Closed Yankee Doodle PV George Henry

"As if you don't already have your own little gang," Jack chuckled, shaking his head again. "As for the internet, yeah, you can sell stuff on it and buy stuff too, but there's so much more you can do, too! Like watch shows you missed on TV or communicate with people a million miles away. Or watch shows with people a million miles away! Really, the possibilities are endless." He considered Etsy, which he had heard about but not really used much. His parents had warned him that buying stuff on there and Amazon could get pretty addicting. But selling stuff on the internet was a large part of his dad's job, so Jack was probably more used to that than George was.

"You tutor a few purebloods in charms?" Jack repeated, gaping. It was one thing to teach yourself magic, but a whole other to be good enough to teach others. He had really underestimated George's studiousness. "That - that's incredible! But mate, you and me have got to hang out some summer. I'll show you stuff about the internet that'll blow your mind. Ruka needs to learn, too, since he's lived most of his life without it. And...maybe you could bring your brother if you like."

Jack smiled when George squeezed him reassuringly on the shoulder. It was more comforting than he thought it would be. "Actually, I got it in my second year. Ruka was getting so badly bullied he was nearly drowned in the courtyard fountain once by Rafael D'Spacito. Sometimes he wouldn't eat or sleep like he should have, either, so I basically had to mother him - something you probably know a little about." He guessed George had had to behave similarly with Jake and look after him. "After first year, it seemed almost natural to get a binding mark so we could know where the other was at all times and talk whenever we wanted to. Especially since we were in different houses."

He sneered when George mentioned friendship bracelets. "Oh, you mean death sentences! Yeah, I threw a bunch of Willow's in the fire once. Those things are dangerous. Amazed you received one and are still alive."

Jack was grateful for George's sympathy, but he was even more grateful for a chance to shift the subject away from Ruka. He missed the hug-turned-stretch as he got up, but was happy to see George reveling in what he had with Jake and Jack. Friendship, when it was done right, could really mean a great deal. Too bad he himself sucked at it.

"Huh?" He glanced over in surprise when George asked if he was going somewhere. "Oh, well I didn't have anywhere particular to go or much to do. I just figured you were probably busy and had your own things to get to." He tilted his head and smiled. "Like...put on make-up, maybe? Why do you do that, if you don't mind me asking?"

@George Henry

"Yeah - I'm good at it, so I help whoever needs it," George said, smiling as Jack was once again shocked by George's immense boldness and intelligence. It was difficult to manage being so prodigious, but somehow, George made it work. Picking up students was quite easy, considering those who struggled in charms typically made themselves known by inadvertently blowing something up or throwing it across the room. "Oh, sure. Maybe next summer, I guess - if you're near Edinburgh, I live in Walkerburn... Edinburgh is the closest city you've probably heard of. Unless you're familiar with the up-and-coming metropolis of Peebles. I bet my brother would love to meet you, though. He's still waiting for me to show him another wizard to prove it's all real and not some sort of elaborate joke on me."

He laughed at the idea. It made sense from Sam's perspective - it wasn't like George had ever shown him any magic, aside from that first incident of throwing branches on his head. The way it had worked out could've very well been just coincidence, though George liked to imagine that he knew it wasn't. That maybe he had done that on purpose... not that he could ever do any magic without a wand.

"Second year? Mate, you've got something wrong with you," George said, but from his glowing smile, one might surmise that it was meant as a compliment. That smile faltered as Jack recounted Ruka's experience being bullied. It was no wonder he dropped out if that's how he was being treated at school. George had been fortunate enough to avoid bullies, mostly - perhaps being generally average and sticking to packs of Hufflepuffs worked to his benefit. "That makes sense. I thought about maybe trying to figure that out, too... but if Jake came home with a binding mark on him, his mom would probably kill me. His parents are crazy."

Sensibly crazy, if not wanting their child to be permanently psychically bound to some 14 year old they met at magic school was crazy at all. It would be nice to be able to know what the other was thinking all the time. Maybe they would fight less. Or maybe a lot more, if one couldn't decide which thoughts were inside thoughts. "Yeah, that makes sense."

What made no sense was what Jack said about friendship bracelets. George screwed up his face, scrunching his nose in disgust as he heard that Jack threw a bunch of Willow's friendship bracelets into the fire. While he did not consider himself a sentimental person, the idea of throwing a hand-made gift into the fire was repulsive to the young Hufflepuff.

