Sign up for Quidditch now!

Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Messages - Bracken Thomas

Pages: [1] 2
1
Freestyle Archives / Re: u ain't my boyfriend || Jonesnaps
« on: 08/22/2019 at 18:22 »
It certainly wasn't the gentlest of processes - at one point he felt the roots of a few hairs yanked during her examination - but if something could be said for the amateur, she was thorough and trying. Even if the natural touch evaded her, a lot of the lads would probably somehow or another be ending up in the infirmary requesting her care.

Though halfway focused on preparing the ingredients, Bracken kept stealing quick glances at her face. It wasn't every day they ended up in such proximity, so he drank in the details of one flowering young woman, blues of her eyes, texture of her complexion, curve of her lips. That time in the lake had a funny way of turning up. Times like these had him wondering...

The knife slipped, sharpened tip barely gliding into his skin. Shit. He kept quiet, returning to work as a dribble of blood appeared. The tiny injury wound down a few moments later.

Fingers padded at the bandaging once she withdrew, tracing the contour - flat, taut, good. "I'd hope not." As her face came back, so did their swim in the lake again. Quite amazing that two flirtatious cuties like them who spent ample time together had managed to keep their lips separate so far. But Jones was a tease except with American boys (which he doubted anyway). Still, the tension crackled.

"Well," he drawled slowly, gaze falling back to the cauldron. "Let's hold that thought and see what you can do here, yeah? What is it, petals first?"

2
Freestyle Archives / Re: Restless || Brackette
« on: 08/20/2019 at 21:24 »
The hard questions. No one ever really knew what to say. He was a big proponent of the how you say it making a bigger difference. At the same time, he said the wrong thing in the wrong way probably as often as the contrary. Was he really qualified to guide her?

"Yeah," he agreed, taking a second. "I guess like, especially if you're processing, just like...pause. In this situation where I take a chance and make an offer, for you to hesitate, to have to think about it or even just pretend to, would make my heart rate skyrocket. So while you have me sweating bullets, you could take the second to think about what to say." Which would be...?

"Like something simple," Bracken explained, to her as much as himself. He hadn't really thought through this kind of thing before, but it was slowly coming to him. "Maybe. Only if you're good. You know like, don't tell a bloke what he wants to hear if you can string him along instead. Then it becomes a chase, and chaps love a good chase. Does...does that make sense?"

3
Freestyle Archives / Re: Restless || Brackette
« on: 08/16/2019 at 23:47 »
Contagious was not a foreign term in the dingy infirmary, though he suspected it might not always be applied toward giggling. The end goal was known, yes, and it also had a way of fading into the background with each of Ollie's attempts to at coquettish.

"Yeah yeah," he encouraged after also gathering himself, smiling ear to ear. It did not help that the touch of her fingers tickled more than anything, Bracken twitching in effort to keep his sniggers down. Maybe he wasn't cut out for teaching this. Hell, he'd never thought he was.

"You and me both." He could've told her she wasn't, but he hadn't come here to lie. "I mean, okay, we could try a little more seriously." The mood had obviously gone awry with his impressions. He cleared his throat of extra saliva and his veins of tinkling mischief. Actively his thoughts bent upon her redeeming qualities, the fullness of her lips, fair skin and eyebrows, carefree laugh, how she'd dolled up in the past.

"So I've been working on this song," growled his deepened voice, eyes playing on the floor before lifting to meet the girl's, the slightest shrug in his shoulders. "I'd love play it for you sometime..." The gap between their hips closed significantly as he penetrated deeply into her personal bubble, placing his elbow right next to hers. "...alone. What do you think?" He made a point not to touch her, not to demonstrate, but to let her react. At least Alice would come up with some scintillating spinner.

4
Freestyle Archives / Re: Restless || Brackette
« on: 08/13/2019 at 20:53 »
He laughed. "Me?" Desperation swallowing her eyes indicated that yes, him, and the humor fell. Just because he melted for a bird with the right touch did not mean he had perfected those flirtatious ways himself. In fact, if it came to talk of coy he had to be the absolute antithesis.

