[CENTER][img] https://i.imgur.com/dmxTQU2.png [/img][/CENTER][indent][sub][COLOR=SILVER][B]Location:[/B][/COLOR] [I]Stadium – PRCU, Dundas Island[/I][/sub][sup][right][COLOR=SILVER][b]First Class #2.49:[/b][/COLOR] [I]Squares and Circles[/I][/right][/sup][/indent][sub][hr][/sub][INDENT][sub][color=SILVER][B]Interaction(s):[/B][/COLOR] [I]Yay Teams…[/I][/sub][SUP][RIGHT][COLOR=SILVER][b]Previously:[/b][/COLOR] [I]Spilling Over[/I][/right][/SUP]
[INDENT]Rocking back and forth heel to toe as Dr. Lehrer provided the introduction into an event Lucas wasn’t sure anyone had been looking forward to, he couldn’t stop his eyes from wandering across the crowd watching them. He didn’t really get it. This whole thing. The school teams he knew were sports or competitions and homeroom. Since they weren’t playing anything and were taking classes together, he’d mostly equated it with homeroom on a smaller scale. Hadn’t really thought any further than that until he’d gotten stuck trying to connect the names of his team members to their voices from his P.T. shirt. Ended up catching the wrong voices, listening to short-lived screams, and drowning in waterlogged fabric as he fell into each sullen silence between Hyperion’s picking out the pieces while the rain ran through the weave with gravity towards the next grand claim. Played it all on repeat often enough he could quote the gods into worshipping the ground they walked on and had so many aching reminders of what happened when powerful people picked you up and dropped you like a hot potato that his bruises felt bruised. 

He hadn’t gone splat because he hadn’t been that high—and he wasn’t an actual hot potato—but Banjo had… 

He didn’t remember that part. 

He didn’t remember much of that night, really. He forgot about a lot of things all the time, pushed them to the back of his mind so he wouldn’t have to think about it. This time at least, he hadn’t forgotten, he just hadn’t noticed. Would have been nice if he didn’t have to know either. But it was his shirt… It might not have the whole story, but it had enough. Too much. After Dr. Miranda’s calm voice cut through his numbed reviewing of Hyperion’s attack and pulled him back to H.E.A.T. and raising the temperature from storm-wet chill to sunny day and pizza-oven hot, he’d gone looking for her. Found the pineapple lady first. 

Jess. She was Jess, not Pineapples.

Handed her the shirt and told her he didn’t want it while asking about the team swap in the same breath. He wasn’t sure when the shirt ended up back in his hands—though he’d tossed it into a corner as soon as he got back to his room—but he’d at least learned a bit more about the swap. Mostly, that it was still happening, and that it was a bigger deal than he’d thought. He wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be, but anything made into public spectacle had to be bigger than the bare bones made it seem, right?

He'd been thinking about it off and on ever since. Nothing concrete, not really wondering which team he should pick. [i]Who[/i] he should pick. If staying or going was bad. But the more the walls started making him uneasy, counting down the time until he could leave them for good, the more it started weighing on him. 

The teams weren’t perfect. Nothing and nobody ever was. But they’d all fallen into place like someone shaking dice. Everyone got a number and a square hole to fill and that was all right for him. Didn’t matter if he couldn’t be a square, he could still fill the space. It was probably that way for most of them. Didn’t get to pick so it didn’t matter, right? But then someone died. Others took the killer’s side. 

Made him even more all right with staying where he was. The other floors felt so thin when he went down the stairs he’d started holding his breath to get out the front door. He didn’t know if all of that was just from the last week, might have been other years and other people all piling on, but either way… He didn’t know what team meant to the rest of them now. And after feeling a lot more nerves around him while they’d all made their way onto this field, even with all the eyes on them, he was thinking things weren’t that casual anymore. Things weren’t all right anymore. It wasn’t just about pretending they could be squares together. Wasn’t even about finding a different group of circles.

That thought had wormed its way deeper and deeper into him until he couldn’t ignore it. And as the ceremony played out and pushed him closer to stepping out or staying still, Lucas didn’t notice his thumb finding its way between his teeth. Didn’t really feel them pressing down. Didn’t know if he was thinking too much or not enough or if he even wanted to do anything about it. Wasn’t his problem, but it would be if he took that step. Switching teams meant switching floors. Staying on thin ice. He didn’t want to deal with it. But was there anyone who would? 

Looking down the line both ways and not seeing anyone he couldn’t get along with—from the beehive to those he’d not really spoken with yet, to the Sierras who’d made him part of their conversation to Ariel, who’d teased the water out of the stegosaurus without needing to be asked twice, they were all just strangers slowly becoming people he could recognise both inside and outside the walls. 

The same could be said for the other teams staying at the Intake House though. Both now and last year, and the year before that, and before that, and on down the line. He didn’t know if he’d miss them, didn’t think they’d miss him. Didn’t know if he’d be making any sort of meaningful point but when first one and then another from Firebird stepped forward, he did too. A beat late, flinching at the whistle and needing a deep breath first, but he did. 

Couldn’t stop now and that made the next step easier.

Turning with a slow-growing sheepish grin to look at them all lined up, he pulled his shoulders right up to his ears. [color=deb887]“Sorry, thanks. I like you guys, okay? You’re nice. It’s nice, all right. But they all need nice, too. Uhh, want your bee back?”[/color] There’d been one crawling on his shoulder for a while now and he wasn’t sure if it belonged to Firebird’s beehive or some… other beehive….

He also hadn’t had a chance to ask Jess if he was about to look really stupid. He’d only asked for the rules he’d thought he’d need to know. Hadn’t asked what happened if students didn’t find their fit. Hadn’t asked if you could only make half a choice. And no one here had said anything new. He'd... sort of been listening... So, he was glad for an excuse to stall the next step. But he didn’t want anyone standing on the field now to feel unwelcome or unable to make the choice they wanted. Being angry wasn’t fun. Neither was being scared, or sad, or guilty. But Blackjack and Eclipse both were full of those things. Probably for different reasons. They all needed to know they weren’t alone or unwelcome. Maybe they needed what their team couldn’t give them. And they couldn’t find that if no one let them in.

So, once the bee was dealt with, he turned back around and marched towards the middle, raising his hands like he was supposed to. Firebird in his left, nothing in his right. If anyone wanted to switch with him, they could. If nobody did, then he could just go back to his spot. 

But as a small group of other students stalled a little way off, with growing frowns as things were said and more people got involved, his shoulders and arms began to sag, and he forgot to keep smiling so others would know he was happy to trade places. He wasn’t hearing everything that was said, and their expressions didn’t make him eager to try, but even so, he was losing what little confidence he’d had in his decision. Were they not even going to let people leave? 

[/INDENT][/INDENT]