islington | summer skylines — benny

"Oh, good," There was a bit of relief in Benny's voice as he continued to outline the wings of the Hippogriff. The wings took longer than the head and body combined, but that was because he put a lot more effort into them than the rest. The body was easy, it was a horse or any other bulky creature, but the wings had to be unique. "You make it look so easy," Benny's eyes were still on the wall, but he made a sound at Tomie's words and smiled. "Jus like you do with Quidditch," the not-at-all-jealous of her undeniable athletic talent wizard said and laughed.

The fizzing sound of the paint coming from the spray can mixed with the crickets in the trees behind them, and Benny finished tracing out the wings for them. Turning to face her, Benny pointed at the outline of the Hippogriff on the wall. "So you should color right over these lines," Benny's hand moved too close to the note entirely dry outline as he spoke, and he pulled away with white dots on the pads of his fingertips. He'd done the design in white on purpose, it was light enough to color over with the other colors, and he figured they would use blue or gray, or something cool like gold, for the wings instead of white.

The newly minted teenager moved away from the wall and back to Tomie's backpack. Kneeling on the ground, Benny began inspecting which colors of spray paint they had available; one can at a time. "Wish I was as good at Quidditch as you and JR," he said absently, putting the black can to the side and pulling out an orange one to hand her for the beak.

Tomie exhaled a small puff of air out of her nose when he mentioned quidditch, like a little laugh. Sometimes she was sure she was good, and other times she felt like a massive failure. The rollercoaster did her head in — yet another reason to be glad it was summer.

The thought made her feel guilty, then defensive, then determined.

He turned back to her and she perked up, smiling a bit. Her eyes followed the lines he was pointing to. He’d already done so much; she was sure it’d take her twice as long to do something far, far shittier. “Okay,” she said, bouncing on her feet like she was getting ready for a race.

“I’m better than JR,” Tomie quipped back, lightning-fast. She wasn’t even sure it was true. Sometimes she thought she had more “natural talent” than her Slytherin friend, but maybe that was just her own ego talking. Tomie flipped the can in one hand again before reaching for the orange-lidded one her friend was holding out. She passed him the silver one she’d been playing with.

“Just this bit over here, right?” she asked, but Tomie had already dropped the cap on the ground and was up against the wall, spray can in hand.

“Yeah, I know,” Benny shot back at Tomie with a growing smile. Of course, he knew she was better than JR at Quidditch, and honestly, even if she wasn’t, it was as if he was hard-wired to believe it anyway. Benny stood back up and returned to Tomie at the wall. She had the orange for the beak and talons, and he’d picked light blue for the rest of the body. It wasn’t like they would go crazy and do shading or anything, and the wizard thought blue, orange, and silver (or gold) would look cool together. “Yeah, just right there,” Benny pointed again but was careful not to touch the paint again. The last thing he needed was to wipe his painted fingers on his pants accidentally and then get them caught when they went home.

Benny moved further down the wall so that he wasn’t standing right next to her when she started spraying orange everywhere, just in case and nodded. “But I’m not better than JR,” A recurring theme, he thought. “Not good enough for the house team… not good enough for….” He trailed off; Benny thought he wasn’t going to bring it up, but there it was, and he expected his best friend to understand where he was going with the thought. After Tomie became JR’s girlfriend instead of his, he couldn’t shake the need to measure himself against the Slytherin. It was confusing and time-consuming.  Even though Benny wanted so badly to turn and look at Tomie to see her reaction, the teenager glued his eyes to the wall and shook the spray paint can in his hand way more than needed. 

Tomie started spraying enthusiastically, her eyes laser focused and her lower lip in between her teeth. She went out of the line a teeny bit, but it was pretty good. She was pleased with herself, anyway.