"You might be better off if I pointed you in the direction of Alice..."



THE CREEPY INFIRMARY
Fourteen minutes later

Well, he warmed up to it. Seated on top of one of the hospital beds, he gestured for Ollie to take up some real estate next to him. There were others present whom he mostly ignored.

"So we're talking, clever or stupid or funny ideally. Just kind of like, touch my arm when you say something. I guess. Like..." Suddenly he was overcome with a plastic smile, juicing as much femininity as he could.

"Oh, in your dreams," he purred, fingertips tracing across her arm. No doubt this wasn't hooking Ollie, not to mention anyone alive, but it was the best he could do.

"Something like that."

5
Freestyle Archives / Re: u ain't my boyfriend || Jonesnaps
« on: 08/12/2019 at 00:27 »
"Yeah, it's shit."

Take it easy, right? He didn't think that was a particularly harsh observation; merely honest. Flitting behind her, both arms piled high with bandage rolls, it didn't take a second glance to tell her brew had gone stagnant. On a counter he plopped the load, uncurling his arms carefully so as not to topple the stacks. "Not to sound like an arse but you did the light the fire, yea?" With a cursory glance that the bandages were steadied, he jumped over to her cauldron, mindlessly brushing the dark haired beauty as he assumed position next to her.

He hadn't even noticed the disaster about her head.

As if struck his eyes turned to examine the bandaging, lips immediately tensing as they resisted the coming chuckles. A bad potion and this? It almost seemed like she was trying for ineptitude.

"Blimey...good thing I'm not Mari." He reached to peel one of the wraps off, cringing a bit at how it'd been handled. "Okay Jones, one thing at a time, huh? This-" His eyes spilled back into her cauldron. "I'm sorry, but I'm not sure we can salvage it so...evanesco!" He knew the pain of vanishing your hard work because one little thing had gone wrong, so it seemed maybe a better option to tackle the wraps first.

"Um. Love the, er, enthusiasm, but I think it'd be a lot easier practicing on someone else." Quickly his eyes scanned the laboratory; everyone else was busy. Plus, it might be embarrassing to have to practice on an ickle who already knew how to bandage a wound. He grabbed a stool and slid onto it.

"K, so I've got a gash here-" He pointed to his forehead, just below his hair. "It's already been cleaned and stitched. Bandage me up. Taut first, remember. Meanwhile I'm gonna chop some stuff." And he did, hands gliding over her station and beginning to prepare some of the ingredients so her brewing, when she got there, would go faster, taking care to keep his shoulders and head upright still so she could practice. After a moment he caught her blue eye, lip corner twitching.

"Well - you're not that hopeless, Jonesie."

6
Freestyle Archives / Re: Restless || Brackette
« on: 08/11/2019 at 22:34 »
It touched him, slightly, that she she sealed his words in her memory bank, though she now meant to defy them.

Into the nutritious soil plunged metal, one of the most soothing sounds to him. "Look, I think you're packing this into a simplified box." With practiced care the plant was uprooted from its home, destined for a cauldron. The dark haired lad stood and held out his find, a pretty but sort of ordinary green thing, so she might situate the bag for him to place it into.

"You've seen Pilar? Finest physical specimen around? And Alice Swan too. Then look at me." After transferring the fluxweed to a carrying sack, he, with dirt-powdered fingers, gestured to his body. "Look, I'm cute, handsome, smile to melt hearts-" At this he demonstrated, cockily so. "-but it's not like the Greek gods handcarved me a trunk of muscles, not like James or someone. And I'm a halfblood in a pureblood's world. But...I've some personality, right."

Pausing a moment to wipe the humid sweat from his brow, Bracken mulled over what aside from her body attracted him to his current fling, Alice. "Personally I fancy a flirty bird. A light touch here, a coy smile there, a kind of little tease or like, good-natured insults. I dunno, like playful? You know what I mean? Anyway, what I'm getting at and what I meant before is - you can't just be a bystander and expect chaps to flock. But don't be super obvious either. A light brush over the hand, then pull away, yeah? It's terribly intriguing, swear to Merlin."

