Elsian wrinkled his nose at the description the other boy was painting for him. It sounded like there was way more moving involved in football, and you could only use your feet? “No hands at all?” So it was less like dueling and more like broom racing. Hmm, no, that didn’t sound right either. Even with broom racing you were allowed to use your hands. “That sounds weird.” And hard. “How are you supposed to get the ball out of the net then?” And what about the people protecting the net?

“Does football not have keepers for their nets?” That was weird.


A pause, mulling over the muggle sport in his head and any compelling points the other boy pointed out and yet-

No matter Alec's description…Elsian would likely be sticking to baseball.

“I think I’ll stick to baseball. It seems easier than football.”


He squinted at the other boy, getting closer to poke annoyingly at the other boy's shoulder as they passed through the dark shops. “You can’t say that and not tell me.” He said, sounding much too indignant for the scenario in question. “Tell me.”

Alec was not going to like how this went if he didn’t.

The boy was still looking away. The audacity. How dare. “Tell me, tell me, tel-”

He grinned sharply when he spoke again. Victory. Though it dimmed considerably, twisting into confusion and then a quiet consideration. He’d expected something more embarrassing. Like those weird musicals with teens dancing around and breaking into songs at muggle schools. Now those were cheesy. And horrible. Merlin, forbid he had to binge those with Sage ever again. “Really? Nature documentaries? Bear documentaries?” Now that was weird. Not the genre itself but…really? Alec Mason preferred nature documentaries? The slow, calm, borderline boring at times documentaries? How. “You?”

Elsian aimed a suspicious look at the boy as they left the shopping area, reaching parking lot and not much else. He led him away, down the parking lot to a tiny thin and obviously unkempt sidewalk leading down a dead street.

They kept going. Any houses being replaced by faceless buildings and empty lots.

“I almost don't want to believe you.”

This was after all coming from the boy who’d made Elsians life hell partly due to his inability to sit the hell down. Then again. Alec was weird. Weird and annoying. “You really prefer the bear one’s though?” He frowned, tilting his head, he couldn’t really see the appeal of bears.

“The penguin ones are better.”

That or the ones about spiders. Kitty enjoyed those and it was just so funny to watch her get excited the few times she’d seen one at his friends' houses.

Alec's face flushed red as he saw Elsian's reaction towards Alec's love of animal documentaries. They were simple, pleasing to, as Alec thought, every kind of audience. Who wouldn't like them? Alec took a deep breath in and out to calm his nerves and glanced away. Besides, Alec loved the way Jackie seemed to absolutely light up when the two of them watched nature documentaries together. It was fun to see her so excited and passionate about something. She deserved it. Well that and mother bears and their cubs were cuties, they had the most adorable most squishable faces in the whole entire world. The idea of taking a long nap during the winter months was also, admittedly, a huge bonus in Alec's book.

When Alec had admitted his love of animal documentaries, Alec hadn't quite gotten the reaction he had been expecting. Alec expected Elsian to make fun of it for it, or at the very least make a joke about it, he didn't. His lack of reaction may have as well encouraged Alec in watching more animal documentaries. Elsian, if anything, turned out to be surprised that Alec would by the type to watch animal documentaries. He didn't seem to believe Alec at first, acting like Alec was pulling his leg, obviously though, Alec was not. Alec had to confirm that Elsian was indeed talking to the right person and that Alec did in fact like animal documentaries. What's the huge shocker there? Alec was confused.

Alec's face flushed more as he followed through in confirming it nodding, a hand move to awkwardly rub the back of his neck. “Their nice... They can be sad sometimes but usually it's just a lot of cute animals.” Alec explained, he shrugged and laughed awkwardly. As they walked Alec purposely would scuff his shoes against the street, distracting himself. Only to be pulled back again when Elsian said the the penguin documentaries are better. Alec smiled.

Oh he knew that, but he was a person with certain aversions to reminders of the cold, of the winter months. “I know, sadly, I steer away from animals that live in desolate icy wastelands.” Alec spoke, with his tone he had tried to get it out but the more words he got out the more sad it actually seemed to sound. What...? He didn't like the bitter reminder of the winter months. Not everything that happened in winter was always amazing and sometimes the reminder was like putting salt to an open wound.

@Elsian Cox

He scoffed, lightly shoving at the others shoulder as he brushed past. “You just got boring taste.”

