Relaying Relations Errand PV Finished

After slinging Burnett forward to his apparent delight, the rest of the race seemed to go somewhat smoothly. It was nice that Burnett was playing along, at least. As he had felt prior to his talk with Ruka, they were all the type to be reliable when it mattered, when someone else was depending on them. In this case, Flash was depending on Burnett, and Burnett was depending on Ruka. Of course, ideally, they would all be in it for each other, but that seemed a bit out of reach at the moment. The way the course was set up, there was enough of a bend in the track for Flash to be able to see the end clearly from where he had jogged to a stop by the monkey bars. While mostly watching Burnett’s progress, he sometimes glanced in Ruka’s direction. Not unlike at the ball, Flash couldn’t seem to keep his eyes away when he knew Ruka was nearby.

It was good that Ruka seemed distracted, otherwise Flash’s gaze might have reignited his righteous fury. Strangely, he had his wand out, his eyes cast down and his shoulders tensed. Had he been meaning to cast a spell? Perhaps he just wanted to be ready to help Burnett if something happened to make him fall… though that seemed like a forcefully optimistic hypothesis. A fall from the bars wouldn’t cause any harm at all from the height they were at, except maybe to his ego. Even though he seemed to slow down on the last few, he managed it at a respectable speed.

What had he been doing, then? From one foxes’ mouth to the next, the baton got passed forward. Flash was certainly glad he hadn’t been last after all, what with the baton now covered in spit. Flash couldn’t help but wonder if there was a spell that could sanitize objects, it would certainly prove useful if it existed. Either way, once Ruka’s face had returned to the light of the sun, he showed no particular expression at all. Was he bored, or had he submitted to the task obediently after realizing his stunt hadn’t been enough to disturb Flash? He should have known that after time Flash would learn to become numb to his brand of emotional torture. Well, actually, perhaps that was what he was doing as well. Becoming numb. Submission and numbness… was hardly the intention. Perhaps I let myself… get carried away…

Ruka completed the task deftly, proving he was ‘decent at climbing’ just as he had claimed. It wasn’t as though Ruka was the kind of person to lie. In fact, he was belligerently honest. Honest in a way that didn’t allow for hope or fantasy. Even after the race was over, and their time was announced, Ruka staggered forward like a zombie. They wouldn’t know how well they had placed until after all the teams had a chance to run, but Professor Kibitzer at least seemed somewhat pleased. The show of sportsmanship and athletic skill might have been hard to come by with other students their age.

With the race completed without fail, Flash felt some tension leave his body. They had done something together, which was a start. It was proof of… something. Flash hoped he had a point to prove, otherwise he was only making things worse. Knowing he had a lecture to attend, he walked forward with a sigh so he could collect Burnett and meet back up to reconvene and have their ‘talk’. Heaven knows it would be the more challenging task by far.

@Ruka Tân @Jack Burnett

When Jack saw the hollow look on Ruka's face, his grin dropped off his own and he watched curiously as the older boy finished the last portion of the obstacle course with what seemed to be little to no effort. He glanced back once at Flash, wondering what the brunet's expression would tell him, before turning back to Ruka, chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath.

By the time the second year reached the end of the race, Jack jogged over, swooping in to grab the Gryffindor's right hand with his left in order to drape it over his shoulder. Simultaneously, he wrapped his arm around the back of the smaller boy's knees to pick him up in a fireman's carry, not seeming to care whether Ruka minded or not. He thanked the professors and began to walk away from the course, making certain that Flash was close by the whole way until they were out of the teachers' and other students' sight.

Once they reached the place where dirt gave way to grass, Jack seated himself under a tree with Ruka still over his back, keeping his hold on the second year as he cast Flash a meaningful look. He waited for his dorm mate to get the message and take a seat next to him before setting Ruka down on his other side, keeping an arm wrapped firmly around the Gryffindor's shoulders so he couldn't easily slip away.

"Good job, guys!" he told the pair with a little too much enthusiasm to be genuine. "Now...who wants to tell me what the hell is going on here? Hmm?"

He looked from one boy to the other, suddenly appearing very unamused. "Since both of you clearly know more than I do and have known, evidently, for quite some time, now."

@Jack Burnett @Flash Holmwood

Ruka's eyes were drained on the floor, the world around him felt like it was spinning but in a way it almost relaxed him, made him feel like there was nothing else except for himself, just him, alone, like it was supposed to be, like he'd learned to be from the start. He'd never been supposed to be part of the people, always just at the edge, the outside looking in, always there but never quite. He'd forgotten for a while there, but this was the reminder he had needed, the one thing to make him remember exactly why he'd kept away from people this whole time.

He wasn't equipped to deal with whatever it was that his head and heart were putting him through.

For a second he thought he had passed out, swept off his feet into blissful unconsciousness, but when his head didn't stop spinning, his chest wouldn't stop aching, he realised that that was not the case; There was something familiar about the hand holding his right but something terrifying about the way he'd been hoisted up and across someone's shoulder like he was nothing but a puppet to drag around every which way was convenient.

Was that what he was then? Some kind of toy to pull left and right, use and set aside again until needed once more? It certainly felt that way just then, with his mind still reeling with the realisation he had come to less than five minutes ago. Useless, vaguely entertaining, hardly worth keeping around for longer than necessary. Maybe he was supposed to have seen the signs; His own mother hadn't even wanted him, so why would anybody else?

He didn't struggle as he was carried around, went limp around whoever's shoulders. Jack's maybe? It would have explained the familiar feel of the hand against his own, the lurking sense of comfort threatening to overrule the side of his brain telling him that neither Jack nor Flash could care any less whether he was here or not. Maybe it was just one of the teachers, carrying him to the Hospital Wing after having realised how pale he'd gone, how his hands were trembling, how it had gotten difficult to breathe all of a sudden.

Maybe he was still standing there, and being picked up and carried somewhere safe was just wishful thinking.

It took a while before he could feel his body sliding off the other person's shoulder, coming into contact with the grass beneath them as he was sat there like a plushie on a shelf. Pliant, obedient, no fight left inside him.

Like a dog.

