Who: Jasper and Jason When: Wednesday, Nov 1, lunch time Where: school Status: Complete
Waking up to snow had been unexpected. Jasper had driven through it on his way to school with a weird feeling in his chest. Like something was happening. Or had happened. Or something. It wasn’t a good feeling. It was November now, yeah, but the weather hadn’t been hinting at any snow, and yet there it was. Once he’d gotten to school, he’d heard all kinds of rumors about what had happened the night before. Jasper just hadn’t been feeling Halloween this year for obvious reasons, so he’d just stayed home and stayed stoned. Apparently quite a few people had gone crazy and done weird shit ... which was kind of par for the course for this town, if you asked Jasper. He didn’t pay a lot of attention to all the murmuring, just trying to get through the morning.
After stepping out to have a quick cigarette once lunch started, Jasper shuffled into the cafeteria to get in line to get food. He didn’t feel like going out, sure that if he left campus he just wouldn’t come back. He wasn’t exactly hungry either, but he knew in an intellectual way that he had to keep eating. People kept asking about it, and he needed to maintain as much energy as he could, Just In Case. Everything seemed Just In Case these days.
The night before had been… strange. Jason had been on his way home from the library when there seemed to be a bunch of people running around like crazy. That it was snowing the next day didn’t make things better, really, and he was kind of in a bad mood in general. Normally he would try to shake it off, but that didn’t seem to be working, this time, even if in the scheme of things, it felt relatively insignificant.
Once it hit lunchtime, Jason got in line to get food, not paying too much attention to who was in front of him, until he glanced up and saw that it was Jules’ boyfriend. Jason largely tried to ignore Jasper’s existence, as he did with most people who factored into Jules’ life who weren’t obnoxious popular kids. Should he try to talk to him? It wasn’t like they had much in common. Jason didn’t know Jasper’s sister at all, but it was still a shitty situation. But at the same time, he was barely good at offering emotional support to the people he did spend time with. When Jasper seemed slow to move and a little checked out, Jason glanced at him. “You know what you want, or…?” he prompted, to keep the line moving. It came out more exasperated than he had intended. He had a tendency to be impatient, and he didn’t feel it was his place to ask Jasper how he was doing or whatever.
Not having an appetite made it hard to decide what cafeteria slop he wanted to put into his face, so Jasper wasn’t moving very fast. He was staring listlessly at the choices when someone next to him said something. Jasper looked over, his gaze dull, and it took him an extra second or two to recognize Jason. Jules’s brother. Step brother. Whatever. He sounded annoyed, and that sparked off some annoyance in Jasper. Everybody in school knew what he was going through, but even if they didn’t, Jason especially ought to know. “Right now, I want you to shut your fuckin’ mouth,” Jasper said flatly, then went back to looking at food. He was going to take even longer now, just to be stubborn.
Even with as out of the loop as Jason tried to keep himself, that Jasper’s sister had gone missing was actual shitty news and not the usual high school rumor mill crap, so he was aware of what happened. He wasn’t without sympathy, but he also wasn’t the sort to start offering platitudes and there was nothing practical he could do to help. It wasn’t like he knew Jasper well enough to have a clue on the best way to approach him, either, but he doubted that pitying him would be the correct choice. The returned annoyance was something Jason was used to, though, at least in a general way, and he rolled his eyes. “Yeah, whatever, don’t let me interrupt your decision making process,” he said.
Jasper didn’t expect, nor did he want, sympathy from everyone. He really just wanted to be left alone. Instead he seemed to be getting more attention than ever, a lot of it pitying and questioning, some of it aggravating like this. “Too late,” he muttered. Jasper reached for a piece of overly greasy pizza on a plate and dropped it onto his tray. He moved on down the line, but paused again at the choices of sides. Jasper tossed a sideways glance at Jason -- it was a little strange now, for Jasper to look at him and think that he’d been fucking Jason’s sister, right down the hallway. Very recently. The guy was so much a stranger, but Jasper had been in his house several times without his knowledge. It was a little surreal. Jasper grabbed some peaches and ambled down the line again.
