A/N: A sloppily and hastily written Tumblr Prompt

Poptarts was a strange, funny man.

No one in the Mission Hut really acted their age..or maybe they did act their age. They were all on the fringes of their teen years, their young adulthood.

These few years of freedom, of trials, before they could return to the homes and lives they knew and were expected to bring 'honor' to.

Elroy didn't really want to return home but he didn't want to stay here, either.

Poptarts, under that friendly and bright cover carried himself with a certain sadness.

It was subtle, hidden in the small things. The way he walked, the way he talked, it tainted his every move.

Elroy recognized it as plain as day.

It was the hall marks of someone sad. Not just sad, like your ordinary, day to day kind of sad, but a deeper, more permeable kind of sad.

He knew, he'd seen his mom hold herself the same way on the rare occasion she went outside anymore.

He'd seen it in himself, when he'd happened to catch himself in the mirror.

Elroy had never been good at making friends, too socially awkward and inept, too afraid he might snap somehow, someday.

But it's not also this sadness, this feeling of knowing what true grief is, that draws him to Elder Thomas.

It's that half facade of happiness. A bright smile, clear eyes, an eager voice. It's like a flame he can't help but be drawn too. The butterflies in his stomach become restless around him.

He feels so happy about him, that he can't help but smile too.

And so Elroy Church decides that maybe he will try and befriend Elder Thomas.