"Why would you do that?" he wondered, looking up to Jack as if he'd suddenly been replaced with a stranger. Seeing that the stranger was worried about his schedule, George shook his head. "No, sit back down." Contrary again. "And... I mean, I just do it because it's fun, and I think it looks nice. It's fun to do yourself up. You can try it sometime, if you want. I made Ruka up as a badger once before, which... at least Jake found very amusing. I usually just do a little touching up on me, unless it's for Quidditch. Then I'm going all-out badger."

He paused. "I'll take your question as a compliment - I haven't got any on right now, and I must look fine." He looked about the same as he did with it on, except he wasn't blushing all the time now, and his skin showed a few marks where there weren't before. "If I were hideous you wouldn't need to wonder at all why I do it."

It was interesting to Jack that George's brother still had trouble believing in the wizarding world despite everything that must have happened with George, but he supposed he would have been skeptical too if he'd been in the same position. He made a mental note of the city of Edinburgh and Walkerburn so he could ask his parents about visiting there the next chance he got.

He smiled awkwardly at the mention of Jake's mom killing George if Jake had come home with a binding mark. Jack's mom would have likely been just as furious, but luckily the mark Jack wore was one that could wash off since he was the binding marker, so he didn't have a real mark at all. Because of that, though, it was likely their mother had thought Ruka's mark was washable, too, and thus didn't question it. Jack didn't want to think about the trouble he might have been in if his parents had known Ruka's mark was permanent and that Jack had given it to him, let alone what it could do.

At George's question about the friendship bracelets, Jack cringed. Oops; he supposed he'd said the wrong thing again. But the Scottish boy told him to sit back down, so back down he sat. "I, uh..." How to explain himself? He thought back to his first meeting with Willow. "I guess I've always thought of friends as dangerous things to have. So that's why I considered friendship bracelets to be like death sentences. And I've been calling them that ever since."

He spread his arms. "I mean, think about it. Some people would do anything for their friends, even die. Isn't that detrimental to one's health? Just like kindness is?" It was odd to Jack how George could agree with him that kindness was dangerous but not see how friendships could be as well. That was probably just part of how contradictive as a person he was, though.

Jack smiled a little at George mentioning he had done up Ruka as a badger before. "What? Like face paint?" It reminded him of an errand that Professor Jensen had set up where she had put out all kinds of beauty supplies; the errand where he had met Dealla Prince. "I've messed with some nail polish once because that's easy enough to put on and I know what it's for and where it goes, but I don't get what to do with all that other stuff like blush and...whatever it is the rest of the stuff is called."

He smirked. "Good! You should take it as a compliment. It's not like you're bad-looking or anything. But maybe I'm not the best person to hear that from since I don't pay too much attention to people's looks."

@George Henry

George looked very satisfied with himself when Jack sat back down on command. Most of the authority he enjoyed was bullying his friends and peers into doing things, which made it all the more pleasant when they actually listened to him without any badgering whatsoever. Still, the subject of friendship as described by Jack Burnett seemed to completely bewilder the other boy. What, did Jack not have any friends? "Well... I guess that's true," George said. It brought back memories of the fire in the Common Room - he might've died trying to save Jake if it came to it. "Dying is detrimental to one's health, yes, Jack. But so is broom racing, and I love that. It beats being bored."

He smiled at Jack, half-joking. After considering him for a moment, George adopted a more serious expression, narrowing his eyes slightly. "If I ever give you a gift and I find out you've thrown it into a fire, I'm going to throw you into a fire," George assured him, swiping a finger across his neck to ensure that his death threat came across clearly. A lingering curiosity edged closer to finally being verbalized - but there were more pleasant conversations to be had in the meantime.

"Yeah - like face paint, but a lot nicer," George said, grinning at Burnett. His eyes wandered off toward some of the other tents as he remembered when he'd done Ruka up. It was a good thing Jake had shown up to calm both boys down when they were snarking at each other. "I can teach you if you want. I did up Alec Mason. But he couldn't sit still for the mascara so he just had these big horrible streaks across his face... it's a shame, because he's really got some cracking eyelashes. Mine are just little nothings."

