"Oh, fuck off." It came out more desperate than he'd intended but Fiori was too bust tamping down the panic that had started to worm it's way into his heart to notice. He was breathing too fast, staring down at the tile floors like they had wronged him on a deeply personal level. "You won't have to worry about it for much longer, freak. I'll be gone in fucking week, tops."
Jude soften slightly. He could see the panic in Fiori's eyes. At the rate of his breathing he was going to pass out. It would be a good opportunity to leave. He figured he would have to walk home. But he found that he couldn't just leave, and not just because his body felt like ut was on fore.
"Fiori, you need to breathe. If you pass out I don't think either us will get out of this bathroom today." Jude said
"Better that than home." The way he spat the word, like it was burning his tongue, suggested that it wasn't much of one. His expression, caught between three different kinds of fear and something dangerously close to acceptance, crumpled. Why was Jude talking to him anyway? He was nice, but not nice enough to care about Fiori. Fiori who beat him daily as some kind of sick power play and hadn't said a kind word to him since they met. "I thought I told you to fuck off anyway. Leave."
Jude laughed sarcastically. "Don't you think I would have left already if I could? But I'm pretty sure I broke a rib, or at least sevey bruised it. So ot doesn't look like I'm going anywhere. And if you pass out, what the he'll am I going to do? Draw on your face? That seems like my only option at the moment." He should really shut up. Mainly because it hurt to breathe.
"You're going to piss off the wrong person someday," Fiori murmured, instead of retaliating or even bothering to care. He was still breathing too fast, but listening to Jude prattle on made it… better. "And I didn't break your rib, I know better than that. Sorry you got stuck with me as your soulmate, 'm probably gonna hit you again."
Jude snkrted at that, which hurt a lot. "I already have if you haven't noticed." He made a hand gesture to Fiori. "And i figured. Bullies don't just stop bullying." Hs troed relaxing on the floor, which was hard. His head was pounding, his sides hurt. "What the fuck am I supposed to do with you? I nljnew life hated me but I didn't realize it hated me this much."
"Get used to it." That was rude, wasn't it? Fiori took a deep breath and tried again. "Stop hiding in the biology classroom, everyone knows Mrs. Baxter likes you so it doesn't work anymore. And if all your tires get slashed, insurance will cover new ones. And the nurse doesn't ask questions." This school wasn't in the best part of town. Enough kids came in with wounds from home that Miss Tildy had started a don't ask don't tell policy when treating the students.
Jude rolled his eyes. "I'm not in Mrs. Braxton's class just to hide. I want to study in the scince field. I haven't firgured out exactly what yet, hence why im always in her room. She's been helping me. She even let me pick out the next lab we're doing." Jude sighed and grabbed his backpack. It hurt but he decided to cuddle it. He laid on his side and wrapped his body around the pack. "Yeah…insurance. Um, I don't have insurance. We can't afford it. And it doesn't help when my tires keep getting slashed so all that money i keep trying to save up goes down the drain. My mom and I don't make enough."
"Sorry." It was sincere, though Fiori knew one little word didn't mean much in the grand scheme of things. Still, it would probably be a nice gesture. "I tried to talk them into egging your house instead but Austin wouldn't go for it." He settled into a more comfortable position on the floor. "You shouldn't lay all curled up like that. It's better if you stay on your back. Especially if you're worried about your ribs."
Jude rolled his eyes again. He had a feeling that he would be doing that a lot in whatever their relationship was. "Gee, thanks, I just love getting egged. It's my most favorite thing in the whole world." His voice was dripping with sarcasm. "Fuck off. I'll do what I want. Unless you're going to do anything to stop me? Hmm? No? Didn't think so. I can't wait to get out of this shithole." He muttered the last sentence.
"It's better than slashed tires." Fiori rose slowly to his feet, brushing off his pants, and gave Jude a single, curious look. He didn't seem upset by the snark in the slightest, even-tempered the way he was with almost everyone after being shocked out of his rage. Or perhaps impassive was the right word, he couldn't care less about what was being said to him. "If you're really desperate, I can give you a ride."
"Get a ride from my tormentor? I don't think so. Don't think that just because our chests started glowing means you owe me any favors. I will walk. In a minute." Jude sneered at him. "You have made my life a living hell. Us being soulmates doesn't change that."
Fiori nodded once, slightly happy that he'd managed to fuck things up so badly between them. It was good that Jude would escape the chains that bound them together, he really didn't deserve to deal with Fiori. So why did his heart feel so heavy? "I know. Be careful on the walk home, Austin's waiting for you on the east trail."
"Oh? Really? Well perhaps I'll go pay him a little visit. Maybe he'll finally put me out of my misery. With the beating you gave me I'm not sure how much more my body can take. Maybe he'll hit me and then poof." Jude smirked at him. "That sounds like a great plan actually."
"If that's what you want." It was said in the same flat tone as always, but there was something tense in the way Fiori was holding himself. Like he was worried. He was standing in front of the door still, no obvious plans on leaving in case Jude wasn't just joking. "Your mother would be heartbroken."
