#leo001

Lucy, who was dressed as a punk Snow White ( “what exactly makes it punk?” james had asked, amused — “blue hair, obvs,” she’d retorted, which had made him laugh, but he’d given her his sword from his costume anyway, so she counted it as an absolute win ), thought that overall, the costume game this year had been quite successful. It was on a satisfied surveying of the party—-well, those she could see; even with six inch boots on, that only put her an inch taller than Albus, and she’d need to be at least a foot taller to properly see over everybody—-that she spotted Leo near the drinks. Arriving nearby, she whipped out her—well, James’—sword with a flourish, teasingly pointing it at him. “Huzzah! I, Punk Snow White, hereby rob you of your drink,” she announced.

                                  “i won’t let them hurt you.”

“You’re older than me by minutes,” Aurora reminded her twin, before tapping his shoulder to warn him and ducking low, avoiding a jet of red light. “You don’t have to —” ducking, sweeping a leg out to try unbalance one of the masked fuckers running past— “do that —” rolling over Leo’s back, kicking a Death Eater in the face, before facing him again, and a smile breaking across her face, despite everything. “But right back atcha, yeah?”

The weekend means a break from practice, thank God. He’s never been great at this game, not the way others are, but he likes feeling like he contributes, at least. He wants his presence on the team to make some positive difference. Now he just feels like he’s fumbling every single time the ball comes his way, and the worst is, he can’t quite pinpoint the problem—it’s not that he misses passing to Jen, because he played for two years without them. It’s not Casey, because Grayson makes a pointed effort to avoid them as much as he can, even if they’re playing the same role on the court. It’s him. 

Because he feels restless, more uncomfortable in his own skin than normal as September steadily increases, and Grayson’s not looking forward to their game next week.

It’s a Fox cliche, but he’s coping in all the wrong ways too. Smoked more cigarettes than normal this week, sank deeper into his own negative thoughts, all because he knows where this kind of energy leads in the end—a fight normally, whether its on the court or not. When something’s wrong, he’s got one way to cope with it, and when Exy fails him he just turns to destruction.

Grayson’s not there yet though, so he goes back to his old standby: cigarette in hand, finding a space that is, for the moment, empty. Palmetto’s campus sprawls out underneath him from his seat on the roof, especially when he sits just a touch too close to the edge. Its not much of a view right now—classrooms, Perimeter Road’s bright orange loop, clusters of students who can’t find somewhere better to be on a Saturday afternoon. Not that he’s any better.

The problem with the roof is that everyone on the team uses it though, and predictably, it isn’t long before the door opens behind him. He looks over his shoulder, initially debating whether it’s too obvious if he just leaves, but it’s only Leo. “Perfect timing,” Grayson says, tapping the box of cigarettes on the ground beside him. Technically it’s new, but he’s already shared with Brayden, and he’ll be running low again before too long. That’s how he knows it’s been a bad week. “You’d think I wouldn’t want to smoke when it’s already this hot out,” he says, watching smoke drift off the roof in front of him, dirty gray against the bright blue sky. “Guess I just hate my own lungs too much.”