never fall; untouchable {benny}

It wasn’t raining, which was honestly a miracle after the weather the last few days. The grass was wet and muddy, though, and it was cold out. Tomie’s fingers were freezing; she could barely feel the broom in her hand as she marched down to the quidditch pitch. “What do you think, more exercisey drills?” Tomie glanced sideways at her friend, who was lagging behind a little. Her usual routine was something like stretching, a little light cardio, then flying drills. “Or… Maybe we can go through some more relaxed warm-ups? Stretch, fly and… Toss the quaffle around a bit?”

It was early in the morning – far too early to be awake on a Sunday, honestly. Before Tomie had come to school she hadn’t been a morning person at all, but last year she’d done her best to wake up every day before class so she could exercise. When it was warmer, she’d gone for runs. When it was colder, she’d done more exercise in her dorm – pushups and stuff. Now that she could do a warming charm without lighting anything on fire, though, the whole world had opened up to her. Maybe she should do one now, she thought distantly.

Benny wasn’t used to the early mornings, but they’d decided to go out this morning before anyone had booked the pitch so they could have a fly. Now that they were outside, though… “You okay?” she asked. He looked a little pale, and she shot him a concerned look. Maybe he was coming down with what JR and Wendy and half their year had.

"Sure, drills," Benny replied through one heck of a yawn, stumbling on a rock he didn't see and then wiping at his eyes. It was way too early to be up this.. early, so much so that Benny was having difficulty articulating how sleepy he still was. It wasn't raining, but that didn't mean the second year wasn't still fighting a shiver. It was that 'I should still be warm under my blankets' kind of chill, and it had crept into his bones. He wrapped one arm around himself as the other had onto the school broom. They were headed out for early morning practice, and while he knew it was a good idea, he really wished it was an afternoon practice.

Not only because he wanted to be asleep but also because he had something he'd wanted to ask Tomie, and the longer he waited, the weirder he felt around her. She was his best friend, but Benny felt increasingly awkward, and based on what he'd seen and learned over the last year, he was pretty sure these feelings meant he had a crush on Tomie. "Yeah, yeah, I'm good, just cold, how are you?" Benny said with a shrug as they reached the pitch. He was dressed in layers, but it still didn't feel like enough. The chill felt like it was in his bones, and his nervousness about asking Tomie the question wasn't helping at all. "Glad it's not raining," Benny was stalling.

“Yeah it is chilly, isn't it,” Tomie said. She didn’t like the cold, and knew that Benny didn’t either. London was a lot warmer than school; it was one of the best things about their home city. “I can try a warming charm if you like?” she offered, glancing at him with her eyebrows raised a little. She’d learned that spell for this specific reason, after all, even though it wasn’t in the curriculum for another couple of years. She’d only lit something on fire a couple of times, and that hadn't happened for a while.

Tomie glanced up at the sky – grey, as usual – and then back at her friend. “Yeah I think it’s gonna be clear for the next few days, maybe we can get up before herbology tomorrow?” she said hopefully. From Benny's expression, that wasn't something that would be happening. The girl adjusted the quaffle under her right arm; it was a bit too big to be comfortable. How was anyone supposed to play with this thing? At least the snitch fit in her hand. Tomie paused for a second as an idea struck her, then adjusted so she could actually sit on her broom side-saddle. It took a bit of concentration to float along slowly, barely a metre off of the ground, but she made it happen. “Check it out,” she said with a laugh. Her legs dangled and she intentionally dipped slightly so the toes of her shoes could drag along the damp ground.

"Um, if you want to, that would be cool?" Benny said warily, not because he didn't trust Tomie, but because he had been on the other end of that spell one time, and his charred sweater would never be the same. "Just don't set me on fire again, please?" He added the please with a smile to show that he believed in her and that he wasn't afraid. One of the two was technically accurate. Benny had never lacked faith in Tomie, their laundry list of adventures was proof of that, but he wasn't ashamed to be a little scared.

