Cody Bexton (cbexton) wrote in feinted, @ 2012-02-20 08:52:00 |
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Entry tags: | !thread, cody-bexton, elva-buckley |
Who: Cody and Elva
What: Love potion-driven confession
When: February 15th?
Where: Great Hall and on the way to library
Summary: Cody confesses and Elva pretty much shrugs it off
It had been a few days since the start of the odd behavior for most of the students at Hogwarts. Cody, while curious, had been trying to keep his distance from it all, not exactly liking some of the developments he had learned about. Katja falling for Flint? Avery putting aside the boy that she had seemed quite interested in to pursue Vlad with a single-minded intensity that he hadn’t thought she was capable of?
Nothing was making any sense, and to make matters worse, things seemed to be heating up between Willow and Ryu again, with no real thought towards the now ex-girlfriend at Hogwarts. All in all, Cody was less than thrilled to be spending Valentines Day single, but he didn’t really have much of a choice. His dating life had hit practically a glacial period while overseas, which he still hadn’t quite been able to figure out.
But as he exited the Great Hall Thursday morning, Cody caught sight of Elva and everything started to make sense. He hadn’t found anyone else, because he had missed the perfect catch, right in front of his eyes. She had come to visit him, teased him with that kiss at New Years Eve, and gotten along wonderfully with his family. Though she didn’t smile as much as he might like, or talk as much as he was used to in a girl, she was pretty much everything he wanted. And she was single, and didn’t seem to hate him, so perhaps he should just take his chances.
What could go wrong? Generally when he set his mind to something, there was nothing that could stop him from getting it. Cody’s charm was usually quite effective, something that he took for granted in many situations, though being at Hogwarts was making him question that a little bit more.
He saw that she was going to slip away if he didn’t do something fast, so Cody hurried across the open space, closing the gap between them with a few easy strides. “Elva!” he said, calling out, but not loud enough to draw attention to them. If he had read her right, she wouldn’t want it to be a public thing, as much as he enjoyed the attention of actions like that. “Could I have a quick word?”
Elva had been avoiding most of the odd romances pretty successfully-- she tended to be pretty unobtrusive as it was, unless, of course, she wanted to be, so staying out of the limelight hadn’t been a challenge. All the better, really, because she didn’t think she was affected by any of the madness, and she certainly didn’t want to be. Having gone to breakfast a little later than the usual, for the specific purpose of avoiding the crowd, Elva was just rummaging through her bag outside of the Great Hall as she was on her way out when she heard her name called out. She stopped what she was doing and looked up, but before she even saw him she knew who it was.
“Hey,” she said simply, not without a touch of her special kind of fondness, “Yeah, of course. Walk with me.” That said, Elva adjusted her bag on her shoulder and started heading down the hall. She had no idea what Cody wanted to talk about, but there was no point in putting extra thought into it if she was going to find out in a few moments anyway.
“Are we going anywhere in particular?” Cody asked, derailing himself from his own mission, but not feeling too worried about it. He’d know he when the right moment was and he’d ask then. There was no point in rushing things, now that he’d found her. Elva was mysterious, but it was one of the things that had drawn him to her in the first place. Cody felt he could get a read on most women, but not this one.
She was an enigma and almost his opposite in every way. The things he had and cherished were the things that she seemed to think she didn’t need. Her entire way of encountering life and the people in it was so different from his own, but he was hungry to know more. Something had changed; he no longer wanted to take his time, trying to get to know her and feeling out the situation. He needed to have her as his, if for no other reason than feeling that the jealousy of seeing her with someone else would tear him apart.
He didn’t know when she’d come to mean so much to him, but it hit him like a ton of bricks, and though he knew he should be gasping for air, Cody seemed more than happy to ride out the wave of delirium-driven passion. He watched her, noticing how graceful her profile was, and wishing that she would smile more often. She really was lovely when she smiled, and it made him wonder if she simply couldn’t see it, or if she didn’t want the world to notice.
It was probably a combination of the two.
