(Pre team lists) Seeking Miss Mellie on Cascade Hall

Michael Grosvenor

January 23, 2013 7:35 AM

(Pre team lists) Seeking Miss Mellie by Michael Grosvenor

Part of Michael felt that he was being paranoid. It was becoming increasingly clear to him that Brianna's issues with him stemmed from a version of reality contained entirely within her head. But she had been so cruel, so beyond anything he could have imagined of her, and it had shaken him. If he was so off the mark with Brianna, what if he was with other people too? It seemed too unlikely that he'd really have done this well at making friends. And there was the one actual solid piece of reality, the one thing Brianna hadn't just invented, in the form of the yearbook. Friends were supposed to tell each other things, and he wondered whether other people would be pissed that he'd let them find out about him and Eris like that – even though it had been how he'd found out too.

On the first Saturday of term, he had made the effort – pretty monumental for a teenage boy – of getting out of bed early. He headed down to the Cascade Hall, ready to catch the breakfast traffic. It would be quiet to start but if it got busy, he would have to switch his hearing aids off against the uncomfortable din. He hovered at what was, in theory, the Pecari table, even though the tables were completely mixed except at the feast, and picked up a croissant even though he wasn't really hungry.

When Mellie came into the hall, he waved, hoping that – if she was angry with him – it wasn't to the point of ignoring him.

“Hey,” he tried to smile at her, although it came off kind of strained. The little shredded pile of croissant next to where he'd been sitting was a further clue to his feelings. “Fancy a walking breakfast?” he asked. Walking breakfasts or outside breakfasts were not an unusual offer from him. Most meals he took by himself because he tried to hit the Hall at awkward times, or – if he didn't manage it – felt bad at the idea of constantly inconveniencing people with picnic-style eating. But on the odd occasion when he happened to coincide with them, or when he had a particular need or wish to speak to them, that was the way he usually made the offer.

13 Michael Grosvenor (Pre team lists) Seeking Miss Mellie 199 Michael Grosvenor 1 5

Mellie Goodwin

January 24, 2013 8:40 AM

Re: (Pre team lists) Seeking Miss Mellie by Mellie Goodwin

Over the summer, Mellie had started finding it more difficult than ever before to wake up in the mornings, but she had written it off mostly as her body trying to get itself used to being really uncomfortable in anticipation of fifth year. She wasn’t an accomplished student and had no delusions of straight Os or even Os at all, but somehow, she still expected to get caught up in the CATS frenzy before it was all over. That would mean stress, breakdowns, attempts at scheming, though she frankly expected to be so bad at that that even she would realize it, and, yes, sleep deprivation.

She had done her best, in light of that, to get up anyway most mornings so it wouldn’t be quite such a shock to her system when she got back to school. This would have worked very well if she just hadn’t gotten used to her mother shaking her awake before Lauren Goodwin left for work every morning. Without that, Mellie was rapidly discovering that she could easily sleep through alarms and had to hope her roommates were noisy as they got ready in the mornings, and today, on a Saturday, she had gotten out of bed because she was hungry but couldn’t be bothered to do more with her long blondish-brown hair than run a brush over it and pull it into a sloppy bun. There were days when she stressed about whether or not she should try to look pretty, but this morning wasn’t one of them, since the very first thought she’d had after deciding she was really awake was about breakfast.

That topic stayed at the top of her mind all the way through the Gardens and into the Cascade Hall, where she found herself being waved to by Michael. She smiled automatically, even though she was suddenly and excruciatingly aware of just how sloppy the bun her hair was in was and of the fact she was wearing the first t-shirt – a pale blue v-necked one, which was at least better than some of the options, but which was still just a t-shirt – she had seen this morning with a pair of jeans and tennis shoes, and went over, glad that the whole ‘girlfriend’ thing didn’t mean he wasn’t talking to her anymore.

“G’ – g’morning,” she said, around a yawn, which did nothing for her feelings of self-conscious embarrassment, which seemed to just be automatic around guys these days. Noticing that Michael seemed tense, though, did distract her from it, as did his question.

Her first impulse was to ask is Eris okay with that?, since even she knew enough about things to know that other girls were not likely to appreciate even a total non-threat like her getting too close to their men, but she suppressed that, too. Maybe he was Eris’ boyfriend now, but he had been Mellie’s friend first, before Eris ever showed up here. She could hang out with him if he still wanted to hang out with her. “Sure,” she said, grabbing a napkin and quickly, not paying too much attention to what she was doing, piling up a croissant, a couple of pieces of toast and a blueberry bagel into it. It wasn’t what she had really had in mind for breakfast, but she could get some real food later if she was still hungry then, and she did like blueberries and toast both a lot, she just hadn’t been thinking about them when she’d come downstairs. “Where do you want to go?” she asked Michael, content to let him take the lead.

