He did, actually. He'd been there for almost the whole thing, sitting quietly and hoping it would conclude itself without him interfering. The only reason he had was because Dylan chose to take his comforting words to Sabel the wrong way. But Kellen had already given her as much as an apology as she deserved, and ignored her.

The continued snuggles were an odd mix of pleasant and unsettling, and his arm was still hanging behind him at an uncomfortable angle. Still, he laughed at what she said, "An angry little thing, indeed. The Canada thing is... well, my father decided on it, and he's rarely home, so," he shrugged, "I'm not going to turn him down."

Nice to smell him? Kellen put a bemused smirk on his face, "Well then I'm glad I put on an extra coat of deodorant, Joshua."

"Sabel," Kellen remarked lightly, "you didn't do any of the dragging, so don't be concerned about that. So, you just sit there and... take your time... and when you've recovered from what they said we'll talk about other things."

Because he sure wasn't going to get Sabel to sob about his misery some more. This was a feast. Happy fun times.

Giving Kellen a weak, and beyond appreciated small smile, Sabel folded his arms on the table top and rested his head in them. He wanted to sleep for a week. He wanted time to rewind and couldn't help but think back on where he might have gone wrong. It only intensified the sting of Alexa and Dylan's words to him, of everything that had happened, bringing unwilling tears back to his eyes.

Frustrated, he tried to force them away, to focus on other things. He wasn't sure how long he rested like that, but slowly he remembered hearing something that brought peaceful memories to the forefront. Frowning a little, he pulled his head up and rested his chin on his arms, blinking through fuzzy vision at Kellen. "Did someone say Canada?"

"AWWWwwwWWWwwwWWWWwwww!" Neptune's little heart just broke on the spot for POOR SABEL. She reached over and touched him lovingly. "Poor baby. Do you need me to come sit with you?" Neptune was just SO motherly sometimes. She petted him like she would her kitten, Lucifur.


Neptune gave Kellen a look from her very cuddly position. "Your friend needs a hug, Kellen Stern." And she'd not hear another word about his trip to Canada until that happened.

Though she did pause to give both Carter and Joshua LOOKS.

"I did," Kellen smiled, "I'm going to be..."

Kellen held it inside as long as he could, but eventually the sigh came out, his eyes closing as the air left his body. Then he nodded, more to himself than anyone else, and untangled his torso from the snuggling position he was in. That done, he rounded the table quickly - luckily they weren't too far from the end - and sat down beside Sabel. And then drew a blank.

"So..." He coughed politely and put an arm around Sabel's shoulders, giving him a few solid pats to the near arm with his other hand, "Just er... feel better and... stop crying. Well, I mean, cry if you need to, but... you'll..." His words ended in a mutter and he patted Sabel's arm a few more times. There. Happy, Bott?

It was the 'naww' sound from Neptune and the touch that finally registered in his mind exactly who was sitting across from. Blinking a few times he kinda stared at Neptune in a daze and then watched as Kellen....hugged him?

In all honesty he wasn't too sure what it was and just sat there for a moment, trying to regather logic. He wasn't crying...not yet...and no he wouldn't cry. This was a feast, he wasn't about to ruin it for his friends.

He felt his eyebrow twitch in confusion for a moment, as he gave Kellen a strange look that told him he was alright and there was no need for the other boy to be so awkward. His eyes flicked to Neptune with brief consideration; this, according to a Bott, he knew, was not a hug, and when Neptune wanted a hug, she wanted a hug.

Plus, it was too tempting to pass up. Letting out a small sigh he turned to face Kellen and instantly threw his arms around the other boy in a tight hug...more of a glomp than anything else.

"We'll cry...if you don't learn how to hug properly." He teased quietly into Kellen's shoulder. He didn't particuarly feel like laughing within all the turmoil inside, but he could let go...just a little.

Neptune rolled her eyes in extreme exasperation at Kellen. He was SO GOOD at SO many things (and SOooooOOoOoo cute doing these things), but he was a horrid hugger.

Sabel on the other hand had it down.


...


But they were leaving her out. She stared for a moment, then disappeared under the table. Neptune was mindful of her hair as she crabwalked to the other side to put herself in the middle of this hug. She tapped their knees so they KNEW she was coming over/up to join them. "Move over, boys!"

"ARGH!" Kellen released Sabel like he was hot coals and his arms waved around in the air in an inelegant flail, "What are...?! Stop that, you! You're supposed to be grieving, not glomping!"

He put his hands on Sabel's shoulders and pushed the boy off, "I will learn how to hug this summer. I'll practice with a mannequin all day. Now get off me."

He looked down at Neptune, "And just what exactly are you doing under the table, Miss Bott?" Because if this table was anything like the Ravenclaw one, there were probably chewed globs of Droobles' Best Blowing Gum stuck everywhere on the underside.

