Closed slow it down

[Lumos Walden-Cade]

As Astronomy started pouring out, Lumos waited a little down the corridor to grab Demi as she would have headed back up to the dorms. He wanted to talk to her after everything that had happened after the game and he hadn't really have the ability to do so earlier. His own mind had still been spinning after Jonah had kissed him again, and then Eurydice and William had kept on and it was all a little confusing. He'd been left with mostly his family after it and then he'd had to run to class which he'd forgotten he had and honestly actually it was notoriously difficult to run into a Ravenclaw as a Slytherin because they were in two completely opposite parts of the castle. So this was probably a good option because despite being late at night, they could have the pretext of him walking her to the common room, they would have at least that long to chat he hoped. "Hey, Demigod, over here," he says, waving her over as he sees her heading out of the classroom. He didn't want to pressure her, but he wasn't sure how she was feeling after everything. Was she mad at him? He was a little hurt she hadn't picked up it wasn't him she'd been sat next to during the games but, he supposed she didn't really know him all that well either to be fair.

@Demi Zephyr​

 

[Demi Zephyr]

Demi had for the most part been keeping to herself throughout lessons this entire semester. When others would pair up, Demi would try and pair with the quieter students, partly because she thought it would be nice for them to be with someone chatty, but also because she knew she would likely be distracted if paired with someone that would natter her ears off too. After Astronomy, she'd left the room fully intending to go back to bed, although she heard Lumos calling her through the crowd. "Demigod? I like that," she grinned at the Slytherin, immediately slipping her arm through his. "I thought you left already?" she asked, having seen him slip out earlier in the evening, "Don't tell me you were just waiting for me?" she asked, although she was touched if that was the case. She'd been making enemies left right and center these days, and while she was pretty sure she would call Lumos her current best friend, it was still nice when someone put the real effort in to see her.

@Lumos Walden-Cade ​

 

[Lumos Walden-Cade]

"I figured you'd try and get to your bed asap so I wanted to head you off," he says, letting her take his arm and starting the walk (very slowly) to the Ravenclaw part of the towers. She could very well walk herself, he knew, but he was trying to have a conversation with her so he couldn't just let her walk off on her own. "I haven't had a chance to catch up with you, sorry, I figured this was the best chance to catch you in a semi-decent time to chat, so here we are." That wasn't entirely the reason he'd eft early, but it was as close to the real reason as anything else. Mostly he found Astronomy incredibly boring, but it was worth it for a nap honestly. "You okay?" the question was general in nature, but there was a specific answer he was looking for, and he wanted to pull on the thread if she'd let him.​

 

[Demi Zephyr]

It was the first time they'd spoken properly since the truth or dare game, and Demi had a feeling he wanted to ask her a few things about what had happened. So far only Lilith and Ondine had any idea why she'd left the game after supposedly getting want she wanted, and even if other students hadn't even known she'd liked Will, it still would have looked out the blue to leave the way she had. "You don't need to apologise, we've been busy," she replied, matching his walking speed and looking up at him with her large brown eyes. He seemed different from the last time they'd spoken. "Mhmm," she nodded at his question, not entirely sure where to start when it came to whether she was okay. Her arm squeezed his a little tighter though, as if she was appreciating the question even if she didn't immediately have an answer. "You didn't say much to me during the game," she mentioned, thinking back. She'd asked him why Nox seemed to be mad at him but beyond that, the pair hadn't said a word. "It was strange, wasn't it," Demi knew she didn't have to specify what she was talking about for her best friend to know what she meant.​

 

[Lumos Walden-Cade]

"We didn't talk," he said, not looking at her. He had intended to sit with her, but Nox had beaten him to the spot and he'd left it at that. It hadn't really occurred to him that she wouldn't have realised it wasn't him until he'd seen her speak to Nox, and for Nox to look bewildered. It had been kind of funny for all of like half a minute, before he'd grown jealous that she was talking to Nox and not to him, since she was his friend and not Nox's. Don't get him wrong, Nox was his ride or die, but they were meant to have different friends. "You were sitting with Nox, not me, to be honest I was a little jealous, I wanted you to be able to tell us apart, and when you didn't..." he shook his head. "It wasn't fair, I'm sorry, I should have just told you it had upset me rather than just avoid the situation all together."​

