Xavier Lundstrom
July 04, 2021 10:10 PM
Seeking normality by Xavier Lundstrom
Xavier needed normal. Just for a bit. Just for a change from sitting in class feeling like a failure or lying in a darkened room, feeling like his head was exploding. He was doing what he always did in those situations, and was heading for MARS, his rollerblades tucked under his arm. He’d kept up a fairly steady practice since starting school. He’d always enjoyed it but he’d rarely needed it the way he did now. It was the one thing he was good at. It choked him up a little that the list was so short, but it made that feeling as he glided down a ramp all the more special. Sure, he could literally fly now, and that was one area where he wasn’t even lagging behind his classmates. But somehow, this was still what felt like flying. It was the thing where he felt that in his heart as well as his body.He usually did it by himself. He wasn’t really sure why, or how he’d got into that routine. At home, it had always been a sociable thing – Joel went, and Joel’s friends went, and they were cool and he wanted to be part of that. Here… Was it the fact that he’d probably have to explain it? Was it that he didn’t want to feel like he was replacing Joel? That last part was stupid, seeing as Joel skated all the time with other people, and Xavier was kind of the tag along. Maybe he’d just needed headspace.
Still, this time as he headed towards MARS, and saw someone giving him a curious glance, he paused.
“I’m heading to MARS to skate.” He held up a shoe and ran his hand along the wheels, hoping that sufficed as demonstration if they weren’t familiar. He didn’t exactly want to start explaining in case they were Muggleborn cos that would be weird and awkward. “Want to join?” he asked.
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Xavier Lundstrom
Seeking normality
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Oz Spellman
July 04, 2021 10:11 PM
You got me by Oz Spellman
Oz hadn’t really had much interaction with his new neighbours since the start of term. Billy and Gus were more than enough to keep his life fairly full when he was in Pecari, and as the first year boys had each other, it didn’t seem mean to not worry too much about them. He knew from class that Alexei was foreign (which was fine, obviously) and that Xavier kept being excused from class for being sick, even though he looked more or less fine whenever he asked to leave. The teachers seemed to take his word for it that he was sick. Oz wasn’t sure whether this was because they knew something, or because Xavier just radiated suburban middle-class niceness that teachers inherently trusted. Oz had heard a rumour that he was being let off for headaches, which was sort of pathetic.Still, as he walked through the corridors and saw Xavier heading the opposite way with a pair of rollerblades, his curiosity was piqued. Maybe Xavier wasn’t a one-hundred percent a bougie little sissy. Oz had tried roller-blading once, on a borrowed set that were far too big for him, and spent most of his turn face down on the concrete. He would have liked to have been able to do it properly.
“Sure.” He nodded casually at the invite, like it was no big deal. He didn’t have his own blades but he figured that problem was pretty obvious, and Xavier was willing to share. Hopefully they were a similar size.
He followed Xavier to MARS, finding that the room provided him a set of skates and all the relevant safety equipment when he walked in. He began by pulling the skates on.
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Oz Spellman
You got me
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Xavier Lundstrom
July 04, 2021 10:11 PM
Close enough by Xavier Lundstrom
Oz Spellman was gonna be his skating buddy for the day. Alright then. It wasn’t like Xavier knew nothing about him. Oz lived next door, and was hard not to notice both during class and around the common room. He was loud to the point of being obnoxious, and didn’t seem to know when not to push his luck. Xavier had generally found that about the group of second year boys, though Gus had been perfectly nice when he’d worked with him in herbology. Maybe Oz was less of an idiot when you got him one to one. He firmly pushed back the fact that his crazy bean-induced hallucinations had included Oz with his shirt off. Admittedly, given that Billy was the red-haired gawky one, and Gus was the fat one, that had left Oz as being the cutest of the second year boys, but it was definitely more of a title-by-default than anything else.They made their way into MARS, which provided skates and pads for Oz. The latter of which he appeared to be ignoring.
“Hey, you need that stuff first – it goes on your arms and legs. It stops you getting hurt when you fall.” Xavier pointed to the pile of protective equipment. Even for Quidditch, wizards padded up a little. He guessed most people didn’t pad up for ice-skating, which was kind of weird now he thought about it, because ice was pretty hard when you fell on it too.
“Like this.” He showed which way up an elbow pad needed to be. “Look, just because they can fix a broken bone up in a second doesn’t mean it’s fun getting one,” he pointed out. “Wrist fractures are super common with this kind of skating.”
