Leonard Johnson

❝ alright, alright, no need to get sappy, ❞ she laughed, merely messing around. leonard has definitely become a brother to her and she was relieved to hear his assurance. ❝ that’s smart! i should probably do that once i leave this, ❞ though she was fully preparing to work on it on her phone once he left, ❝ where are you planning to applying? ❞

“wouldn’t want to get caught sneaking around with a taken man.” she teased once more playfully winking. “well i am glad you are getting out of your bubble and attending things.” she pointed out. “please i am sure it hasnt been that bad.”

her smile grew as he spoke. “well sure sounds like her loss then.” the redhead teased.”looks like  i get you all to myself then. my lucky day.. let’s hope she doesn’t beat my ass.” she then laughed a he spoke. “well honestly i have been sitting here watching the drunken idiots.. keepig my distance. “

she wasn’t planning on ging anywhere even though he said for her not to. she felt like it was a safe place, safe enough at least. she pushed the swing with her feet as she waited. when she saw him she smiled an leaned over giving him a soft kiss. “fancy seeing you here at this party all alone.. i bet your girlfriend hates not being here with you.” she teased.

He happily accepted the kiss before shrugging. “I figured my girlfriend would want to hang out with someone more fun at a party than me before texting me to come save her.” He then smirked at the coincidence. “Huh. You texting me to save you from drunk idiots at some sort of party. Sounds familiar for some reason.”

Kings blinked at the neighboring boy. “It feels like you’re just being nice to me. However, I am currently too tired to argue so I accept it.” He gave a single nod and shoved a forkful of french toast into his mouth. “Were you there?”

“I mean... I’m kind of a shitty liar, so there’s no point in me trying to without a reason,” he explained before tilting his head in confusion. It took him a second to get that he was talking about the Muldofsky party. “Oh, yeah, I was there. Obviously didn’t have as much fun as you did, though.”

“Fine, fine.” Maritza stopped for a bit, just enough time to let him put his phone in a safe place. She’s not sure the one he picked was the best option, but she didn’t comment on it. As he emerges from the bushes though, her eyebrows raised. “Ah, I see you’ve found your weapon.”

“Oh, good,” she chuckled, firing another small stream of water at him. “Maybe. They were passing around a basket full of them earlier so I wouldn’t know how many are left.”

❝ what do you think? ❞ she asked, showing him his contact page with the new picture, proud grin along her face. ❝ that’s a good point, i wouldn’t want you to leave either. ❞ she doubted she would be able to get along with valerie’s friends either. ❝ are you excited for senior year, though? i’m super nervous about acceptance letters. ❞

“They paid for speech therapy as a birthday present,” he repeats. Alek finds it weird that Leonard’s parents would wait for as long to put Leonard in speech therapy, as far as he knew the Johnsons had enough money to pay for a therapist and for his birthday as if Leonard had to earn getting treatment for his speech impediment. He doesn’t say any of his thoughts out loud though, Leonard’s family is none of his business. “Your therapist is a miracle worker, two months and it’s gone.” Yet again, he can’t help but be a little skeptical, two months doesn’t seem like a long time to overcome a stutter but what does he know. “So long as you don’t let what they say get to you, which I know isn’t as easy as I make it sound to be, you’ll be fine.”

“Don’t worry, I just aimed for the shoulder, honestly!” She flashed him a playful grin. “Not fond of water gun fights?”

He chuckled, more out of relief than anything else, but he did shrug. “Nah, I like them fine, just when I don’t have my phone in my pocket.” He nodded towards the gun and asks “Is there another one?”

Sophia laughed. “You really think you and your little friends are the first people to fight? I mean, you’re the first ones with a cool name and an overinflated sense of self-importance, but you’re not the only fighters,” Sophia said. Everyone who dared to talk back to a Windsor had been fighting their own private wars. Some wars were just more obvious than others. “Teamwork against the Windsors is great, but it’s not three people named after a dead guy. It’s meeting in secret and scheming and playing just dirty enough secret so that you can still call yourself a marginally good person, loser.”

Despite the fact that Leonard was a Nietzsche, of all things, the corners of Sophia’s lips turned upwards into a slight smile. Was Leonard Johnson actually kind of funny when he wasn’t a stuttering mess? “Well, since you did ask, giving them a common enemy to work together against in the form of the Nietzsches is the stupidest thing anyone could have possibly done,” Sophia said. “Like, historically, people unite together when they have a common enemy even when they were previously fighting. Y’know, the enemy of my enemy is my friend and all that? It’s like, War 101.” Sometimes Sophia’s absolute history nerd tendencies and desire to seem smart outweighed everything else. This was one of those times.

He definitely noticed the smile, but didn’t say anything about it since she simply continued to talk. “But it’s not like anyone was fighting against them before,” he defended. “What better to bring down a group of assholes than a group of good people working together? ‘United We Stand’ and all that shit?”

“Minor slip of the tongue, I’m sure you’re used to that,” Sophia spat out when Leonard noticed her mistake. A part of her immediately felt bad, though. They’d been having almost a civil conversation, until she had gotten defensive. And then, she wondered why she felt bad to begin with. “Well, good. It’s about time you stopped wallowing in your own loser-ness and started doing something with yourself, no matter how futile it is.”