you're an addiction [jay]

Micah was bored. He'd been laying on his bed staring at the ceiling for almost an hour now, and he was just straight up bored. With a sigh he rolled over, poking his slightly-out-of-reach cell phone as if it would fly into his hand and groaning when it moved farther away. What an a-hole.

With a grunt Micah heaved his body weight towards the phone only enough to snatch it up and fall back onto his bed, pulling up Jay's number and texting her quickly. Without waiting for a reply he stood up, pulling his worn jeans up a little, sliding on his holey vans and changing into a clean t-shirt (for Jay only, of course). The year was still young and he hadn't seen very much of his best friend, so he was excited to be able to pay her this visit. It was a brief walk down the hall to the seventh year girls dorm, and he prayed to the higher being that it would be empty save his blonde-haired bestie.

When he finally got down there he pressed himself against the door, slumping forward after considering briefly humping against it as a knock. But there was a freshman girl down the hallway, and he wouldn't want to, like, scar her or anything. After half a second he grew impatient, moaning like a pathetic child.

"Jaaaaaaaaaaaay let me iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin..." he whined, resting his ear against the door and thumping it impatiently with the side of his head. "Jaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyuuuuuuuuhhhhhh. Don't you love meeeeeee??"

A few rooms away from her aspiring jedi friend, Jay was sitting slumped at her computer. Her head was sagging in the hand that held it up in front of her dual screens, and her tongue poked out from between her Dr. Pepper chapsticked lips. She was fully concentrated on the sole task of beating the stupid, but horribly addictive, little game that her sister had linked her via e-mail. It was called the impossible quiz and it was turning out to be just that. She had dressed earlier, fully intending to head down to The Bean and frighten baristas, in daisy yellow bermuda shorts and a pale blue spaghetti strap shirt, but now it seemed that her adorable outfit was going to be wasted on her own reflection in her computer screeen. Her hair was down but she'd pinned her bangs along each side with blue plastic clips to keep it out of her eyes. This had happened about fifteen minutes into her attempt to beat the stupid quiz, and it was now fifteen minutes later and a few rebel strands had strayed back onto her forehead.

She brushed them away impatiently as she attempted the asteroid 'question' for the upteenth time, zigging and zagging her mouse to keep from losing. She didn't notice her phone (which was folded up somewhere in her bedsheets) buzzing with it's new text and barely registered the footsteps approaching her door, assuming that whoever it was would merely continue on their merry way. Her roommates were all out and about, being social and such, and while she could be sure that they would gather around this silly game into the wee hours of the night, she wanted to have a go at it herself before they tag-teamed it. So far, she wasn't doing so well. She wiggled and waggled her mouse to escape destruction by more asteriods, then jumped when her door started thumping. She lost control of her mouse and it inevitably hit an asteroid, ending her current go at the game.

"Micaaaaaaaaaah." she answered in the same whiny tone as she peeled her ass from the computer chair, "You made me lose the gaaaaaaaame!." She paused for a moment, just behind the door, and slapped her hand to her forehead. "Damnit! I LOST THE GAME!" She turned the handle and pulled the door open and was immediately greeted by Micah's darling face (nose), which seemed to be turning a bit red on the temple with which he'd been hitting the door. "Jeez, brain damage much?' she asked, beaming at him and touching his reddening temple gently. While she had been playing, her stretchy spaghetti strap shirt had inched up to show an inch or so of her middriff, and now when she reached up it inched up a litle bit more. "Well, if I can save that lovely brain of yours from losing any more cells, come on in by all means!" Her hand left his temple and she beckoned him in to her 'lovely' abode. In her opinion, her corner of the room was definitely the messiest. Not by a lot, but by enough. And right at this moment there happened to be a pair of green boyshort underwear chilling out on the corner of her bed. "Goodness me, my unspeakables!" she said in mock horror, picking the offending clothing up with finger and thumb and tossing them towards the hamper. "She shoots, she scores!" She did a dorky victory dance, then switched her attention to the boy in her room. "So. What's cooking, good looking? I haven't seen nearly enough of you and that nose this year."

"Ugh, gee damn you." Micah complained as Jane opened the door, proclaiming her loss of 'the game'. Her wandering hand on his temple made him suck in a whoosh of air really fast, stiffening slightly under her tough and not relaxing until she withdrew, following her into her room and kicking the door shut behind him.

"Nothing I guess..." he rubbed his nose lightly, then quickly retracted his hand, hoping not to call Jane's attention to it and start the gushing, "No one else is home? That sucks..."

