Dull Flobberworms And Complicated Beings Errand PV Closed

Interacting With: @Alec Mason | Hex Code: #0f1c0f | Word Count: 910

Leonard being uncomfortable was one of the many ways one could describe him, squirming and having three-fourths a mind to drop the slimy worm that rested on top of his folded, discarded jacket. Of course, uncomfortable barely began to describe his plethora of the most negative emotions possible when it came to the creature, and yet, curiosity outdid them all in terms of quantity. There was curiosity about the Flobberworm, and which being in the godforsaken universe had decided to send it to Earth. There was curiosity about the excreted mucous that shined on his coat's, and how any aspiring alchemist would manage to collect it without a biohazard suit on.

There was also slight curiosity about why his worm seemingly had a death wish, but in all fairness, seeing such a sight in the mirror every day would've also caused him to dive into the lake with all chances. For then, though, the thing needed to remain alive, as did he.

"You drop out of this jumper, and I won't forgive you for as long as my soul remains tethered to existence, you got that?" He whispered to the somehow magical worm, a narrowed glare tossed in the organism's direction for good measure. Neither action would help his case, he knew, but he felt a strange compulsion to do so. Perhaps on another day he would've looked back on the moment as a sure sign he'd gone mad, but then again, anyone who'd signed up for the rotten work of pushing some leafy greens into wherever the mouth of a Flobberworm was should've been put in an asylum for the insane long ago.

After a few more minutes of alternating between cautiously stepping up shaking stairs and catching gasping breaths, he'd finally reached the entrance to the designated meetup location. The classroom was familiar, yet he felt a sense of implacable dread.

"Do you think he stood me up?" The figurative snake asked the literal worm, though in that moment, it felt as though he no longer bore the crest of a serpent or the title of a cunning, slithering reptile. Instead, he was nothing more than a wreck of nerves and a barely functional brain stuffed in a body, feeling more lonely within the confines of the castle than he'd ever been.

Accompanying the voiced concern of being abandoned, alone in the task of caring for the wizarding worm equivalent of a blobfish, came floods of doubts and one near-truth that sent a shiver down his spine: SOATOP would be reaching its end. Hogwarts was a gigantic place, full of secrets and bothersome staircases and judgmental portraits that may or may not have been involved in a murder. The chances of simply running into an overthinking Gryffindor who co-founded a prank group (a Gryffindor that thought at all, even) were lesser than that of the squid and mermaids starting an undersea uprising. If the small, scrawled agreement of `sure` had turned out to be forgotten, a scrap of paper buried among all other abandoned, crumpled letters.

The quasi-living cylinder of slime and disgusting digestion twitched slightly in reply. Not twitched, really. More, lazily moved a quarter of a centimeter in reply.

"Yeah, yeah, you're probably right. Worth a try, no matter the outcome."

The Slytherin took a deep breath of the faded winter air, then entered the room. He was greeted by the well-known dark curls and bright smile, to which he mirrored the grin. It wouldn't be the end just yet, it seemed.

"Yeah, yeah, it does seem like forever, doesn't it?" Leonard said, a hint of wistfulness in his voice. The feeling of mucous almost seeping through to his palms brought him back to reality, barely catching the lion's other words.

"Well, mine has got the energy of a slug, to put it simply. If I hadn't poked it every other minute I'm fairly certain it would be long dead by now," he admitted, only half-sure he was joking. He held the Flobberworm up closer to Alec as demonstration, to which the worm crawled another quarter centimeter closer to doom. "If this one would ever be up to making some mischief, it'd be something of a sleeper agent."

He laughed lightly at the admittedly terrible play on words, hoping that if the endless stream of slime wasn't enough to make Alec run away, it wouldn't be his pun that caused the end of their relationship.

"A...car? A motorcycle? A wagon? A blackboard on wheels?" Leonard threw out a few guesses, utter confusion clear in his expression. The worry that his inability to figure out what whichever muggle invention would spell the end of their friendship crept up on him, but he pushed it away. Solving the Holmes-level mystery of whatever the other boy was trying to describe came first. "One of those toy shop tricycles? A bus? As much as I'd love to plot some nefarious scheme using these little guys as catalysts, the only part of that sentence I understood was the backwards cap part, and I don't even know where we'd get a hat that small."

