Plant Parenthood Alexx Helm FIN

21 Nov 2018, 03:29

Alexx cocked her head to the side, eyeing her partner as he wandered, clearly lost in his own mind. It was amusing to watch him- he truly did seem to be absent-minded. Though, Alexx couldn't talk at all. She was absolute shit at Herbology, and just about everyone could attest to that. If there was one thing she didn't possess, it was a green thumb. Secretly, she hoped Reid was good at it, otherwise, this project was doomed and they hadn't even started yet.

"Should we name our plant? Maybe we can even paint the pot." He inquired, hands on his hips. He really seemed to be taking the lead, to which Alexx was more than grateful. She nodded, smiling softly at him.

"We should name him Douglas. Such a strong name." She responded, giggling slightly at the end. She hoped that caught his attention, as he didn't appear to be paying any mind to her at the moment. "Though, I would also settle for a more subtle name, if Douglas is just too powerful for you."

Since their first meeting, Alexx had become more capable of speaking around the Hufflepuff. This project would have otherwise been impossible, despite the fact that he did talk a lot. She wasn't complaining, Alexx rather liked listening to people speak. If it meant that she wasn't saying something either embarrassing or stupid, then it made her more than happy. But she also enjoyed Reid as a person, and he was quite entertaining to listen to. Yes, she thought of him as a complete and total idiot, but he had redeemable qualities. In fact, if it weren't for the fact of the matter that he is a Hufflepuff and so, by stereotype, is friendly and inviting, she wouldn't have liked him very much. But he had a natural charisma, in her opinion, that drew her to him in a way.

Alexx, unlike Reid, was decked out in all the necessary attire, despite some of it fitting quite oddly. She was a germaphobe as fine as they come and got very squeamish when it came to dirt and such. Her greatest fear was getting dirt under her nails, or having to touch a bug of sorts. The thought of an insect making its way onto her porcelain skin made her shiver. Her body closed up into itself, and she suddenly had the urge to leave. This, she reckoned, was probably the exact reason she was struggling with Herbology.

Resisting the urge to break out into a sprint and skip this all together, she turned to Reid, finally looking at him. "I hope you enjoy gardening, otherwise this plant will die before we even plant it. Though, it might die if it looks too closely at you." She joked, laughing. She didn't mean it, of course, and made it as evident as possible. If anyone were to say that to him or anyone else she enjoyed the presence of and meant it, there was more than likely a chance of them getting a good slap in the face, never mind the risk of losing her Prefect position. But with him, she felt as though it would be appropriate to joke. It was an odd sensation, something that she wasn't used to, but she decided fairly quickly that she preferred being more of a child than she was able to when she was younger. To joke with someone was possibly the best feeling ever.

chill babe. we're all bad in someone's story.

7 Dec 2018, 08:44

A glance was thrown over his shoulder, then back at the plant, and then back at Alexx again. "Douglas is good." he had replied to her. "Doug. Dougie. Doug-Doug. Ever heard of Dig-Dug?" He wore a smile even as he rambled when he picked it up and placed it back in front of her carefully. When it came to Herbology he wasn't bad at the subject, it was the technicalities that he struggled with sometimes. Despite how much of a brute he might seem, Reid could navigate his way around a plant and its components.

The dirty work was what he excelled in, as he took all his knowledge of watching his mother tend to her garden back in Derby and applied it here. Yes, there were times where he grew bored of it, but this was better than reading to him. But what made it better was he was working with someone he was comfortable around and relatively knew at some level. Alexx was easy to be around, she didn't seem to talk much but neither did she seem like she cared that he himself talked a lot.

Although, she could just be too nice to tell him that he was often spouting nonsense. Reid had a paintbrush as he slowly began to write the name 'DOUGLAS' with blue paint on the pot like it was a Renaissance to be treated with care. For a brief moment, he glanced up at her comment with an amused expression. "Really? Then I should have no problems with duels." he chortled. Reid went back to his work as he talked to her, "I wouldn't need to be a wizard if I could do that with one look. I'd be like uh -"

Reid paused, pressing his tongue against his cheek as he tried to recall the mythology he was so fascinated with last summer. "I would be like Maguuma - Medusa, I mean. Dunno where the bloody ..." He grumbled to himself, a little embarrassed as he just barely got to the letter 'U'. Reid went silent for a while, leaning back to look at his handiwork, the paint had dripped a little so the writing seemed a little bit 'murderous' in personality. But at least it had personality.

