A/N: Hello, there, faithful readers. Your patience with me remains saintly. See you again at the bottom.

WARNING: This piece of fanfiction is rated M for slash, graphic language, and adult situations. Minors and wusses, click away, please. Also, S. Meyer owns all Twilight-related material. Thanks for letting us twirl on your merry-go-round, Mrs. Meyer.

Chapter 4: Sym-Pathetic

"Unh!" With a muffled cry, I spurted all over my hand, my hips still thrusting until the explosion subsided. As I came down, one thought reverberated through me.

There's no way I can face him in school tomorrow.

*~*~*

Head down, dick down. Head down, dick down.

I repeated my mantra almost continually throughout the next two days of school.

After my vivid fantasy about Edward on Wednesday, I'd called Bella that night while in the middle of a mini-panic attack.

"Jazz, honey, relax. Breathe."

Big, gulping breaths filled my chest as I tried to comply.

"I'm freaking out, Bella. How the hell am I gonna make it through school if I spontaneously combust every time I see him?"

"Jasper," she said, "stop hyperventilating and calm down." When my panting slowed, she continued. "Look, you're obviously not ready to talk to this boy."

"No shit." My attempt to drip irony was somewhat undermined by the breathlessness of my voice.

"So, take things one day at a time. We only have two days of school left until the weekend. And then we have Monday off for Labor Day. So you'll have plenty of time to get your head on straight and come up with a plan. In the meantime, you'll be fine in the morning, since he's not in any of your classes. In the afternoon, just keep your head down and stick close to me. Alright?"

She made a lot of sense, as usual.

"I knew there was a reason you're my best friend, Bells."

She snorted.

"What, my incredible grace and sex appeal aren't reason enough?"

Her facetiousness made me wince. I knew she was joking, but I hated when she put herself down.

"You're beautiful, Bella," I said quietly. "Someday, the right woman is gonna see you, and love you, for exactly who you are."

She was silent for a moment.

"Thanks, Jazz."

"It's the truth, darlin'. You'll see." My brain darted to our original conversation as something occurred to me. "Wait, what about History? Edward's in my class, but you aren't."

"Well…" she drew out the word as she pondered. "Who else is in that class with you? Anyone who can act as a buffer?"

"Umm… Yeah, Angela Weber. I can walk to class with her after French and get her to sit with me, I guess."

"Good idea," she said approvingly. "See? We can make this work."

I tried to spin out all the possible pitfalls, and a horrible notion popped into my head.

"Shit, what if Emmett decides to introduce me to Edward tomorrow?"

"I'm kinda surprised he hasn't already," Bella said. I shuddered.

"You're right. Fuck, now I have to avoid Emmett, too. He's never gonna let me get away with that, even if we don't have any classes together."

Bella sighed.

"Emmett's a little distracted, in case you hadn't noticed," she said. "All of a sudden, Rosalie Hale is talking to him, even if it's just to tell him to go to hell. I don't think you have to worry about him chasing you down in the next couple of days."

I chuckled, somewhat relieved.

"Wow. Wanna know something weird? Last year, if you had said that, I would have been jealous. Now, though, I don't know…"

"My little Jazzy is growing up," Bella fake-sniffled.

"Well, one part of me is growing, anyway, whenever I see Edward." I snickered as Bella groaned.

"Ewww! Jasper Whitlock, I swear! I do not want that image in my head before I go to sleep."

"Good night, Bells."

"Good night, Jazz."

Mama knocked on my door just as I turned out my light. She came in and leaned over me, kissing my forehead.

"Sugar, you alright?"

"Yes, Mama. I'm fine."

"You hardly ate any of your dinner. You feelin' okay?"

I patted her hand.

"Mama, really, I'm fine. First-day-of-school jitters just got to me, I guess. I'm okay, now. Everything's good."

She caressed my cheek as her hazel eyes searched mine. Finally, she nodded, and withdrew, wishing me a hushed "good night" and closing my door softly behind her.

I hated lying to my Mama, hated that it had become second nature to me.

Exhaustion claimed me quickly. If I had any dreams, I didn't remember them the next morning. Heading to school, I felt a fragile kind of calm as I reminded myself of Bella's "head down" plan, to which I added "dick down," sternly warning that part of my anatomy to stay in line.

I coasted through Bio, making sure to avoid Lauren. I ended up sitting next to Eric. As we performed the simple lab Mr. Banner had assigned for the period, he chattered to me about Mike's upcoming party, providing a welcome – if inane – distraction. He and I had Trig together second period, and he strolled down the hall beside me toward class, still talking as we entered the room. At the sight before me, I froze. Eric kept walking, not realizing I had stopped.

Standing at Mr. Varner's desk was a long, lean figure with a familiar shock of burnished hair.

