Hard to Explain

Josh had and Dodge had to discuss the philosophy project that they were working on together, because it was a week before it was due, and they had not even selected a topic. Josh was used to putting schoolwork off, but Seth had been nagging him about getting started on it, and since it was a group project that required research, he figured that a week was probably not much time to do things in, and they should probably actually start working things out.

At the last GSA meeting, they'd penciled in a time early in the day on Saturday morning and agreed to meet in Dodger's room. Dodge, even after years of Josh popping in unannounced, was too lazy to re-ward his new dorm rooms until the year was mostly over, so Josh was able to slip right into Dodge's room at the agreed-upon time.

When he arrived in the room, though, Dodge was not there. In fact, the only person who was there was a blonde boy Josh vaguely recognized from being in his year in Remington. Josh was pretty sure his name was Aiden, but that was all Josh knew about him.

Considering the time of day, Josh could pretty easily assume that the person was a straggler from the night before, though Josh couldn't help but find it odd that the kid who usually stuck to himself would sleep with Dodge. Even stranger was the fact that Aiden was actually clothed, and that he was sitting in front of the television with a game controller in his hand.

Josh wasn't sure if he should skip out, because there was a round two planned, or not. Dodge had agreed to meet him then.

So, Josh took his chances.

"Er, hi there," Josh said, finally. "Is Dodge around?"

Aiden jumped slightly at the sound of a voice he hadn't been expecting in the room and spun to see a boy he vaguely recognized from around the dorms and his classes. "Erm," he said softly, shy side rearing its ugly head. "He's gone down the hall to get something or other. I wasn't really paying attention." He motioned at the game in an explanation to his distractedness.

"Mind if I wait?" Josh asked, moving towards the bed but not sitting down on it, like he normally would. "We agreed to work on a project together now, and I'm not sure if he's forgotten and wants to reschedule or what." Aiden looked like he was taking up less space at even the sight of Josh in the room, and Josh definitely didn't want to make things uncomfortable. "I can always skip back to my room and just text him later, if now is a bad time."

"He's probably just forgotten. We've only just come from breakfast after a run and since you seem familiar with him I assume you know how he is about running and food." As he spoke, Ai hoped he didn't say anything too telking, since he still wasn't all that comfortable with everything related to him and Dodge.

Josh grinned. "I definitely know what you mean. To be honest with you, I'm surprised he even wanted to meet me this early. He's usually running for half his Saturdays, and he knows I hate getting up and out of bed on the weekends when I don't have to. I figured it was some sort of revenge plot."

"What have you done to earn that sort of revenge if you don't mind my asking?"

Josh grins. "That's a good question. I don't really know. There's gotta be something, though. There always is. Dodge and I have been friends for four years now, and that kind of thing is kind of par for the course."

"You've known him ages then." He paused. "I've known him maybe three weeks? Something like that. But revenge seems like a thing he'd do often. If only for the laughs."

Josh smiled. "I didn't think I'd seen you around here before," he said, "but if you've known him for that short of a period of time, it would explain why. I'm surprised he hasn't mentioned you, though, still. Usually, if people are over this early in the morning, I at least get the rundown of who they are." Josh realized that what he said might have been a bit on the offensive side, so he backtracked. "I mean, I'm sure that he has his reasons, or you have your reasons, and just because he hasn't talked about you doesn't mean he's not important. He's spent most of his time rambling lately about track. Apparently the General's been harder on everyone lately than usual."

Aiden stared at him for a moment, the insinuation sinking in. "Oh," he said after a moment. "It's not... That is to say, you've probably got this all wrong in your head."

Josh reddened a little. "Oh, wow. Whoops. Sorry about that, then. I just figured that, with Dodger... nine out of ten times, it's the safe bet to make." He should've figured that he was looking at this the wrong way. The signs were all there, and Aiden didn't feel like the kind of person who would sleep with Dodge after just three weeks. Aiden didn't even feel like the kind of person Dodge would normally sleep with at all. After all, Josh had been privy to Dodge's protests that he stayed away from shy people more than once. "I shouldn't have assumed like that."

Taking a deep mental breath, Aiden pulled off a somewhat casual shrug. “It happens. He’s hinted about several...” His hand turned in a vague gesture as he searched for a word to describe what he wanted to say. Giving up, he waved it away. “No hard feelings though. It’s just all running and eating and zombies here.”

Josh brightened significantly at that.  "Oh, are you the new track kid?  I've been to a bunch of the meets, and I haven't seen you before, but I know Reeve defected for football games, which is shit, because he's much better at track than he is at football.  I guess the scholarships are better, though, especially if you're angling for a muggle college."  Josh realized that he had deviated from the point of what he was actually saying.  "Stevie said there was a new guy and that he was cute."

"That would be me, although I'm not too sure about the cute thing."

"Oh, you're cute," Josh said certainly. "I can definitely verify her judgment on that one. Plus, you've got the athlete thing going for you, which is always a bonus." Josh once again backpedaled. Aiden had looked uncomfortable when Josh had even started talking to him, and what he said probably had come off as Josh hitting on him, when he had just meant to be matter-of-fact about it. He didn't know how to really safely backpedal from that one without coming off even creepier, though, so he settled on, "If I weren't really, really taken, then I probably would be more concerned with that."

“Even if you were more concerned about it, I wouldn’t be concerned about it,” he said, eyebrow raising slightly.

Josh finally felt awkward just standing in front of the bed and plopped down.“Why’s that?” he asked as he propped his chin up with his hands. He felt like what Aiden just said probably should have made some sort of sense, but he had run the words through his head four or five times and still couldn’t make a heads or tails of it. Josh really should’ve gotten up earlier, because he knew needed coffee to make sense of things this early in the morning, but he figured he could bribe Dodge into a dining hall run.

Seeing the puzzlement on Josh’s face, Aiden frowned. He hadn’t actually thought before speaking and this could go very badly very quickly from this point. “Don’t worry about it,” he said dismissively.

“Well that’s boring,” Josh said, frowning slightly, and before he knew it, his mouth was running. “You can’t just say cryptic things like that and then chicken out. What kind of concerned do you mean? Is it the kind where you aren’t concerned as in it doesn’t bother you because you’re tolerant? Is it the kind where you aren’t concerned because you’re already taken? Is it the kind of not concerned where you are surprisingly unfazed by silly gay kids accidentally almost hitting on you without realizing it?” Josh looked up curiously.

Aiden pondered over how to answer for a moment. Finally he settled for a simple yet evasive, “Two of the three.”

Josh just stared at him. “Was one of those three the last one? If so, that’s such a cop-out.”

“No,” Aiden said carefully. “I’m surprising quite fazed by most things that involve other people. I suck at people.”

“You suck at people, but you get along with Dodge?” Josh teased. “I always knew Dodge was hiding something! It must be fairly humanoid, because I’ve seen him without his clothes more times than I’d care to remember, and I didn’t see any sort of distinguishing marks that would help me place him as some other kind of supernatural or magical creature.”

“He’s secretly a radioactive alien with incredible shape-shifting powers.”

“Nope, sorry,” Josh said, shaking his head. “I’m going to have to call your bluff there. I’ve already performed radioactivity tests on Dodger, and I can confirm that he’s absolutely not radioactive. That was the only thing I learned the entire year of third year chemistry.”