So Close (Alek)

Phin was literally done with life. Done with everything. He had officially lost his best friend to his worst enemy, school was sucking, and Chad wasn't there for him like Phin thought he would be. When Chad offered to take him in, Phin thought it would be the best thing ever. He would have somebody to relate too to talk to about girls, share his problems with, and just over all have somebody who actually cared about him. But when he moved in, it had been the exact opposite. He had come to realize that living with his uncle wasn't going to be as great as it sounded. All Chad ate was pizza rolls. Phin literally facepalmed at Chad's very first Muggle Studies lesson when he introduced the pure-bloods to the "joys" of getting fat off of Pizza rolls. Now that Phin had them for all of the summer term, he was sick of them. He didn't have a taste for ice cream anymore either, as sometimes Chad was lazy and wanted to eat that for breakfast.

But, life with Chad wasn't all too terrible. He was mainly on his own, nobody was telling him what to do, and he could make his own decisions without getting in trouble for them. After a while, Phin didn't think that was a good idea, but now, since he was experimenting with pudding and Bertie Bots Every Flavor Beans, it was nice to not have somebody asking what he was doing every five seconds. But at times, like when he got drunk at the New Years Party, he kind of wished he had somebody yelling at him and telling him that what he did was wrong. But instead, he just ended up in the bathroom humiliated.

So at this point, everything was going wrong for Phineas Button. He had no real guardian, no friends really anymore, and the only promising thing he had going for him was his pudding company, if he could get the formula right. His grades where sucking, and if he didn't pull it together, he'd fail his OWLs which were next term. But Phin was done. Phin was giving up. He was going to run away, and never look back to his Hogwarts days. He wasn't going to talk to Aoife ever again, or get pushed around by Hunter, he was going to make his own rules and be on his own. Which he technically was now, but he had a roof over his head.

Phin shouldered his bag with what little belongings he had. He had made a stop at the apartment and got most of his clothes, and a picture of him and Chad in Italy. That had been the best summer of his life, but he was pretty much done with life with Chad. He had bought a ticket to Diagon Allley and planned on getting a job there. But as soon as the train pulled up, Phin couldn't find himself to move. The warning whistle blew and Phin decided at the last minute to run and catch the train before it was too late. But in doing so, Phin ran straight into an older boy, and Phin's stuff went everywhere. He looked up and panicked as the train pulled away from the station, not even caring to apologize to the man he ran into.

Alek's hair was shorter now, because his brother had visited recently and taken scissors to his hair. He had put up a fight, demanding his brother to leave his place at once, but upon remembering the article the Quibbler had published about Ollivander's, Alek figured it was best to agree. Looking more clean cut, more decent instead of the alcoholic shit he was, would be better for the store. He still had no clue when the guy who'd written the review had come into the store, because he often forgot faces unless they were beautiful girls. This Williams guy, he couldn't remember. Maybe he wore glasses, with greasy blonde hair and a baby blue shirt. Alek certainly remembered a guy looking like that because the smile was ridiculously scary. It made sense, a guy like that would certainly be - to an extent - jealous of Alek's appearance. It was slightly saddening, that that was all he had; just looks. He was born to be looked at, not to paint masterpieces, or write operas, or solve cold cases. He was just...good looking. It seemed like a waste of breaths every time he screwed around with girls, but the moment the drugs hit him, he forgot about that completely.

And, concerning those drugs, Alek had taken a few before heading out. The weather was generically okay, and it meant Alek could go visit Rudi for a while. Except, the visit had not gone so great. His boyfriend had been there when Alek arrived, and it wasn't that he dodn't expect it, it was just too much for him to handle. Alek didn't like him. His name was Taylor, very Americanized if Alek had an opinion on it. He was just, gross. Rudi was into arts and classical music and shit that made girls faint. This Taylor guy was vulgar and had shoulder-length greasy hair, with acne all over his face. Regardless of the fact that Taylor was a guy, Alel couldn't understand how someone like Rudi could even be with someone like Taylor. It wasn't his business anyway, so Alek thought it best to just leave as soon as he'd arrived. Still high, he walked out of the train, with his backpack hung over his shoulder. He'd planned on staying with Rudi for the weekend, but that was obviously not happening now.

