{lies are just exercises} hyacinth

@Hyacinth Reed

There were very few people who got up this early in the morning and even fewer who were ready for a run. Over the years he’d learnt to appreciate that fact. Most of the time he was fine with going out by himself but there was something about quiet mornings that he genuinely enjoyed sharing with others. Mostly that meant dragging Baylen along and fussing over him but, well, he had to give his brother a break sometimes didn’t he?

Which was why he had an informal but regular running partner every Tuesday and Thursday morning well before breakfast. He couldn’t rightly remember how they’d even started meeting up - it just sort of happened. He knew the Hufflepuff in question was pretty active and, he’d be honest, there was always an extra enjoyment out of running with a fit girl. A bouncing enjoyment. As the thought manifested he bit his lip to keep the grin from forming on his face. He tried not to ogle his running partner too overtly - he wasn’t a total creep, thanks - but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t turn an appreciative eye where it was merited.

The cute Hufflepuff Captain made an enjoyable running partner, at any rate. He took a glance around stretching a bit, as he waited. He was glad he’d worn long joggers and a jacket because it was disgustingly cold this morning. His hair was a bit of a mess, too, and he was in need of a hair cut but those were thoughts for another day. Right now he could focus on having a good run and getting rid of his excess energy.

Hyacinth loved exercise and was very meticulous about it, waking up in the early morning for a run before breakfast. This wasn’t just to maintain her slim figure, though admittedly that thought had crossed her mind, but rather to keep her fit and strong for quidditch. She had been given a true responsibility this year and definitely didn’t want to be the weak link. She already wasn’t confident in her ability to be a good leader, though she enjoyed the challenge. She struggled with the harsh aspects of correcting behavior and plays, but she was very nurturing and encouraging, working just as hard as her team, and doing all the same things she made them do, if not even more for herself. She didn’t make anyone else run with her in the mornings, for example. She just wanted to be good for them.

Of course, her running partner, Ben, didn’t hurt. He was a Slytherin, on the Slytherin quidditch team—so she felt a bit like a traitor—but he was very cute, and he was nice to hang out with, even if there was often little talking and mostly her just glancing at him and blushing from time to time. She had been in a weird spot lately, noticing boys for the first time and trying very hard to impress them. Benjamin wasn’t necessarily part of Isaac Hackney’s Slythierin boy crew, which was probably better for her, honestly. She had such a soft spot for Isaac’s bad boys, though, she had been trying desperately to impress them. It had started off small, with her baking cookies for them, and proceeded to her sneaking a shot of firewhiskey and smoking a nasty-tasting cigarette behind the school building just to prove she had to heart to be devious. She thought, briefly, that they probably liked pushing her around. She was a bit of a pushover, but peer pressure was hard to resist and she was still coming into herself. She was still growing, even, her sisters all near six foot, and her at a measly five-foot-four. Benjamin towered over her, and she liked it.

All things considered; he was a good friend for her to have. His family line was prominent, his father’s upper middle class, and his mother’s an influential family that rivaled her own. The Layton boys and girls she knew were mostly older than her, she thought, but maybe her sister would meet and marry one day. Her eldest sister had recently married into a prominent line, and so had her sister Iris. Azalea was next, though she was still young still. She knew her parents cared who she married, someday, but Hyacinth hadn’t even considered boys as potential marriage matches yet. She liked boys, but not enough for forever—even though she had considered some aspects of her wedding. She wanted it outside, with butterflies, in spring or summer. Warmth, new growth, and happiness. She dreamed of something like that.

“Hi.” She greeted Ben as she saw him. “Hopefully, I didn’t keep you waiting too long!” It was chilly outside in the December cold, and she had worn a warm jumper with long active trousers as well. She shivered a little bit. “It’s brisk today, more than I thought. I might cut it short and go thaw with some hot tea in the Great Hall after twenty or so minutes of this. I guess I’ll just have to make it a hard twenty minutes.” She grinned. “You ready?”

The thing about Ben was that he was quite, shall we say, oblivious to some going-on's. Mostly he did his own thing, when he wanted, and how he wanted to do it. The freedom that came with his name and family ties certainly eased the way towards his academic and personal pursuits. There wasn't a door that couldn't be opened for him in one way or another. Which made the things he paid attention to at Hogwarts … peculiar. He wasn't exactly privy to what his younger house mates were up to (unless it pertained to Quidditch) and he certainly was not aware they had some kind of reputation. If he had been he'd probably be giving the pretty Hufflepuff captain some, shall we say, advice on how to properly handle Slytherin boys. 

You either put them in their place immediately or, well, you didn't. And when you didn't? Well you suffered the ramifications. There was little sportsmanship in taking advantage of a girl like Hyacinth, though. From what he'd witnessed Hyacinth was generally sweet, warm, and caring. Quintessential Hufflepuff, essentially. She seemed the type to dream of pretty things and live in a world of her own. To harm that would be … sad in ways he wouldn't be able to explain. But, then, he had a bit of a soft spot for Hufflepuff. They were usually so, well, easily crushed a lot of the time. Whitten had pretty much hit all of his protective instincts at once, and he'd been smitten for a long time. It made him deeply uncomfortable and guilty, still, for how things had ended and he supposed he still had a bit of a complex when it came to girls that reminded him of her.