He cleared his throat, sensing the less than positive tone of his voice created more than a tad bit of awkwardness.

"So, you bring any food? I managed to snatch a few leaves off the ground yesterday and half a cabbage from lunch. Well, it's more a quarter bit of cabbage now, this thing's got quite the appetite."

Interacting with @Leonard Oaksworth || Hex code(because I forgot to put it in the starter):#A0A9B8

"A car, Leo.. Of course I know what a car is." While Alec had grown up in a muggle neighborhood, being locked away in his house like that one blonde princess left for some limited knowledge. Alec knew basic things, like what a car was, every driveway had one. Alec thought it was a nice choice to travel, it'd be preferred to a broom. Alec didn't like heights, he also didn't trust himself on a broom either. No wonder he'd barely gotten a passing grade in that class, there was the hesitance in participation to add onto it. Alec wasn't muggle-born, he'd seen brooms all his life, but something about being high in the air with a broomstick as the only thing keeping you up, he didn't trust it. It was a reasonable request not to fall to his death thank you very much. It made Alec eye the Flobberworm Leo was holding, which was inching it's way towards death, slowly but surely.

Alec didn't like admitting things he didn't know, especially when it came to common knowledge on things. Alas, only an idiot would pass up to chance to ask questions, and Alec was a curious one. What was he if he didn't let curiosity get the best of him? "What's a motorcycle?" A motor and cycle put into one word. Alec was trying to recall the exact definition of both. A motor like in cars, but a cycle? Wasn't that just repeated actions? Like a pattern though? This was confusing, he needed to read more muggle-written books.

When Leo wasn't able to guess Alec's impossible description, he was left frustrated."Augh, never mind. I know I've seen if somewhere.." Alec would mumble, upset with the fact unable to explain his basic knowledge. He'd seen it, in some picture before though, he was unable to remember the exact description, nor the name. It would've helped if Alec had seen the photo more than once. "Also a hat that small could be possible. I've seen cat sized leather jackets." Which he'd customized for secret santa, Henry, insults and all, was a total leather jacket person. Henry wasn't allowed to deny it, and with a leather jacket for him and his cat, he had to accept his fate. Alec would say it quite topped all the other Christmas gifts he'd given.

"Yeah, I have some lettuce-" Alec looked back, double-checking on the lettuce's existence only to find it missing. Alec watched the Flobberworm in question, there was no way the Flobberworm could've eaten that amount of lettuce in that little time, If it had this magical creature needed to be put into question. "I had some lettuce." Alec said correcting himself. "It appears to have gone missing, the culprit obviously invisible escaping the scene of the crime." The only explanation Alec had, for how could one ever truly be able to explain an incident like this? "I think mine will be full enough for the day, what about yours?" A quarter of a cabbage seemed enough, they weren't taking care of the magical worms for that long.

On an important note Alec had spent much time thinking about, "So did you and Marshal get up to any interesting pranks while I've been busy?" Alec asked, he planned on bringing up SOATOP next, there was nobody else in the room therefore nothing to stop him. "We still need to do more planning, end the school year off with a bang. Something more sophisticated needing that extra time for planning." Alec said. "Nothing too big, but just enough to let people know that the sleeping lion-" Alec would pause in his sentence. Lion.. Gryffindor.. Alec would keep back a laugh as he went on. "er, or snake that is soatop isn't yet dead." Alec explained. He hadn't realized he'd started pacing Leo likely confused by the others movements.

This may have inadvertently been a way to avoid talking about winter break, or about ignoring Leo, without realizing it. His voice and words almost sounded like he was stalling but that didn't keep Alec from keeping on. "An army of Flobberworms might be interesting, but I'd worry about them getting crushed by feet if we set them free. The groundskeeper wouldn't be too happy about the matter either." The pacing stopped, Leo probably had better ideas. Alec was a big ideas guy, he tended to focus on the bigger picture rather then the smaller details, which would be needed for a sophisticated prank.

