1:30 PM, Gryffindor Table

October had seemingly come out of nowhere. With all the drama of SAWS, helping Zel, worrying about Ollie, and the TWT it seemed the second month of the school year had just snuck up on the petite sixth year and she suddenly realized there was studying to be done. Alex was a life saver in Charms, but her mind had been wandering in other lessons and she found herself falling behind the pace she usually kept. Life was a balancing act and if Sophie didn't keep her eye on all the plates she had spinning the whole mess was going to topple over on her. So there she sat with a stack of open books laid over one another, dark hair drawn up and held in place with two extra quills. It was all in a futile effort to get as much homework done as possible before the first Hogsmeade weekend.

There were papers to write and data to compile on projects for both Potions, Herbology, and CoMC. If she could get a handle on all of that before tomorrow morning she could enjoy her Saturday without feeling as though she should have been back at the Castle. Luckly for Sophie Fridays were open most of the morning and after noon. Unluckily for Sophie she was easily distracted by everything around her. There had been a hope that sitting on the long wooden bench of Gryffindor's table would keep her more focused than the lush crimson arm chairs in the towel or the vast windows of the library. The theory had worked relatively well in the hours before Charms, but stretching into the afternoon she felt herself getting antsy, brown eyes darting around the Great Hall for any excuse of a distraction.

She may or may not have dropped a few hints loud enough for a certain Slytherin to hear earlier in the day about where she would be and what she would be doing - but so far no luck with him taking the bait. For someone who did not seem to be actively presuing her sole interest Sophie tended to give a lot of it to this particular person. It was, perhaps, another reason why her study habits had changed. It gnawed at her in the most annoying way, the fact she so obviously (to herself at least) thought about him so much and he never seemed particularly preoccupied with what she was doing. His reaction to her dragging Nicky around and half flirting with Tracy had be minimal at best and closer to nonexistent. She was used to boys like Fig, boys who got mad that you talked to Erin Harper for five minutes.

She didn't like playing a game she didn't know how to win - of course in the back of her head she could hear her mother and sister chastising her about love not being a game or about winning... and equally in her head she told them both to shut up because she was only sixteen and in no way in love with Deus Deres. That would only be the dumbest thing a girl could ever do. Sighing, chin rested in her hand, the words in her Astronomy text fuzzy as her eyes nearly crossed. So much reading! It felt as though she'd gotten impossibly behind and she was just about ready to say sod it all and take a nice long nap before Herbology when she felt a familiar prickling of the hair on the back of her neck, a slithering arm around her shoulders, smile twitching on her lips, "Don't tell me you're giving up the Slacker's ghost, Deres".

"Och, ye o' little faith." Deus scoffed derisively, removing the arm from around Sophie's shoulders to fish around in some unseen pocket of his robes. After a second, he produced a roll of parchment. With a flourish, he unrolled it, revealing a rather extensive Charms essay in Deus's precise, if not exactly neat, unmistakable handwriting.  It was fairly well known that, for the right number of sickles slipped into his palm, Deus could provide you with a completed assignment or essay for just about any class. What wasn't as well known was that they weren't all recycled from past years—Deus did quite a number of them himself.

The charms essay vanished back into a hidden pocket and Deus, sitting with his back against the table, elbows braced on it, began plucking idly at the quills holding Sophie's hair up. It was cute up, but it was more fun to unravel her a bit.

Deus wasn't much given to analyzing this sort of thing. If he liked someone, he liked them. If he loved them, he loved them. If he enjoyed spending time with them, he spent time with them. Agonizing over definitions just wasn't really his thing. And to the other side of the equation, even when he did feel strongly about something (which wasn't often—his mellowness wasn't really feigned) he didn’t advertise it.  Sure, the occasional snarl or snap slipped out, but Deus masked his little annoyances and frustrations, and he was almost always the loon laughing during a fight.

