Ragged Things PV November Morsus Closed

"I would think you'd miss the train, and then you'll be stuck all the way out here with no way to get to school," November pondered, then shuddered, "Maybe you'd get sent away and not get to attend school at all." He couldn't imagine a worse fate. "I'm very, very glad we're not late," he muttered, voice almost inaudible, and squeezed Green's hand.

"Yes!" November cried, far more delighted once Green had confirmed that yes, they were, in fact, friends. "We've both already made a friend, and I'm really very glad that it was you...." He beamed, then blushed, looked away. "I suppose you're right about family," he said with a sigh, "I always, thought it'd be nicer than just, whoever was around, though. I mean, that's the way it was in St. Romuald's, and that wasn't very nice at all...." Another of his trademark long, sad sighs. "I suppose, in that case, friends are much, much better..."

He blushed when Green mentioned the lack of mandatory touching when it came to friends, realizing that this meant that the other boy had very much wanted to touch him all the times they had so far, which was really quite a lot in the short time they'd known each other. "Um, yes...."

Green flinched a little as November cried out his enthusiasm, looking him up and down with some alarm as November exulted in their friendship. He looked for a moment almost as if he expected that the larger boy might eat him; but seeing this was not the case, he slowly relaxed, smiled at November lopsidedly. "Well, this is certainly nice," he pointed out. Sobered. "But then, you're right, institutions aren't much fun. Being shoved in where ever they put you, wondering if anything they say is really true, if anybody cares, if anybody is ever really coming to adopt you at all," he sighed, looking away. Blinked.

Pus bags.

"I mean... not that I've been in one!" he amended quickly, perhaps a bit too abruptly to be entirely convincing. "I've just got a friend who was, that's all. He said it was simply awful," he shook his head, squeezing November's hand tighter, heedless of the fact that they were in public, that it probably looked strange, that this was not at all what he did with friends in general. His grip almost hurt. "I just wanted you to know that I sympathize, that's all. And not to worry about not having any official nonsense - we're all related some ways back, so that's all just made up anyway," he waved a hand in the air.

Once he spotted Green's fear, November immediately shrank, the enthusiasm that had come on so strongly vanishing almost instantly, as if into a puff of smoke. "I-...." he began, but then realized he wasn't quite sure where to go on from there, and so just shut his mouth, and shrank even further.

His expression fell further as Green began to talk about orphanages, speak in great detail about the loneliness of living in one, of the uncertainty that lay therein. "That-... Really does sound dreadful, yes," November mumbled, "I mean, I always knew that no one would want me, so, I never really wondered whether or not anyone would come for me. But, it must be hard to have that hope, and never see it realized...." One hand closed around his heart, as if to hold back the dam on the raging torrent of emotion inside of him.

"But, um, the train's here, so I suppose we should just, get on," November said as the piercing whistle of the steam locomotive rent the air, calling the students aboard. The last of the weepy goodbyes came to a close, and November just, gripped Green's hand tight and his bag in the other, and plunged onward into the depths.

"Hope be damned!" snapped Green suddenly, looking up at November in anger. "Why wouldn't anybody want you?!" It wasn't spoken like a question. It was declared, like a statement of fact. He squeezed November's hand crushingly tight for such a young boy, marching onto the train. "Idiots just never thought to show up, that's all. Expecting family to fall from trees, instead of going out and finding children for themselves. I mean, honestly, how many visitors did you see in yours?" he demanded, huffing as he grabbed his bag and jerked towards him, practically falling off as one of the wheels got stuck in the gap. He growled out his frustration, shaking and rattling it as he tried to dislodge the thing.

"People are just blind," he snapped, madder and madder by the second. "They think that everything in this world has to be given to you to mean something, and so they forget to take. They forget to make things happen," he huffed, face red, pushing and pulling hard. Slumping briefly against the train wall, he panted, staring at the bag. "Oh, shit," he said as the whistle blew, looking up at it in terror. "Not going to make it, am I?"

And once again, November was frozen in utter shock at Green's explosion of furious temper. Why was he so mad, over the fact that nobody wanted November? November himself had just taken it for another solid pillar of reality: The sun rose in the east every morning, the sky was bright blue, two and two added up to four, and nobody wanted a boy like Miserable Morsus. That's just the way things were.

Or maybe... Maybe this wasn't about November himself being unwanted. Green *had* been so very quick to deny that he had ever been in one himself... But hadn't he said that he came from a prestigious family? And no matter how he insisted that November just claim family prestige, he didn't think it was really as easy as he said it was.

But he'd been so deep in thought, he almost failed to spot Green struggling with his bag, which was stuck fast. "Oh-!" he yelped as he sped into action, narrowing his eyes at the bag, and rushing it hard to dislodge it, rushing it as if it had been-.... He cut the thought off hard in his mind. No more thinking of that event anymore.

Green gasped as November barreled into the bag with murderous force, causing it to fly forward, the wheel stuck between the platform and the train snapping off to fall beneath both, lost forever. "Bat spit," Green murmured as the train door slid closed, the locomotive beginning to puff into motion. "Well, I guess it's a tilt and roll now. You alright?" he asked, turning towards November.

