I know I shouldn't spy. And no one thinks I can, with how… enthusiastic I usually am.
But, hey, what can I say? Years of experience.
And not just on night creatures. On my fellow Hunters, too.
And, again, I know I shouldn't, but I'm curious. According to everyone else, too curious for my own good.
Which leads us to where I am now.
Spying on Jaq. And Rese.
He'd (yes, I said he) been dumped. Bad. And was sulking–I assumed. You can't really tell with him.
So Rese got fed up and was trying to reason with him. I was hiding around the corner, my hair pinned back so the pink wouldn't give me away.
"Jaq," she said simply, stomping up to him.
He looked up from his bed, where he'd been sitting all day, slightly straightening the earbud cord attached to the iPod on the side closer to me, darker-than-normal sunglasses hiding his eyes, which I had to assume were as expressionless as the rest of his face.
"One," she started, hands on her hips, looming over normally-almost-her-height boy, "you need to get up and stop sulking. Two, why are you wearing sunglasses INSIDE? In the middle of the NIGHT? When did you turn into Cory Hart?"
He shrugged.
She frowned deeper. "Why are you moping around, anyway? It's not like you."
He shrugged again.
"TALK, DAMMIT!" she yelled.
He leaned over, picked something up off the floor, and held it out to her. I strained to look at it.
It was a small sign that read, in Jaq's almost-too-neat handwriting, 'Leave Me Alone'.
She gave him a look. "You actually bothered to write that out?"
He just shrugged again.
She glared. "Get. Up."
He pushed the sign closer to her face, his still not revealing any emotion. He pushed a strand of now-shoulder-length white-blond hair out of his face.
She grabbed the sign out of his hands and snapped it in half, seething.
Just as she looked about to yell at him again, Jay stepped out of his room and walked over, giving me a curious glance.
"Rese, what are you doing to my brother?" he asked, leaning against the doorframe.
She turned her attention to the other boy. "Your brother won't stop sulking! He won't even say anything!"
"And this surprises you?" Jay asked, raising an eyebrow. "He never says anything."
She narrowed her eyes farther. "Yeah, but this is ridiculous!"
The boy in question reached over and picked another song.
I heard almost-non-existent footsteps behind me. I glanced back and saw Terrence walking toward me.
He looked down at me and raised an eyebrow. I motioned in front of my throat, telling him to stay quiet. He shrugged and knelt down next to me.
I looked at him, tapped my ear and pointed to Jaq.
He looked closer, then whispered, barely loud enough to hear, even a couple of inches away, "'Gives You Hell'."
That kind of surprised me. I'd asked him what Jaq was listening to (only he would be able to tell, with his ridiculously precise sight), and that didn't sound like his kind of song.
I turned back to the three, realizing I'd missed a few lines.
"WELL, I DIDN'T ASK FOR YOUR OPINION!" Rese yelled at Jay, grabbing a lamp.
He jumped back. "Ooh, look, Mother Teresa's mad," he said, I assume grinning.
She brandished the lamp and he took off running, the smile not fading.
She turned back toward the other boy, who was staring at the ground.
"Jaq," she said through her teeth, "come on. Be reasonable. You barely ever even saw her!" She was right, even though they'd dated six months.
"Just leave me alone," he said quietly, his normally raspy voice even more so.
"No!" she insisted, not seeming to hear the difference. "Not until you start acting normal again!"
He tensed a bit, but stayed expressionless.
She glared a moment longer, then her hand whipped out and ripped the sunglasses off of his face, too fast for even his incredible reflexes.
He looked away quickly, but not too quickly for me to see that his eyes were bloodshot.
She stared.
I jumped out of my spot, shocked, and ran over. Terrence was right behind me.
"Were you crying?" I exclaimed.
He looked up at me, the slightest hint of annoyance in his eyes. It was the equivalent of one of Rese's death glares. "Could everyone please get out of my room?"
I tensed, scared by the miniscule showing of emotion. I backed away a little.
"Stop picking on my brother," I heard behind me.
I jumped and turned around, seeing Jay in the doorway again.
Rese was still staring at the blond boy, looking dumbfounded.
Jay walked over to his brother, his face not serious, but more so than usual. "This is the third time he's cried in his life. The first was when he was born, the second was when our parents died. Give the little guy a break."
I blinked and snapped out of the trance-like state I seemed to have been in. "Little?"
Jay looked up at me. "Yeah, little. As in I'm a year and a half older. Why?"
The three of us stared.
"Did you not know that?" the seemingly older boy asked, eyebrow raised.
I shook my head slowly.
He shrugged, looking proud of knowing something we didn't. "Well, I am. And I never give him a break about it." He reached over and ruffled the other boy's hair.
Jaq flinched, then sighed and accepted it, his expression lightening. Although I knew the first thing he was going to do after we left was brush it out.
"Hey, Rese!" a sixth voice yelled. I glanced back and saw Cass in the doorway, looking at the five of us a bit confused. "Um… What's going on in here?"
Rese shook her head, smiling a little. "Nothing. What'd you want?"
Mar popped up behind him. "Can you help me with something?"
The older girl smiled a bit, the way she only did for the youngest member of our group. "Sure. Hey, where's Noh?" So I wasn't the only one who noticed the one person who hadn't shown up.
Cass looked down at Mar.
"She tried helping me first…" she said, smiling nervously.
Rese rolled her eyes and walked over. "Okay, kid, let's go." She glanced back. "And, Jaq, if I ever see you like that again, I won't hesitate to use that lamp on you."
He rolled his eyes as she left the room with the other two, who both looked confused.
Terrence and I looked back at the brothers. Jaq took his sunglasses from where Rese had left them and set them on the table next to him. Jay walked toward us and made shooing motions with his hands.
"Come on, leave the boy alone," he said, pushing us toward the door. He shoved us out and locked it. I could hear him joking around as the two of us just stood there a moment.
I looked up at the oldest member of our group. "So, we learned an unexpected thing about Jay and Jaq's ages, saw Rese threaten both of them with a lamp, saw Jaq show emotion, and witnessed one of Rese's giant mood swings Cass always complains about…"
Terrence finished the thought for me.
"And yet, somehow, we never got busted for spying."
So I had Jaq showing emotion. So sue me. _
Does no one else think Ten would make a great spy? Well, I got the Terrence thing from a great Teresa/Cassidy piece by fiesta. Everything she writes is awesome. Check her out, people!