“Elva, I have something I need to tell you.” They were down a hallway now, and there was a touch more privacy, though not by much. People were walking by, but not paying them any mind, so Cody decided to press onward. If he didn’t take the moment, someone else could take her right out from under him. It was a miracle someone hadn’t already tried. “I really like you. In a non-friend sort of way.” It wasn’t smooth, nor was it suave, but he was hoping that the sincerity would have it’s own sort of charm. As he waited for a response, Cody studied her face, wondering if he had ever felt so nervous in his life.
Elva glanced over at him, and gave a little shrug. “Nah. Library, maybe, to do some work. Hadn’t decided yet.” Shifting her bag again, she kept moving forward, comfortable with the moment of silence-- it was funny, really, because she had only just met Cody, had hardly known him even when she went to his house over the break, but she felt like she had that sense of easy comfort around him that she only had with her oldest friends. Strange, perhaps, but again, she wasn’t one to complain, nor was she one particularly inclined towards introspection.
Her curiosity was piqued by his next words, though, and she looked up at him with her full attention-- a look that was sometimes perceived as rather intense for some people as she didn’t always bother to look people in the eye during conversation. Elva raised an eyebrow, gesturing for him to go on. And what he said was both incredibly surprising and in an odd way, somewhat expected.
“Oh?” was her automatic response, controlled, even, and she even stopped moving in the hallway to think. She wasn’t dumb-- she had sensed, from the beginning, a sort of chemistry between them that couldn’t have been strictly platonic; she suspected it was how they had gotten on from the beginning so well, and she certainly wouldn’t have kissed him at New Year’s without being aware of it. But she hadn’t at all actually expected him to see it, let alone interpret what she saw as a vague sort of natural attraction as actual romantic feelings. What.
After a pause, Elva said, “I think you ought to think about that some more.” She took her eyes off of him, then, looking down at the floor, frowning a little bit. “What exactly are you suggesting, here?”
“I don’t know that I’m suggesting anything.” It was the only thing he could think to say, after she so neatly cut off his advance. In all honesty, he wasn’t terribly surprised, since Elva didn’t seem like the type to necessarily want a relationship with anyone, let alone him. Not to say that he thought she didn’t like him; in fact, if pushed, Cody might say that it seemed that Elva got along with him at least as good, if not as better than she did with most of the population. Though, he could admit that a portion of that might be his ego talking.
What he was surprised by was his reaction to her casual hesitance. For the fact that he had partially been expecting it, he felt a lot more down that he would normally, because this was certainly not the first time he had been turned down. It didn’t happen often, but it certainly wasn’t a foreign sensation for him either. But there was an unfamiliar heaviness that made it seem all the more dramatic and unfortunate. He almost felt like attempting to drown himself in the lake again, which didn’t make any sense. It wasn’t as though he could love her. He was only starting to get to know her, but it was starting to feel like a life or death scenario.
“I don’t think there’s anything to think about. I see no downside in trying to date you.”
“Not suggesting anything?” And then Elva shot him an amused glance, forgetting for a moment the context of the situation, “are you just informing me of this new development for kicks, then? Should I nod and file the information away?” She then sighed, realizing that her words, as usual, might not have been the most sensitive ones that she could have picked. “There are quite a few downsides. Not in the least of which would be that I’m sure I’m hardly like any other girls that you’ve dated before, or that I’m not entirely convinced you know exactly what you’re saying.”
Who knows-- maybe that was it; maybe she was different and that was interesting, different from the typical girl in North America, different from an average loudmouth or smartass-- but Elva seriously doubted that Cody, even if he did think he liked her as more than a friend, was interested in her on a more than superficial level. They were coming up to the library; Elva saw a chance to escape, instead of prolonging a conversation that would probably turn into a debate she didn’t really want to have.
“This is my stop,” she said, gesturing to the library doors. “I’ll see you around, yeah?” without waiting for longer than a few moments she turned around, with a parting wave-- just so he hopefully understood she wasn’t annoyed, or offended, and hoped they could just keep the conversation in the past.