Disclaim: I do not in any way own Unnatural History and other associated characters.
Henry may not have a perfect photographic memory like Maggie, but he has one, just because she has a Canon and he has a Nikon, doesn't mean jack he still sees it in enough detail for it to sting like the first time. Still sees Jasper lips sliding against hers, their noses brushing, shy blushes running from ear to ear, ghosts of touches sliding along each other's clothes – like they want to just shimmy them up and touch covered skin, but they can't, at least not now in a crowded hallway, leaning casually against the side of the lockers lost in their own little world where Henry and his feeling don't exist. That image just cuts the surface allowing his skin to prickle and rise, though what really drives him wild and pushes the blade through his flesh and bone, is that she knew. He has confided in her – wrung his hands on his lap as he went through the butterflies – a Queen Alexandra's Birdwing if the wingspan was anything to go by – the unsure feelings, the wrongness and shame she made him feel with her soft head shakes and pity-filled ohs.
"He's your cousin," she'd chastised, patting him like a puppy and talking to him like he wouldn't understand, "you're not allowed to."
He'd frowned recalling all the jokes made in the locker room after football practice about family members, specifically cousins, getting married in Alabama and other such places that were the stereotypical home of inbred, redneck, white trash. She'd scowled momentarily, a momentary lapse in her sweet façade, before she smiled and patted him a bit more roughly then before, repeating, "You're not allowed."
That didn't make a difference they're a lot of things that aren't allowed in certain places yet you travel somewhere new and unheard of and it's the most common thing and the locals wonder why you find it strange. He could take Jasper to one of those places, their own little paradise, where they could touch lips, roll half naked in the sand, and no one would look and see it as wrong – they'd see two star crossed lovers exploring one another like it could be the last time – because the second they travel somewhere new, as the case often is, it just maybe one of those places where jocks will shove you in the trashcan and make fun at you because you go against the grain.
Jasper he could forgive – and he already had – simply since he didn't know that his laugh and worried rants made Henry swallow butterflies, but Maggie had known and that was more unforgivable then the act itself. He had drug the blade across his heart and bore all he was to her, all the simple touches he treasured, the moments when just the two of them sat down for breakfast and flicked corn flakes at each other, the lazy afternoons spent together rambling when she was working, the time spent teaching each other about the roots of what they were, and she had looked at them all told him they were wrong and drove the blade into his open wound. Even with the knife jutting out of his chest none of it felt wrong he didn't regret it or wish it gone. She seemed to do those things for him what felt wrong to him was Jasper and her together with nothing but geometry homework separating them.
All day he wondered how she could do this – they were the three unmixable things that some mad scientist put together and the formula didn't explode it just existed within another – and now he felt like she didn't belong anymore, that there is a delayed reaction bubbling to the surface. But that may just be the chemistry problem he's stumbling over talking and he can't think like this right now. Not slumped in his desk chair staring at the sapling oak she'd given him, seeing them smashed together in the thin branches, everything he looked at made him remember, his room trashed in the background and potted tree in his hand, he flung it through the screen of his window, watching with what he hoped has satisfaction when the whole thing smashed on the concrete steps below.
Henry didn't feel satisfaction he felt like he failed Little Creek, a spirited old Native man that taught him about the souls of everything and respect for those souls, about how controlling anger is the best way for it not to control us, whose wide leathered hands pushed his small smooth ones into the pliable soil and told him to feel his true mother. If Little Creek was here he'd shake his head and grin, saying, "I hope you know – you just basically through your sibling out the window." But despite the humor there would be a deep set pain in those crow's feet crowded eyes, the brown iris dim with a certain expectance and begrudging acceptance, knowing not many saw his statement as truth.
Henry knew he reached his low when he was sneaking out of the house in his boxers with a dust pan and broom, surprised that his earlier destruction of his room and the smash of porcelain meeting concrete didn't wake his family, the front steps were a crime scene, a plant crime scene, but none the less a crime scene. With jagged remains of the pot a stark white against the near black of the soil the sapling looking like a meager twig in the hugeness of the world. He went for the pot pieces first grabbing all he could see from the largest chunks to the smallest slithers that only his fine eyes could see, then in a few generalized sweeps he chucked all the soil into the garden, finally he plucked the fallen tree up assessing the damage he had done and deciding the plant was still viably, he strolled to the side of the house where a large walnut tree stood, digging a suitable hole with is bare hands he stuck the sapling in the vertex of two of the walnut tree's roots, securing it with a fallen branch and a torn piece of plaid boxer shorts.
Inside he hung pictures back on the walls, shelved old books, placed clothes back in the closet, finished that chemistry problem, put the screen back into his window, and climbed into bed. Clinging to the screen were tiny brown smudges, a few leaves trapped between the screen and glass window panes.
Jasper exhaled slowly, pushing his ear against the wall that connected his and Henry's rooms, listening quietly like he had for the past fifty-six minutes to his cousin's animalistic grunts, the sound of solid object hitting solid object, the angry scrawl of pencil against paper, then the eventual rueful silence accompanied by the soft thunks of items being placed back where they belong.
Tomorrow he wouldn't ask as they sat eating breakfast, the crunch of the sugary flakes a reminder of the echo of porcelain against cement, Henry would smile teeth freshly minted and his knees would burn for a moment in time. The flames impeding his thoughts and faltering his steps until school when she would walk by with an adorable smile and in his jacket then for a moment his body would freeze – the guilt for something he wasn't quite sure about would vanish. Still he needed more. He needed not to feel this confliction, this slow burn then deep rooted chill, something had shifted the moment she came to him, her lips especially plump and red, hair smoothed pin-point straight, nails long and glossy, skirt pulled a little too high and blouse stretched a little too low, and she'd held his hand like it was the first time she'd ever held something so big, "Wow," she'd giggled and it was cute like when puppies tripped over their ears, "your hand – it's so much bigger than mine. I must seem so small and vulnerable to you."
She did, now that he thinks about it clearly without the smell of her perfume fogging his thoughts, look small all cozying up on him, trim waist touching his hip, dainty girl hands supported by thin wrists – yea she looked small, utterly tiny. But vulnerable? No, she looked predatory, she appeared to be on the prowl and he was her next meal, but he liked that – almost, because it made him feel protected, kind of, since prey is only every hunted down by one thing right? It made him feel better thinking that only soft hands, small waist, big lipped, Maggie was stalking him and not something bigger, fiercer, more capable of tracking him down and unafraid to pounce. Then, she leapt into action, molding their lips together, glossy nails digging into his scalp, and he felt cold – an utterly paralyzing chill – so he didn't move – not really, may have tilted his head and encircled that girly figure just to pull it closer, but he isn't really sure if it was for warmth or want.
When she pulls away her lips are more pink and set into a smug turn, "I'll see you after work, babe."
Henry shows up later appearing distraught and when their eyes lock for a moment he swears tears are cried without any water leaking, that the emotion of self disgust is evident in those copper green depths. They say nothing, sitting with their own separate world; his limbs still frozen and numb until the blonde next to him grasp his knee like a dying man, asking in the most pitifully desperate manor, "This is okay right?"
Jasper sighs in an achy way feeling that bone kneading warmth sink into him through Henry and he can't help but think, "Yes, yes it is."
AN/ I am writing things I don't need to write today la~la~la procrastination~! Don't expect updates on this too often I haven't seen much Unnatural History and cannot afford cable ever (needs to marry wealthy gay Asian and/or Russian man whom digs brunettes with big glasses). But things might go faster if I had a beta (not so much for grammar more-so for plot development, and someone to help me work ideas out) *winkwinknudgenudge.