A/N: Thanks for the positive response, everyone! If you could, please take a few more seconds and write a review. If you like this story, share it with other Kickin' It/Kick fans! Thanks!
I would have published this chapter yesterday but I was watching the midnight premiere of The Hunger Games! The movie was amazing—it's the best book-to-film adaptation I've ever seen. The midnight premiere was awesome, it was my first time going to a midnight showing and I'm glad it was for The Hunger Games.
Oh, and though I've never seen Finding Nemo, the title of the chapter is a reference to the movie.
This chapter is rated T for some language—and at the beginning, you can thank Kat and Jack for that…
Disclaimer: I don't own Kickin' It.
"If you're not sure what to do with the ball, just pop it in the net and we'll discuss your options afterwards."
…
—Bill Shankly
CHAPTER FOUR: Just Keep Running
Of all the ways to be woken up in the middle of the night, Jack definitely wouldn't have chosen this option—not if he'd had any other choice.
That is, unless people were under the impression that he enjoyed being shaken awake at three o'clock in the morning, a gag shoved into his mouth and a blindfold slipped over his eyes, his mind still groggy from a deep sleep and his movements stiff from rest.
The first thing that popped into his mind was fear.
His attempt at screaming in fury and shock failed miserably, as the cloth shoved into his mouth muffled the words into nothing but incoherent sounds. The lack of vision was unnerving, and he could feel a few hands pulling at his shirt and his shoulders, trying to get him to sit up. Frantic whispers blurred into a quiet but cacophonic symphony in his ears, meaningless phrases swirling around him in a tornado.
What the hell is happening?
He thought he detected a female voice among the two or three boys that were tugging him into a sitting position, but the fear blocked out all recognition he could have deduced from the hushed whispering.
What is a girl doing in the boys' dorm?
"You idiots!" he heard the female snap. "You're doing it wrong, you're scaring him half to death—Jack? Are you awake?"
Jack's fear increased, and he kicked wildly, hoping to hit something, silently praying that his assailants would receive some pain and realize that he wasn't going to go down without a fight. He thrashed back and forth in a desperate attempt to free himself from this situation, wanting nothing more than to figure out what the hell was going on.
Wait, what was happening here?
Ice-cold hands pinned his own together, not allowing him the opportunity to rip off the blindfold. He tried to speak through his gag, but not a single distinguishable word managed to push through.
Well, that might have been for the best, because the words Jack was dying to scream weren't exactly…appropriate.
If these people weren't going to tell him any information, he might as well fight. Kicking out again, his right foot managed to connect with something soft, probably a person's body. Allowing himself a moment's satisfaction, he heard the person stumble back, crashing into his dresser and muttering several explicit words in rapid succession.
Jack calmed down enough to process the last sentence or so.
"Oh, shit! What the bloody hell, Jack?" an angry British accent demanded furiously. From the sound of it, the speaker was female, but the blood rushing through Jack's ears kind of blurred and scrambled the information into meaningless code.
Another voice snorted. "What happened to, man up, wimps?" The end of the question grew higher in pitch until the tone had taken on a mocking edge.
"Let's see you turn into a female, get kicked straight in the chest and not allow yourself a small cry of pain!" the female voice bit back.
"Guys, stop fighting," a calm voice reprimanded gently. "C'mon—get the ropes, quickly, before he starts to fight even harder and kicks you somewhere a little worse than the chest—"
Within seconds, his hands had been securely tied behind his back and his arms bound to his body, leaving his legs free to move around. He felt three pairs of hands spin him around, pull him to his feet, then sit him right back down on his bed. Someone managed to jam socks and shoes onto his feet before he was being forced out of the room, the kidnappers marching him down the hall of his dorm.
The air-conditioned corridor soon gave way to the cool blast of the night air as the doors swished open, the cold breeze settling around Jack and his three kidnappers. They didn't carry him on their shoulders or by the ropes, but merely pushed him in the right direction, hands on him at all times to ensure that he didn't run away.
He couldn't have escaped, even if he'd wanted to. His hands were bound to his sides and the blindfold blocked out anything he could have seen.
Jack twitched as his sneakers thudded across what seemed to be concrete, and he wriggled against his bonds, attempting to untie the ropes on his wrists by bending them back painfully in order to reach the restraining material. Pain shot through his wrists in white-hot flashes, and he winced, the gag thankfully cutting off his cries of pain.