Interacting With: @Alec Mason | Hex Code: #0f1c0f | Word Count: 1,169

Frankly, the Slytherin doubted his accomplice's ability to correctly identify automobiles, but he would keep that between him and his self-destructive worm. That was, if the worm in question wasn't too busy aiming for the scuff-marked floor to catch the questionable expression tossed at it. The look was fleeting, however, for all mistakes made in the making of muddled muggle misnomers would be forgiven for the simple fact Alec had shown up. It was a rarity, more scarce than finding a tree with leaves of silver and fruits of gold in the midst of thousands that were nothing more than large twigs standing in the snow, that Leonard's expectations would be met. There was always an equal and opposite reaction, and if that opposite reaction was simply a pureblood's cluelessness about anything that wasn't gilded with gold and having to watch over two worm-slug hybrids, that was fine with him.

"Of course," he repeated, jumbling around all the stray parchment and broken quill tips that had accumulated in both his pockets for the rest of his flobberworm fodder, hoping the action would distract from the dripping sarcasm in his voice. Just because he was pleased didn't mean the other boy would be entirely cleansed of all fault, not when it was a ripe opportunity for snide remarks. "Of course."

After many more moments of shuffling through failed attempts at calligraphy and scarring his hand further with haphazardly placed objects he decidedly didn't want to know the names of, he found it. The few leaves of cabbage that had survived the initial ordeal that was being bitten by the bundle of slime were retrieved, just in time for the snake's attention to return, barely catching the other's second demonstration of how little he knew about muggle vehicles.

"A...motorcycle. Think a bicycle, but more mechanical and dangerous," he paused, then frowned. One could never be too sure, especially when they would eventually need a method of transportation that had less than half chance of being something from a housekeeper's closet. "You do know what a bicycle is, right?"

It wasn't often Leonard talked to the Gryffindor, and though he was well-acquainted with the fact that there was always new information to be discovered, he felt a speck of melancholy float through the smoke-smelling air. The sight of curly, brown hair on a pale face with a soft, subtly mischievous smile was almost a comfort to him, a reminder there was one constant still left among the tsunami of morbid variables. He made a mental note to invite the other boy over once summer came, whether by rule-following means or otherwise. It wasn't as though there was a secret society of pureblood spies, taken from their homes and trained from childhood with the sole mission of protecting Alec from every and any threat to his future as the heir to a fancily named, silken throne. The more he thought about it, the more he felt as though it was willing itself into existence. He took a quick glance at the slightly dirtied window to confirm there wouldn't be a black-cloaked assassin eyeing his throat, then came back to his flobberworm.

He bit his tongue upon formulating a response to the even newer knowledge that cat-sized leather jackets did, indeed, exist. The snake did not wish to dig himself into a deeper hole, or bury himself in the hole provided by their mutual ineptness at keeping up conversation about anything that wasn't about to be used for a practical joke.

"That sounds interesting," he said, stroking his worm across what he thought was its belly with two layers of folded cloth in lieu of keeping eye contact. Silently, he was set on the thought that knitting such a small accessory that wouldn't choke its wearer was beyond impossible, but that would only be revealed on his deathbed. "If I decide to get a cat soon, I'll gladly take that leather jacket maker's phone number. Or fireplace address. Whichever one suits their tastes best."

Finally deciding his worm had been sufficiently showered with affection for its life, Leonard met the other's gaze again. Having food would soon become past tense, as he knew very well, both from taking care of the tiny little slime cylinder and watching his father during parties. He didn't bother looking back at his worm to answer the lion's question, nodding with a fair amount of certainty. He was both relieved and displeased when the subject was replaced with one more sensitive. Sensitive was relative, Marshal being the most tactless piece of blonde, stupidly grinning work he'd ever seen. Yet, Marshal was also the most brilliant, creative piece of work he'd ever seen. Mostly the former, but the point still stood.

"I haven't seen him lately," he cleared his throat, his voice turning hushed for reasons he couldn't name. "I almost miss him, if I'm being honest."

Dislodging whatever had suddenly caused him to talk as though he was at a burial ceremony, he covered the melancholy in a thin sheet of a tight smile.

