A Few Self-Indulgent Scenes with Edmund

[illicitresearch]

Who: Zexion & Edmund Pevensie
Where/When: City of Ariel (Pre-Reboot), A Fussy "Prudish" Tearoom on a Chilly Late Afternoon
Warnings: Foodporn, Footsie, All that underaged sex good stuff that comes from a heavily aphro'd game context.


The end of Zexion's nose was still a fierce shade of pink by the time he finally shed his outer layers and unwound his scarf, and it still felt colder than the rest of his face, prompting the habitual rubbing between service as the tea parlous maids bustled about, shooting disapproving looks and tutting and gaping in wide-eyed disapproval at couples fondling each other beneath the twee tables as if that were actually a scandalous offense.

It was all tongue-in-cheek play, of course, and that in itself was marvelous people-watching entertainment, if not for the spoils of his own present company. Upon Edmund's arrival, he held up his own shrunken cup from its saucer with sly guilt playing at the corners of his mouth, along with a rich brown smear that he licked away with far less sublety than was proper, shrugging.

"I know, I know, skipping tea for drinking chocolate's a right punishable offense by your sensibilities,"  He surrendered, easing his shoulderblades back against the parlour chair and setting his cup back down. "But alas, it tempted me, I simply couldn't help myself."

The array of sweets seemed unfairly delectable today too, three tiers of crispy, fudgey and chewy, ganache truffles oozing caramel and delicately half-dipped rolled wafers, rich two-bite black forest cakes and other attractive morsels rolled in crushed nuts and candied peel.

Comments

Thread Dos: The Jolly Good Private Academy Bedfellows

[illicitresearch]

Who: Ienzo & Edmund Pevensie
Where/When: A Private Boys' Academy, 1940's England
Warnings: A slew of Boarding School Tropes, probably (Implied Fagging, Disciplinary, Peer Heirarchy) Underaged Smut


YIKES THERE'S JUST A LOT OF SETUP HERE, I'M SORRY


The term was shaping up to be considerably more hideous than last.

It wasn't even that he was in any position to be picked on, really, as the names of last year's graduates still held considerable weight, and Ienzo had been slavishly dilligent to a considerably tight ring of them. In fact, it was thoroughly unusual for a overly bright boy who passed entrance exams three years ahead of schedule to be treated as an equal among a cabal of senior students, when he certainly wasn't related by blood in any way, and was rumored to have lost both parents.

Ienzo might have been pecked at for his achievements if he'd chose to be precocious about them, but his calculated demeanor had pulled in even tighter and more cautious since the departure of his elder 'peers'. But a merciful administrator must have caught wind of trouble before summer holiday ended, because Ienzo found himself transferred to another dormitory entirely, and rooming with a fresh set of boys his "own age".

Their youth felt alarmingly alien to him. There were tears and fights and punishments inflicted on the entire dormitory forthe outbursts of one or two brats, and older students bullying them in line...

Ienzo sort of fell very aloof to it all, untouchable as he buried himself in his books, to lessons mismatched to the fellows he was rooming with, which was an added reason to be solitary. He didn't speak much, but when he did it was with all the quietly tamed authority of an adult, except on the very rare occasions when darkness winked sudden life into his eyes and something subversive crept its way past his lips, usually too subtley murmured as inward commentary for anyone to notice, but once or twice bringing a rowdy room around to dead silence and long, wary staring.

Then the new master of Religious Studies suggested to one of his blueblooded favorites that Ienzo ought to have his unruly bangs managed, which brought him into a freshly hellish, stonefaced war with an upper year who regularly pinned him down whenever he could with a visciously pointy pair of steel shears, stealing forelocks one at a time, snip by snip. His hair looked more like an assymmetrical modernist mess by the day, but Ienzo staunchly refused to have it all set sensibly, glowering through the jagged ends.

(Braig told a thousand variations of how he lost an eye, absolutely none of them true, but those scissors were beginning to give Ienzo nightmares of becoming a bald cyclops in his own struggles.)

The trees shed their leaves prematurely too, this year, and the frost came unseasonably early. School blazers, doubled kneesocks and an old woodstove set at the opposite end of an institutional row of steel bunks didn't do much to stave off chill. Ienzo spent many nights fiercely lonely and fitfully awake, shifting his knees against the sheets to generate some friction. He missed Even's scoldings and Dilan's gruff pessimism, which had proven an unsual comfort in a backwards way. He missed having stalwart Aeleus to match stride with across campus, even if his firm imprint on the memories of most upper years still proved a salvation from getting kicked around and spat on.

But most of all he missed their enigmatic ringleader's bed, and warm whispers against his ears of nihilistic philosophies born from parts of the world thought thoroughly unsavoury. Stuff that made his mind feel as if it might explode out his ears while his heart hammered and swelled and made his whole body ache with queerest wanting. No one had even heard from him since graduation day. He wasn't off to any pretigious university (though he easily could have) but it surely something greater than the pettiness of formal academia. Where exactly had he gone to? It remained something of a mystery, a riddle he was still trying to piece out in the depths of his abandonment. Maybe behind enemy lines, doing work that required a certain stroke of mad genius. Or maybe he'd been a double agent all along, poisoning student bodies with wild ideas.