 

[Demi Zephyr]

Demi frowned as Lumos told her she'd been sitting next to Nox. She'd never even met the boy! Well, not properly. "You're lying," she said. Surely Nox wouldn't have come to sit next to her, that was Lumos's seat. It suddenly made a lot of sense though, the way Nox seemed confused when she'd asked if his brother was mad at her, and the way Lumos had been leaning against the wall looking so, casual. Maybe she was a terrible friend not to have been able to pick him out from his brother. "Wait, you were jealous?" Demi moved in front of Lumos then, to stop them in their tracks as she faced him properly. "Lumos I'm so sorry, I thought it was you," Demi had never actually seen twins before, and telling them apart was a struggle. "I would have moved if I'd known, and you should have told me!" It didn't help that Lumos hadn't said a word to her otherwise she would have fixed it, and instead he'd been brewing on the situation ever since. From now on, she was going to make absolutely sure she could tell them apart, even if it was difficult. "I'm sure he is great too, but you're my best friend, not him," she added adamantly. ​

 

[Lumos Walden-Cade]

He cracks into a cheeky smile. "Of course I was jealous, I met you first and honestly I'd rather not fight with my brother over a girl, that's a thing that's happened in my family before and I don't want a repeat," he jokes lightly, it's sort of true, though he thinks he's probably mostly made it up. "We're the inquestigators, I'm not letting Nox take that away from me," he added, shrugging as she stands in front of him. She was right, he probably should have told her, but he was used to dealing with Tori and she'd always sort of just known, he forgets sometimes that not everyone can tell them apart, which he probably should have known since his dad often doesn't have a clue which twin he's talking to. "Sorry I didn't say anything, I was a bit distracted about everything," he frowned, shrugging again, before continuing to walk, but this time taking Demi's hand instead. "You're sort of my best friend too, at least outside of Nox," and Tori, though he doesn't voice her name, since he'd picked up some tension between the girls and he wasn't entirely sure what it had to do with anything. He intended to remain friends with both of them, since Tori was part of the furnature almost at the Cade home and Demi was the first person he'd really clicked with. He might have said Winnie under other circumstances, but she was more of an ally than a friend.​

 

[Demi Zephyr]

Demi wasn't sure if she wanted to ask what else had gone on with his family to have to fight over a girl, and also if she was honest she'd had enough of the students fighting one another. Verbal or otherwise. "Yes exactly," that was their name, and maybe she should have led with that. If she wasn't sure, Nox wouldn't be able to answer things that Lumos could so it would be a surefire way of telling who was who before things went too far.

As Lumos took her hand, she fell in line with him once more, gently swinging their arms between them. "Distracted?" she asked him, wondering what had been on his mind enough to not have said anything yet. Perhaps he just meant schoolwork because that was always something that needed to be given attention every now and then, but also Lumos didn't seem to be as carefree as he usually was so maybe there was something else that had happened. "What happened, after I left?" she asked him quietly, not wanting any other students to overhear. She was quite sure that only those who'd been involved even knew it took place, despite Keira shouting into the corridor, but she could never be too careful. She'd grinned again when Lumos had called her his sort of best friend. She'd take it.​

 

[Lumos Walden-Cade]