"Well, Leo is my nickname, although I'm not sure I'd survive an entire day in your lion's den." Silently, the boy wondered just how much chaos could occur with two SOATOP members in one common room. Perhaps he would invent a magical surveillance camera that would be unable to be detected by any means, just for that purpose. For then, though, he needed to give a report on their actions. Or rather, lack of actions. Lack of thought as for their actions toward their lack of actions. Lack of everything, really. "We've not done much, but there's a lot of potential. I learned that the lake is very cold, very cold, indeed."

The Slytherin shrugged, addressing the later words, slightly disappointed when he realised Alec was correct. For all its gravity defying and law-of-physics squishing, Hogwarts was minimally optimized, if optimized at all, for three aspiring practitioners of pranks. It was a school, he supposed, but if the school had the room to scar its students for life it was better off having room for conspiring a cunning cabal into creation.

"We could attach neon collars to them, or glowing ones. It's impossible to miss, trust me. Plus, I'm not sure anyone could live with themselves knowing they'd once had this thing's insides," he gestured around the worm, which it seemed to dislike. "On their shoes. If that fails, though, we can always stick to the rubber ducks in the lake idea. You'd have to be the one who puts them in the lake, though, and it would have to be very much past curfew."

In a short bout of amusement, he imagined the conversation with his parents. A letter that held a request for around a hundred miniature aquatic birds would incur some lecturing and a requirement for logical explanation. That was, if his mother had opened the mail. His father would adopt the entirety of SOATOP just to start a sub-set of classes about the art of pranking, most likely.

Interacting with @Leonard Oaksworth

Surprisingly the pacing of the twelve-year-old stayed ceased. No doubt Alec was now fidgeting with his hands behind his back. It was less obvious. Sadly, not enough to leave people oblivious in the face of Alec's tendencies. Whether his nervous or normal demeanor. Alec liked to think he was extremely lucky he was aware of people who looked past that.

Alec wished the idea of neon collars for the little flobberworms had caused some sort of excitement. Neon collars we're impossible to miss. Besides, it would've been perfect. Little collars and-

His brows furrowed as Leo spoke. “We're gonna have to wait on ducks. I can't go out after curfew. I just- I just um, I don't want a howler.” Alec shifted uncomfortably from where he stood. Using a shrug to shrug it off after the fact. He'd had enough when it came to trouble. He'd wait on it for now. The last thing Alec needed to do was make a grand fall into the lake at eleven at night. An aversion for the trouble he knew was to come later. “I know there's a lot of places they could be hidden. I-er...” He fell silent. Alec looked flummoxed at his own words. Maybe he'd expected something different to come out of his mouth.

Wanting to divert away from this subject. Alec had zeal sought out swift ideas. “We could uh... Or we could-” Alec shook his head. “Alright I got nothing”

Alec had finished processing the situation at hand. It'd been hard earlier. His mind offered up many distractions. Even small things. It was a frustration with so many things that he could never focus. Yet only now had Alec realized he'd missed social cues. Especially the sarcasm from Leo earlier, throwing Alec for a loop. Sarcasm was an often use. Not by Alec himself, but by his older sister. The use of it often in a mean way. Alec could justify jokes. He just wasn't sure how nice Leo was meaning to be with that. It felt Noxious.

Alec rubbed his arm awkwardly before clearing his throat. Ignoring the minutes of silence. “Scratch both the ducks and flobberworms. For the sake of the animals both rubbery and slimy.” Alec straightened his posture. A normal person might've thought it more polite than his usual slight slumping. Turns out actual posture meant he wasn't at ease. Who could've guessed! With pressure to have a straight posture. When he did, oh look at that, it showed up under pressure. Or some sort of distress.

Leo and Alec hadn't seen each other in a while. Was this an obvious show that they weren't close? If he thought about it, Alec had only reached out to Clif with problems in the first place. He'd never done it for Leo. Alec was too sensitive. That was the reason. Just overthinking.

“Yeah, you should try to talk to Marshal. He'll have ideas.” Anybody would have more ideas than Alec. His eyes wandered to the flobberworm away from Leo's gaze. This has turned sour pretty quickly. Alec would have had more ideas. But it was hard to come up with anything fun or worthy of SOATOP's efforts. Sideline pranks had come to a halt as well. It wasn't a huge deal, the sideline pranks hadn't gained too much traction. After messing up Wyatt terribly with one. Well, it was safe to say pranking efforts on his own made him nervous. He didn't want people to end up the way Wyatt had.