The only new boy of the lot in his dorm who merited any attention at all was the academy's second installment from the Pevensie family, who couldn't seem any less like his lionhearted bore of an upright, virtuous brother. Edmund seemed gripped by a peculiar snarl of identity crisis all jangled up in a barely suppressed pubscent cocktail. He seemed unconventionally wise in his pondering eyes and that made him intriguing, particularly when he occasionally piped up like someone who was also well beyond his years in this mind and as well as someone high above his social standing.

Ienzo didn't make efforts to cozy up to someone who seemed so volatile under the surface, because he couldn't afford to attach himself so early in the term. But there would be time for dreaded group projects to get to know him better, maybe. Or that casual literary society that met down in the village pub, which they'd carefully teased one another about sneaking off to after curfew, sometime. It was a testing of the waters that seemed more appetizing the closer he watched, whenever Edmund couldn't catch him looking.

[just_edmund]

Just a couple more years, and the days of institutionalized grammar school education would be well behind him. It couldn't come soon enough for Edmund. Everything about this place was childish and small, including the ridiculous hierarchy of power that seemed so important to everybody but him. The slavish worship to the Bloods, the obsequious system of fagging that left the juniors at the mercy of their elders. None of it would mean anything once he got out of here.

It was a grudging debt he owed to Peter for shielding him from the worst of it. If anybody had been born a Blood, it was Peter. The younger Pevensie showed a much smaller measure of those oh-so-vital talents displayed by the elder, but the combination was enough to earn him the least distasteful tasks and an automatic place in the clubs he wanted to be in - a select few, to be sure.

A few of the fellows were all right here, but nobody he was particularly chummy with, much less would trust with his secrets. Certainly not with the biggest secret of them all. He was barely more than a Punt, but at least he'd dodged that suggestion early on that he could get along very well as a Tart. Not exactly how I'm used to getting information, he thought dryly, hardly able to compare the covert network of spies he'd helped organize beyond Narnia's borders with the petty gossip and sycophantry of the favour-currying Tarts.

Ienzo, now. The new addition to their dorm was an odd duck. Riding, as he was, the coattails of his elders and 'betters', until graduation had left him behind to enjoy the fruits of their social standing. Nevertheless, in all their lessons he clearly had a brain of his own and a gift for letters. He wasn't like the others at this place, and that was grand recommendation in and of itself. Edmund wanted to know more.

Especially when he turned suddenly one day to spot a violet eye - just one, mind - peering at him from behind that jagged curtain of bangs. Edmund blinked, unsettled for a moment, before offering a questioning brow and curl of his lip in return. He wove closer, casual but purposeful, until they could speak privately. "Do I have something on my face? I don't believe I was doing anything shocking just now. Certainly nothing worth such intent scrutiny."

[illicitresearch]

Ienzo wasn't known for being terribly expressive (outside of whatever fell out from under his pen nib) but when Edmund caught him staring the boy's eye widened, his jaw froze till he could force a swallow, glancing away, his shoulders dropping. It took several moments till he could dare to breathe, shaking his head.

"It's nothing." He spoke curtly, a thin murmur as he found his place in Plato, right where he was before his attention had wandered off. "Sorry." Ienzo tacked on hastily at the end, a careful sweetness of nerves that sounded genuine enough to not be snotty perched in his tone, eyes flitting up and then darting down evasively. He set his focus squarely on the steadying text in front of him, rubbing at his upper arm, surpressing a yawn behind his pursed mouth as he struggled not to shy from Pevensie's sudden closeness.

There was an uneasy pause, a quiet that begged further justificaation, and his breath swelled with a shiver as he kept his eyes pinned on a lengthy paragraph and let his vision blur with distraction. He spoke up again before he sorted out a real answer.

"You had a faraway look about you, which was-"

His brow furrowed, squinting as he peeked up again, and their eyes locked in a way that made Ienzo's stomach clench at the suddden intensity. The rest of his body managed to maintain a cool composure, but... perhaps he ought not try to seem too unflappable. That could be read as being too full of himself, erudite and above his bunkmates.

"Please, forgive my rudeness." Ienzo continued, demurely enough to lend a little weight to all the rumors of what he'd been, exactly, in his former clique. "I was staring without any decent reason to."

Which was hardly something he'd admit so plainly, among other witnesses, but the Library was fairly quiet now.

[just_edmund]

Edmund smothered a grin, terribly pleased at catching the other boy in the act. He didn't even cut a very threatening figure, to earn such a reaction. But for whatever reason, he'd garnered some surprise, even discomfort, and he decided to see how far that would take him.

"Not at all," he murmured, a shake of his head as he leaned down with intentional proximity, bending over Ienzo's shoulder to see what he was reading. "Plato. How classic. You don't get enough of him in Collins' lectures?"

It was a rhetorical tease. There was never too much Plato. Everybody knew that.

"Faraway." A funny choice of words. Edmund stared intently at him, trying to decipher just what he'd meant by that, and found himself the recipient of two violet eyes this time. The jolt of it was a little unsettling. He wasn't used to seeing both of Ienzo's eyes. "Well, what was it?" The unfinished thought intrigued him. "Your rudeness, such as it might be, is pardoned if you will tell me why you've been staring at me for weeks in the library. It was you, all this time? When I feel eyes on the back of my neck?"

Edmund raised his eyebrows, but there was good humour behind the inquisition. Exactly what sort of fellow this Ienzo was without the backing of his group to support him (and just why exactly he'd been so thick with them was probably subject to rampant speculation), still remained to be seen. And Edmund wished very much to see it.

