Work Text:
Drum. Drum. Drum
Alec twisted his neck, trying to snap himself back into focus instead of looking at the source of the noise.
Drum. Drum. Drum.
Alec cracked his knuckles in an attempt not to ball his hands into fists and stopping the noise with the same fist.
Drum. Drum. Drum.
Alec’s leg was jumping up and down in small impatient movements.
Drum. Drum. Drum.
Alec held his pen between two fingers, twisting it back and forth.
Drum. Drum. Dr—
“You are validating my inherent mistrust in strangers.” He did not look up from his text book, did not stop taking notes of what he was reading. His focus had been disturbed enough by the person sitting next to him who would not stop his endless drumming of fingers against the table.
“I am hardly a stranger, Alec,” Jasper said, and Alec could hear the smirk on his lips in his voice. It was enough to make him cringe, but he knew better than to give the Hale the satisfaction. It was a game they had started. Alec was not sure when it had started, or when he had ever agreed to the rules. Jasper would do what he could to piss Alec off, just small things. Stirring in his coffee such that the spoon kept hitting the sides of the cup, drumming his fingers on the table, listening to music loud enough for his earphones to not isolate the sound, clicking with his tongue when he was thinking. Alec would do his best to keep his temper under control, but found it increasingly harder day by day, which only seemed to encourage Jasper to continue.
“I wish you were anyway,” Alec shot back, refraining from chewing on the end of his pencil as he tried to wrap his head around physics.
“Is it now I should question your choice of word then? Mistrust, really?” Asked Jasper, evidently set on ignoring the fact that Alec was trying to be left alone. As if it wasn’t clear enough. He was sitting in the far end of the library, his legs pulled up on the chair next to him and with a physics book and computer nicely shutting out the world—all except from Jasper, sitting behind him, or besides him had he been sitting properly.
“Mistrust in the idea that a stranger could at any time be a positive thing which I would take pleasure in getting to know or spending time with,” Alec clarified dryly, knowing already it wouldn’t have the wished effect. It seemed like he could not win when it came to Jasper. If he was sarcastic and spiteful, Jasper would take pleasure in seeing how far he could go before Alec would storm off, and if he actually tried to be friendly (because maybe the opposite behaviour would generate the opposite response), Jasper could chat happily away for hours—had it not been that Alec would again storm off in frustration. What agitated him the most, was ironically, how agitated Jasper could make him. He was used to being the calm one, the one who never really got angry or lost his temper, but Jasper knew just how to piss him off.
“A good thing we already established I’m not a stranger then,” Jasper pointed out, clicking a pen open, or closed, it wasn’t as if Alec bothered to check. However, he did bother to roll his eyes and sigh. A mail checked in on his computer, and he was happy for the distraction, for physics was an utterly terrible distraction. The distraction was short-lived, when the email proved to be a reminder to hand in a book he had borrowed the week prior.
“Point still valid,” if Alec closed his computer with a bit too much force, it was not commented on by either of the boys as he closed book and notebook and swept it all into his bag, pushing the chair under his feet away so he could get up. He had found it was better to leave before he could do nothing but storm out, it left him with more dignity, though it still was surrender to leave instead of endure.