On the topic of sour things. Annoying things also, and just being in a complete state of turmoil. Being honest didn't hurt right? It was just a few words to Leo. Ones that nobody should care about. Nothing big, Leo wouldn't care if Alec said-“I would ask since we share the same common room and all. But I don't know him very well. You know him better, so you should probably ask.” Not to mention Alec felt he would sound stupid asking. Especially if the first year didn't want to be bothered by people. Or specifically Alec. He wasn't sure if Marshal liked him either. Some food for thought later.

Interacting With: @Alec Mason | Hex Code: #0f1c0f | Word Count: 1,788

There was an astonishingly complete lack of doubt in the young Slytherin’s mind about what he would be doing once he reached the solitary confinement of his perfectly symmetrical bed. Really, it felt almost blasphemous in consideration of every act the boy had ever performed or considered performing in his twelve and a few odd months of existence to even try applying the adjective doubtless onto his wooden mannequin-like physique, but apparently. it only took a few hours spent in physically bartering with a table to summon leafy green vegetables and a few minutes spent mentally bartering with ancient deities of forgotten names and powers untold to bestow upon him the godly ability of having the capacity for functioning vis a vis social situations to help him figure out what he really wanted. Whether it was the clarity-bringing action of arguing and not relenting until both parties were nearing tears (and, yes, he was certain tables could cry, for if he was able to express emotion virtually anything could) or the fact such divine beings neglected doing anything about the boy’s constant plight and left him with an ever-recurring stutter, he couldn’t tell and, frankly, didn’t care. The only thought really mattered in that particular moment was that of his twig body flopping onto its twig bed and only emerging from his room after a few weeks of incessant lamenting his loss of acceptably conversation-flowing speech. Even the idea of the twig bed breaking into splinters and poking into his corporal form for the time he used for undeserved slumber felt more like mercy than anything else. This meeting had the power to decide whether or not they would ever make contact again and so far all he’d done was provide a demonstration of why he was unfit for taking the position of prank maestro, as well as support the idea he was unfit for taking the position of anything. He needed to change the flow of their exchange, steer the drying concrete into some water so they could achieve something, and when he needed something, he would stop at nothing to get it. Not even trying to take care of a monster from one of those Cuberick films or whatever it was they were called would deter him from his mission.

Also, his worm seemed to be trying to eat its way through the jumper’s cloth to create its own grave, and though he couldn’t say he wasn’t jealous of the little thing’s perceived determination, he truly did need to avoid getting on any teachers’ bad sides. If the teacher who had access to heinous pests like these things was the first one to gain that grudge, he might as well have started digging his own fibrous burial place alongside it.

“No, no, that’s perfectly fine. I’m not the biggest fan of the lake, much less having to go there at a time that could get us in the trouble it could,” he rushed to reassure his pranking partner as soon as he saw an uneasy expression start to take form. In hindsight, it could’ve been viewed as an almost suspiciously quick reaction, but he didn’t have much care for having hindsight to anything at the moment. People liked it when their concerns were put to rest, right? People liked spontaneity, right? Alec was a member of the people, right? Therefore, he didn’t need to be Leonard-Leonard as of now. He needed to be the Leonard his fellow SOATOP co-founder had met in that hall and decided to keep company with, and he wasn’t going to manage that act without dropping the constant tenterhooks prodding at his feet.

And so, it was in the longest second of Leonard-Leonard’s life that he resolved to trying, at least, to embody all those of the Oaksworth line and their respective degrees in the art of engaging in hijinks and horseplay with ideas devoid of howling hazards. Fortunately for the boy, who hadn’t quite yet finished installing the ‘regain your childhood innocence and fresh outlook on life to guiltily seek ideas for practical jokes with your endless cynicism’ modification to the pasty, scrawny supercomputer his soul called home, it seemed as though his friend had begun to be on the brink of building a brilliant blueprint beyond whatever his mere mortal mind could conceive. He looked at Alec with expectant eyes before a shake of a head also happened to shake away most of his hope. His friend had nothing.

