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“This is boring.”
“You're boring,” Kayn grunts back as he trudges through the snow, pulling his burden along behind him. “And ungrateful.”
“I'm not ungrateful, you're slow!” Ezreal complains, slapping his mittens against the rope of the sled currently acting as the reins around his beast of burden. “You said this would be fun!”
“No,” Kayn turns to scowl at him over his shoulder. “ Yone said we had to go outside and go sledding or something, I wanted to stay inside.”
“You said – and I quote 'Oooh fuuuun' when he told us-”
“See that tone you mimicked? That one right there?” Kayn cuts over him with a roll of his eyes, “Obviously sarcasm.”
“Okay, well, it's still false advertising that tricked me into participating.”
“You are literally sitting on your ass in a sled while I pull you around-”
“-slowly-”
“-while I pull you around,” Kayn repeats louder, “contributing nothing but bad vibes to the backyard.”
“Bad vibes?!” Ezreal scoffs, kicking a boot down into the bottom of the stupid plastic sled. “How am I contributing bad vibes? I am sunshine incarnate, I was voted Mr. Sunshine last year and-”
“And you've been complaining for ten minutes,” Kayn grits out, eyelid fluttering as he whirls on his pouting passenger. “How about you drag me around and we see if that's any more fun for you, Mr. Sunshine.”
Ezreal's pink little nose wrinkles at that and he slaps the now-slack rope in his mittened hands. “Pass.”
“Cool, then quit whining,” Kayn grunts as he turns back around, dragging the sled by a single hand this time. “He's gotta let us back in by dark.”
“But that's so long from now!” Ezreal complains, flopping onto his back. “We'll be dead by then... from boredom!”
Kayn grunts in response, still trudging slowly around the yard, which means the scenery above Ezreal's head is still the grey sky moving slowly past him. Same trees. Same shh-shhh-shhh of the sled sliding with each of Kayn's steps. Same edge of the roof going by in his peripheral. Boring boring bo-
…
Same... roof?
He sits up fast enough to lurch the sled to the side, rocking it enough that Kayn stumbles.
“Kayn!”
“What now?” Kayn sighs, stopping his Sisyphean shuffling to level Ezreal with a flat look. “Let me guess, you're bored?”
“No- well yes, but I have an idea!”
Kayn squints at him, clearly suspicious, likely because the last idea is what got them banished to the backyard in the first place – but that wasn't Ezreal's fault.
“What.”
“The roof!” Ezreal punctuates the declaration with jazz-mittens and a grin that would've been sparkling in the sun had there been any.
“What about it?” Kayn asks, already feeling dread creeping through his bones.
“It'll be way faster than walking – sledding needs hills right? And we don't have hills but the roof is sloped so we can just-”
He makes a sliding-striking motion with his hands, one flinging off into the ether, that promises neither safety nor sanity.
Kayn shrugs. “Alright, I'm in.”
Climbing the trellis to the roof in mittens with a sled in tow proves difficult – but they're basically professionals at getting into places they shouldn't necessarily be – so it's almost no time at all before they're straddling the peak of the roof, having not even first thoughts about the steepness of the pitch or relative thickness of the snow below.
Kayn balances the sled carefully, settling himself on the back of it with heels dug into the shingles and one hand gripping tight to the chimney. “Alright, hop on, quick.”
Ezreal scrambles on in front of him with a giddy rush of laughter, scooching back as he grabs the rope and clutches it tight to the arm Kayn wraps around his waist. “Oh boy-”
“Ready?” Kayn puffs into his temple, grin stretched wide enough to feel.
Ezreal nods, mittens clenching. “Here we go!”
Kayn lets go, lifting his heels, and they start to slide across the ice on the roof – picking up a frankly alarming amount of speed.
“Oooooh oohohohoaaaahahaaaaah-!”
They fly off the roof in a shrieking blur of cackles and clutching limbs, whizzing past the kitchen and office windows on the way down-
CRUNCH
-and land with muffled groans.
“Ouuugh-” Ezreal wiggles his fingers and toes, making sure he still has them all before turning to look at Kayn – who is still curled around him to take the brunt of the fall. “Owchie.”
“Owchie,” Kayn echoes, doing his own finger and toe wiggling. Still alive and accounted for.
They blink at each other for a moment, smirks growing into giggles and nudges until they're scrambling up from their pile of limbs.
“Again!”
“I'm in front this time-”
“-no fair!”
And, above the squabble, an anguished groan from the kitchen.
“My rosebush- ”