"Your hair...".
That was the very first sentence to have escaped Craig's lips, staring at the still Jason sitting on his bed. Vitamin in his lap, hands folded, staring straight ahead, the scar on his right cheek finally making its public debut and navy blue hair Craig mistook for black was sitting on Jason's head, trimmed and all.
Hours ago
It was no secret Jason got little sleep last night. He kept waking up after passing out in his bed after taking care of...That.
The first time he woke up, the first thing he did was turn over and turn off his alarm for school. In this condition, he might as well skip school. He could already imagine Mr.Devaski slamming his hand on the classroom phone cause he thinks one of his students is on drugs, only for it to turn out he was inhaling chemicals for who knows how long last night.
When he was having difficulty going back to sleep, he decided to answer the question he asked himself before getting out of bed to commit the heinous crime.
Jason turned on his bedroom light and dug out his homework packet.
Just what he thought, he forgot to answer half of them.
Jason checked the time, 6am.
School was starting in 2 hours. He might as well do it.
Jason sat down at his desk and fished out a pencil and eraser.
He finished the homework by 6:30.
After the homework and putting it away in his backpack, he got under the covers and fell back asleep with Vitamin in his arms.
The second time he woke up, he didn't try going back to bed and simply checked the time. 7:50.
Jason abandoned the bed and changed into a different pair of pajamas. He got the navy blue hair dye from his closet, stole a towel, then stole a mini container and made his way to the bathroom.
Jason put the cushion seat in front of the sink. He unpacked the dye and analyzed the directions, the pictures were a good help on not fucking up his hair, so that was good. He wrapped the towel around his shoulders and was prepared.
After the dye was mixed in the container, he dipped the brush into the dye and stuck it in his hair. He repeated the action until clunky mushes of navy blue hair dye covered his hair.
He checked the directions again to see long this thing was supposed to sit in his hair. 30 minutes. Which was 30 minutes with his thoughts.
He set the timer on his phone and sat there paitently waiting on the edge of the cushion seat.
He boredly shifted in his seat, and this brought back plenty of memories. This was where she'd brush his hair before going to work. Whenever Jason kept moving around in this seat and Mrs.Durchdenwald had to get him out the door. She could just hand him Vitamin and brush his hair easily.
Now, it was time for him to take responsibility.
Jason looked at himself in the mirror. Bloodshot eyes mocked him, and his breathing was starting to rise. His lips started shaking just looking at himself. At the very last minute, Jason was starting to regret burying his father at the creek.
There was no denying he had done this to himself. He went to the creek to escape his father. How could he do that when his father was right there buried and rotting away like the unfaithful wife he murdered? Jason was a monster, wasn't he? His father was dead, yet he was here dyeing his hair like nothing has happened. He hated his father, but he couldn't let that hate sprout so much he becomes a suspect. He had heard stories about children who hated their parents so much that they took matters into their own hands and outlived them early. Jason never thought he'd be like that, but here he was, trying to get his mind off the terrible act he had done.
Jason let his knobby knees shake and felt his heartbeat go faster. His elbows shook as he looked down on himself.
The plastic feel of the gloves still lingers and tingled on Jason's skin, and his nails went into his skin while squeezing his thighs. The pajama pants were the only shield from his nails.
Jason shut his eyes, shaking.
But he couldn't shut out any of the things he could hear with his ears.
"What you did was wrong, Jasaginae...."
Jason jumped out his seat and looked around frantically. He gripped the corner of the sink, looking around. No one was present in the bathroom. It was just him in there. But why did he hear his mother's voice whisper in his ear? She sounded so upset, yet she kept a gentle tone. Did she even know what he did? She spoke as if he pushed someone out the sandbox at the playground and not as if he had done something so vile.
Jason was always scared of disappointing his parents, seeing his parents upset always made him feel like they would stab him to death. But he was more scared of disappointing his father the most. He hardly paid attention to him, yet after she died, he was so much more scary.
DING DING
Jason nearly fell over and split his head open on the edge of the tub from being startled at the sudden noise. He had nearly forgotten that he set that timer in the first place.
Jason shut off the timer and turned on the shower to cold water. He took the towel from around his shoulders and stepped inside the shower once his clothes were off.
He went through an odd phase where he would take cold showers. He couldn't remember why. Whether to impress his father or cause he wanted Junior Forest Scout bragging points, the phrase worked, and he could take a cold shower easily without worry. Now, the phrase had a new purpose.