Micah wandered towards Jane's computer and noticed the 'GAME OVER' sign over her asteroid game, chuckling lightly before flopping down on her bed and patting the space next to him. When she got close enough to the bunkbed he grabbed her wrist, pulling her down gently and wrapping his left arm over her shoulders so that he was pressed against the wall and she was on the outside.

Letting his mop of curly black hair fall onto his best friend of going on three year's shoulder, he nuzzled her neck like a friendly puppy before lying still on the bed and staring at the bed above them.

"Do you ever wonder if, every time you stick a key in a lock, it's sex?" he asked with an entirely straight face, his eyes wandering sideways towards the blonde and his eyebrows raising slightly. "I mean, I don't really know how I feel about facilitating key orgies, I mean what kind of sexual deviants are keys, always going around, sticking themselves in hundreds of locks a day. Or is it like, the key is married to the lock, so it's okay because it's just married sex and it's not like keys are going off out of wedlock, but then when you get a key made is that like having a mail-order-husband, or like a prostitute or something? I just don't understand how keys feel about all the dirty sex they're having!"

Micah looked at Jay very seriously for a moment, raising his eyebrows before splitting his face with a wide grin, nudging her once in the ribs lightly. "Thoughts on dirty key whores?"

"Yeah, poor little JayJay is all alone cooped up in her room. Pity me and such." She smiled, knowing full well that it was her own fault that she was in such solitude, and happy that Micah had taken it upon himself to break it so suddenly. Jay shook her head at her computer as Micah looked it over. "Big durn lost cause, that is." she said, bending over her mouse, closing firefox, and shutting down her computer. When the comforting drone of her large CPU-ed computer began to wind down, she meandered over to her bed where Micah had ended up. There was probably some sort of rule about having a boy in her bed, but it was Micah! She didn't think a thing of it, and rested happily beside him when he pulled her down on the bed. She wriggled for a moment, then snaked her arm beneath his back, finding the place under the arch of his back that would not cut off circulation.

Jay wasn't usually comfortable being physically close with guys, but there were a few that she made exceptions for. Micah was definitely one of them, and after having cuddled innocently on uncountable occasions she no longer felt any sort of strangeness in being this close to him. He was like a big, awesome, talking puppy. His nuzzling only furthered this idea and she rubbed her cheek into the top of his head, "Aww, you damn snugglemuffin." she said in mock reproach, folding her free arm under the back of her neck. She gazed complacently at the ceiling as he expressed his feelings on key sex, musing that he was probably the only guy in the world she would feel comfortable having a conversation like this (besides Will, of course) without feeling acutely uncomfortable. As it was, though, she was intrigued at his take on key and lock intercourse.

She shifted slightly, turning towards Micah a bit, while she considered her opinion on dirty key whores. "Well, I think it would be kinda hard for a key to be whore, you know? I mean. Each lock can have a bunch of identical keys that fit into it, but each key can only fit into one lock. And even if they somehow managed to cram themselves into another lock," she chuckled slightly at the inherent dirtiness of her statement, "The wouldn't be able to, well, make it work. So maybe we have a case of lock whores." She nodded her head, as if she was an expert on lock and key relations, "Key's are probably more monogamous than we are. I mean, not us particularly, but humans in general. They only have one lock in the entire world that they fit in. How scary." She frowned, "What if a key never finds it's lock. How sad! Ah, but listen to me, waxing philosophical. It would kind of suck to be a key though. I think I'd much rather be a lock. You?"

Micah snuggled closer to Jay, amazed at how "touchy-feely" his best friend had made him. When he'd first come to Harriman, he was so shy that it was a wonder he'd even held hands with Jane after a good few weeks of dating. Yet here he was, plainly canoodling with her in a way that would certainly be construed as romantic, with not a care in the world. Amazing how much a person could change you in only a couple years.

"Would you say the locks are the trollops, in that case? Because I mean, all a lock has to do is lose a key, or want a new one and bam! Two keys to fit it! Even more! How do you think the original key feels about this...?" Micah mused, scratching his chin in concentration.

"And in fact, maybe some keys DO never find their lock, but simply have to find the one closest to what fits them, even if it doesn't go in quite all the way..." this had him a little perplexed, and he went over his words in his head, wrinkling his eyebrows in confusion. "Ah, did that make sense? Hmm.. At any rate, it does suck to be a poor manipulated key. And Jane... you are a lock."

With this last line he pushed himself up a little to look at her, somber, before cracking up yet again and falling back onto his back. "Woah man, we're not even like high or anything... What the hell is wrong with us?" But he knew the answer. Jane and Micah were absolutely soul mates who simply refused to be with each other. Here they were talking, laughing, snuggling, envisioning key fornication together; who could be more perfect for each other?! Surprisingly enough, not them.