He could hear Rafa's voice inside his head, mocking and cruel and it made him almost instinctively press closer against the warm body next to him. The arm around his shoulders wasn't offering comfort but imprisonment, a clear sign that he was supposed to stay where he was, but he wouldn't have had the energy to get up and leave anyway.

Finally he lifted his head enough to make out shapes and he blinked them into focus a few times, realising belatedly that his cheeks were stained with tears he hadn't realised he'd let silently escape.
The first thing his eyes caught sight of was Flash and it immediately made his lungs fill with shame. If there was one person he would have never wanted to see him cry this pathetically then it was Flash.

Flash who already seemed to know exactly how to hurt him most.

He could hear a voice talking next to him, and his attention slid to Jack. It was his arm around his shoulders, Ruka realised dumbly, as if it could have possibly been anybody else's, but that didn't heighten the comfort it brought in the slightest. Quite on the contrary, Ruka almost felt urged to escape it at the traces of exaggerated excitement in Jack's voice as he praised his team mates' work.

Team. What a word to describe the three of them. Was a team not supposed to be able to depend on each other, to trust one another? Ruka surely didn't trust Flash and he was quite certain the feeling was mutual. Maybe both of them trusted Jack, maybe Jack trusted neither of them. Either way, this team they had formed was bound to shatter into pieces within the next few seconds. Ruka had clearly already chipped away the first coat of colour with his mere presence.

"I don't understand why I'm here," he heard himself say, small and broken, tear choked and out of breath. He wasn't even sure the other two would hear him, was barely even sure they were here to begin with. The arm around his shoulders was like a leash tying him to the ground, tying him to this place he didn't want to be in, had no place in.

Like a dog.

"I don't understand why you're doing this to me." It was directed at nobody in particular, maybe directed at both of them. Why did they even bother with him if they were only trying to show him that he'd been replaced? Wouldn't a letter have done the trick?

For a second he was glad to be wearing his dad's old clothes; They were the only thing giving him some comfort at the moment. Slowly he pulled his knees against his chest before pressing his face against them, lifting his hands to bury them into too long strands of hair, not pulling, just holding on like he was scared of falling apart unless he was keeping himself together like this.

His words hadn't exactly been an answer to Jack's unamused question, but he didn't know what to say, didn't think there was much that hadn't been addressed already. After everything they had talked about so far already, was it not clear to Jack that Ruka would have preferred to stay as far away from Flash as he possibly could? Was he really surprised about the tension between them?

Maybe it was simply because he only knew Ruka's side of things - He doubted he and Flash wasted much breath on talking about him at all - and he had assumed Ruka to be overdramatic about the things he'd said. Maybe that wasn't even what he had been asking about.

A small hiccup let another wave of tears roll silently down his cheek and he could feel them seeping through the holes in his dad's old joggers as he pressed his face harder against his knees as if that could possibly stop the tears from coming. He thought he was trembling with fury and frustration but he couldn't be sure because his mind was empty, like nothing really mattered anymore.

Tired was the only thing he was sure he was feeling in this moment.

Burnett continued ahead, picking up the waif in his arms to cart him off to places unknown. He peeked behind himself, as if making sure Flash was coming along, so Flash nodded lazily in reply. He waved goodbye to the professor in charge as he followed along to where Burnett was traipsing off to with his charge. Having gone a decent distance away, he plopped down, encouraging Flash to do the same. It wasn’t as if Flash had a mind to run off, he was perhaps more invested than anyone with making the three of them work together. Burnett had agreed of course, and already was ‘close’ to the two of them, whatever that really meant, but Flash wanted it, perhaps too much. Like a child looking in through a toy store window.

Burnett swiftly got congradulations out of the way, before asking what was ‘going on’. As though it could be explained plainly. Well, Flash could try to describe the events of the kiss, but besides not wanting to do that, it wasn’t entirely what was ‘going on’ either. It was just non-stop pushing and pulling, poking and prodding. They were always reading each other, but never on the same page. Ignoring each other, unable to ignore each other, hating each other and… other feelings thrown in for no good reason. Even if it was explained bit by bit with clear detail, would it make any sense?

Flash’s stream of consciousness was brought to a halt when he met Ruka’s eyes again. He was crying, and he looked away as soon as the contact was made. While Flash had felt mostly put upon up until that point, his stomach clutched with a fresh sense of guilt. Why was he so terrible at handling Ruka, wasn’t he crying because Flash did something wrong? Should he have kept to his own lane and left Ruka well alone? Well, he could regret his choices and say what he ‘should’ do until the end of time, but it wouldn’t have changed the impulses that led them to where they were. It was a horrid mess, but it was Flash’s horrid mess, and he wasn’t just going to abandon it unless he was forced to. Well, even then...

His composure was tested when Ruka started to talk first, wondering why he was even there. A plain description of the disconnect between all of them. It didn’t matter what Flash had said a while ago about teamwork, and how he had wanted the three of them to be ‘better’. It had been too vague, it had gotten mixed up with his unprepared, emotional responses to Ruka’s prying questions. Besides, he hadn’t properly explained the intention, by the end of their talk he could barely hold himself together, let alone explain himself. He had to resort to stripping away his emotions completely to even save a single scrap of dignity. Was Burnett being in-between them really going to stop the onslaught?

”I don’t understand why you’re doing this to me.”

Stifled by the tears and choked by pain, the words gave Flash a crawling, sick feeling down his back, then all across his body. W-why… It really was a selfish desire, wasn’t it? It wasn’t because Ruka needed Flash, nor because Ruka wanted a team. For some reason, Flash wanted Ruka, and he continually made him put up with his infatuation. Ruka was just trying to live his life. Wasn’t Flash impudently chasing after something he had been denied? He was still trying to salvage something that he had destroyed himself.

”It’s because I…” How could he possibly say it in a way Ruka wouldn’t hate? Didn’t he think it was annoying how Flash always took responsibility for everything? ”B-because I am… “

Well, he tried, but it was no good. He was too afraid of what Ruka would think of what he wanted to say. What was he expecting, anyway? It was only getting worse, now Ruka was crying. It wasn’t like Flash hadn’t seen plenty of his tears before. It was that, fear, and apathy. Flash wondered if it was even possible to make Ruka smile the way he did when he saw Burnett. Even that, too, seemed to have been robbed from him. Because of… him, right? Wasn’t what Ruka really wanted was for Flash to leave them alone?