[illicitresearch]

The one shoulder he lifts in an elegant shrug seems poised to nudge Edmund's chin out of the way, should he hover any closer. Ienzo's slid some sort of semi-transparent paper over the school text, and makes his notes in a very soft pencil, tiny yet immaculately printed scrawlings, a mess of ideas. There's only so much radical thought you can pull out of Plato, nowadays, but he's still prone to writing notes that are punctuated by question marks and slanted emphasis.

"Lectures are lectures." It's a dismissive sort of answer, and it takes a moment for Ienzo to decide on how he ought to tease back. A dull huff of a sound presses up from his lungs but gets captured by his throat and closed-up mouth, shaking his head. Has it really been weeks now?

"No need to flatter yourself." He tsks crisply, and adopts a relaxed sort of posture that carries considerably less of the New Boy jitters that he's been very fortunate to skip over adopting, up until the horrors of being thrust backwards in his boarding arrangements this year. A worn out Tart by third year? Some of older lads whisper that it's sad, what's become of him, but he still has his scholarship placements, and he'll be off to (hopefully) better places two years before the burning of their envy has time to cool.

"I do notice when you come and go, it's true. Some take refuge here more relibly than others. And I see some of the things you read." He cocks his head toward the books in Edmund's satchel. "But there's a lot to absorb about everyone."

Some just take a little longer to make decisions about, to let them sink in fully. His gaze sits levelly on Edmund's now, thoughtful.

"You're worth mulling over," Ienzo admits, rolling his tongue against the inner pouch of his cheek and rubbing at the smooth like of his jaw. "If that's something your self-esteem desperately needs to hear? Your brother was far simpler to suss out."

That could either be taken as a mild compliment, or a very casual familial insult, but it's certainly an intentional bait, to at least garner an honest reaction.

[just_edmund]

He's on edge. Edmund wonders just what it is that's got Ienzo so rattled. Perhaps he can poke a bit more and pinpoint the source more precisely.

"Oh, I suppose I should be flattered to have the attention - any other fellow here would be preening like a cock in the barnyard - but really I just wanted to know the why of it. There are all sorts of reasons and not all of them are safe ones." He doesn't need much pretext to feign interest in Ienzo's notes to stay close - he really is curious what sort of things the quiet scholar scrawls to himself - and the brief glimpse reveals a keener mind than the average reviser outlining salient points for exams. A hum of interest is his only observation aloud, and he straightens somewhat when Ienzo does, only so that they might still be face to face, more or less.

Some of the things he reads...not all of them on the prescribed curriculum. A good many of them, in fact, and some that he sneaks in and out of the shelves without checking out. Why, one of them is in his satchel right now. He pulls the flap over poor old Nietzche. Then both eyebrows shoot up in a moment of dumbfounded appreciation for Ienzo's conclusions about him.

"Thanks?" Ienzo has a particular talent for flattering and disparaging in the same breath. "It didn't particularly need to hear that, but I'll take it anyways." Peter was never very hard for anybody to figure out, and he didn't see a need to bother puffing up about it. "For what it's worth, there's not many here worth mulling over, but you've just shot to the top of my list."

Edmund taps the well-worn leather of his satchel with three fingers, considering. "I'd venture yours is a story that fares better over a mug of something bracing down in the village of a night. And if you're not of a mind to give me yours, any story will do."

[illicitresearch]

Edmund's caution seems to spark a dull, wry amusement in Ienzo, the thought that his attention should be a dangerous thing. Indeed, he's a bit more cunning about the way he clings to the shadows, and that sort of presence can be unnerving, especially when it's not for any lack of self-certainty. He's the sort of peculiar brat that's yet to have it beaten out of him, though the ongoing ordeal with his bangs has finally settled a sunken first year's weariness into his eyes, more disgusted than particularly terrorized.

The whole of the college seems to know of him in a way that suggests he carries some kind of 'special' reputation, something that goes beyond his academic standing. A old Blood's favorite tossed back among the wolves, or a runty, tenacious whelp in sheep's clothing, tucked in among the yearlings?

"You'd take me for a threat?" Ienzo asks softly, a twist at the corner of his mouth. He stifles a laugh, shaking his head. "It was never my intention to infringe upon your safety, if that helps to quiet any fears."

That self-conscious motion at Edmund's side, adjusting the flap on his bookbag, doesn't go unnoticed, and Ienzo shoots him a fast, hard, warning look and lowers his voice to a serious murmur.

"Reverend Fields, on the other hand, is a fool who believes old Fred there is Nazi Propaganda," There's slick sternness in a word that's scarely uttered out loud these days, an extra breath pulled as if to emphasize that he's not joshing lightly, now. "So you'd best not let him catch you with that out."

And if that tidbit of advice doesn't lock him in at the very top of Edmund's list, nothing else will.

The prodding for storytelling earns a rare audible snort, mostly for the thought that he'd ever nip off school grounds for a bit of tavern fare and a round of self-aggrandizing bravado. Or a tragic Dickensian tale that would require them to bow over steaming mugs.

The truth is, it's very hard to brush those cliches off the bare facts.

"A mug of something bracing?" He mutters, contemptuous, shaking his head with a harsh exhale. His uncurtained eye keeps itself glued to Edmund as he rises, gathering up his books with the decisive air of getting a move on, whether that be back to the dormitory or any other nook they can cram themselves in for a chat without getting flagged down for errands. "It's nothing to brace yourself for. Bet you've heard plenty already, without having to ask me directly."

