Justin Hardy ā Not Quite Hung-over
Justin was going to murder whomever had decided to leave the curtains on the eastern side of the room open. An unholy shaft of sunlight was pouring into the room, practically setting a spotlight on his disheveled bed and the disheveled boy who lay upon it. Justin was something of an athletic sleeper. He tossed, he turned, he got all tangled up in the sheets and wound up more often than not throwing at least half of his pillows on the floor. He opened his eyes groggily only to be blinded and let out a few grumbled curses as he flailed for a pillow and then pulled it over his face to block out the incredibly offensive light.
He shimmied and rolled off the bed, planting his bare feet on the ground and, with the pillow still protecting him from those cheerful rays, padded to the window and yanked the curtains shut with a vengeance. Doing so triggered a hazy memory of the evening before; him, incredibly drunk on Betterbeer, mincing over to the window and drawing the curtains in order to comply with a stupid dare one of the other Vulpes boys, maybe Flint, maybeā¦ he couldnāt rememberā¦ had issued him. Heād lowered his pajama pants enough to add a second full moon to the night sky, which had resulted in hysterical, boyish laughter from everyone, including him, so if he was going to murder anyone logic dictated that he start with himself.
āFuck logic,ā Justin mumbled, tossing the pillow back onto his bed. Heād probably overdone it last night, butā¦ well, Flint needed a drinking buddy, and heād somehow managed to entice their usually straight-laced house mates to join in the impromptu festivities. Not quite a party, but close enough that he actually felt a note of pride as he searched his effects for his shower flip-flops and caddy. They hadnāt even used a full vial of Betterbeer, and it looked like everyone but him would be sleeping in. He smirked, shaking his head at the sight of Flint out cold on his bed, practically drooling. He took pity on him; in lieu of, say, drawing a depiction of the male genitalia on his face using a Sharpie, he rifled through his bag for a bottle of water and some aspirin and left them on his friendās nightstand.
He spent longer than usual in the shower. He didnāt quite have a hangover, but he wasnāt a morning person on his best day. The toxins lingering in his system were slowing him down, and he liked to embrace the illusion that a nice hot shower would somehow wash them out. There was also the matter of planning the day ahead. Not classes or anything like that; heād breeze through those. No, he needed to sort out what he was doing to win the heart of Emerson Caulfield. The fact that he was able to think about Emerson in the shower and not get, uh, distracted, was clear evidence that his feelings for the Cervus were formidable. He needed to find Fletcher, he remembered as he lingered under the spray. Felix was critical to hisā¦ scheme? Was it a scheme? Heād definitely schemed before, and while there was a lot of planning and manipulation involved, the connotation of scheme hardly seemed to fit the situation. This wasā¦ a quest. A quest for redemption. Someday, bards would sing of it!
Probably not, but, quest had a nice ring to it anyway. Not as nefarious as scheme or as clinical as project. He had to be awake, if he was having a semantics argument with himself, so that meant it was time to get dressed and face the day.
Once heād decked himself out in a snug, worn pair of jeans and a blue and white striped polo shirt, he haphazardly dragged his robe on, secured his wand and messenger bag, and set out. He needed breakfast, badly. Between enchanting the table service, delivering his gift to Em, and seeing to his hidey-hole, heād barely had time to eat last night. His stomach, angry at him for the assault on its lining, rumbled furiously. Getting some food in it would help soak up the last of the booze, as well.
He pushed into the Great Hall wearing a thoughtful smirk and headed straight for the Vulpes table. A quick appraisal indicated that Victor and Teiver were chatting it up, and there was Myra, reading for a change. There were a few others scattered around the room, but Justin was apparently the vanguard for the hungry masses who didnāt get up way too early. He checked out the Cervus table for Em and the Ferre table for Felix, but apparently heād have to make do with his house-mates for the time being.
āMorning Boris, Natasha.ā He sounded a lot more falsely cheerful than he expected, given how much grogginess remained even after his shower. His salutations were of course directed at Victor and Teiver. Neither of them were at the top of Justinās ātrust-worthy peopleā ledger, though Teiver was more mysterious than insidious. He actually liked her, maybe even respected her a little, but unfortunately, she was friends with Calza, which meant she often wound up caught in the flak of his insults. He adopted a simply horrible Russian accent as he continued. āHow ees go-ink diabolical plan to catch moose-and-squirrel?ā He actually stopped, more to be annoying than anything else, and made a show of leaning over to peer at what he knew, without bothering to actually look, to be star charts. Come to think of it, he hadnāt seen Victor at dinner, or in the common room after dinner. Teiver was always skulking about, so her hasty exit was no surprise, but Victorās absenceā¦
Heād need more information before heād be able to engage in any worthwhile deductions. The older boy looked tired, haggard, even more so than usual. Had he even slept? Justinās features didnāt betray his curiosity in the slightest. They were still fixed in his usual devilish smirk as he stood up straight again, bored with the pretense of checking out Teiverās chart. Her best friend the cat was of course underfoot, and Justin gave Garrison a little mock-salute. Like most of the Vulpes, he was well-aware that Teiver actually talked to the feline, and so he tended to treat it a bit more like a person than he did an animal. Probably one of the few reasons Teiver hadn't yet taken Victor's side in the cold-war the two had been enmeshed in for the past few years.