7
Freestyle Archives / Re: Restless || Brackette
« on: 08/08/2019 at 22:03 »
The clearing of his throat came not as function to remove an itch, nor to catch her attention; he needed a second to wrangle with the frankly mind-boggling truth that Ollie just let slip.

"You mean," he sighed, fingers still on the leaf that he suspect to be of the desired texture, though that now had removed from his frontal conscious. At no great speed he turned to look at her, this lost girl. "Enough...for Jeremiah Smallweed."

He turned back. "I think this is my fluxweed." Carefully his fingers padded about the base of its stem, then fished in his bag for a small trowel. "And I think-" What was the name she used for him? "-Jere isn't your Smallweed."

8
Freestyle Archives / Re: Restless || Brackette
« on: 08/07/2019 at 18:47 »
"No," he spit out immediately, though it did not stop her from going on. Plain, good girl. She was kind of plain looking if she didn't tend her appearance, and by no means did he think of her anything near a bad girl. But that didn't equate to unappealing.

"Aw, Ollie." He stopped and offered an arm and squeeze for her sagging shoulders. "C'mon, you're beautiful and you're probably the nicest person I know." He knelt down again, reaching to feel leaves.

"I don't think you need to change anything. But you know, it might help to talk to people more? Do you notice boys, do you talk to them?"

9
Freestyle Archives / Re: Restless || Brackette
« on: 08/07/2019 at 17:32 »
In the brief bout of silence he filled with inspection. Fluxweed did not have terribly unique physical traits, but he knew that special texture of its leaves well. Olette, he was coming to realize, did not differ terribly from fluxweed.

This plant was not the one. He stood up and glanced at her, bundled in pensive thoughts as she was. He knew she wasn't going to tell him yes, or if she did, he'd have a lie from her.

No, it was not that simple.

"Over him," Bracken decided. She might not ever get over the cruelties committed by Smallweed, cruelties that Pilar had also inflicted upon the Ravenclaw, but, like the youngest Thomas, maybe Ole could move past her assailant.

They came to a fallen log, tall undergrowth on either side. He stepped onto the mossy wood and offered the girl a hand- "careful" he warned - then bounced to the other side, deeper into the wood.

10
Freestyle Archives / Re: u ain't my boyfriend || Jonesnaps
« on: 08/07/2019 at 17:21 »
Quidditch was his mum's thing. He'd actively opposed it, and then she croaked, leaving her son with all sorts of conflict. The idea of refereeing, let alone coaching as Jones mentioned, turned his gut into raging bludgers.

Distraction was not far; she looked good in a ponytail, he had to admit.

He didn't get to retort about not even being able to find her way out of America when she diverted the conversation down a more serious road, one he hadn't been looking for at all.

"Be easy on me?"

"What?" scoffed Bracken, floored by the reality unfolding in front of him. Jones, preemptively begging for mercy? And the concern was genuine. Showed how far they'd come, he supposed. At the root of it was their shared distaste for Mari, though Bracken couldn't give two shits if the blonde smugged herself up over one of his bungles, which she had already done last term. However on at least some terms he could relate.

"Yeah, yeah alright," he agreed, calm. Not many folk sought to lean on him before, but this lass was eons away from being heavy. He could do it. "Why don't you focus more on the apothecary stuff if you can, with me. Mari does more of the nursing anyway. I'll show you the ropes Jonesie, don't you worry." He smiled a bit, devoid of the usual cynicism.

11
Freestyle Archives / Restless || Brackette
« on: 08/07/2019 at 15:50 »
WOLF MAN'S WOOD
July 5
3 PM

For the middle of the afternoon, the wood was surprisingly dark. He wondered how the floor could be covered so thickly in plants that only saw shreds of the sun, though perhaps this had something to do with the rarer and useful strains being exclusively found here.

"So, uh, would you say you're - over it?" he posed, a silent finally as the ribbon on top, his fingers probing through underbrush as his words did the same. Merlin knew this poor girl needed to be. Stupid humans, their hearts never worked like that.