”What do you want me to say, I don’t know what going on either.”

Flash addressed Burnett’s question, his eyes only flickering over his face momentarily. I wish Ruka… liked me... How could he possibly say something like that out loud. He couldn’t even defend it, he didn’t know why. It was beneficial, he could grow, learn from him, feel vindicated, feel like he wasn’t kissed for no reason at all.

Now looking distantly away, off past the rolling cliffs in the far distance to the thin line of the horizon and even further, Flash twirled a finger around a blade or two of grass that had been casually crushed under the weight of his hand.

”I don’t know why I’m doing this. I don’t know.” As the sentence continued, his voice became louder and more broken. So he stopped there.

@Jack Burnett @Ruka Tân

When Ruka pressed closer to him, Jack's brow furrowed, worried, as he looked the other boy over and gave his shoulder a bit of an affectionate squeeze; a half-hug. Once the Gryffindor looked up to reveal the saltwater streaks that trailed across his face, Jack followed his glimmering green gaze to Flash and Flash's melancholy blues back to Ruka. Suddenly, the fire-dancer's quiet, pained voice spoke up to announce that he didn't understand. That he didn't understand why he was there, nor why they - he? Jack? - was 'doing this' to him. At that, the younger redhead sighed.

He felt like a duty teacher at recess trying to get two kids to fess up to a fight that had obviously happened between them but neither was willing to admit. For some reason, Ruka's question sounded especially childish to Jack, but he found himself absently reaching out to soothingly stroke his copper hair anyway.

When Jack glanced back at his fellow Slytherin, he realized that once Flash had seen Ruka's tears, he had quickly looked away again as if he could ignore them as simply as that. The Welsh boy gave him a look.

"It's fine," he told the brunet with undertones of weariness. "It's not just you. I've made him cry before, too. We all make mistakes, especially with and around people we care about."

When Flash tried to answer Jack's original question, he sounded like he was on the verge of giving a direct answer, but couldn't bring himself to finish his full sentence in the end. Jack didn't push him. He silently and patiently waited as he pulled Ruka up a little into his lap so the smaller boy could lean more comfortably against him.

Only when Flash asked what they wanted him to say - that he didn't know what was going on either - did Jack's head snap back up, his eyes blazing so intensely they seemed to threaten to catch his thick, narrowed brows on fire.

"Flash," he warned in a low, dangerous voice, "Don't lie to me. I've put up with a lot of your bullshit, but I won't abide a straight up lie."

He looked down at Ruka resting against him. "'Why am I doing this to you,' you ask? Because neither of you seem to understand how to communicate, negotiate, or work out your differences on your own."

Attempting to get Ruka sit up, he put each of his hands around the Gryffindor's waist and tried to lift him a little.

"Tân, stop being a whiny baby. You can't turn into a puddle any time you don't want to deal with something. Did your dad used to let you do this? Would you do this in front of strangers on the street?" He shook his head in exasperation.

"At least have a little dignity. I know you're upset, but we're not going to be able to solve any problems if you aren't able to talk out what's wrong. Aren't you supposed to be the eldest of us here? Why're you acting like a brat? I know you've had to have faced worse hardships than this. This is nothing and you're acting pathetic about it. Pull yourself together."

Then Jack turned his focus to Flash. "As for you, what the heck are you doing constantly looking away from him? You're telling me you can't even look him in the eye and yet you 'don't know what's going on'? You were going to say something, so say it. You've been keeping your feelings to yourself for far too long and you might not think anyone can notice, but you're more transparent than you think."

The redheaded Slytherin took another deep breath, closing his eyes as he tried to regain his composure.

"Neither of you are acting like the people I know you to actually be. Tân, why are you wearing your dad's clothes? You want to ruin them more; to wear them 'til they're worn down to threads? To make us and the rest of the school feel sorry for you? To hurt yourself with scraped elbows and knees through the holes in the cloth or get overheated because you didn't want to wear what my mom got you instead?" He scowled unhappily at his look-alike. "Who are you trying to hurt, here? Us, or you? Because you seem to be doing a decent job of hurting everyone."

He inclined his head toward his dorm mate. "And Flash, why have you been trying to act so evasive and nonchalant about all of this? Whenever I poked fun at you before, whenever I mocked, taunted, or teased you, you were always so quick to retaliate. What's holding you back now? Is it because there were still teachers and students around to see us? Because you wanted to seem like you were in top shape to complete the errand? Are you so worried about your reputation that you can't even allow yourself to show the least bit of emotion? Because you're acting a hell of a lot like Selim for no reason that I can tell and it's pissing me off!"

Jack sucked in another breath, all too aware of how his temper was rising along with his voice's pitch, force, and volume. He closed his eyes and counted down silently in his head from ten before daring to speak again.

"Okay," the first year exhaled more calmly, "Since neither of you seem to know where to start, let's begin with the elephant in the room."

Shifting to face Flash as best he could without disturbing Ruka from his lap, he said,"Does this have to do with that silly kiss? Because I heard Ruka's side of it, Flash, but I don't recall hearing anything of yours." He rose a brow. "...Care to enlighten me?"

@Jack Burnett @Flash Holmwood

The squeeze to his shoulder, the gentle touch to his hair, it was supposed to be comforting, always had been before, but they did nothing this time. Nothing aside from making Ruka shake evermore, making his skin crawl with something like revulsion. There was a hook in his stomach, pushing and pulling, tearing away at him until he felt nauseous enough to expect to be throwing up at any moment.

He didn't, but that just made him feel even worse.

Jack's voice when it sounded next was directed at Flash, telling him that it was fine, that people made mistakes when dealing with someone they cared about, and for a second he almost interrupted his constant stream of tears with a snort, almost pulled his face into an incredulous expression but he felt himself too tired to bring up the energy. What was the point in arguing that Flash definitely didn't care about him beyond being frustrated about not being able to understand him? To point out that the other Slytherin was much more concerned with Ruka's lack of affection for him than with Ruka as a person? What good would it do either of them?