The Gryffindor broke away from the street, veering towards an old dilapidated looking lot fenced off. It was decently big. Big enough to house a good amount of cars but not nearly enough for the larger building tucked further into the odd lot. It had a crappy gate. Old, tall, and with a cruddy locked chain wrapped around the gate entrance. Not that it mattered. It was easy to climb. And for those who couldn’t? There was always the cut up part of the fence all the way around the building way in the back, not that anyone wanted to use it. Too many black widows and sharp pointy bits of metal fencing.

“We’re here.” The broken bits of gravel crunched under his shoes as he wandered closer to the gate. Digging a toe into the chainlink he pushed himself up, practiced fingers pulling the boy up and over the top of the fence where he paused, eyeing one of the security cameras propped up. Still as beat up as usual. They really didn't care about this place. Uncaring he climbed down only ¼ of the way down before simply dropping to the hard asphalt with a grunt and light thud.

Elsian leaned forward. Fingers curling around the metal as he fiddled, looking at Alec expectantly from the other side of the gate with a hint of impatience, swinging his weight this way and that with the creaking chain. “Well come on then! Throw the bag if you need to.”

Alec wasn’t moving fast enough. Elsian wanted to go already! They were here! The mall was right there. He groaned, head thunking against the fence as he waited for the other boy. “C’mon, you’re so slooow.” He whined, shaking the fence annoyingly when the other teen didn’t climb fast enough.

Said mall was a slightly ruined, old fashioned mall. It was far from pristine but obviously only newly abandoned and stripped for anything helpful. It was old, a 2 story building that was fine and dandy in the 50s but had been outshined by the newer, pretty malls with bigger parking lots that didn’t require you to use other stores' parking. Sages grandparents used to go here, now it was up on the chopping block. It’d go down in October.

It’d be torn down by the time they got back.

Which was why they needed to cherish every last grubby second they got out of this place! Elsian would greatly miss shopping cart derby when school started again…

Ugh. Why were people always slow at the most inopportune times? It was right there!

“Slow as a slug.” He mumbled, dramatic and muffled from where his head was shoved against the fence.

In reality it was highly unlikely Alec was slow. Just that Elsian was an impatient hobgoblin who enjoyed setting up warzones and paint balloon darts too much.

Elsian had guts to call anything Alec watched boring. To be fair, he wasn't wrong. Alec didn't care if Elsian wasn't wrong, Alec did not particularly appreciate being told he had boring taste. Rolling eyes Alec took a chance to do a fake mock offended gasp in reaction towards Esian's words, in reaction towards the way Elsian lightly shoved at Alec's shoulder as the other walked past. “Not boring, just an... acquired taste.” Alec corrected as he followed, speed walking to keep up with Elsian though at the same time scarcely making an effort to keep up as he did so.

The duo entered, coming up to a fenced lot, a chainlink fence, Alec eyed the lock at the gate, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips as he took in the whole scene before him. Alec assumed Elsian had your average run-of-the-mill friendly-faced parents, the type that would have been fuming to their core if they found out if this was where Elsian was heading off to. If they knew the time. It was a shame Alec wasn't a snitch, or the type who used blackmail material on people, this would have been the good kind to keep. Despite whatever Elsian said, he had nothing on Alec, Alec had everything on him. Him knowing Alec was out at this time affected nobody at all. Unlike with Elsian.

Alec snorted, watching the practiced, careful way in which the other boy climbed at the fence. It was likely he done this before, more blackmail material Alec would never use. Caught up in how amused he had been of the other boy's habits he'd almost forgotten his own, and the fact he had to climb up the fence to follow. Luckily, his attention was grabbed back when the other boy shouted to come on and tell Alec to throw the bag if he needed to.

The gryffindor shifted the bag from where he was carrying, in order to make it easier to climb with it. Bursting out into laughter as he began climbing the chainlink fence and Elsian called him slow. He was shaking the fence and Alec would make an attempt to (in the most gentle way possible)kick at Elsian's hands as he climbed up the shaking fence. “Oi, I'm climbing here! Watch it! Your going to make me slower!” Alec said in turn though he grinned, as if perhaps he had been slowing himself down on purpose to get at Elsian's nerves. Once Alec reached the top, he made a show up of taking his sweet time to as slowly as ever climb down the fence, jumping off and landing once he had reached near the ground.