12
Freestyle Archives / Re: u ain't my boyfriend || Jonesnaps
« on: 08/06/2019 at 17:08 »
He ripped off a piece of the pseudo-sandwich - evidently the elves were delving into American cuisine now - and melded the squishy sounds of chewing with Jones' little retort. Little bits of burger almost went flying at the Mari jab via a mostly contained snort. They'd run into some stiff moments in the Hospital Wing last term, but the two parts to a former fling never got so far as yelling, per se. The imagination did not paint Marilyn's screaming as a pretty scene, a distaste both the eagles shared.

"-which I don't mind in the slightest."

"That's because he doesn't yell - he can't, I'm sure of it," Bracken retorted, blunt. In fact, the tall lad had royally pissed off the short one last year and barely got a holler out of him - though he didn't escape without a scuffle and a pocket full of shame.

"Yeeeeah," he drawled, almost concurring. "I'm way better at wrecking shit than healing it." Two pincers reached for another of those French fries - which certainly had no actual links to France - before finding all of his mysteriously disappeared. Bollocks. No matter; across the table, Jones had plenty, and so he reached for a couple without hesitation.

"But the apothecary stuff I'm right brilliant with, so. Not to mention - can you picture me reffing Quidditch or a dueling match?" he posed, teasing, the crunch of her fries emitting out from his grin.

13
Freestyle Archives / u ain't my boyfriend || Jonesnaps
« on: 08/05/2019 at 15:20 »
PALAIS GARNIER DINING HALL
Early July
12:48 PM

"If yelled at, yes," he recited from memory. Assembling an entire infirmary had turned out to be a right challenge, and given that between its leads - Mari, Henry and himself - only Mari had any remote experience in doing do, it felt like a patchwork job.

Oh well.

On the plus, he got to sort through all of their signups (actually this was a pain to record and then schedule and such, but occasionally the forms provided amusement). He stared across the table at Jones, smirking. On two levels now he was her superior.

"So if I yell at you during your shifts, you'll perform better? Hmm."

14
The words were not what he wanted to hear. Was it so unbelievable for a teenage boy to be skeptical about true love? Granted, he wasn't skeptical about it. He knew. He just wanted someone to agree with his cover, so he didn't feel like the phony he had become.

Now Lia being in love with Polly felt like a completely different thing. Not because of the lesbianism thing exactly - if this was Lia in love, he pitied Polly. Not really. Polly was surprisingly stuck-up and probably deserved all of the shit Lia put her through. But still, it didn't strike him as the fairy tale type of true love.

Maybe it didn't have to be? He grunted as the shrimp probed even further.

"I told her that I wasn't...ready, just yet, to say it back," he explained, a little harshly from both annoyance from how that night had played out and also a defensiveness. Now this he had actually done. Even if it had been a lie to Pilar, he had said it and so was on truthful grounds again with Lia. "She slammed a door in my face."

He paused.

"I was already walking away, but she did slam it." Still made his point. "I think she's being unreasonable."

15
Lia didn't find anything comical about the mystery Pilar-look alike crossing their paths. Perhaps he shouldn't have either.

Even so, the last place he wanted to be dragged back to was this muddled, dizzying topic of love.

Sighing the chuckles away, he climbed into a better spot next to the dwarf. Having run out of distractors, Bracken then sat quietly a few moments, hard lines scraped through his brown irises. In a maddening unfolding of events over the last two years, he felt he could probably trust Lia Ayres more than anyone. But enough to shed the oceans-deep protections about his injured, yearning heart? Could he really confess that he had, in fact, fallen in love with someone but dreaded having it taken away from him again? Lia knew that pain all too well, same as motherless Bracken.

He just couldn't.

"I don't entirely...not love her," he finally managed, timid and oh-so shrunken, utterly downplaying the passionate and at the same time frightening whirl of butterflies in his gut. "I'm fifteen. It's been like four months. How can that be love already? That's mad loony, right?"