"A lot of stuff sort of happened after you left," he said, frowning as he sorted through the information in his head. He'd seen her go, but he hadn't seen everything that had happened during that or even after it. He remembered quite distinctly that a lot of it seemed to involve Eurydice and Jonah, who were turning out to be two very chaotic people in everyone's lives right now. He probably shouldn't be surprised they were both Hufflepuffs, especially after having met Professor Edogawa - there was just something about Professor Edogawa that meant he wasn't surprised by their house in the slightest. He wasn't sure he knew what to say about being distracted and hoped she would lump it in with everything else he was about to tell her rather than pull out that part specifically. "Well, you know Ondine followed you out, Will got upset you left, I think he thought you didn't like the kiss," he said, eyeing her slightly for her reaction. He loved his cousin, and he would always believe in family first. "Eurydice said she wanted more kisses and I thought she was just going to go around the whole room at that point, but she didn't, she just kissed Will again." This next part he didn't want to say, but in the interest of honesty, "Felix said you were just practice, Amory left not long after, then Jonah kissed me again, because Eury and Will didn't want an audience, so I think they're best friends now, because she said she wanted to be his best friend if she was just going to kiss him, which I didn't actually realise was a requirement," he said, shaking his head. He didn't feel the need to kiss Demi, nor the want if he was honest, but he hadn't thought he would want to kiss Jonah either, and now here he was completely unable to get the Hufflepuff out of his head and it was kind of infuriating. "Then Felix and Eury sort of got into a fight and he asked Esme if she wanted to leave, I sort of tuned out after that." Because all he could think about was Jonah.​

 

[Demi Zephyr]

Demi felt like she was being repeatedly slapped in the face by a wet fish. She didn't really like fish. She wasn't surprised Will got upset that she'd left, although she was shocked that he'd kissed Eury after she had. The kiss with Will hadn't been the problem in fact it had been quite lovely, it was everything else around it that had been the problem. Demi listened in silence as Lumos gave her the rundown of everything that happened, and a small part of her felt as though her reaction to leaving was justified by the end of it. "Eury and Will kissed a second time?" she asked after a moment, "Like, as part of the dare?" It was one thing to be dared into it but if they'd just kissed voluntarily then Demi knew she would wipe her hands of the Gryffindor. Felix calling her practice was just icing on the cake to a bad day, and between Felix and Keira calling her gross, maybe she was better off avoiding most of the group from now on if that's what they thought of her. "Jonah kissed you again?" It seemed as though she'd left at the right time if everyone was just kissing each other, the game fully out the window. Demi had been there to witness it the first time, when the Hufflepuff had kissed both twins at once, although admittedly Demi had been too distracted watching Nox and Jonah since she thought she was looking at the right twin. "Was Jonah a monopoly kiss too?" she asked him, using Ondine's reference because it was a perfect example of why William's name was now written up on her bedroom wall. ​

 

[Victoria de Lacey]

Tori headed up to the towers, but upon realising who was exiting the class immediately turned around and left.

 

[Lumos Walden-Cade]

As they kept walking, Lumos kept talking, filling her in on what had happened in the game after she had left, and some of the others too. "Yes, I don't know why actually, I wasn't paying too much attention because I was speaking to Lilith and then when she left that's when I think Eury offered to kiss him? But he might have picked up a card, I didn't see, sorry," he frowned because now that he thought back he wasn't actually sure how that had come up. He'd made a joke about it that seemed really stupid now. He nodded then as she asked him if Jonah had kissed him again. He had been thinking about it for a while since, though he often pushed it to the back of his mind to try and ignore it. He didn't think it meant anything, but he was happy to pretend either way. It wasn't like he knew Jonah very well anyway. He frowned at her when she asked him if it was a monopoly kiss, but he didn't know what that meant. "What do you mean by monopoly kiss?"​

 

[Demi Zephyr]

Demi was practically seething at the thought of Eury and Will kissing for a second after, after he'd kissed her too. She hadn't really expected him to follow her out, given that his friends (and family) were still playing, but if the Ravenclaw had had any doubt that Will didn't really like her, it went out the window entirely when she pictured the pair of them. He'd clearly wasted no time making the most of another girl to kiss and Demi had more self-respect than to add herself to his long line of waiting ladies. At least, she liked to think she did.

