Closed Slowly But Surely

[Estella Fuentes]

Truth be told, Essie had never been so angry and frustrated before. The Valentine's Dance was a good night, but not exactly how she had imagined it in her head. It had been a year now and Sawyer still wasn't getting the hint. He didn't even bat an eye at the thought of inviting Estella to the dance. They had gone to the last Yule ball together, which was nice, but apparently it wasn't nice enough for Sawyer to ask her to the Valentine's Dance, and rather than wallowing about it on her own, she was filled with rage and needed to confront him about it.

That morning, after a rather sleepless night, Estella walked into the Great Hall, heading straight for Sawyer as soon as she saw him at the Ravenclaw table. She slowed down and took a breath however, not wanting to completely flip on him just yet, and sat down next to him. "Hey Sawyer, how was the Valentine's Dance?" she asked, well aware that he had attended it. There was a hint of passive aggressiveness in her voice that she couldn't quite shake. At least he hadn't seemed to be attending it with someone else, but perhaps Essie deserved that.

 

[Sawyer Carnahan]

Sawyer shuffled his spoon around his cereal bowl despondently, halfheartedly herding his cornflakes into various clumps. Maybe if he stirred it enough he could divine a way for him to grow a spine; surely someone had looked into that before? Cereal-mancy? As if the answers to all his problems could be settled by a bowl of Frosties.

He was just pondering whether he'd eaten enough that it wouldn't look too wasteful to leave his bowl and try to hunt down Theia when Essie settled down next to him, causing his spoon to clatter loudly as he hurried turned to face her, wincing at the noise and as he clocked his elbow on edge of the table.

"Essie! Hey! I was just- How are- Uh-" Sawyer scrambled to get his thoughts together, hoping it wasn't overly obvious somehow on his face that he'd just spent the last solid 48 hours thinking about her. He nudged the cereal bowl away for good measure too. He didn't think Essie was adept in cereal-mancy, but Sawyer didn't plan on taking chances. "The dance was good... It was good. Mostly just hung out to make sure my brother didn't stick his face in the chocolate fountain or anything, aye," he said bobbling his head noncommittally.

He'd been wondering all night if he'd screwed up not asking Essie to the dance. Things with her had been good, great even, but he was sure they would have gone better if he'd asked her to go with him last night. He'd gotten so in his head about what had happened last year, worried that maybe Essie wouldn't want to go and be reminded of it, or worse, if they'd run into Nikko while there together or something. Not to mention the quiet, unkind voice in his head that thought it might be him finding Estella out in the courtyard with someone else instead. In the end, he'd spent far too long thinking and not enough time asking and now, sitting next to her, he felt like a right idiot. "Did you uh, get a chance to go check it out? We should have... Met up," he said, voice trailing off sheepishly.

 

[Estella Fuentes]

Essie watched as Sawyer pushed his cereal bowl to the side a little so he could talk to her. He didn't seem like he was eating much of it anyway, but it still made Essie smile a little, glad that he seemed to want to talk to her. Lately not many people wanted anything from her, so it was nice for the change. As he began talking about his brother, Essie nodded. "Oh, that's good. There's nothing quite like a younger sibling embarrassing you is there?" The teen chuckled a little awkwardly, trying her best to find light of the situation. Maybe Sawyer was just too busy with his brother to pay any attention to her that night? Essie knew that if Evie were to threaten to do something embarrassing, she would be keeping a close eye on her too.

As Sawyer asked if Essie had even attended the Valentine's Dance, she furrowed her eyebrows, a little confused as to why Sawyer would ask such a stupid question. There wasn't a single Valentine's Dance that she hadn't gone to. Choosing to ignore the question, Essie just responded to the second half. "Yeah, it would've been nice." She sighed a little, figuring this was probably the perfect opportunity to say it. "I would've enjoyed it a bit better if I could've gone with you as my date though. I enjoyed going to the Yule Ball with you, and I thought you'd ask me to the Valentine's Dance too." she told him, figuring it was best to be honest with him.

 

[Sawyer Carnahan]

"Mine are very good at it," Sawyer said solemnly, trying to ignore the squiggly feeling he got every time Essie laughed at one of his jokes. He'd talked to Harper about his concerned with Essie but every time she smiled it was like someone had confunded him and suddenly whatever he was worried about seemed far less important.

He couldn't suppress the flinch when Essie outright pointed out the whole "not asking her to the dance" thing, half wishing his cereal bowl was still in front of him just so he had something to pick at with his hands. "Ah yeah, well- I enjoyed that.. too," he said, wishing he could be a little less sweaty for this conversation. "Maybe I thought it was your turn," he said, smile half-cocked with the joke before he immediately regretted it. Essie was being honest with him here, like she had at the ball, he needed to be serious. "No, sorry, stupid joke. I guess I kinda just chickened out," he said, scratching at the tabletop. "Listen, you're really pretty and Valentine's is kinda serious and I'm uh. I'm not usually the one people go to for serious? And besides, I wasn't sure if serious was.. what you wanted?" It was as close as he could bring himself to the issue they'd been dancing around since she'd kissed him last year, about as close as Sawyer wanted to go considering he didn't actually want this all to blow up in his face.

 

[Estella Fuentes]

Essie could tell Sawyer was a little taken aback with her honesty, but she needed to be serious with him now if she wanted to prove herself to him and to everyone else. There was going to be no more dancing around the truth anymore, despite how hurtful it might be. As Sawyer said he thought it was perhaps her turn to ask him, she couldn't help but raise an eyebrow. Wasn't it the guy's job to ask? But perhaps there was some truth in what he'd said. "Okay, well, next time I will ask you then." she said, happy to take one for the team if she had to. She didn't care if Sawyer was joking. This was now meant to be a serious conversation, and she was serious about wanting to go with Sawyer to the dance.

As Sawyer said she was pretty, her cheeks turned a shade of pink, and she put a hand over her mouth to stop her from squealing. She could feel the butterflies, and was utterly embarrassed at her initial reaction right in front of him. She barely even heard a word he said after that. "I-I'm sorry." she stammered, unable to help the smile on her face. When she was sure she wasn't going to explode yet, she took a deep breath and continued. "Of course I want serious. But I don't want to force you into anything if that's not what you want. And if you don't want to talk about this anymore, that's okay, but I just want you to know that if you want serious, then I'm more than happy for serious too."