Lamentations on the subject of beauty did not last, as George suddenly appeared to be wearing a hint of blush when Burnett assured him it was a compliment. Still, he couldn't help but pick on the phrasing. "Not bad-looking? Goodness, aren't you a charmer, Burnett? If I had to judge you myself, I'd say you look downright acceptable. Not to give you a big head or anything," George said, sticking out his tongue at the other boy for a moment. "That's good of you to not pay much attention to looks. I guess I don't either, really, save for my own."

As George considered that statement more, he pulled his gaze to the side again, realizing that it was pretty much a complete lie. Another way he was different from his ideal self - he really had to stop judging books by their covers... but who wants to read a book with an ugly cover? He dismissed those self-critical thoughts for later. Maybe he'd reflect on them in his diary.

"I think I'd be more dangerous without friends," said George thoughtfully, resting his chin on his hand. It was like the example with Ruka - Jake walking in had saved him from what could've no doubt escalated into an ugly argument. "Sometimes I've got to be bold because of Jack. Sometimes I've got to be nice because of Jake. I'm a bit of a jerk without all of my hangers-on."

He turned to look at Burnett directly, smiling as he realized something. "Like how you made me deliver my apology by hand instead of sending out Cadmus. That was friendly of you," George said. It was rare for him to exercise gratitude for his friends instead of just whinging about them. Of course, he'd never tell Jake or Jack that they made him a better person. They'd only ever get the complaints. His nose wrinkled in a sweet smile as he looked at Jack B. "Then again, you do have a sort of 'death sentence'-y way about you. Less so lately, of course. Bad first impressions, maybe."

Jack gave George a quizzical look when he mentioned broom racing as detrimental to one's health. "It is?" he asked. "You don't just...race on your brooms? Like to see who gets from one place to the other fastest?" He wasn't sure what was entirely all that dangerous about a race unless one was speaking of the possibility of falling off one's broom.

"Okay, so maybe that beats being bored, but so does other less dangerous stuff! You don't have to almost die to not be bored, do you?" Well, maybe some thrill-seekers did. Perhaps George was one of them.

"Fair, fair" he said, nodding when George threatened to throw him into a fire. "But for the record, I don't think the bracelets I burned were for anyone in particular. Even if they were, Willow socked me pretty good for doing that so it's not like they weren't avenged."

Chuckling at the tale of Alec Mason's makeover, Jack asked, "What's mascara?" It sounded like it had something to do with eyelashes if George's following words were anything to go off of. "Maybe I could do with a little make-up education if you had the time sometime."

Laughter shook his shoulders at the taller boy's comment regarding him being a charmer and his 'compliment' right after. "Oh? Why are you worried about your looks? Is there someone you like?" he asked with a teasing grin, thinking of George's blush earlier.

The statement that he thought he'd be more dangerous without friends took Jack by surprise. He hadn't thought of things that way before. "Well...isn't being a jerk sometimes the way to be if you want to survive in this world on your own?" Jack asked, recalling all the times he'd tried to make enemies with others in order to avoid loneliness without making friends.

His mouth fell ajar when George had called him friendly. That was right. He was doing a horrible job of being a jerk and not making friends. Why did he always end up defaulting to this when he didn't actively think about it?

"Maybe...maybe you should have just kept your bad first impression of me," Jack said suddenly, rubbing his arm self-consciously. "It's not like you don't have enough friends and I'm terrible at being one. I'll probably end up letting you down sooner or later." He already had a couple of times by using the term 'mudblood' and then telling George proudly of the time he'd burned Willow's bracelets. He just wasn't cut out to be a friend.

"I thought earlier this year that I finally had what it took to be a friend...but later on, that person who called me a friend changed their mind and said it was probably better we weren't friends."

@George Henry

George nodded easily, furrowing his brow - until he realized that Jack was taking the name quite literally. "They had a whomping willow on our track this Summer. Our new first-year racer got hospitalized 'cause Hugh - that's the big fella from Gryffindor - threw something at her and it knocked her down off her broom. And a bundimun spit acid on her. And her spell backfired. She's okay now, though." George grimaced as he recalled the sight of the smouldering, battered baby badger dancing unconscious on the track floor. Pretty brutal for her first official race.

"I guess you don't need to almost die to not be bored," George admitted with a groan, smiling as he laid back on the grass, lying down beside where Jack B was seated. "I just mean like - well, if you wanted to live in a padded room, maybe you would've liked Hufflepuff. It's kept Jake in one piece and the boy is made of sugar. No offense. Don't tell him I've said that... it's only been a day."