"I'm glad you got your schedule straightened out, Edward," Mr. Varner was saying. "You haven't missed too much, and I'm sure one of your classmates will share their notes with you."

Fuck. So much for having an Edward-free morning.

Head down, dick down.

I scurried to the back of the classroom and took a seat in the far corner. Eric was in the seat in front of me, and Ari Volturi slid into the open seat to my right, nodding at me in greeting. I barely acknowledged him, too busy keeping my eyes anywhere but on the one person I really wanted to watch.

I refused to look at him. I wasn't ready. I knew that, if I caved, those vivid fantasies from yesterday would flood my brain, possibly making me flood my pants. I couldn't chance it. And I couldn't spend the day running periodically to the bathroom to beat off. With my luck, I'd moan his name just as someone else walked in on me, and life as I knew it would be over.

I focused as much as I could on Mr. Varner's lecture and my notes, my bouncing knee the only outward sign on my inner turmoil. At the bell, I sprinted for the door.

He wasn't in my Intro to Psych elective. I breathed a sigh of relief as I settled in for the period to regroup and pull myself together. I was going to have to do better if I wanted to make it through the afternoon.

Dr. Trevalian had one of those soothing voices that lulled you until she went in for the kill.

"Mr. Whitlock?"

"Huh?" I blinked. "Sorry, Dr. Trevalian, could you repeat that?"

Another teacher might have shown displeasure. Dr. Trevalian merely gave me a small smile. That scared me worse than being yelled at.

"I'm asking for research topic preferences. Do you have one?"

I looked down at the handout she'd given us yesterday. The list of possible topics was long, and I'd put it aside last night, too distracted to think about it.

Perception, memory, dreams, cognitive development…

I don't know what happened, what strange buried urge took control of me. My eyes landed on the words, and they just popped out of my mouth.

"I'll take sexual development and orientation," I blurted.

Dr. Trevalian gave me an appraising look as the rest of the class erupted into snickers. I turned red, but looked her in the eye.

"Brave choice, Mr. Whitlock. Very well." She made a note on the pad in her hand and moved on.

I mentally kicked myself.

Samantha Wells brushed past me as I made my way to my next class.

"I can help you research your paper, Jasper," she purred in my ear.

I gave her a weak smile and let her walk on ahead of me.

I took the subsequent ribbing by the guys in my Photography class with a modicum of grace, and a bit of judicious elbowing when Mr. Appelbaum wasn't looking. My anxiety was growing because lunch was next period, and I knew I would see Edward.

Bella met me at my locker. She took one look at me and furrowed her brow.

"What happened?"

"He's in my Trig class. He got switched in today. So much for having the morning to prepare myself," I groaned.

She tsked sympathetically.

"Well, you made it, at any rate. And I'll help you get ready for the afternoon."

"There's more." I took a deep breath. "I volunteered to research sexual development and orientation in Psych class."

Bella gasped.

"Sexual orientation?" she whispered, shocked.

I could only nod, my shock as great as hers.

"Wow." She didn't say anything else for a moment. Then she shook herself a little and gave me a determined grin.

"This is a good thing."

"Oh, yeah?" I said skeptically. "How do you figure?"

"Some part of you, the real you, is itching to get out. I think this is your subconscious mind's way of easing you into things."

I snorted at that. Somehow, offering to research sexual orientation for a class didn't seem like "easing me" into anything.

I looked up and realized that Bella had led me to the cafeteria. My stomach clenched.

"Bells," I said, stopping in my tracks and making her stop with me. "Can we eat somewhere else today? We can go to the bleachers – it's pretty nice out."

She tugged on my arm, forcing me forward.

"C'mon, Jazz. You have to get used to seeing him. It's the only way you can desensitize yourself and overcome your reaction to him."

Damn it. She was right. I hated that.

I let her drag me to a table. However, when I tentatively looked around, I didn't see Edward anywhere. After ten minutes, he still hadn't shown up. I started to worry that something was wrong.

"Where do you think he is?" I asked Bella. She shrugged, chewing a mouthful of pizza.

I opened my mouth to say something else when a big hand clapped down on my shoulder. I looked up, startled, into Emmett's wide grin.

"Hey, guys," he said. "How's it goin'?"

"Great, Emmett. How about you?" Bella answered his grin with one of her own.

"I'm enjoyin' life," he said. He looked around and then leaned in to us conspiratorially. "I've almost got Rosalie agreeing to go out with me. Today's the day, man."

"That's great, Em," I said, my smile finally making an appearance. Nervous as I was, I couldn't resist his affable mood.

Bella gave me a strange look, and then turned back to Emmett.

"Hey, Em," she began, and a pit opened in my stomach as I realized what she was about to do. Before I could stop her, she went on. "Where's your new lunch buddy?"