16
Freestyle Archives / Re: Satisfied | Bracken snaps
« on: 04/30/2019 at 02:31 »
The girl's reaction came as breath of rain-tinged, cool and fresh air after a stuffy day inside. She did not pry, hardly seemed to judge, even offered a smile. Not likely he was going to be let off the hook so easily by most everyone else.

...and then she mentioned Pilar, and his soft and comfortable expression ever so slightly soured, eyes instinctively swinging to the floor. The Slytherin princess had bonded with this delightful squib, and he adored that, but it constrained his relationship struggles even more than usual in the innocent Olette's presence.

"You'd be surprised," he chuckled, dryer than normal. "She likes to get her nose dirty." A much nicer form of code that he assumed the girl would never decipher.

17
He figured she was sixteen by now, or she'd have to be before September anyway, but hadn't really given that any thought. Yet, Lia could confirm it? When he couldn't? A bizarre moment shared between the two girls, or did everyone but Bracken know? How demented.

"What do you m-"

If any word could silence his budding discontent, it started with L. His jaw flung open - not out of shock, obviously. It was fake, dramatized, designed to buy time before the constraints he maintained with such force could finally snap. "I-- th-- I--" Pilar never outright asked if he loved her, thus sparing him from facing this. He never imagined it might be so hard.

"C'mon, we gotta go." Moving rapidly, he tried to hoist - read: throw - Lia into the tree they hid behind, hoping to scramble up behind her, quite the reverse from when they'd first met. From up in the leaves, Bracken saw that the approaching girl wasn't Pilar.

"MER-LIN!" he howled, slowly disintegrating into snickers, feeling safe for the moment.

18
Freestyle Archives / Re: Satisfied | Bracken snaps
« on: 04/25/2019 at 22:24 »
A finger, in much better condition than the masticated one attached to his right hand, approached the source of aching in harmless fashion. Even so, brown eyes flashed wide as the Pacific. "Ooh watch it there," he hummed, preemptive wince at the ready should Olette dust up any residual pain. But she didn't.

It blew his mind that this kind of place wouldn't stock ice - yet at the same time, Bracken hardly ever experienced actual medical care. If something hurt, always ice or laying down. Maybe Bracken Thomas Remedies were a little on the scant side. He really didn't think sitting was necessary, but rather than argue he plopped his ass down, never a adversary to getting of his feet.

"Oh it's from yesterday," he shrugged, letting his feet swing to a lackadaisical rhythm while the girl began tending to him, which he lazily endured. A queer sort of look crossed his face: bemused blended with confused all over a deeper sense of focus. "Bit of misunderstanding. Happens all the time actually." His eyes flickered to Ole's, wondering what she'd make of that.

"Still was hurting like a witch though. Thanks, for that."

19
"Gshhhht," he hissed from between clenched teeth, like that might mask his hushing better in case someone entered the periphery suddenly.Was this stupid? What if she had already spotted them? Was it even for sure Pilar?

"We're great." The growl couldn't convince a four year old, not even paired with a balloon and cake. He wasn't sure how to put it to Lia; more truthfully, he wasn't sure how to spin his lie to her, or whether to spin it at all. He loved Pilar - all of his heart - and yet she might be the last person he trusted. So where did that leave a chap?

No, he wouldn't tell Lia.

"She's all into the l-o-v-e thing," he whispered, face very close to Lia's. "I'm fifteen, you know? And, for the record, I don't even know old she is!" An exaggeration, but Pilar plainly had hid her birthday from him. Meanwhile his eyes stayed bent around the tree's edge, praying the girl wouldn't reach their hiding spot.

20
"Uhh..." he stalled, rifling through the best selection of telling Lia that in fact, he would rather stab his own eye with a butter knife freshly used off Pilar's plate than say 'hi' to her today. He pressed his back into the tree trunk, hiding himself from anyone up the path.

"Can we...do that...later...and not right now?" His voice was a whisper, urgency raising the volume almost counterproductively, and his hand waved Lia over off the path. "Just...please?"

Pages: [1] 2