He turned the pot towards her with a silent plea for some sort of criticism, good or bad, he was just amused by it. "How long are we keeping Douglas? A week?" He gently drummed the sides of the ceramic, he didn't know what kind of plant this even was and what sort of care it needed. "Does this thing just need water and sunlight?" Reid mumbled.

"Trouble usually finds me."

21 Dec 2018, 04:30

It didn't surprise Alexx in the least that he was talkative. He always had been, and she didn't mind it much. The way his mind seemed to wander from topic to topic interested her. Yes, she had heard of Dig-Dug, because there wasn't much else to do when you have no set home other than read comic books and go to arcades. Though her brothers were possibly more interested in it than she would consider her own interest level being, nevertheless, she at the least knew what he was talking about. She simply smiled at him, laughing softly. "Ehm, a week, I believe. Yeah, that sounds right." She responded. It was easier to take it one at a time than to answer him all at once. His scattered antics weren't familiar to her, no matter how much she didn't mind them.

A smile spread like butter across her face as she saw his paint job. "I love it, personally." A complemented, which wasn't false, would surely please him. She didn't even mind the drips, though she knew she could have prevented them if it were her. But despite that, the flavor it added to the plant, which was just a plant, was still meaningful nonetheless. And on top of that, he was enjoying himself, so she wasn't going to say anything. Silently she hoped that none of the other kids would say anything about it. "Honestly, Kovacs, have you ever cared for anything in your life? Do you even know how many times a day it requires watering? Could you tell me if this plant is male or female? Well? It is honestly like all the knowledge you were privileged with went in one ear and out the other." Even if the comment had sounded harsh out of context, she was smiling through it all. Alexx could not find it in her to trick him into thinking she was annoyed.

Digging her small hands into her pockets, she walked closer to him in order to inspect the plant. "Children need basic things to survive, but would you only give them the bare minimum? The answer is no." Perhaps she only knew this because she was an older sister, and she was unaware of how many times Reid had been around children. And maybe relating children and plans wasn't the term she was looking for, but it was all she had. She sighed, shaking her head as she bent down to see it. "But who am I to talk? I can't seem to make anything above an A for this class. She mumbled. "Well, with any luck," she started again, straightening up. "We might be able to pull this off. Welcome to being a plant father." The French girl was only full of jokes today, which was evident in the way she rolled her eyes. "I hope you don't turn into the Medusa of the plant world and kill it."

Shifting her gaze to look at him, she offered him a friendly smile. In truth, she had no faith in their ability to make a good grade, but she knew she would have fun with him regardless. Actually, she was more grateful that he was her partner for this, as she wouldn't have to adjust to a new person. He was friendly and made her talk. Other people wouldn't typically do that, so she could only imagine the Hellhole that would be. But she wouldn't waste her time on what wasn't true. Her luck didn't seem to run thin, so she wasn't going to entertain those thoughts.

chill babe. we're all bad in someone's story.

5 Jun 2019, 08:39

Since he's met Alexx, he's had many different interpretations of her. Somber, quiet, and now a witty Slytherin full of spunk and quips at every turn he took. At every event he saw her, the funeral and the day with Alycia, she's come out as a different individual. It struck him as a complete paradox at times with how someone could change after just a few interactions. But the question always came down to, who was the real Alexx? And did she even like being around him?

Reid didn't come to psychoanalyze his peer though, his mind was far below picking his friend apart like a social vulture. He was here to live up to the standards of his Professor and of Alexx. That meant that Alexx had to watch him shuffle about, almost distracted by every little thing as she talked business. Her words of praise didn't fall on deaf ears, he wore a pleased expression on his already dirt-stained features. The simplicity of the words boosted his morale, it was a sign that he was doing something right.