If he'd been a little annoyed at her shoving her tongue down Nick Blevan's throat, well, he'd also been amused as all get out. He didn't go out of his way to play games, it was just in his nature to move mercurially. He'd been tap-dancing a tarantella on shaky ground since he'd been old enough to put toe to toe, and it had gone well beyond habit and simply become who he was. He'd never been open and he'd never been straightforward, and he probably never would be.

But where would the fun be in that, anyway?

Still playing with the ends of her hair in an almost absent-minded way, Deus eyed the rather massive pile of books from over his shoulder. "Looks tae me like ye be th' one with th' slacking problem." His tone was light and amused—he was nettling her simply to see if he could, which was one of his more unfortunate habits. He swiveled around, quite comfortably crowding her personal space, his leg smashed up against, chin balanced on her shoulder. He had his own homework to do, but before he settled into it, he had to suss out the situation a bit more. "What're ye doin'?"

Sophie looked at the shaggy haired boy, brown tendril falling into her eyes from all his fiddling. She was used to it really, between baby cousins and spending the summer with Tilly watching after Colin for some spare change, well a girl just couldn't be fussy about her hair. Blowing it from her eyes she looked and him and simply shook her head, "I'm just a little behind is all. If I get ahead then tomorrow we can have fun in town without me fretting and looking at my watch every ten minutes," she said we as though it were a solid thing, the idea of them going together. It wasn't, he hadn't asked her, but we was the sort of word you could use to mean a general population... or the hazel eyed boy who made your heart beat just a little bit faster every time his fingers grazed your skin. She was almost completely hopeless for him, but only almost.

"There's just been so much going on. There was the SAWS meeting and the Newspaper, and then club day which thank Merlin wasn't a total disaster," she sighed a little and turned to look at him, "I've just been so worried about Ollie. She's so unhappy, and I know it isn't my job to make her happy, that we can't really make other people be happy... but she's my best friend and she's hurting. I hate feeling so helpless about it all," the corner of her mouth turned up in a half bashful smile. It wasn't like her to openly admit things to the boy. She couldn't talk to Ollie about Ollie though and telling anyone else felt like breaking her trust. For all the ways she watched every step she made with Deus there were things she could trust him with, things she just felt he would use against her,

That didn't mean she'd think he'd understand. Sophie wasn't totally sure that she understood it herself, but some how it all related back to how drastically her family had fallen to pieces. She had built a new family for herself but along the way the gap between she and Lucas had grown, they barely spoke anymore. She didn't bother to owl Fauna or Dion as much, having Ollie was like having a reminder that she had survived the summer everyone left her. Only Ollie was slipping through her fingers now and Sophie felt like she was fraying at the ends trying to keep everyone's secrets. She didn't even for a moment think of telling him about trying to help Zel with his mother and sister. That was a trust too delicate to break. It was a lot to carry on tiny shoulders already weighed down with the prospect of NEWT level classes full of strangers who seemed miles ahead already. Giving him a small smile she bummed her head against the side of his,"Right now I'm charting the growth of our pottery pods in Herbology, trying to figure out what's messing with the nitrate levels".

Somewhat disappointed with the lack of reaction, Deus did what any first year would do; he sighed petulantly, and tugged gently but persistently on the strands of her hair wrapped around his fingers until she turned her head so he could snag a kiss. It was something he took for granted—the rush of blood and beating hearts, the friction of skin and fingertips. If he had a vice, it was that. For someone who was quite good at keeping his mind to himself, the same certainly couldn't be said of his hands or lips. 

And if their touch was bit softer with one girl, well, that was his business.

And maybe hers.

But she didn't need to know that, yet.

"Ye'll fret ahn look at yer watch anyway," Deus sighed again, and made a mental promise to himself that Sophie Flickwick was going to be utterly and entirely too preoccupied over the weekend to fret. The thought had a distinctly predatory gleam coming to his eyes, and he finally released her hair, putting his hand down on the bench on the far side of her waist. He leaned in to place a soft kiss to her neck with a disinterested 'hm'.

