Unfazed.

[Jotun†]

(Continued from Hallway Encounter... well, kind of. If you post here, I'll stab you, so just don't.)

On a normal day, Hobbsborough High was a forty minute walk away from Tilles Court, and Felix's home. On crutches, forty minutes turned into an hour, and despite being able to use the bus, Felix opted to stick to his usual routine and walk. Upon finally reaching his front door at four o'clock in the afternoon, he had wholeheartedly regretted his decision.

"What took you so long?" As soon as the door had closed, Felix's sister Tara's voice rang from the next room over, that being the living room. Felix's father would likely be working for some time still.

"I'm on crutches, moron." Felix snapped, jokingly. He occasionally saw fit to rip into his sister with insults, but he was never serious. Felix cared quite a bit about his sister, who was six years his senior, though the relationship had been vicious in the making - Felix hated having to be so close to someone as a child, and though his dad was unimposing and probably sort of spineless, Tara adored her little brother unconditionally. Being that Felix's mother was so long out of the picture Felix couldn't remember her at all, Tara eventually seemed to fill the roles of both mother and sister.

"You know, the school has a bus that goes there almost exclusively to pick kids up. We're actually one of the first stops on one route." Tara was being completely sarcastic, as she knew full well that Felix knew about the bus.

"Yeahyeahyeah, shut up, you're ugly." Felix, heading for his room to exchange his crutches for his cane, passed through the living room where Tara was watching television. He lingered on purpose in her view for a few seconds until she threw the remote at him.

"Aren't you off those things yet? It's been two weeks since you were in surgery." Tara inquired as Felix moved out of her view.

"Yeah, but I wanted to tell the story and it was a lot more convincing not being able to walk."

"You care that much what people think?" Tara was intentionally accusing.

"People rule the world, you know." Felix wasn't sure his meaning was clear and before being asked to explain he went down the basement stairs to where he slept. He threw his crutches straight to the bottom of the staircase and used the railing to support him on his way down. Felix's hole in the ground was fairly unremarkable for a teenage boy's room. His bed was just two queen sized mattresses piled on top of each other without any sort of frame and pushed up against the wall. The walls were bare except for a few bookcases, used to hold trinkets from his childhood and occasionally movies, and quite a few books that he'd long since grown tired of. To him, however, it was like a base of operations. Among the things on his shelf were cans of Tag bodyspray which were pushed back to make room for real cologne, a variety of pocket knives and a single butterfly knife, an expensive True Utility lighter, and a tin can once used for chocolates that now housed some two thousand six hundred dollars in dirty money.

Laying down, Felix removed the temporary plastic and foam cast that prevented him from moving his leg, sat up, and paced around his room. Aside froma dull pain, he could walk nearly perfectly. Grabbing his cane off the floor next to his bed, he practiced walking with it. Felix didn't truly intend to feign injury past today, but Kayla likely had made him some enemies in accusing him of rape. Pretending to be injured might make his more well-intentioned enemies reconsider, for a time, and leave the vicious ones unprepared.

This sort of mess was somewhat new to Felix. He had to clear his reputation before it became solidified in the minds of the other students, hopefully before they even all heard the accusation. However, this seemed extremely difficult - Kayla was an attractive girl appealing to the minds of teenage males, and she was much louder than Felix in a shouting match, as she had demonstrated today. Still, he would need to soothe her, and find out why she was so angry.

When Felix and Kayla had broken up, it had been Kayla who initiated it, and she was angry then, too. As far as he knew, Felix had definately not raped her, the sex had been entirely consensual. Still, the next time he saw Kayla, incidentally a few days later as he was out of town attending a wedding and getting shot between the occasions, she was in a mixed mood, which steadily became an angry one. Felix, normally very intuitive, had no idea why she angry, as Kayla knew that Felix was gifted in reading into others and had done her best to not give him any clues other than she was pissed.

It all came back to making peace with her, and Felix saw no way to do that forthcoming. Naturally unworried, Felix did little but resolve to act when he saw an oppurtunity to do so, and pushed the matter from his mind. Deciding that he was going to eat out, Felix helped himself to some money and his lighter and went back up the stairs.

"I'm going out." said Felix as he crossed the living room again. "If the police come knocking, tell them I'll already halfway to Jamaica and that they'll never find me." Unsurprisingly, his sister already looked cross.

"What did you do!?" Tara was easily prepared to believe Felix had done some horrible crime. It was jsut something Felix would do without thinking, though it had not happened yet.

"Nothing, but Kayla accused me of rape in front of half the school today, so I have no idea who knows what or what they're telling other people." Felix was still going for the door, everything he said seemed as casual as the weather.

"Oh." Tara seemed relaxed again. "You'll take care of it, then?" Never letting on that Tara's fath in him was reassuring, Felix nodded. "I'm making supper. Will you be back in time?"

"For your cooking? Absolutely not." Felix teased. "I'm kidding, I'll get something while I'm out." And grabbing his red and black sweater-jacket that he had not worn to school, Felix was out the door, pretending to rely on his cane as he went to the nearest bus stop. He planned to go Downtown, most likely to the mall, or even just straight to get food before he came back.

Whatever makes sense...