A Coalition Story

Oopsies

Atticus wasn't expecting visitors. He'd already met with Torin and Excalibur to discuss their progress. He'd checked in on Alice earlier, leaving her locked safely in her room to work on a big project for one of her more advanced courses. He'd seen Ravyn during their shared courses, and they hadn't made plans to hang out. In fact, Atticus had explicitly told his best friend that he was planning on spending his evening alone to focus on some projects he had seriously been neglecting due to the recent events with Lev.

So when he heard three distinct knocks at his door, his eyebrows furrowed. He knew instantly that it had to be Ravyn – Atticus had made it a mission years ago to learn how every one of his friends and acquaintances knocked so he could distinguish them easily.

"Ravyn, I told you I need to work on this report, you-" Atticus had started to nag as he opened the door before stopping himself short.

There were tears in Ravyn's eyes. She wasn't crying. Ravyn had only ever cried twice that Atticus knew about. But definite tears were blurring her usually shining eyes. Atticus felt his heart drop into his stomach at the sight. Simultaneously, his blood boiled, and he internally questioned who could be responsible. The obvious answer loomed large in his head.

"What did Zima do?"

Ravyn shook her head, pushing past Atticus and making herself at home in his room immediately. Crawling onto the side of the bed reserved especially for her, she wrapped her arms around herself and looked at Atticus expectantly.

"I didn't come here to discuss that. I need a distraction," she informed him stoically, her usual cool demeanor building back up. "I need my best friend. My joking, spouts off random literature quotes, doesn't take anything too seriously best friend."

She looked up at Atticus with something akin to determination in her eyes. She was not going to discuss whatever Lev had said or done this time, and nothing Atticus could say would change that. Atticus knew better than to even try. If she just needed him to distract her, to cheer her up and make her heart ache a little less, then that was what Atticus was going to do.

"Okay," Atticus nodded, his voice gentle as he climbed into bed next to her. "How bout the 'that's what she said' game?"

Atticus was referring to a game he and Ravyn had played many times. It was something his mother taught him – though she never gave it a name, that was from a drunken night he and Ravyn had played it. After his mother passed, Atticus had refused to do something so childish, despite Alice's pleading to play with her. He refused to do a lot of things after his mother died. But then he met Ravyn, and slowly the pain in his chest eased up. He had found himself enjoying the silly and childish things again. So he taught Ravyn how to play one night, and the two of them did it whenever Atticus was having one of 'those' nights and needed to be reminded that he could still be a kid.

The rules were simple: put on any movie, mute it, and pick characters to do the voices for. You can say absolutely anything, but you cannot quote the actual movie.

Ravyn merely nodded, allowing Atticus to pull up a random movie to start. She would have preferred going out and pulling pranks, maybe doing a little vandalism around the school, but she knew Atticus was trying to keep her from making a mistake. He was keeping her in the safety of his room so that if she did something stupid it wouldn't have too big of repercussions. But also so that if she changed her mind, if she needed to talk and cry, that she could do so in the comfort of his bed. She knew her best friend well enough to know his motivations. Last year, he may have supported her urge to go break things and cause mayhem. But the Atticus next to her today had matured. She supposed the recent events with Lev, Ravyn, and Alice had a lot to do with that.