Billy dropped into the seat for dinner with a grumble. This weren't fair. It just weren't fair at all! How come he hadda stay here at the dumb school instead of goin' home for break? Sure it was warmer and more comfortable than home, but it wasn't home. It also wasn't any place more exciting than home neither. Fine, if home didn't want him back, he coulda gone with someone else. That woulda been fun! But, nope, he was stuck here, at the boring dumb school. At least there weren't no classes.
He angrily stabbed some food onto his plate. He was gunna miss out on all the fun winter stuff back home. What was he gunna do around here? Well, he could fly around the pitch if the weather was decent and he could either find someone to go along as the rules said, or sneak out and back by himself without anyone noticing. Or.... hmm... he'd never really gotten the chance to explore sections of the school he didn't have classes in. There was always to much stuff to do, or to many people around to worry about. But now...hmm... he chewed on his food thoughtfully. If he was going to be a world famous explorer once he was free of this place, he'd have to get some practice in.
OOC: Anyone else that's around can feel free to jump in if they feel like it! BIC:
Iris took a seat at the table with her brother mainly because with so few people around it would be weird if she didn't. The school felt empty as a whole, which made her a bit nervous. Naturally the ghosts didn't leave and that really didn't help with the feeling of unease. She liked it better with more people around. Judging by Billy's actions, he didn't seem to care. He wasn't happy with the situation, but neither was she. Though she suspected he was less worried about Ma and Pa and more upset about not being able to do dumb things back home again.
"Where are the manners Ma tried to beat into you?" She snapped at him as he ate like some sort of wild animal. She glared at him while wondering what in the world Ray saw in him. While neither had said anything 'official' to her about it, it sure didn't take a genius to figure out that there was something between them. Plus, she'd heard they were going to the ball. The fact that nobody asked her yet made that so much worse. No, she didn't need a boy to ask her to go, but it was the proper way things were done.
"Why'd ya have to go an' make so much trouble last time we were home?" She asked him accusingly. She was fine with blaming this entire situation on him. He was the one making things difficult back home after all.
He was stuck here. Whilst no one had dared dangle the promise of going home in front of him, he had still clung to that hope. It was Christmas. They were his family. Why did no one understand that?
It had been hard dealing with everyone else's good cheer, as they planned for the break. It was such a normal thing, to assume that everyone was going home, and for weeks the air was thick with talk of it. The ones who complained annoyed him the most. Omg, I know my mom is so gonna nag me about my grades or Urgh, all those weeks back with my bratty sister! He had pulled away from the student body as much as he could. He ate at odd hours. He tried to be asleep or at the very least engrossed in a book when Alexei came in. He minimised the degree to which he had to face the conversations that he didn't know how to have.
Now, everyone was gone. He stomped through the hallways with maximum volume, trying to take up all the space he'd been squished out of by other people's conversations in the past few weeks, and trying to let out some of his rage at being left behind.
He threw open the doors to the Cascade Hall with as much force as he could manage. In his melodramtic imaginings of the hall, the contents had been removed, replaced by a small table with a single place setting. What he found was that it looked relatively normal. And that there were two other people sitting there. He had been told he would be the only one.
"What are you doing here?" he glared, blurting out the words without thinking about how he definitely didn't want to be asked that in return - or that it might not be their favourite question to answer.
Before Billy could make a retort to his annoying sister who didn't know anything the doors to the hall practically slammed open. Xavier was there and Billy thought he looked kinda odd. "We're stuck here!" he retorted, his voice filled with his irritation at the situation. "Ma said we can't come home, but didn't say why!" The whole thing was dumb and Iris was wrong.
"We can't go home, 'cause you did dumb things!" Iris accused Billy. He just rolled his eyes in response. "If you want something to eat," Iris continued more kindly towards Xavier, "You'd better get over here soon before this pig eats it all." Once again she glared at her brother. He stuck his tongue out at her. He'd be the first to admit it wasn't the most 'mature' response, but it seemed fitting given the name-calling. He could see her trying to come up with some sort of 'civilized and appropriate' response, and that made him feel much better about everything.
"Come on, grab some grub. Iffn' yer stuck here like us, best make the best of things." He gave Xavier a grin. "She won't get on a broom more'n she gotta," he said gesturing towards his kill-joy of a sister, "You up for some flyin' around sometime if we're stuck here?"
OOC: Iris is mine as well, so this isn't godmodding. Xavier can go again and I'll swap viewpoints between the siblings on my turns.
Xavier had beensurprised enough by the Cobbs' presence that he had come to a complete, rigid halt. Nothing They were saying particularly made him want to un-halt. Their replies were unsettling, non-specific and lengthy, none of which was what he was in the mood for. Given that he was not in the mood for people in any shape or variety, the failure was probably to be expected.
Billy invited him to sit and eat. At the table he had expected to be empty. In the school he had expected to be empty. It wasn't just his feelings he wanted to be alone with. His family was supposed to be arriving that evening. Professor Skies had not exactly said she was breaking ministry rules and not to tell anyone, but there had been a very big pause when he had asked if they could really do that, followed by the words 'It doesn't specifically say we can't.' Besides being vaguely secret, it was also supposed to be his. He was still being short changed, given that everyone else got to go home. And now.... Now what? Was he going to have to share with the Cobbs? It was a big enough school, but for Christmas were they going to be forced to sit down like one, big mismatched family? He didn't want anyone else's. He just wanted his own.
And what if they cancelled it altogether because of Billy and Iris being here? The thought was too horrible. He tried to swallow it down but it wouldn't go. He stood, rooted to the spot, and very much no longer hungry. The invitation to go flying did nothing to help. Clearly if Billy was planning flying trips and talking about making the best of it, he had nowhere near the kinds of problems that Xavier did. Or he was too stupid to realise it.
"There is no 'best of it,'" he glared. The only best of it was still getting to see his family, and that might not happen now because of them. "So, no, I don't want to go flying, or have dinner, or anything else! Good luck," he added, though he didn't sound much like he meant it. He still sounded angry. "If you're in magic trouble, or your family is, it's a really big problem."
Xavier was here. Iris reluctantly acknowledged that she was going to need to shift back to school manners and such. That got tiring after a bit, and she had been looking forward to relaxing on that front a bit since it was only going to be her and Billy. But, apparently not. She may not be alone on that front either.
Her eyes narrowed at Xavier as her brother made inept, but a reasonable attempt at being social. Xavier seemed to want nothing of it. He was being downright rude about it as well. When he'd first appeared in the doorway, the thought had very briefly flitted through the back of her mind that she would have all of break to see if maybe he would ask her to the ball. Now she crossed any such possibility off of her list. She would prefer someone with better manners.
Billy looked a bit startled and confused. "A big problem?" She rolled her eyes again as he looked between Xavier and her. "What's that supposed t' mean?"
Iris cut in quickly. Xavier apparently had some sort of problem. Fine, so did they, and she didn't appreciate being yelled at when it wasn't their fault and there was nothing they could do about it. "It doesn't mean anything." She responded briskly, "If he don't want to hang around with us, nobody's forcin' him to." She stabbed a chunk of food with a bit more emphasis than normal.