Warm hands pulled his fingers from the rope. "Stop. Don't resist us, okay? You're just going to make it worse."
Jack had always had a strong disability to do what other people told him, and wriggled even harder, his mind working at a furious pace to try to calculate where he was right now. The lack of vision was seriously starting to annoy him.
"I'll take out the gag if you promise not to yell," another voice, the cool and collected one, announced cajolingly, shushing at the others to be quiet as they continued. "But you have to be quiet, Jack, we can't wake up the other students."
He nodded vigorously—anything to get the cloth out of his mouth—and the cottony material was ripped away without further hesitation.
"What the hell?" Jack demanded, the absence of the gag a huge relief. He spat a tiny bit of cotton from his lips and continued, "Who the hell are you and what do you want? Why can't I see, and where are you taking me?"
No answer. They continued to half-walk, half-shove him forward, their grips on his arms viselike. He was practically shaking with fury now, his anger getting the best of him yet again. "Tell me or I'll start screaming again," Jack threatened—anything to get an answer out of them.
Nothing. They simply forced him on.
"Tell me!" Jack screamed, projecting his voice as loud as he dared.
Without another word, the gag was stuffed back into his mouth, the female voice cursing, "Shit. Kim is going to give us hell for that."
Kim?
His body physically relaxed the tiniest bit. At least he knew he was going to be facing Kim and not some psycho killer that wanted to chop his head off…
But the way things had been going between Kim and Jack lately, Jack might have chosen the psycho killer if given the choice. While the murderer might provide a quick death, there was no guarantee that the psycho blonde would…
The words vicious killer lamb popped into Jack's mind, and he shook his head vigorously in confusion.
"We're almost there," a male voice muttered into his ear. "Just stay calm, okay? We're not going to hurt you—watch out, we're climbing up a hill—"
Thankfully, the gag was removed from his mouth for the second time as the ground below him curved up steeply, as expected.
"Are we on the soccer field?" Jack deduced, his voice layered thick with confusion as he shuffled his feet, the familiar sounds of grass under his shoes confirming his suspicions. "Why?"
He received no answer from the comforting voice. Instead, he was marched another ten feet or so before they let go of him, pushing him forward slightly into two other people—Jack still couldn't see their faces, but they seemed to be in this just as much as he was.
"Do you know what's going on?" he hissed to them.
His companions seemed to be a boy and a girl. The girl's voice was slightly familiar, and it was shaking with fear as she whispered, "No."
Strong hands untied the bonds around his wrists and arms, and Jack rubbed the abrasions now cut into his skin, slight resent creeping into his movements. Did they really have to tie the ropes so tightly?
Jack strained his ears and listened as hard as he could, attempting to map out the field from the sounds he could hear. There seemed to be several people shuffling about, calling out meaningless phrases to each other and throwing things back and forth. From the sounds of it, the objects flying to and fro were…soccer balls?
"Welcome," a cold voice greeted. "To the Initiation."
All of the racket died down, and the field was instantly deathly silent. Jack's nerves returned, his body tensing up in anticipation and in slight fury.
Because he recognized the voice.
It belonged to Kim.
"The Initiation," Kim continued, "Is a test especially designed to test the will and power of potential players that we are considering for our soccer team this semester, the Wasabi Warriors."
Jack's heart leapt at the last statement—he was being considered for a spot on the team? Kim hadn't ruled him out completely?
"You've have been pulled out of your beds at this hour of the night to perform your test. The blindfolds and the ropes were designed to test your courage," Kim explained. "If you've been injured in any way, we'll seek medical attention after you've completed the Initiation."
Someone next to him coughed and shuffled.
"The Initiation is comprised of two parts," Kim announced, her voice still neutral. "The first is making it past the side of the field while dribbling a ball, through a sort of obstacle course. You will each be assigned a partner. Your partner can help you up if you fall, they can guide you in the right general direction, and they can bring you back the ball if you lose it, but in no way can they dribble the ball for you. They cannot tell you what's coming up but once you've encountered something, they can tell you what the object is. At no point can you take off your blindfold. At the end of the obstacle course, you have to successfully shoot the ball into the goal. The second part will be explained once you get to it. Any questions?"
"Who will our partners be?" Jack called out, a sudden burst of confidence resulting in the question spilling from his lips.
