downfall of us all | lorelai

[Anderson Payne]

sometime during term
(a series)

"Loreliciousssss–"

Anderson appeared as she always did whenever she approached the Slytherin girl ever since she realized the girl was doing her best to avoid her. This time, she had hidden herself behind a sealed of drape the moment she noticed her heading towards the entrance to the dungeons. As she passed by, Anders jumped out from her hanging position and landed her hands on Lorelai's shoulders, clamping down.

"You headed to your dorm? It's wayyyy too early to be headed to bed, you silly girl." It was about thirty minutes to curfew, which Anderson knew quite clearly from the pocket watch she'd stolen from some third-year bloke earlier that day.

Anderson Payne was a proven menace and had little understanding of boundaries. Pressing her fingers down as they slid partially down her upper arm, she tried to force the girl into stopping and addressing her. The look on Lorelai's face seemed to wish for anything else.

"What? Is this because we snogged? You gonna keep holding that against me?" Anders let go of her, crossing her arms and pouting.

"Let's go to that pool I heard y'all 'ave down here. I bet I'm a better swimmer than you."

[Lorelei Kensington]

Had anything ever existed quite so confusing as a kiss?

Lorelei had never had to ponder this question until one had landed, unbidden and unprompted, upon her lips. Even all these days later, she still didn't know whether she'd liked it. She still didn't know if she'd want more. It was all rather perplexing, and though try as she might to replay the scene in her mind, she couldn't imagine why Anderson had done it.

So far, the most likely explanation was because she could. But that was the sort of logic she usually applied to someone like Rocío Valdés, and surely, the universe wouldn't be so cruel as to put two such whirlwinds on her path. The next likeliest answer was that Anderson had simply wanted to. And through the Gryffindor's repeated attempts to track her down, Lorelei was settling closer and closer to that conclusion.

But she hadn't quite figured out whether or not she'd liked it, or whether she wanted to do it again. And of course, Anderson's doggedness outpaced Lorelei's hesitations.

"Loreliciousssss–"

"Anders," (Should she have used the diminutive? Too late, now…) "I was just on my way to study…"

She took a step back, intending to continue on her way. Her bag, angled between the two of them, served both as a barrier and a demonstration of her current workload. For once, she had to thank Ivansko for the mountains of schoolwork she'd thrust upon them.

"Let's go to that pool I heard y'all 'ave down here. I bet I'm a better swimmer than you."

"I'm sure you are," Lorelei, had, in fact, never learned to swim—a fact too embarrassing even to be used as a valid protest. Instead, she supplied, "I don't have a bathing suit."

[Anderson Payne]

"I was just on my way to study…"

Of course she was. Anderson managed not to roll her eyes at her tightlipped answer to try explaining where she was heading. There was very little that could be lower on the Gryffindor's priority list than that. No argument was possible to sway the opinion that they were far better off heading to the heated underground pool.

"I don't have a bathing suit."

"Is that the best excuse you could come up with?" She let out a hearty, shrill laugh as if it was the silliest thing she could have said and slapped the girl on her back.

"Bollocks. You've got clothes on. And I'm sure clothes under that." Linking her arm with hers, she started to drag her down towards the dungeons with the purpose of having them head to where she wanted and not where Lorelai had been originally heading.

"You ever seen a fish wear a bathing suit? Or a bear when they get hungry? I don't think that's keeping them out of the water and you shouldn't let it keep you out of it either." The logic felt foolproof. If that didn't, then the iron grip she had on the girl didn't leave much room for arguing. Anders knew who she could get away with forcing to go along with her lunacy and, even if she conveyed the opposite, she knew deep down that the Slytherin girl needed someone to pull her from her isolated comfort zone.

"It'll be fun. You could use some fun and, lucky you, I'm here to make sure of it."

[Lorelei Kensington]

Lorelei should have known her excuse was far too weak to deter the likes of Anderson Payne. Perhaps she should have told the truth about her waterborne abilities, but somehow, that seemed even worse than following along.

(Or it would, until the Slytherin was confronted with a pool that would swallow her whole.)

"Fish and bears are animals," She protested, though she followed nevertheless, pulled along by Anders' indomitable determination. "They have scales and fur. I, however, will not be stripping down in a school when Prefects and Professors are sure to start patrolling any minute now."

And the mere thought that Anders might have her do otherwise scared her a little. And yet she also knew that she would look far more ridiculous stepping into a pool (and likely drowning) in her full school uniform. There was no positive outcome to be found here, and yet, Lorelei followed all the same.

There was a promise of adventure in the air—the very type of adventure she had longed for when she finally found out she'd be coming to Hogwarts. And yet, good sense prevailed; she did not want to drown. If Anders said jump, Lorelei still had the gumption to ask why.