"Hmm, yeah, maybe?" Benny dodged the question but not as gracefully as he might have liked. The wizard would have loved to practice more, and he knew how dedicated Tomie was, but getting up this early every day was just not something he could commit to. Not when it was cold and wet, and he had warm blankets calling his name. He shivered again, just thinking about it, but the shiver was quickly replaced with a laugh as he watched Tomie glide across the glass on her broom. Excitedly Benny forgot he was cold and sleepy and hopped onto his school broom to try it out.

He stumbled at first, his knees hitting the wet grass, and it left little wet spots on his slacks. Brushing himself off, Benny tried again, and this time it worked. "You always have the best ideas," The wizard stated, smiling at her and trying to talk himself into asking her the question he so very much wanted to ask. He paused, starring for a moment before his mouth opened. "So hey..." He began, magic and adrenaline pushing him forward, but instead of finishing the thought, he choked. "Race you to the hoops!" He shouted as he shot off like a rocket toward the pitch.

Tomie let her sneakers drag in the damp grass for a bit, enjoying the sensation until she could feel the moisture soaking through her toes. That was ten for ten for extremities she could no longer feel. Oops. “Maybe i will in a bit,” she said, pulling her legs up a little more. In a bit, though, Tomie was sure that they wouldn’t need it anymore. Her stomach lurched as they went down a small hill, her broom dipping unexpectedly. Side-saddle wasn’t really very conducive for balance, she was starting to realise. The quaffle felt too big for her and she sat it in her lap, one hand on top. Her left hand was wrapped loosely around her broom handle; she was mostly relying on instinct and quick reflexes if anything went wrong.

“Huh?” Tomie said, a little distracted. He was quiet for a beat, though (unusual!) and Tomie glanced over at him quizzically. Not one second, later, though, he’d taken off, leaving her behind. Tomie scrambled to get her other leg over the broom, knowing there was no way she’d catch him with her legs off of the side. She took off before she was properly balanced, her broom sensing her impatience, and had to make herself smaller so she didn’t tip. She curled her body over the ball sitting on her thighs, getting as low to the broom handle as she could with its bulky mass in the way. Her eyes were squinted against the cold morning air, her heart racing.

Despite her attempts, Benny got there first. Tomie shot past him as she arrived, then she looped back to cut a wide curved path up the side of the hoops. At the top, she flung the quaffle at the middle hoop, grinning as it sailed easily through. Chaser wasn’t such a bad concept, she thought. Tomie descended in lazy circles to meet him partway as he rose to catch the ball. “Wish we coulda got a snitch,” she called out, unzipping the thin windbreaker she’d worn out of the castle. She slowed to a stop, hovering as she adjusted her ponytail. “Wanna do some warmups or just muck around for a bit?” they hadn’t even stretched, she thought distantly.

Benny wasn't the sort to plan things out, he got an idea, and he went for it. It led to plenty of adventures, but just as many epic failures. And even though he had kind of, sort of, decided that he wanted to ask Tomie a Very Important Question, he had not thought about the how. And even if he had, it was way too early to be following through on things. Benny fought back a yawn even as he shot across the field, his eyes threatening to close. He'd reached the pitch before her, but not because he was faster or his school broom was better than hers. Benny lost the war to his yawn as she caught up, made a loop, and circled back.

Heading to the hoops, Benny wondered if he would eventually get used to being this high in the air. He loved the idea of playing Keeper, but the wizard had not taken the long periods of hovering into account when he had decided it was the position for him. Benny wasn't afraid of heights, so long as he was moving. Staying still to guard the hoops game him a lot of time to think about how high he was, though. He looked down, a little bit of vertigo toying with his nerves, and gripped his broom tighter as he made it to the middle hoop. Benny turned around and got settled just in time to catch the Quaffle Tomie tossed at him.

"Maybe we can next time?" He offered, the awkwardly shaped Quaffle resting unevenly on his forearm. "Or maybe we can save up and mail-order one of those practice ones?" Benny had two sickles to his name, but he'd give them both to Tomie if she asked.