Instead, Ruka kept his gaze down even as he was pulled onto Jack's lap, again, like a doll to be moved every which way the younger boy wanted. It was almost ridiculous to a sickening degree how easily Ruka went along with it anyway, not bringing up enough motivation to actually fight the gesture. He was so tired.

Flash's voice was cutting through the tension with about as much eloquence as he'd displayed during their last talk, which was to say next to none, a jumbled mess of words without much content, but what else was there to be expected? Flash's words were usually hollow, with a distinct lack of anything genuine. They were always either too cold and calculated or too soft and sensitive for comfort. Ruka barely even heard them anymore at this point, only made out the fact that apparently Flash didn't know. What exactly it was that he didn't know the Gryffindor wasn't completely sure about but he assumed Flash knew plenty that he wasn't saying, so he bitterly took it down as another lie.

Apparently Jack seemed to be under the same impression as he immediately scolded Flash for it as if reading Ruka's thoughts. In normal circumstances it would have made the Gryffindor smile, would have made him feel understood in a way, but this time it just made him feel emptier.

His wrath didn't focus on Flash for long anyway, why would it? Flash was Flash and he was just Tân, the whiny baby who wasn't able to compare to their closeness, who couldn't keep up with this heart-wrenching game they were playing with him. He was a brat, he was pathetic, had no dignity, and on top of it all Jack had the nerve to bring his dad into this conversation, as if he had any right. Who was he, Jack, to tell him how to behave about this when he clearly had no clue what was actually going on inside his head in the first place? How could he when Ruka could barely make much sense of it himself?

There was an anger rising inside Ruka with each of Jack's words, simmering just under the surface, making him tremble even more, his chest contracting painfully with each breath he tried to take. He was still sat on Jack's lap like a toy, like a dog, and the thought made him sick where it was supposed to give him a sense of security. He would have struggled had there been enough fight left in him but for now he didn't move, just sat and listened as Jack's words turned to Flash again, a small scolding for being unable to look at Ruka, a continuation of calling him out on his earlier lie, but it barely lasted a second before the words started tearing into Ruka again, asking about the clothes he was wearing, asking who he wanted to hurt by it, pointing out how he was seemingly doing a good job at hurting everyone.

Good, he thought bitterly, but didn't dare say it out loud just to get lectured some more for being childish. Because everyone is doing a fantastic job at hurting me too.

Wasn't that just its own sense of justice? Fighting fire with fire, an eye for an eye. He wanted to think that he had managed to hurt either of them as much as they were hurting him but he didn't think there was any chance of that. All he'd done was throw on some old clothes, the same clothes he had been wearing for years without anybody caring. Neither Jack nor Flash could have been anything but minorly inconvenienced for whatever reason by his chosen wardrobe, but what they were doing to him, this emotional torture, this taunt, this display of their bond, that was more painful than being bitten by a stray dog, beaten up, drowned in a fountain.

He was almost longing to feel the sting of water in his lungs over this situation.

There it was again too, this obvious comparison, this show of favouritism that Ruka didn't need or ask for. He was Tân and Flash was Flash and there was nothing he could do about that. No matter how pissed off Jack claimed to be, no matter how upset his tone was, it wasn't enough to make him revert to using Flash's last name as he usually did with everyone else at this school to keep some emotional distance. There was none of that between them apparently, none that Jack felt the need to keep up the way he did with Ruka at least, and it made something about the anger in his voice sound invalid somehow.

Ruka took a rattling breath as if preparing to finally say something, but before he could, Jack had continued, addressing the obvious between him and Flash. That silly kiss. Silly he dared call it despite the fact that he knew full well how much it bothered Ruka, how tense he had been talking about it, how he had barely found the words to explain. Silly, because Ruka's feelings on the matter were not important, were they? His discomfort, the tension in his body, the way his skin crawled with a million tiny bugs moving beneath it, it was silly to Jack, which was the thing to finally put Ruka's mind and body back into gear.

"Let go of me," he demanded roughly, pulling himself away from Jack's body, remove himself - still, even after all of that, somewhat reluctantly - from his warmth to kneel on the grass instead, a good distance away, far enough so neither of them would be able to reach out and touch him. He didn't want either of their hands on him in any fashion, was sure it'd break him into shattered glass piercing his skin into a bloody canvas.

"I didn't ask to be solving any problems," he finally said, surprised to find that his tears had finally come to a halt, but his voice had gone deeper than usual, rough with the remains of his tears, void of emotion as he had cried them all into the fabric of his dad's old trousers. "I didn't ask for any of this, I just wanted to stay away from him, but you keep pushing me his way no matter how much I resist.." His eyes would try to meet Jack's, would try to lock gazes to fully convey the resentment building up in his green irises. "You did so back in April and you're doing it now because it doesn't really matter if I want him around or not, does it? It matters that he wants me around like a science project to dissect because he can't figure out why his act doesn't have me wrapped around his little finger like it does everyone else." Despite the rising anger making his stomach twist and turn inside him, his voice remained empty, at a moderate volume, as if he was giving a ridiculously scripted presentation of their situation.

"It's like you're trying to make a show of how much more important it is what he wants than what I'm comfortable with. I got it, you can stop now." A deep breath finally gave way to a gurgled sound of desperation, the only emotion he seemed to be able to display for the moment. For a second he glanced at Flash, a desperate, pleading look, as if the brunet had a finger on the button that would lead to Ruka's destruction. "You can stop now," he repeated in the other Slytherin's direction, as if to make sure Flash was aware of how much he was tearing Ruka up inside with this whole situation.

"I never asked to be involved with him in any way." His eyes found Jack again, his voice trembling a little with the fury he was slowly letting breach the surface. "I never asked to be around, you are the only reason I keep having to deal with him and I don't get why you have to involve me unless it's to show me how little you care about what I might want. I'm tired of that game, I'm sick of playing it, I don't get what the outcome is supposed to be. You fixed me up so now you can find the most creative way of pushing me down again?" He pulled his bottom lip between his teeth, biting down hard. Hard enough to draw blood, hard enough to bring some more tears back into his eyes.

One, two, three.

The tap of his fingers against his thigh brought some stability back into his mind and broke it again at the same time. If he listened closely enough he thought he could hear something inside him shattering irreparably.

