Jason grumbles something that I don’t catch before rolling down his shirt sleeve and walking out of the room, his uninjured shoulder just barely clipping the edge of mine.

“How long?” I ask, walking faster than I’m used to in order to keep up with Jason.

“A while,” Jason answers. I roll my eyes and cross my arms.

“Very specific,” I grumble. “Where else?”

“Nowhere. Just my shoulder.”

“Now that’s a lie and we both know it.” Jason picks up his pace, forcing me to do the same. “Thighs? Ankles? Stomach?”

“Just drop it, Xael,” Jason snaps, turning to me and grabbing my shoulder. “Stop. Talking.”

I close my mouth and glare at him. He turns and walks away, satisfied.

“So there are cuts on your stomach.”

“No, there aren’t,” Jason growls. “Didn’t I tell you to shut up?”

“You did.” I catch up to him quickly, lacing my hands together behind my head. “Doesn’t mean I’m gonna listen.”

“I don’t like you.”

“People usually don’t.”

“You’re such a lovely person to be around, you know that?”

“Thank you for the compliment!”

“Wasn’t a compliment.”

“And I still took it as one so suck it.”

Jason looks away from me and I worry that I made him super angry, and then I see his shoulders shaking slightly. He’s laughing. Despite what just happened, I made him laugh.

Maybe I am funny after all.

“Why did you come upstairs?” Jason asks, startling me.

“I needed to step away for a moment so I could draw,” I admit. Jason looks at me, which seems dangerous as we’re currently going down stairs.

“Draw?”

“Instead of harming myself, I draw something on me,” I explain, pulling my pen out. “I’ll draw something that would be a cool tattoo, or I’ll write a quote and make it all pretty-like. The red pen makes it seem like-”

“You’ve cut yourself, but you don’t leave any permanent scars and you can wash it off if it’s in a less covered spot.”

“Exactly!” I snap my fingers and point a finger gun at Jason, happy he understands my thought process.

“Do you have a spare pen?” Jason looks away from me and rubs the back of his neck, and I smile softly.

“Take this one.” I offer my pen towards Jason, who looks at me instead of grabbing it.

“Are you sure?”

I nod, then slip the pen into his pocket. He immediately takes it back out and slips it into the other pocket.

“There’s a hole in this one,” he explains, turning the pocket inside out and showing me. “Didn’t want it to fall out.”

“And we’re here!” I exclaim. I open the door to Sarah’s office, knowing that she’s currently chatting with Sophie because the two are basically best friends. “Take a seat in any chair, I’ll address your shoulder once I get all the stuff out.”

“If you can find it,” Jason states, watching me open a cabinet and immediately close it.

“How does this woman work like this?” I mumble, horrified by how unorganized Sarah is. Jason laughs, the melodic sound unlike anything I’ve ever heard before. “Once we’re finished with you I’m fixing this.”

“I think she has a system?”

“If her system is grab something out of somewhere and then put it back in a spot eight feet, then yes she has a system!”

“Xael.” Jason puts a hand on my shoulder, and I sigh. “Chill. It isn’t nearly as bad as it seems.”

“You’re right,” I agree. I open another cupboard, and then immediately understand that we were both wrong. “It’s worse. Why is it worse? How? Woman, how do you work in these conditions!”

“Well, at least her countertop is organized,” Jason remarks. I nod in agreement, looking at the perfectly organized counter.

“If only her cabinets and drawers could look like this,” I grumble. “Anyways, I need sterile dressing, and some, uh, some sticky tape. What’s it called-”

“Steri-strips?”

“Yeah them.”

“They’re right up here.” Jason reaches over my head and grabs the box of steri-strips. I open a different cabinet and look for some sterile dressing, only to be disappointed by the fact that they aren’t in this cupboard.

Jason and I look at how messy the cabinet is and sigh in unison, then giggle.

“Are they in this one- they are!” Jason exclaims, handing me some sterile bandages.

“Take a seat,” I instruct him, gesturing towards Sarah’s rolling chair. Jason sits down and spins himself around a couple of times before remembering why we’re in here.

“How do you know what to do?” Jason questions, watching me as I roll up his shirt sleeve and unroll the bandages, measuring out what size I need the bandage.

“The internet,” I explain, grabbing a pair of scissors from the counter and cutting the bandage to size. “I needed to know for a chapter of a story. The information seems to have stuck with me.”

“What story has a scene with self-harm wounds?” Jason helps me with the Steri-strips. “I’ve read all of your works.”

“It’s actually a story that’s still in the works.” Jason winces, and I immediately rub where my hand was. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to press as hard as I did.”

“You’re good,” Jason assures me. I stick the last Steri-strip onto his shoulder, then roll his sleeve back down. “Organizing time?”

“Absolutely yes please.”

Jason opens a random cupboard and pulls everything out, setting the items down on the counter. I copy his actions, picking a random cupboard and moving everything inside of it to the counter.

“This cabinet is just empty!” Jason shouts, gesturing wildly. I peek over and laugh quietly at the very empty cupboard.

“And this one is the exact opposite,” I state, catching the few boxes that fell out of the cabinet. “I mean, I knew it was bad but this is ridiculous.”

Jason and I fall into a comfortable silence as we empty out Sarah’s cupboards and drawers.

“What goes where-”

“Bandages go here.” I tap the cabinet most easily accessible to everyone. “Disinfectants too.”

“Rolled up bandages, or band-aids?”

“Yes.”

“That wasn’t a yes or no question!” Jason swats my shoulder, and I chuckle.

“Sorry,” I say, definitely not sorry.

“No you aren’t!”

“I’m not you’re right.”

“I could just let you do this on your own-”

“Please don’t?”

Jason rolls his eyes and raises his arms above his head, one of his elbows cracking in the process.

“Hey you can crack your elbows too!” I exclaim. Jason lowers his arms and nods, his eyes gaining a sparkle that wasn’t there during any of our talks.

“I can also do this.” Jason thrusts his hand out and wiggles his thumb- no, he doesn’t wiggle his thumb. He moves it in and out of place.

“I can do a magic trick,” I whisper. “Look into my eyes.”

Once I’m sure his Hershey brown eyes are focused on mine I shake my eyes. My vision flickers rapidly, then stops on Jason’s smiling face.

“I can do a magic trick too,” he murmurs. His eyes shake violently and I laugh.

“I have never seen someone else do that. It looks so cool!”

“I know right?” Jason and I laugh together, then catch our breath. I realize how close we are and take a subtle step backwards.

“I guess we should get back to organizing.” I point towards the cabinets.

“Did my breath smell?”

I groan and face-palm. Guess that subtle step wasn’t as subtle as I wanted it to be.

“No, I’m sorry,” I begin. “I’m just not that comfortable being that close to someone for that long.”

Jason nods in understandable.

“I get that. So, you’re not a physical touch person.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, confused.

“The five love languages,” Jason explains. “It’s physical touch, quality time, and some others.”

“How do you know what those are and why?”

The smile on Jason’s face fades.

“I wanted to learn what Connor’s language was,” he says, his voice barely above a whisper. “I hoped that if I knew what it was, we would get along.”

“Did you ever figure out what it was?”

Jason chuckles and looks up at the ceiling.

“I did,” Jason states. “His language is one of the last ones I would’ve thought it was.”

“What is it?” I make a mental note to look up the love languages later.

“His love language is words of affirmation. He likes being told when people love him or appreciate him.”