Freshmen Dorms

"Bruce Lee could kick Chuck Norris' ass anytime, he'd come back from the dead just to do it too. I bet you he's rolling in his grave from all this Chuck Norris shit." Alexis replied with a grin, waving her hands dramatically. "He'd round house kick Chuck Norris into an alternate universe. Simple as that." Alexis chirped and turned, going back to the kitchen.

"Tell that to Seth," Evelyn tutted, trailing after Alexis. She felt queasy, though, so she stumbled onto a chair at the table instead, sinking down and resting her cheek upon the cold wood surface of the table.

Evelyn stayed silent a moment and then jerked her chin up only when Alexis was done with the pancakes.

For some reason, the delicious vanilla scent made Evelyn's stomach recoil. Definite stomach bug or possible food poisoning. Lovely. She made another tired run to the bathroom and when she finished throwing up, Nova was whimpering at the door.

Evelyn sat back against the bathtub, breathing hard, her insides aching with her furious puking, and then got up and staggered back to the table.

"Alexis, what've you been up to lately anyways?" she asked, wanting a distraction. Nova, who had followed her like an anxious mother hen, was now yipping at her feet.

"First off- sit down. And take this." Alexis said, shoving the medicine bottle back in her face. "And I've been hanging out at this underground cafe thingy in town." She shrugged. "Nothing interesting."

"Ooh, like the ones that host poetry slams?" Evelyn asked, taking the bottle and tipping some medicine into its measuring cup and dropping it into her mouth. She swallowed, cringed and capped the botle. "You meet interesting people there." She paused. "Oh, who is Ross, by the way? I forgot to ask last night."

"Yeah, open mic nights. Um- Ross works at the cafe, he's..also my therapist's oldest son." Alexis said, her voice dipping a little at the word "therapist". She felt like some freak.

Evelyn blinked in some surprise and then turned to watch Alexis in the kitchen. "Ooh, small world." She commented. She got up and walked back to the kitchen to finish making her coffee, adding in some sugar and tasting it. It was perfect and a relief to her clogged head.

She turned and the scent of cooking pancake entered her nose. Her stomach lurched and she blanched.

***

Seth was graffiting on Jake's door when Ashton woke up and stumbled out of his room at about ten thirty.

"What are you doing?" Ashton murmured, rubbing his eyes.

Seth wondered why people always asked him this. It was really obvious what he was doing. "Decorating Jake's door?"

Ashton watched Seth use a Sharpie to write in LARGE loopy letters:

JAKE LURVES EVELYN

"Seriously? He's gonna kick your ass," Ashton said, shuddering at the mention of angry Jake.

Seth used a whiter pen to draw loopy hearts all around the message. "Maybe it'll piss him off enough to where he'll decide to handle things once and for all. We all know what them being friends means. I-won't-run-if-I-see-you-but-won't-go-out-of-my-way-to-see-your-face."

Ashton ran a hand through his hair. "Well, what do you suggest he do, break into her window and ravish her?" he asked irritably. Although he kind of did agree with Seth that Jake should just take things into his own hands if Evelyn wouldn't make up her damn mind.

"Yes," Seth said bluntly. "He's being such a girl about this. He wants her, he shouldn't let her indecisiveness scare him! Don't girls like it when guys are passive aggressive? He's gone soft!"

Seth started drawing rainbows and clouds over Jake's door. Ashton sat down and watched him print cuss words into each line of the rainbow.

Jacob had been laying in bed, he had gotten up kind of early but didn't really feel like getting out of bed. So he was just playing on his phone and such when he heard Ashton's and Seth's voices outside his door.

Seth was up to something, judging by Ashton's tone, so this forced him out of bed. He swung his legs over and walked to his door opening, "Seth what the--" His eyes widened when he saw Seth's lovely graffiti along with all the hearts and shit about his love to Evelyn.

"SETH!" Jake yelled, "WHAT THE HELL!?"

"There's the aggression I was talking about," Seth said, ignoring Jake completely as he turned to grin at Ashton.

Ashton stifled a grin and looked up at the annoyed Spaniard. "Morning. We were just discussing passive aggressive tactics you could use to woo Evelyn - "

"Or just ravish her, like Ashton said," Seth piped in. "She'll get the point then."

Ashton glared at him. "I did not - I was kidding!"

Jake glared at those two, but mostly at Seth. "So what you want me to climb in her window and rape her?"

Seth paused drawing a unicorn on Jake's door and wagged the Sharpie at Jake with a grin. "It's not rape if it's consensual."

Ashton, for once, decided to let Seth do his thing. Maybe Seth's crazy, forward ideas were needed here. Ashton got up off the floor and headed for the bathroom to freshen up.

"Fine I'll do just that then." Jake shoved past Seth going into his room to get dressed. After seeing Evelyn's photo directed towards him on top of his crappy mood, he was pretty sick of all of this.

He changed into a pair of jeans, and a clean shirt. He ran his hand through his hair mussing it up. Jake then crossed the hall, and opened the bathroom door yanking Ashton out, "I'll be done in a second." He brushed his teeth quickly, and rinsed his mouth.

He went back into his room and sprayed some cologne on, quickly pulling on his jacket. He opened his window and climbed out onto the ledge like he had so many times before.