He didn't ask her, of course. Not even with the opening. Not in the least because technically he had detention, and that sideways chivalry of his demanded that, if there was even the slightest chance he would be unable to keep an implied promise, it was best to not make it. Besides, he had a feeling that Sophie getting stood up would bode badly for future snogging opportunities. Didn't seem like the sort of thing she would tolerate.

I hate feeling so helpless about it all.

He wouldn't tell her, but at the moment, he understood the feeling rather acutely. Deus wasn't particularly prone to worrying or being upset that others were upset, and it was a rather uncomfortable feeling.  He eyed Sophie with a vague skepticism, wondering how the shiny shoes of Salazar she managed it so often. Leaving one arm behind her and braced on the bench, he lifted the other to catch her non-writing hand and curl his fingers around it, bringing his lips to the back of it before pressing them to the top of her head.

"Donnae worry so much, lass." His voice was surprisingly soft, and there wasn't the usual undertone of laughter that usually existed even when Deus was being what constituted as nice for him. "It occurs tae me ye're nae nearly as selfish as ye ought tae be. It makes life easier, darlin'. Ye ought tae try it. Here, we'll practice. Repeat after me—'Well fehck that'."

Looming over her shoulder—because being in her space was somehow more comforting to him, at least—Deus rolled his eyes in disgust at the Herbology homework. "Sounds fascinating. Trenwiggits? If ye've got an infestation, they'll belch th' stuff out from both ends."

This was a delicate dance they did, her caring too much and feeling like he maybe didn't care enough. There were moments, however, that he showed her just a little bit that she was wrong, there were moments he made her smile in spite of herself. His pulling her hair and then stealing a kiss was one of those moments, her heart atwitter and a small tint of color to her cheeks she had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from giggling - a squeak turned into a small noise of no protest at all when he stole the kiss. He was a sneaky one, wasn't he? Then again, that was probably why she liked him, he kept her on her toes, a blessing and a curse all at the same time. She wanted so badly for there to be something official between them and yet she hated herself for caring so much. Things with Deus were supposed to be easy, it was part of his appeal to most people actually. For Sophie the ease with which he transitioned persons wasn't charming though, it was distressing. She was tired of being the one who loved more, who cared more, who gave more... and maybe the answer to that problem could only be found in her caring less but she didn't know how.

She didn't know how to say feck um and mean it, not really. Her heart was too big, too tender, and had lost too much to be indifferent to the ways people broke one another without even meaning to. She couldn't make herself more like him than he could make himself more like her... but she could pretend, so she did. She let her body relax against him, lips twitching with indignation as he implied she'd fret away her weekend no matter what she did now, "Hey. I know how to let loose. Otherwise I'd never have ended up your pretend wifey," she stuck her tongue out at him before glancing back down at her papers. He was right in a way (she hated that), she'd fuss over something if it wasn't her school work. It would be about Ollie and trying to anticipate the best ways in which to shield the other girl, or be worrying over hearing back from Muriel about any progress with Zel's sister. She'd write dutiful letters to Griffon and her father and try not to be sad when the latter didn't bother to respond. Sometimes being "well adjusted" was for the birds, annoying birds.

Looking at Deus from the corner of her eye, lips twitched with a smirk as she muttered, "Well fehck that," in her best impression of his thick accent, she flicked her hair and tried to adopt his laid back slouch, snuffing the tip of her nose, eyes lazy and half lidded, she looked ridiculous, "Immeh Deus Deres anna donnae give a flehen fehck - okay, seriously, it feels like I have marbles in my mouth," she couldn't even keep it up for a full soliloquy before her face was in her palm and she was laughing. "I suppose I'll just never have your devil take the hindmost carefree appeal," there was a twinkle to her brown eyes as she lightly pinched his cheek, "It's a bit like trying on a hat in a shop, it looks very lovely on the mannequin and even more so on another person but it would just look like I'm trying too hard not to give any fecks, when everyone knows - despite a solid right hook I'm a bit of a tender heart when it comes to the masses," she placed a small kiss on his temple and slid an arm around his middle, "Such is the life of a Flickwick, dimples and doe eyes be dammed we come with shoulders meant to bear the weight of the world for those we love best".