"But my circumstances are far from orthodox, so... I'll indulge your curiousity. If you really need anything cleared up."

[just_edmund]

"I'd take anybody with half as much observational fortitude as you as a potential threat," Edmund clarifies with a wry look in return, "but if it tickles your fancy to consider yourself an ominous figure, I won't be churlish enough to deny you the pleasure."

Of course, Ienzo has to go and follow it up with something that could indeed be taken as a threat in a certain light. A threat, or a warning, or a friendly caution between schoolmates. Edmund's brows flatten, and his face grows guarded. "Your circle was rumoured to dabble in worse, and yet here you are, innocently speculating on Plato like a good boy," he half-sneers. "Going to turn snitch as well as prig?"

Nobody quite knew what Ienzo's game was anymore. Edmund couldn't give two figs about schoolyard status, and a part of him fancied the thought of an unincorporated scholar to parry wits with as a chum, but there were darker things murmured about that cliquish set than mere exclusivism, eruditry, and pederasty. Just what was Ienzo's part in all of that?

"I've heard things," he agrees, pulling his satchel of books close and taking some of the weight off his shoulder. "Which is far more reason to ask you directly than not. If I believed all I heard in this coll, I'd be the most gullible first year to ever walk these halls. But these unorthodox circumstances...they'd be worth the listen. The bracing mug would merely be to warm up from the bitter walk to the pub."

He eyes Ienzo speculatively. "Running away already? Aren't you worried some poncy senior will get his mitts on you mid-flight?"

[illicitresearch]

Ominous? If only the chilly severity in his eyes could hold people at a distance with any consistency. Ienzo glancees off and mutters something under his breath, a fleeting thought which sounds an awful lot like Gargoyles in the Gurney.

It would make a fine club, for bookish boys with nowhere else to belong, lurking like corvids on a fence.

Snitch was a particularly nasty insult, for a boy who had seen what he'd seen and had never gone wagging his tongue about it. He knew too much about the methodical torments that happened in the basements of his former house, and the fellowship who dared to called it research beyond all pretenses of establishing their pecking order. It wasn't the rules of the game that interested them, because every boy who'd ever been through school knew them, but the science of it, the theory that interested his collegues. Despair could be measured, catalogued, extracted, turned to potent substance in the soul of a broken person. Ienzo knew it had been well-documented, much of it by his very own hand. Those papers had vanished in a locked valet case, along with his friend and master's other polished writings, off to serve some grander purpose in the great scheme of the world.

He heard whispers that his old building had been emptied for an "airing out" over the summer, before term. Wondered what the walls would say if they could speak, if whitewashing over them had ensured their silence.

"Oh, you can read whatever materials you fancy, Pevensie, I don't care a whit about that." Ienzo chuckles flippantly, reaching out to pat the shoulder strap as if to wave off the matter of the satchel's contents entirely.

"But," His fingers closed and tightened around the leather strap, and he pulled firmly enough to reel Edmund in closer, his voice dropping deeper as he lurched up onto tiptoes. Ienzo cut far from an intimidating stature from a distance, but up close there was a certain dangerous intensity in his eyes that made blood between your ears seem thunderous. "If you give that sanctimonous arse and his cassocked cronies reason to have anything on these shelves pitched to the furnace..." God help the upstart moron who gave the chapel any fuel to host a bookburning by quoting Zarathustra like a proud, phenomenally boorish born again atheist on the lawn. "Forget snitching. I'll end you."

Big, hot words, for such a bantam Bint, but at least it's a nobleminded ultimatum.

Ienzo relinquished his hold and took a step back, rattling out a too-tense breath and looking Edmund up and down with a bewildered, owlish sort of incredulity, as if he already regretted getting too confrontational. He let breathing room ease out between them for a moment, uncertain, biting at the insides of his mouth as Edmund casually accused him of dodging the fag-masters. Ienzo rolled his eyes. Weren't they all?

"You're awfully keen on barreling down the hill for a pint today, aren't you?" He clucked back, lofty with reproach. "Nothing's very private about a public house. But I'm certainly not about to entertain a tell-all with you right here, either."

So they were headed off to elsewhere, unless Edmund had any further objections.

[just_edmund]

Lulled by the curiously good-natured shrugging off of his taunt, Edmund blinks and doesn't retreat from the friendly pat. Which makes the sudden tug and even suddener presence of Ienzo getting up in his face to threaten him against book-burnings...

Unexpectedly and inconveniently erotic.

Shite, he sighs wearily to himself, as the automatic pumping of adrenaline courses blood even faster throughout his body. Experiencing the indignities of adolescence for a second time is a fate he'd done little to deserve. It wasn't fair that a simple manhandling by this self-appointed bibliosoph would make his pulse pound in his ears and his spine stiffen and his eyes lock into the dark swirl that pooled in the fierce gaze before him. But so it was.

He was too startled (and discomfited) to make any sort of reply in the moment, and Ienzo had released him and looked for all the world like he had no idea why Edmund was staring at him dumbfounded, by the time he'd collected himself enough to respond. "I'll keep that in mind." Was that sarcasm on his tongue? Hard to say for sure.

"It's been a while," he says, a little testily, still hyperaware of another type of indulgence that he'd done without for too long. "I wouldn't say no to it. But if you have a better place where we won't be at the mercy of the nearest self-congratulatory tosser, lead on."

