Closed Please Give Me a Second Grace

[Weston Stirling]

This year's Valentine's Day had arguably been the most fun one yet. Unlike his first year, Weston knew what to expect with rose deliveries this time around, and had scheduled his day so that he was always near the action. He had spent much of his day in the Great Hall, watching rose deliveries and just generally enjoying the festive mood. Already, he'd gotten more roses this year than his first year, and there was still some time left before the dance.

Weston was scanning the Great Hall, looking for any particularly interesting deliveries, when he caught sight of Zay. He immediately looked away. But it was too late, and his mind went to the one thing he had tried not to think about all day — the rose he had sent Zay. It had been a last ditch attempt to salvage their broken friendship. Weston had tried all year to apologize to Zay, but the Gryffindor wouldn't even acknowledge him. In the end, Weston had finally decided to send his former friend a letter. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but now he wasn't so sure. Zay had probably taken one look at the signature and thrown the note and rose away.

 

[Isaiah Thompson]

Isaiah had been thoroughly enjoying Valentine's this year. Between running around the castle delivering roses and losing his voice not much was different from the previous years. Except for one thing: this time he actually had a date to the dance. At least he thought he did. He had asked El and she had asked him so he reckoned it was pretty much set. Still, there was one thing that had put a damper on it all. Something he felt he needed to fix before the day was over. He needed to talk to Wes.

After his first glance at the note accompanying the rose the boy had send him Zay had impulsively wanted to just throw it away. But then he had read the note. Twice. And it had made him feel like an absolutely idiot. He had been mad at his friend, been ignoring the boy ever since he had told on him. To add to that, he had been thinking of Wes as a bad friend for that entire time only to realize now that he had been a bad friend. A terrible one, really. Sure, Wes getting him in trouble hadn't been fun but he knew the boy and now felt like he should've known he wouldn't just have gotten a professor to get him into trouble. Rather because he had thought he was already in trouble. His friend had been too scared to go into the forest with him and so him having been worried about him made sense. If he still was his friend or wanted to be his friend. If anything, he just needed to make things right. Luckily for Zay, he needn't look far for the other boy as he suddenly locked eyes with Wes when he walked into the hall. Without hesitation he jumped up, feeling slightly more awkward with every step he took in his friend's direction. If he felt like an idiot he wondered what Wes would think of him. "Hey. Got your rose." He simply said, sheepishly scratching the back of his neck. "Look I- uh.. I'm sorry." Zay continued. He wasn't much for a lot of words so it felt better to just throw it out rather than beat around the bush. "For y'know.. being a d*ck." He added with a shrug.

 

[Weston Stirling]

Weston had been determinedly looking away, not wanting to watch Zay purposefully ignore him. He was used to it by now, of course, but that didn't mean it hurt any less seeing his former friend pretend not to see him. So when he suddenly heard Zay's voice, Weston jumped in his seat, knocking over a glass in the process. Luckily, it was empty, and he quickly righted the glass before staring at the Gryffindor, almost uncomprehendingly, because Zay was right there. He was standing right in front of Weston, actually making eye contact, even speaking to him. This was something that hadn't happened in nearly a year.

Weston glanced around furtively, just to make sure Zay wasn't actually talking to the person next to him, but no — the Gryffindor was talking to him. It was rare that Weston was ever left speechless, but for a few moments, he just sat in stunned silence as Zay apologized. "You're... sorry?" he repeated, his brain still trying to catch up with the words. Weston had imagined this moment before, but in those scenarios, it was always him apologizing to Zay, not the other way around. "But... I'm sorry," he said, as if only one of them could apologize. The dam broke, and words continued to tumble out of his mouth. "I'm really sorry, Zay, I swear I didn't mean to get you in trouble, or I mean, I didn't want you to get in trouble, I was just worried that you'd gotten eaten by like an acromantula or something because you'd been gone forever, and I didn't think Professor Kingsley would actually punish you, and I'm just so sorry and I swear it'll never happen again. Ever." Mostly because he planned on never going anywhere near the forest again.

 

[Isaiah Thompson]

Isaiah frowned for a second when Wes looked around as if to see whether he was actually talking to them and not to someone else. He was apologizing. He mentioned his rose. Why would he even think he could be talking to someone else? Aside from the clear fact that he had not spoken to him since the start of the year. He had greeted him at the hangout he had hosted, but that was about it. No, that was it. Those were the only words he had said to Wes since the forest last year. "Yeah, dude. I'm sorry." Zay shrugged when the other boy didn't seem to comprehend the fact that he was right there, apologizing. He tried his best not to grin when Wes started to blurt out words, which was exactly how he knew him to be. "I know." He nodded when his friend apologized with a rather extensive explanation. "I mean I know now. I probably should've known way back then but I guess there's no cure for being an idiot." Zay added, his grin finally breaking through. If they had really been friends before than both of them apologizing had to mean things were good again, right? If not, he'd still have to seriously re-evaluate their friendship. "So, you try not to get me in trouble again and I'll try thinking before doing every once in a while." He offered. "And then we're good..?"