"Warm-ups," The young wizard answered sleepily, the words bringing a shiver across his body. He desperately needed to wake up, warm-up, and then wizard up. He had something to ask Tomie, and if he waited too long, he knew he would chicken out. Benny said warm-ups as if he planned to do anything seriously this early in the morning, and it would only be a matter of time before he started messing around instead. "What do we do first?" Like most of their adventures, he asked because Benny was content following his best friend's lead. He tossed the Quaffle back at Tomie with a good amount of power behind it. Even though he hated waking up early, all of the extra practice sessions with Tomie were paying off.

“I’m sure we could, as long as no one else is using it,” she mused out loud, speaking a little more loudly than normal to make sure he could hear her over the breeze. Tomie glanced down at the ground, so far below them, her breathing steady even as she dared herself to focus on the distance. Voices sounded so small up here, she thought. There were more directions to lose them in. “Would be wicked to have our own one, though,” she added, tacking the afterthought on at the end.

Warm-ups it was, then. “Sounds g— Ugh.” Tomie caught the quaffle flat against her chest in a way that wouldn’t have hurt so bad a year ago. Puberty! Cool! Oh, how exciting it was to be in the process of Becoming A Woman. She couldn’t even think the thought without rolling her eyes.

She tried not to wince too hard, though, because it wouldn’t do. “Lets do like big, opposite zig-zags up the pitch—“ she indicated the general shape with a big arm gesture, “—tossing the quaffle to each other when we cross over. Oh, and we go under-over,” she added. “Like, you go under first when we cross, then next time go over.” She adjusted her position on her broom, glancing at him to make sure he understood.

“Okay, ready? Lets go!” Tomie took off to the right, the quaffle held under her dominant left arm, her eyes squinted against the cold air. She glanced to her side to make sure Benny was on the opposite side of the pitch before leaning left, cutting a path back towards him. She focused on her throwing arm — flying had always been the easy part for her, but she was less hot on the throwing. Still, her toss was pretty good as she threw the ball down and a little ahead of where Benny was flying. Nice and neat. The brunette tried to keep him in her peripherals as she got near the edge of the pitch, then turned back towards the center line, dipping vertically as she approached him so she could go under, her eyes on the ball.

Benny noticed Tomie wince when she caught the ball but chalked it up to her not being ready for the catch. Many things were happening, but he was oblivious to most of them, as per usual. Cross over zig-zags, it sounded complicated and a bit dangerous, and of course, the Gryffindor was game. "Yeah, got it," He nodded when she finished explaining; Benny was eager to get moving. To get the blood pumping in his veins so that he could hopefully find his bravery. He had mistaken adrenaline for courage many times, and today would be no different.

The second-year nodded again, and then she said let's go, and Benny raced to the left. He reached his end of the pitch with enough time to turn around and head back toward Tomie at equal distance. They flew toward each other, racing to the center of the pitch, and Benny watched the Quaffle closely. When Tomie let it loose, he leaned forward in his broom to catch up to it before the ball could sink too far. Benny decided in the three seconds between reaching for the Quaffle and feeling the leathery ball against his fingertips. He was going to ask her Right Now.

With one hand on his school broom, Benny caught the Quaffle with the other. Quickly he clutched it hard against his side because it was the only way he knew how to keep it secure and pulled up to fly just over Tomie. Shouting down at her as they passed by, he had not thought the whole thing through.

"Will You!" He shouted, heading to the other side of the pitch. Spinning around to fly toward her again and chucking the ball ahead of where she was heading, Benny shouted again. "Be My Girlfriend!" It was a disjointed way to do it, barely understandable, and honestly a bit of a mess, but Benny had already committed to the question. He watched the Quaffle soar, it was a strong throw considering he was flying against the wind (and not nearly as focussed on practicing as he should have been), but Benny was less worried about Tomie catching it than he was her response to his question.

Will you!

Tomie frowned, but Benny was already far behind her. She squinted against the air, then checked over her shoulder, but he hadn’t slowed, so she didn’t either. Whatever he’d been trying to say clearly wasn’t important enough to stop. She leaned forward again, unable to help the smile that spread across her face when she really got to fly fast. She zipped around with a little bit of a flourish, heading back to meet Benny in the middle. He threw the ball and yelled again.