"You'll find out soon enough," Kim supplied coldly. "The three people I've chosen—get with your players!"
The sounds of people shuffling across the field began again, the rustling of players jogging across the grass filling Jack's ears as he spun this way and that, unable to see his guide.
"Anderson!" Kim's voice barked over the general noise. "You're going first. After Anderson will be Rebecca, and then Mark. Got it?"
"I'm going first?"
There was no response from the captain.
Eddie's voice filtered into Jack's hearing. "Hey, why can't I be Jack's partner?" Jack heard Eddie whine. "I know him the best so far, after Jerry! And Milton!"
"Yeah, well," Kim's voice retorted swiftly, "You're a complete klutz when you're not playing defense, and we want to see how much he can do without someone else pulling him down. The only reason Jerry and Milton aren't guiding him is—"
Kim's reprimanding tone was cut off by another voice, this one much closer to him.
"Jack," a familiar voice whispered right next to his ear, startling the heck out of the aforementioned teen. Jack jumped about three feet into the air and thought he detected the sound of Kim snickering at him as the voice continued. "Jack, it's me."
He could feel the person behind him now, patting his back reassuringly, a few inches shorter than him in height, warm to the touch.
"Kat?"
"Yes," Jack felt her shift behind him and maneuver around him to stand next to him. "I'm your partner for the Initiation. Relax, yeah? As long as you don't get too keyed up you should be perfectly fine. You've got the skills, just don't get your knickers in a twist."
Jack emitted a short, nervous laugh. "Um…right. I won't get my boxers in a twist." He paused. "Wait, was it you that I kicked in the chest earlier? Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," Kat snorted. "It hurt at first—but that's not the point. Come over here."
She started tugging on his arm, pulling him a few feet to the left and placing a ball at his feet; Jack nudged the soccer ball to see where it was, rolling it underneath his shoe. "We're starting here," she explained. "Kim will tell you when—"
"We're starting now!" Kim's voice cut through the air, silencing Kat. "Anderson…go!"
Jack dribbled forward cautiously, expecting to hit something like a wall at any moment.
Nothing got in his way. He continued to nudge the ball forward tentatively, switching feet every few steps, his running tense and prepared for the worst.
"Am I going in the right direction?" he wondered out loud to Kat thirty seconds later, who was keeping a steady pace beside him; he could hear the sound of her shoes jogging lightly across the grass. "Because—"
The ball suddenly disappeared from underneath his feet, and the next thing he knew, he'd fallen flat on his face, sprawling onto the cold grass, the breath knocked out of his lungs. His blindfold shifted slightly, but managed to keep its position over his eyes.
Damn.
"You hit a rock, Jack," Kat whispered urgently to him, her voice several inches above his head. "Here's your soccer ball—"
The spherical object was passed into his hands. He rolled it in front of him, positioning it as accurately as he could.
"And you have to keep going," Kat encouraged, pulling him to his feet. He staggered backwards before slowly dribbling around the rock, giving it a wide berth just in case Kim had managed to find a mutant-sized rock for the Initiation, and continued on.
Over the next two minutes or so, Jack managed to knock over a cone, trip over another rock, and, according to Kat, kick a…flower?
"Jerry must have put it there," Kat sighed in exasperation, and Jack could almost visualize the raven-haired player next to him rolling her eyes. "He found a patch of flowers by the greenhouses and couldn't resist stealing them."
Jack swallowed, his dribbling slowing down considerably as a thought occurred to him.
"Don't stop!" Kat reprimanded him fiercely. "You're almost there, we're close to the goal!"
Jack bit his lip. "Um, Kat…are there any moving things out there?"
"I'm not allowed to say," she replied regretfully.
That should have been his warning, because the next thing he ran into was a person.
As in, a legitimate, human-being-sized person.
The unknown figure toppled over along with Jack, as Jack had dribbled headlong into the person. They tumbled onto the field, the ball rolling away to some unknown location as he struggled to stumble to his feet without the use of his sight.
"Kim put people on the fields for me to crash into?" Jack cried in disbelief. "What the heck?"
"Hey, it wasn't a picnic for me, either," a familiar voice pointed out. "All I get to do is stand out here and act like a human obstacle. Kim ran out of things to put in your way."
Kyle.
Kat snickered. "You crashed into Kyle, Jack…and don't worry, he doesn't mind. He's apparently much tougher than that."