In the middle of his regrets, of his ugly thoughts, Alek collided with someone. Not a pretty girl, he could tell. Girls didn't hurt that bad. There was stuff everywhere, too. Clothes and, was that a photograph? With his hand reaching over to his shoulder to rub on the spot the boy had hit him accidentally, Alek watched him struggle to pick everything up. The panicked look on his face almost worried Alek, but he just stayed there, watching him be clumsy. "Who are you running from?" Alek smirked, because the way he looked at the train that was leaving told him this guy wasn't exactly intending to stay. "Don't tell me you are running from wizard police? Or, your mom?" Ah, accents. Fuck them.

Phin was speachless. "Never talk to strangers" that's what he was told to do his whole life. Was it the one piece of Advice he should follow? Or should he go against everything he was taught and make his own rules? That was the delima 14 year old Phin faced at that moment. If only he was just running from his mum or the Wizarding police. Life would be so much easier. At this point, Phin guessed that he was running from everyone. School, Chad, his parents, Aoife, everyone that didn't see the true potential Phin had to offer, Phin was running from. He replied, "I guess you could say that. Though I haven't been caught by the police yet, so my attempts are successful thus far." Maybe Phin really had lost it. Never in a million years would he use the word "thus" in a sentence or in the correct context. Who was he? What had he become? Was he drunk right now? He pinched himself just to make sure. But from what he could tell, Phin was completely sober.

Phin had made a lot of mistakes in his short 14 years of life. This guy looked like he had done the same. Only, he wasn't 14. He was older, and much more scarier looking. But, Phin had no right to judge on appearances. Phin quickly wondered where the older man was from. His accent wasn't Brittish, so to delay any further questions being asked, Phin asked, " where are you from?" He hoped he didn't sound rude. Phin shouldered the bag he had dropped. Phin almost forgot the man didn't help him gather his things, but decided to not worry about it. If the roles where reversed, Phin would've done the exact same thing. He should've been sorted into Slytherin and not Hufflepuff.

Phin then realized he had gone against everything he was taught. Running away from his problems, talking to strangers... Was he really that big of a failure? Phin held on to his bag for dear life. What if the strange man robbed him blind? What if he stripped him of his clothes and left him in the streets to die? That would be more humiliating than being locked in the girls bathroom and having Aoife finding him. What if he killed Phin? Worry etched acrossed Phins face as these thoughts occurred to him. Maybe he should've been more wise and listened to his mum.

Nodding, Alek dared smirk again. Ah, so you are a runaway." He stated, glancing up at down to see if the kid looked abused or anything similar. "You don't look bad. Not homeless." Shrugging, he watched as the kid literally pinched his own skin. Holy fuck. "Are you okay..?" Alek wasn't sure if he was supposed to help the kid by taking him to teraphy or by simply giving him money. Justas he was about to reach in his pocket and give the kid money to buy another ticket, heasked the most popular question in Alek's life after arriving in England. "Moscow." He answered automatically, like a machine. "That's in Russia."

And, just like the kid had blurted out some random question, Alek blurted out his own. "Okay, are your parents abusing you or some shit? Did you steal something? Why the hell do you look like you're scared of life itself?" He saw something run across the kid's face, fear or some sort of inner struggle Alek didn't really care for. Well, maybe he fdid because the kid was young and he looked hopeless, but as long as Alek knew the kid wasn't going to end up murdered by Wizarding police he would go about his own way. "Relax. I am not going to kill you." Alek assured, and just to try to make the kid feel better about his presence, Alek dropped his bag to the floor.
"My name is Alek. Only a few years older than you, if I am right." he held up his hands to show some vulnerability. Truthfully, Alek was also scared of scaring the kid and having him tell some weird story to the police. Better safe than sorry.