nomoresportscars | Room 222, Tuesday Afternoon

Jackson could only ever have a good time for very short periods at a time, it seemed. And it had been a while since he'd last had a good time. The stress that had been with him for months and months now had started mounting again lately, making him even more twitchy and irritable than usual. Maybe staying away from Beacon Hills wasn't really working out for him after all. Besides, if someone else chose he had to go, it wasn't like he could stop it. That had been amply established already. And speaking of Beacon Hills, he had a voicemail from Coach Finstock about lacrosse. Championship game. How he should be coming to practice. And something about Greenberg, because there was always something to say about Greenberg. Jackson didn't really want to go. But, with the time difference, it would coincide with the full moon in Fandom, and he'd been getting pretty good at avoiding those.

He'd have to think about it, even if it just stressed him out more.

And on a more mundane note, he was still pissed that he'd had to book himself into a hotel a couple of nights back because Jim had dragged some skank back to their room and he hadn't wanted to deal with that. So yeah, his mood wasn't great.

This was some angry yet efficient laundry folding that was going on in room 222 right now.

[ooc: Open door, open post, pissy guy but what else is new? Squirrels, please note: Kanima stuff in the Jim thread NFB, please!]

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Jim, conversely, was in a pretty great mood. His classes were done for the week, he'd gotten laid a few days ago and now he had a whole slew of free days ahead of him.

"Jackson!" he exclaimed as he made his way into the room. "Long time, no see, buddy!"

That was your fault, Jim.

The glare Jackson sent his way said about the same thing.

"Happiest few days of my life," he drawled. That shirt had done nothing to get folded that sharply.

"Yeah, you seem really happy," Jim noted with a snicker. "You really need to work on that smile there, Jackson. It looks more like a glare."

Jackson couldn't remember the last time he'd smiled. True story.

"I'll save that for the day you move out."

"That's not gonna happen till I graduate," he said, flopping down on his bed and stretching out. "So, you might have to move out first."

"Maybe I will." He kept dreaming about that on a regular basis, actually. "But right now, can you just shut the hell up? I'm not in the mood for your bullshit right now."

"This is my room too, Jackson, and if I wanna talk to you or anyone, I will," Jim told him, clasping his hands behind his head. "You can't stop me no matter how surly you get. Take a Valium."

Poor Jackson's shoulders, getting so tense. And his jaw, too.

"Don't you have some more desperate skanks to go bang?"

Natalie would not have appreciated that wording.

"Is that what this is about?" Jim asked, raising an eyebrow. "Are you sexually frustrated? Aww, Jackson! You should have just said so!"

So much eyerolling.

"Just don't drag your sad conquests back here, okay?" Jackson gritted out with another glare. "No one needs to be aware that's happening. Least of all me."

"Are you telling me that you wouldn't do the same thing?" Jim asked, glancing over at Jackson. "Don't lie. You'd totally do a girl in here if you had the opportunity."

Oh but he already had. He just hadn't gotten caught. "Look," Jackson snapped, dropping another folded shirt on his bed, "some of us have bigger concerns, bigger goals."

He'd lost sight of his goals, though. Or they'd been reduced to the goal of staying alive and staying in control, and he wasn't sure how well he was doing with either. It made his temper... not great.

"I'll drag whoever I want back here," Jim said, getting to his feet and wandering over to his desk. "And you can't stop me. You're my roommate and I don't care how rich and important you are, I don't take orders from you."

Jackson took a deep breath.

But it did nothing.

He stalked over to Jim's desk. Getting in anyone's face right now wasn't wise but here he was anyway. "This is not about money." For once. "There are bigger things at stake, assface."

"Get out of my face, right now," Jim said, looking over at Jackson. "I don't want to smell your breath and I don't give a damn about what you think. Take a step back, right now."

Jackson glowered at him. And then he blinked, and when his eyes opened, they were yellow. Reptilian. And his nails were long, sharp claws.

Say hi to the kanima, Jim.

Unexpected.

Jim's eyes widened in surprise because he hadn't known that about Jackson. He didn't cower or run away but there was definitely some surprise there.

"What in the hell?" he asked, mentally going through what he had on his desk that he might need to use against this...thing.

It got worse, too. He'd probably never seen skin ripple into scales in front of his very eyes before, had he? Because right now, that was what happened. Up along Jackson's arm, and the side of his neck, and one side of his face.

And then the kanima hissed, teeth bared. Those weren't human teeth. Those... were teeth that would easily tear flesh off just about anything. But it was a warning, not an attack.

Attack or not, you try staring that down and not do anything. Jim reached back, grabbed a half filled bottle of water that he'd left on his desk and swung it at Jackson's face.

It wasn't a way to start a fight but he needed to get out of the corner he'd backed himself into and give himself some room from this thing.

"Get away from me!" he shouted.

Jackson staggered backwards.

Yes, Jackson. His skin normal again, his eyes, his hands. He exhaled a shuddering breath, and looked down at his hands, then up at Jim. Confused. Worried.

"Wha–– ?"

He had no recollection of the past thirty seconds or so. That in itself almost told him all he needed to know.

"What the hell was that?" Jim asked, holding a hand up to keep Jackson's lizardness away from him. "What are you, Jackson?!"

That was a demand and he thought he had a right to know.

"Nothing." Yeah, that wasn't going to work, but just let him have his few seconds of pretending, okay? He was rattled. Getting his body snatched away from his control was never an easy thing to deal with. "It's nothing."

Look a little less like you're about to puke on your shoes, Jackson.

"You're a liar," Jim said, still standing defensively. "You just turned into something! And it wasn't anything good! Seriously, what the hell, Jackson?"

"It's none of your concern!" Jackson snapped, rolling his shoulders. Trying to get back on top of things. "I'm handling it!"

"Oh yeah, you're really handling it well!" Jim said, rolling his eyes. "And of course it's my concern since I live in the same room as you, you dick!"

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Room 222, Tuesday Afternoon

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