While it may have seemed insignificant, it was a big thing for Reid. His year had so far been a steady decline from where he was. Along the way, it's knocked his already fragile pride down a few pegs and left him in doubt. To deal with it was one way, to have it invade every crevice of his thought was like a cage made of his own bones. But he was far too ignorant to understand it, he chalked it up to be a general lack of self-confidence he never had and unconsciously relied on the smallest bit of praise.

As a result, he hung onto every word of people he's respected - Alexx Helm being one of them. Despite how double-sided her words sounded, Reid absorbed the good parts and sported a triumphant smile. Anyone and everyone from the UK seemed to usually drip with sarcasm, Alexx wasn't an exception as far as he could tell. Yet she probably would have been at ease to know that Reid was largely unfazed by it. There were flashes of confusion in his eyes every now and then, but nothing that prompted him to ask her to repeat.

"Let me just check something." He didn't have time to ask anyway as he was already turning the pages of his book, dirt dusted fingertips smudged the surface. Reid stopped, his gaze cascaded down the page before turning it one more time. "The um -" He leaned forward, pulling his reading glasses from his collar to set it on the bridge of his nose. His finger glided over the paper, stopping at a list before the turned the book towards her.

"It lists the minimum amount of sunlight it needs a day, amount of water a day, and something about ..." He pulled the book back at him, falling silent for a moment as his green eyes skimmed the page. "Soil moisture." The Hufflepuff turned it back towards her and turned his head to look for the watering cans. "Y'know what Alexx? This stuff is pretty easy if you ask me. Everything is on here anyway."

His hand gestured to the book and grabbed a pen along with his notebook. The young wizard preferred the muggle way of writing things, with a utensil that didn't run out of ink. "I can just write down a list of daily care things to give to you." Part of him just wanted to hit the Quidditch Field and run.

"Trouble usually finds me."

6 Jun 2019, 00:33

Alexx could have facepalmed. Reid was immune to sarcasm it seemed. Perhaps that was a good thing. She wasn't exactly a fan of offending people, no matter how much she enjoyed to argue. It was true, Alexx got a lot of satisfaction out of putting people in their place, but she truly did intend to make Reid her friend. She smiled at him, shaking her head. "I'm glad you think so. Je suis d'ordures à l'Herboristerie." She confessed. It wasn't like her to be bad at anything. She was alright at most everything she did. But when it came to Herbology, the girl was clueless. She only said so in French because he was less likely to understand it. She had been poking fun at him, saying things that weren't true, and then she would admit to being absolutely dreadful at the subject herself. If one didn't know her, then they might suspect that she was either a hypocrite, extremely insecure, or both. None of the three were the case, she just happened to find it easy to mess with Reid.

"Well, glad to know I wasn't stuck with a total idiot for this then." It was the closest thing he would get to her telling him that she was relieved. Out of all the people she could have been stuck with, Reid Kovacs was a saving grace. Not only had he expressed that he found this to be easy, but he was a pleasure to be around. Now, of course, she didn't mind in other classes when she was doing work with Emma or Alan or Dymphna or someone like that; Alexx loved her friends for sure. But it was always relieving when she didn't have to be stuck with someone like Aurelia. Especially if that someone seemed like they weren't going to get them a T.

Looking at Douglas, she smiled. Plants were cute. She wouldn't mind having some, only she knew that she would kill them. If there was an opposite to a green thumb, like say maybe a "black thumb of death", that would be her. It was truly embarrassing. "Not so fast. We're plant parents now, Kovacs. We either have split custody or we're married and take care of it together. Which is it gonna be? And if it's split custody, who gets him when? I need to know if I'm carrying a plant to the next detention I hand out. Not that it matters if I am, but I am a good mother and I don't want to negatively influence this little guy with the likes of those who get detentions." Alexx liked to joke. It eased the mood. She definitely was a paradox of emotions- she would be quiet one minute, loud the next. She couldn't really help it.

