No Assumptions (Jalen)

[JD Paerson]

[Continued from the thread Don't Kiss the Girl in the Training Rooms.]

JD gave a mirthless laugh at Jalen's assessment of Hammel's motto. "Yeah, I guess it does kind of eat you." He shook his head then. "No, I don't see my family much at all. Sometimes I go home for Christmas, but I didn't make it last year. It's been over a year since I was last home." He knew this was unusual, but he wasn't about to lie about his familiy life. He didn't see her questions as prying, either. He was mostly just surprised that she was even trying to learn more about him. "I assume you still visit your family like a normal person, right?" he asked her in an attempt to lighten the mood. If she chose not to answer, well, that was entirely up to her. He was just making conversation more than anything.

He had to stop for a moment to consider her next question. "Should I...not be doing this?" he asked slowly. "Someone recently told me to lighten up and be nice. I'm trying to take their advice. You also caught me on a good day. Though I suppose it might always be a good day when you find out that instead of training by yourself in a small room you get to go for a run with someone pretty and intelligent." And yes. He was attempting to butter her up just a bit. He was not completely unskilled at flirting the way some people might believe him to be. "Honestly, though, I'm just kind of glad you haven't ditched me already. I'm not always the nicest guy to be around."

But she wasn't afraid of being seen with him, which was nice. It meant that she didn't want to completely disassociate herself from him and thus didn't see him as a complete jerk. So he turned around again with a smile and waited for Jalen to get settled. Once she pulled out his iPod, he turned his head to look at her again.

"If you'd like, you can be in charge of music. Just make sure I have at least one of the earbuds in, though you might want to take the other. For volume control, at least. And I promise not all my stuff is oldies, despite what the shuffle may seem to suggest." He started to run, the sounds of Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl" giving him a nice upbeat tune to race against. He took the short way home again, not wanting to have to go the long way around the path with someone else. Maybe some other time, when he'd built up his endurance and possibly had packed a snack. Right now he was getting hungry.

He headed straight for the cafeteria. He did have to slow down near the outer buildings, since he didn't want to run into anything or anybody. When they reached the courtyard area in front of the cafeteria, he stopped. "Here you go, Jay," he said. "Thank you for the company. Would you care to join me for dinner? I know the most wonderful place, and wouldn't you know, it's not far away, either." He gestured grandly toward the cafeteria. "I hear they have a buffet, as well."

[Jalen August]

“I visit my family all the time,” she said, fidgeting with her hands some more. Was he actually interested, or just being polite? “I see them during holidays and the whole bit, they miss me a lot and are always pestering me about my powers and the like...” Jalen said, explaining her situation. “I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t see them as much as I do if they didn’t give me money to do so, which is a good reason for me to go – it’s free.” She decided that this would be enough of an explanation. The girl thought this was normal, her family was normal aside from her. Actually, it was her need for them, her need for their love, that so easily let her want to love others and be loved by others. It was the only kind of relationship dynamic that she knew.

Pretending to ponder whether he should be nice to her or not, Jalen only held her smirk. “Pretty and intelligent you say?” She said, tapping her pointer finger to her chin thoughtfully. She was never one to take to compliments very well, so she decided to focus on the former part of the statement. “Well I’m terrible with math, but I’m glad you don’t think I’m a dumb blonde either,” Jalen carried on, lowering her hand. Was he trying to flirt with her just then? “You obviously haven’t met most of the male population around here then,” she said before the trekked back to the school, “compared with them, you being nice right now would mean them being divine.” She grinned, clutching JD’s broad shoulders tightly. She wasn’t planning on ditching the boy any time soon.

Billy Joel accompanied them all the way back to the school, an ear bud in one of each of their ears. A smile was plastered on Jalen’s face, she was totally content to have her face resting on the back of JD’s neck. She considered listening to his heartbeat from where she was, but decided that would be a little creepy, even if he didn’t know what she was doing. That would be considered abusing her powers, right?

