[charleston] dreaming of a white christmas [atticus]

Being home for the holidays, even though it was meant to be a vacation, often felt more like work than school did. The entire break, it seemed to Cooper, was spent being shuffled from event to event, as friends of his mother and third cousins he barely knew pinched his cheeks, told him how much he had grown, and asked him to recite his most recent school achievements. Cooper didn't mind socializing, but each year the whole routine seemed more and more shallow. Every minute spent standing around tables with the business connections Cooper needed to meet or the young ladies he ought to shake hands with was a minute he could have been catching up with his older sister, writing, or catching up on school assignments.

Tonight was no different. Cooper had been shuffled from important adult to important adult, enduring small talk and answering difficult questions about his education and his future for a seemingly-endless parade of important and wealthy middle-aged witches and wizards. The event room they were filling was echoey and a little too small for the number of people filling it, and Cooper was beginning to feel suffocated.

After ten minutes of being interviewed, Cooper had to excuse himself. He made excuses to his mother, who muttered in his ear that he should send Atticus and Adaline straight back out if he spotted either of them, where-had-they-got-off-to-didn't-they-realize-they-were-guests-in-this-home. Her hissed warning sent him scurrying off a bit quicker than was exactly necessary, and Cooper kept his eyes peeled for either sibling. Thankfully, he spotted neither on his way to the bathroom, and was saved from the unpleasant duty of accompanying either back into the thick of things. The door closed softly behind him and Cooper leaned his forehead against the cool tile wall, eyes closed and breathing deeply. He had nothing to be upset about, really, but the unrelenting noise and the utter frivolity of the whole evening were making him feel, somehow, a bit motion-sick.

It took a few minutes and a few splashes of water for his face to relax again. Giving himself a quick look-over in the mirror, Cooper adjusted his hair and then pushed the bathroom door back open, bracing himself to return to his mother's side. Before he had taken three steps, a sudden hissing noise broke over the silence on the upper landing. Cooper jumped at the sound of his name, turning his head sharply toward the source of the noise and cricking his neck in the process. "What're you doing?" he asked, having spotted Atticus poking his head out of the cloak room. "Mom's noticed you've slipped away."

Atticus Beauregard, having had more than a decade of practice, had perfected the art maintaining a conversation about absolutely nothing at all. It seemed that evenings such as the one he currently found himself had exclusively that - filler conversations. For years he waited for the the talking in circles to turn into something of substance, but currently there were no signs of a change of pace.

Majority of the evening the Ilvrmorny student spent dodging the adults he had marked as being particularly intolerable over the years, but his parents had quickly caught onto the charade. His mother practically dragged him over to talk to the Grantham family, whom he suspected his parents were trying to sell his soul to. They had a daughter the year below Atticus, and a family name that was priceless in South Carolina. The perfect candidate for his inevitable future.

"Please excuse me," The wizard bowed out politely once the conversation had slowed, just as he had learned in etiquette classes, and scanned the room for the eyes of his parents. Rhett Sr. was no where to be seen, no doubt smoking a cigar with whatever man he had deemed the most powerful in the room, and Grace was deep in conversation with her back faced to him. This was his chance to escape.

Atticus assessed his options before making a move - if he was going to make a run for it, he was going to need a little liquid courage. There was only limited time left in the holiday break, and there was no way the middle Beauregard son was going to waste it at some social event filled with his parents' friends. The sixteen year old made his move at the exact opportune moment when the bartender was distracted by an older, particularly forward woman. The bottle of mystery brown liquid blindly grabbed and shoved under his arm was nearly half full, but it would have to do.

Layla was already on standby to meet up, and Atticus has almost made it unnoticed to the front door when he heard footsteps coming in his direction. Without thought, he threw himself into the nearest room, which as it turned out was the cloak room. Great. He thought to himself, trying to hide under a fallen cloak while peering through the crack in the door. It was Cooper, and he was looking just about as miserable as his older brother.

"Psst! Coop!" He whispered, but his younger brother didn't hear him before he closed himself off in the bathroom. Atticus recognized the tactic well. Once the door thrust open again. Atticus leaned through the opening of the cloak room. "I'm getting out of here, Coop," He responded with assurance. "C'mon," He spoke no more and instead dragged the younger boy out by his wrist, crouching as they passed the well lit front windows filled with the dinner guests. "If mom asks we'll say you got sick," He rationalized as they made their way around the house to the unused free standing patio in the backyard. "It's time we actually enjoyed this break," Atticus flashed the bottle mischievously before plopping himself down against the pristine white, wooden structure.