Adapting, Adjusting, and Avoiding||Chapter 3- Summer Comes Early

Chapter Rating: T for that one OC who doesn't shut up. And, a warning, no yaoi/slash/boyxboy, and Summers isn't gay. Think on that.


Disclaimer: I don't own RotG. Go ahead and rub it in. Yes, I made Jack have a food allergy, same as me. It sucks, especially in high school, and he isn't perfect.


September 10th, 9:24am

"Oh my god that class lasted forever!" Cassie said loudly, laughing as they walked into the cafeteria.

Jack strolled over to an unoccupied table in the corner and sat, motioning Cassie to sit across from him. She dropped her books on the table with a bang and fell onto the bench, still laughing. All throughout Spanish, Jack had made fun of the teacher, and, having bad eyesight, the old woman yelled at a boy sitting a couple of seats in front of him.

Jack opened his paper bag and peeked inside, internally groaning. He pulled the PB&J sandwich out by a fingertip and nudged the tinfoil package over to the other side of the table. "You like peanut butter?" he asked Cassie, hoping she would trade.

Cassie snatched up the sandwich. "Yes! I love it! Is this PB&J?"

Jack nodded. Wow, this girl certainly is enthusiastic once you get to know her. "I'm allergic. I must have taken the wrong lunch or something this morning." He chuckled. "My brother must have gotten corned beef and mustard."

Cassie wrinkled her nose as she chewed, covering her mouth with her hand while she talked. "Ew. I hate corned beef. It's always so dry."

Jack laughed. "And I hate peanut butter. It smells like death." He paused and looked in the bag again. "Aaaaand I got applesauce." He pulled out a tiny container. It looked minuscule in his spindly fingers. Jack shrugged and peeled the top back, chugging it down like it was water before taking out an actual bottle of water- full-sized, not mini with fluoride, thankfully. He unscrewed the top and pulled off the little plastic ring, out of habit, swinging it around on his finger. He put the cap back on.

"You want cookies?" Cassie said through a mouthful of his sandwich. He nodded. Cassie tossed him an extremely large plastic bag of Oreos and he grinned, pulling each one in half and making double stacks. Cassie reached across and plucked the remaining cookie sides from his fingers, eating those too.

A student walked into the lunchroom, scanned the room for an empty table, and sighed, sitting at the emptiest, which happened to contain just Cassie and Jack. He sat all the way at the end, a cup of boiling liquid clutched between his hands, a pen and a couple of sheets of paper crammed into his pockets. He sipped his drink, made a face at it, and drank from it again.

Cassie scooted farther away from him, leaving almost the whole bench between them. She looked a little nervous to be near him, as if he was going to hit her. She leaned across the table and whispered, "That's John Summers. Don't mess with him. Once, he beat up the whole football team because they made him mad."

"Damn right," the boy grunted, gulping his drink, making Jack wonder if there might have been something other than water in it. "Bunch of dumbass jocks, thinking they can push me around." He didn't move. His hood was pulled so far forward over his face you couldn't see it, and every bit of exposed skin was covered by red or black fabric, including leather gloves over his hands.

Cassie stiffened and paled. She hadn't realized he could hear her.

"That's right, girly, you're not as good a whisperer as you think. I can hear every word." He made no sign he'd spoken, just sipped his hot water calmly.

Jack eyed the newcomer and drank from his water bottle, distracted until a thin stream of water almost came out of his mouth. He pressed a finger just below the right side of his lower lip and swallowed. When he pulled his fingertip away, a tiny bit of water trickled down his chin despite his mouth being closed.

The boy, John, gave no indication he had seen it, but he spoke gruffly, sounding like he smoked. "First time without?" His words were vague and cryptic.

Jack grimaced. "Yeah." He didn't say more than that.

John actually moved, nodding his head as he raised the cup. He spoke, lips almost touching the rim. "Annoying, isn't it? I don't."

Jack nodded the tiniest bit, not really looking at him but focused on Cassie instead, who looked very confused. "What's going on?"

John didn't even have to look at her. "You never got a piercing." A statement, not a question. "You wouldn't know."

Jack fidgeted, uncomfortable. He had been torn between coming to school as 'normal' or being himself. He'd decided on 'normal'. No sense gaining a shady reputation on the first day. And maybe he could have left that other persona behind with his troublemaker attitude.

The way today was going, apparently not.