Alexx had started the year being soft-spoken and nervous. Big school. New year. No friends. That was how this began. Then, when Professor Jensen gave her that little green pin that read the word "PREFECT" across it, all the went down the drain. Mostly. There were still days when she was nervous and blushy and didn't know how to handle herself. Puberty worked like that. Everyone was awkward at this stage of life, so no one could hold this against her. But she found a bit of a comfort zone. Happiness, sort of. She branched out, made some friends, did some things that you should be doing at 12 to 13. Her brothers were happy to hear it, too. Mikey was witty and cool, and Tex was broody and weird. Two polar opposites, but neither of them were as awkward as she was. So when she wrote home explaining that she had made friends and loved the place, they were thrilled. For once in her life, she was finally acting like a normal child.

Looking over to what Reid was reading off of, she nodded. "No I- I think I got it. Thanks, though." Her eyes skimmed over the page. Meaningless. All of it was absolutely meaningless to her. None of it made any sense. If anything, she would be the one to kill the poor thing, not Reid. But Alexx was determined. She wanted to come out of this with an O. "Alright, Kovacs. I think we might be able to pull this off with any luck." She placed her hands on her hips, cocked her head to the side, and smiled at Douglas. "Je me demande si la végétation est consciente."

TRANSLATIONS:
Je suis d'ordures à l'Herboristerie. - I am rubbish at Herbology
Je me demande si la végétation est consciente. - I wonder if the vegetation (plant) is self-aware.
It kept assuming by "plant" I meant "factory" so I made it vegetation instead

chill babe. we're all bad in someone's story.

6 Jun 2019, 13:37

"Luck? This is all skill Alexx, all skill." he retorted triumphantly. Her French didn't go unnoticed, the student himself wondered why she had switched to French so much and only assumed that it was a force of habit. Sometimes it made him want to learn another language aside from English and Hungarian, but he hasn't met a single person so far that knows Hungarian. But a lot of people took a liking to French, spoke it even, he sort of envied her.

It was always like this, someone did something that he thought was cool or interesting and he wanted to do the same. Though he was far too bullheaded to do the same thing as another person, he always wanted to try and one-up someone when he could. But he often talked himself out of doing something foolish, like attempting to learn French. He could barely take reading his Herbology book. Reid leaned his hand on the table and looked at the book beside Alexx, tongue in cheek as he did so.

"Lot of it is just a bunch of handling and care really, I wouldn't rely on this dusty thing if I was going to be honest with you." Reid gently patted the class book to refer to it. "It goes into too much detail anyway, can't be bothered to read and memorize it all." He pushed himself off the table and crossed his arms, blowing the messy and unkempt hair from his face with a huff. "We can just trade him off during the week, you do one day, I do another. That way, we can monitor what's happening to it and record it."

He stepped up to it again and turned the pages again. "What matters is that we keep Douglas alive and maybe growing if he still will grow. I'd be more worried about my dorm mates than me not taking care of it." He planned to sleep with one eye open when he took it with himself, especially afraid of the boys getting too curious of the plant.

"There's plenty of plants in Hufflpuff's common room actually, so I think it might just do me some good to leave it somewhere high discreetly. Just curious, but do you lot get sunlight down in your dorms?" he asked, suddenly wondering. He knew the Slytherins were down in the dungeon areas, meaning they weren't above ground, meaning possibly no sunlight for their plant Douglas.

"Trouble usually finds me."

6 Jun 2019, 21:02

Skill. She could have shrunk into herself. He was pouring salt into a wound, and the poor boy didn't even know it. Instead, she smiled at him, laughed a little, and continued to stare blankly at the page as if any of it meant anything to her. She was just too damn proud to admit that this all seemed like complete nonsense. "Yeah, that's the thing." She started, looking up at him and biting her lip. The boy was a ways taller than her, but then again, she was rather short for her age.