"Oh, shut up," Jack heard Kyle whisper to Kat, who giggled.
Kat giggles? Jack wondered incredulously. Who would have thought?
"Well, you're always the one claiming that you're tough!" Kat insisted, traces of laugher still evident in her voice. "So much for that…"
"Well," Kyle started defensively, "let me run you over and see how you—"
Jack threw his hands up frantically. He'd begun to search for the ball while Kat and Kyle were having their little…flirt-fest, or whatever it was, but he was convinced that time was running out and his impact with Kyle had knocked the ball out of his crawling range. "Look, I'm sorry to break up your obvious flirting—"
He received a stinging punch to the shoulder, courtesy of Kat.
"But," Jack winced, rubbing his shoulder, "I really need the ball and you're supposed to be helping me, Kat! Can you please get it? In case you haven't noticed, I'm blind here!"
The sounds of Kat's hurried footsteps across the grass rustled through the darkness, and then she was back with the soccer ball in less than ten seconds, pressing the object into his hands and muttering a hasty apology in his ear.
Jack balanced it below his feet, nodding in what he hoped was the right direction and turning in the direction of Kyle's general voice. "Sorry about that, Kyle—"
"You know," Kat started in impatiently, "for someone who was so ready to continue just a minute ago, you're really chatty now. Just keep going, you're so close!"
After a few more seconds of dribbling, Kat grabbed onto Jack's wrist, pulling him to a stop. "The goal is close to you," Kat hissed to him. "But I'm not allowed to tell you where it is. You'll have to keep shooting until you find it…and don't worry, there's not a monster in the goal. It's just Jerry in there."
Jack spun around for a few seconds, his arms swinging out to see if he could find a goalpost anywhere, but he was met with nothing.
On the other side of the field, he could hear Rebecca's hysterical voice, the words punctuated by sobs, growing closer and closer. The sound of a scream reached Jack's ears as he heard a thump, and he assumed that Rebecca had fallen down.
Wait.
He could hear screaming…and talking…
Jack could hear.
"Jerry!" Jack screamed, hoping that Jerry was allowed to talk.
"Yo!" Jerry responded, somewhere to his left, his voice surprisingly cheerful and bright. "Whattup, Jack?"
Bingo.
Jack turned carefully to the left before he could lose his memory on the exact location from where he'd heard the voice, checking the soccer ball's position before speeding forward and shooting it in the general direction that Jerry's voice had come from.
Thump.
Then, "OW!"
"Jerry?" Jack called out gleefully. "Did I make it?"
A choking sound was heard, Jerry's wheezing sounding a bit far away from him. "Yeah—it bounced—off—my stomach—into—goal. That—was—unexpected—"
"Basically," Kat laughed, coming up behind him, causing Jack to jump yet again; he hadn't heard her footsteps. "You passed that little test, and with flying colors, too. Smart move. Now come on," she commanded, tugging him across more grass. "The next part is a little bit…harder…"
After walking around what Jack assumed to be part of the soccer field, Kat had yanked him towards something else.
"Okay," Milton's calm voice spoke up, and Jack listened attentively. "Great job on the obstacle course—now you have to go through the maze."
"A maze?" Jack repeated in disbelief.
"Yes," Milton answered pompously. "The walls are sturdy, so don't bother trying to break them down. The walls are tall enough to keep you from tipping over them, but they're still short enough that we can see most of your head to keep track of where you are and what you're doing. Your object is to get through the maze to your other partner, who's on the other side."
Jack's eyes widened beneath the blindfold. He was expected to go through a maze, all by himself? "Kat?" he tried softly. "Are you still here?"
"She's already gone to the other side," Milton told him. "She can call out your name so you know what direction you're going in, but she can't tell you to turn right or anything. Got it?"
"Wait!" Jack protested. "I—"
Milton evidently didn't wish to waste anymore time. "Go!"
Jack received a push on the back that tipped him forwards, the shove presumably from Milton. The ball rolled into motion under his feet, and he stumbled into what he assumed was the maze, splaying out his hands and desperately searching for the walls to catch his balance, clinging to them by his fingertips.
The sound of what sounded like a door slamming shut banged behind him.
Crap.
First things first—know your surroundings.