Cassie looked at Jack with interest and he looked away, into the lunch bag and wiping his face. "I didn't know you had a piercing. Where?" Her face pinked slightly, as if she realized how personal a question it was. "You don't have to answer that. Ignore my motormouth."

He shrugged. "I kinda wanted to leave it behind in Alaska. This is a fresh start for me."


September 10th, 9:29am

John snorted. "Shame. You should have left them." You would have looked cuter, he thought absentmindedly. His face turned red, and he was very glad no one could see his face and he hadn't said that out loud. It could throw off his whole appearance. No one would be afraid of him anymore, and when they weren't afraid, they bullied him.

He looked Jack over. Sweatshirt, jeans, sneakers. That was it. And a black backpack. Nothing really special there, except he actually had his pants where the manufacturers intended them to be worn instead of around his knees like everyone else in the school.

Jack himself, on the other hand, was different. Much, much different. His hair was a bleached white and his eyes were a shade of bright blue that gave John shivers. His skin was pale, very pale, and he was unusually tall, his fingers long and bony, extremely thin-looking. Honestly, it was obvious he had a piercing. How that Cassie girl had missed it was ridiculous. The lip one wasn't very noticeable until the water leaked out of it, though. Jack was rather attractive, and undoubtably straight.

John returned his attention to the coffee cup in his hands, the bitter taste grossing him out. But it was better than taking his prescribed meds, and he would rather drink three gallons of boiling lemon-herb water in one day than take pills that altered his thought processing and the hormones in his brain. The disgusting liquid, hot enough to burn his mouth if he wasn't used to it, was the only thing that calmed him down and allowed him to rationalize normally.


September 10th, 9:29am

Cassie glanced down the table nervously at John. He scared her, honestly. He had shown he wasn't above hurting girls before, and he was totally unpredictable. There was no doubt in her mind that he would readily do it again.

She felt guilty for taking Jack's lunch. She pulled out a pack of Whoppers (the malted milk ball candies) and slid them across the table to him. He probably couldn't eat Reeses's Peanut Butter Cups, with a peanut allergy.

"Can you wear your piercing tomorrow? I want to see what you looked like in Alaska." Her toes tapped habitually inside her boots, more out of ADHD than anything else.

Jack didn't seem to be too comfortable with the topic. "Once you see me, you won't be able to see me just like this anymore. The two images will merge or something, and I don't want to be labeled right away." He twisted his lips and took the offering of candy.

"Please? I won't treat you differently," she begged.

"I'll... let you guys see my eyes." John fidgeted, as if he hadn't meant to say that. "Begging isn't becoming, girly. And I don't want to hear you whine for the rest of the period." He seemed to fix Cassie with a glare, though she wouldn't know, as she couldn't see his eyes.

Jack hesitated. "Fine. But I'll do it next month sometime. Okay?"

"Deal," Cassie and John said in unison.

"So, John, what do you have next period?" Cassie asked nervously, hoping fervently he wouldn't say-

"Biology," he answered shortly. "And don't call me John."

Jack spoke up. "Then what do we call you?"


September 10th, 9:31

He paused, mad at himself for saying that much. "Summers," he said, his words clipped and tense. "Summers is fine." John was such a stupid name. Everyone called him it. He made them call him Summers instead, hacked the school computers and left notes on it in the rosters, did everything in his power to erase the name John. It was just a pseudonym anyway, a coverup for his real name, which no one knew, not even his adoptive parents. They honestly thought his name was John Summers, and he kept his last name instead of taking theirs because it had some sort of meaning to him.

Truthfully, he just thought it sounded cool. Summers. It reminded him of the first time he realized he was different. It was... complicated.

He sighed and drank more of his water, the bitter stuff burning his throat and clearing his head of his past.


A/N:
LionsandTrolls, you are awesome!

Thanks to Alex Miller-Shadow! They reminded me to update (I wasn't positive many people liked it).
I have up to chapter five written, if someone reminds me they want more/I should probably update (I could have updated yesterday and I'll update again on request) I will definitely upload more, no questions, unless I don't have a chapter ready, at which point I'll PM you and say that.
I'm working on Where Do We Go From Here (I have 3+ arcs planned out) and ch6 of Jack/Cursed is in the works. I'm still taking OCs! I have one named Laura who will be major-ish and I can easily change her name! I will also just insert you, the user, under a name, if I like you a lot (P.S. LionsandTrolls, you up for being Claimed? ;) I could make a 'Lia' instead of Laura...)
Sorry for the long A/N!
This is Cat Lunanoff,, signing off for now... *mock salute*