"I don't think it'll be quite as fun as you expect," Said Lorelei. "I've never been a fan of swimming." An understatement, or perhaps an outright lie, since she'd never had the occasion to find out.

With a quick twist, Lorelei slipped her arm free of Anders' grip. She stopped where she stood, at the landing of the staircase leading down to the dungeons, and looked at the other girl intently. Trying to figure out her intentions—now, as well as back in the Apothecary, the other day.

"Are you trying to take me on a date?"

[Anderson Payne]

Lorelai would attempt to try and finesse her way out of the perfect logical argument Anders had presented her. An amused smile stretched the edges of her lips as the blonde continued to shake her head dismissively. Humans were very much animals, by her knowledgeable estimation, and the more they thought themselves different, the more such tendencies seemed to explode out of you.

"No one's saying you gotta strip down to your bare skin," a pause, a filter of words better left interpreted by the casting gaze that summed up the beautiful girl beside her rather blatantly. A laugh escaped her with a more deliberate shake of her head as she let the obvious thought pass.

"And whether your clothes are soggy or dry, it's still gonna be a house elf that'll be the one cleaning it up, yeah? I doubt they mind. They aren't even using they hands to carry them to the washroom. Just a snap of a finger."

She didn't answer her more feeble smokescreens and excuses, her focus on the steps ahead beginning to lead them down. Lorelai, however, managed to wrench her arm free of her grasp in a quick, nimble move that left Anderson clinging to air. She almost lost her balance from needing to continue to pull the Slytherin against her will. One knee buckled but the other held solid as she spun around and faced the girl in the same turn.

"Are you trying to take me on a date?"

"This ain't a date, love," she charged, almost pouting at all the layers that screamed at her from asking such a thing.

"Dates aren't meant to be spontaneous. If I was properly taking you out, you'd have known about it at least a little in advance. Long enough that you wouldn't be wearing a day's worth of school uniform and smelling the same. Not that you don't smell nice, mind. Just wouldn't look too good on me if you was dressed like shit and I was sitting across from youse all googly eyed. Get me?"

Her smile turned sinister then before asking, "Have you ever even been on a date? A real one, I means."

[Lorelei Kensington]

Despite her protests, Anderson continued to insist that Lorelei should take a dip in the pool, fully clothed or otherwise. The Slytherin frowned, wondering if this was a common practice among students. Regardless of who had to deal with the laundry afterwards, be it herself or a dutiful house elf, she was the one who'd have to squelch back to the common room in wet clothes when they were done.

"I just don't like the feel of wet clothes," She grumbled. "Or swimming, really."

She did find some relief in Anders' denying this was a date. Yet, despite the clear question, the answer still left doubt as to the Gryffindor's intent. Just because this wasn't a date, by virtue of being a spontaneous affair, didn't mean Anders wouldn't try to kiss her again.

And so she continued to war between her craving for fun, spontaneous adventure, and her need for clarity and control.

(And, perhaps, an instinctual desire to not drown.)

"I don't think all dates are dinner dates and fancy clothes," Lorelei supplied, trying to pull more definitions, more descriptions of intent, hoping Anders might draw a line between fun and romance so that Lorelei could decipher what in the world she was getting herself into. "But, no, I've never been on one."

And how could she, cooped up in her room for half her life? Camp Loki, and Hogwarts after it, had been the first places in which she'd been allowed to roam free among people her own age since she'd been whisked away from Nepal. There hadn't been enough time since then to get to know anyone enough to develop any date-worthy feelings. She eyes her insistent companion out of the corner of her eye, wondering if, in fact, they might have reached that point by now.

But she hadn't really had enough time to think that through, either.

And this did seem like the sort of thing one had to think about before taking a plunge.

[Anderson Payne]

"Shocking," she spat sarcastically.

Her tone was pointedly mean, her inflections expressing as much disdain for the girl as she could sing. Rather than continue fighting her, Anders did a complete flip and threw down her hands from gripping the girl's arm. Holding hers up, she took a step back, embellishing the space growing between them.

"Never going to be on one either if you keep acting like that."

She doubted her year mate cared or, if given the chance to think it, would mind. However, Anders didn't want to give her the chance to answer back. The Gryffindor was already heading back from where she'd come, marching up the stairs and shaking her head at what seemed to be Lorelai's reluctancy to relish in any joy Anderson offered.

(Because who could refuse such demanding coercion?)

"Haven't known someone so allergic to having a good time. You need to find that stick up your bum and find a way to get rid of it before its lodged up there permanently. I swear, you try to have fun with people, and they just dis–"

Her voice trailed off as she rounded the corner, hands digging into her pockets as she continued to ramble on. Letting her mouth run unfiltered shut her mind down completely, not letting Anderson herself reflect on her own annoyance or how she could seemingly swing from one extreme to another. It would always serve as one of her least desirable qualities; that and her inability to care to change.