TEN
She convinces him to let her jump around for a good hour or more, Jonas following after her the entire time, being that 'supervisor' she'd started calling him, even if he mostly stays on the ground. Alex is having an absolute field day with it— figuring out different paths, berating him to time her with his phone to see how quickly she can run them, exuberant despite the fact that she probably shouldn't be doing any of this. No one knows they're here. If something happens to her, the responsibility would be on his shoulders. Maybe that's why he's so worried?
A part of her - not a guilty part, but a hesitant one - wants to think it's something else. Something closer. The same kind of thing that might have made him hug her for just a bit too long. But that is, in his own words, pure speculation (or, at least, "conjecture"). It doesn't stop her chest from tugging when she spots him smiling every so often, or rolling his eyes at some stupid quip she makes. Alex doesn't quite understand why that hurts.
At some point during her zipping through buildings and random wooden panels, her energy runs thin, and eventually both she and Jonas quietly make their way back to his truck.
.
She's kind of exhausting. Running on sheer manic energy most of the time, or so it seems, and despite his better judgment Jonas had tried to keep up until he just gave in, spotting her instead. Alex was all about winding between supports and vaulting stacks of plywood, and he ended up with hands hooked over a beam in a supporting wall, swinging occasionally, doing a pull-up or two, but mostly just watching. He can climb fine, but definitely isn't one to go jumping head first over anything. Into anything. Which is apparently just how Alex approaches life.
They have thoroughly explored every nook and cranny of Unfinished House No. 2 by the time she's tired enough to stop. He's had another cigarette (two in one day - that hasn't happened in a while). Not really that bad, smoking, in comparison to, say, trespassing. Jonas blames it on Miss Blue Curaçao— she's a bad influence. But he's a pretty shit one himself, to be fair. He's the one who brought her out here to begin with.
"Your-" parents- wait, no, just, "-mom must be getting worried." It's not quite sunset yet, but the sky is a deep greyish blue as the sun is hidden behind trees. His physics section ends in five minutes, and then he'd have the usual 45 minute drive home in rush hour traffic. So, still some time to kill before he can head home and make it believable. His car is sitting open, but no one else has shown up - besides which, it's not like a couple beat up backpacks in an old pickup are really prime targets. "Want me to drive you home?"
.
Alex nearly snorts. Sure, her mom gets worried about her, but… no, she shouldn't get so cynical about this right off the bat. So instead she bumps her shoulder into Jonas's arm. "Nah. My mom's a doctor, and she works real late hours. Half the time I only ever see her in the mornings. If she were home and I wasn't, she'd have called by now." That part was true. Her mom is always worried about where she is, which is both a blessing and a curse. It hasn't always been that way. She doesn't say that either.
So she walks with Jonas to his truck, but instead of getting into the passenger side again, grabs her backpack from where she'd thrown it underneath the seat and starts for the truck bed. It's simple enough to climb into it after moving her bag to the side, settling against the back of the truck and starting to work her way through to find her homework. Alex's mom has a thing for getting on her about schoolwork now, so she's just learned to do it at the last minute. As long as she's passing.
After pulling out a piece of english she needs to finish (since she'd passed out) and setting up her phone flashlight to shine on the assignment, Alex settles completely, pencil scratching quietly along paper. Kind of annoying to hold everything down when the breeze rolls through, but being outside feels better than being cooped up in her house for the fifteenth time ever. It feels like she's known that house too well. Sure, it's hers, but it doesn't quite feel like… home. Home is people, home is the things you love all in one place. Which is why she's always running toward them.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, Alex gets another one of those little tics. Home is Jonas.
.
He's standing by the driver's side, expecting her to climb in, and instead she's gone 'round the back. Jonas isn't even surprised at this point, just resigned to follow. So he steps around to figure out just what she's intending, and once he gets it, he sighs. Right. Okay, well, apparently it's study hall now. Fair enough; he did miss class.
Pulling his own backpack from the front seat, he strolls to the truck bed and tosses it in before stepping up and over himself. A couple steps and he takes a knee next to the toolbox installed in the back, keys jangling as he pops it open and pushes around the mess of supplies inside until he finds the emergency light. The plastic casing is cracked, but he flicks the little knob at the base and it turns on, so it still works.
"I usually keep a blanket it here for the fall, but I haven't done the switch over yet," he explains, pulling out an old sweatshirt (now a little more grease-stained then when it went in). "Looks like this is the best I've got for padding at the moment. If you want it." He hasn't chilled in the back of Bily for a while. Now he sets the camp light down and sinks into a corner before pulling out his phone. Reception is shit from his carrier. "Any chance I can co-opt your data? Mine's being a bitch and I need to check blackboard. Someone made me miss class." Jonas raises a brow with the teasing accusation.