Alec heard the slow as a slug comment and there was a fair bit of snickering her couldn't hold back, but eventually he pulled himself together enough to sober up from his laughter. “Yes... You know keep saying that and I might walk slower as well. By the way salt in my weakness,” Alec rolled his eyes and turned his attention towards the lot nodding towards it. “Which way are we heading?” Alec asked, as they began walking he found himself with enough question. “What exactly are we doing anyway?”

He rolled his eyes, “oh sure, sure. Acquired taste.”

Glaring up at the other with a fake sorta solemness he shook the gate again for good measure, and when faced with the option of being the bigger person or fighting back…choose the fun option of pinching at the others shoelaces, smacking at the others foot through the gate just to rattle the gate and make a bit of noise. “You know,” he began conversationally, “I could totally tie your laces to the gate.”

He really could. Not that he would of course. At least not right now. But it was a thought he felt the need to put out into the universe. His own twisted way of thinking rationalizing the absurdity of being able to claim he’d warned the other boy he could if in the near future Elsian did indeed give into bad choices and attempted to tie the boy's shoes to the gate as he climbed.

“I told you, we're making the next part of a warzone.” He scoffed dramatically. As for where they were going. “And,” he drawled, making a wild gesture to the large barren building, “we’re going in there.” The entrance of said building was avoided. Boards blocking it off. Instead, Elsian led Alec to the far side of the building, where they had to walk through overgrown bushes and broken holes of asphalt in the ground. A fire exit. One with a tiny window that one might have been able to squeeze through with discomfort, hanging from it, connected to something within the building, a grimy chain that had once obviously been used to keep gates locked, a broken padlock located near the bottom.

He grabbed it, and with a harsh tug pulled as hard as he could as he took a few steps back. It took a moment before something clicked, and the door swung open smooth and violently. Inside was pitch black, a long hall with little to no light to reach through. Propped and tied just so was a makeshift pulley system made out of wood, metal, and an unholy amount of duct tape connected to the exit handle and chain. It was a true sign of teamwork and spite when the entrance had been boarded up and the teens had gotten tired of having to struggle through windows. Pull on the chain enough and it pressed down on the weird button like concoction now attached to the exit door.

“We all got tired of having to squeeze through windows or risk the roof ladder after the other parts got boarded up.” He muttered, as if that explained everything as he ducked through the door, only hesitating long enough for Alec to slip past before letting the door click shut with a resounding echo.

Then, pitch black. Absolute darkness save for the low red blink of the fire alarm light on its last legs and the dullest bit of light able to shift in through the high up window. Damn, forgot again.

Elsian groaned, shuffling through his bag blindly. He always did this, too used to his wand, always forgetting to get the stupid flashlight out befor-

Aha!

Fingers curled around cool metal, the flashlight clicking quietly against the baseball bat. A click.

He hissed in pain, blinking away the spots in his eyes as he flashed the light at their feet; bright enough he could now easily see their surroundings dimly further down the hall and Alec's himself. They walked, or rather, Elsian did, forcing Alec to keep up or fumble in the dark. They quickly passed a few branching spots, entrances to bathrooms he thought, closets, boring things that held no interest besides perhaps their initial creepiness. Elsi twisted on his heel, leading the way backwards and only fumbling a little bit when stepping over glass and bits of broken wood. “Creepy right?” He asked, grinning jokingly. “Some of the others think it's haunted.” He wiggled the flashlight under his face obnoxiously, “OOoooO!” he laughed, turning back around as they reached a bend, their surroundings getting rapidly brighter as they dropped straight into the open area of the mall.

The large windowed parts of the mall's ceiling let in enough light on clear nights for it to be easily passable around these parts of the mall without any flashlights. Especially when your eyes finally adjusted. The remaining electricity however, keeping some signs on their dull, nightly system and the dull bink of certain systems left an eerie sort of feeling in some parts. Tiny stores and the food courts tended to be fine. But the bigger stores? Pure darkness. With those areas it was flashlights or nothing, with a risk of tripping over abandoned mannequins or broken shelving pallets.

“Don’t touch any light switches. Not even for the dark halls.” He pressed the flashlight into Alec's hand as he passed, sliding off the backpack as he paused near frozen escalators. You could see one side of them had been repurposed with steep, shaky looking wooden boards like a makeshift ramp. Colored and half decorated carts littered the area around them.