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Xavier Lundstrom
Close enough
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Oz Spellman
July 04, 2021 10:13 PM
Hey, I'm normal by Oz Spellman
OOC: CW - homophobic microaggressions BIC:
Oz raised his eyebrows as Xavier told him to put pads on. His expression was meant to convey his disdain for the safety equipment, because no one back home bothered – it might protect you from the falls, but that was gonna be more than made up for by the verbal and potentially physical consequences of putting it on in the first place.
Xavier, however, seemed to think that Oz’s expression was one of confusion as he began explaining what safety equipment was, and how to put it on.
“Yeah, I know what an elbow pad is.” He gave an amused smirk. “But wearing them’s gay.” Oz rolled his eyes at the protective equipment. He knew he wasn’t supposed to say that word in that way, and he felt the mild stab of guilt that he always did when his brain went faster than the rules his mom had tried to drum into it, and he broke one by accident. Adults liked to spell out right from wrong like it was very easy but when everyone else kept saying or doing the wrong thing, it was hard not to get tripped into doing it too. Even when adults acknowledged ‘I know it’s hard when everyone else…’ they offered very few solutions other than ‘be sensible’ or ‘tell us.’ It wasn’t the worst rule he’d broken though, and it probably wouldn’t matter.
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Oz Spellman
Hey, I'm normal
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Xavier Lundstrom
July 04, 2021 10:15 PM
So am I by Xavier Lundstrom
Xavier was most of the way through his own pads when Oz answered. Xavier was familiar with the pads, enough to slip them on in a few minutes, not having to worry about which way an elbow went or where the straps on his skates needed to be. He had planned to go slow and help Oz, but now he sped up.“I’m pretty sure that’s to do with whether you fancy boys than whether you use kneepads.” Xavier glared. He slipped his feet into his skates, fiddling with the velcro strap. It was weird. He knew Oz probably didn’t mean anything by that. It wasn’t like Xavier had never heard anyone use it before. It hadn’t been said very many times directly to him though. “So… I’m gay.” He pulled the strap tight with a decisive scrape, leaving it to hang in the air and make Oz wonder whether he meant he was gonna use knee-pads regardless of what he said, or something more.
He pushed himself to his feet, gliding effortlessly away. He was pretty sure Oz was going to struggle without his help, but maybe falling on his face a few times would help the second year recalibrate how much of a butt he wanted to be.
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Xavier Lundstrom
So am I
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Oz Spellman
July 04, 2021 10:17 PM
Yeah but wait what?!?!? by Oz Spellman
OOC: CW -as before BIC:
Like a lot of things he’d done, Oz regretted the word more or less as soon as it was out of his mouth. Xavier’s reaction only made the mild guilt he’d felt intensify. Clearly he had a problem with this.
He struggled onto his wheeled feet, which immediately splayed out from under him like an unsteady baby fawn. He flinched at the way his hand went down against the concrete, though it only grazed slightly. Xavier’s point about broken bones hit a bigger nerve than he could have known. The speed of fixing them really wasn’t the main issue as far as Oz was concerned—the cost was. He was secretly kind of glad that Xavier wanted him to wear the pads, even if they looked super dorky. Breaking a bone wasn’t an experience he ever wanted to repeat.
He sat, pulling the skates back off, and beginning to strap the pads on.
“Sorry,” he called out to Xavier. “My mom says not to use that word like that. But then everyone else does.” He was pretty sure Xavier had been just trying to point out that he was using the safety pads, not anything else. “You shouldn’t say it about yourself though. You seem pretty cool.”
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Oz Spellman
Yeah but wait what?!?!?
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Xavier Lundstrom
July 04, 2021 10:18 PM
*stares pointedly* by Xavier Lundstrom
“And it’s not possible to be both?”There was every possibility that Oz wasn’t mean, just an idiot. Xavier dropped a nice smooth slide down one of the ramps—something he knew would have currency with a boy like Oz, and which made him feel like he had the upper hand. Although he barely needed it, given that Oz was tripping over himself both physically and metaphorically at this point.
“Why not say it, if it’s true?” he asked. He wasn’t sure why he was being quite so belligerent and decisive about this with Oz. Maybe because he was challenging him to not be so gay, which wasn’t really a barrier Xavier had ever had put up against him before. It had always been a case of ‘if that’s how you are, that’s how you are.’ And there had still very much been the ‘if.’ It had been creeping towards ninety-five percent certain in his mind—he’d always called other boys ‘pretty,’ which wasn’t a very straight thing to do. And there was this one friend of Joel’s, and whenever he high-fived Xavier for pulling off a skate trick it just felt extra awesome. He could say it was because the guy had cool shirts, or because he was one of the best skaters, but he wasn’t like.. the very best, and Xavier was pretty sure it was more because of the way he smiled. The reason for the last five percent of doubt was because he still felt sort unsure what all the fuss over kissing was about. When he spent imaginary time in the skatepark one on one with Noah, it usually involved a twisted ankle and someone to lean on. It varied whether it was Noah rescuing him or the other way round. Still, Oz’s apparent insistence that he was too cool to be gay, whatever that meant, was enough to tip him over the remaining five percent, or at least to claim it.