Jack tentatively spread his arms out again to see how wide the paths were. They weren't big enough for him to completely stretch his arms out, but they weren't claustrophobically tiny either. The walls seemed to reach up to about his chest.
"Kat?" he yelled loudly, remembering that she was allowed to say his name, to give him some sense of direction.
"Jack!" the familiar voice screamed, sounding very, very far away and to his right. "Jack!"
In his excitement, he dribbled forward quickly…
Before slamming into an actual wall this time.
The walls swayed the tiniest of a degree (Jack put his hands up to feel the resistance), but they didn't seem capable of falling down. He picked himself up, not allowing fear to take over his actions, and continued on at a steady pace, his arms stretched out to guide him, hitting dead ends every thirty seconds.
Two minutes passed by, and Jack was only hitting dead ends.
Another minute, and Jack had tripped over something and banged his head against a wall.
After another five minutes, he leaned against a wall, exhaustion catching up to him. Jack felt hopelessly lost. Was this some kind of torture? Was it even legal to kidnap a sixteen-year-old from his bed in the middle of the night and force him blindly thorough an obstacle course and a dark maze with almost no help at all?
He had the sudden urge to rip off his blindfold, just to see where he was. If he ducked down, surely he could slip it off without anyone noticing, right?
Sinking down to his knees, his hands drifted up to the blindfold before he paused.
No. If they somehow found out that he cheated, that would just give Kim one more thing to hate about him—and no matter how much Jack wanted to succeed in this, he was not giving Kim yet another reason to dislike him.
Besides, he would have been plagued with guilt at the end. Cheating was one thing he was not going to do. He'd been raised as a child to play fair at all costs.
No way.
"How on earth did you guys set this damn thing up?" Jack yelled, rising to his feet and beating his fists against the sturdy walls, fury creeping into his voice. "These things won't freaking fall!"
His wish for the walls to just collapse was, unfortunately, not granted, and he stretched a sore hamstring, anger steeling the determination in him.
"Kat!" he screamed, adrenaline buzzing through his veins once more as he began to nudge the ball forward cautiously, his pace controlled as his hands rose up before him, tracing the sides of the walls.
He had to get out of this hellhole, no matter what it took.
"Jack!"
He needed to head to the left. He'd gone too far to the right.
At the next possible turn, he veered left, his breaths bouncing off the walls, adding to his other senses that had sharpened since entering the maze.
The fear continually made attempts to creep back into him, but each time Jack just growled and pushed his body harder, putting all his efforts in ridding himself of this damn maze and winning his vision back. His familiarity with the maze and how it worked just increased with the more turns he made, and soon he was jogging through it, occasionally backtracking out of dead ends.
Despite the cold air, drops of sweat began to roll down his neck, and he swiped at his forehead, cutting off the beads of perspiration before they could travel farther down his face.
He would need a shower when he was done with this…
Five more minutes passed, Jack barreling through the maze with newly discovered strength, his feet weaving the ball back and forth between the paths with ease. He let the soccer instincts in him take over his body, his brain switching into autopilot mode.
Jog.
Turn.
Repeat.
"Kat?" Jack called out tentatively, after some time had passed.
"I can see you!" was the reply.
A grin started to turn up the corners of his face as he sprinted forwards, his speed increasing dramatically. "Really?"
There was barely a hint of a pause as the girl cheered, "Jack! Just right in front of you! You're so close!"
Yes!
His mind started to blur, the thoughts of impending victory jumbling up all rationality as he dribbled straight forward, making a beeline toward Kat's ecstatic voice. He could hear her jumping up and down now, and worried for a split second that he was going to crash into a wall in his arrogance.
Nothing stood in his way.
"You're done!" Kat cried gleefully, her voice now mere inches from his ears.
Unable to stop his momentum, Jack stumbled out of the maze and straight into Kat, throwing her off balance. She grabbed his arms and suspended him, holding him above the ground as something in her hand beeped, close to his ears.
"What—the—hell?" Jack complained as soon as he managed to regain footing on the ground. "What kind of a challenge was that?"
The pure relief at finally having passed the Initiation flooded through him like a tidal wave, and a sense of satisfaction happened to be so strong that it sent him swaying on the spot, tipping back and forth as he clutched his head, feeling a major headache coming on.
He was finally done.
Kat seemed to have no intentions of responding to his question, simply calling out to an unknown person in obvious excitement, "Fifteen minutes, seventeen seconds!"