They were heading towards the cafeteria, and the seventeen year old was happy that everyone seemed to be inside for supper – or not outside anyways. “Thank you,” she said, sliding off of the boy’s frame, “must be nice never being late for anything.” A sparkle was in her eyes as he joshed around about the wonderful eating place that was the school’s blaze cafeteria. She adored his humour – the kind of playfulness she could go along with without trying very hard. “That sounds marvellous, my dear,” she said, lacing her arm around his. She wasn’t unfamiliar with the art of flirting either.

“Shall we then?” She asked, looking up at the boy with a big grin. Jalen sure had been smiling a lot today. Walking towards the dining hall, the blonde sighed. “It’s weird,” she started, looking ahead of herself, “walking I mean. It’s like we just came off of the highway and have to go a quarter of the pace now.” Now she was just rambling, but it didn’t really much matter. She was starting to lose her self-consciousness, and just said whatever came to mind. Her walls came down fast when with the right person, and JD happened to be one of those people.

[JD Paerson]

"That's great that you can go visit them. And that they're willing to pay for the whole thing. Sounds like a great sort of family." And no, he wasn't really being resentful. It did sound nice, it just wasn't what he had. And that was all right.

"You seem pretty smart to me," he said. "Even if you're not good in math. Though if you ever really have trouble feel free to ask. I'm sure you'd be able to pick it up quickly if you had someone helping you out." He hadn't ever tutored someone before, but it couldn't be hard, right? JD silently accepted the compliment she offered him. He really was making an effort here to be nice, but he also recognized that there were some in the school who wouldn't even have the manners to try.

"Never late? I wish. I always think I can sleep late just because I can get ready faster. Then I sleep too late and manage to show up late. Never very late, but late just the same."

He straightened as her arm slid through his and walked carefully toward the cafeteria. He smiled in response to her grin and nodded. "Indeed. Welcome, m'lady, to Le Cafe Teria. Line for food begins to the left." He moved into line and stood glancing at the food, trying to decide what all to get.

"It's always strange for me to have to start walking again," he told Jalen. "I always think I'll get used to the switch, but it's always a big change. And for the record, it's actually closer to an eighth of the pace we were going." As he spoke he piled plates of food onto his tray. He was incredibly hungry from all the exercise, so he was sure to get a good helping of just about everything.

For once he was having a decent conversation with someone, and it wasn't all that bad in the end. Still, though, JD remembered what happened to his last relationship. It wasn't something he particularly wanted to go through again. But no one said this had to be anything serious. It was just dinner together at the cafeteria. And at the end of this, what were even the chances he would ever see her again?

"There's a seat over there," he said, pointing toward an empty table near the back wall. "I was serious about the math thing, by the way. I can probably give you a few pointers if you want it." Since he had just finished taking Calculus and passing it with flying colors, he figured he was probably qualified to help out someone who needed it. "Just shoot me an email or whatever and we can meet up sometime."

Or maybe they would meet again sometime.

"Right, let's eat," he said as he sat down at the table. He dug into his pizza and took a quick drink of his soda before tackling the giant plate of potato wedges. Then there was still the gumbo to finish and the bread, and of course the artichokes and carrots, followed by dessert and possibly seconds. He was quite good at eating quickly, and to the casual observer it might have appeared as though he inhaled the food. He still did try to allow for conversation, though.

"So what do you do then, Jay? Other than breaking piles of cups." That was a nice open question. She could answer that while he continued munching.

[OOC: So sorry about the late reply! I was out of town for a few days and forgot to put up a message.]

[Jalen August]

Jalen smiled proudly. Her family was the best – in her eyes; which in her opinion is all that mattered. A blush rose to the girl’s face before she even spoke, “I’ll gladly ask you for help with Calculus,” she said with a sheepish grin. Usually Jalen was very straightforward with the boys she liked, but something about JD made things a little sweeter, like this was the first time she had noticed boys. Like she didn’t know what the art of flirting was. “I don’t understand why I can figure out physics without problems, especially since it uses math...” She was blabbering again, and she quickly snapped her jaw shut.