The best Jason could hope for was to ignore whatever guy Jules was hooking up with or dating or whatever as much as possible, since more often than not, they tended to be people who got on his nerves and Jason really didn’t care much about his sister’s love life. He rolled his eyes at Jasper’s muttered comment, but was willing to give it a pass. As he moved along, Jason did as well, picking up a hamburger and putting it on his tray. Glancing at Jasper as he slowed down again, Jason caught the look and sighed. “What? I stopped talking to you,” he said, which effectively foiled that, but on some level he hated when his peers tried to tell him what to do and he wasn’t always great at leaving well enough alone.
Irritation crawled up Jasper’s back. It was the tone, that put-out tone that said Jason was annoyed Jasper was even looking at him. He didn’t expect them to be friends or anything, far from it, but considering his connection to Jules and his current situation, the least Jason could do was shut up and stay that way. Jasper had been feeling so numb and hollowed out so often, so sadly empty, that the flare of irrational anger felt downright good. At least it was something with life in it. Without thinking it through -- because why bother? -- Jasper turned and swung his hand up to knock Jason’s tray out of his hands, then moved in closer to crowd him. “You wanna say somethin’ else?” he asked tightly, his jaw clenched.
There were times when Jason might try to be purposefully antagonistic, but this wasn’t one of them. Had he started off in a better mood, he probably would have disengaged or settled for ignoring Jasper; as it was, the stubborn part of Jason had already kicked in. His eyes widened in surprise as his tray clattered to the ground and he took a step back reflexively before stopping himself. He scowled. He hated when people tried to get up in his space like they expected it to make him back down. It hadn’t really happened in a while, but he didn’t like to let anyone push him around. “Just get out of my face, Lucas,” he said tersely, shoving Jasper away from him.
Jasper’s lips quirked upward a tiny bit when Jason bucked up to him. The guy was smaller than Jasper, and he’d always looked a bit fragile to him, but that shove felt pretty solid. And good, in the weirdest way. It pushed Jasper back a step, but he moved in close again immediately, his own hands coming up to push Jason right back. “Fuck you, Leahy,” he snapped. Even though there wasn’t any good reason for it, the anger felt good. It was clean and pure and it didn’t hurt like everything else did. He wanted to fight, to start throwing punches, make both of them bleed, take some of this poisonous, neverending frustration out on someone. This was an encouraging start, he just hoped that Jason didn’t pussy out of it.
Fights were nothing new to Jason, though the vast majority of them tended to be verbal rather than physical--he had even mentioned to Jules he hadn't been punched in a while--, but regardless he wasn't going to back down once irritation sparked into anger. Stopping to think normally wasn't a problem for Jason. He tended to be absorbed in his own head more often than not, but impulse thrummed through him and propelled him forward from the couple steps he had stumbled back. "Don't take your shitty mood out on me," he retorted. To ascribe what Jasper was going to down to a bad mood was absurdly reductive, but Jason didn't care in the moment, his hands shoving Jasper's chest with more force behind them.
To have it called a ‘mood’ was intensely irritating, but it wasn’t like Jasper needed a reason to escalate this. He was lost and in a great deal of pain, and nothing else had really worked to alleviate it. He couldn’t stay stoned on pills all the time, no matter how much he might want to. Substances were how his dad was dealing -- not dealing -- with Amelia’s disappearance, and Jasper had to do better. For her. He could deck an asshole in the cafeteria line, though. People had stopped what they’d been doing to stare at them, and Jasper dimly heard some protest from the lunch ladies, but they were on the other side of the buffet line. He didn’t waste any more time talking, instead stepping in close enough to take a swing at Jason Leahy’s stupid asshole face.
Jason's tendency to focus in on one thing could be a double edged sword. It helped with things like schoolwork, but his reactions to people tended toward being self-absorbed and right then, irritation at Jasper for trying to push him around, superseded other considerations. Whoever else was in the cafeteria didn't matter. Jasper's movement didn't come as a surprise. Still, given their proximity, there was only so much time to react. Reflex kicked in and Jason dodged back, but the punch still landed, glancing his cheek so he didn't take the full impact. But. Still. His head whipped to the side with the movement, teeth tearing the inside of his cheek. The coppery taste of blood stoked irritation into anger and without thinking about it, he swung back at Jasper's face.
It wasn’t as satisfying a punch as Jasper wanted. Jason was surprisingly quick, and even though his knuckles made contact with face, it wasn’t the solid punch Jasper had been going for. Which only served to piss him off more. He saw the counter-punch coming and didn’t even bother to move much. The pain that blossomed in his jaw as his own head snapped to the side felt almost good. At least it was something solid, something real that he could actually do something about. With a snarl, Jasper dropped one shoulder and rammed himself into Jason, shoving the other boy back against the wall. Jasper kept his head down and started punching him in the gut and ribs, hard and vicious and hardly even hearing the cacophony of kids yelling around them.