[illicitresearch]

He's left Edmund blotchy in the face by getting up in his space, and Ienzo can see the way his chest rises and falls, which wasn't really what he'd intended. Aeleus, in a too-late effort and nudging him towards something resembling ethics, had made him swear off bullying unless it was in the defense of someone weaker... obviously no one else here to stand up for, but himself and the legacy of his family's heirlooms.

That, perhaps, was the story worth sharing the vigorous indignities of, as a test to see if this boy could be trusted.

His expression softens to something a wee bit apologetic, until Edmund's brittle reply leaves him arching a brow. Bit young, for a drunkard. Then again, Ienzo's a been a bit young for a lot of things, and there's nothing he hates more than snaring himself in hypocrisies.

"Awhile since what?" There's a hint of guardedness there, too- if Edmund has any inkling of the sorts of arrangements a cadamite is familiar with, he's certainly not entitled to a taste of it, on the relatively equal footing that they are.

But he tames back that urge to build a wall where he has no foothoolds, shoulders dropping.

"I might know of a certain cupboard." He offers, voice low. Braig made a ferreting thief of him early on, and his Senior's set of lockpicks was one of their parting gifts. "Professor Wilkes is off to visit his mam for the weekend, and he keeps a stash of her homemade shrubs there, if you really must tipple off the cold."

[just_edmund]

"Since I've nipped down to the village," was the cagey reply, a faint grin gracing Edmund's face. Confessions of prior lifetimes of benders with wine-gods were best left for another time. He would have been vaguely flattered and appalled all in the same breath to know the reason for that guardedness. As if he was the Blood type. He certainly wasn't fishing for any sort of Tart of his own, not even a taste.

And then - the conciliatory gesture, more than conciliatory, really; positively convivial. "Damn good of you, Buckwald," Edmund says approvingly, his eyes beginning to light up as the adventure of it all took shape in his mind. "Won't that be a lark? How do you propose we do it? It's the place itself that's the real appeal, you know. There's nowhere in this bloody dungeon to call your own."

The change in his mood at the prospect of some fun was remarkable. This was far better than his original idea. He shoulders his satchel more evenly across his torso and hip, so that he can comfortably lean close to hear the rest of the murmured plan. Any whisper of this and there'd be hell to pay. Nothing like a little lockpicking and larceny to bring a couple of fellows together as co-conspirators.

[illicitresearch]

"Well aren't you the dipsomanic fox!" Ienzo blurts with a dry explosion in his mouth that follows, and it's hard to tell if he's impressed that Edmund's dodged his way off campus without anyone noticing, has gotten himself served as a first year, or if he thinks the bravado's a steaming load of bunk. He shakes his head and shares the grinning for a moment, crooked bangs swaying.

"Oh, we'll just set ourselves to some tidying chores near his study and if anyone's around to question it, we tell them one of his favorites sent us." He shrugs cooly, pleased to know the formula here, even if he's only been a part of Braig's escapades on a few select occasions. He's looking like a true mischief-maker here, and that's risky, but at least he knows the Who's Who of other houses and more importantly which Prefects are slavishly devoted to certain teachers. I

t's this insiders knowledge that sets him apart from most of the other new boys, an advantage that doesn't seem to realize the power of fully till he's smoothly finding himself with answers. Leaning in, he suggests the easiest alibi. "...Charlie Blackridge and his mates. They'll be at the Rugby match till dusk."

[just_edmund]

"Er..." Edmund looks nonplussed for a moment. Compared with the binges and excesses of the seniors and their privileged inner circles, his own tolerance for a glass of wine or mug of ale seemed positively harmless. If you called it harmless to bribe one of them into buying a round or two in exchange for an essay that not only would be passing marks but would be believable coming from the dunderhead in question. "Thanks? What can I say, it's a gift."

Ienzo seemed to be thoroughly enjoying laying up the plans. Edmund wonders to himself if this was his first chance at actually coming up with them himself rather than simply doing the bidding of his ringleader. At any rate, Ienzo had an especial knack for it so far, and Edmund found nothing to quibble with in the heist. In fact, the exactitude of his knowledge of a gang's whereabouts and timetables leaves a lasting impression on the younger Pevensie. He casts an admiring glance at the slight youth and his cunning precision, finding Ienzo closer than ever in their conspirings.

"Whew! And here I thought there was something special about you keeping an eye on me. Seems like you just keep an eye on everybody." He chuckles, shakes his head, and turns toward their dormitory so they can drop off their things and make preparations for burglary. "I'm afraid my lockpicking skills are a little rusty, but I'll gladly keep a lookout if you are able to do the dirty deed yourself. Hmm...a pair of gloves in case old Wilkes turns amateur sleuth and decides to dust down his things?"

[illicitresearch]

There's a lightness in his gait, a newfound sense of purpose, and having earnest company's undoubedly the cause. It brings them quickly across the lawn before they can be otherwise waylaid, lady luck on their side. Edmund keeps on conspiring close by his side, and it's actually a welcome thing, not to hold his chin high or be craned down at, in order to stay a part of the conversation.

"Any old handkercheif'll do, my dear Watson." He quips back, rolling his eyes at the thought of the absent-minded professor with his thick glasses and big whiskers puffing on a pipe and pulling out a powder brush. "...Besides, it's just a little nip we're pinching, I hope you're not planning to drink the poor sod dry- He still has essays to grade, and his mother's not well!"