Jasons fingers ran through his hair to get all the dye out. He watched the water aiming for his hair turn blue and down the drain. Once he was sure all of it was out, he turned off the shower and stepped out to look at his new look.
As expected, he looked....Different.
But the difference felt weird. He knew this would alter his hair color, yet why did he feel like sharp nails were running through his scalp as he looked at his hair, trying to process the new color on him. Maybe it was cause for once he felt a little happy with what he saw in the mirror.
He was always told how much he looked like his mother. But when his father called him by his mothers name and the comparisons he made to him and her, looking in the mirror disturbed him.
But with his blond hair from her hidden, a sense of ease was left from the dye.
Present
"What, you don't like it?"
Jason finally took a look at Craig. Those eyebags have only gotten bigger since the last time Jason was at his house, hope the search for the puzzle pieces were stressing him out too much.
"What? No! I-It's just...I didn't really expect it, you threw quite the curveball on me...I'm just, surprised that's all but it's a good look on you...".
Jason could feel small blushing grow on his face, "T-Thanks...".
Jason looked down at Vitamin and hugged him a little closer than before. He never did get enough sleep last night, did he? He tried going back to bed once his hair was dried, but when he woke back up, he remembered the fingerprints on the shovel and stayed up trying to find ways to get his fingerprints off. He still doesn't know if he did a good job.
Craig looked back at his school backpack sitting next to Jasons beside the bed. Oh, he had forgotten why they agreed to meet in the first place.
He had spent enough time looking for cube pieces with Kelsey and Jp at the creek, and now it was time to work.
"Let's start on the homework before it gets late" Craig suggested and grabbed his homework from his backpack. Jason nodded and pulled out the homework Boris and Tony brought him once school was finished for them. They were so worried when they saw Jason wasn't at school unexcused, but Jason shrugged it off and thanked them.
Thankfully, Jason didn't miss a lot of stuff, and it was just the stuff from yesterday. The silence felt nice, but that let noises form from Jason's ears that were trying to draw his attention away from his work.
"You're doing it wrong, Jasaginae..."
Those could have been his own thoughts, but they never sounded like him. They were never his small voice that would speak whenever he was thinking or reading to himself. It was his father, it was always his father in his head. Whenever he tried thinking to himself, a voice belonging to his father would blabber itself to death in Jason's ear.
"That color makes you look like a freak"
There it was again...He needed his father to shut up.
While Jason answered the questions, a loud gun shot could be heard and made Jason's ear drum nearly split into two. Jason almost broke his pencil and drew a deep and ugly line in the paper. Jason perked his head up and looked around, his breathing clear and loud.
Craig looked up in alarm and paused his homework, "Jasaginae, is something the matter?".
Jasaginae looked back at Craig, and his embarrassment is clear as he grabs for the pencil he almost broke. "I um, just thought I heard something...".
Jason lowers himself to get back to his work. Blood splashes against the inside of his face and he feels Craig's stare through his forehead.
Craig tries copying Jason's act of getting back to work and trying to neglect the acknowledgment of what happened.
Craig takes a spin on his copying and tries to spark a conversation, "So how was school?". He was good at changing the topic and spinning it onto a another cool thing. A thing Mrs.Durchdenwald taught him when the hallucinations got more severe, when she started living in his dreams and making him too scared to even dig a hole no matter how deep. Now he's yawning in class and worrying his friends to death.
"Oh about that...I didn't go to school today"
"Why?"
"Woke up with a bad headache, couldn't do anything. It's better now so at least I can catch up".
The headache wasn't entirely false, the final time he woke up it felt his father was standing above his bed and shooting him in the center of his forehead with that gun. Then it started feeling like one of his Swiss Army Knives was cutting his head open like a cake.
Yet Craig was still hesitant on believing him. When Jason showed up at his front door, Craig nearly flinched at the big scar that was previously covered with the bandage. Yet it looked so much like hers. The only thing keeping the connection apart was Jason's cut hair and that his hair was blue now. But Craig knew he'd probably be screaming anyway if he lacked enough self control.
To Craig, it was so weird. He knew Jason wasn't a very happy kid, yet ever since his father cut his hair off, when Jason dropped the gardening supplies at his house, when he got that scar on his cheek and when he dyed his hair that navy blue, something in Jason was ruined. Something bad Jason won't talk about. Was the hair dye a cry for help?
But whatever it was, Jason gripped his pencil harder and harder within each passing second, within each passing second a new noise could be summon from his ears.