But, then, Ben was oblivious to those types of things wasn't he? He simply did not pay enough attention to that kind of byplay unless it affected someone he cared about. As it stood there really wasn't a sign of any nefarious intent and so he was happy to ignore whatever it was that his house mates got up to in their free time. Otherwise he'd be … concerned. "You didn't." he murmured, giving the girl a lopsided grin as he finished stretching. His eyes glittered for a second, a mischievous little smirk playing along his lips, as he murmured in acknowledgement. "Race ya to our usual tree." he quipped, taking off immediately. She was so short it was kind of mean to take off so quickly. He'd loop around and start chasing her if he saw her lag behind to much or seemed like she couldn't keep up. It was a habit of his, after all.

She grinned, laughing after him. “Not fair, Slytherin boy!” She teased, chasing after him about as fast as her shorter legs could carry her. Of course he would take a head-start, but she was only playing with him. She wasn’t usually aggressively competitive, but she didn’t want to let him beat her—competition was a healthy and fun part of a game like this. When she didn’t like competition was when it had to do with money or status. She loved games. There was a big difference to her, and she wasn’t trying to compete with other girls for attention or in any regard, really. Live and let live, right?

The tree was a good distance away, so Hyacinth took awhile. She was a sprinter, and could go fast, but she also had endurance to go awhile. Trying to catch up, though, she hadn’t exactly paced herself. She was growing tired. She slowed a bit, breathing hard, just as she reached neck-and-neck. She started to lag behind, then, not quite keeping up with him. She pushed through the pain, knowing that the more she pushed herself, the stronger she would be. She could finish this run in a good time, she was certain.

She felt a little dizzy, but in the best kind of way. A runner’s high wasn’t always the goal, but sometimes it just happened, and she felt like she could conquer anything. She could beat this silly Slytherin boy if she tried, right?

"Slytherins don't play fair, Captain!" he teased, smirk in place. They really did not. Rule #1 for a good Slytherin was to always seize the advantage. And a very good Slytherin was able to see oppouritnity in just about everything. Ben always considered himself a good Slytherin. Running was almost as thrilling for him as flying. Definitely something that came pretty close while on the ground, at least on his own feet. When he ran his head cleared. All he could hear was his pulse beating through his ears. He lost track of Hyacinth briefly, just reveling in the run, before he took a peak back. He stifled a bit of a grin, but laughter bubbled out of his chest anyway in a breathless chuckle. He didn't normally laugh freely, definitely not enough for his dimples to be noticeable, but running always left him free and light and in such a bloody good mood. Runners high, indeed. He was a bit of an adrenaline junkie like that.

He wrestled with slowing down to make sure the Hufflepuff was doing alright and just chasing the feeling of pushing himself harder. He knew not many people could keep up with him. For one he hovered over... just about everyone. And for two he'd been going for morning runs since he was a first year. Distance and speed were nothing to the amount of conditioning he had with just sheer time doing this. That didn't mean someone couldn't beat him, just that it was a difficult task to accomplish. Hyacinth had the edge in the sense that she was light. He wondered if she'd get mad at him if he were to scoop her up and drag across the makeshift finish line. At that point he'd need to practice extreme self control not to throw them both into the freezing cold lake.

He needed his amusements sometimes but he had to weigh if doing that would deprive him of his running partner for a few weeks or not.

Hyacinth laughed playfully at Benajmin’s words. Obviously Slytherins didn’t play fair, that was why they were Slytherins and she was a Hufflepuff—the house of fairness. She blushed lightly, but kept following him, trying her best to push past but her short legs did not make this an easy feat.

Had Ben truly picked her up and tossed her in the lake, she would have been surprised but flustered—it seemed such a flirty thing to do that she was certain she would have been confused, had she known he was even thinking about it. As it was, she was no leglimens and had no idea what the boy had on his mind. Instead, she kept running. She reached the end of their sprint and slowed to a stop, him easily beating her there, she breathed deeply and nodded at him. “You cheater.” She teased lightly, though he was taller and faster by merit and not by cheating alone. “Maybe you can run fastest, but I bet you I can run longer than you!”

She was certainly more of a cross-country girl than track.

There was a very real urge to pick the tiny Hufflepuff up and carry her about. The playful side of him always came out when he was  in a good mood, and he was usually was when he was being active. Still he resisted the urge to do so, shooting the girl a lopsided smile instead when she called him a cheater. "It's not cheating when you use whats been given to you to maximum effect." he quipped automatically. It was good-natured but it was what he usually what he responded with when someone accused him of cheating. He always carefully corrected the assumption, though. He was an opportunist, to be sure, but he'd never stoop so low as to actually cheat. In his mind there was always a loophole of some sort, some kind advantage you could take in just about every situation.

Cheating, in his mind, was very close to an illusion. "Fairness" an excuse to level the playing feel when someone possessed a stacked deck. But what, exactly, was fair about handicapping someone like that? Rules in the spirit of fairness were the worst type of rules, really, and brought with it its own set of issues. He was someone who would always do his best, never pull his punches, and use just about any advantage he could get his hands on. It wouldn't shock anyone either, when you took into account how utterly competitive he could be. The only thing that balanced out that part of him was the fact that he had a soft spot for those who he viewed as naive or innocent.

Which is why being called a cheater by someone like Hyacinth didn't really bother him. Most Hufflepuffs tended to view Slytherin motivations quite poorly, similar to Gryffindors, but he didn't take much offense. At their core its what they valued and though he found that whole mindset unbearably naive he also knew it didn't come from a bad place. He couldn't quite tamper down the urge to pat the girls head, though, as he teased her. "Doubtful." he said, smirking down at her, and looking quite pleased with himself. He was not having a discussion about stamina with the girl. "You'd be surprised how long I could go." he added helpfully, feeling a little devious. The double meaning of his words would be lost on her, he was sure, but it made something inside him preen anyway. He was unbearably vain like that.