.
She winces a bit, but it's good-natured, as she pulls out her phone and unlocks it to hand it over. No new texts from her mom, but Ren has been blowing up her messages for 'ditching him' and being a 'wild child like she always is.' So basically nothing new. "Sorry. It's not like I meant to fall asleep, suddenly get a nightmare, freak out because it looked like you were possessed, run around old houses for a while and then start doing homework."
Alex trades the phone for the sweatshirt. She props herself up onto her knees before sitting on it, kicking out her legs again to make a proper kind of desk-thing so that her pencil won't rip through paper. It's relatively nice out, and the pickup isn't really a terrible place to sit, even if they aren't technically supposed to be here. Jonas was the one that had pulled up in the first place, so she just stays quiet about it. It'd been fun to use the scaffolding like they were some monkey bars, though. She does her best not to think about the implications her mind is trying to shove at her, and focuses more on the assignment, almost glaring at it even though she understands the questions.
.
Possessed? "Mmmhm." He's jokingly skeptical, but the whole possession thing is an unexpected addition. There's another comment on the tip of his tongue when he pauses. Wait. The red eyes bit… that kind of possession? The quip eludes him as he watches her for a second, quietly, then turns his attention back to her cell. The password he sets up for the hotspot is - of course - MissBlueC. He hands her phone back over and returns to his own.
Blah blah, school stuff, a powerpoint he's not gonna try to read on his tiny screen… The homework doesn't look too bad either, compared to the last one. And if he thinks he can concentrate with Alex across from him… Yeah, maybe not.
But staring probably isn't a good idea, either.
Instead, he shifts a bit, angling a little more toward her so he can kick his feet up on a wheel well as he stuffs his backpack under his head for a pillow and slides down onto his back. Too early for stars, but at least there's no sun in his eyes.
.
This isn't something she'd ever been able to do with Michael around. "Oh, shut up, Jonas. You're the one who even let me go to sleep. Sure, I needed it because I've been avoiding it like the plague ever since I started seeing people dying. And… some weird other things, but that's just kind of life now." It reminds her of when she used to get panic attacks going anywhere near water. Even the idea of taking a shower would make Alex start screaming. Kind of similar, except now she sees her friends - and Clarissa, and Jonas - all dying. Which, ironically, isn't new to her. Death will never be new to her again.
.
Jonas lets out a huff of bitter laughter at her assessment of her situation, but stays quiet. Maybe it's all the church he's been subjected to over the years (less once his mom was diagnosed, 'cause he couldn't stand the attention and pity, and even less once she was in the hospital and couldn't drag him along with her), but he's got that guilt dripping slowly to puddle in his stomach. That she should have it so bad when he's stayed mostly unaffected.
Apart from the slightly terrifying amnesia bit, that is. That was pretty bad.
Still, he has that instinct to comfort and protect, and it's one he's realizing he's going to have to deny a lot around her, 'cause…
He swallows, trying to ignore her movement out of the corner of his eye, the little sweep of blue hair as she works. Yikes. It shouldn't be going so fast. He shouldn't feel so… weirdly attached. But he just kinda is. And it's not like— well, not to compare her - not to say she should be compared - but it's not like girlfriends he's had. It's not that initial attraction and posturing and trying to figure out if he's doing it right. It's like… deeper.
Christ, this is… He lets out a long breath, and stares at the sky, watching it gradually turn to twilight.
.
It's easy enough getting through her english work. It's always been one of her better subjects. Then history, then math, and that's where she gives up. Math was a terrible invention by the devil that makes absolutely no sense at all. So Alex stuffs her papers back into her bag, bundles the sweatshirt he's given her into a ball to use as a bit of a pillow, and curls up on the other side of the toolbox to look over the sky. No stars. It feels like she should be used to a sky without stars, for some reason, but that… shouldn't be right. Unless she's been seeing things all over again, which is also an option.
She shuffles a little closer to Jonas, tense all over again.
.
The sound of her scratching on paper, flipping pages, gradually lulls him enough to close his eyes, focusing on the smell of the air around them, the soft breeze that's audible in the trees nearby but doesn't quite reach his head down below the walls of the truck bed. If he focuses he can maybe feel the slightest change in the air around his feet, but that's the most he's got.
Jonas tucks his hands behind his head with something akin to a sigh, about ready to take a nap after the combined exercise of chasing after Alex and worrying over her. Both strenuous activity, even if the idea does make his lips twitch.
Student student student.
He needs to remember that.
