Catalysts (Clement)

[Jesse Adams]

“Shit, Ty. Don’t do that.” Jesse leaned over the side of his bed to once again pull his bedsheet out of Ty’s mouth. The rabbit had a goddamned fetish for his sheets, he swore. In response, the rabbit twitched his nose and bounded off to the box Clement had made for him, digging in the shredded paper and kicking out pieces. The little animal was clearly feeling good today.

Oddly enough, so was Jesse. The last few months had been... well... hell, and that was putting it mildly in his mind. After the fall down the stairs with Clement that had landed him not only in a hospital, but under the knife as well to fix some well and truly torn ligaments in his knee, he hadn’t exactly been full of sunshine and roses. The experience had knocked him for a loop, both mentally and physically.

Once he’d been sent back to Hammel to recover under Dr. Nik’s watch, he’d more or less withdrawn from nearly everyone. He went to classes, he went back to his dorm. The pain meds he’d taken hadn’t helped things, making him feel fuzzy now and again. At least they let him sleep without dreams interfering. He’d almost missed them as he was weaned down to just Tylenol if he really needed it. By then he’d been almost off of his crutches.

He’d been rid of them for a few weeks now, though a small incident outside on the ice had nearly set him back again. After a less than fun visit with Dr. Nik to ensure he hadn’t just undone what the surgery had fixed, he’d been more careful about wearing his knee brace.

The soft brace was around his leg today, as were a few Tylenol. The blond was trying to catch up on some homework he’d apparently neglected, but he was itching for a break. He didn’t exactly want to go anywhere and risk ice again, but he needed something. Netflix was getting boring after binge watching for a week before he was cleared to go back to class, and he didn’t feel like surfing the internet. Part of him wanted to go see Clement, but he wasn’t so sure the younger boy wanted to see him. He hadn’t really blamed him for the incident, mostly because his protectiveness didn’t allow for it. It was an accident, and that was that. His recent habit of hiding away could have given the wrong impression, though.

... Shit. He really did need to see him. At least prove he was alive, or something. Jesse glanced at his textbook and the essay he was struggling through. ... Two more paragraphs, and then he’d get up and do it.

[Clement Evans]

If the last months had been hard physically on Jesse, they had been emotionally brutal for Clement. Everything leading into the accident had been extremely stressful (the proof was in him armoring up), the incident itself had made him feel terrible, and then afterward he'd been a giant (well... whatever giant meant for a kid who was only an inch over five feet tall) stew of anger, frustration, fear, guilt, and second guessing, till his head ached so bad he could barely sleep at night.

Clement felt at least 50% responsible for Jesse wrecking his knee. During his more paranoid reflections that percentage went up to around 90, but it was never 100, because if Jess had just let him finish his nap and go to the nurse when he didn't feel half dead none of it would've happened. For a guy who'd allegedly been fireman-carried to Dr. Nik's by his trainer, begging and protesting the entire way, he was puzzlingly insistent on going there when he wasn't sick.

As a result, Clement ended up in the infirmary for five days with a bronchial infection that kept trying to veer into pneumonia but was blocked again and again by the pale doctor's ministrations. When he learned his angry blond roommate had been hospitalized, the doc had let him, with herself as a chaperone, briefly visit Ty once a day to keep the little guy in food and water and clean box. The poor unlucky woman then swapped one sullen patient for another, though to make up for it Clement had brought her one of his prized packages of Korean ramyeon with a formal bow.

Since it wasn't exactly publicized, Clement didn't know when Jesse got back to Hammel, or the day he moved back to his room. Just... one night when he went in to feed Tyrone there were crutches on the floor and a lump on the bed. After that, Clement only went in to check on Ty if he knew Jesse was asleep or not in the room. He didn't want to bother him.

During the interim, his grades took a dip to a low they hadn't seen since he'd arrived, he stopped speaking unless it was to answer a direct question (and then answered as shortly as he could), he was skipping lunch and picking at breakfast, appetite low and his stomach feeling funny a lot of the rest of the time, and he managed to get a full week of detention.

It was Mrs. Morgan, or Lahja, as he called her in private now, who got him to confess. But the only thing he said was that Jesse had messed up his knee and was at the hospital. By this time, Lahja knew that Jesse was one of his roommates, and she did her best to cheer him up.