"Is that good?" Jack gasped out.
"Well, it's—"
His knees gave out.
Jack tumbled to the ground in sheer exhaustion, thankful beyond belief that the stupid Initiation was now over. Kat, unfortunately, hadn't been able to catch him this time, and the grass pressed into his nostrils uncomfortably. He chose to roll over onto his back, his palms flattened against the turf, breathing in the night air that seemed to smell ten times sweeter than it ever had before.
"Come on," Kat managed to pull Jack to his feet after a few minutes of rest. "You did extremely well, but we have to get you some proper rest and relaxation now. Don't worry, you're done—I don't think you can handle any more trauma for tonight, anyway."
Jack wiggled uncomfortably as Kat starting pulling him somewhere, the destination unknown. "Can you get this damn thing off of me? I hate not being able to see."
Kat let loose a small lungful of air. "You've got to wait a tiny bit more…"
"Kat," Kim voice called. Jack stiffened at the sound of the captain's cold tone. "Check the—"
"Got it."
Jack felt Kat move up behind him and fiddle with something on his head, her fingers poking and pulling at the blindfold before announcing, "He's good! Nothing was broken!"
"Broken?" Jack asked dizzily, the shock now finding its way into his system. He teetered back and forth and nearly toppled over for the fiftieth time, but Kat managed to catch him. "What do you mean, broken? I didn't break my head."
A giggle escaped him, turning into a full laugh. He snickered hazily for a few minutes, not even noticing that he probably looked very, very stupid.
Kat's sarcastic tone managed to clear away some of the fog that had been accumulating inside his head. "Of course you didn't break anything, you idiot, you only fell down a few times. I was checking for something else, don't worry. You seem a bit tipsy—and I'm guessing you didn't drink alcohol tonight…the shock's catching up with you…"
"Can you take the blindfold off now?"
Her arm brushed the side of his head as she reached up, her fingers curling over the blindfold. There was a swift ripping sound, and the blindfold disappeared from his head, returning his vision to him in the process. Jack's head swept back and forth, wondering where he was—he'd never had a sense of direction in the first place, as he'd been blindfolded from the moment he'd woken up in his room.
He was on the side of the field, near one of the goals, standing next to the metallic benches used for spectators during the games. Half of the field—the obstacle course—was lit up, and Jack noticed Kyle and a few other players standing in as obstacles while there were some other random objects scattered among the blades of grass.
The other half of the field was the maze Jack had just popped out of. The walls looked to be a cold, steely gray, set up by supports that twisted up the edges. It didn't look like anything he had expected, but then again, he'd been blind.
Kat was staring challengingly up at him, one dark eyebrow raised, as though she were expecting a now demented, twisted, and insane version of him.
Jack rubbed his eyes, muttering, "Jesus. That was a hell of a thing."
A smile stretched across her face, and she rolled down the sleeves of her oversized Wasabi Warriors Soccer sweatshirt, wrapping it tightly around herself as she continued to observe him. "Not so bad, was it?"
Jack reply was cut off by a brisk voice: "Any major injuries?"
He twisted around and was met with the captain of the team herself, tapping a pen against a clipboard and observing him with a critical eye. She marched up to him and wrote something on her clipboard.
"No," he answered through gritted teeth. "Nice of you to put me through that, captain."
Kim's face softened just the tiniest degree, and she made a beeline for the benches, Kat pushing him gently after her. The blonde grabbed a blanket from the small supply that had been prepared and handed it to him stiffly, along with a water bottle.
"For the record," Kim remarked as she plopped down next to him on the bench, staring at Jack as he downed the water thirstily, "I never came up with it. It's been a Wasabi Warriors tradition. I just organized it this year."
Jack ceased in his drinking. "Were the human obstacles really necessary? I think I bruised Kyle really badly."
Kim managed a small laugh, causing Jack's eyebrows to shoot up in surprise. Her voice seemed almost civil as she replied, "I ran out of other objects."
Was this the same Kim that he'd gotten into a fight with just earlier today, on the same field? They were acting as though they were friends, or at the very least, acquaintances. Her icy manner was slowly melting, little by little, like someone had struck a small flame next to an ice sculpture.
Jack felt encouraged, and a tiny smile managed to make its way across his face before he pressed his lips to the water bottle again.