The base satisfaction that came with landing the punch to Jasper’s jaw was momentary as Jason didn’t know enough to be prepared for the follow up. His back connected solidly with the wall, knocking the air out of his lungs, and the punch to his gut doing the same. Pain shot through him as Jasper’s blows landed and Jason grit his teeth as he ineffectually bit back a grunt. There was a certain helplessness from the ferocity with which Jasper hit him and the hurt it brought, which pinged something between fear and anger. Adrenaline alone drove Jason to react rather than think, though he had little experienced instinct when it came to fighting, given that the number of fights he had been in could be counted on one hand, just the need to interrupt Jasper. He got his arms up and shoved Jasper as hard as he could across the chest with his forearms, putting his weight into it as he pushed away from the wall, not quite able to keep his balance and sending them both crashing to the floor instead.
Jasper was good at fighting. He’d done a lot of it, and even before that he’d grown up wrestling around with his uncles and learning things. He was also out of his mind with stress and grief and an anger he had no place for, so it was coming out through his fists to Jason’s torso. Jasper tried not to be pushed, but Jason had a wall behind him for leverage, and before he knew it, they were both on the hard floor, jostling for a better position. Hands started to grab at them then, and Jasper heard voices with Authority cutting through the chants of ‘fight, fight, fight!’ from their fellow students. Someone strong yanked him upward just as he got a knee slammed into Jason somewhere, and Jasper stumbled to his feet with the football coach yelling in his ear to settle down. He let out a noise of frustrated rage and tried to break free to grab for Jason again, but the grip on him was too strong. Jasper was bodily turned and marched away from the lunch line. “Get offa me, man!”
Though lacking in skill, Jason had an innate obstinance that didn’t let him back down, though once they went to the ground he was largely ineffectual. Jasper was larger and better at this than he was, but Jason scrambled to try to get in a better position. His focus was narrowed so he didn’t consciously register the chanting around them, since Jason didn’t feel safe giving attention to anyone other than Jasper. When hands grabbed at Jason, at first he stupidly tried to shove them away and ended up more flailing as he was pulled off, Jasper’s knee catching him in the sternum, causing him to cough, blood from biting his cheek earlier spilling onto his shirt. The pain from that and the sharp, shooting ache that came from his ribs when he made the mistake of trying, once, to strain against whoever held him, cut through the haze of anger and adrenaline. His breath came heavy and labored, but he tried to be compliant to the barked order from the soccer coach to calm down. It wasn’t as easy as it should have been; so rarely did Jason let emotion overcome him that his mind was slow to snap back to its usual ordered state. He glowered at Jasper before he was turned to be led out of the cafeteria, silent. Likely very soon, he’d likely have a list of regrets, but as it was he couldn’t think further ahead than right then.
The teachers -- and a few minutes later, the administrators -- kept the two of them separated in the big wide hallway outside the cafeteria, questioning each of them on what had happened. Jasper stayed mostly sullenly silent, though he did mutter that he’d started it. He still wanted to beat the shit out of Jason, but he didn’t mind being the one to take official responsibility. They could suspend him, they could expel him, he didn’t honestly give a fuck at the moment. That attitude must’ve been obvious, as the principal decided to escort Jasper to his office to talk about it some more, and probably call his dad. He gave Jason one parting glare as he was walked down the hallway, feeling a bit of primal satisfaction at the blood on Jason’s shirt. It wasn’t enough to make anything better, but what was anymore?
Jason grumpily recounted his side of the events, since without the buffer of adrenaline, he was starting to really feel like shit. His ribcage was probably one giant bruise, if he were lucky, and his mouth still tasted like blood. Still, albeit reluctantly, he tried to make it clear that he had provoked Jasper to some extent and had been an active participant in the fight, even if he had ended up getting his ass kicked. The administrator took this in somewhat dubiously, given Jason’s current state and previous track record, and Jasper’s idiotic readiness to take official responsibility. Jason’s eyes narrowed as he watched Jasper go, then he was sent off to the nurse’s office to get cleaned up and so they could call his dad to come pick him up, where they could all talk more then, which he was definitely not looking forward to.