Giggling, Jalen touched the boy’s arm with her free hand, “Pshaw, last time I was here they had the best scrambled eggs,” she said, seeing as she had just been there this morning. Duh. Okay, so they were receiving a few odd stares, but this only added to the whole play. “Oh and look what we have here, the usually snobby clientele is here to join us.” It was only meant to be a joke, and soon they were left to their “Cafe Teria”.

“So much for being good at physics...” She stated with a sigh, her dark eyes looking over at what was on for supper. Taking a tray, Jalen finally let go of her man cake and started filling her tray with macaroni and cheese. The beans she took weren’t the best, but they were healthy. The meatloaf wasn’t bad though, so that would more than make up for the lackluster vegetables.

Following JD to the empty table, she sat across from him, her hair momentarily in her face before she pushed it back to reveal a perfectly content smile. “I’ll take you up on that,” she said, twirling her fork around in her macaroni, “you have a phone at all? Or just e-mail?” She asked politely, instead of making a snide remark about how e-mail was totally Dark Ages. It would be amazing to see him again, and she could really care less about how that happened.

Eating her food normally, Jalen shrugged. “I love music, almost anything except rap and country, and even those genres have their gems,” she said, sipping at her water. “I guess I’m a bit of a running nut too, as there’s only a few good seasons for swimming outdoors.” It was strange to talk about herself, she hadn’t really done it before. She had never really sat down and written out her hobbies – which reminded her, “Oh! I also like writing songs of my own...” It wasn’t a big deal, but she wasn’t going to share that she also liked making rhythms for them and singing them out loud. No one needed to know that. Ever.

This was – nice. There was nothing wrong with something low key. Nothing wrong with the boy sitting across from her. Jalen smirked. Well, almost nothing. “You got a little something on your chin,” she said, reaching out to wipe away the dark red pizza sauce. She laughed, glancing at the nearly done food. “It’s like you haven’t eaten in days,” she said, wiping her finger on her napkin. “Maybe you can tell me a little about yourself before you get up for seconds,” she said, putting on her most charming smile.

(OOC: It’s all good! Take your time, I totally understand XD)

[JD Paerson]

JD was glad to be left alone with Jay, primarily so that no one else would have to overhear anything they might say. It was easy enough for him to ignore all the stares--he'd been doing that for a while now.

"Yeah, I got a phone. I don't use it much, though. I don't have money to pay for a good plan or anything, and if I do get calls I have to worry about who might try to answer for me." Lack of privacy around snotty billionaires? Check. "Some of the guys I hang out with can be real pranksters. Email is more secure, and conveniently cheaper." But he reached over and pulled a napkin out of the dispenser, then grabbed a pen out of his bag. He scribbled his email address and his phone number on the coarse brown napkin and slid it across the table to her. "There. I'm free Sundays and Thursday evenings." And just about any other evening, but there was no point looking like he had no life.

As he ate he forced himself to keep looking at her face and nodding every once in a while. It was tempting to stare elsewhere, but he resisted. "Swimming, huh?" he said in a pause between dishes. "You on the swim team then? That's cool that you write songs. Maybe you should join the choir or something." Another chance to see her, potentially. But also another chance to embarrass himself. He almost regretted mentioning it, but didn't have a chance to reclaim his words.

When she reached across to wipe at his face, JD became immediately aware of how close he was getting to this girl. He sat statue-still while she wiped off the pizza sauce, then numbly handed her a napkin.

"Yeah, okay. Um. Jonah Paerson, age seventeen. One younger brother, no other siblings. Discovered I was meta while living in Germany, chose to attend Hammel because our family is American. Been here for four years now, graduating next year, then off to college probably to work on a science degree or something. And I like running, music, and video games. I've got a couple friends here at school, but...yeah. That's it, really. There's not actually a lot to me. Oh, and I also like watching movies. Like the new Transformer one that's out. Been meaning to go see it, but I haven't got around to it yet."

