a plant or an animal could trigger a rage not known in him by his Gallagher peers and he would really like to preserve his reputation, thank you very much, no matter how… compromising his last name looked like in that list. The sun hit hard on the field and Zach remained barefoot, letting his toes absorb the energy of all the present nature. Some hippie bullshit as you can see. “Oh, thanks for the advice… I will keep an eye on my own tea in case someone decides to play a prank”, he laughs softly, “but answering your question —–sorry for the delay—– “I say give them until ten or eleven p.m.”

    THE GIRL FEIGNED shock. “Oh wow ─ I hadn’t even thought of that,” Kat said with a slight laugh. In her mind, it was a bonfire gone wrong or something of the sort. But something as beautiful as the cherry blossoms becoming collateral damage for Gallagher students seemed pretty much on-brand. “But you’re right, the second our designated chaperons leave, it’s game on.”

Rowan waited, knowing that it wasn’t really nothing. They hadn’t spoken in weeks, so obviously there was a much bigger elephant in the room, and it was oddly shaped like Caden Lucca. “You don’t have to apologize,” she said, moving to go and sit on the staircase leading to her and her roommates’ desks. She didn’t want to sit on her bed, feeling she didn’t deserve the comfort of it in that moment. “You didn’t know. I didn’t know. We were both… blindsided and I was just completely blind.” Rowan felt herself a complete and utter idiot, but she didn’t say that aloud. She let out a laugh and looked down at her hands, her palms suddenly quite interesting. “I think it’s just we just move on from it.” 

    THE GIRL HAD to hold back a scoff at that. “Really? I feel like I do,” she muttered. If it wasn’t her own erratic guilt eating at her then it was people like Jo who went along making Katerina feel like an even worse friend. Funny enough, she can’t remember if anyone made sure she was okay in all of this. But that was normal for her. “Yeah,” she nodded her head, though she wasn’t sure if she was agreeing. To be blind in a situation like this, well, does that mean not seeing or refusing to see? Katerina knew some things, but wasn’t it her ONLY prerogative at Gallagher to unearth things people wished to keep hidden? It’s been keeping her up, throttle her brain, wondering how she couldn’t have seen something as obvious as her friend liking a boy. Perhaps...it was because the brunette didn’t want to. “Can we?” she asked after a moment, eyes glued to her shoes. “Move on, I mean. Is it that simple?”

              WHOEVER HAD SET THIS UP had done a beautiful job decorating the picnic takes with colorful tablecloths, flowers, and food.  and how does caden repay them ?   “ HEY, “  he calls to the first person he can get to lock eyes with him, motioning to his own little special arrangement at the end of one of the tables.  “ sake bomb, anyone ? “   sitting there are two cups of beer with a pair of chopsticks on top, and a shot of sake resting on top of those.  nobody can say caden isn’t CULTURED.  

    FOR A MOMENT she was speechless, not out of SHOCK at another instance of Caden clearly up to something he shouldn’t, but because of how...foreign, it was. “I have no idea what that is,” Katerina whispered back slightly embarrassed as she took a slight step back. “I think I’m going to go find something more FRUITY and less likely to make me hate myself in the morning.”

@gallagherstart​

     he’s sitting on the back of a seat because clearly, sitting on the seat itself is too simple for him, with a half empty glass of a mix of different things. “okay, but you know what really wigs me the fuck out?” he says, to absolutely no one before taking a sip. “the bee movie, right. listen. save the bees, i get that theme of the movie but. the relationship between barry and the lady? like what the fuck? they didn’t have to go there, and it haunts me to this day.”

    “HOW LONG BEFORE some passes out ─ or ‘accidentally’ sets something on fire?” Katerina proposes idly. There was something about Gallagher students. Although the picnic so far held a different aura than New Year’s for example, the brunette knew it was practically INEVITABLE the closer they got to nightfall for things to get wild and go awry. Speaking of─ “I wouldn’t drink the tea if I were you, by the way,” she quickly added, throwing a devious glance to the person next to her. “Not unless you want to get knocked on your ass.”