But she can't be more than, what… a year? Year and half younger?
College students shouldn't date highschoolers.
Not that you're dating.
Not that she wants to date.
Stop thinking about her like that.
No, he can think of her like… Like a charge. Like he's… babysitting. Keeping her from dying, helping her take care of herself, since she obviously isn't super adept at the simple things like sleep. So he's stepping in, in a kind of guardian role. And guardians don't think of their charges… physically. Nope. So he won't.
He shifts a bit, getting more comfortable, secure in his resolution.
.
When he doesn't respond to her, Alex gets kind of worried. It's a paranoia kind, where she knows he's fine, and that it's stupid to even think about freaking out over it, but it's still there. Her head tips up enough to look over him. Cut jaw, broad shoulders, no green jacket. The almost-perfect/not-quite-perfect-dream-version of him. Her eyes linger on his lips just a little too long. Aah . Okay. That's what that weird— the weird thing was. The feeling. She's tempted to ask if he's asleep, or alive, or if he's going to respond with anything other than that cut off laughter, but she doesn't. Instead she takes off Michael's jacket for a minute, slides the sweatshirt on over her own tee (because admittedly, it's getting kind of cold, and this is fluffy), puts the bright red thing back on, and then settles herself.
…With her head on Jonas's chest, and the rest of her tucked up against his side.
It's impulsive, it's completely uncalled for, and it's Alex. If he is asleep, that means he can't argue. Free real estate to keep the nightmares at bay. That's still a running theory in her head - that he can push them back if she's in his proximity - but it works. When she was in the truck, it had worked. Which means it could work now. Sure, it's half an excuse to cuddle him…
Fuck it. She's doing it already, no point in stopping now. He's still comfortable.
Kind of a weird thought, but also a true thought. The fact that Jonas is comfortable. And his chest rumbles a bit when he breathes.
.
Jonas is counting his breaths. He has to, to pass off that he's still asleep because he's 90% sure that if he were noticeably awake she wouldn't be doing this right now. Despite his dry mouth, he can't bring himself to swallow, too worried it will break the illusion.
There's a reason he's doing this, right? A reason that isn't just… (His heart is going too fast, even with his attempts to control his breathing.) That isn't just… wanting her close to him? There has to be another reason.
Sleep. Right, sleep. She needs sleep, and if this is what helps…
His instinct is to pull her closer, get an arm around her, but he's too cautious. Still, he feels the impulse go through him, making his fingers twitch for a fraction of a second, and it's only thanks to the counting in his head that he keeps breathing, because he's so worried she's going to pull away.
He's too aware of her. The padding of her jacket against his side, the heat of her breath gradually soaking through his clothes. How she's cuddled up beside him, and how much he wants to curl towards her as well.
The counting is working, though. Calming him down, even as thoughts he shouldn't be having are playing on the backs of his eyelids. He just wants… His parents are hopeless romantics, and he's been taken in by them. Visions of chin tilts and soft kisses replace the beach and the bonfire. He counts his breath in, counts it out again, and promptly dismisses the thought. Now is not the time. She is not the girl. They barely know each other.
It's several more rounds of in and out breaths, but gradually, somehow, he's actually fading into some sort of mental limbo— that stage of sleep where the mind starts conjuring not-quite dreams. It feels so much later than it is, and in his half-conscious state he dreams of looking up into a starry night. And looking down, onto a bonfire. Into a cave. Down more, a ladder into darkness. They aren't frightening dreams, though. Just… disconnected, drifting images. He's lost count on his breaths.
.
It takes longer than she likes to fall asleep. But Jonas helps. Alex figures he has to be asleep, too, since he isn't moving or talking and hasn't given any kind of indication that he doesn't want this to be happening. So, still free game. His chest still rumbles, but she can hear his heartbeat along with it, and that might be the most calming thing about it. A reassurance that she's around something alive. Someone alive. Someone warm, and caring, and wow she needs to just… slow down for a second.
Even if all of it's right. Even if she tucks herself as close as she can get, throws a leg over his own, and just lays there. For someone so loud and bombastic when awake, Alex is oddly quiet as she sleeps, breath even and fanning over fabric as she drifts in unconsciousness. The dreams don't even come. It's just a blissful, black void of nothing, something that hasn't happened to her in years.
The bed of the truck is kind of uncomfortable, but she's slept in worse places. In swivel chairs, on roofs, hell even on the beach of Edwards Island at some points. But Jonas being here is something that makes it better. Because they're both warm, and the fabric of his shirt is soft— he's soft. Not just the fabric. So eventually, Alex's breathing matches with his own paced version: asleep. Calm.