He glanced down at his tray, which was almost entirely empty except for a small cup of pudding. He sighed and started eating that, slowly this time. Better not to push anything, and he wasn't sure if he really was in the mood for seconds yet.

[Jalen August]

Jalen was smiling at the explanation for e-mail use. At least JD was smart with his money, that wasn’t something that could be said for most of the students around here. “It’s all good,” she said, her hand gliding over the table to take the napkin before she lost it. It would be like her to lose something important like that too. Setting her fork down, she took down her phone and began typing away, entering JD as a new contact, including his e-mail. She even made a note about his availability. Double checking to make sure she had everything right, she folded the napkin neatly half and stuck it in her pocket. “I’m sure you don’t want the whole student body knowing your information,” she said thoughtfully, picking her fork back up once more. “You have decent writing, you know, for guy,” she joked, pointing out his penmanship.

She would definitely be shooting an e-mail his way.

“I’m not on the swim team, and I would never join the choir,” she said, glancing up at him. “You know, I don’t need everyone to be jealous of my fabulous voice.” Again, Jalen was making up for her sensitivity by joking about her insecurities. Especially now that she knew JD was in the choir, she would never ever again think about joining. In reality, Jalen was quite a lovely singer, but she never believed it herself.

She was glad that he was sharing so much about himself, “We have a lot in common,” she remarked, reviewing what he said in her mind. “What video games? Like old school Mario, Donkey Kong type stuff?” She asked a little more eagerly than she had meant to. Jalen was a pro at those older games, but she didn’t like newer video games as well, which might have seemed strange regarding how she dressed and presented herself in general. “I usually swim down by the lake it’s nice to get away from the people around here...” She said, finishing off the last bit of her food.

“Be right back,” she said, getting up for dessert. Carrying her tray to the garbage bins to leave it on top, Jalen went back in line and grabbed some chocolate pudding – her personal favourite. On her way back, she sent JD a smile, wondering if he thought himself as not having much to him, and according to her own words they had a lot in common, did that make her... boring? Sitting down, Jalen glanced at her pudding and grinned. While she hadn’t shared much about how many people were in her family, Jalen was more worried about coming off as fun now.

Smiling up at JD as she ate, she leaned in a little closer, as if she were about to fill him in on a dirty little secret. “Have you ever had the urge to start a food fight here?” She asked, an eyebrow raised. A mischievous smile had spread across her face and she continued to eat her pudding, waiting for his answer. ‘Food fight’ was a thought that crossed her mind every time she had chocolate pudding, maybe because it would be the best dessert for the job.

[JD Paerson]

Having received numerous complaints about his penmanship from all his teachers, JD could only raise an eyebrow at Jalen's comment. "Yeah, so I don't dot my i's with hearts. It's legible...enough. Gets worse when I write quickly." Sometimes even he couldn't read his old notes. "Just because my g's look like s's and my c's sometimes look more like u's doesn't mean that it's not readable, right?" he joked.

He guessed that Jalen felt self-conscious about her singing voice, which seemed natural. Didn't he always feel embarrassed to admit that he had joined the choir? He didn't think his own voice was that great, it was just something else to get active and not stay in his room all the time.

"I like most stuff. I have some Mario and Donkey Kong stuff, also some of the newer ones like Halo. No real favorites or anything--they're all okay once you figure out what to do." More than playing games, JD liked winning them. "The lake is nice, though a bit cold for swimming sometimes." He knew this from experience. A really bad experience. He shuddered involuntarily as he remembered his attempt to run on water a few months back. "But yeah, I know how you feel about getting away. Everything here just feels too...restricted."

When Jalen stood to go for seconds, JD frowned at his empty pudding cup, missing her smile. Then he quickly piled all the remaining plates and garbage at the table onto his tray and went quickly back toward the food lines. He dumped the tray with a practiced maneouver and managed to grab himself a large bowl of mashed potatoes and run back to his seat. He just managed to beat Jalen back to the table.