The Gryffindor truly hadn’t been exaggerating when he’d used the term warzone for what they were doing. It was plain to see the remains of different ‘games’ that’d obviously been more violent or creative in their approach. Broken shelving and mannequins made for different pallets to hide behind and dodge scattered loosely around the main open area, but mostly halfheartedly tucked against walls as if in some loose sense of organization, some colored brightly, all with splatters of paint balls. Along the ground, painted by hand and with spray paint, ‘racetracks’ to follow along the whole area, even going along that shaky board ramp on the escalator. Here and there, different projects, different things set aside until being used.

“See?” He grinned, gesturing to the area as he sat on the edge of a dirty, dried up fountain still filled with pennies. “Warzone!” The lid of a pink can of spray paint was popped off, he shook it, even as he began taking things out of his bag. A paintball masks. Spray paint. Glitter tub. He slipped one of the masks on, decorated in neon green and blues, another one, plain and undecorated in his other hand.

“It’s like a game area.” But better. After all, they could do whatever they wanted. “Right now we're doing Cart Jousting.” He said gleefully, snickering at the thought of their test runs. “Well…that and other things. I actually showed up here early to finish up traps for kart racing.” Standing up he sprayed a single line of pink testingly against a cart that looked as if it’d been dumped into a lake of paint splotches. Mask pushed up onto his head he shook the paint can in front of Alec goadingly, “wanna help?” He drawled, “I’ll even let you mess with all the crap we got if you help me set up the paint balloon trap on the 2nd floor.” The 2nd plain mask was plopped atop Alecs head with a shit eating grin on Elsians face, “and we can play paintball~”

The Gryffindor scowled, scoffing and kicking at the gate. “You wouldn't dare.” He spoke, his eyes narrowed, focusing in on Elsian. Getting a good look at the other was enough motivation to get Alec going faster. Elsian totally would tie his laces to the gate, Elsian was that type. Hurried along he was over the fence and walking with Elsian. Alec wanted more details on what he was getting himself into, thus began an impromptu interrogation on the spot. The interrogation didn't go far, Alec was shut down immediately with a reminder on what they were doing. Alec knew what they were doing, he wanted to know how they were going to use the items involved with it. The sentence should have given Alec a pretty good idea of the plans ahead, but you never really knew what you were going to be dealing with when it involved Elsian. Alec huffed quietly, he would aimlessly kick at the pebble on the ground quickly pulled out of his thoughts as Elsian pointed.

He... he pointed to the building! Alec asked which way they were heading, his random building gesturing wasn't helpful! Glancing to the side Alec took a deep breath and shook his head if only to keep his sanity. Alec followed Elsian when he lead the way. They had to walk through overgrown bushes, and avoid patches of broken asphalt in the ground to get through to a fire exit, one with a tiny window. Alec eyed the sight cynically. He supposed he wasn't paying close enough attention as he saw the door swing open suddenly he seemed surprised and perplexed.

“How-” Alec began, however before he could get the words out Elsian started speaking, Alec followed him walking in. Elsian explained the use for the door and Alec nodded to himself, that made sense, though the single reply he could think of in that moment was, “oh.” He listened to the sound that echoed throughout as the door shut behind them. At once they were bathed in darkness, a resound sense of calmness filled the young teen, who while he didn't know his way around darkness found it comforting and familiar. Alec snickered as he heard Elsian fumbling around in his bag, trying to find something, until at last there was a click and the two could see. A flashlight. Alec eyed each and everything surrounding them with bits of naive curiosity.

Elsian jokingly asked for affirmation the building was creepy, Alec's lips edged at a smile. Elsian mentioned others thought it was haunted. Images of Hogwarts ghosts flickered through his mind. It took away any hopes of a creepy atmosphere. Alec looked at Elsian like he was crazy as he made a weird noise and wiggled the flashlight under his face. Ghosts didn't even sound like that.

They entered into the open area of the mall and Alec looked on in amazement. He'd never been to a place like this before, why were they closing it down? It was practically one of a kind! Elsian told Alec not to touch light switches, Elsian pressed the flashlight into Alec's hand as he walked past. Alec eyes caught onto the weird contraption looking stairs, repurposed, one looked to have a makeshift ramp. Carts were around by it. Alec eyes caught onto the warzone, and several other things scattered about. Taking in details, Alec mind had to sort through all the new objects he was seeing, ones clearly from a time before this place was soon to be shut down. Muggle items Alec had never seen before. Then he had a separate place for the messy creations all around the abandoned mall.