I kicked her under the table.

"You mean Edward? Oh, he's screwin' around on the piano in the music room. I think he and Mr. Marcus were working on putting together some kind of performance group or something. Hey," he turned to me thoughtfully. "Have you met him yet? He's a great guy – you'd hit it off with him real good."

I scrambled mentally, cursing Bella.

"Uh, well, he's in a bunch of my classes. He seems like a good guy." There. I didn't lie, exactly. I didn't say explicitly that I'd met him, even though I'd implied it. Anyway, he was in my classes and he did seem nice… amazing… completely lickable…

"Cool. Hey, gotta run, Rose is waiting for me in the library." He punched my shoulder. "I can't believe we don't have any classes together this year, Jazz. We gotta hang out, man, I haven't seen you in too long. Not today, I got football after school. But Mike's party is tomorrow night, so I'll definitely see you there, right?"

I nodded, and he grinned at me before walking away with a jaunty wave. I immediately turned on Bella.

"What the hell?" I hissed. "Do you want to out me?"

"Relax." She patted my hand. "Now you know where Edward is, and you won't have to worry about him. That was pretty smooth, by the way, worming your way out of being introduced to him."

"Flattery will get you nowhere, missy," I said, still annoyed. "Knowing Emmett, if I hadn't bent the truth, he might have thrown me over his shoulder and carried me bodily to the music room to meet Edward."

"Last week, you would have given all your worldly possessions for Emmett to throw you over his shoulder," Bella snarked.

That pulled me up short.

"Hey…" I said slowly, "that's weird. I didn't feel anything like what I used to feel when he touched me. No spark at all. Huh," I mused.

Bella just smiled.

When lunch ended, Bella went to her Bio class (where she would see Edward), while I headed off to French. After class, I sidled up to Angela Weber and engaged her in conversation, escorting her to History and leading her to the back of the room. I made sure I sat in the last seat in the row, placing her between me and the rest of the class.

Edward came in a minute later, seemingly flustered. His hair was in greater disarray than I had seen it before, and his hand kept coming up to run through it. His cheeks were flushed, though whether from embarrassment or exertion, I couldn't tell. His eyes darted around the room, and they briefly landed on me. I was watching him out of the corner of my eye, careful not to look directly at him as his gaze flicked from Angela back to me.

Head down, dick down.

He sat down near the middle of the room just as the bell rang and Mr. Jefferson started class. Angela blocked my view of him quite nicely. Except that I found myself leaning back in my seat so that I could see around her. Each time, I internally scolded myself. But I couldn't seem to make myself stop.

I let my eyes drift over his neck and down his shoulders and back, the defined muscles highlighted by the t-shirt he wore. Without my consent, my mind wandered to the images I'd conjured up yesterday of Edward taking a shower in the locker room…

Oh, fuck. I'm such an idiot. What am I gonna do about gym?

After history, I hid my increasing agitation and said a pleasant, if hurried, goodbye to Angela. Cutting across the courtyard, I practically flew into English class, where Bella was just sitting down in the back row.

"Oh my god, Bella," I said breathlessly, leaning weakly over her desk. "I forgot all about gym! What the fuck am I gonna do? There's no way I can handle that, not after yesterday…"

"Okay, Jazz, calm down." Bella gripped my shoulders tightly before letting her hands slide down my arms in a soothing gesture. "We'll think of something."

I sat, breathing heavily and trying to slow my racing heart as I watched Edward enter the room with Mike and take his seat from yesterday.

As Ms. Mason resumed her discussion of Beowulf, a piece of paper slid onto my desk. I glanced over at Bella, who pointed her chin at the page and then looked back down at her notebook. I opened the note under the desk.

There's nothing to worry about. You will be fine. Coach will have you doing practice drills today. Just keep your distance and concentrate on the football. Physical exertion should help your control.

You can do this, Jasper.

I scribbled underneath her cramped writing.

How do you know I won't burst into flame right there in the gym? Or, worse, drool all over myself as soon as I see him in his gym uniform?

I slipped the paper back onto her desk. She read it and smiled, then wrote underneath my response. I took the page stealthily from her outstretched fingers.

I have faith in you. You're stronger than you think.

Her words bounced around in my head as I changed for gym. Because his last name came at the beginning of the alphabet and mine came at the end, our lockers were on opposite sides of the locker room. I didn't have to watch him change out of his clothes. I was relieved, but I can't lie – part of me was bitterly disappointed about that.