He still had the fork hanging out of his mouth as Jalen whispered conspiratorially to him. Slowly he pulled his fork out of his mouth and said, "I think we all have. The big question is, when is the fun worth the cost? See, it's no fun starting a big food fight all by yourself in a cafeteria, especially if there aren't good targets. But I suppose if you weren't going to take the punishment alone, it might be different." He wasn't sure exactly what sort of punishment there might be for starting a food fight in the cafeteria, but it probably involved some sort of restricted meal service and potentially extra homework or limited trips to town. He could probably handle the latter two punishments, it was always the idea of not having as much food that had held him back.

He dipped his fork back into his mashed potatoes and looked at them thoughtfully. From what he could recall, mashed potatoes were excellent instigators of food fights, having good velocity as well as good splatter technique. Much the same as pudding, actually, though without the stain factor.

[Jalen August]

Jalen smiled, “Trust me, I’ve seen worse writing,” she said reassuringly. It was true, usually boys had the worst writing! Not that she could really complain, her writing was pretty awful, even on a bad day. It was big and loopy and took up a lot of space. Paper wasn’t really something she was concerned over saving – what was the point in saving space if more paper was ready to be sold to you in the store? Besides, it’s not like it’s expensive.

“Cool,” she said simply about the video games he had, “bet I could whoop your ass at any given game.” Okay, so maybe it was border line boasting, but she couldn’t help it. Maybe if they played the older games, Jalen would have an easier time winning, but her brother was quite often locked up in his room playing some such video game or other and he had been willing to play with her when he was feeling patient. “I agree about learning how to play those games though – it was a big switch for me when gaming went from 2D to 3D,” A small laughed escaped her lips. It was good to get away from worrying about your abilities.

Restricted... The word bounced around in Jalen’s mind and she nodded, agreeing with JD. It was overbearing here sometimes, that’s why she loves the outdoors. “It’s just nice to get away from people every now and again, break away from those who are constantly breathing down your neck,” she said, knowing that Jonah would understand. At least she could happily say that she didn’t have any annoying friends, but some people were all about gossiping – something Jalen really couldn’t stand.

Hesitating to sit down in her spot, Jalen was still getting used to the speediness at which JD seemed so in tune with. A grin passed over her face as she looked down at her pudding. “Oh please JD, lighten up,” she quipped, putting a spoonful of pudding into her mouth, “you’re preparing for failure! Who says we’d get caught to begin with?” It was a valid argument. If the whole cafeteria erupted into a food fight, who would know the wiser about who threw the first fistful of macaroni? “Besides,” she said, glancing around the eating area, “I think these folks here need some fun in their lives – they’re too uptight.” The latter part was said in the fake ‘high class’ accent she had been using when they first entered the Cafe Teria. Was she using an accent?

Sighing, Jalen shrugged her shoulders, “It was just a thought,” she said, polishing off the glass bowl, “I’m really not that exciting of a person.” She pursed her lips suddenly and tightly then. Had she really just admitted to a cute boy that she was boring? “Did I uh, say that out loud?” She asked JD softly, tapping her empty pudding bowl with her spoon. It was as though she were talking to the bowl instead of the boy in front of her. What was her problem exactly? Was it her goal to look like a total moron today?

[JD Paerson]

JD had to raise an eyebrow at Jalen's challenge. "Oh really? Well, we'll have to have a marathon someday and see who's really the better gamer." He felt confident that he could beat a simple girl. With all the time he spent on the games, and with the speed he'd developed...yeah. No problem.

He nodded silently, thinking about the way he often felt suppressed. The boarding school environment was not conducive to a full and healthy social life. He'd always felt that this whole place was just setting kids up for disaster. Going out of boundaries wasn't breaking the rules, it was doing the only logical thing to make sure you could keep on living.