16 Mellie Goodwin Re: (Pre team lists) Seeking Miss Mellie 206 Mellie Goodwin 0 5

Michael Grosvenor

January 30, 2013 4:33 PM

And finding her by Michael Grosvenor

“Just outside,” Michael shrugged, smiling in a relieved sort of way when Mellie started stacking food up on a napkin, ready to head out. He went to pick up his croissant and, finding it wasn't there, blinked in slightly surprised embarrassment before quickly grabbing another.

He lead Mellie out through the entrance hall and into the gardens. For a moment, it looked like the second croissant might go the same way as the first, as he peeled a strip off it. However, whilst building up a little pile of shredded food on a plate in the Cascade Hall hadn't bothered him, dropping things – even croissant flakes – outside seemed like littering, so he began to roll the piece between his fingers until it made a little ball. The littering problem then re-presented itself. Therefore he simply kept rolling it. This had the added plus side that he might have some breakfast left by the end of the conversation.

“You and me...” he said, returning his gaze to Mellie. Observing people's faces to help him hear was just habit and thus, even in uncomfortable situations, he couldn't not make eye contact. “Are we ok?” he asked, not really quite sure how to phrase it any better than that.

OOC - I don't mind whether you want to continue this here or on the Gardens page.

13 Michael Grosvenor And finding her 199 Michael Grosvenor 0 5

Mellie Goodwin

January 30, 2013 6:23 PM

Walking with Mr. Michael. by Mellie Goodwin

When Michael began dismembering his second helping of breakfast in much the way he seemed to have taken his first apart as they walked, Mellie started to feel a little worried about him. Michael wanting to go outside rather than staying in the noisy Hall wasn’t unusual, enough that she was able to overlook that some people might be just weird enough to make something out of her doing it with another girl’s boyfriend, but he seemed nervous. Still, she wasn’t sure how to ask without seeming weird, so she just walked with him, nibbling on a piece of toast.

When he began saying ‘you and me’, Mellie braced herself for being told they couldn’t hang out anymore because of his girlfriend, so the question came as a surprise. She stopped walking, frowning in confusion.

“As far as I know,” she said finally, once she decided that no, she wasn’t missing anything in that question, at least not anything she should have picked up on, unless it was something she was supposed to have picked up on a long time ago and hadn’t and there was nothing she could do about it now. She hadn’t, after all, known he and Eris were officially dating until after the Bonfire. Picking up on things was not one of the things Mellie was particularly good at in life. “Why…er, why wouldn’t we be?”

People didn’t, after all, just ask that kind of question out of a clear blue sky. She thought that kind of thing all the time, wondering if she and anyone she got along with were really all right, but even she knew it wasn’t something to just say unless she had something more than just general insecurity behind it. Usually, Mellie could tell when she was being just generally insecure, and even when she wasn't sure, she then usually figured it was better to avoid finding out for sure.

16 Mellie Goodwin Walking with Mr. Michael. 206 Mellie Goodwin 0 5

Michael Grosvenor

January 31, 2013 2:17 PM

Talking with Miss Mellie by Michael Grosvenor

Michael's face absolutely transformed when Mellie reassured him that all was well. The frown that had been playing across his forehead melted away and the distant look in his eyes was replaced by them shining with happiness. It had felt a little like he was talking to Mellie over some kind of invisible wall before and now it just seemed to have vanished. He looked much more like himself. He felt more like himself too. If Mellie wasn't mad, then enough was right with his world.

“Oh..” he faltered, the smile dipping a watt or two when she asked why she might be mad at him. He really hoped he wouldn't give her ideas by answering. “Well, some people... Person, really,” he began. It would probably be quite obvious which of his friends he was suddenly spending less time with but he felt bad naming Brianna nonetheless. And if her assertion that he wasn't really, obviously friends with her was right then maybe people wouldn't notice a difference. That way, they'd only know if he told them it was her, and he would have felt bad doing that – like he was gossiping. This came perilously close to it anyway and his cheeks had already started to turn red. He was likely to be somewhat tomatoey by the time he finished. “They were mad at me over the yearbook. Cos they'd asked me... like months before it whether Eris and I were going out, and I said no – cos we weren't. And then when they saw the yearbook, they got into their head that I'd lied to them, and they're still really mad over it, and some other stuff too. And I didn't think you'd really think that I'd lied to you, seeing as that's...” The sensitive way of putting it would have been 'a bit of a leap of the imagination' but the only term that sprung to Michael's mind was 'kinda crazy' which he felt was too nasty a thing to say, even of an unnamed person, so he just let that sentence go. “I thought you might be mad that I let you find out like that. I mean, friends are meant to talk about stuff and.... stuff. But at that point, it was actually news to me too,” he tried to explain, “I mean, they'd just picked up on a rumour or whatever... or cos we went to the party... I dunno. It wasn't even really true at that point either. But.. some people find it hard to believe that.