Edmund seems happy to leave most of the incriminating business to him, though, and Ienzo isn't quite sure of him yet to let him play light accomplice, particularly at the door. You never know how easily a fellow might crack under pressure and sell you out in a flash. He's seen it happen enough times.

"Brush the rust off and have at it, man, there's no need to waste an opportunity like Private Education!" Ienzo insists, giving him a sound clap on the shoulder, as if letting him get on his knees in front of the understairs cabinet and fumble with the lockpicks a little is a magnanimous gesture of a learning experience. "Don't worry, I'll have your back."

[just_edmund]

It seemed most were enjoying the fine day rather than being cooped up in the stuffy halls, which was a stroke of luck for their purposes, no need to trot out the excuses yet. Edmund still keeps a lookout as they make the climb and emerge down the sought-upon hallway, just in case there were any observers as keen-eyed as Ienzo marking their movements.

"That wouldn't be very sporting of me, now would it? I'm not that much of a tosspot! Just a tipple or two, enough to prove we could." The point wasn't the drink really; it was the adventure of it all, and a new chum to pull it off with.

Speaking of which...

He's not deceived by the cheeriness and magnanimity. Edmund peers over his shoulder with a decided glower that's intent to skewer his blustery partner in crime for shoving off the dirty work onto him while clearly distrusting him to keep proper lookout - or keep his word. "And how do I know you're being straight with me?" he demands, brandishing a pin and handkerchief from his pocket like they were his makeshift sword and shield rather than the tools of the amateur lockpicking trade. "Using me to break in to get more than cordial - Wilkes has been known to take part in certain Societies, hasn't he? - I wouldn't put it past your set to want access to their notes."

His gaze might not have quite the piercing severity of Ienzo's, but it had the uprightness of truth and the justice of honour (among thieves though it may be) to give an extra force to his inquiries.

[illicitresearch]

Even as Edmund rounds on him, Ienzo seems more interested in the loose tidbit contained in the accusation than Edmund's distrust itself. "Societies?" He's either playing ignorant awfully well, or the rumors really haven't reached his ears. "I hadn't heard."

"But that's interesting..." he frowns, cocking his head and rubbing a forefinger under his lips "What sort of notes could you be referring to?"

"As for my set?" There's a distinct clip to his voice, sharpening for a moment, before he seems to slowly deflate in abandoned defeat, glancing aside. "They're gone." Ienzo says hollowly, so somber that his graduated clique may as well be mistaken for six feet under. "It's just me now."

"That's why they had me change houses." He says suddenly, eyes locked back on Edmund's, speaking more frankly and caustically now on the subject than he has in front of anyone else. "So I could have an appreiation for the whole genuine first-year fagging experience, fair and squarely, at the proper age to be an abused little boy." His lips pull back in a slight sneer, derisive of the system that everyone hates, but evetually accepts. "(But you knew that already, didn't you? Doesn't everyone?)"

Scowling, Ienzo seems to shrug off the subject with a dismissing shake of his head.

"And what of it, if we stole a peek at the old man's papers while we're at it? I wouldn't turn and snitch on you. No point in making enemies among the few sharp ones here. I've no interest in making an archrival of you, Pevensie, no matter how much the Latin professor pits my pronuncion up against yours."

[just_edmund]

Edmund isn't sure either which Ienzo is playing, the loner out of the gossip loop or the cunning schemer angling for more juicy details. Either way, it seems he's hit upon some small piece of interesting trivia that gives him the tiniest bargaining chip. He'll take it.

"Oh, it isn't the sort of thing I'd discuss in hallways," he says wickedly, a shrug of his shoulders in a obliquely casual way. "I'm sure you understand," and there's a knowing twist to his mouth as he looks hard at Zexion, trying to tell the act from the truth in the sudden deflation of grandeur into desolation. There's lots of things you lot wouldn't discuss in hallways, isn't there?

He looks almost pityingly at his painfully raw companion. "I knew that when I was nine year old. You must be new to the educational experience here, eh? Or did your cronies always protect you from that sort of thing, even when you were young?"

Even if Ienzo wants to shake it all off as nothing, Edmund is not one to blindly trust these days. What was at first a harmless schoolboy lark seemed a bit more momentous now. Not that he was about to call it off. Just to tread cautiously as they went. Edmund twists the pin into an L-shaped bracket. "A peek...perhaps. But it would be mere curiosity on my part. For you? Surely you can't be entirely oblivious to your reputation here. If I knew what was good for me, I would probably leave you well enough alone. Fortunately, or unfortunately..."

He bends before the professor's door, and slides his makeshift lockpick in, resigned to settle in for a long few minutes of rattling. Too bad Ienzo hasn't shared his magical set with him...

"I'm not the leaving-well-enough-alone kind."

[illicitresearch]

"I see." Ienzo says drolly, with infinite patience and resigned inscrutability at Edmund's snide insinuations, tucking hands within his pockets and peering round corners while they amble along just be certain no one else is headed in the same direction.

"I was still studying under Lord Ansem's tutelage, when I was nine." He responded. A more privledged little swot than the actual bloods, to be taught directly by a noblity who was considered one of the very well-read trustees. "Until I took the entrance interviews? So... yes. I suppose I was protected in a way. But then you'd never suffered Braig yourself, so... I'd say you're fairly lucky."

