[For Jason] Post-Tea Party

[illuxinated]

Lux won't admit it, even to her own self, but she's waiting. After wandering around awhile and stopping to talk to Tim, she'd headed home, pulled off the fancy dress she'd apparently put on for no reason, and waited.

There's a cold and knotted up place in the pit of her stomach telling her that he won't come. That he won't have even noticedSitting

Comments

[prodigaljaybird]

It's a long walk from the stage to Lux's hut. It's a long walk to anywhere on the island, something Jason never really noticed until his injuries forced him onto crutches and a cast. The crutches, thankfully, are gone, but the cast remains, a broken hand making it next to impossible to swing through the trees with any real speed. For the first time since his arrival, Jason's grounded. It fucking sucks

[illuxinated]

How is it possible to feel two such conflicting emotions as happiness and guilt so sharply at once? The curse startles Lux right off the bed, and before she knows what she's doing, she's pulled open the trap door in the floor of her room and is peering down at Jason, her pulse beating hard in her throat.

"You could have just called up," she says, mouth gone dry. "Or used the ladder." As if he would, even now.

She doesn't give him a chance to reply before she's stepping down the ladder herself in her t-shirt and boxer shorts. At the bottom she stops and turns, pressing her back against rungs.

"If you're going to- to- break up with me, just do it now," she says, voice unsteady.

[prodigaljaybird]

For a moment, he thinks she just forgot. She's not dressed up like the invitation said, looks like she might even have been sleeping, clothes soft and comfortable, and Jason's almost ready to laugh until she speaks again.

"What?" he blurts in response, face smoothed over in surprise like it doesn't hurt, but it does, his insides recoiling as if from a sudden punch to his soft places. "Why?"

[illuxinated]

The look on Jason's face makes her feel stupid and even more off balance than she was to begin with, but Lux doesn't know how to stop the emotion that's pushing its way up her throat. Just looking at him is like opening a floodgate, and all her frustration and confusion and anger at not just him but everything spills out before she can even think of stopping it.

"Isn't that what you want?" she cries, and hiccups up a sob, fresh tears spilling over her flushed cheeks. "Someone who will throw you parties and not be completely screwed up?" Even to her own ears it sounds ridiculous and juvenile and unfair; it isn't even Jason she's angry at, it's at the idea of losing him. She doesn't want to be noble, she doesn't want to say, Go, she's better for you anyway, but she hurts in a way she hasn't since she was in 7th grade and can't bear it, doesn't know what to do with it. Her body bends with it, hands on her knees because it feels like she can't catch her breath.