“I haven't convinced you that you should be angry after all, right?” he tried to joke, although he did sound slightly like he thought it was a possibility.

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Mellie Goodwin

February 01, 2013 8:24 AM

Questioning Mr. Michael (WotW). by Mellie Goodwin

The change to Michael’s expression was remarkable. Mellie made sure to remember it, in case she needed to vicariously cheer herself up sometime before the year was over – as, she thought ruefully, was more likely than not, considering it was CATS year. Clearly, if she never did it again, she had just said the right thing at the right time just then, and she was glad, even if she didn’t know what had made Michael think they might not be all right.

It made her regret asking the question right away, since he was visibly a little less happy after she did, but he answered at length. The yearbook again; apparently, she hadn’t been the only person who was surprised by it in some ways after she’d taken the time to really look at it. Mellie had to admit, she was kind of relieved about that; she knew she wasn’t very observant in general, missed a lot of things everyone else seemed to take for granted were just obvious, but she had thought, as Michael said, she ought to be a little more aware of her friends than that. She wondered if the person he was talking about – probably a girl, and probably, if she wasn’t totally off-base, poor Brianna, unless there were things about Laurie she had definitely been failing to observe – had wanted to date him, too. Still, that was taking it way harder than it really had to be, she thought. She had been a little stunned at first, but then realized she should have guessed and decided to be happy for her friend that he had found someone special.

“What? No,” she said in rapid succession when he asked if he had succeeded in convincing her she should be mad at him about…stuff. “I’m just glad you’re still talking to me, you know, with the whole…’girlfriend’ thing. I wasn’t sure if that was going to be okay with…everyone.” She finished her piece of toast and thought carefully about how to word her next question. “Just to make sure I’ve got it all straight – so you weren’t dating Eris then, but you are now?”

She was, after all, not at her best when keeping track of details and timelines, and some of his wording had been a little ambiguous. She wouldn’t ask normally, but since they were talking about it already, it seemed okay to seek clarification.

16 Mellie Goodwin Questioning Mr. Michael (WotW). 206 Mellie Goodwin 0 5

Michael Grosvenor

February 03, 2013 2:27 PM

Hugging Miss Mellie :-) by Michael Grosvenor

“Right,” Michael nodded, when Mellie tried to get the sequence of events sorted, “She asked me to go visit over the summer and after it had been put in the year book it kind of made it hard not to talk about it,” he grinned a little awkwardly. It seemed like kind of a funny story, in a way, but he wasn't sure he was ready to share all the details, or that other people would really want to hear them. “Of course I wouldn't ditch you just cos I have a girlfriend!” he exclaimed when Mellie confessed she had worried over that. He briefly wondered whether that had been Brianna's issue – she had seemed like him going out with Eris meant he wouldn't be friends with her – but he would have thought going across the country for her would have demonstrated that he had time for both of them. He decided to push it to the back of his mind. For better or for worse, it was over. He had to stop picking over it and questioning it all and just move on. “And I really can't imagine that 'anyone' would ask that of me,” he added, putting ever so slight air quotations around the word as he didn't think there were too many choices of who Mellie could mean.

“Thanks,” he smiled, glad she couldn't be convinced to be angry with him, “You're the best,” he smiled, wrapping an arm around her shoulder and giving her a squeeze. “I feel so lucky that awesome girls like you and Eris even want to be my friends. The fact that one of you's bonkers enough to want to date me too... It's beyond all the luck I thought I was due. Y'know, 'hearing impaired Teppenpaw' doesn't exactly scream school stud,” he was half joking, and he felt bad that – after Laurie's little pep-talk, he was still putting himself down – but it had the grain of truth; he'd never really thought girls would see him like that. “And then with the whole B- other thing, it started to feel like the universe was trying to level things out. I couldn't have stood it if having this really great thing happen meant I had to loose all my friends.

“Oh, and hey – congratulations are in order to you, Miss Prefect!” he grinned, suddenly remembering, “Well done.”

