Closed Social Research

[Augustus Westwick]

Augustus should be studying for the exams, and he was aware of this, but with them so far away at the end of the year, he didn't feel the urgency he usually did. After reading the response from Agony Aunt in Hogwarts Monthly, Augustus had been inspired to do a bit of different research. He had dug through the books in the library for anything about grief and had grabbed a few pamphlets from the school counselor too. He wanted to know how to help Addison in any way, though so far the information wasn't incredibly useful. He was reading one of the pamphlets closely on a bench outside, hardly paying attention to his surroundings.

 

[Ryan Fisk]

Nicole had been extra weird with him this morning over breakfast and Ryan was still in a bad mood. He usually didn't really get what Nicole was going on about but he generally trusted she knew what she was talking about. Today had caught him entirely off guard and he needed to find Augustus and find out more.

He liked to think he knew Augustus well enough to be able to find him without very much work, though it took Ryan a lot longer than he expected to spot Augustus in the courtyard. He just wished he'd checked her before he'd gone all the way upstairs. "Hey - what are you reading- no," he said, tilting up the pamphlet Augustus so he could read the title and giving Augustus a curious look before getting himself back on track, "Why'd my sister ask me to ask you to not touch her stuff anymore?" He said, deciding to leave the weirdness of Augustus choice in reading materials for now.

 

[Augustus Westwick]

Augustus looked up when Ryan approached, opening his mouth to answer his question. But Ryan stopped himself from asking it, and Augustus paused. He blinked at Ryan's question and then his face flushed bright red. He groaned, hiding his face behind the pamphlet for a moment. "Oh no." He mumbled, feeling embarrassed. "She... didn't tell you what happened?" He asked, peeking over the pamphlet. Then he regretted asking that, as now Ryan knew something had happened. "I mean. Tell her I won't." He said quickly, hoping against hope that Ryan would drop it. Though he knew he wouldn't.

 

[Ryan Fisk]

As far as reactions went, Ryan had been expecting Augustus to be as puzzled as he was, but apparently not. "No..." He said slowly, squinting at Augustus. "Usually she just tells me to do stuff and expects me to do it," he said, crossing his arms and shrugging. Getting information out of Nicole rarely worked when you were direct. You had to wait for her to tell you by mistake or by bribing her. It was frustrating, Ryan could never get to her talk about the stuff he wanted or shut up about the stuff he didn't care about. Augustus however, Ryan was more confident he could exact information from. "What happened?" He pressed, sitting directly next to Augustus, their legs touching, and squinting at him again for good measure. "I didn't ask you to mess with her, so why did she say that?"

 

[Augustus Westwick]

Augustus let out a small breath of relief when Ryan said he didn't know what had happened. But then he remembered who he was talking to, and that Ryan wasn't likely to give up without getting answers. He grimaced, wondering if he could distract Ryan in some way. His cheeks flushed when he asked what happened, and he looked away. "It's nothing." He mumbled. "Forget it." It was worth a shot, right?

 

[Ryan Fisk]

Augustus' continued evasiveness has Ryan's undivided attention, like a niffler after gold, and he wasn't about to drop the subject now just because Augustus had tried to avoid the answer. "I could just go ask her," he said, giving Augustus a pointed nudge. He didn't really want to ask Nicole about it, mostly because it'd probably just turn into her grousing at him about his weird friends, which Ryan resented. He liked his friends. Even if Augustus was apparently touching Nicole's stuff or something. "It's not like I care if you're messing with her, as long as you don't keep doing it," he added with a shrug. Nicole hadn't seemed that upset, not like the time Ryan had left a bunch of slugs in her room when he was 8, so he figured whatever it was, it was probably fine.

 

[Augustus Westwick]

Augustus sighed when Ryan said he could just go ask Nicole. There was a chance Nicole simply wouldn't tell him, as she dind't seem all that eager to tell Ryan anything. But Augustus knew she likely would, if nothing else to get him off her back. Augustus sighed. "I wasn't messing with her." He mumbled finally, looking down. He took a deep breath. "I was trying to leave a note in her bag." He said quietly. "But she caught me."

 

[Ryan Fisk]

Ryan decided to give Augustus a little poke just as an added incentive, vindicated when he finally elaborated more on whatever it was he seemed to be dancing around. "A note? Why?" He asked flatly, mind immediately going to the not-a-joke note Addison had giving Augustus last year. Ryan considered Augustus for a moment, tilting his head thoughtfully. He didn't exactly strike Ryan as the love note guy. He was so quite, Ryan could only imagine a note that just said "...". Not exactly romantic. But only one way to be sure. "Wait, like a love note?" He said slowly, still trying to drag more out of Augustus. "You know she has a boyfriend, right?" Ryan certainly knew. Nicole had spent all of the last holidays refusing to shut up about him.

 

[Augustus Westwick]

Augustus was wishing for the ground to swallow him up, something he was doing more often than was likely normal lately. He watched as Ryan made sense of what he was saying, it clicking into place for him. Augustus groaned softly, hiding his face behind his hands. "It was more a like note." He protested something he had said to Nicole as well. "I know that now." He added, mumbling under his breath. "I don't want to talk about this anymore, please. I'll never do anything like that again, I promise." He said, knowing he would avoid Nicole at all costs from now on, probably for the rest of his life.

 

[Ryan Fisk]

Ryan shook his head in amusement in Augustus' clarification. He wasn't sure what the difference was. "Did you write a poem?" He asked, giving Augustus a nudge. Addison had written a poem. Addison had also been needlessly cryptic about her note as well. It was such a waste of time. Why bother sending it if you didn't want the person to find out. Ryan didn't get the point. "Probably for the best, we'd never get to do anything if you actually started dating her. And she never shuts up about her boyfriend either, I'd go insane," Ryan said, content the matter had been resolved and Augustus had seen the error of his ways. It was better this way, Augustus was his friend, he didn't need to waste time messing around with Nicole and writing love notes.

 

[Augustus Westwick]

Augustus quickly shook his head when Ryan asked if he had written a poem, suddenly glad he hadn't. He hadn't thought the whole ordeal could have been more mortifying, but clearly, it could have been. "I'm not very poetic. " He said softly. It was sort of nice of Ryan to talk as if Nicole dating him was actually a possibility, though it just made it clear to Augustus that Ryan had even less of a clue about the whole dating thing than he had. Even though Augustus had left notes in Nicole's bag, he had never seriously considered she might want to date him. He wasn't cool enough to be on her radar. "Yeah, it's fine," Augustus said softly. "I... don't think I would want to date her after all." He added, a bit surprised to find it was true. Maybe if she hadn't reacted so badly to his note he would have felt differently, but impressing Nicole was difficult and he didn't really understand her. Dating her would probably be exhausting.