A New Education

-- Okay, here’s another go! I hope you all are enjoying the story, PLEASE let me know what you think if you haven’t already. I really want to know. Thanks!

Dee! Your suggestions are priceless, I’m glad you pointed out what you did about trying not to make mike turn into a plot device instead of another character, I hadn’t even thought of that, but I realize now that that was a direction I was probably pushing him in. And I’m really glad you related to Jason’s anger in the car scene, I don’t know why, but it made me really angry too even though I wrote it. Lol. Thanks again! I love your reviews!!


#Sperks --
Disclaimer: I do not own Dream Theater or their song Forsaken, or Johnny Cash or Rihanna or her song Umbrella.

Once Jason made his way back to his own room, he practically collapsed on his bed from pure exhaustion. Why did people want to talk about emotions so much when it was so hard? He sighed heavily before letting his eyes slip closed and falling into a deep sleep.

Felix on the other had, was wide awake. Jason had taken his breath away with that smile, it’d been so perfect and it just seemed so strong. It made Felix wonder why Jason didn’t smile more often, until he thought of what Mike had said earlier, about maybe Jason having a hard past. Felix finally concluded that that was why Jason was the way he is. Unfortunately, that didn’t bring Felix any closer to going to sleep. All he could see in his mind was Jason’s dazzling smile and how it was a damned good thing he hadn’t been standing when Jason smiled or Felix’s knees would have gone weak. Soon enough though, Felix’s mind relaxed, and he fell asleep, still picturing Jason’s faultless smile.

As the morning rolled around and Jason’s alarm clock screamed along to Dream Theater’s ‘Forsaken’ his hand blindly slapped around his night table in search of the obnoxious object, cursing Mondays with much loathing. He lifted his head of dark brown hair from the pillow, his hair all over the place and sticking up in odd places. After he sat up, he smelt himself, seeing if he needed a shower or not. Normally he would hop in without a question, being part of his morning routine, but today he was more groggy than usual.

Upon deciding that a shower wasn’t really that necessary for him on this particular morning, Jason slowly meandered to his dresser in search of a collared shirt and slacks, the school’s required dress code. As he found a shirt, he buttoned it up without thinking, and pulled on his slacks. When he looked in the mirror, he had to laugh at himself; black slacks and a black button up shirt, he looked like Johnny Cash. He unbuttoned his shirt and found a white one instead, leaving the top three buttons open.

After Jason was dressed, he jogged down the stairs, getting a bit nervous for his new classes. What if he was in way over his head? What if everyone could see right through him? Would they know he didn’t belong? Jason pushed those thoughts aside, it wasn’t like him to be insecure and he didn’t like the feeling. He quickly prepared himself a bowl of whatever cereal was on the counter and began to inhale the food.

Upstairs, Felix was in the bathroom applying a light amount of eyeliner. He usually didn’t, but he was working exceptionally hard to get Jason to notice him as more than just “the kid” today. He had some popular hip-hop station playing in the background, wiggling his tiny bottom to the beat and humming along. He was so caught up in the song, he failed to notice Jason coming into the bathroom.

Well, almost coming in. Jason’s body was frozen in the door way while his eyes remained glued on Felix. The boy was shirtless, dancing in his boxers and singing to the music. It was the cutest yet most strangely seductive thing Jason had ever seen. Was this going to happen every morning?

“Ahem….” Jason cleared his throat after coming out of his daze. He had to stop getting so caught up in the kid.

Felix turned his body to Jason, his cheeks turning pink and his mouth slightly open in shock, displaying his luscious bottom lip perfectly. Jason mentally smacked himself at the thought.

“Oh! Jase, I-I didn’t mean to…. I mean… I didn’t notice y-you needed the bathroom.” He stuttered, so embarrassed that Jason had seen him singing along to Rihanna. But in his defense, Umbrella could be really catchy sometimes.

Jason only shook his head in amusement, a small smile on his features as he made his way over to the second sink in the bathroom to brush his teeth. Even though the subject had been dropped, Felix couldn’t stop blushing. Jason had caught him singing to Rihanna, damnit! That was definitely not going to make him seem any more mature. He saw Jason still smiling as he brushed his teeth, which definitely didn’t help him feel any less like a loser. Jason was laughing at him! How embarrassing.

