Alexithymia | STRANGER THINGS [ON HOLD UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE]

twenty five | the hellfire club

In response to Jason's words, Matthew turned to Valerie and pressed one of his thumbs to the front of his neck and proceeded to drag it across the front of his neck and then let his head fall to the side with his tongue sticking out a bit, which did nothing but make Valerie chuckle to herself with a mere shake of her head.

Neither junior was unaware of the fact that Jason was staring right at them and fighting against the urge he had to narrow his eyes at the two juniors that had done nothing but give him shit since the start of the school year.

But because of the image that Jason had built for himself at the school, he thought better of it and only plastered an even wider grin on his face before he looked at one cheerleader in particular and said to her, "Chrissy..." After patting his own chest, he told her, "Chrissy, I love you, babe."

After watching Chrissy only blow him a kiss, Jason grinned to himself and took a couple of steps back from the crowd of people before he said into the microphone, "You know... I think I can speak for all of us when I say it's been a tough year for Hawkins. So much loss. And sometimes I wonder, 'How much loss can one community take'? In dark days like this, we need something to believe in. So, last night, when we were down by ten points at half to Christian Academy, I looked at my team, and I said, 'Think of Jack. Think of Melissa. Think of Heather. Think of Billy. Think about our heroic police chief, Jim Hopper. Think about each and every one of our friends who perished in that fire. What did they die for? For us to lose to some... some crap school? No'."

After glancing over at Valerie and watching how her face had already fallen at the mere mention of her dead stepbrother, Matthew pulled her closer to himself and then turned his head to stare down at Jason with a scowl on his face and his free hand clenched into a fist, while a majority of the crowd yelled, "No!"

Then Jason asked, "'For us to return home with our heads hung low in defeat? No!"

Then, once more, the majority of the crowd yelled, "No!"

Then Jason said, "'No. Let's win this game. Let's win this for them'. And that's exactly what we did!" While a majority of the crowd broke into applause and cheer and Matthew simply raised a single middle finger at Jason, Jason did what he could to ignore the obscene gesture from the violent member of the Wheeler family as he yelled into the microphone, "We embarrassed those candy-asses in their own house, and now tonight, tonight, we're gonna bring home the championship trophy! Let's go!"

While the other basketball players jumped in place and ran around in the gymnasium, Jason looked directly at the temperamental Wheeler and his best friend.

While Valerie's entire body had become tense from Jason's speech alone and she was feeling more than desperate for a good smoke from one of Matthew's many cigarettes, Matthew had a murderous look on his face as he stared down at Jason Carver.

And despite the many encounters in which Jason and Matthew had had prior to that moment, there was not one instance in which Matthew looked like he wanted to kill Jason like he did in that exact moment.

And it was a combination of both the reputation Matthew had for himself and the violent temper he had that made Jason silently vow to keep himself distanced from Matthew Wheeler, who was known to many in the school as Matthew 'The Asshole' Wheeler and had a history of putting those that pissed him off into the hospital from just how violent he could become when he was angry enough about something.

And based on that one and single look that Matthew had on his face, Jason Carver knew very well that if it did come to it that he was face-to-face with Matthew Wheeler that he would end up in the hospital and have to be there a hell of a lot longer than anyone else that ended up inside of it from one of Matthew's fights.