“Perfectly fine, perfectly fine,” he repeated his previous words, instantly trying to cover up his excitement at the prospect of. For once, it seemed to be a somewhat successful show. “We’ve most of the day to get something, I’m sure we’ll come up with something eventually.” That last batch of words may have appeared to be reassuring himself more than his schoolmate and, well, they were, but he could only hope the lion wouldn’t notice the not-as-successful second act, which they should’ve. After all, that was the truth, and since they weren’t exactly having much fun in the traditional sense, time should’ve passed by as though it was a gastropod asked to travel across the continent to deliver a package five times its body weight.

Usually, Leonard would revel in the times he could find solace in silence, and that reverence was only augmented and repeatedly validated when he was introduced to the endless noise children caused and the news it would never end. Usually, though, he wasn’t partially responsible for a previously joyous reunion being put into a completely mute stall without any ideas as to what to say next. They remained in borderline painful reticence as the world fell into impossible stillness for however long it was. One minute, two minutes, one millennium, two millennia, he’d given up on counting. All that stimulated his ears was the hushed shuffling of the flobberworms and his throat clearing that amounted to nothing. Merlin, if only the other members of SOATOP could burst in with those impudent grins of theirs and provide some way out of this, some cinematic production to end the awkward chapter that went on for seemingly hours. Another first to add to his ever-growing list, he would have to toast to being the first Oaksworth to ever be the catalyst of an organization built on the philosophy of good-natured fun disbanding and causing ties to be cut bitterly forevermore.

No, no, no. That was a Leonard-Leonard thought. Thinking of the opportunities and not the obstacles would get him farther than such blasphemy. Obviously, if there was any problem with SOATOP, it would be with him, but there was no way that was the case. Right? Right.

He peered over to his curly-haired classmate, his feigned confidence gaining yet another dent in its foundation of tightly packed cardboard boxes. Another two suggestions crossed out on that board. Yet, a spark of curiosity had started to appear from the little eraser marks, and though he couldn’t quite pinpoint its origins, he just knew there had to be a piece of potential in there.

“Animals, animals, animals...” he trailed off as he sought to search the sentence for the source of his sudden inquiring mind with a grand prize of nothing waiting for him at the end. Something was in there to put this stretching string of slumping to an end, but what was it? He let a small sigh escape from his laundry list of expressing how badly the bitter pill of existence had went down his throat, deciding to save the more verbal of reactions for when he was sure his colleague in capers had no knowledge whatsoever of Welsh and its less squeaky-clean phrases.

He nodded upon hearing his fellow flobberworm handler’s request, muttering agreements quietly. His gaze was focused on nothing but the little slat of heavy-duty paper he’d filled up with stray yarn, odd thumbtacks, and even more odd photographs of snippets from their informal conference. His concentration was broken soon enough by a comment that, thankfully, was not another dismissal of his ideas. It was still negative in the sense of him gaining new responsibilities, but at that period in time he was totally fine with that.

“Really?” His tone incredulous, his eyebrows raised, his face overall taken by surprise, he couldn’t help but have his doubts when the other boy confessed that he didn’t know the blonde that well. It was strange to think that Mozor lad he’d made a mate out of wasn’t, in fact, the closest companion of everyone on Earth. The un-present member of SOATOP certainly had the energy for it, that was for sure. “That’s, erm, a tad surprising. We should get together some time, have a bit of bonding without the presence of these things.” He waved his hand in the general direction of his charge. “No offence meant to them, but I’d rather not be the one asking Professor Céspedes to lend us some for a gathering that might get them stepped on.”

Then, it clicked.

“Actually, I don’t think we’ll be needing Marshal right now, because I’ve got an idea.” He smirked at his acquaintance, almost springing around and about the room to reach the other’s position. “When you were talking about how ducks and flobberworms were both animals that we were better off not using, I realised that most plans involving animals would be too complicated or risky or a combination of the two, but I also realised that didn’t mean we couldn’t use the places they lived in. Now, it is well into winter, so I doubt we could start working on this immediately, but once autumn comes about and all those leaves and sticks start falling down like flies, we should be able to collect sufficient materials for the project I’ve in mind.”

