A friend of mine gave me the prompt High School AU with the phrase "Donuts aren't for target practice" and thus this fic was born.
Enjoy!
Jamie wandered into Guardian High Boarding School, tired from the lack of sleep he'd gotten between doing homework and texting his boyfriend. He rubbed his eyes groggily, glad that he'd made it to school without crashing his bike on the sidewalk. The halls seemed oddly empty for a Wednesday morning, he thought as he wandered through the main corridor. A metallic call rang through the empty halls and he felt his heart sink to his stomach. He was late. Again. Uhg.
He ran to his first period class without allowing for any time to breathe, thus leaving him a gaping mess as he stumbled into the ensemble room.
"Ah, Jamie! Thank you for joining us, we were just starting to worry." Mr. North was standing on his conductor's podium, hands on his belt chuckling to himself as he flitted through the sheet music in front of him that proved that they had, in fact, not even warmed up yet. With a heavy flush, caused by proper embarrassment and lack of breath, Jamie mumbled and apology and quickly walked to his locker as the warm up started. As he leaned over his clarinet case, assembling it in a hurry and silently cursing himself for having put off greasing the darn cork for so long, Jack leaned away from the base drum and smirked at him.
"Late again, Jams?" He asked, knowing full well that he was the reason for the other's zombification.
"Very funny, Jack. Go tune the timpani or something," Jamie retorted, sticking his reed into his mouth as he made his way to his seat.
"Alright," Mr. North called over the band, "Tiana, can you give us the tuning note?" The petite oboist, who was wearing her signature peacock-patterned smock, held out a note for a few seconds before looking up, signaling the rest to follow.
Jamie tuned, then set his clarinet on his lap, waiting for instruction from the teacher. North held up the score for a piece called "Winter Tunes for the Joyous" which happened to be Jack's favorite song and Jamie's least favorite. It had three movements, one of which was called "Fanfare of the Elves". For that movement, Jack got to stand in the back and wail on the base drum as hard as he wanted on his cues. Meanwhile, Jamie had to sit two rows in front of the blaring trumpets and get temporary hearing loss every time their fanfare motif started up again. And his part was boring. He had half notes in four/four syncopated time. Literally two alternating half notes every measure during every measure that Jack didn't play in.
18 measures later, they skipped pieces and played a fantastic Eric Whitacre song called Seal Lullaby. Jamie had some wonderfully dissonant notes in it and he loved the lyrics that go along with it, which they sadly couldn't get the chorus to preform.
Band class ran a few minutes late, causing a swarm of kids to form at the lockers two minutes before the bell rang. Jack and Jamie had free period next which was literally one of the only perks of Jamie's day, what with alternating AP and honors classes for the rest of the day. Jack took his time covering the chimes and timpani as Jamie waited out the crowd. The bell rang and kids shuffled out of the room in waves, some talking to friends, others running to make it across to their class on the other side of the school in three minutes.
"So, you got any homework?" Jack asked Jamie, leaning against the locker Jamie's clarinet had just been locked into.
"No, surprisingly between you and coffee, I was actually able to finish all of it. Not to say that I'm not still upset that you feel the absolute need to share your insomnia with me." Jamie finished, crossing his arms. Jack quirked an eyebrow.
"Oh that's how it is, Jams? That's how it is?" He smirked and pulled Jamie in for a quick peck on the cheek before Jamie ducked away, muttering "I'm still mad at you," under his breath halfheartedly.
"Hey, c'mon, you can't be mad at me if I got you donuts, right?" Jamie looked at him, completely unamused.
"Uh huh. I don't see any donuts. Unless they're invisible. Like your sense of morality."
"Ha ha you are hilarious. Seriously, man, keep that up." Jack said, tapping out a rhythm onto the lockers, "let's see who's laughing when someone doesn't get a donut."
"Jack, I honestly do not see any donuts anywhere around here," Jamie spread his arms and slow-spun for emphasis.
"Well duh, doofus, Sandman's bringing them after the lazy oaf wakes up and comes into school." Uhg, Jamie thought, if Sanderson was bringing in the snacks then there was a very high chance they'd never see them.
"While we wait, we could at least practice something," Jack said, to Jamie's surprise.
"Um... sure? You don't usually practice though."
"Sure I do, you just never notice because you're usually doing homework. You'd totally appreciate it more if you got your head out of those stinkin' books every once in a while." Jamie was slightly taken aback, but if Jack wanted to practice his concert pieces outside of class then more power to him. Jack reached into his (albeit non-uniform) sweatshirt and pulled out a rubberband slingshot.
"Jack. What the hell-"
"I've gotta practice sometime! Dude, these things are fantastic when it comes to snowball fights, all you've gotta do is replace the rubberband with one of those yoga bands and connect it to a pair of crossed shovels secured in the snow and you've got yourself a perfect launcher! The trick is to making sure the proportions are right in the translation of size." Jamie loved the fact that his boyfriend was looking into an engineering major for next year, but the guy was an idiot sometimes. It was in that moment that Sandy decided to show up, wandering into the room from the far entrance, rubbing sleep from his eyes.
"Sandy, what's up, man?" Sandy yawned in reply and smirked as he held up the bag of donuts that he'd gotten on the way over. "Awesome, dude! Now just can you hold one up for me? Yeah, just like that." Sandy held up the donut so that it was on its side, the entire top of it facing Jack and Jamie.
"Jack. Again, what the hell?"
"Just watch the pro, babe," Jack pulled a marble out of his pocket and set it into the slingshot. Jamie rolled his eyes as Jack pulled the rubber sling taut, past the tip of his nose, with one eye closed and his tongue sticking out slightly as if that would help balance this whole routine.
There was a small moment of silence followed by a few rapid movements and a solid thunk.
Jamie had to stifle his laughter with his fist as his brain processed what had just happened. Jack had apparently been aiming for the center of the donut and Sandy was standing four feet away from Jack and two feet away from the wall. Jack had let the marble go only to have it subsequently return back to him, hitting him square in the forehead, creating a bulls-eye of his own.
Jack turned around to face Jamie, his eyes glistening slightly with fought back tears as he looked for some sort of reassurance.
"Jack," Jamie chastised, "donuts aren't for target practice."