Sabel couldn't help but let out the most pathetic chuckle in all of Sabel Dakest History at Kellen's indignant flailing. A small smile served as his regular grin as the boy somehow managed to pry him off, and he gave a small, one shouldered shrug. "You were the one that started the hug...thing..." Another pathetic chuckle and he obliged Kellen, giving him his space back.

And then Neptune was under the table, looking up at them. Blinking, Sabel instinctively offered her a hand. His expression gave the same question as Kellen's inquiry; no need to repeat it verbally.

Neptune sighed LOUDER with even MORE exasperation. "Kellen. Where is your brain? Just because you sit over here....," and the rest of her speech was muffled with her squeezing and maneuvering up to the spot between the boys.


She took Sabel's hand, who had apparently inherited all of Kellen's brains, and pulled herself up to sit. Neptune pushed her curls back and then put an arm around each boys' back.

HUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG.


"Don't you feel SO much better, Sabel? What was that banshee on about? You should tell on her."

"That's because it was supposed to be a consoling hug thing... er... hug. Not a dramatic embrace." His feathers were ruffled, that was for sure. No boy of 15 likes to be told he's rubbish at anything, much less hugging. Even if it was true. Especially if it was true.

Kellen reached over Neptune and wrapped an arm around Sabel's head, pulling him closer to Neptune's own locks, "There, is that better?" He grinned at Neptune's description of the screeching girl. Banshee, indeed.

Another term was finished already?!

Chris Potter walked into the Great Hall gloomier than he was last term. Each time he came in here for a End-of-the-Term feast it was a sadder and sadder occasion. For one thing he was seeing more and more friends graduate and another it was one term closer to his own departer into the world. But nevertheless, Chris put on a smile and walked into the Hall to make his last moments with his leaving friends, great ones.

He walked over to the Gryffindor table first to thanks and congradulate them on all their hard work coming out of last place in the House Cup race. He came to sit with Jack and a lot of others he knew. "Hey Guys! Thanks for being such a great group of friends this term, and for working so hard for House points! You all are great!" he really meant it and was going to miss any of them that had to leave.

For once, Sabel didn't freak when Neptune hugged Kellen and him, and instead wrapped an arm around her waist in thanks. Really, they were making a big show of things; he didn't want them to. He would deal with it, and they should enjoy the feast. But then, at the same time, he was grateful that they were acting as they were.

"I do..feel a little better." Like, a micrometer better. He forced a small smile and shook his head, looking down. "She's...not a banshee...she's...just been through a lot." He'd leave it at that for the time being; it wasn't the time for the story of the destruction of innocence.

Again, the pathetic chuckle left him as Kellen's antics of hugging his head against Neptune's shoulder removed him from his thoughts. Reaching up, he smacked the boy's hand lightly. "That's called altering my vertebrae to a strange angle that is not of natural conformity."

Neptune's smile couldn't have been bigger or more genuine. Sabel to the left of her, Kellen on the right. She was stuck in the middle of two REALLY REALLY GOOD people. And they were kind of huddled and head hugging! Awwww... Neptune sure did love her friends. Particularly since SOME PEOPLE (LINA) had been SoooOOoOOOOoo mean to her lately.

.... and then it sort of happened. Neptune first got Sabel, putting a quick (but loving and friendly) itty bitty kissy on his cheek. CLEARLY he needed it. CLEARLY he had a broken heart.


Next was Kellen. He wasn't QUITE close enough, so in her haphazard attempt to replicate the LOVE she'd given Sabel to Kellen.... she missed his cheek and landed the very, very corner of his lips.

Oops. Giggling ensued. "I sure do like you boys." Neptune was embarrassed and trying hard to hide her reddening cheeks. Stupid Red Table.

"It's good for your vertebrae to move and flex," Kellen quipped, "it'll help prevent arthritis in old..."

He blinked. Blinked and looked down at Neptune, his face slowly going red as the side of his mouth relayed to his brain what had just happened to it. Kellen cleared he throat and stopped holding Sabel in a headlock, his hand moving instead to subconsciously rub the underside of his jaw. Neptune's giggles sure weren't helping all that much.

Trying to think of something to say, his brain reverted back to his initial reason for coming here, "So! What are you planning for the summer, Sabel?" Smooth... as sandpaper.

Sabel was about to blink in surprise, to stare at her a little from the small peck, he couldn't say he was used to that, but then he caught her gesture to Kellen and his response. A small smile touched his lips and he turned his eyes down to his hands, wondering if he should give the two of them space.

Then Kellen was asking him a question and he blinked, looking over. "Summer?" It was a word that didn't even seem to be in his vocabulary at the moment. In all truth he had forgotten about it with everything that had been going on. "I...don't know?"

Neptune STARED at the table with unmatched determination. Normally she owned up to everything she ever did as justifiable and within her rights to do whatever it was she had done.