With strikes of electric brilliance shocking his body, he quickly gestured to the nearest seat in hope that Alec would follow his very vague instructions and put himself in the perfect conditions to listen to his perfect plot. Without waiting for a response, he began to speak.

“You know, it would be quite the shame for those who’ve only just come to the UK to miss out on what everything the season of orange trees and happy harvest has to offer,” he whispered, for if he’d tried to speak even the slightest bit louder he was certain he’d lose control and start avidly yelling out his grand stratagem. “And that’s why I say we let them have the full fall journey, not just in the courtyard outside the castle or in the classes we get to spend outside, but also give some for the inside of Hogwarts. What do you think?”

Interacting with @Leonard Oaksworth

This had to be Alec's funeral, after some reflection it's what the curly-haired child had come upon. A metaphorical death at least when one was fresh out of ideas, so much so they had to go through the means of stopping and waiting as if to come up with something brilliant, and nothing coming. Ideas happen while things are happening they don't take laziness in it's wake and certainly are not going to give you anything useful when your best efforts are trying for an idea without actually thinking of things. It being coincidental situations that leads one somewhere over on a large bridge to the brink of coming with an idea. Eureka moments are not nothing then suddenly something, sure you've figured it out suddenly but your going through a helpful process of affluent thoughts that lead you there to some great victory and satisfaction of the shout you get to make that is eureka. It is a surprise almost a woeful thing going through such an agonizingly long process, but the matter of the fact is that even while feeling as if the great thoughts of many people who have had eureka moments would have come out of thin air; it was unfeasible to assume they would. Holding out hope was nugatory. Nugatory or not it would not have mattered, Alec's head was always far away from where it was supposed to be. To think the newest distractions of the world before him wouldn't sweep him away once more.

Alec was in a rather interesting state of being, one that practically begged to ask the question of everything. It was a hopeless state because the ability to focus and put forth useful thoughts to a conversation, or attribute something worth while was not his strong suit during this sort of state. Asking the question of everything was asking the question of all and nothing, the great beyond, and the great abyss. Not one person could find the answer to everything.

With his creativity he had a vantage point. It wasn't the fact that he'd been lacking creative ideas ever either, the show of now had been a rather unfortunate and uncommon incident. The days he sat alone his mind seemed to go through a whirlwind of ideas within seconds. He couldn't use them all, almost all of them he couldn't use actually, but it was enough to be able to set things out. Alec wanted to blame the environment, it felt like it would barely produce any nodes of inspiration, it was an excuse worthy of words if he had enough of a mind to voice them in that moment. Lack of an environment which would produce inspiration was not the problem. Not trying enough wasn't the problem. Or even the state of being Alec was was in. He'd come to the happenstance that his freeze-up or block may have had something to do with the person standing next to him.

Leonard Oaksworth. It was either his full name, or Leo. Leonard felt too formal for Alec in his lane of thoughts now, who had a standoffish and odd love hate relationship with formality. Alec wasn't going to go on. His name was the biggest descriptor for who he was, a Leonard Oaksworth, Leo was Leo. Because Leo was Leo, Alec did get a little anxious. Leo was impressive, that was intimidating to Alec. The way Leo carried himself was very similar to the way Alec had been expected to carry himself. It had been the very thing Alec was so desperate to rid of, he felt like he was able to breathe once more when he could sag his shoulders a little, when he had the space to relax, when he was at last able to give himself the room for mistakes. Leo had seen Alec at the peak of his prank expertise, he'd set the bar far too high for himself when he backed away for a while. The pranks, the mischief, Alec believed it was rather ingrained in him. It was however harder when the only thing on your mind is the fact that it had to be bigger and better.

Alec was caught up on the loss of being unable to come up with something as Leo seemed to have strung a chord, as if it was persuasion of the ideas the could come to him. He'd been in the middle of this as Alec brought up Marshal. The speeding train of thoughts coming from only seconds earlier though Alec was still settled on it. He didn't think he ever would not be. It was just one simple thing to come up with an idea, anyone could do it. Yet Alec had been having trouble.

