"You just don't stop. Alright, let's get moving."

Edmund gets his clothes back on and follows dutifully. 

"I absolutely do stop! With other people."

They are, predictably, earlier than most non-seniors, although their jaunt to the bathrooms means that they're not actually that much earlier—there are still limited times the food queues are open for and no one, not even enclavers, is so well-fed in the Scholomance that they can afford to skip meals very regularly. Saturdays aren't regular, so there are people who choose to gamble on their door wards and catch up on sleep rather than catch up on food, but still.

Scorpius Lake and Edmund Pevensie can afford to take one of the nicer tables that aren't already claimed by enclaves specifically. Scorpius doesn't really feel like dealing with them right now, and even encourages some of the less popular kids to join up. And so he does groan internally when Chloe Rasmussen and Jermaine Thomas from New York decide to come sit with them. Thankfully he doesn't have to deal with Magnus Tebow this time, who doesn't quite stomp his way to the NY enclave table but does look like there is a little bit of steam coming out of his ears.

    "May I?" asks Chloe of two other juniors sitting across the table from Scorpius and his boyfriends, and they scoot enough along to give her and Jermaine some prime space right there.

"I'd think the divination on my head last night would have sufficed to reassure you," Scorpius says with a slight smirk.

    "It did!" she says, brightly with a hint of sheepish to her cheeks. Then she shuts her eyes for a second as if to steel herself and turns to look at Lex. "I came to... apologize. I seem to have misjudged you."

"...well. Um. I didn't... give you much reason to-"

"Sorry, excuse me," Edmund says a bit sharply. "Chloe, you're apologizing, that's lovely, I'm glad that after you wasted pots of mana confirming that Lex hadn't somehow ensnared Lake you feel confident that he's actually a person. What behavior - what algorithm, exactly, are you changing? Apologizing without actually doing anything differently going forward is just manipulation."

    She flushes bright red, looking down at her food, but she can't rightfully ignore it since—Pevensie is London. He has every right to—to be like that at her, as much as anyone does. "I've been a bitch," is what she decides to say—which admission makes even Jermaine flinch a bit, not to mention the other juniors. "So I'd like to not be a bitch."

(Don't mind Scorpius, here, he'll just be looking at Edmund with a little bit of a goofy expression on his face while he reaches down to squeeze Edmund's leg affectionately.)

"Okay, good start. You were in fact being a bitch. You decided that Lex was a maleficer based on zero evidence, then decided that the only reason Scorpius could possibly actually like him was because he had been ensnared somehow. Once you had confirmed that he hadn't, I'm willing to bet you still tried to convince Scorpius to drop him until he tore into you, because you're very carefully not looking at him right now. What you might want to change going forward is how you look at people, and recognize that they are people. I am not, actually, 'London'. I'm Edmund. Hi! I have feelings and interests other than the good of my clave, just like you do! This is Lex, he's indie, he's pure mana, he's a bit of an ass but when I actually engaged with him as a person he turned out to be smart and funny and completely disinterested in politics, and I like to think we're becoming friends. Maybe, instead of expecting him to forgive you, you should try to be worth forgiving."

    At that she raises her eyes again, staring at Edmund with her mouth literally hanging open for the duration, torn between outrage and embarrassment and guilt.

        But a couple of seconds of (painful, agonizing) silence, the other New York kid, Jermaine, gives out a long, low whistle. "I see what you like about him," he tells Scorpius.

"He's great," Scorpius agrees, still looking a little bit dazed. "They're both great." Other hand can squeeze Lex's (overly-bony) thigh affectionately. "This was a great decision. Well done, past Scorpius, you got yourself some great boys."

    And Chloe does actually look at Scorpius when he says that, then at Edmund, and finally at Lex again, before she chews on her bottom lip. "Yeah. Yeah I—yeah." She lowers her eyes to her food once more, too much mortification going on, and adds, "I'll try that."

"Grand!" Edmund starts in on his food.

Lex looks somewhat shellshocked. "...yeah, thanks. Um. Both of you."

Lex deserves a kiss on his cheek. And so does Edmund.

He is very happy he found himself some excellent boys.

Eeeee.

"On that happy note, what the fuck were you doing last night, don't think I forgot about our scheduled yelling."

"I went patrolling!" he says immediately. "I already told you!" He has gotten enough of his energy back after the shower and this fun exchange to manage to keep nearly all guilt out of his voice. Of course, the lady doth still protest too much.

    "You go patrolling at night?" asks one of the hangers-on that sat with them.

"Sometimes!"

"Not twice in a week," Edmund says. "Not on any kind of regular basis. What's different?"

Okay now he has to look down away from Edmund, at his food, and maybe put some of it in his face before saying, "Maybe I was just bored."

Chloe and Jermaine are looking between them in open fascination (especially Chloe, it's very good that she is no longer the current target of Edmund Pevensie).

"There are other cures for boredom. You're a teenager, I'm sure you know a few."

Jermaine is squinting at Scorpius, though, and eventually something clicks in his head. Or at least he seems to think so, with the way his eyes go wide and he leans back on his chair, covering his mouth with a hand to hide the smirk that's threatening to split his face in two.

But Scorpius himself is not looking up, and instead he whines, "Come onnnnn are you really gonna make me sayyyy iiiiit."

"I've no bloody idea what you're talking about, so yes."

He keeps his eyes low, chewing on his lower lip a bit for a second or two. "I was... making up. For. Uh. Lost time." Some food for a break, still not looking up. "Since I didn't... patrol. At all. During work period yesterday."

    "Lake you are such a mess," says Jermaine from behind his hand.

Lex boggles.

"...Lake," Edmund begins. "You don't -"

Lex interrupts him immediately. "You need to make up for enjoying yourself?"

That either caused a flareup on Lex's doom aura or people are just that scared of Lex yelling at his boyfriend, because everyone else flinches away from him—except for Jermaine, who is still holding back snickers.

"I wouldn't put it like that," Scorpius says, a bit miserably. "And what's so funny?"

    "Nuh uh," says Jermaine, "don't use me as a distraction, bro, this is between you and your boyfriends."

"Oh, I'm sure you wouldn't put it like that. You just know in your heart that you've got to make up for existing, so naturally if you're enjoying yourself something's wrong and you'd better say fifty bloody Hail Marys and go kill an argonet, no?"

(In case Scorpius had ideas about getting sympathy from Edmund: nope!)

Yeah no he is pretty sure he's shafted, here.

"I, um. It's." He look up at Lex, finally, and shrugs unhappily. "No one else will do it if I don't."

(The surrounding tables have gone suspiciously silent. So much goss from that table, they're lapping it all up.)