"After everything I've told you about that silly kiss you send him after me to invite me to this thing here so I could watch the two of you together, like you both just want to rub it in my face how well you get along? To, what, make sure I'm aware of how little I'm needed?" That was what had happened, hadn't it? Flash had claimed to have agreed with Jack that he should be the one to invite Ruka to this errand, and eventually, after everything, watching them together had been Flash's final bait, the one thing that had made Ruka drop his defences to agree to coming. He shouldn't have. "To think I thought he was threatening me about hurting you." He shook his head, a slightly manic sounding laugh escaping his lips as he finally turned his full attention to Flash. "But it was me, wasn't it?" He pushed himself even further back, further away from the two of them as if to get ready for flight.

Strategic retreat was in his nature.

"Think of how fun that will be," he repeated Flash's words mockingly back to him, taking on the same empty expression the other boy had worn that day, the same unsettling smile, same tone of voice. "I sure hope you're having fun but I'm sick of being the brunt of whatever kind of joke this is supposed to be." He shook his head to himself before getting himself onto his feet, slightly unsteady but not enough to make him sit down again. His hands were angrily balled into fists as he let his gaze drift between the two Slytherins on the ground. For a change he was actually taller than both of them but he felt like they were towering over him, caging him with their mere presence anyway. "You want to be solving some problems? Leave me out of whatever kind of messed up game this is, enjoy each other, and stay away from me. Both of you."

With that he turned around, trembling with every step he took away from them, nails digging painfully into the palms of his hands. He needed to get away from there, away from them, away from this before he exploded. There was a time bomb inside of him and it would take down him and everything in his surroundings unless he got himself back to that solitude he'd so recklessly abandoned before.

He needed to get himself back to the castle, or somewhere else he could be alone so he could calm down, could pull himself together as Jack had told him to do. And then he needed to get reacquainted with the emptiness he'd lived in before, because once he had reached the Gryffindor Common Room he wasn't going to come back out again until he absolutely had to.

Leaves Thread unless stopped

At the instance of rebuttal from Burnett, Flash seemed to snap to attention, as though he had been sleeping through the conversation to that point. Had being around Ruka made him… different? Looking back to Burnett’s face, he saw a temper, and heard a chiding tone of voice. He really was being lectured after all. For lying, of course. Flash didn’t see it so plainly. Ruka seemed to just stare at the ground.

”Not lying…” Flash began, but his voice had no conviction.

Burnett’s opinion certainly wasn’t one that he dismissed out of hand, so he had to consider once again that he was simply… in denial. Lying to himself again. He didn’t like that option, he didn’t want to believe it.

Burnett turned to Ruka to chide him as well, as though doling out the punishment evenly would make any of his words more fair. Incapable of communication was probably right. A complete communication break down. That was right, it needed reset, re-evaluated. Though… Flash had tried to reset already. It was too muddied, too sore, impossible to let go.

Burnett calling Ruka a ‘brat’ and ‘pathetic’ threw him for a loop. Truths were honestly so wildly different from person to person that Flash didn’t know how he could ever keep up. Ruka was pathetic? Wasn’t he justified, wasn’t Flash the pathetic one?

Then, Burnett returned his ire to Flash, who was also staring at the ground by that point. He was telling Flash that he wasn’t fooling anyone by keeping his thoughts locked away. Still, how could he just say things without considering the consequences of their being spoken? Even with Burnett’s propensity for arguing semantics and fretting over details, there was also Ruka’s ability to deconstruct his intention and make him regret every word he said out of line.

He was… scared. The honesty they demanded of him was almost unbearable. He was trapped inbetween craving the sort of intimate connection that only came from completely genuine sincereity, and wondering whether chasing such an endeavor was the greatest mistake of his life.

Burnett took a deep breath. Neither Flash nor Ruka were talking.

He chastised Ruka for hurting others, Flash for the way he acted like he was above it all. They were fair observations from the outside. It seemed so warranted when it was just the two of them. Flash deserved to be hurt, Flash couldn’t be trusted to act out of control. How was any of that supposed to change?

Then… most unhappily of all… as Burnett began to allude to an elephant in their midst, Flash’s heart all but stopped. As the words continued, his throat closed and his face burned. He had hoped more than anything… that the whole thing was simply a distant bad memory. Something to be taken out and thrown away, not a part of him. How naive to think he could escape it.

But no, Ruka told him. What did he… say? The possibilities haunted him. Wouldn’t he… be laughing at him? How long had Burnett known? Was he laughing behind his back as well? ‘Silly kiss’, was it? It was silly? How could you say that... For all his talk of value, what about the value of his first kiss, of his body, of his affection?

Before Flash’s mind could settle on a thought, Ruka also reacted, pulling himself away from Burnett, asserting his position without a shadow of a doubt: he didn’t want to ‘fix’ this. But… then he kept talking. What… Burnett is… pushing Ruka to me? Back in April…? What was Ruka saying, was that true? Then, equating Flash’s attention to that of a scientific dissection… giving Flash what he wanted… of course that was how Ruka saw it.

Then, Ruka looked at him, like a bullet to the forehead. Flash’s gaze couldn’t help but be drawn up by it, and terrorized by it. His face showed it, he couldn’t muster the will to hide it any longer.

Then Ruka kept talking. Just… shut up... How they were conspiring against him. Trying to hurt him. You don’t know what you’re talking about... Why did he always do this? Why did he have to make everything hurt as much as possible? Why did he always feel terrible? Hadn’t Flash been trying to help, hadn’t he been caring for him when the… the kiss… because I was too close... Still, did he feel no sympathy for Flash at all, even in the slightest? Was he some kind of cruel villain in his eyes? So you’re… using me… to feel bad about yourself...

Flash was practically off in outer space as Ruka droned on with his victimized bellyaching. Then, insult to all insults, he turned to leave in indignant rage. Like hell!

Flash stood up. His legs were not quaking, he stood tall and rigid. Ruka wasn’t close, but Flash wouldn’t have trouble being heard.

”What did you tell him?” It couldn’t be called yelling, but his voice was clear. ”Did you tell him how you told me to be myself… to open up to you?”

Flash’s words dripped with disdain, there was no mistaking that he felt wronged. What a revelation.