Realising that neither of them had said anything for a moment, the brunette glanced back to Lumos in an attempt to read his features. "A Monopoly kiss is like a fake kiss," she began to explain, trying her best to replicate Ondine's theory. "Monopoly money is fake isn't it, you throw it around and it doesn't mean anything. I'm pretty sure I was a monopoly kiss for William," she trailed off for a second before getting to the task at hand. "Jonah kissed you the first time as part of the dare, but if he kissed you again because the others didn't want an audience.." Demi shrugged, "That means either it was a Monopoly kiss or he kissed you because he actually wanted to." She hadn't meant to assume the former in her previous comment, but with so much going on throughout the game it had been hard to ascertain whether anything had been real there at all. ​

 

[Victoria de Lacey]

Tori turned around to grab her wand that she had dropped, and quickly headed back to the seventh floor.

 

[Lumos Walden-Cade]

Lumos frowned as Demi explained, unsure if he wanted it to be true or not. Maybe it made sense that Jonah had kissed him the second time then, but even in the dare it had surprised and confused him. Jonah hadn't been told to kiss him specifically, but he had kissed Nox as well, hadn't he? So maybe it was a monopoly kiss. Maybe Jonah hadn't really wanted to kiss him at all - well, he supposed that made sense, they had all been playing a game so it wouldn't be outside the realm of possibility that everything that happened in the game was just supposed to stay within those bounds. He rolled his shoulders, a strange tension suddenly settling between them. "Oh," he sighed, nodding. "Yeah, probably, that makes sense actually because he kissed Nox too, so... yeah, I mean that makes sense. He probably just didn't want to have to look at Eury and William you know?" There was a strange tone in his voice, but he couldn't tell what it was. "That's okay, it's not a big deal - hey you know what, you should come to Yule with me, I was going to go with Nox and Tori, but I think I would prefer to go with you anyway, if you want to go?" Maybe it would cheer her up a little bit from all the talk of kissing people.​

 

[Demi Zephyr]

"Yeah, he did the first time!" Demi pushed, still watching her best friend's face in the hopes of picking up on whether or not he was as disappointed at the prospect of a Monopoly kiss as she had been. "He didn't kiss Nox the second time though, did he?" For all Demi knew she could have been wrong, but if he had, well that wasn't worth too much brewing over. She couldn't help but think Lumos sounded a little sad as he gave her an excuse as to why Jonah could have wanted to. "I don't think kissing is usually the go-to method of averting your eyes," besides, no one else had done that either. She let the atmosphere between them hang for a moment, debating whether to ask Lumos more questions about it when instead he took her by surprise by asking her to the Yule Ball. "For the record, yes I would love to go with you. I am not going with William, and you are my friend," she began, "but why aren't you asking Jonah?" Demi raised her eyebrows at the Slytherin. He could try and deny it if he wanted to, but there was more to what had happened with him during the game than he was letting on. She'd let it go if he didn't want to pursue it, or if she really did have the wrong end of the stick, but if she'd thought for one minute that William had actually been as keen on her as she had been on him, well she wouldn't have wasted that opportunity and she wasn't about to let Lumos do the same. ​

 

[Lumos Walden-Cade]

"No, not the second time," but they'd already established that Jonah had just kissed him to avoid looking at his cousin and Jonah's cousin. If he'd really meant it he would have said so, right? Besides, why would he like Lumos if Nox was his roommate? They looked exactly the same, so that didn't make sense. Sure, Jonah was a twin too, but that wasn't the point. He shook his head. "Eury suggested it," hadn't she? He was sure she'd suggested that the others kiss, because she'd said that Esme and Felix should kiss, hadn't she? He was sure that was what happened, but his mind was blanking a little on the details because he hadn't been paying much attention to anything at all after the first time Jonah had kissed him. It was all too confusing. What would he know anyway, he was twelve. "Maybe it's not, but everyone else was kind of doing it, or... in the vicinity of, maybe he just didn't want to be left out?" he suggested, shrugging. Thinking about Jonah was too close to feelings he would rather avoid at the minute, there was too much going on in his life, like the fact he had new siblings no one had seen fit to tell them about until they'd shown up at Hogwarts and what was he supposed to think about that? He really needed to get his whole family in like one place so they could all just talk or something. "I don't want to go with Jonah, I want to go with you." Asking Jonah would be like admitting he'd liked the kiss, and he didn't even know if it was real, it probably wasn't, so this was safer, better.​