"Yeah. But then she would actually have money and could take of herself for once. So in the end, it's a win for her, even though she might not see it like that." Jude pulled some Chapstick out of his bag and applied it. His lips always seemed to be chapped. "You can acting like some suicide preventor or something, I'm not going to do it. Cant you tell horribly dark sarcasm?"
Fiori raised one shoulder in a halfhearted shrug. "It's hard. You always seem so upset, I wouldn't put it past you." What Fiori wasn't saying was that the answer, in his case, was yes. Sarcasm was like lying; something completely foreign and often more trouble than it was worth. He avoided it at all costs and rarely understood it.
"I speak sarcasm fluently. So you better get used to it. I say a lot of things I don't mean. You should ask my tons of friends- oh wait, I don't really have any. I wonder why?" Jude gave him a dazzling smile. "Now are you done gaurding the door?"
Fiori shrugged again, lost between the poison in the words and the pretty smile. He admired the was Jude spoke, all bright and plastic until it was suddenly very real, even though it left him confused more often than not. It was like watching a performance, only it was someone's trainwreck of a life and tickets were paid in pain. "I don't think I am. Are you going to get up any time soon?"
"No, i think I rather like laying in this disgusting bathroom floor that probably hasn't been cleaned in ages. Its a favorite pasttime of mine." Jude pushed his bag away and slowly started sitting up. He let out a soft whimper. "I think it's going to take me a minite, or two, or more." His face was scrunched up in a grimance. He was going to be real sore in the morning. Maybe he should just bathe in ice when he got home.
"That's the sarcasm, right?" Fiori moved a step closer to help before he realized what a bad idea it was to crowd someone he'd already hurt without permission. "Can I help you? I promise I won't do anything. And I have painkillers in my car. Um… I could run out and get them for you if you want them but not the help."
"Of course that's sarcasm. I don't want to be on this floor any longer than necessary." Jude hissed. He leaned on his fprearms, trying to breathe as deeply as he could without it hurting too much. "You know, we wouldn't be in the situation if you hadn't followed me in here."
"You know I'm not actually stupid, right?" It was a sincere question. People always seemed to call Firori stupid, and he didn't know if it was his status as a school bully, a dad people thought bought him his grades, or his disinterest in social cues. Probably a mixture of all three. "I know basic cause and effect. Can I please help you up? I think you're going to hurt yourself even worse if you keep doing that."
"I would be concerned if you didn't know that. Cause and effect is like, 5th grade stuff. And if I recall correctly, you didn't really start doing shut until middle school so you should at least be 6th grader smart." Jude used sarcasm for everything. Especially in situations where it wasn't particularly helpful, such as this. He couldn't help it. Other people had fists, jude only had his words. "A little ironic don't you think. You did this to me and now you're trying to help me? It almost feels like your the big brother and you "hurt" me so I cried and now you're trying to shut me up so I don't tell."
Fiori's mouth pressed into a thin line and he shuffled a bit closer, reaching down to wrap an arm around Jude's waist and pull him to his feet. If Jude wasn't going to answer his question, he would take the silence as a yes. "I did this to you out of duty to my friends and I'm helping you out of duty to myself. I don't think it's ironic, more a…" What was it called? "…a conflict of interest."
Jude let out a small whimper as he was forced to his feet. He had grabbed on to whatever closet, which unfortunately for him meant Fiori. He took a couple breaths then let go of him. "A conflict of interest? I wonder why? Oh, maybe because you associate yourself with bullies. Although I guess it's better than everyone else that doesn't do anything. At least you do something. Not anything I want, but at least it's something." He sighed. "Are you going to let go of me now? I can get home by myself now."
Fiori rolled his eyes and loosened his hold on Jude, still holding him steady. "At this point, could I associate myself with anyone else?" The answer was no. Fiori had thrown in his lot with the wrong crowd and now he was stuck until high school was over. He walked Jude over to the sink, giving him something to brace his hands against so he wouldn't topple over when Fiori let go. "Can you stand on your own?"
"And you did that yourself. You need to work on your people skills. It seemed like everyone but you realized it was a bad crowd. Well, when you go off to college and play college football maybe you'll learn who your true friends are." Jude gripped the sink. He turned the water on and washed his face carefully. "Can you hand me my bag? I'm not going to topple over or anything."
"I grew up with them. I didn't know other kinds of people existed until middle school." Middle school had been when his friends went from troublemakers to bullies, and Fiori had plodded along behind them without hesitation. He knew it was his fault, somewhere deep down. He knew he wouldn't make a different choice if he could change things now. It didn't matter anyway. He picked up the backpack and handed it over to Jude. "And I'm actually not sure if you're going to topple over or not. You seem kind of shaky."
"Then you shoild have explored your options during middle school. I know I sure did." Jude smirked and gave him a wink. He took the backpack from him and settled it on his shoulders. He leaned against the sink as he pulled his phone out of his bag. He had put it in one of the pockets while he was working with Mrs. Braxton. His mom had called, not once, not twice, but ten times. "I'm fucked."
