Pick-Up Game {Clem}

She wasn’t against the concept of intensive athletic training. She rather liked it, actually. It felt rewarding to be sore and exhausted at the end of the day, it felt good to wake up knowing she was pushing her limits, bettering herself. It felt good to be the best she could be.

But okay, maybe she was a little against the concept of intensive athletic training when it was every day. Donna wasn’t built for that. She was in Quidditch for the challenge and the athleticism and the showing off, not because she wanted to be in Quidditch for life. Donna Russell knew for a fact that she did not have what it took, and didn't need the professionals giving speeches about the commitment and the drive and the motivation it took. She wasn't seriously considering it as a career.

(Not that she didn’t take Quidditch seriously. She took it very seriously. Especially the showing off.)

Also it was winter in Brazil, even in the middle of summer.

Quidditch camp wasn’t quite the all-hell-loose athletic party she’d expected but it was still a lot of fun. She’d exchanged real, live words with someone on the Scottish national team. She’d flown past a bunch of professional Keepers.

So yeah, she was having fun.

And today she was looking for her cousin. They’d made it out to Quidditch camp together and then instantly splintered off into their separate Quidditch groups. Donna was a Chaser, Clem was a Beater, but what was the point of coming to Quidditch camp with one’s favorite cousin if one didn’t play at least a few unnecessarily violent games together?

Two-person Quidditch wasn’t too much fun, but they could make it work if Donna was pushy enough. All she had to do now was find Clem.

She wasn’t one to wander around until she did, so she hit every likely place in a careful, methodical order instead, snaking back and forth until she spotted her cousin at the far end of the girls’ lockers.

“Clem!”

It wasn’t her place to worry about her cousin, of course, but Donna didn’t agree with most assessments of a woman’s place, or whatever other convenient excuse she could come up with to keep her nose in her cousin’s business. And, okay, yeah, she worried. By now, after the last year, she felt like she had the right to worry. There was more reason to worry than there was not to worry-- but she was here for a reason other than worrying. It felt like it'd been forever since she and Clem played together and she thought, probably, Clem could use some escapism.

Feeling sort of lame, she held her broom out, to make sure Clem saw it. “D'you wanna, I dunno, toss a ball around?”

@Clementine Russell

Clem slammed her head against the locker and laughed bitterly, and quietly, to herself. She didn’t struggle athletically. Could have been the combination of other things (read: the shitshow) in her life that were causing such stress, but she felt exhausted and overstimulated and off her game. She had gotten a chance to speak to several professional players over the last few days, and she was sure she’d had starry eyes and the whole nine yards -- but she’d actually seen competition from kids her age and, if she weren’t lying, she felt mildly threatened.

That ugly feeling had only made her push and work harder, and as in shape as she was, she was still huffing and puffing ten minutes after their midday lesson. Things would probably get better as the camp went on, right? She was getting paid to be here with something worth more than money -- valuable experience -- but this shit wasn’t free.

Clementine had felt an overwhelming need to prove herself every single day she’d been here, but the last thing she wanted to look like was a brown-nosing try-hard. The Gryffindor was a firm believer that talent should speak for itself and that misplaced showmanship and faux personas were grounds for blacklisting. She hated those types of people -- girls, especially, who flaunted that they were one of the guys and oh-so-cool for picking their nose and spitting in the grass and whatever else it was they did to desperately attempt to show everyone else they were the cool guy.

There were plenty of those irritating people, women and men, at this camp who made her stomach churn. Quit raising your hand in the middle of the instructions, quit bringing a notebook with you to take notes. No one cares. She smirked as the cool metal slats bore into her forehead, brown eyes still squinted shut. Clem noted that she really needed to work on filtering herself and her thoughts. And, more importantly than all of that, her expressions. They seemed to be telling.

God, why am I such a bitch? No wonder she didn’t have any friends. Donna was here, though, and Clementine liked (and loved) her cousin enough to comfortably pick on her. And force her to hang out with her, whether she liked it or not.

“Speak of the devil and the devil shall appear.” Clem rasped in a sarcastically dry monotone. She lifted her head, marks from the locker’s slats printed firmly across her normally smooth skin. “I was just thinking about you, so, was speaking of you, the devil in this scenario, in my head.”

Haphazardly, she plopped down onto the bench. “Yeah, um. Just lemme get some water down first. And let’s just throw the Quaffle, my arms are shaking from how fucking hard I was hitting those bludgers in my lesson just now.” Clementine winced and picked up her water bottle, fingers quivering, to unscrew the cap.

“So what’s new. How’s life. Meet any cute boys yet?”

“Oh okay,” said Donna, deciding that this was something to take in stride. “Flattered, I think.”

Clem had clearly been sitting with her face in her locker; there were still marks, which made Donna less nervous that she was overstepping by assuming that things were not splendid for her cousin. That had the general air of things being unsplendid.

“Sure. Wowing all the professionals, yet?” she asked, mouth quirking into a grin at Clem’s— well, she couldn’t tell if it was boasting or bitching, but either way it was endearing. As Clem got out her watter bottle, Donna llet her head loll to one side and added, “Guess I’m not watching the Beaters much, how’re they comparing? Loads of the Chasers are just loads better’n me.”