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Xavier Lundstrom
*stares pointedly*
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Oz Spellman
July 04, 2021 10:19 PM
*shuts up* by Oz Spellman
OOC: CW - as before BIC:
“Urgh, that’s not what I meant.” Oz rolled his eyes as Xavier twisted his words. Although Oz was pretty sure that, in actual fact, in the eyes of most of the people he had previously gone to school with, that no, it was absolutely not possible to be both gay and cool, which was why the word was used for anything that really sucked. Xavier being all literal or whatever was not what he needed when he was just—
Wait, what?
Had Xavier just said he was actually gay? Oz full on stared. He wasn’t sure he’d met anyone who was an actual gay before, at least not one who’d say it out loud. That probably also meant that it was worse that he’d used the word, because now it was actually homophobic (or like… He knew it was bad when you used it in the ‘rubbish’ way because that was also homophobic, but it was probably more homophobic if you said it to an actual gay). But also, why was Xavier saying that? Wasn’t it meant to be a big deal to tell people, and he was saying it like it didn’t even matter.
“People will beat the crap out of you if you go around saying that,” he answered Xavier’s question, not quite able to believe he couldn’t work that out for himself. “For crying out loud, people back home want to smack the snot out of Henry for playing dorky card games. Imagine what they’d do to you.” He felt a pang of worry about revealing Henry’s hobby, he sort of hadn’t meant to. It was just something he wasn’t used to being a secret. Everyone back home knew Henry played ‘Magic’ – the fact that everyone knew was the whole fricking problem—so he wasn’t really used to regarding it as something he shouldn’t talk about. But probably someone who was gay wouldn’t beat up Henry for being a sissy. It was sort of like turning on your own.
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Oz Spellman
*shuts up*
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Xavier Lundstrom
July 04, 2021 10:19 PM
Better by Xavier Lundstrom
“Well, I’m glad I don’t come from where you do then.” Xavier crossed his arms and looked down at Oz. Maybe it was the fact that he was physically, literally looking down at him. Maybe it was the way the words crashed into the silence, sounding awkward and horrible in a way they hadn’t inside his head. Either way, the second they were out of his mouth, he heard how wrong they were.He was glad he wasn’t where Oz was from, he couldn’t deny that. But Oz was still from there. A place where kids got beat up and called names, and all the small clues that had been building throughout the conversation came together to form a not very nice picture. One that Xavier shouldn’t be sneering at.
Maybe Oz wasn’t mean. Maybe he wasn’t even an idiot. Or like, clearly he was. In a lot of ways. But maybe they weren’t all his fault.
“Sorry. And I’m sorry they beat up Henry.” He swallowed hard, thinking about all the ways Henry didn’t draw attention to himself. He’d assumed it was a twin thing, naturally being the opposite or something, like all the energy had gone into Oz (or like Henry wanted to make doubly sure no one mistook him for his brother, which was a move Xavier definitely couldn’t blame him for). “Is that why he’s kinda quiet?
“And I think I’ll be okay. We have openly gay married teachers. I think here’s pretty open-minded. No one here picks on Henry, right?” he checked, half still providing evidence that he would be fine, and half just concerned.
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Xavier Lundstrom
Better
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Oz Spellman
July 04, 2021 10:19 PM
So... skating? by Oz Spellman
Oz flushed bright red at Xavier’s words, his jaw clenching. He couldn’t exactly defend where he was from, it mega-sucked and he would be the first to say so. But Xavier didn’t get to look down his posh-boy nose at Oz for it. He was just debating how unfair it was to football tackle a gay eleven-year-old on rollerskates, when Xavier backed down and apologised. Oz was still kind of miffed, but he was quickly distracted by Xavier’s other comments.“I said they want to. I didn’t say they get to,” he glared. “Like heck I’d let them. What kind of brother do you think I am?” He stared a hole through Xavier’s eyes for a second before realizing he wasn’t sure he wanted Xavier to answer that, or to dig into that topic any further. His gaze dropped to the wrist guard he’d been putting on, fiddling the awkward thing into place. Hopefully his answer covered whether anyone gave Henry hassle here too. He was pretty sure it must be clear that they did not, seeing as Oz was also here.
“So, are we skating or what?” he asked. Meaning ‘how on earth do I stand up in these things?’ and hoping that Xavier was at least somewhat more inclined to help now.
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Oz Spellman
So... skating?
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