"I guess not," he mused quietly when she laughed and told him they wouldn't necessarily get caught. He was of a suspicious nature, though, and tended to believe that everyone was always ready to point fingers at him. She kept eating the pudding, though, so he dug into his potatoes. He polished off all his food, finished downing his milkshake and soda, then sat back in his chair. He wasn't completely full, but it was enough for now.

Then suddenly Jalen seemed nervous and embarrassed. JD tried to think back but couldn't really tell what she'd said that might have been embarrassing. "Say what out loud?" he asked. "Does my breath stink or something?" He gave himself a quick breath check. Then he thought for a moment more. "You mean about not being interesting or something? Don't be stupid. First of all, you are at a school for metahumans. I think that in itself makes you interesting. Second, you're smart, which is incredibly impressive and makes you interesting. And you like video games. Always a good sign."

[Jalen August]

Grinning, Jalen wasn't sure what to say to JD's kind words of praise, even though he did seem confused at first. So she had made a big deal out of nothing really. "Thanks, but being a metahuman in a roomful of metahumans is, well, normal," she said, the word 'normal' could've been replaced with 'dull' or 'boring', judging by the blonde's intonation. She didn't really see herself as smart, but maybe she was just smart enough to fool a nice guy into thinking she was - so maybe she is smart?

"Video game marathon then, as soon as I finish that damn calculus homework..." she said, followed by a sigh. If he was really keen on helping her with that, he wouldn't think she was smart any more. Glancing at the clock, Jalen knew she had class coming up soon, and even though she didn't want to leave JD just yet, she could always get in touch with him later. A big grin crossed her face, and she settled into the bench for a little while longer. No point in rushing to class, right?

"So do you have any more classes after lunch?" She asked him curiously, her head resting in her hands as she focused on the boy. She was full, and anything more would cause an upset stomach. She wouldn't mind if JD went up to get more, but hopefully he wouldn't mind a pretty girl staring at him with every bite he took.

[JD Paerson]

"Done and done. We'll get that calc homework done, no problem." And it wouldn't be. He'd aced all the examinations and still had all the notes, even if he couldn't remember specifics about some of the formulas. "And then I'll whoop you at Mario." He grinned.

Her question reminded him of his own schedule and he winced. "Oh yeah. Right, chem." He glanced at his cell phone to check the time. "I still have a little while though." Read: eight minutes before the beginning of class. He'd once run that distance in thirty seconds. If he waited until the last minute, he'd still have plenty of time.

With a quick glance at the food bar, he frowned. He shouldn't eat any more--having too full a stomach would slow him down and make him sick. He was already having problems with dizziness since he'd already done a lot of running today and he was tired. If he added an overfull stomach on top of that, there would definitely be problems.

"Maybe we should start heading out, though. You have class right after lunch, or do you have a study break?" He stood and stretched his arms up over his head. Scooping up the remaining empty dishes he carried them over to the bin and set them down for the cleaning staff to pick up. He walked to the door and pushed it open with one hand, gesturing for Jalen to go first.

"Thanks for the training help," he said as he walked out the door. "It was nice to have a change of pace. And maybe I'll see you around more."

[ooc: I think we can wrap this one up and look at trying something new.]

[Jalen August]

Jalen grinned at JD's spunk. "How romantic," she said at the thought of someone so graciously helping her with her homework only to bring her down in video games. "We'll have to see about that last part," Jalen wasn't all talk when it came to being good at video games. Just because she was a girl didn't mean she had any less capacity in her thumbs.

Getting up with the boy, she supposed they could leave. Not like they had much choice in the matter. "Home economics," she said with a straight face, before breaking into a smile. It was a joke - obviously. "No I have English Lit right now, probably the only class I would want to go to after lunch anyways," Jalen added, stepping through the door JD held open for her.

"You're welcome." She said with a happy smile, looking into those big brown eyes one more time before turning down the hallway to the English department. "I'll e-mail you!" Jay said a little loudly, causing some people to glance at JD expectantly. She shrugged in apology and carried on to class.

She would be on cloud nine for the remainder of the day.

The End.