”And how after we talked, I told you how I approved of your growth how you should… take care of yourself?” Flash’s face was far from expressionless, he wasn’t just going to accept such calumny in front of Burnett. ”Was that why you kissed me? I was being too nice? You wanted to shut me up? I suppose you never considered that I might have thought that you--felt--”

Flash froze again. Why is this so hard?! Infuriating! Unable to cope, Flash lifted his shirt up onto his face and screamed into the fabric. Good thing it was made of breathable material.

@Ruka Tân @Jack Burnett

When Ruka finally started talking back, extricating himself from Jack and distancing himself a good deal away from both Slytherins, Jack watched him. The younger redhead was fully attentive to his upperclassman's words, voice, and body language, but he said nothing in response; not to interject, interrupt, or reply. The only change he made every so often was to glance over to see how Ruka's behavior was affecting Flash.

Jack held the green gaze that found his own, stinging him with the intensity of their resentment. There was much he could have said, of course; much he thought he could have easily refuted, debated, or denied, but he refrained. However Ruka might have felt toward him, that wasn't what Jack was determined to sort out right there and then. There was something more urgent at the time that couldn't wait until summer vacation.

Even if Ruka had originally meant to only complain to Jack, he was also speaking his mind for Flash to hear, even if it was indirectly or unintentionally. And while Jack had no doubt that Ruka had tried to speak his mind to Flash directly before, the Welsh boy knew that there were some important things that both Ruka and Flash kept to themselves.

From what Jack could tell, everyone - especially Flash and Ruka - tended to either presume certain things to be understood by their opposer and so did not think to say them or they otherwise didn't think them worth mentioning at all. By challenging their reasons for being upset, Jack gave the impression that he knew less than he suspected he might have, tempting the other boys to revisit the causes for their dispute while simultaneously allowing their opposer to review and either confirm or deny said cause.

However he might have liked to convince Ruka he was wrong or even point out how half-hearted Flash's denial of his claim seemed to be, Jack knew that was not for him to do in this situation. It cut the redheaded Slytherin deep when the fire-dancer stared him down and accused him with a trembling voice, biting his bottom lip so hard that it bled. As much as they hurt his heart, the telltale tapping of Ruka's fingers against his thigh were not for Jack to stop; not this time.

It was almost too much when the oldest boy repeated the words Flash had told him, though it took a moment or two for Jack to realize that was what they were. In that time, he was able to exercise enough self-discipline to restrain himself. Flash was the one who needed to step up to correct the shorter second year, not him.

Out the corner of his peripheral vision, Jack had watched his dorm mate's countenance adopt an expression of pained horror at the Gryffindor's look directed at him. He dared not draw attention to it or comment on it; only remained silent and observed. The more Ruka spoke, the more his comments seemed to stab at Flash, hurting him perhaps as much if not more than Jack.

How...how could that be? Were they closer than the Welsh boy realized? Or...was it that one of them thought they were closer than the other did...?

Not that those questions were his really business; Jack reminded himself that he was mostly there just to facilitate - or, he supposed in this instance, to instigate - discussion regarding the relationship between the quarreling pair. That was why only when Ruka turned around to begin walking back to the castle did Jack take action. For once, it wasn't to talk, either.

When Jack got up to stop the fire-dancer, Flash stood as well, his stance sure and steady. The redheaded Slytherin ran over to tackle the copper-haired Gryffindor, attempting to pounce him without a word and lie on him like an obnoxious older brother pinning a tantrum-throwing younger one to the grassy ground with his weight.

He lay tried to knock Ruka on his stomach so he could lie on top of him with his back against the other boy's, folding his arms across his chest while staring silently at the sky. Jack continued to keep his ears open but his mouth shut, attempting to piece together what he could of the puzzle in his head so he could step back and try to look at it objectively. What he seemed to conclude was that Flash's feelings hadn't seemed to match up to Ruka's, but neither of them seemed to realize that due to their own preconceived notions of each other's thoughts.

The ultimate goal of Jack's had been to get both boys to talk. While Ruka may have been most comfortable talking to Jack alone and Flash might have been comfortable talking to Ruka alone, when all three were together, it was more likely they could be persuaded to say what they needed to say regardless of what they feared a third party might hear.

His hope had been to get them to open up and little by little, despite the slicing at old or recent wounds, they were. As Jack believed, people were most honest when tensions were highest and they seemed to feel the most like talking when it was to correct what they thought had been misunderstood.

By trying to get the boys to clarify why they were upset about, it seemed the previously hidden misinterpretations were coming to light. How that would affect the boys' overall relationship, however, Jack had no idea. He could only hope it would be for the better.

Just as Ruka's obvious agony nipped at Jack, the betrayal Flash portrayed in his tone as he asked question after question of the Gryffindor caused the Welsh boy to shut his eyes to the sun-lit blue sky above. Even so, he felt compelled to turn his head back when he heard the other Slytherin scream into his shirt. No. He had to remain where he was and keep a neutral expression. As much as Jack wanted to, he couldn't get involved in that way. His own emotions weren't allowed to be a factor in this fight. This was between them.

His main, self-appointed job was to mediate, which meant getting them to talk aloud about their problems with each other, keeping them from running away, and keeping them from harming each other with physical blows or magic. As things were, all that was there for him to do just then was to keep quiet and pay attention as they continued to interact.

@Jack Burnett @Flash Holmwood

Ruka hadn't exactly been very fast in his dramatic exit, maybe in hopes to be called out to, maybe because his emotional vulnerability mixed with the rage and hurt boiling inside him were making him feel zombie like in his movements. Either way he didn't exactly get very far before an unexpected force was pushing him to the ground, causing a wave of panic to surge through him like an electric shock.

Just a minute ago he'd been thinking about how he didn't want anybody to touch him, and there he was now, face to the ground, knees aching with the impact, white T-Shirt grass stained, and with a foreign weight keeping him in place. It took him a moment of unadulterated terror to realise that it was Jack who had seemingly decided to use him as a mattress for the time being, laying down on his back without a word to explain his actions, but Ruka figured he understood well enough. The Slytherin had asked them both to stay and talk, and the talk wasn't over yet, it seemed, despite Ruka's verbal assault on both of them.