Alec put the flashlight in his bag wary of it being lost, it was the only thing he did as he took in his surroundings. The experience was mind-bending, almost surreal. It was taking Alec a while to comprehend it all. Elsian set his bag down, taking items out. Alec set his bag down, aware he was carrying quite a few of Elsian's things. Elsian shook a can and slipped on a strange looking mask.

Elsian mentioned something about cart jousting... something about cart racing as well, Alec didn't catch it all. Elsian asked if Alec wanted to help, and Alec's eyes widened like he hadn't considered it an option. Alec's smile widened and he nodded eagerly. Elsian wouldn't have needed to say anything more on the subject to entice him. Soon the strange mask was on Alec's head as well. Despite the fact he only understood about half the stuff Elsian said, Alec was excited. However as Elsian was going to find out, Alec would need quite a bit of instruction in order to help out, likely more than Elsian had planned on giving out in the first place.

@Elsian Cox

He hummed in lull of an answer which was likely enough of an answer in itself.

Mason would do well to watch his shoelaces next time they were climbing fences…


Elsian was rather surprised when some of the things he said seemed to go straight over Alec's head before realizing he was still much the same in regards to things that were normal for muggles. The fact that he had learned a lot over the years thanks to his friends and his parents' own curiosity for muggle life did not mean others had the same luck. Elsian had after all, practically lost his collective shit upon realizing paintball was a thing and modifying broken paintball guns was very much a thing he could do just about 2 years ago now.

He really shouldn’t be surprised, all things considering. But he still was.

“It's a joke,” he explained, giving the other a bemused look. “Muggles made ghosts sound like that in a bunch of old shows and books for some reason I guess.”


Upon the two entering the main area it had taken a bit to get the things needed. Bags were dumped, paint cans scattered along the slippery floor of the ruined mall, and masks firmly placed on. Much to Elsians continued enjoyment and excitement the carts were something that needed to be finished, but first were some traps. Simple things that Elsian showed Alec how to put together after a fair bit of warning to be careful unless he wanted a lap full of watery paint, like water balloons that were more paint than water, only enough water to make it possible to syringe the different pink, blue, and colored water into the balloon via some basters they’d all bought cheap someplace nearby. He’d led the other up the escalator to do it, holding the balloon slightly over the edge just so he could use the ramp as an arm rest as they worked.

It was a little tricky, the balloons wouldn’t want to fully work like they would with a normal sink, but it would work. Elsian himself took great joy in almost painting Alec a bright shade of pink when one of his exploded upon too much paint water being added. “Sorry,” He grinned, not looking sorry at all.

In his defense it would have been a very charming shade of pink.

Fiddling with the tie he plopped it into a bucket that'd already been there for the 2 boys. “We put the balloons in buckets and bags,” he explained, filling the silence he’d been oddly fine with. “Then we hoist them up after separating them into smaller batches,” here he paused, turning to point down to a few of the shop entrances that had something hanging by a rope, “like those ones, the others got them done earlier I think. We put them up as paint traps for everyone to use against one another when racing or playing games like paintball. Just cut or untie the strings and voila, paint bomb.”

“It’s fun,” he shrugged, finishing another paint balloon. “And usually we don’t do things on this big a scale to keep it kinda clean for other games but…”

Soon they’d hoist them up in different parts. After that? He wondered if Alec would want to try the track. And playing a round of paintball would probably be good to make sure none of the guns were clogged this time.

“But this place is supposed to be torn down soon. So we decided we’d just do whatever we wanted for the rest of summer. So you should enjoy this place while it lasts if you like it.” Just in case. Which was sad but also exciting. Yet, he wasn’t quite sure what he would do next summer though if it did get torn down… “We even tried to make the glass paneling up there colored,” he laughed, pointing to the far up glass of the ceiling, bright splotches of paint could be seen running down the angled parts of the ceiling, each one a different color.

“Mine was the teal looking one,” he grinned, playing with the last paint balloon he had. He hadn’t gotten very far sadly. None of them had. Rather than put it into the bucket he waited for Alec to be done, twisting on his heel to haphazardly prop himself to sit on the railing, feet dangling off the edge. “Wanna try?” He offered the blue water balloon, it sloshed heavily with purple paint. “Unless you don’t think you’ll even reach the ceiling!” He ribbed, kicking his legs with a laugh.