The boy instinctively reached down by his side to hunt for mascara when Jack asked about it, before remembering he had just woken up, was in his pajamas, and had left all of his things aside from his wand inside the tent. "Mascara goes on your eyelashes to make them like, darker and thicker," he said. "It doesn't really work as well for boys. I just wear subtle stuff, mostly... I buy mascara to play with it. I understand I'm a little old to be playing dress-up or whatever, but... we have to wear the same robes every day, so I've got a lot of untapped creative potential, appearance wise, I feel."

When asked if he was worried about his looks for anyone in particular, George turned pink and shot a terrible glare at Jack Burnett. "Shut up," George said with a puff of air from his nose. "Wouldn't you like to know."

When Burnett talked about surviving in this world on your own, George rolled his eyes and looked up to his not-friend once more, shaking his head. "This is Summer Camp, Jack, not the royal marines. You haven't got to be lone survivor or anything," he said, shaking his head. He'd never been good at taking things seriously - least of all his friends' worries. Sometimes that helped.

He stared at Jack for a moment, watching his mouth hang ajar. Then he started imitating him for a moment - gawping back with a placid look in his eyes before he returned to his normal impish smile. "Catching flies?" he wondered.

But when it seemed like he'd struck a sour chord with his not-friend, he sat up halfway, leaning back on his hands to keep himself propped up. "Let me down all you like," he said with a shrug. "Like you said - I've got spare friends. Maybe if I'm lucky I can get a tear-soaked birthday card from you next year - my birthday's in January, though, so we'll have to move quick."

George frowned fully, without the narrowed eyes, wrinkled nose, or furrowed brow, at Jack's pitiful declaration that he had thought he'd finally nailed being a friend. It was truly pathetic. He glanced down at the grass and then lowered himself back to it, folding his hands behind his head to rest on them and soak in the sun as it peeked through the clouds. "They sound like an arsehole," George said. He paused, then glanced at the empty ground beside him. "Have a lay down. Sun's out for a minute."

"Whoa, you can throw stuff at people?" Jack asked. He thought he knew of Hugh, but he hadn't realized the guy would be violent in a race. Especially against a first year. People must have been quite competitive in that sport. "It sounds more like an obstacle course than a race. I guess it's a bit of both."

He put a hand to his mouth to conceal his snickers when George called Jake made of sugar. That seemed a pretty accurate metaphor. Other than being delicate-seeming, he was also insanely sweet. "I won't, I won't," he assured the brunet. "Sounds about right anyway."

Jack watched George reach down for something that evidently wasn't there and was tempted to tease him about it but ended up not. He was too fascinated by what George was explaining about mascara. "I hear boys generally have longer lashes than girls anyway. I think," he added uncertainly. "But regarding being too old, I don't think you're ever too old to play anything. Playing is what exercises our minds. It's how we learn and stuff." He beamed. "I guess you're making the most of your summer not having to wear our uniforms then, huh? You should show me your wildest outfit sometime. I wanna know what you can really do appearance-wise."

His grin widened when he saw the hue of pink that George turned at the insinuation he had a crush. "So there is someone," he murmured, a gleam in his eye. "Pretty sure you would have denied it otherwise. Someone got defensive real fast."

But then his grin lessened a bit at the talk about not needing to be a lone survivor. He glanced at the ground and kicked at a small rock. "Yeah, I guess..."

Jack promptly shut his mouth when he was asked if he was catching flies and reached out to put his hand over George's face so he could shove it away. "Oh, come off it," he said, trying hard not to smile himself.

When George gave Jack permission to 'let him down all he liked', Jack stared at him as if trying to read his mind. Then he had to fight not to smile again and lost when the matter of a tear-soaked birthday card was brought up. George was starting to remind Jack more and more of Ruka with his snark. He'd missed that. It was sort of like having a brother again.

Geroge's proclamation that the person sounded like an arsehole nearly made Jack crack up again, but his smile had turned melancholy. "I can't...seem to stop caring about them, though," he confessed, getting down to lay beside George as the Hufflepuff had instructed. "I know it's pathetic, but I...I don't know. Friendship scares me with how much it makes me care about people." He turned his head to look at George, resting his head against his palm as he leaned on his elbow.

"Don't you ever worry about things like that? Like how miserable you were when you thought you and Jake would stop being friends forever. That doesn't make you wish you had never been friends with him in the first place so you wouldn't have to go through that pain? What if that worry about Jake not being your friend anymore comes back again later?"