Very nice of her, but it all swirled in Clement's head till he thought he'd find brains leaking out his ears. He felt bad Jesse had fallen, but angry that they'd been in that situation at all. The older teen had frightened him... twice. The first time by manhandling him, the second by how he'd acted once he was back in his bedroom. Ignoring, not even acknowledging everyone. For weeks. Before the accident, Clement considered Jesse a friend. Maybe even... a good one. But now after all the rebuffing, he didn't know. Maybe the older boy didn't like him anymore. Thought he was too much trouble. Decided to just keep to himself till he aged out. Jesse was practically a grown-up. He had a car, pets, money, and interests that came of having those things. What he was doing hanging out with some idiot five years younger than himself Clement didn't know.

That last thought made Clement really think about Jesse. Why he kept making an effort when in any other situation he would've left the older kid alone. Avoided him, even. Well, for one thing Jess had never explicitly told him to buzz off. And for another, Jesse often visited him. Clement... felt... relaxed, in the older boy's company. Not like he was doing or about to do something wrong. Not like he was inferior, or with the knowledge that at least one person within sight range actively thought he was a piece of shit. Hell, it'd been months since he'd last checked to see where Jesse's hands were, in case one tried to flash up to knock him in the face.

It was something of a revelation to discover that he liked Jesse. Liked spending time with him, looked forward to it. (Well, had, anyway.) He cared what the blond thought, not only about general things, but about himself and his opinions.

And then, apropos of nothing, he suddenly found himself thinking, he's pretty good looking too.

As a flush of heat infused his face, he heard himself say, "Sshibal."

Clement had never thought about another person that way before. Sure, he'd thought this person or that person was attractive, but not in a way that was relevant to himself. Like the way flowers or art were nice to look at. He didn't know if this made him gay or not, either. Sure, he maybe kind of liked another dude, but... he didn't feel that way about anyone else, male or female or any other gender. So it was difficult to be conclusive about it, though he wasn't losing any sleep about it. He didn't have any parents to come out to, and he'd been giving so few fucks about what people thought of him for so long that it was more of a hassle figuring out what he was going to do about his feelings than what it said about his orientation.

If any teachers or officials around him had seen the Jackson Pollock mess of his thoughts (and he kept a wide berth from the one who could) he might've gotten off a little lighter when his math teacher could only get the answer of 'no'.

Or maybe not. He was pretty insufferable.

Well, anyway, it all bothered him enough that he thought he ought to apologize. Just to clear his conscience, and then if Jesse didn't want anything to do with him, he'd know he'd done his part.

When the blond answered his knock, Clement walked rather stiffly in, as if he was unsure if he was welcome. (He was.) He didn't even look at Ty, but abruptly dropped a plastic shopping bag on Jesse's bed beside him. It was then that he realized that discounted post-Valentine's day candy, despite its volume, might send the wrong message.

"It... I-It was... o-on sale. So, ssso you... got more." Clement's face turned the same color as the bag of chocolate hearts.

*sshibal - fuck

[Jesse Adams]

Had Jesse stopped his pity party, however drug induced it may have started, and thought about other people during his recovery, perhaps this uncertainty could have been avoided. The drugs had just made him feel so... off, as had the hospital stay. Hammel had truly become his sanctuary at that point, and he’d never been happier to see it. It had been too easy to simply retreat into himself and slowly recover, both physically and mentally.

He didn’t blame Clement at all for the incident. He’d played it over dozens of times in his head, and each time he knew the problem was all on him. He’d scared Clement into armoring up. It wasn’t like the kid had meant for any of it to happen. One more reason he’d kept his distance.

He didn’t know how to apologize. At least, apologize and mean it the way he wanted to. It was easy to say you were sorry, sure, but to mean it beyond a doubt? He didn’t know how to get Clement to forgive him for scaring him so bad he’d felt he had to armor up.

Maybe he needed more than a few paragraphs between him and seeing Clement.

The knock distracted him from his homework in an instant. Pushing himself off of the bed, Jesse carefully made his way past the clothes on the floor to open it.

Well, Clement wasn’t going to wait for him to finish the essay, clearly. The visit may have been unexpected, but that didn’t mean he was going to chase Clement away now. Jesse was actually happy to see him. Stepping around the dirty clothes that he couldn’t be bothered to stick in the hamper, Jesse was about to greet Clement properly when the bag was dumped on the bed.

The bag of neverending chocolate was stared at for a moment as Jesse sank back down on his bed. The blond fingered the bag for a moment before smirking. Since when was Clement so skittish around him? “Yeah, I see that.” He still wanted to apologize, but the bag gave him a way to hopefully get them both back to where they were months ago. Friends. He missed that.

Picking up one of the bigger hearts, Jesse grinned and turned it around so Clement could see it. “So, what, this means you got a crush on me or something?” His tone was playful, as was his expression. He was in a good mood, after all, and now he had a mountain of chocolate to conquer. Plus Clement wanted to be around him again. What could be better?