Lord Ansem Jr.'s lean-faced enforcer.

Ienzo went sour-faced at mention of his 'reputation', and glanced away in dark-eyed dismisal. "Whatver you think you're implying about me, I suggest that you consider leaving it well enough alone?" He answered finally, after a long quiet of prodding and rattling.

He was still itching with curiousity now, as to what untold society mysteries Wilkes's nots held. Was that something Edmund had just made up on the spot, to leave him wondering what things he didn't know? They weren't nearly close enough mates that he could casually call the other boy's bluff.

"...Will you tell me when we're out of the hallway?" He mutters, shifting his weight foot to foot a little with impatience.

[just_edmund]

Ah yes. One of the privileged few to enjoy a truly private education until the necessary evil of the communal system became inevitable. Edmund couldn't deny his envy at the luxury of it, but he dearly wanted to give the impression that it really didn't mean all that much to him. "Your suffering must have been great indeed," he replies dryly. "To only have to bear a few years of fagging, and a fearsome Braig before that. I count myself lucky indeed."

His sardonic tongue seems irrepressible, even when his arrows find their marks. "I shall...consider it," Edmund promises, tongue between his teeth, focus turning to the precise fit of the pin against each click of the lock. The first one is always easy. The second makes him heave a furtive sigh. Yes, this is always the maddening part. "But I would hardly be a very worthy archrival if I wasn't curious at all about you and your doings."

"Tell you?" He's genuinely confused by the question for a moment. He jiggles at the second key-pin. It creaks stubbornly at him. Budge, damn it. "Oh, about the notes and things? Perhaps I shall. If you give me a good reason to assure me that - how did you put it? - you won't turn and snitch on me. Or turn and snitch whatever you find to those old friends of yours. Gone though they might be."

He's reasonably sure Ienzo still has a way to get in touch with them if he really needed to.

The second gives way, almost grudgingly, and the third groans as he pokes at it. His fingers used to be more adept at this business. He makes an irritated noise at it, as if that will convince the rusty old lock to give up any of its gates. And Ienzo is probably just sitting back, laughing at him. "This was supposed to be a revision for lockpicking, wasn't it? The glories of Private Education in the modern young man's development? A great help, you are!"

[illicitresearch]

"You've had a brother to look out for you, haven't you?" Ienzo protests, folding his arms. His pout is the kind of petulance that usually gets wipe off after the first few months of jeering, except Ienzo's turned it into the sort of full mouthed, surly, bow-lipped thing that all jaded tarts wear after they become immune to being called spoiled crybabies.

Edmund's taking his sweet time with the lock, which probably would be over and done with now if he weren't flapping his mouth.

"I just told you I didn't want an archrival!" The boy hisses hotly, annoyed above all that he'd only been half-listened to. That, or he could only handle sarcasm from certain sources, and Pevensie wasn't one of those trusted wellsprings yet.

A bit tricky to snitch to someone who's made themselves scarce he thinks despairingly, and lapses into a stony quiet while Edmund continues to struggle with the pin. At this rate there won't be any warning nip for them at all, and they'll both return to the dormitories feeling like fools, and Ienzo won't feel particularly guilty about it for setting him to the task, either. It's not his fault Ed's a lousy thief.

"What help would you have me be?" He tsks eventually, looking more bored and restless than ready to burst into laughter. "Can't do it? Want me to run and get my kit?"

[just_edmund]

"We weren't always in the same school," Edmund points out, huffing in between jiggles. He's not trying to delay this - why would he? - he's the one who would get caught red-handed, if any of this goes south. He's just - well - it's been a long time! He does need practice, and it's embarrassing but there it is. He's not born good at everything. He's not Peter. "That's where the problem started, in fact. Whenever he wasn't there to look after me...well, you see how well it's worked out without him here."

Not disastrously, but there's no glory to be had for a lad who doesn't put up a good fight now that his bellicose brother is not there to jump into a brawl, no choice but to follow him into it.

"I know." It's half-chuckled, hearing the heat of frustration in the protest. "You will have to give us a better title, once the day is done."

The silence helps, and he attacks the fourth key-pin at last with a sigh of relief. He can make this work. "I can do it, if you just shut up and let me be for a moment. Here...it's just...ergh go in, damnit all...there!"

With a flourish of pride that gives way to a flush of self-consciousness, he picks the final lock and it springs open with a groaning sag. He pushes the door open. "Lecture unnecessary, Mr. Buckwald. But if there's a lock on the cabinet...you're the one to have at it. Fair's fair."

[illicitresearch]

A better title than archrivals, hm. Ienzo stares out dreamily past the window at the end of the hall, watching over the various sporting clubs at practice, and recalls very late night whispers exchanged where he and his senior mates were all given better monikers. Schemer, he was called then, and this was really quite the juvenile scheme by comparison.

But there was another boy here with him now, for better or worse. The drink might make him merry, if not cleverer with pins.

At last the lock was sprung, and there was really no time for celebrations till they'd slipped inside. Throwing one last glance down the hall, he waited till Edmund had stepped inside, giving the doorknob an extra polishing with his own hanky, then followed after with delicate care in shutting the door behind them.