Ashton was still gurgling toothpaste when Jake pulled him out. "GAGRUUUB! GU GAGRULL!" he raged angrily, and then groaned and waited till Jake was done before rinsing out his mouth.

Throughout all of this, Seth had been sitting cross-legged on the hallway floor, graffitting on Jake's door. Now he was drawing a giant squid to chase the unicorns over a rainbow of cuss words.

He saw Jake pull open his window and called out, "Don't let her wear the pants in the relationship!"

Ashton suddenly realized just how badly wrong this could go. "SETH!" he exclaimed, and darted past him into Jake's room. Jake was already out on the ledge though, and Ashton didn't want him caught by security below, so he justs groaned and withdrew. "You're such an idiot!" he raged at Seth.

Seth reached down and picked up a pink marker, coloring in a unicorn. "And?"

***

Evelyn had finished her coffee but her stomach threatened to revolt if she even looked at a pancake. SO she put her mug in the sink and dragged her sore self back to her room, flopping down on her bed and tugging her covers up to her chin.

She didn't have a cold or a fever, per se. She wasn't feeling cold or overly hot. She was just really, really, tired. her back ached a little, her stomach churned queasily and her nose was clogged. She tried to diagnose what she had apart form definite food poisoning...

Nausea rose in her throat and she stumbled out of bed and ran for the bathroom, Nova whining anxiously beside her.

She heaved - and nothing came out except a bit of coffee. She had nothing in her stomach to throw up.

She rinsed nut her mouth, and stumbled back into her room, shutting her door and flopping facedown on her bed.

Jake arrived at her window, and at first he almost opened it cautiously when he remembered that Seth had said Ashton had broken the latch. And the alarm had been disarmed so that meant it wouldn't go off.

He opened the window then and jumped in, closing the window behind him. "We need to talk!" He said to the face down Evelyn.

Evelyn almost screamed before she shoved her fist into her mouth and rolled over, back against the wall and eyes going wide.

Of course, who else would it be?

Her eyes narrowed at the Spaniard standing in the middle of her room, a no-nonsense look on his face. She sat up, suddenly aware she was clad in her PJs, a sleeveless [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]. "Get out," she replied irritably, hugging the duvet to her in reflex. "You can use the door like normal people!"

Jake walked up and pulled the blanket from her head and stared her right in the eye, "No, I'll use the window and we're talking now." He said firmly.

She gaped at him. What the hell?! Evelyn reddened slightly and grabbed the duvet again, tugging it up over her chest. She scoffed. "You're on my turf. I don't have to listen to you."

Jake narrowed his eyes at her and then sat on the bed right next to her, "It doesn't matter what turf we're on, cause you never listen to me anyway." He mocked her.

"Bad jokes never were my thing," Evelyn quipped, unable to resist. She scooted away from him with a frown.

Jake scooted closer, "Well for once I'm not here to crack a bad joke, I'm being serious. I'm sick of all this crap. This back and forth, lets be friend whatever. Which I know means you won't run away when you see me but hell you're not gonna plan on hanging out with me in the future. Its either you wanna be with me or you don't. No more of this maybe shit, and lets be friends. I'm sick of having to wait on your word." He just came out with it.

Evelyn scooted away - and her back met the headboard. Lovely. She hugged her duvet to her and shot Jake a confused look. "You said you were fine with being friends last night. I'm not the one changing her mind every few hours."

Jake scooted again "I said that cause I wanted to make you happy. But you know what, I'm not fine with being friends. You know we can't be friends cause you know how it is between us. I'm not changing my mind, I'm just fed up and I want a definite answer. No more friends, no more running away."

Evelyn was now pressing herself back against her headboard and not looking at him. She expelled a frustrated breath and closed her eyes, feeling worn down and cornered. "What is with this ultimatum? Jake, I just..." She fumbled for words, and drew her knees up to her chest under her duvet, looking down a her lap. "I just feel awkward, okay?" she mumbled, squishing herself into the corner where her bed was set against two walls in efforts to get away from him.

"Awkward, awkward about what? Listen things are only awkward because you're making them. The ultimatum only happened because I'm sick of being pushed around like this. Its just I would rather be with you, or if you didn't want to then to just quit pulling me around. I feel like I've been letting you call all the shots. So here is mine, I told you I like you and I want to be with you. What do you want?" Jake asked her, this time he sat in his spot because he didn't want to flatten her into the wall.

Evelyn was starting to get the familiar lurch in her stomach that announced possible vomit. She clamped her hand over her mouth and hastily kicked off her duvet.

"Hold on," she mumbled, and tore out of her room.

It occurred to her, as she heaved up pretty much leftover coffee and spit, that Alexis could probably hear Jake's loud voice. Right now, though, Evelyn's stomach ached from all the puking she was doing.

She rinsed out her mouth, staggering to her feet as she did, and walked back to her room, sinking down onto the bed beside Jake and curling up with her face buried in a pillow. "Do we really need to do this now?"

"Yes we do, I'm not leaving until I get a straightforward answer from you that doesn't end in I don't know or maybe. What are you so afraid of? Is this how you're gonna be like with every guy that attempts to ask you out? Just quit thinking so much for once and listen to what your damned heart wants for once!" Jake said frustrated.