New Beginning

Justin stood quietly, not looking up as James changed.

He'd wait for the other to say something.

The blond slipped jeans over his boxers and stretched his arms over his head, trying to relieve some of the tension in the room. It wasn't really working.

He sighed, and coughed lightly. Oh to hell with it.

"Look...about last night...It seems like we have some pretty shitty luck to get stuck with a girl who's so blatantly slutty. And even worse luck that she's pretty much targeting me. I swear, I'm not into her. I just...didn't know how to react. And I still don't. It's...not like I have a lot of experience with dealing with girls like that, or really girls in general. I know it...looked like I was just letting her walk all over me, hell it probably seemed like I enjoyed it.

"But...really it just made me feel really uncomfortable and I didn't know what to say, what to do. And... I'm always more disoriented when I'm Lucid. I...have no excuse. I'm sorry... You shouldn't have had to see me act that way. It was weak of me..." His voice grew increasingly quiet and halted as he tried to finish what he was saying. At least he was able to look the other in the eye the whole time. James wasn't all that happy about having to share his feelings with Justin, but he owed it to his partner.

Justin shrugged. It hadn't been his place to protest Camden's actions and it sure as hell wasn't his place to protest James'.

"It's fine." he said calmly. "We need to bond her to us as soon as possible. Will you be able to find her?"

He was saying James was to do it because, one, he's pretty sure that they had basically decided that in the dream realm, and two, Justin was pretty sure he wouldn't be able to stop himself from tearing her ugly head off.

James nodded.

"I remember what she originally looked like pretty well and with Lilith telling us that partner groups are usually in relatively close proximity to each other, I have a pretty good idea I know who it is. I'm pretty sure it's that anorexic girl who goes to our school, same grade level as us and everything. Alexis. You remember her from math?"

A frown grew on Justin's face.

"... You mean the one that keeps staring at me from over her shoulder when she doesn't think I'm watching?"

James blinked.

"I...I guess? She...stares at you?"

He weasn't sure what was more unnerving. The fact that she stared at Justin, or the fact that James hadn't noticed. He was more leaning towards the second one right now, and giving himself a good mental beating for it.

Justin nodded, still too focused on his own confusion to notice James'.

"Yes, all the time. And whenever I pass her in the hall, she always stops talking to whichever group of friends she's with that day and just watches me intently. I never meet her eyes but I can see her from my peripherals."

He'd been trained to watch entire rooms from his peripheral views. It wasn't anything new, but now with this new... life, it seemed like a pretty weird skill.

He shrugged again.

"Kinda creeps me out. It looks like that slang term "undressing me with her eyes," you know?"

James nodded, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

"Yeah...Why didn't you tell me? I mean...I'd kind of want to know if you're at risk of suddenly being jumped."

He sighed. From the little he had seen of Alexis in math, she was just about as...-well for lack of better word- slutty as she had acted in the Dream Realm. She was always hanging around some guy's neck, laughing and making raunchy jokes under her breath, just loud enough for the people directly around her to hear.

"I was taught how to handle myself in any sort of combat situation that there are applicable simulations for, I would be able to protect myself in a moment of violence." Justin replied in a monotonous tone that became borderline soulless. "Informing you would put you in a situation that risked injury."

He shrugged for the third time.

"The only thing I can handle myself out here is fighting." he smiled, though it didn't reach his eyes, though it rarely ever did in the first place. "I'd snap their necks without a thought."

... A little voice in his head was telling him that his words and actions were probably creepy as hell, but Justin was pretty sure that little voice didn't know what ti was talking about, being just a voice and all, so he ignored it.

It was always little moments like this that reminded James of just how utterly that hospital had damaged Justin. He didn't really like these moments.

"Justin...You can tell me something like that, it wouldn't put me in danger. I know you can handle yourself but you can talk about it to me. I mean...you know, having a girl stare at you in school is the kind of thing that could happen to anyone, in a perfectly average life. It's not really something worth keeping quiet...Does that make sense?"

He silently acknowledged that they had strayed away from the main point of this conversation and the morning preparations had been brought to an absolute standstill as a result. Still...

Justin nodded, James' underlying words clear. His new orders were to inform James of any of the following situations in which a member of the opposite sex ogled or stared at him in any sort of way. Then, a thought came to him...

"What about men? The Biology teacher stares about seven seconds too long."

Waiting for James to answer that question, Justin moved to shuffle about, selecting his clothes for the day.

He raised an eyebrow, a twinge of...annoyance, he supposed, running through him. Really, having Alexis stare at Justin was enough, were there really others too? Justin was hi-

...His. His. The annoyance strengthened into a possessive anger.

Who were they all, he had to know every name, every face, every being that let their eyes linger over Justin for even a second too long.