Jason noticed that Felix’s flushed complexion wasn’t going anywhere, and in fact, it seemed to be getting redder. After Jason spit out his toothpaste and rinsed his mouth, he was ready to pack his bag for school, but he was feeling guilty for embarrassing Felix. On his way out of the bathroom as he walked past Felix, he whispered in the small boy’s ear: “I think it was cute.” Before he left to his own room, Felix’s face beaming with happiness.

Jason wasn’t sure why he’d said that to Felix, he really wasn’t that different from a ton of other people, he was quirky and fun, and loud, but so were a lot of people. And Jason had unintentionally hurt tons of people’s feelings, but never cared enough to correct it before. Why had Felix been different? He ignored the thought and got ready for his day, dreading his Calculus class first period.

Felix was pumped for the rest of the day though. He was giddy and couldn’t wait to find Jason at lunch and have a real conversation with him. They’d never really had one Felix realized. That struck him as a bit odd. But Jason was never really talking to anyone anyways. Felix was excited to hopefully be an exception in Jason’s life.

-

The day leading up to lunch for Jason could not have been worse. His classes were great, his teachers were awesome and he seemed well prepared for the classes, but the students were horrendous. They kept asking him questions: Where did he come from, how old is he, what kind of music was he interested in? Jason was ready to explode. He ignored or avoided most of the questions, which only led people to call him ‘antisocial’, but Jason was fine with that, cause it was pretty close to the truth. The girls were obnoxious though, they were the most persistent about their questions, and they asked the most personal ones, like they had a right to know anything about him anyways.

After the same girl asking him six times what sort of hobbies he had, he finally slipped up.

“Obviously I don’t care to tell you or I would have told you the first damn time you asked me. You don’t know me; therefore you can’t be interested in anything about me, so why do you bother to ask anyways?!” he sighed heavily at seeing the girl’s petrified state “Please, just leave me alone, I don’t really like talking to people.” He said, calming down a bit for his last sentence. The girl looked like she would die from shock and/or shitting herself too much. Jason doubted that she ever got rejected for something before.

By lunch time, Jason had a huge appetite and only hoped the school food was up to his expectations, which were pretty much that it shouldn’t be literal garbage, and hopefully someone hadn’t thrown it up. The food passed the test.

He plopped himself down at an empty table, people already staring at him and talking about his angry and hermit-like behavior. He shook his head, his elbows resting on the table and a hand in his thick hair. He stabbed at his carrots and ate them slowly, glad that he only had one more class before he could lie back down in his bed.

As soon as Felix walked into the cafeteria, he spotted Jason. A huge grin spread across his features as he speed walked over to the other boy, sitting right next to him.

“Heeeeey Jase! How are your classes so far?” He asked in a perky, sing-song voice. Jason tried to suppress a small smile at the kid’s arrival. It was actually great to see someone who wasn’t as judgmental as everyone else. Jason had failed to notice that until now, that Felix had never passed judgment on him. He made a mental note to thank the kid soon.

“Good.” He stated with a nod and then shoveling an overloaded forkful of macaroni into his mouth. Felix giggled, he was becoming fond of Jason’s lack of conversational skills.

“Cool, what classes did you have? Any good teachers? Did you get along with any of the students at all?” Felix was straddling the lunch bench, facing Jason’s profile as Jason ate his meal.

“Um, I had Calculus, Bio II and Art History. The teachers were good, the students blew.” He stated with a full mouth, making it a bit hard for Felix to understand, but he managed and nodded in reply.

“That’s cool. Any classes after lunch? I’m gonna head back to the house after lunch, do you want to come?” he really hoped Jason would say yes. Their dorm-house was across campus and that would give Felix a good ten minutes to have Jason all to himself.

“Yeah, I have Physics after lunch, which I actually gotta head over to now. But, um… I mean… if you want to wait like forty five minutes, I’ll head out with you. I-I mean you don’t have to, I mean, just if you want to or whatever.” Jason fumbled over his words, repeatedly attacking the same noodle absentmindedly as the stared at his puce colored lunch tray.

Felix’s heart was racing, had Jason really just said that? “Yeah, I’d love to wait for you, we could walk downtown to grab some ice cream or something too if you want.” Felix hoped he wasn’t pushing it.