The fact that neither of the two other boys had interrupted him at any point or argued anything he said had made him feel like they had nothing else to say, but that didn't seem to be the case; At least not for Flash, who's voice stung his ears painfully, the questions he was asking making him want to shed even more tears out of pure frustration. It sounded like Flash was under the impression that Ruka had made him out to be the villain in this scenario when telling Jack about the kiss, but as far as Ruka was aware, hadn't he taken a good portion of the blame himself? Hadn't he been expressing his guilt for it just as much as his discomfort?

Of course Flash had no way of knowing that, but the mere accusation once again showed Ruka what kind of person the Slytherin seemed to think he was; Just as he had assumed Ruka to have come after him to enjoy his misery back at Willow and Alan's birthday, Flash seemed to think that he took some kind of morbid pleasure out of the blue eyed boy's pain.

However, despite his bruised ego, Ruka found a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips as he listened to Flash's anger, the words that had a clear message: You wronged me.

Finally.

"Get off me, you oaf," Ruka murmured his annoyance through some remaining tears, rolling his shoulders to cause Jack as much discomfort in his position as possible. It was in that moment that Flash's scream sliced through the air, startling a few birds from their place in the crown of nearby trees.

With all the strength left in his tired body, Ruka wiggled and rolled around enough to manage to push Jack off his back, and he rolled to his side to avoid being laid on again, an expression of frustrated annoyance on his face as he eyed Jack accusingly. He couldn't just have called out to him, could he? He had to have chosen the most dramatic way of getting him to stay, the most effective one. As much as Ruka hated to admit it, it did silently argue his conception that neither Flash nor Jack cared much for his presence. If hurting him was the only thing they had wanted they could have just let him leave after he'd expressed his pain, but it had taken but a few seconds to get tackled and forced to stick around, so maybe...

He quickly shook his head to himself as he pushed himself back to his feet. For now his attention went to Flash who had pulled his shirt over his face, possibly to muffle his sound of agony, or to hide his pained expression as he screamed into the abyss. Either way, that wouldn't do.

Trembling, Ruka moved closer to the taller boy, slowly, as if scared to be struck if he made too sudden a movement. With a deep breath, he reached his hands up once he was close enough, gently prying the T-Shirt from Flash's grasp to pull it back down again and get a look at his face. It was the first time Ruka thought to be seeing something this real in Flash's expression, and mixed with the words of accusation that had left his lips just a moment before, Ruka finally felt like this was a person he was able to talk to. Someone who wasn't just going to lie down and let Ruka trample all over him any way he pleased. Someone who had the guts to stand up for himself, just how Ruka had asked him to do after the kiss.

“So much for impossible,” he said as he lifted an arm to wipe his tears into the crook of his elbow, breathing slowly regulating again as he took a step back so he didn’t need to crane his neck quite as much to be able to look at Flash with a vaguely amused expression on his face. “You’re saying it’s my fault then? That I did you wrong somehow?” He let a small laugh escape from his lungs as he shook his head to himself incredulously.

For a moment he must have seemed like he was challenging Flash on that stance, like he was going to defend himself from this accusation, but a moment later his expression filled with sorrow, guilt and regret, eyes cast down to the ground as if looking at Flash was too painful to stand somehow. “You’re right,” he said eventually, quietly but definitely enough for both of the other boys to hear him as long as they had their attention on him. “I shouldn’t have done what I did. I panicked, I didn’t know what to do and I…”

He interrupted himself to take a deep breath, swallowing down some more tears threatening to escape him, before lifting his gaze to lock teary green with cloudy blue. "I played with your feelings, I stepped all over you like a dirty rag. I know. You don't think I feel guilty about it all the time?" He sighed quietly, a tired expression settling on his face, eyes focused on Flash's face, unwaveringly. He wasn't going to look away again, no matter how much it hurt to be looking at the other boy.

“I took something valuable away from you and I had no right. I shouldn’t have done that and I’m sorry. If I could undo it I would.” He wasn’t sure how much comfort that would be to Flash exactly; Words were meaningless half the time, but there wasn’t much Ruka was able to do to right his wrongs again, so an apology was all he could offer. He hoped the guilt pulling his face into a painful grimace was enough to convey his sincerity to the other boy.

“You have every right to punish me,” he told him, lifting his shoulders in a small shrug, bottom lip pulled between his teeth, features twisting into a desperate plea. “But not like this.” He vaguely gestured in Jack’s direction as if that would explain his words. “This is all I have. All I have, do you understand? And you’re taking him away from me.” Embarrassment flushed his cheeks as he turned his head to his left to avoid looking at either of the two boys. He was being pathetic, just like Jack had said. Whiny and needy and pathetic. He wouldn’t want himself around either.

Shaking his head to himself he sniffled against his will, like a ridiculously sleep deprived little toddler unable to keep his emotions in check. Maybe Selim’s approach had been right; Maybe locking his emotions away and living off nothing but cold, apathetic logic was the way to go through life.

For now, however, that was not an approach he was able to attempt, not while he was already this messed up, so instead he allowed another flow of tears to stain his cheeks.

“You win,” he choked out, voice cracking with each syllable. “You’re better than me. You’re more important.” His tears came out with a hopeless chuckle. “Just don’t make me watch, it’s killing me.” Exaggerated as it may have sounded, he thought the way his voice went small and desperate may have betrayed how much truth there was in his words. Slowly snipping away at his heart strings, the realisation that he was just a disposable accessory to the one person that had made him feel like life was worth living was killing him, driving him into an abyss he didn’t think he’d be able to climb out of. Not again. “I’m sorry for what I did to you,” he whispered, lifting his hands to cover his face in their palms. “But was it really bad enough for me to deserve this?”

Unable to keep himself on his feet any longer than that, Ruka allowed himself to slump back down on the grass, knees pulled closely against his chest as he rocked back and forth for a moment to find a calm amidst the tidal waves within his mind. Tiredly he reached up to rub his palms across his face in a pure display of desperation. "I don't understand what you want from me," he whispered, unsure if Flash was even paying him enough attention to hear his words. "I don't understand..." He broke off for a moment. His thoughts were leading him nowhere right now. "Is this some kind of war?" he asked, and the question must have sounded ridiculous but there was nothing but sincere confusion in his voice. People were so difficult, so unstable, so frightening and Ruka didn't know how to deal with them in the slightest. For all his capabilities of observation and seeing through any act presented to him, there was this gaping disconnect between him and the rest of the world, and he had no idea how to bridge it. "Because I feel like we just keep fighting against each other and I'm so tired." He shook his head, a small, broken laugh escaping his lungs. "I just want it all to stop."