The quaffle was shooting right towards her face, and Tomie had to roll out of the way for it not to hit her. Damn! She dropped like a pin immediately, flat against the broom as she went for the ball, and it took her a moment of rushing through the air to realise what Benny had just said. She caught the quaffle in both arms, curving her body over it so she could hold the broom handle and pull back up to be parallel with the ground. She slowed, coming up to meet Benny in the air, out of breath and confused.

“What?” she called out, her heart racing (from the dive, obviously). She held a hand up over her forehead to shield her eyes. “What did you say?”

Okay, so maybe this was not a foolproof plan, but when we're Benny's plans ever well thought out? He wasn't a Ravenclaw; he didn't do research ahead of time. And he certainly wasn't self-serving enough to have been a Slytherin. Benny was sorted into Gryffindor because he often lept before looking. He followed whatever tangent he was on, with very little planning, and when it inevitably exploded in his face, he dealt with that like a Gryffindor too. Sensibly? Not exactly. Sometimes with stubbornness or genuine honesty, but more often than not, it was false bravado. The sort he'd hoped would be actual one day.

Tomie had missed the catch, and Benny wondered if he'd thrown it badly, but when she dove to catch it, he smiled. Tomie would have made a decide chaser if she didn't have her sights on being the seeker, he thought absently as she rose back up to meet him. He should have been thinking about what to say next, but he was too busy being impressed by the catch to think ahead.

And then she was on his level, quaffle in hand, and a puzzled look on her face. Benny's throat went dry. "What did you say?" Had she really not heard him, or did she want him to repeat it? Either way, Benny felt all too warm all of a sudden. "Well, um," He scrambled, it wasn't like he had been prepped to ask the question earlier, so of course, he was stuttering now. "I guess, I was just wondering if maybe, you might want to, I don't know… be my girlfriend?" That was how he was supposed to ask, right?

Honestly, the almost-third year didn't even really know what a Girlfriend did, but he imagined it was like having a best friend you also held hands with, and when he thought about it, there was no witch he'd rather do that with than Tomie.   

She pulled up near where he was hovering, her focus half on keeping herself nice and still and steady in the air. She wanted to toss the ball to him, because that’s what they’d been doing, but… “Oh,” Tomie said, her lips forming a comically round ‘O’ shape for just a moment. “Um.” She looked away, feeling her face heating up.

It had been different with JR and the dance thing, she thought. This was flattering too, but the idea of putting Benny in the “boys-to-date” box made her feel incredibly uneasy in a way that she just didn’t feel with anyone else. Benny was her best friend. Her person. The idea of dating him, acting like that around him, having him think about her like that… It all just made her feel a bit panicked, like she’d lose him for sure if she said yes.

“I mean, you know I’m not allowed to date until I’m like twenty-two,” she told him jokingly, pulling the number out of nowhere as a random example of a very grown up and mature age. Importantly, it was a post-graduation age. Her parents had never given her a number, but she knew she was expected to stay away from boys until after school. She made sure to roll her eyes when she said it too, because they both knew her parents were overprotective.

“And we’re... such good friends,” she started, but for some unfathomable reason, it made her feel too vulnerable to elaborate on, so she switched. “And quidditch stuff is so busy…” Tomie scratched her head, no longer avoiding his gaze. There was a breeze, and she pushed a few stray hais back from her face. “So, um... I think best friends is... better,” she finished with a frown, her response a clear gradient of confident to awkward as she went on. "Don't you think?"

What was this feeling Benny was consumed by? He couldn't put a title on it; he had never felt it before. It was sort of like embarrassment, but it was so much worse than the time he'd lost a bet with JR, and the Slytherin took his favorite quidditch trading card. It felt physical, too, like a pit in his tummy, almost like the time when weasel Warren had punched him. Only this time, Tomie wasn't standing beside him, having his back against the older boy; this time, Tomie had hit him. Whatever this feeling was, Benny was absolutely sure he hated it.