There was nothing quite like breaking rules with Benny. It wasn’t supposed to be a whole tradition or anything, but now that they’d done something they weren’t supposed to for three summers in a row, Tomie basically felt like it was mandatory by now. How could they escalate next year, she wondered? They’d already broken so many rules. Then again, they’d be mature and confident fourteen-year-olds by then, so they probably wouldn’t even be nervous. Tomie glanced over her shoulder at the path behind them briefly, as if to double check that they were definitely alone.

But I’m not—

Tomie glanced back at the wall a little too quickly, shaking the can in her hand like she’d seen Benny do earlier before she went back to spraying. No, Benny wasn’t as good as JR. He wasn’t competitive like she and JR were, and he wasn’t ambitious, and it showed on the pitch. It was a painful sort of topic that they hadn’t spent much time discussing. “Maybe…” She started a sentence sounding hopeful, thinking of how maybe third year would be his year. She shut up when he went on, though.

Tomie reached out and stopped a little drip of paint with one finger, holding her spray can to the side for a moment like it was a dangerous weapon. Benny was shaking his; she could hear the little metallic clicking to her right. She didn’t look, though. Thoughtlessly, Tomie wiped her paint hand on her basketball shorts, wondering what the hell she was supposed to say. Benny thought she’d turned him down because he wasn’t good enough. Shit.

Benny didn't continue and Tomie didn't want to break the silence. “Think I’m done with this bit,” she said after a moment of quiet. Was it hotter than before? A breeze was blowing now but she didn’t feel any relief. “What next?” she asked uncertainly, glancing sideways at her friend.

The feeling of never being embarrassed around his best friend Tomie had started to fade the minute Benny said more than he’d meant to. He told himself that it was fine, and he was over it, but clearly, it wasn’t true. Clearly, he was still comparing himself to JR and wondering why Tomie hadn’t wanted to be his girlfriend. Another thing about Second Year was that he’d instead put in the rearview but couldn’t seem to shake.

A silence grew between them as Benny finally stopped shaking his can and started spraying blue on the body of the hippogriff. It was oiler than he wanted it to be, probably because he’d shaken it down to a molecular level (not really, but he was feeling dramatic) and Benny sighed as a bit of the paint ran down the wall. Tomie spoke first, but Benny didn’t turn to look at her as his arm stretched to fill in a bit more of the back end of the hippogriff, the part that wasn’t wings, and he shrugged.

“Do you wanna do the feet with that one, too?” He asked as the same spatial awareness that kept the wings from the broken bricks lit up in the back of his mind. If she sprayed the feet in the front first, he’d have a little more time before they had to stand close together again.

“Yeah,” Tomie said quickly, task designation bringing her a little relief from the tension. Always better to have something to do with her hands, she thought, crouching a bit as she started on the creature’s feet.

Neither of them said anything for a little while, and Tomie wondered what he was thinking. The silence, punctuated only by distant cars and the sprays of their paint stretched on long enough that she knew it wasn’t just in her head. Tomie wasn’t a patient person; she wasn’t good at holding onto anxious feelings, and she wasn’t good at doing nothing if she thought her friends might be feeling bad. She was direct, impulsive. So, she had to talk.

“JR’s mostly talk, you know,” she started casually, her tone reassuring. Tomie could feel herself wanting to follow this thought right down an insult-JR-to-make-Benny-feel-better path, but she pulled herself back from the brink of it. Speaking badly of her friend felt bad, even if he was too smug for his own good, and even if things were awkward between them right now. She shooed the guilt away.

“I just mean, quidditch is great, but there’s so much other stuff that’s cool and important, too.” Like food, she thought. Or friendship. Food, friendship and quidditch were basically the pillars of her life at the moment, but she was aware other people had other pillars. “And anyone would be top-tier coming from a family like his,” she added quietly, a little of her own jealousy seeping into her words. She didn’t elaborate, but she was sure she didn’t need to; neither of them came from a family like his, and they both knew what that meant.