She shuffled awkwardly for a moment, rubbing the back of her neck. "The only windows in our common room look into the Great Lake. I uh... sleep in the Prefects dorm. We get a lovely view of the squid! It's pretty quiet in there, but no natural lighting. Just... the lake. All lake." When she and Alice had first moved into the dorm, they were pleased to find it to be a pretty cozy space. Alexx remembered when she first became Prefect- she didn't even know the dorm existed. It was nice, complete with things all dorms should have. Desk. Bed. Wall things. And, of course, a very small window. Alexx loved when the squid stopped by! She thought he was the coolest!

Alexx huffed, tapping her long, painted nail on the book in thought. "We're in the dungeons. It really is no place for a plant. I wish I could show you- there are absolutely no plants in my common room." She had plenty of places to keep Douglas, of course. Her desk wasn't too badly cluttered, and she was sure no one would mind that there was a plant around. "Merde." She cursed, pouting. Being divorced plant parents was difficult.

Looking at Reid, she thought. "Okay. I'm up early every morning. If you aren't in the Great Hall twenty minutes before our first class to do then hand-off on days when he's mine, then you're going to be carrying a plant around until I hunt you down. Unless... How many classes do we share together, anyway?" She remember classes she shared by friends. She shared History of Magic with Emma, and she knew this because Alexx pulled both their weight. That wasn't saying much, considering that Alexx seemed to struggle just a bit in that area. History of Magic and Herbology- not her favorite classes. She much preferred Astronomy! And Charms! And Flying! And anything that didn't mention plants! History of Magic didn't mention plants, of course, but she found it hard to focus in. She was much more fascinated in flying- Alexx dreamed of playing Quidditch one day.

Humming to herself, she skimmed over the page once more. "I don't think we'll have to worry about any of my friends messing with the plant. Emma will like him. Quinn too." Alexx didn't hang out with a lot of people. She knew a lot of people, sure. But Emma and Quinn were the two that she usually found herself around at the moment. They were rather mature individuals, so she couldn't complain. Plus, Emma shared a mutual disliking for Aurelia, so all the better. "Not sure who it is you hang out with, but don't let them smother him to death. He's cute, and if he wilts, he'll be ugly."

She picked Douglas up, shoving him into Reid's hands. "Here. Hold him up. Gonna sign my name on the bottom so that people know he's ours." She didn't dare do this with a paintbrush- that would be dumb. Instead, she plucked a marker from her bag, something she had previously stolen from her brother, the artist, and signed her name. It was a bit shakily done, as she didn't want to knock the plant out of the Hufflepuff's hands, but it was legible. "There." She announced, nodding. "Now he's tagged."
TRANSLATIONS:
Merde - Shit

chill babe. we're all bad in someone's story.

8 Jun 2019, 03:25

Just as he suspected, there was a lack of sunlight and thus the plant wouldn't get the sunlight it needed. Reid felt some confidence in his abilities for pointing that out, but it was short lived as he held the plant in his hands. He held it steady as she signed the bottom. Reid wrinkled his nose at the earthy smell, it was a lot stronger up close and there was almost a hint of sweetness that he couldn't put his finger on.

The student was about to ask her to sign his name as well, but opted to just do it later on his own accord. Reid set it down when she finished. "Perfect, I'll take him today then and meet you tomorrow in the early mornings. I have an alarm anyway." He began packing up his stuff, bringing some of the equipment he needed to water Douglas properly.

"I got a place in our dorms where I could set him, I'm sure that Scully will love Doug too." He was thankful that he didn't get a cat, otherwise the cat would just knock it over. Reid opted to pick up Scully, his Natterjack Toad that he picked up from the Magical Menagerie in Diagon. His toad loved the earthy environment in Hufflepuff commons and no doubt would be fine around the new plant. Plus the plants in the dorms and common room have had a positive effect on him, he had begun putting plants in his own bedroom back in Derby.

The student stopped to look at his watch and an almost clear panic washed over his features. "I have to catch my next class soon, but I'll take him to my dorm first before doing anything." He slung his book bag across his shoulder and held the plant in both hands. "Bye Alexx! I'll see you in a bit!" He began speed walking out of the greenhouse with Douglas and headed for his next period.

EXIT.

"Trouble usually finds me."