I think best friends is... better," Benny's head fell to the side, confusion, and disappointment sweeping over him in a wave. Black hair that was too long in the front fell over his eyes, it was chaotic from the wind, and he brushed it to the side with irritation. Best friends were better? He turned the words over and over and chewed on his cheek. "Yeah, uh, okay…" He barely managed to push out, quieter and far less enthusiastic than was typical for the preteen. He thought being girlfriend-boyfriend with his best friend was like being best friends, but better, but it was clear that Tomie had not felt the same way.

He wondered if she had felt that way when JR sent her the note in summer camp, well, when the message finally got to her, anyway. It was hard to look at her; Benny felt humiliated for asking and irritated that she had said no. He was sad because he thought it was a good idea and disappointed that they disagreed. On most things, they agreed almost unequivocally. He didn't count the times when he was hesitant, and Tomie talked him into something; the wizard always liked her ideas; he was just usually a little slower to get there than her.

Remembering all of the bad ideas she'd convinced him were good ones, Benny got the tiniest jolt of hope; maybe that was all he had to do here. "But it… could be better?" He said, slowly at first and then racing to the end of the sentence. Benny didn't know what it meant to have a girlfriend or that talking her into it probably wasn't the best way to start something; he was young, and these things were confusing.

 "Like, your already my best friend, so wouldn't it be like… leveling up?"

Tomie didn’t know how to put it in words in a way that he’d understand, but she felt in her soul that he wasn't right about this. Maybe boyfriend status was supposed to be an upgrade, but having him shift from best friend to boyfriend absolutely felt like she was downgrading his importance to her, and it came with a bigger, more sweeping sort of discomfort that she definitely couldn’t explain.

She tapped her fingers on the quaffle, feeling impatient for this conversation to be over. It was majorly uncomfortable for her, and she couldn’t imagine it being much better for him. “I dunno,” she said. “Our parents would kill us. My dad would kill you,” she added, more explicitly. She wanted to bring up the time she and Benny had slapped each other for fun, resulting in her cheek being bruised and her father being murderous — at least until he’d seen Benny’s face, too.

Plus, wasn't it kind of lame to be dating anyway? They were only twelve, after all, and none of their friends were togetber. Tomie let go of her broom handle for a moment, picking up the quaffle with both of her hands instead. "Here," she said, tossing it his way.

Well, this whole plan (or lack of one) was going down in flames, and Benny felt his cheeks burning for it. She made good points about their parents, sure, but it didn't stop the young wizard from feeling deflated. He had really thought it was a good idea. And he had convinced himself he had a crush on her and that it was utterly plausible she had a crush on him too. It all made sense; the math added up, didn't it?

Benny tried not to pout when she explained it again, but her 'I dunno' nearly broke him. He scrunched his face together, giving her a look she had undoubtedly seen a million times when he didn't like what he was hearing. And then Benny nodded. It was a slow, solemn nod, and not because he had changed his mind and agreed, but because he knew the conversation was over. Tomie passed him the quaffle, and he was thankful for the distraction, but it didn't stop the sadness from reaching his eyes. "Yeah, okay," He muttered, turning the quaffle over in his hands, his fingertips entirely too enthralled by the divets and seams on the leather ball.

"Do you wanna' keep practicing?"

She could see his heart breaking in realtime and felt thoroughly mortified by it. Whyyyyyy did Benny have to ask her out today? Why did he have to look so downtrodden? Why would he want to date her, anyway?? She could be funny and a good friend but there were way prettier girls that he could ask out, and then she and Benny could chat about his crushes together instead of… Whatever this was.

“Yeah, lets keep going,” Tomie said, relieved beyond measure that he hadn’t tried to push it a bit further, or ask her for more reasoning. Her relief must have been evident in her tone; she didn’t have the self-awareness in this moment to try to regulate how readable she was. “Lets do some basic dive throws,” she said, nodding. Quidditch was so much easier to talk about than feelings. Why did she suddenly feel hungry again? “Just go up real high and pass on the way down.” Tomie flew away from him, looping once and trying to shake off the bad feelings. She stuffed her hand in her pocket and grabbed a little sweet she’d tucked in there a few days ago, popping it into her mouth quickly before they started off.

/end