Benny had told himself the same things Tomie was saying a million times, probably, but it didn’t make him feel better. Maybe JR was too confident, but the Slytherin had the skills to back it up, so in the end, Benny just felt worse for thinking it in the first place. And he knew there was plenty of other stuff he could focus on, but for whatever reason, Benny really wanted to better at Quidditch. It had more to do with being left behind than caring about playing the sport, but Benny hadn’t figured that out yet.

It had been Tomie and Benny for his entire life, and now it was Tomie and Jr and then Benny. Quidditch was the first thing he wasn’t one hundred percent right next to his best friend for, which felt strange. Of course, if he took the time to explore other things, Benny might have realized he cared less about Quidditch than he thought and might have even found something he cared about more. “Yeah, that’s true,”

Pulling away from the wall, Benny took two steps back and moved toward Tomie, who stepped to the side and switched spots with him silently. The wizard couldn’t explain how he was feeling to her, but when he moved, it was like she instinctually knew where he was going. Some things still hadn’t changed, he supposed. Benny held the blue can up again and started filling in the head of the Hippogriff, his mind trailing off thinking about how he’d draw the eyes later and wondering if Tomie thought JR was better looking than him, too.

Benny grew quiet again, but the silence lasted far longer this time. He’d barely finished the coloring in the face before he asked a question. “But why him?” But why not me? was what he meant.

Tomie finished up with the feet (admittedly they were a little rough, but no one was gonna be looking down here anyway, right?), and shuffled over to her right. Benny passed behind her like they were chasers moving in formation. She wondered distantly how she was going to be able to focus on the pitch the first game they played together for their house team. What if it was against Slytherin? What if Benny ended up playing keeper, and JR was chaser? She’d be biting her nails, she thought distantly, rather than watching for the snitch. That was assuming they didn’t kick her off of the team, of course...

What wouldn’t she give to have a family like JR’s, who not only supported her playing, but actually had their hands all over the league itself? JR could probably walk straight onto a team as soon as he graduated, or before, maybe. Maybe he’d ditch them when he turned seventeen and go pro super young. It wasn’t totally unheard of, she thought, trying to remain objective and feeling jealous and guilty instead.

“Luck of birth I guess,” Tomie answered distantly, her thoughts a step behind where Benny’s clearly were. She hesitated for a moment, understanding belatedly what he was actually asking. She stopped a couple of paint drips with her hand, wiping it on her shorts again without really noticing. “Oh,” she said quietly, risking a quick glance his way before looking back at the bricks in front of her. Her cheeks felt warmer than was reasonable. “You don’t mean quidditch.”

"No, not really…." At first, Benny had been thinking about how much better they were than him at Quidditch. Eventually, his thoughts had morphed past that and to the things he and Tomie had never talked about. After the humiliation of asking her to be his girlfriend and being turned down, Benny's wish to pretend it never happened had been granted. Tomie and Jr became a couple, and Benny pretended that had never happened, too. He buried his feelings, focused on other things, and life sort of went back to normal. And then summer came, the easy distractions of Hogwarts slipped away, and thoughts he wished would stay buried went to the surface.

"I guess I just don't get it, that's all," Though he wondered if he did understand after all. For all the reasons they had just talked about, Jr was a better choice. The Slytherin was good at Quidditch, he was confident, and his family was loaded, and he was Tomie's best friend, too. On paper, the decision was simple, even if Benny didn't think that the rich part mattered to Tomie.

Benny turned away from the brick wall with a half-painted hippogriff on it and looked at Tomie for the first time in a while. "Oh no…" As soon as his eyes landed on her, Benny's gears changed, and suddenly, he was a lot less concerned with the past and more worried about their collective futures — or lack of — when her parents saw the paint on her clothes. "Tomie, you've gotten paint on your shorts." This was so much worse than the time they came home with a burn hole in Tomie's shirt, but probably not as bad as when they pierced their ears at summer camp.

Tomie went back to biting her lower lip, but in a more thoughtful than focussed way this time. If anything, she was far less focussed on the task at hand, and it showed in her sloppy handiwork. It was passable, but not pretty.