“Yeah” Jason nodded “that sounds fine, I gotta run, I’ll meet you outside Thompson Hall in like…. Fifty minutes.” Then he got up with a wave of his hand, leaving Felix behind so he could clean off his tray and head to class. Felix followed Jason with his eyes until the boy was completely out of sight, down the hall way, and then Felix officially transformed from a regular school boy into a giddy mess. He let out a light squeal and went in search of someone to rant to.

After a few laps around the school, Felix spotted Eddie, one of the housemates, and ran after him.

“Yo! Eddie! Wait up, man!” Eddie, ever ready to ditch out on any class, readily accepted Felix’s plea.

“Sup, Fi. Don’t you have class or something?” Felix shook his head vigorously.

“No, but wanna hear some FANTASTIC news?!?” he didn’t even wait for Eddie’s response “I’m getting ice cream with Jason after school!! Isn’t that awesome?!” Eddie shrugged and blew a bubble with his pink gum.

“Yeah… it’s cool. What time you guys gonna be back?” Felix’s excitement dropped.

“It’s cool? Are you serious Eddie? I mean… Jason is the most awesomest guy ever! He’s nice, he’s cute, he’s smart, I mean… he’s perfect! Aaaand, he’s getting ice cream with me!”

“Yeah, dude, do you have any idea how many guys in this school can fit that description? Like, even I can fit that description.” He said in a bit of an aggravated tone.

“Why can’t you just be excited for me that maybe he’s interested in me too?” Felix asked in a deflated tone.

“Just trust me, Felix, he’s not the guy he seems to be.”

“What do you mean? You knew him before he came here?” The small boy was lost.

“You know how Amy, my girlfriend came to the movies with us the other night?” Felix nodded “well afterwards, she was telling me about how she used to know about him. He was pretty popular in a school nearby to hers, and apparently still is, she doesn’t know why he left. But anyways, he had tons of different girlfriends apparently and fucked around in school a lot, like always got into trouble. And apparently he was always hanging around the wrong crowd. And I don’t mean like, kids that weren’t cool or something. I mean like drug dealers, suicide-kids, junkies, and he fit right in with them. But apparently everyone else still thought he was really cool, I don’t know why.”

Felix already knew he didn’t believe it. And even if that had been true, clearly Jason wasn’t like that now, right?

“It’s pretty much the main reason I haven’t tried to get to know him like you and Mike have. I told Derek about it last night when I found out, so he’s feeling the same way as me.” Eddie pulled off a hair elastic from around his wrist and proceeded to put it around his head of long blonde dreads while he talked about the last house-mate, Derek. “Sorry, dude, you seemed pretty stoked about him, I just thought I should let you know cause he’s probably not gonna tell you anything like that. But yeah, I gotta get to class. See you tonight, man.” He gave a peace sign and headed back off in his original direction.

Although Felix’s mood was a little bit less ecstatic than a few minutes ago, he had already decided he didn’t believe what Amy said. Jason hated to be touched. So even if he did have tons of girlfriends, he obviously hadn’t done anything serious with them, and if he had tons of girlfriends than he obviously wasn’t serious about any one of them, so Felix didn’t have to worry about them. But it did point out blatantly to Felix that Jason clearly wasn’t gay.

--

Forty four minutes after lunch, Felix was waiting outside Thomas Hall. He had re-styled his hair about five times, put a new layer of eye liner on, and made sure he looked okay from head to toe. It was strange for Felix to care so much about what someone thought of him; he was usually completely careless and free, which made people think of him as mean. But something about Jason really made Felix want to impress him.

Jason arrived about two minutes late. It was a small thing, but Felix had hoped that Jason might have been as excited as him for their ‘outing’. Felix did note, however, that Jason was jogging from across the street. He was hurrying to see him! That had to be a good sign.

“Hey, sorry.” Jason said, a bit out of breath. “I left to get here on time, but I ran into my Calculus teacher from earlier and he wanted to talk.” He panted. “I really tried to get here on time.”
Felix nodded and put on a smile “It’s cool, don’t worry about it.” He said in honesty, he was glad Jason had shown, two minutes wasn’t that big of a deal.

Jason placed a gentle and on Felix’s shoulder, forcing the small boy to look up at Jason with wide, curious eyes.

“I really tried to get here on time, Felix. I want to spend time with you.” Jason assured, and Felix didn’t care anymore if they went out to ice cream or anything, because Jason, even if just for that split second, wanted to be with him. And that was all Felix needed.