Alec had been brought back to the chain-link of thoughts, looking reasonably caught off-guard when Leo spoke. Alec caught the end of the word, enough to make out what it was, and his eyes settled on Leo once more. Really, Alec was going to be truthful here, and no not just because lying to yourself means you always get caught. Alec was more-so confused as to how all that came as a surprise for Leo. Not including a Marshal specific case, Alec wasn't the best at making friends. He had trouble navigating social situations. People rarely disliked him, but it wasn't like they made the effort to spend time with him as well. He tend to shy away from people as he learned the bounds of social interaction, and would tend to shy away from Gryffindors as well. It was the whole fitting in with his house thing. He didn't want to think about that.

Alec's eyes fell onto his own flobberworm, then at Leo, and back once more. Alec had noticed Leo's discomfort with the flobberworms before this point, but hadn't taken any of that into consideration into that point. He wondered-Alec leaned against the table. Arms behind his back. He was trying his best to look casual, the problem was when he was trying to look casual for rather silly manners he had a hard time following through. Alec nodded, raising his brows as Leo started speaking once more. Raising his brows had been meant to be a dramatic gesture, the truth was that it became genuine quickly as Leo said they wouldn't be needing Marshal at the moment.

Alec was reaching for the flobberworm behind him, hoping his upper-body was enough to shadow over where his hands were behind him as he picked up the flobberworm. He was invested more in the picking up of the flobberworm then the words of his friend. A pause here for a moment because he was attempting to still be incredibly invested while carrying out the task of his own. But looked solely confused and leaves and sticks were mentioned. He didn't know what to comment and kept quiet, unsure of what to say, his brows furrowing in confusion. He tried not to let the look reach his lips for the sake of letting Leo go on. In the midst of all this he didn't pick up on Leo's gesture to sit, and things went on.

It was almost a shame really because this had likely been meant to get Alec to listen. Upon reflection later, he wasn't sure if that would have worked, or what else the intention could have been. Alec had a hard time sitting still often, and needed to find ways to be active. It was almost a shame because beside the extra task he had at hand for himself. He was for the most-part, now attentive. Especially with the confusion that slightly marked only the upper-half of his face.

Um, as it turned out, he could not save his face from the amount of confusion that came rising up as Leo went on. Paying attention for most of it though even the outdoorsy child was beginning to realize how uh, gross...? It was to hold the flobberworm which kept squirming in his hands. Usually it was fine but it was a little slimy because it exuded mucus and all.Please stop moving, I'll put you down in a second. With that he began to worry that he was somehow putting the flobberworm maybe in some sort of distress and needed too hurry up.“That's good, yeah, yeah-” Alec didn't look like he'd realized the fact that he'd repeated himself. “You know, I've had a change of heart. I think we need to involve, some slimy creatures into the mix.” Alec said, quickly moving his hands to the front, and going on too make the flobberworm suddenly appear by Leo's face, Alec still holding it. He had assumed this likely wasn't going to work out since Leo didn't seem like the type of person you could walk up too and spook. Still, Alec smiled a little before backing away and setting the flobberworm down.

He was staring as his hands once he finished which were... He looked up, he could deal with that in a second. “On a serious note, flobberworms are not actually happening and it would be great if I knew what you were implying. I can't tell.” Alec's eyebrows twisted in more confusion. “Do you want to litter the school with leaves and sticks? Uh, mini leaf and stick tornado sort of thing except of course small and causes no true havoc but swirling around random leaves and sticks? See, I know that the colors of the leaves are more dull, but I don't get what your getting at. Would we be starting right after we get the things? I don't think already dying leaves last long before they become crumbly.” Alec said, he managed a grin only a second later, seeming to light up. His mind had quickly began to wander to places. Mostly in what the assumption of Leo's idea was, and what he could have meant. Admittedly, his mind going a little wild, it strayed far from things he would ever think to think of, and yet it happened. Likely he'd just needed a push to get a surge of ideas, before he'd finally end up at a place where he could come up with something useful. Something that he could finally contribute. “It would be fun to do some sort of themed to the fall season, I'm looking for a little more than leaves Leo, think I can offer some ideas to up that idea up?” Alec said, though his tone implied that he wasn't asking, and yet at the same time still somehow was. It was a rather confusing implication to be had and heard by anybody. Planning to go on though Alec eyes showed that he was searching for some sort of approval too improve upon the idea.