@George Henry

"Yeah. The rules are pretty lax about most stuff," George said. It was hardly any surprise, considering about half the quidditch team got hospitalized after every single match. They had to make the race tracks comparably brutal or nobody would turn up to watch. "I did awful, though. I made it about six feet and then froze myself - nearly missed the end of the race. They were clever, though... crafty little lions."

He let out a frustrated little grunt and waved a hand through the air to dismiss that topic of conversation, clearly still a bit sore from the loss. He was distracted quickly enough, at any rate. When told that girls had shorter lashes than boys, George looked at Jack like he'd just sprouted a second head. "Huh?" George leaned back and stared up at the clouds, deep in thought. Never had he given something such existential consideration. "Huh... oh- oh, if you want to see my wildest outfit, let's go to Hogsmeade this fall. It's too hot for summer, but it's absolutely mint. I've got this massive hat, I basically block out the sun, and this gorgeous cloak - it's yellow - it's really a good thing I got into Hufflepuff, because I really do work best in autumn colors..."

Droning on about fashion for a bit, he went on to detail a few of the latest styles he'd seen in Witch Weekly, which lead to him once again reaching for the bag that wasn't there. It was all well and good... but when Jack pressed closer to asking about his crush, George fired off another ice-cold glare, his face turning an undeniably summery shade of pink. "Maybe!" George said, with a helpless shrug. "Maybe not..."

George raised an eyebrow, eyes following the kicked rock as it bounced along the slight incline of the campgrounds and found a new place to settle. Jack's hand met his face and George pushed back on it, chomping with cartoonish gnawing sounds like he intended to bite off the Slytherin's fingers. "You're lucky I'm not wearing makeup, I'd kill you if you did that to me," George said, giving up on threatening Jack with his teeth and settling down again. "Nyehhh, come off it. That's how you sound."

Normally, George would be quite an easy person to read. He wore his heart on his sleeve, emotions painted on his face, normally accented with a slight blush and penciled eyebrows. But when he noticed Jack's scrutinizing gaze, he stared back into him for a few moments... then went cross-eyed, stuck out his tongue, and scrunched up his nose - before immediately returning to his usual smile, raising his eyebrow. He was most certainly not taking this seriously, and was quite open to being let down. To Jack, however, who was very much serious about the vulnerability of friendship, George's face may have been illegible.

Of course, he wasn't going to be making silly faces when Jack decided to get vulnerable with him. "I'm sorry," George said, with a sympathy nod. He rolled onto his side, resting his cheek on his palm so he could look into the other boy's eyes. "That sounds really annoying. That reminds me a bit of my brother too. Insofar that he's really annoying, obviously."

Jack posed him a big question about friendship, and George considered it. Apologizing to Jake, worrying all summer that they'd never be friends again... was it worth it? Didn't it have to be? If it wasn't worth the trouble of doing, he would've just discarded the friendship and maybe gone to some kind of chess club social to meet some new protege for his fourth year. Perhaps his fourth-year Hufflepuff transformation had really begun, and he was something of a friendship addict, who couldn't be disloyal or give up on his bonds even when they'd gone past their sell by date.

Hm, no. George didn't think he would be wrong. Even if it had taken Jack convincing him to go apologize in the first place, the apology had been his idea, and his ideas were normally very much sound. "No," George said simply. "I don't really worry about things like that. It's sort of like how... I'm always worrying that I'm going to fail transfiguration, but I still show up to class, even if I know it'll be harrowing. Not to compare Jake to transfiguration. I wouldn't compare my worst enemy to transfiguration. I just feel better knowing that even if I fail, it isn't because I never tried."

"Wouldn't have expected to call the lions crafty," Jack mused. "Now I'm really curious about these races. Maybe you should tell me the next time you're in one. I'm sure it won't be any worse than your last one by the sound of it," he teased.

He relished the look that George fixed him with at the mention of a new revelation involving eyelashes. It amused Jack even more, though, that the moment he mentioned George's wildest outfit, the young man seemed to immediately have one come to mind. "Are you really fond of fashion?" Jack wanted to know, intrigued by the other teen's evident passion. "Enough to make a career out of it? Or is it just a hobby?"

The redhead only seemed encouraged by the glare he received and the particular pink that George's complexion became, but he decided not to press the matter any further. It was likely the stubborn George wasn't going to divulge anything more anyway no matter how much pressure he was put under. Jack knew he wouldn't have.