Micah loved Jane. He really did, like, immensely. And while it wasn't so much like a sister, it was about as platonic as you can get while still being able to be attracted to somebody. Maybe like a really really hot second cousin. He had no doubt that, with a little pushing, or maybe even not very much pushing, his love could shift to the romantic. No doubt in his mind. But if Micah had ever done anything selfless in his life, it was preserving his friendship. Sure, it was a LITTLE selfish, but it would be immensely more selfish to try to make Jane his girlfriend for a month so that she could find all his little flaws, when an eternal friendship would last so much longer.

Jay bent her knees as Micah spoke, bringing her feet to rest, pidgeon toed, half-on and half-off the edge of the bed. The hand she was resting behind her head tangled itself in her ponytail as he considered her views on key-lock relations and added his own magnificent pearls of unconventional wisdom. She turned her gaze from the ceiling to Micah's face, watching as he spoke of the consideration of key feelings. She smiled at the way his finger made a slight sandpaper sound as it scratched against his chin, her eyes drawn away from his nose for once, despite the near-perfect profile view of it she would have from that angle.

At this thought she couldn't help but to sneak a good glance at his nose, which was in pretty perfect profile. She couldn't risk looking for long, though. If he caught her he would no doubt rib her about it for the rest of the day. Anyways, it would be hard to concentrate on what he was saying if she let herself get too caught up in the glory of his schnoz. She forced her eyes back to the ceiling, though they jumped back to his face almost at once. "Are you calling me a trollop, then?" she asked with a wry smile, knowing full well that Micah hadn't meant anything beyond the obvious biological parallels. She shook her head and smiled, "I may be a lock, but I'm pretty sure that my key got lost somewhere." she shrugged the best she could with one arm under Micah and one under her head. "Maybe it's for the better. I'd probably end up breaking the key or something. Ugh." She rolled her eyes at the ceiling, bemoaning her own awkwardness with intimacy. Well, intimacy with guys who weren't Will or Micah. For some reason she didn't freeze up around those two. It was a shame, really, since her time going out with Micah, however short and juvenile it had been, was one of happiest times of her life.

They had been so young then, and they'd hardly known each other. She sometimes wished they could try again now, now that they were bosom buddies and could talk about key sex with straight faces, but that wish was always overruled by the part of her that was aware of her utter inability to function in a relationship. She overthought everything when she got close to a guy, and she wouldn't be able to stand overthinking Micah. He just didn't deserve the harsh treatment that her mind insisted on doling out when it was threatened with having to commit to something.

"We're high on life Micah." she said, chuckling at her ridiculous cliche, "Well, that or there's a gas leak somewhere." She bent her knees further, bringing the heels of her feet to push against her butt, inadvertently arching her back as she did so. "Yeah, we're just those crazy people that parents warn their kids about, that's all." She wiggled her toes over the edge of the bed. "Now that we seem to have wrapped up our composium of key-lock philosophy. What do ya wanna do? It's a beautiful day outside, but it's cool in here too. I know I have chips or something around here somewhere..." She shifted onto her side, towards Micah, sliding her arm halfway out from under Micah and bringing her other hand to rest under her cheek. She didn't really want to get up all that badly, but if Micah had an adventure in mind she didnt' plan on being a big 'ol bump on a log.

"I don't know what I want to do..." Micah answered tonelessly at her proposition, his brain already wandering off at the possibilities. They could head down to The Bean, though it might be busy right now... They could go to the music store; though, his parents had warned him not to spend much more with Christmas next month. He sighed, out of ideas already.

He supposed they could go on a rampage around the school, though it's not like there would be many people around to mess with. Or maybe too many people for them to get away with anything. People people people, people were preventing every idea. A grunt of frustration and he was rolling over, pinning Jay back down.

"I have no ideas..." he said, pretending he wasn't crushing his best friend. Glancing over in her face at an awkward angle, Micah studied it for a moment, pondering for what felt like a very long time.

Jane was pretty. Like, very pretty. Big blue eyes set in a round face under shining blonde hair. She was like, really really pretty. Why had he not noticed this before. Well, he had, but like... why had he not noticed since he'd grown a pair?

But Micah already knew the answer, though it was a poor one. Still, it wasn't like he wanted to go steady or anything... It was enough to enjoy someone's prettiness, maybe for just a little while. Of course, Micah knew that if anything were to happen between him and Jay, it was long term or bust. Why? Because a. both of them were shit at relationships, so if they magically managed to make one work, they could NOT let it go. b. they'd have to enjoy the relationship while they could, because odds are they'd get so pissed at each other afterward that they would never be able to talk for at least fifteen years.