The history lecturer's office was eccentric, full of decorative odds and ends, cultural artefacts, ships in bottles, piles upon piles of unsorted books. Wilkes wasn't particularly tidy in his habits, and a bit of a doddering pack rat which made him rather easy to filch from, once you could get past the door. Ienzo pulled the shade down at the window, tugged the green-shaded library lamp on at his desk, and let his eyes do a quick pass over the room to see what had changed since the last time he'd been in here. He brought the chair over and stepped around to a certain relic of a powdered wig up on a high bookshelf, perched crookedly on a marble bust.

He extracted a much better shifty pick and wrench from its depths with a grin, hopping down with a sly wink at Edmund, and then crossed to the cupboard, which was no more or less antique than anything else in the office.

"You were saying then, about Wilkes and his societies?" He prompted helpfully, settling crosslegged on the floor as he set to work on the tarnished keyhole. He screwed up his tongue in the corner of his mouth- like the 'uncle' who'd shown him had always done, let his eyes slide far left, and listened- a stupid trick, really, a conman's theatrics, but having ritual always helps. In a moment there's a click, and the cabinet swings open.

"Ah, there's not much left..." Ienzo shoulders sag in disappointment, just long enough to get Edmund peering over his shoulder in worry, so that he can laugh like a tenor bell and then dutifully pass two near-full glass bottles off.

[just_edmund]

Edmund watches him with a mixture of curiosity and mild suspicion, having looked his fill around the room and finding it very much as he'd expect Wilkes's office to look. Of far more pedagogical interest was the sure way Ienzo fetches his tools of the trade from the most unpromising of places. His eyes widen a little when he catches the wink. "You've done this before," he says, rather unnecessarily, but the obvious was too intriguing not to point out. "How...quaint."

So much for Ienzo using him to get into the office. He's surprised those notes haven't already been thoroughly ransacked to the point of making any information that could possibly pumped from him completely obsolete.

Well, in for a penny...

"I suppose there's nothing you couldn't unearth from someone willing to loosen his lips - it's all rumours, you know, but ones that everybody seems to know - so if there's any truth to be found, it will be in this room." Edmund is rather reassuring himself that he's not doing any harm in talking to Ienzo about the matter - no more harm than anyone else less circumspect might do. But first things first.

"Already been hitting it up? Thought you wanted to leave the old boy some grog to souse his worries away." He does peer a bit glumly around to get a view of the situation, before the laughter wafts over him and he grins. "Point, Buckwald." He isn't too buttoned up to laugh at himself when he takes things too seriously sometimes. "A prank within a prank. Cleverly done."

He accepts one of the proffered bottles with a gracious nod of the head. "Now, shall we each tipple off one, to even things out?" The bottle unstoppered, he sniffs appraisingly at it. "I rather wonder, that you hadn't heard a whiff already of our esteemed host's Freemasonery. But there are whispers of darker ones than that, even."

[illicitresearch]

"Not since last spring term." He admits bashfully with a wag of his head, a smile crossing his usually-severe face, which seems both boyish and a bit forlorn. Quaint? Was it? "(Not on my own.)" Ienzo added, fidgeting with the wig pin fashioned into a sturdier pick. "I'd hoped he'd hadn't moved around too much?"

"If there's any truth to be found, we could be here all evening." Because there's certainly quite a bit stacked up all about here for hard evidence to get utterly lost in the shuffle. Idly, he wonders if old Wilkes had kept any of his comrades' final essays in one of the filing cabinets.

Edmund let himself be pranked with a lot less entertainingly furious reactions as Even often had. But it was good to know his ease with it, not that he'd ever taken his new schoolmate for entirely humorless?

He unstoppers the second bottle with a fierce blink and flaring of his nostrils- the burn of alcohol wasn't something he'd ever quite learned to enjoy, and Wilkes' homebrew was stronger stuff by far than tavern ale or hard cider, deceptively sweet with a searing, medicinal burn down the throat. Braig used to take it straight, from a flask, and came here to replenish it often enough that Wilkes had to have known about the casual theft, somehow? Yet he'd never changed the hiding spot, or let it run dry. Ienzo had only ever sipped on it diluted before, tipped helpfully into his tea when his nerves were run down and seasonal sniffles threatened to leave him bedridden.

Not yet so convivial as to rally up a toast, or clink their bottles in cheers, he's the first to set his lips to the shrub and try a swallow, his mouth is full and his nostrils on fire by the time that Edmund's mentioning rumors of Illuminati, and because he has something on the tip of his tongue to say he hurries it, gulping and then doubling forward with a hand clapped over his mouth, muffling a ragged coughing fit.

So much for seeming shrewd and impressive, worldly wise.

With watering eyes ad warming cheeks, Ienzo's lungs finally manage to accept that the swallow had indeed gone down the right pipe after all.

"Oh, well certainly he has all the strange odds and ends, curio obsessions, that might lead one to believe he might belong to some fraternal order," he croaks, leaning forward to intimate in a wilder-eyed whisper. "(he's even got a weird ivory phallus around here somewhere- I've seen it, a big well-polished thing with bollocks attached! Dilan thinks he nicked it from a tribe in equatorial Africa.)" Sitting back, Ienzo leans his shoulder against the cabinet door. "The way you brought it up, it sounded like someone found convincing proof.in his paperwork."

He squints after a moment, tongue till swirling round his mouth to contemplate the flavor left in his mouth- despite its strength, the aftertaste was delightful, a little bit candied and herbal. "...but the professor doesn't exactly seem the type to fraternize much, does he?"