He didn’t get it.

If she was totally honest, Tomie wasn’t a hundred percent sure she got it, either. She’d said no to Benny because it hadn’t felt right, and she’d said yes to JR because it had. Probing into her feelings a little more deeply wasn’t really her strong suit; Tomie worked mostly on intuition. Intuitively, it’d felt nice to connect with JR talking about their families and their insecurities. It was nice to see him vulnerable, nice to be able to be vulnerable too and not have him tease her or whatever. In a broader sense, it felt intuitively right to get a boyfriend when Hazel and MattMav were talking shit about her and Shelby. It felt cool to have someone who liked her, and to be seen with them. Cool that they were both so into quidditch. Cool to have a cool boyfriend, be in a cool couple. Like armour.

But really… They were twelve! Well, thirteen now. It wasn’t like they were making out in corridors or getting married or whatever. It was mostly just friends the way they always were, with some little cheek kisses and hand holding and JR being even more insistent on paying if they went to Honeydukes together. Did Benny really wanna do all that stuff with her? Would it make their friendship level up, rather than tarnishing it? It hadn’t felt right to her.

She was frowning now. “Yeah…” she said, trailing a bit. She was stalling, but she was impatient and ready for resolution; she wasn’t good at putting things off, even momentarily. “I guess—” she began to speak, but his words cut hers off and she stopped.

“What?” she asked, straightening up quickly and following his gaze down to her shorts. Her eyes went from her basketball shorts to her hand as she turned it palm-up, still wet with an orangey-yellowish colour. Hmm. She felt her heartbeat speed up, and her mind went into problem-solving mode. This was gonna be a problem, there was no way around that. But... There were two courses forward. Tomie took a steadying breath.

“So do you,” she said, her voice oddly calm despite the small, mischievous smile on her face. As Benny looked down, she took a small, quick step towards him and sprayed him with a puff of orange paint.

Benny’s eyes clung to the smudged paint on Tomie’s basketball shorts, and at that moment, he knew they were going to be in so much trouble. Her mum would see the stain, ask questions, and then tell his mum, and he wouldn’t be allowed outside for the rest of the summer. Okay, maybe there was a slight chance he was jumping to conclusions, but still. “No, I don’t  —” Benny began, but Tomie’s movements cut him short, and Benny wasn’t fast enough to jump away from her. “Tomie!” He shouted, the name Wilhelmina very nearly falling from his lips instead, and smacked at the air between them in a futile effort to block the orange spray. Benny failed, and Tomie managed to get a few splotches of paint on his cargo shorts.

The wizard paused as he looked down at his shorts, all of the worries he’d been drowning in moments ago seemingly gone, and then he turned back up to his best friend with a playful twinkle in his eyes. “Oh, you are so dead!” They were both dead, probably, but Benny wasn’t going down for this alone. Still holding the light blue can, the Gryffindor held it out quickly and sprayed toward her torso.

It was a bit of a risk — Tomie’s heart was beating quickly in her chest — but even if Benny sulked, she could usually bring his mood up, right? They’d had a few disagreements before, or fights… Not that she could think of any at THIS particular moment… But they could never stay mad at each other for long.

That was what it meant to be best friends.

“Oh yeah?” Tomie taunted, the glint in her eye matching his. “What’re you — aah!” Tomie squealed delightedly as he sprayed her with paint, and she stumbled backwards quickly, her squeal turning into a cough — then laugh — partway through. Tomie got into a better position, knees bent and arms up defensively, like she was fighting an animal. The spray can was in her left hand, ready to go.

She lurched forward again and started spraying wildly, laughing as the air between them turned misty with spray paint. She flung an arm out, trying to grab at his can, or the forearm it was attached to. By now there was paint all over her clothes and some in her hair. Oops.