At some point, Burnett had bounded over to Ruka to keep him from walking away. Not a particularly graceful answer to the problem, but as long as Flash wasn’t doing it, he was fine with Ruka being stopped. At least he hoped Burnett knew what he was doing when it came to Ruka, certainly he had to know more than Flash did. He wasn’t looking in their direction anyway, after saying the few short words on his mind, he was staring at his eyelids, buried in his shirt.

Flash could hear movement, and Ruka talking, but he was trying to focus on evening out. He knew he didn’t have much time after an outburst like that, but he couldn’t start screaming and crying now. He didn’t want to look foolish and pathetic, why did it seem to always end up there when things went wrong? That’s who you used to be, you’re still trying to get rid of it. But… even if it was pathetic, trying to destroy those emotions hadn’t worked. Find another way, something to numb you. Was that really the answer, though? To keep running away from the parts of himself he hated? It made sense, being empty clearly felt much better than the anguish he was currently steeping in. It wasn’t a hard conclusion to come to. In that case, wasn’t accepting the pain ‘the road less traveled’?

Before Flash could lose himself in his thoughts any further, he felt a tugging on his protective barrier. Taken off guard, he relinquished his grasp and allowed the veil to fall away, only to be greeted by Ruka’s face, still stained with drying tears. The sight, as well as the words being spoken, left Flash with his own expression of tentative fear. He held his breath, watching Ruka wipe his face and croak a laugh. What horrible thing is he going to say now? Flash instinctively hardened his heart when Ruka began to address Flash’s accusation, though he had never said outright that it was Ruka’s ‘fault’.

What did it matter, Ruka took the blame. The admission felt like someone knocking over a carefully prepared display as one thing after another crashed to the ground and was broken beyond repair. There you go, are you happy? Flash didn’t know why he had done it, but it was clear then: he had been living in denial. He could only stare at Ruka like a deer in the headlights as he described his own culpability, and how he had done it in a panic, and regretted it deeply. Wasn’t that worse… than living in denial? Wasn’t this truth… horrible? Ruka looked right into his eyes when he said he was sorry. I don’t care… I don’t care that you’re sorry! I don’t want it to be true!

At that point, Flash’s delusion was irrevocably shattered, and he hated it. It was clear by Ruka’s face that he was being genuine, that he honestly regretted what he did and felt terrible about it. That was just fine. FINE! Flash’s heart started to accept it, and his face grew disillusioned. Lips pulling back into a quivering frown, brow furrowed and nostrils flared. What had convinced him that his first kiss mattered in the first place, or any kiss at all? What sort of expectation had he made for himself, without ever realizing it? That it would be like a love story in a book, where two people completed each other? Perhaps Ruka had done something wrong, but Flash had done something humiliating. He had wanted it, even though he had no good reason to. Because he was… thrilled by the thought of someone loving him. Like that could ever happen.

Then, to Flash’s surprise, Ruka started to beg for Flash to stop punishing him, gesturing to Burnett. What on Earth is he talking about... There was something Flash hadn’t considered, something that had muddied the waters. Flash glanced over to Burnett, but it wasn’t as if Burnett could telepathically communicate what Ruka meant. Flash was out to sea yet again, traversing choppy, dangerous waters while ruefully underprepared. Ruka had cast his eyes, sniffling and groaning about his own cruel fate. Then, crying again. The instinct when someone started crying right in front of him was to console them, but Flash didn’t even have a clue what Ruka was talking about. What punishment had he wrought upon Ruka that made him such a wreck? How had he managed to apply it without any intention?

He was falling apart, like before. So this was the core of his ‘problem’ all day. Watching… Burnett… better… all he had… fighting… Flash’s eyes darted around with the telltale signs of quick internal deduction, not having much other option while being face-to-face with such raw emotional material. Ruka thought that… Flash was fighting him, fighting him over Burnett… Burnett was all he had… he thought he was trying to take Burnett away from him? Cut him out of Ruka’s life by ‘stealing’ him, as punishment for the kiss? Well, he couldn’t really blame Ruka for thinking he might be vindictive. After all, Ruka didn’t know Flash very well. A good deal of Flash’s actions up until recently had been under the assumption that Ruka could read Flash clearly, since Flash had felt so completely transparent around him.

That wasn’t the truth, however. If he understood, he would know that Flash didn’t particularly enjoy revenge. Perhaps if it was something small, something funny. Nothing like Ruka was imagining. Instead, Flash’s solution had been to turn his frustration into trying to make the two of him his allies. It was more productive, and despite their shortcomings, they were both extremely intelligent for their age, something Flash valued greatly. Flash thought that was clear at the ball, thought it was clear that day on the window sill. Flash needed to start being more careful about what was ‘clear’. Ruka was a mess, a catastrophe, and it was Flash’s fault, wasn’t it? If he was more like Val, he would have seen this coming. He wouldn’t have read the signs all wrong, stayed trapped behind the attractive lie of pleasant fantasy for so long.

Perhaps it wasn’t the perfect option, but given the wreckage of Ruka’s presence, Flash felt consoling him was the only viable option. At least now Flash didn’t feel so lost. Perhaps he could give Ruka a bit of the clarity he himself had received. With that, Flash moved forward and wrapped his arms around Ruka into a gentle, air-light hug. At their heights, it meant pressing Ruka up against his chest. He looked at Burnett behind Ruka as well, 'You too.'

”I was never trying to fight you Ruka.” Flash’s voice was stable, flat, explanatory. It was the best he had to offer. ”Please don’t be sad because of me… I’m not trying to punish you. I don’t want to hurt you at all.”

Perhaps the words would sound like lies, perhaps the touch would feel like fire, but that was the way the evening was going. When everything was confusing and feelings were hurt, hugging it out seemed like the right option. After all, it had been how Burnett had got through to Flash.

@Jack Burnett @Ruka Tân