Bella's advice helped somewhat. The rain had fallen all last night, making the fields too muddy for play, so Coach Clapp had us running up and down the non-badminton half of the gym, taking turns going out for passes. I made sure to keep as far away from Edward as possible, instead focusing on catching the spiraling ball, on the squeaks of sneakers on the waxed gym floor, on the echoes of raised voices that reverberated off the cinderblock walls. When Coach blew the whistle, I sprinted into the locker room and jumped into the shower before any of the other guys got there. I scrubbed and rinsed and got out a minute later, drying off and throwing my clothes on. I kept myself moving, never slowing or stopping to contemplate the fact that the most beautiful person I'd ever seen was probably naked less than twenty feet away from me.

Aw, shit. I had to think the word "naked," didn't I?

Yet another dash out the gym door, slightly in advance of the dismissal bell, brought me to my car and driving away from the school at as close to Mach speed as I could manage. By the time I'd made it to my driveway, my ragged breathing and racing pulse had slowed.

I made it! I got through the day without outing or making a fool of myself! I allowed myself a brief fist-pump before getting out of the car and going inside.

In bed that night, I celebrated by stroking myself to thoughts of Edward.

The next morning, I freaked out again at the thought of seeing him second period.

Poor Bella. I wondered if she were getting tired of babying me and talking me down off the proverbial ledge every five minutes. She didn't seem annoyed as she nodded sympathetically in the student parking lot before school. Still, if even I was getting tired of my idiocy by now, she must have been bucking for sainthood.

"You know, Jazzy, maybe you're looking at this the wrong way."

Sighing, I rubbed my hand over my face.

"Enlighten me, please, O Wise, All-Knowing One."

She ignored my snark.

"Think about this from Edward's point of view for a minute. Here he is, in a new school, in a new town, surrounded by all these new faces. He must be kinda lonely and overwhelmed. I sure as hell would be."

I blinked.

"He's just a person, Jazz, not some super-being or idol to be worshiped from afar." Bella glanced up at the threatening sky. "Looks like it's gonna pour any second. Wanna go in?" She slid off the hood of my car and held out her hand to me. I took it absently and followed her into the school building, my thoughts churning.

In her inimitable way, Bella had managed to effect a complete shift in my paradigm with a minimal number of words. I had no idea how she pulled off that shit, but it worked every time, and it always left me reeling at my own stupidity.

I'd noticed his little nervous gestures on the first day of school, and thought about how hard it had been when I was the new kid. But then I'd gotten caught up in my reactions to him, forgetting all about empathizing with his situation. My stomach twisted as I was steamrolled by the realization of my own narrow-mindedness. I'd been so concerned about myself that I hadn't really stopped to consider Edward as a person at all. I could be a real douche.

Sensing the tenor of my thoughts, Bella pulled my head down to her and pecked me on the cheek.

"I know you, Jazz, and I know you're beating yourself up right now," she said into my ear. "Stop it. You've been under a lot of pressure. Give yourself a break, huh?"

I still sat in the back of the room during second-period Trig, but this time, I focused on Edward himself rather than on how he made me feel. He kept his head down as he took notes, running his free hand fretfully through his hair every few minutes. Sympathy and guilt warred with each other in my head.

I continued to observe him throughout the day. He sat with Emmett and Rosalie at lunch, and he stuck close to Mike or Eric in the classes we had together. He didn't seem to talk to anyone else. In fact, he didn't say much to the guys or Rose, either. He was… not exactly withdrawn, but quiet. A few times during the day, our eyes met in brief glances. His seemed to hold a sadness that I hadn't noticed before.

There were moments when I had to fight my instinct to go to him, to put my arm around his shoulder and make him smile. Later, after school, I wasn't sure why I'd fought so hard to stay away from him. All I knew was that something in me wasn't quite ready to walk down this road. I didn't think I could be friends with Edward yet without (a) torturing myself, or (b) revealing myself. Plus, if he found out about my feelings for him and proceeded to hurl in overwhelming disgust, I'd never recover.

Still, I couldn't get him off my mind. As I got ready for the party at Mike's, my thoughts were again consumed by images of Edward. This time, though, the images were different. I recalled his nervous fidgeting in class, his apparent shyness, his lonely eyes. As fantasy overtook reality, there were no slo-mo jumps or torrid shower scenes. Instead, I pictured holding him in my arms, kissing his cheeks, his eyelids, the tip of his nose, his chin. Whispering soft reassurances. Stroking his hair as he leaned into me and buried his face in the crook of my neck.

When I came, it was to the vision of us kissing passionately, bodies intertwined, strong hands caressing one another.

A/N continued: This chapter kicked my ass. The next chapter should lead into events similar to (but not exactly replicating) the one-shot, and I've had a bitch of a time trying to get all my ducks in a row to get there. RL continues to suck various animal genitalia, but I'll try not to whine about it too much. All your reviews, favorites and alerts make me smile, which ain't so easy nowadays, so many, many thanks to all of you. I promise to keep working on this story until it's complete, but I can't make any promises as to the frequency of updates. I vow to do my best – is that okay?