What was new, indeed. Donna had done next to nothing out of the ordinary for a few months, now, other than Quidditch camp, which Clem already knew about, but that was better than saying she’d done nothing, so she shrugged. “Quidditch, mostly. The Russians are really good, don’t know that I’d ever thought about them being a real Quidditchy country. Thought they played that other one.”

Donna hadn’t ignored, per se, the bit about whether she’d met cute boys, but oh all right, she was ignoring it. “Don’t honestly reckon there’s a cute boy in all of Quidditch camp,” she said, grinning. “Too focused on their brooms and what-have-you to notice girls, anyway. There’s a few cute ones from Brazil.”

She watched Clem and tried privately to decide whether she was yet in any state to be pestered about her own boy-related life; whether or not she was, Donna decided, she would be. “How about you?” she said, curiously. Her cousin’s breakup with @Dennis Creevey hadn’t seemed easy on either of them, and Donna wanted very badly to know how Clem was dealing. Or, you know, not dealing. (Or, you know, was there going to be a rebound?)

Clementine shook her head, halfway between bitterness and disbelief. “I don’t know,” She told her cousin very apparently, taking in another few glugs of room-temperature water (room temperature in Brazil was quite a bit hotter than in England, even during this time of the year for them) and made a harsh noise when she finished. “Thing is, like. I’m pretty used to being experienced at Hogwarts, but these people are from all around the world. And, too, there’s a whole bunch of factors. Timing, experience, connections, money, what have you. It’s hard to know what anybody is thinking.”

Then she decided to be more candid. “Some of the people who have paid in are not great. I paid in, but based on the performance of--some of the better players, I think I might’ve snagged a spot anyway.” Clem coughed. Her lungs were still burning and it had been waaaaay longer than a few minutes since they’d ceased practice. And she had to do it all again in a few hours. How was she going to accomplish such a thing for a living? She wasn’t a lazy or unmotivated player, but it seemed so far-fetched.

“The ones who got in on a scholarship, though, they’re pretty good. I’ve met some girls who aren’t bad, even.” Clementine said this as though it were a shock. It wasn’t to say they couldn’t be good, after all, she and the last Captain of the Gryffindor team had both been female beaters--but, she’d found, lots of women weren’t as interested in playing the position. God knew why. It was so much more fun than anything else.

Clem stood up and did a painful, albeit necessary, stretch. “Urgh. You ready to head out there? We can toss the Quaffle around. And I can talk about my love life, which. Doesn’t exist right now.” She laughed. Not really jovially, it was kind of a pathetic laugh, but it was there. Placeholders were better than voids in the case of pretending to be emotionally stable, she’d come to find. People got kind of snoopy when you didn’t try to at least pretend you were halfway healthy.

“Nothing’s happened, really.” Clem squinted as she walked out into the daylight again. Even though she had dark eyes, the Brazilian sunlight could be even a little much for her at times. Tinted goggles, dorky as they were, had come in slight handy.

“Ooh,” said Donna, understanding immediately. “Big fish small pond.” Though, she thought after she’d said it, that wasn’t quite apt— “And, you know, lots of fish in the sea.”

That also didn’t seem right, but whatever. Donna sat down next to her cousin on the bench, traced one finger in a circle over her bare knee and listened, a little bit uncertain whether Clem meant to say these things to her, specifically, or just to say them. She’d sort of just meant to get a “Ha ha, yeah” and then they could go throw things together. Less philosophy about the relative talent of the rest of Quidditch camp. Did Clem remember Donna was here on scholarship?

(Not that she’d deserved one, really, she supposed— but she’d gone after the one that had asked them to write the longest personal reflection essay, and she supposed that nobody else had wanted to write that bastard. That was the only explanation. Thank you, Whizz Hard Books!)

“Girl Beaters?” she repeated with interest. “Wicked cool.”

She followed suit as Clem stood up, mood high once again. “Yeah, totally.” She’d only brought her broom here; as they left the locker room she snagged a Quaffle off a stack, bounced it a few times in one hand. Clem was continuing to worry her— that hadn’t been the laugh of a person who was happy with her breakup— but she didn’t know if she wanted to push it too much, too fast; she said, “Well, we don’t have to talk about your love life. We can just talk about your life.”

That was too strong, too; as they left the locker room she added, squinting vaguely Clemwards, “Or mine, I guess. But nothing’s happening there, either. Ever.” She dropped her broom a bit away from her cousin and held the Quaffle out, ready to throw— “Take it for a mo’? I wanna fix my hat.” She didn’t wait for any affirmation before she chucked it, then tightened her ponytail and pulling the brim of her hat down a little further over her eyes.

“So… hypothetically,” she said, rather than harp on about Clem’s love life (or lack thereof), “What team would you want, anyway?” Donna didn’t have any aspirations of going pro— not that she went ‘round saying so here— but she was still curious about Clem’s.