"Pfffft- hahahaha!" he guffawed when the other teen pretended to try to bite his fingers and warned him that he would have killed him if he'd been wearing makeup. "I'd love to see you try," he answered with a final snicker, shaking his head at George's mockery of his voice.

The cross-eyed face George made received a similar response. But then the brown-eyed boy took on a more serious demeanor for which Jack was grateful. He wasn't sure he would have known how to act if George had made light of his trials as well. "Yes, it's annoying when you care about people you don't want to care about, isn't it? Like brothers," he agreed with a smile.

Then he sighed. "You're lucky. I wish I could stop worrying about things like that." Even then he couldn't help cracking another smile when George said he wouldn't have compared his worst enemy to transfiguration. "That's...that's a good way of looking at it, though. I like that."

After a moment or two of silence, Jack rolled over and onto George, reaching out blindly to try to tickle him without knowing where he might be ticklish if he was at all. He felt bad having brought up such a serious topic to such a light-hearted boy but was ultimately surprised by the input he'd gotten. George was more insightful than he'd realized.

@George Henry

"Jerk," George said idly, at Jack's comment about his future broom races being no worse than his first. It was fair enough. Maybe if Jack was watching, he could get some pointers on his technique from an outside source - or just some tips on how not to get caught using illegal spells.

"I'm fond of it, yeah... but I mean... I dunno, I can't imagine myself being a model or anything. I thought I might go work for the Daily Prophet after I was a writer for the Headliner," George said, with a breezy wave of his hand, "but it turns out the Prophet is a rag, and I stopped being a writer, so, who knows. Maybe by graduation I'll be Scotland's top broom racer."

He shrugged helplessly, indifferent to whatever career path his whims brought him to. He'd planned out his schooling so he'd have a good spread of OWLs to rely on if he was going into a career that liked them. Fashion only required a decent knowledge of charms, since that was what you really needed to make things pop, sparkle, grow, shrink, or bite the wearer. George idly considered what he might do if he were a designer. "Maybe I'll design a pair of spectacles that shoots gobstone goo into people's eyes if they look at you funny. You know, for people who don't like eye contact."

George nodded, satisfied that his career in fashion was no doubt guaranteed in Jack's mind after hearing that absolute gem of an idea. He squirmed a bit, wanting to move a bit closer to Jack without needing to get up or actually lift his head, deciding that his best course of action was to sort of worm his way over with a graceless wriggle. It did the trick, even if his backside was no doubt covered in grass stains by now.

"It is really annoying," George agreed, thinking back to the day prior. When Jack expressed his envy, George just smirked at him and snapped his fingers as though a great idea had just come to mind. In fact, it was not a fresh idea - rather an old joke about another boy with a similar name to Burnett. "What you've got to do is practice broom racing with me! A few smacks in the head and you'll be without a care in the world. I think that's how my Jack does it."

He sighed as well, enjoying the moment of silence with Burnett. This was much more pleasant than any mudblood talk - and there was a bit of smug satisfaction in the fact that Burnett had come to try and teach him a lesson and ended up receiving George's wisdom instead. Lying in the grass under the heat of the sun, George's eyelids drooped down halfway, feeling relaxed enough he could fall asleep...

Until he was suddenly pounced by the feral Welshman, the relaxed Scot suddenly turning into a flurry of arms and legs as he slapped Jack over the head and across his back, thrashing about wildly. "YOU BLOODY PILLOCK!" he shouted. It seemed that George might be ticklish all over, judging by how easily he was reduced to a blindly thrashing whirlwind of limbs.

"Stop! Stooop!" George said between uncontrollable giggle fits, focusing more on defending himself than retaliation. He was grinning, however - delighted even though the laughter was something out of his control. He realized, suddenly, how loud he was being, and he turned his head to look up at the tent - someone inside would have definitely heard him, then they'd come out and see this.

"Jack- stop! Jack!" He was suddenly serious, shielding his underarms with his hands and rolling out from under the other boy quite forcefully. His face was a peachy color, and he had taken to rapidly pushing his hair back into place, picking out a few bits of grass and other debris that he'd picked up during the altercation. He wasn't sure whether he ought to apologize or not, considering that he wasn't the one who started it - so instead he just stared at Burnett, swallowing nervously.