 

[Weston Stirling]

Weston realized somewhat belatedly that he was probably just repeating everything he had written in his rose note. But this was important. If he screwed this up, then who knew when Zay would talk to him again? So there was a palpable sense of relief when Zay finally smiled, and Weston grinned as well. "You're not an idiot," Weston said, shaking his head. "Just—" he stopped abruptly. What? Hurtful? Mean? Over the break, Weston had asked his parents for advice on the situation, and they had said that if anyone used the silent treatment, it said more about that person's character than the person they were ignoring. But Zay couldn't be mean. Otherwise he wouldn't be here, having this conversation. "Never mind." He glanced away for a second before looking back at Zay, brightening at the question. He nodded eagerly. "Yeah... yeah! We're good!" A pause. And then, just because he had to make sure, "That means we're friends again... right?"

 

[Isaiah Thompson]

Isaiah had been set on seeking out Wes after he had gotten his rose but had been unsure of what to expect from it. The thought of the other boy not even wanting to be his friend anymore had been one that had crossed his mind various times throughout the day. He hadn't exactly acted like a friend himself after all and he now realized how dumb it had all been. Zay frowned for a second when Wes didn't finish his sentence and while half of him wanted to know what he had meant to say the other half wasn't too keen on finding out what the boy had thought of him when they weren't speaking. He wouldn't even be surprised if it was something hurtful because wasn't that exactly what he had done to Wes? Hurt him? He didn't want to think about it, which also meant that if he had given this whole silent treatment situation another thought way sooner he probably wouldn't have been able to keep it up for so long. "Yeah, dude! You're totally stuck with me." He grinned, relieved when Wes asked the question that was on his mind as well. "So now that we're talking again.. anything interesting happen to you?" Zay asked sheepishly as he dropped down onto the bench.

 

[Weston Stirling]

Weston felt like he could breathe again when Zay confirmed that they were friends. The past few months had been awful, and he never wanted to fight with Zay again. Weston was a little surprised when the Gryffindor took a seat across from him since he had seen the basket of roses and assumed Zay would be too busy with deliveries to catch up. But he definitely wasn't going to point this out. They had to make up for practically a whole year's worth of lost conversations.

"Oh, uh..." Weston suddenly realized that it had been so long since they had last talked that he didn't even know where to start. He was so used to Zay knowing practically everything about his life by virtue of how often they used to hang out. This chasm between them now was unfamiliar. "Not really..." he said hesitantly. All the new things in Weston's life involved new friends, and he didn't want to Zay to think that he had replaced him. "Indi and I are still working on the whole eel thing, and I've been hanging out with Jordie a lot since, you know, he's been really sad about the whole Nate situation." He assumed Zay already knew about Jordie's breakup since as far as he was aware, Zay and Jordie had remained friends even while he and Zay had not. "We also still have band practices." Weston wondered if it was too soon to ask Zay to join the band but quickly decided not to since he didn't want to annoy Zay, not now, when they had literally just made up and everything felt fragile. "What about you? I mean, I know about the party—" He winced since that was the one topic he definitely didn't want to talk about. It had hurt realizing that Zay had replaced him with Kaia. "—but um, what's new with you?" he asked hurriedly. "How's... Quidditch?" Weston winced again, knowing that he probably didn't sound like himself. After all, he had never shown much interest in Quidditch before. Why was it so hard to talk to Zay?

 

[Isaiah Thompson]

Isaiah was curious by nature so him wanting to know what Wes had been up to was nothing new and yet he couldn't fully shake the feeling that it felt new. Had he never asked him that question before? Or did it simply feel strange because he usually knew what the other boy was up to because he had either heard of it or was part of it. He nodded along as Wes told him what he had been up to, glad to hear there hadn't been any major happenings in the boy's life that he might have missed. If he felt bad know he didn't want to know what it would've felt like to have missed something important in his friend's life because he was being an idiot. "Right! The band. How's that going?" He asked curiously, not having heard much about it from Jordie either. At least not that he could recall.

Zay felt a slight wave of embarassment wash over him when Wes mentioned the party, wondering how the boy had taken it but not feeling like it was a matter they needed to discuss right this second. Especially not that they were slowly rolling into what seemed to be sort of a regular conversation. Perhaps not so much for them as it was a conversation they never really needed to have before, but in general. "Yeah, nah, quidditch is good." He nodded confidently. "I mean I feel like I'm doing alright and with both started positions opening up next year I'm just hoping whoever ends up being the new captain takes me on." Zay explained, happy to talk about a subject he felt completely at ease with. "So what about today, huh?" He grinned, easing into his usual self again. "Got any interesting roses?"