But one little night wouldn't hurt, right? As long as the emotions were fairly... detached? She was graduating this year, anyways, so it's not like he couldn't enjoy himself finally...

"Go to homecoming with me." It was a command, not a question, and Micah fought off his urge to plant the kiss that landed on her cheek further to the right. "You have no choice in this matter, however, I will give you a moment for your opinion to be heard and regarded by the panel."

Jay gave a small sigh of relief that she didn't have to get up quite yet. She was perfectly happy and content at being exactly where she was for the moment. Her bed was comfy, Micah was warm and smelled good, and her shorts were only riding up the tiniest bit. And they usually came to just above her knees, anyway, so she wasn't too worried about that. She was a little worried about breaking this moment, though. It wasn't crazy spectacular or anything, but it was one of those warm, comfortable moments in a person's life that just seemed as if it would last forever. These types of moments were usually over far too soon for Jay's liking, so as she watched Micah think about where they might possibly go, Jay felt as if she was getting a lovely little extension on the moment. A bemused little smile surfaced on her face as she tried to guess what Micah was thinking of. Every once in a while she was really good at this little game, but usually Micah's thinking process was just a little too quick and unpredictable for her to fathom.

Like, say, right now for instance. She let out a surprised squeak, just a little one, as Micah rolled over on top of her. Her feet slid off the edge of the bed and her legs straightened out as his body settled itself over hers. "That's not how it seems to me." she said, winking and sticking out her tongue at him. With almost any other boy in the world, this would be almost unbearably uncomfortable. With Micah though, it was actually a little...nice. Now now, Ms. Jay, let's not mince words. You mean hot. Yeah. With Micah it was actually a little hot. She smiled defiantly up at him, wondering what was going through his head. He was probably wondering why her cheeks were starting to get pink. He had probably meant nothing by his being on top of her, he was probably just being Micah. It was stupid of her to think anything into it. Even if it was kind of...nice.

She blinked at his question, her smile first fading then coming back with a vengeance. Had he really just asked her to homecoming? Oh, that was just too much! "Hmmmm. Homecoming with you?" she said demurely, trying to hid her growing excitement. She didn't want him to know that his question had made her heart jump into her throat. She didn't want him to know that her heart had then started beating about a hundred times a second when he had planted that kiss, even if it was only on the cheek. She wasn't sure if that was a good or bad thing, her heart doing things like that, but she didn't want to scare him away or anything.

"Well, since it's a demand." she said, pretending to consider her answer, "Of course I'll go with you, Katz! Even if you had given me a choice I would have gone. Now I can let Will actually go with a girl." she paused, her words sinking in, "I mean somebody he might actually score with." She smiled and shook her head at her own inability with words. She cocked her head a little to the left, considering her next move, then craned her neck forward. She pecked the tip of Micah's nose, then rested her head back on the bed.

"I think you can get up now." she said, pushing up against him, feeling her legs threatening to fall asleep. "What made you wanna ask me, anyways? It's not a dare or anything, issit?" She didn't really think it was, but sometimes she just couldn't tell with Micah.

Micah beamed as she pecked his nose, rolling off of Jay (admittedly, reluctantly) at her prodding and sitting up against the wall. Someone Gates might score with... He raised his eyebrow, looking down at Jay, his mouth a thin line.

"Gates sure as HELL better not be doing any scoring with you..." he threatened, letting his dark brown eyes drift elsewhere in the room. Sure, he liked Ly, after all the boy was damn fun to party with, but Jay was his. She was his little Jay, and if anyone messed with her, they'd be wondering next why they were in a dark box with a tag on their toe.

"Of course it wasn't a dare..." Micah scoffed, rolling his eyes. Really, even Jay could ruin his genuine want of her with her insecurity. But he supposed that was why he was her best friend. "I love you, you stupid girl..."

Oh wait; said like that, it would probably cause a LOT of trouble. Micah spluttered, correcting himself immediately, "U-um not like, love love, right, just like as a friend... Not that you're not love loveable, it's just that I don't, because you're my best friend, and I would never want to ruin what we have, et cetera et cetera."

Nice going there, Katz... He closed his eyes hard, rubbing his temple. God he was such an idiot sometimes, and he usually knew it. With a sigh he opened his eyes, moving them to look at Jay's. "I asked you to homecoming because I wanted to. Because I can't think of a single person in this whole damned school that I'd rather go with. Ta-daa. A totally un-awkward and semi-okay sentence."