Current Aesthetic

Take The Blame

Take The Blame

Word Count: 3817

-- -- --

When Ethan met Jonas for the first time, it was the middle of the night and Ethan wasn't even that drunk. Ethan wasn't completely sure how he ended up in the park, and he wasn't sure if it was tobacco or something else in his pipe either. The only thing he knew for sure was that he felt a little fuzzy around the edges and that there was someone else in the park.

He thought it was a woman at first, with the longest hair he'd ever seen. He blinked, took another long drag of whatever it was he was smoking, and pondered how he never realized just how nice blue eyes looked with blonde hair until then. There were braids in the blonde's hair (Ethan couldn't tell if they were a chick or not, but he found them so goddamn beautiful anyway), he noticed as they left the park.

It made Ethan want to forget everything about that night.

-- -- --

The second time he met Jonas, it wasn't in a drugged haze and he remembered it better. There was a mole under Jonas' left eye, but the rest of his pale skin was flawless. (And if Ethan wanted to know just what shade of red he turned, he couldn't be blamed.) Those blue eyes suddenly looked a lot less dazzling as they narrowed, Jonas scowled at Ethan.

He was smoking again, but the sharp, bitter taste that coated his tongue was definitely tobacco this time. Ethan could see where he was going wrong, because yes, he was smoking on school grounds and yes, that was illegal and he could get it expelled for it. He grinned despite it, just to rile Jonas up a little more. He'd admit, he liked something about how the blonde boy squirmed.

"That's against school rules," Jonas said, half hiss and half growl that was more heated-thought-inspiring than intimidating.

Ethan laughed when Jonas pulled the cigarette from his mouth and ground it underneath the toe of a shoe that definitely had some kind of heel to it. He said, "That's half the fun."

The glare Jonas tossed him was withering and he poked a finger into the other's chest. "You're underage, it's illegal."

"That's the thing sweetheart," Ethan said, and blew the last of the smoke from his lungs into Jonas' face. He watched as he fell a step back and coughed, eyes watering. He wanted to know how blue those eyes would be when he was happy. Instead, he called to Jonas as he walked away, "No one gives a fuck!"

Ethan watched how Jonas' hips swung from side to side when he walked and wondered if he heard the about me or not.

(He made the connection about blonde hair, which was significantly shorter but still waved in a braid.)

-- -- --

Ethan watched Jonas, from time to time. He didn't like to be touched, he noticed, and he caught the eye of the whole school quickly enough. There was something about Jonas, like he was above everyone else. Not superior, but more like he floated above drama and rumors, like they didn't reach him out of sheer willpower.

They got paired up for a science projects two weeks after the cigarette incident. When the day was over, Ethan leaned over Jonas' desk and made the plans for when they'd work. His house, on Saturday, he had declared and Jonas went with it. Ethan left the room and he could feel Jonas' gaze boring into his back. Yeah, he'd noticed the looks Jonas snuck, but he couldn't hold it against him, he was gorgeous and he'd had his own looks at a certain pretty blonde anyway.

As expected, Jonas showed up on his doorstep at exactly 2:15 pm, Ethan almost laughed. His mother had gone out and Cana wandered about freely. Jonas shuffled past him into the room; he smelled like witch hazel, Ethan noticed. And when he let out a stifled yelp when Cana slithered over his toes to wind around Ethan's ankle, he really did laugh.