He dug his nails into his palms and nodded. "Yeah, Mr. White always struck me as pedophile material, with how he's always breathing down everyones' necks, staring at their lab notes."

It was strangely difficult to keep his voice level. This shouldn't be getting to him so much. He should have expected that people would start looking at Justin differently when he started looking healthier and a bit less terrified. But he hadn't. James had thought they could keep going, just the two of them, day by day.

And he had been wrong.

"Pedophile?" Justin frowned curiously. "Don't they do background checks? Every nurse I ever had was subjected to an extensive background check." he picked through the drawer and found the green v-neck James had once said looked good on him. "They all had to be dead within the year."

He looked around the room again.

"... Where'd my black jeans go?"

"Not really as far as I know... I don't think they'd let a documented sex offender teach, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have intentions. And...Oh. Those jeans? Mom found a hole in one of the seams or something and she took it to have it mended. Gets to be such a pain when she throws a fit over every little detail." He shook his head and sighed.

"I think you had at least one other pair of black jeans...They're probably in the closet...somewhere."

Their efforts at getting ready quickly were quickly being thwarted.

Justin made a face.

"But this green looks good with black..."

James glanced uncertainly at the door of his closet.

"Well...we could always try to dig out that other pair...I'm just...not quite sure if it's worth the fight. I mean...Anything could jump out of there. Anything."

He raised an eyebrow at Justin.

Justin's shoulders slumped.

"... Where are those skinny jeans?"

James had really liked those.

James sighed and gave in, walking to the door of his closet and giving the handle a hard twist. He winced as it flew open, a mountain of objects falling out. He sidestepped just in time to avoid his foot being crushed by a broken radio that rolled out like a distorted soccer ball.

"Somewhere in here." He stared at the disaster within and sighed a second time.

"You better really love those pants," James muttered as he began shoving through the micellaneous objects haphazardly piled within the enclosed room.

So much for eating breakfast.

Justin faltered at the annoyance he heard.

"N-no, it's okay. I can find them myself."

Ducking his head, he gently moved in front of James and went to looking, trying to make it seem like he knew what he was doing. Cause he honestly didn't. The random colours and reflections and objects all fought for his attention and suddenly he was feeling overwhelmed and somewhat nauseous but he could handle it.

"GO get ready, it's fine."

James smiled to himself and placed a gentle hand on Justin's bony shoulder.

"I'll help you look. It's fine, it'll go faster if we do it together. I'm not actually annoyed, just playing with you a bit."

He turned back to the mess and dug through the top of the pile.

"They're relatively new jeans, they'll probably be somewhere near the top. I'd probably find them faster anyway. You can start getting our backpacks ready while I look."

He hadn't missed the overwhelmed look that had flickered briefly over Justin's face as he had began sifting through the closet.

He paused.

"...Why the hell is this random pink sweater in here...I think that's my mom's..."

Still somewhat put off, Justin stood a moment, fiddling with the green shirt, before tossing of his night shirt and throwing the other on as quickly as possible.

Then, he rushed out of the room to collect their bags and placed them beside the door. Passing the kitchen, Justin paused, then went inside, opening the fridge to take out and apple and the carton of milk. He poured some into a travel mug and set the mug and the apple beside James' bag. He'd say he'd already had something.

He wasn't very hungry.

Hurrying back upstairs, Justin stood nervously in the doorway.

James huffed silently as Justin left, muttering all sorts of profanities under his breath, all of which were directed at his closet.

After a few more minutes of extensive digging and throwing a few large, heavy objects across the room, James spotted the jeans and pulled them out with a triumphant grin. He turned. Justin was already there, fidgeting anxiously.

James really hoped that Justin hadn't witnessed the less than gentle placement of the stuff that now sat in scattered heaps about the room. The broken radio, a few gleaming metal baseball bats that had seen little, if any, use, and several cardboard boxes probably filled to the brim with breakable junk that he had seen no use for in the first place. He held out the jeans for Justin, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly.

"Uh...There was...stuff in the way," he muttered.

Justin merely nodded and mumbled his thanks, quickly leaving the room to put them on.

James sighed and shut the closet door, eyeing it with disgust. Then he went to find his backpack and make sure that all of his assignments were actually in it.
He unzipped it and rifled through, mentally counting off all the assignemnts that would be due today.

...He was missing his math homework. The homework that had taken nearly an hour because he had stubbornly refused to be helped by Justin, determined to figure it out for himself. Trigonometry really sucked.

Justin was careful to be quiet as he approached James who was knelt beside his backpack. He watched the blond curse and knew what he was looking for.

"It's in my bag." he said quietly. "Someone's been stealing stuff out of your bag and you worked so hard on that assignment and wouldn't let me help and I didn't want anything to happen to it so I took it." he paused, wetting his lips. "That doesn't make you mad, right?"