Laughing loudly, Benny ducked and moved as Tomie geared up to fire back at him. He shuffled through the grass off the path they'd been on, and he felt the prickly feeling of sticks and leaves brushing against his ankles. Tomie shot more of her orange paint and him, and despite his best efforts, most of it landed on him. Salting his clothing with bits of orange, some blotchy, some faint, until even Benny's forearms felt like they had a dusting of orange on them. And he shot back just as much light blue, the smile wild on his face as they went to war.

Tomie reached for his arm, and he pulled away, dropping the can in the underbrush and laughing again. "Okay, okay! I give up!" He howled, holding his orange-tinted arms up in front of him and his hands toward her. He signaled defeat, but only for now. The paint drying on his skin mixed with sweat and kicked up dirt from the hustle, but Benny felt like he didn't have a care in the world. He wasn't worried about Jr and Tomie's relationship or his lack of Quidditch skills; Benny had even forgotten about the terror of how much trouble they'd be in when they got home. Everything else faded away until it was just Tomie and Benny again, in the woods, up to no good, the way it was supposed to be.

Summer belonged to them.

The risk had paid off.

Benny dropped his can and Tomie closed the gap between them, her own one held up in both threat and victory. His arms were protecting his torso. She held her can out, pointed just above his tummy. “You only had to step through the door,” she said in a low, sinister voice, quoting a scene from their favourite comic book. Her finger clicked down for one final, executiony puff of paint.

Tomie laughed at the dramatics and took a couple of steps back, glancing down at herself. Her black t-shirt — sleeves pushed right up to her shoulders — was no longer just black. Her basketball shorts had a decent orange smear on one side and her forearms were covered. Everything smelled like paint and dirt. She was totally dead. So, utterly, dead.

Still grinning, Tomie leaned down to lazily scoop up one of the other cans of paint from her backpack. “Heads up.” She tossed it haphazardly to her friend, then glanced back at the wall beside them. Luckily, the half-finished picture on that one was unblemished by their little scuffle. “What next, boss?” she asked, feeling much lighter.

"You only had to step through the door," Tomie taunted him, and Benny's hands raised a bit further in defense, laughing and turning away as she sprayed him one final time. He was covered in paint now, orange splotches and blue mist everywhere. And even though he knew when they got home they'd be in so much trouble; Benny smiled anyway. It wouldn't have been a proper summer if they didn't get up to something, after all. "You done?" He asked, giving her a serious look, but secretly Benny tried to figure out where he'd dropped the orange can, just in case she decided to attack again. That was how it usually went in the comic, and there was always one more battle after the characters thought they had finished.

"Gotta color in the wings and outline and stuff," Benny told Tomie after she'd tossed him another can of paint. The thirteen-year-old pretended like he knew what he was talking about when this was his first time graffiti-ing anything. He'd drawn plenty of hippogriffs, he'd even painted some of them when Benny was helping make flyers for Trudy's magical creature's rights group, but he'd never spray painted them. Benny took a second, that focus falling over him again, as he thought about whether it was worth the risk to try and shade anything. Would he ruin it? Would it turn out the way that he pictured?

"You wanna do the wings in silver or gold?" He asked, rolling the bottle of electric blue she'd thrown at him in his hands and finally deciding to be bold. "I'm gonna try something," Benny declared, a bit of Gryffindor's bravery peaking through as he stomped through the grass back to the wall. The way they'd been spraying paint at each other had taught him a few things about how much pressure to use on the nozzle, and Benny felt like he was on top of the world, so he was willing to try something new. Slowly and then, with building confidence, the teenager layered electric blue over the light blue body to add some dimension.

There was a curve where the hind legs were, a shadow below the belly, basic shading, and as he continued, he fell into his world again. Chatting absently with Tomie as they worked, Benny felt light. They talked about upcoming Quidditch games, about finally being able to visit Hogsmeade on weekends next year, the crazy old witch that lived upstairs in their building, comic books, and everything in between.