Kim's tone was now businesslike as she picked up the clipboard and examined Jack closely. "Anything you want to comment on? Complaints, insults, things you'd like to throw at us?"
Jack quirked an eyebrow slowly. "Um…no?"
Kim marked something in her notes. "Right, anything else?"
Jack bit his lower lip before the words came spilling out of their own accord.
"I…I wanted to rip off the blindfold," he confessed, fingering the cloth next to him on the bench in slight shame, his cheeks starting to burn.
The blonde watched with stoic dark eyes, waiting for him to continue.
"But…I couldn't bring myself to do it," Jack took in a shuddering breath. "I felt like somehow, you guys would know what I did. And," he added as a hurried afterthought, "I don't like to cheat."
Kim's eyebrows hiked up her forehead and she scribbled something on her clipboard. "Yeah, we would have known. There was a seal on all the blindfolds—it breaks or cracks at any small movement you make to take or even slip it off. The first thing we did when you finished the maze was to check your blindfold."
"So that's what Kat was checking for," Jack realized. "When she was checking something on my head."
"Yeah, she—"
Jerry popped up suddenly behind Kim. "Well, everyone's done with part one, which means I'm free!" the dark-haired teen cheered. "Awesome job, Jack! Total swag! That was a team record, you know! For the maze!"
"It was?" Jack looked to Kim to verify the claims.
The captain's face shut down again, her slowly softening manner solidifying once more, and she jerked her head nonchalantly. "I suppose."
Jerry nodded, crossing his arms, looking very cheerful despite the late hour. "Dude, when I went through my Initiation, it was scary, yo. But I got through. I kept calm, did the right things, and—"
Kim snorted. "Jerry, you broke down and started crying halfway through the maze. It took you nearly an hour to complete it. We had to go in and check on you, and we found you rocking back and forth in a dark corner."
The goalie pouted. "Okay, maybe I did."
There was an awkward silence before Kat peeled away from the group, her journey across half of the field bringing her to Kyle's familiar figure. Jack studied the number on the back of her soccer sweatshirt as she struck up a conversation with him easily.
Jack cleared his throat. "Hey, um, Kim—"
"You can go now, Jack," Kim announced abruptly, her tone obviously implying expected dismissal. Her dark brown eyes were wide with something that resembled the slightest hint of panic. "I have to stay and watch the next two and also clean up the field afterwards. I'll post tryout results later. Go to bed, don't disturb anyone—we can't have Rudy breathing down our necks like last year. No tricks, got it?"
Jack's hope started to crumble again. The blonde had frozen once more, her manner towards him as icy as it had been the first day now. It seemed that the littlest event or comment could instantly reverse what melting he'd been able to achieve.
"I…"
Jerry took Jack's arm and began tugging him, blanket and all, towards the dorm. Jack desperately wanted to make amends, figure out what he'd done wrong to aggravate the captain again, sleepiness and exhaustion swirling the thoughts in his brain into a confusing haze of scrambled thoughts.
He jerked his elbow free from Jerry's grip and jogged jerkily back up to Kim, the blanket sliding off and falling to the grass. "Wait, Kim!"
"What?" She was in the middle of heading to the maze, where Jack could see Rebecca halfway through—he could hear the sounds of her distressed sobbing—and Mark about to enter.
"I—" Jack swallowed convulsively. "I could…help you clean up after Rebecca and Mark are done, if you'd like?" he offered, taking his best shot at getting back on her good side.
A brief flash of surprise crossed her face, and Jack was sure she was tempted to accept his offer, before she shook her head. "I don't think that's a good idea," she declined slowly. "I got it. Go to bed."
On that cold note, she left Jack standing in the middle of the field, staring after the captain.
Again.
A/N: Fine. I finally put some Jack/Kim in here that's on the edge of friendship and that involved civil words, not fighting. Are you Kick shippers happy now? Jesus.
I've nothing much to say, really, but to encourage you all to watch The Hunger Games. I meant it when I said that it's an excellent movie, and I'm not just saying that because I'm a fan of the books. It's a great interpretation of the book and I'm looking forward to Catching Fire.
I have one more thing to ask: what would all of you think if I started writing Grace/Jerry one-shots? I have a few planned out already and I think they would make a good love-hate/awkward couple based on what I saw in Ricky Weaver. Does anyone else think that? Leave your thoughts in a review.
And yes, that does mean...review!
—A