But she couldn't LOOK at either boy. Just couldn't. Nor could she get her cheeks to calm down.


Instead of commenting, Neptune traced the lines on the table with her finger. She admired her pink and sparkly nail polish.

Kellen found his eyes following Neptune's nails as she moved them around the table, then he shook his head and forced himself to look back at Sabel. If Neptune wasn't going to say anything and act... well, if it wasn't her he'd have said embarrassed, so maybe contemplative? Because Botts never acted embarrassed? Anyway, if she was going to keep silent he was going to focus on the conversation he'd tossed into the air.

"Well, because my father and I are coming to Canada. To go backpacking and camping and... well maybe we could stop by wherever you are and visit?" Or maybe you'd like to come too?

Being slightly oblivious to Neptune's further...state, Sabel gave her a small, short hug with his one arm around her waist, his eyes watching Kellen. It may as well have been a 'thank you' hug to her, something, upon his first meeting with the Bott, he had never imagined himself giving to her.

He had to blink a few times to make sure he heard the other boy right. "You're coming to Canada?" His excitment grew by another micrometer; he still couldn't bring a full smile to his face, and settled with a small, somewhat sad one. "Since when? Backpacking and hiking? Dude...that's wicked. Whereabouts?"

The evasion continued. Neptune latched on to Sabel and wrapped BOTH her arms around him in what HAD to be the best hug ever. She shied away from Kellen and temporarily pretended he didn't exist.

"You have to send me a postcard while you're there, Sabel." Assuming he'd go, too? "You have to send me one every time you think of me!" Which, to Neptune at least, she figured would be daily.

"Everywhere," this was said with a dramatic roll of the eyes. "If it doesn't involve civilization, I'll be in it." He hesitated, knowing how poorly this comparison had gone over with Raiden, but asked, "Do you... know what Disney is?"

Kellen glanced down at Neptune: every time? Well, it appeared she'd recovered from whatever was going on in her head before, though it was pretty clear she was ignoring him. Oh well. He grinned at Sabel, "Where is it you're from, again?"

Sabel blinked a little down at Neptune, surprised not only by the hug, but her words as well. "Postcards...are expensive. I...can try to send you at least one." He didn't pull away from the girl, realizing that for once, especially in this state, it actually felt good to have and return a hug. As for the postcard...It wouldn't hurt, would it? To send one postcard out?

His eyes went back to Kellen as he listened to the boy. "That...sounds like quite the adventure. But..what does it have to do with Disney?" The connection just wasn't working in Sabel's mind. "And I'm from Kamloops...British Columbia."

Neptune PEEKED at Kellen, feeling less.... whatever she was feeling. But she still kept Sabel close, her security blanket. Usually that's what Kellen was.

"You're poor?" Really? Neptune hadn't ever gotten that VIBE from Sabel. Post cards were not... expensive. "Really?" POOR SABEL. Neptune was going to tell her mother and she was going to have him taken care of. Poor.. Sabel.

"British Columbia? That's... on the West coast, right?" He was scrambling to remember the map he'd looked up in the library. Kellen shook his head with a smile, "Not a whole lot, but are you familiar with Beauty and the Beast? Because my father is, essentially, Gaston." A walking stereotype.

He caught the look Neptune was giving him and sighed, "I'm not going to eat you, Neptune, you just... surprised me, is all." He didn't think it was particularly polite of her to ask about Sabel being poor or not, but drawing attention to it would only make it worse.

He would admit right then and there, he had strange friends...strange friends he adored.

Looking down at Neptune he considered her words, wondering exactly what her definition of 'poor' was. If she got that from him say that two dollar postcards were expensive to send every day, then he probably was poor by her books, but he figured another angle was probably best. "We're...not poor. I would say...moderately endowed?" Well off was another way to put it, but again, to Neptune, that might hold an entirely different meaning.

"Yes it's on the west coast -- Gaston?" Sabel blinked up at Kellen and tried to imagine him having a father like Gaston. He was quite familiar with the movie and frankly had hated how rude and self-centered the villan had been when he was a kid. Trying to picture Kellen's father as such a man was like trying to say that seven foot dwarfs existed; those were called elves, a completely different breed. As Kellen and Chaucer were a much more refined model of the human species than most....wouldn't their fathers also be?

The look being cast between Neptune and the other boy however, put a pause to Sabel's thoughts and once again he wondered if he should leave. He had learnt, rather harshly that day, that things sometimes went better without him around. He glanced at Kellen, looking for direction.

Neptune gave Sabel the doubtful look his explanation deserved. "That's not very reassuring. And I like you entirely too much to worry whether or not you're doing without. You WILL let me know if you ever need something?" Neptune finally pulled back enough to really LOOK at Sabel. He would agree or she'd PINCH him.


....


"You surprised me." Stern.