13 Michael Grosvenor Hugging Miss Mellie :-) 199 Michael Grosvenor 0 5

Mellie Goodwin

February 06, 2013 2:01 PM

Hugging and encouraging. by Mellie Goodwin

It was Mellie’s turn to try a beaming smile on for size when Michael seemed amazed by the very idea that him dating Eris equaled it being reasonable for people to think they might not be able to be friends anymore. “That’s good to know,” she said. “Because, like, every edition I’ve ever read of – uh – my cousin’s subscription to Teen Witch has at least one advice letter about how, you know, if your boyfriend has a friend who’s a girl, you should be worried, so if she was reading that…Agh, I don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m going to shut up about that.”

It was her subscription – she was pretty sure Alison would have sooner run through the streets singing the Chimeras’ fight song while wearing a clown wig than ever touched a copy of Teen Witch, and Mellie didn’t know that much about her cousins on her father’s side – but she hid that she read the thing even from the other girls in her dorm, so she really didn’t want to mention it to a guy friend. If she had caught herself before she started to mention it, she would have…well, not said anything at all after how it was good to know she wasn’t being completely jettisoned for the girlfriend. It wasn’t that she thought reading the magazine was something to be really ashamed of or anything, it was just that she didn’t feel like it was something that ‘fit.’ Even her mom asked if she ever really read them sometimes when one arrived during the summers, so she knew she wasn’t missing any subtleties of how she came across to people.

She hugged him back. “Don’t mention it,” she said to the thanks and hearing she was the best. “Don’t talk about yourself like that, you’re awesome!” she objected to his description of himself. “We’re lucky to have you,” she added.

“Oh – thanks,” she said, blushing but grinning when he congratulated her on becoming prefect. “You could say I was kind of surprised,” she admitted. “I don’t think I really thought about it ahead of time, but if I had, I think I would have thought Sully or Amira would get it. But you would have made a better prefect than I do,” she finished, wondering for a moment if – maybe – the whole hearing-impaired Teppenpaw thing had had something to do with the decision, somehow. Laurie's family money, and thus potential donations, beside someone a lot of the people at this school would think of as inferior...but she decided not to think about that, because Laurie was a nice guy, and because it was too awful to think about.

16 Mellie Goodwin Hugging and encouraging. 206 Mellie Goodwin 0 5

Michael Grosvenor

February 07, 2013 5:33 PM

Returning the favour by Michael Grosvenor

“Maybe there's some special Sonora exception given that not being friends with girls here is pretty impossible unless you want to be a recluse,” Michael grinned. He really thought that kind of thing would be tricky given how much girls outweighed boys at the school. He was also fairly sure everything in girl magazines was crazy. That was what he had surmised from the cover stories he'd glimpsed in passing. He didn't say this though, seeing as Mellie clearly occasionally had a flick through her cousin's copies and – even if she wasn't taking it seriously – he didn't want to risk being rude about her or her relative.

He blushed a little at her compliment. She was the second person this term to tell him he was great as he was. And even he didn't need it spelling out by Eris, so that made three. Three people who had his back and were happy with him just the way he was. That was... loads. Michael had always liked the idea of being popular, and it still had a certain appeal. But knowing he had a few close friends was even more valuable.

“Hey, no putting yourself down either,” he smiled, when Mellie listed all the people she would have put as prefect before herself. “You'll be great at it. You're friendly. You're good to talk to. The Pecaris are a lucky bunch.”

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Mellie Goodwin

February 22, 2013 11:07 AM

Belatedly accepting the compliment. by Mellie Goodwin

Mellie considered Michael’s perspective on the male-female student balance at Sonora and its implications for social relationships. “You might have a point there,” she admitted after a few seconds with a smile. “Lucky me, I guess, then.”

Lucky her, indeed. Mellie was sure she would have lived just fine and gotten on with things if Michael had broken off their friendship because of Eris, but she would have thought it really sucked and would have taken it pretty hard. Michael was the first person at Sonora she thought she had really started to feel sort of comfortable around, even back in first year; she worried about looking like a complete idiot in front of him just like she did with everyone else, sure, but not as much as she usually did on a day to day basis. Most of the time, anyway. Anyway, whatever the case was, she would have hated to have lost him.

She blushed when he returned the favor, listing good things about her that he thought might make a good prefect. “Thanks,” she said, resisting the urge to protest and list her inadequacies more thoroughly. There was nothing she could do by that but probably annoy Michael, since she’d be telling him he was wrong. Even if he was…Ugh, she hated it when things were complicated, as they almost always were, talking to people. She couldn’t help but second-guess herself. At least she was pretty sure he wasn’t going to think she was too arrogant to live with for finally accepting the compliment. “I guess we’ll all just have to do our best,” she added. “All year long, in fact. What do you think of these challenges?” She, herself, was more nervous than anything, not sure how she expected them to go or be for her. She really hoped she got a team she got along with without any trouble.

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