Green stiffened in alarm as he heard the soft sound of wheels rolling down the aisle, reaching out to Grab November's shoulder protectively. The soft, rhythmic sound of squeak-squeak, squeak-squeak rolling along on the muffling red carpet came closer and closer, followed by footsteps, neat and heavy and inevitable. Too late to go forward. Nowhere to go back. A moment of impossible, irrational terror swept over Green, and he gripped November tightly as he tried to squeeze against one wall.

A little old lady with a cart full of treats wheeled on by, low-heeled shoes thumping against the carpet, bespectacled eyes boggling at the two boys. "Best get to your cabins, then," she said gently. "Were you wanting anything?"

Green stared back at her, terrified. He looked at November. "Well? Were you wanting anything? My treat."

"We did it..." November breathed in heavy relief as the suitcase came loose, dumping the two of them into the train proper. He was worried Green would get stuck there, lose all of his things, or... Worse.... However, their victory was not without cost. November sighed as he looked at yet another empty place where a wheel belonged. "I-... I'll get you, another, new one..." He promised, brows drooping in despair.

the despair quickly turned to terror, mirroring Green's own as he heard the footsteps. Were they too late? Would they be punished? Why was Green so frightened? it had to be that whoever was coming had ill intent... But they'd only just gotten there, hadn't even done anything....

And then it was only a little old woman with a small push-cart that was simply bursting with all manner of strange confectionery. "Oh-..." He gasped, eyes wide. He'd hardly ever even seen a cake or candy that he hadn't made himself, let alone these brilliant magical concoctions! Then Green offered to buy him some, and he was downright overcome. "R-really? Oh, I couldn't, I don't want to put you to any trouble-..." Despite his hesitant words, his eyes told the real story, wide as they stared at the treats with pure longing.

"Trouble my foot, you're damn well going to eat it or I'll shove it down your throat!" Green huffed at November, leaning in towards him threateningly.

"Young man!" gasped the woman, pressing a hand to her chest in shock. "Language!"

Green pressed his lips together, immediately contrite. "Sorry, Ma'am," he said mildly. "It's a tough love approach. Now if we're spending a galleon a piece, what could that get us...?"

"Oh, goodness, quite a bit, even between you and your friend. You could probably get a bit of everything and still have some change left over," she remarked, looking down at the cart. "We do have a few things new on the cart this year, along with the classics. You've got your standard pumpkin juice, of course. Chocolate frogs, too, despite the stains they leave all over the seats on hot days," she sighed, shaking her head. "A veritable menagerie of other confectionary creatures, too: cockroach clusters, jelly slugs, fudge flies, jelly slugs..."

"Is there any particular reason they're all named after creatures that are considered slimy or foul?" Green asked, face squinched up.

"Oh, goodness knows," sighed the woman, waving a hand. "A few genuinely entomophagous choices, if that's your fancy - sugared butterfly wings and fizzing whizbees. That'll make you hit your head on the ceiling, though, so do be careful," she sighed. "And of course, we've got acid pops this time, if you don't mind things a bit sour. Skeletal sweets and chocolate skeletons," she added, peering under the cart. "Oh, and some charm chocs. What would you like, dears?"

Green turned to November, gesturing for him to pick first.

November, meanwhile, had become so utterly overwhelmed he had essentially bluescreened. His eyes were wide and staring as the kindly old woman trotted out treats beyond his wildest imagination, and Green was offering, no, insisting on pain of death that he purchase an amount of them he could only think of as ludicrous. He very nearly began weeping on the spot, but managed to catch himself simply out of desire not to make the nice cart lady unduly concerned for him.

"I-...." At last, he began to resume control of his faculties, haltingly, carefully, "I'm rather fond of... Pumpkin.... Might I have one of those lovely pumpkin pasties?" he pointed, still hesitant, still thinking the answer must be no somewhere along the line. "They, look really beautiful...." The licorice wands also managed to catch his eye, and oh, how he did love licorice! "You-... You really mean that?" he asked, turning to Green, "a whole galleon, just for us? Really?" It was downright incomprehensible; he'd barely had two galleons to scrape together when he was buying his supplies, and even that was only thanks to the endless generosity of the teachers that had helped him shop for his supplies.

"Certainly," Green nodded to November, confident. "I got my books secondhand, so I had some to spare. My father simply never got rid of his, and it seem the curriculum hasn't changed in, oh, a century I suppose," he rolled his eyes, the generosity of his elders apparently having inspired little in the way of gratitude. "And if you get a lot of candies, I have the excuse to do so, too. I'll have some chocolate skeletons," he said to the woman, pointing, "Choco charms, a handful of every-flavor beans... I suppose a pastry will do for lunch... an acid pop..."

"If you're going to take one of those, take a soothing sweet, too," advised the woman. "For after. Can't have you getting to the ceremony with a hole in your tongue."

"Right," agreed Green, plucking these from the little cannister they were housed in. "Oh - is that a blood pop?" he asked, taking out a bright red lolli.

"Oh, dear," the woman tisked. "That must have gotten mixed in with the rest.... You won't be wanting that one, dear, they're really for vampires," she warned.

"Vampires, nonsense," said Green, tucking it away. "If it's for the same as the acid pops, I'll take it. That, and a handful of fizzing whizbees, if you please," he said, handing her his galleon as she packaged up his things. He handed the remaining one to November. "Really, go wild," he invited.