What was I thinking!?
Harry gripped the sink in the men's room like it was the only thing keeping him standing as he stared blankly into the mirror. He tried to tell himself that it hadn't been what it obviously was, that he'd just been taken by surprise by...by seeing his childhood friend so closely face-to-face after so long, noticing more clearly than before how the years had turned her from a round-faced, tomboyish little girl into a young woman who was surprisingly attractive despite her somewhat boyish looks, but he knew that neither he nor Jasmine believed that.
No, the problem was that he hadn't been thinking. It just felt so natural, almost instinctive, with his hands gently holding her head, feeling the contours of her jawline against his palms, with her face so close to his, her eyes, her lips...
And there he went again! He couldn't understand it. When did he start thinking of her this way? He...he had thought of her as...he flushed at the memory of things he'd said in school the other day. But it was true: he'd thought of her as a freak, something he didn't understand and couldn't feel comfortable with. Even if he found her body attractive, her inhuman nature freaked him out, and he reacted by...by trying to downplay his fear, and dismiss the other feelings she stirred in him. And he'd made a bunch of crude remarks that made her hate him all over again because of it...
Why was he like this? Especially to her? He felt a sort of quivering tension in his chest as he thought back to that time, years ago...he didn't know why he was behaving the way he was then, either. He'd told Dean it would be funny, but it was really something else for him. It was long before either of them would become seriously interested in girls in the adolescent sense, but Jasmine was...different. She was more like one of the boys than the other girls he knew, but at the same time she was clearly different, and that intrigued him in ways he didn't really understand at the time. He didn't really know why, but he'd wanted to be alone with her - but, well...
...it was the dullahan thing. He still couldn't quite wrap his head around it, and he definitely didn't understand it as a kid. To him, back then, it was like she was really two people; which of them was the real one? He thought it must be the body, because it was the body that always ran around and played with them, but the two Jasmines were never apart, even if they were separate; they could never really be alone, because there was always the other her there. He hadn't really had any clear idea what he and Jasmine would do together, all by themselves, but her head would inevitably be there, watching them...
Something about the thought had made him even more uncomfortable than her strange nature usually did, though he didn't know why. That was how he'd come up with the idea - if her head was somewhere else, then he and her body could be by themselves, doing...whatever it was that the older kids did when they were alone together. And Dean was the one who liked her head, and who, like himself, seemed to be uncomfortable with her dual nature...if he just took her head, then they could both have what they wanted, right? Dean wasn't as sure, when he'd laid out the plan, but he didn't take a lot of convincing, either...
The only problem was that, when they tried it, it all went horribly wrong. It actually took a lot to convince Jasmine to even let Dean hold her head; it was so obvious in hindsight that that should've clued them in, but at the time he'd been far too invested in the idea that his plan would work to question it. And when Dean put her in the basket on his bike and rode off like he'd instructed, she absolutely freaked out - both of her. He could hear her yelling at him to stop, increasingly frantic, and her body kept reaching out for her, blindly stumbling in the direction that they'd gone...
That hadn't been the worst of it, though. Still not understanding why she was so upset by this, he'd tried to take her body by the shoulders and calm her down. Maybe she was just surprised; maybe if she had a chance to calm down, they could still have fun together, like this; maybe this wasn't a terrible mistake... But she was trembling when he touched her, and the moment he did he felt her tense up, the flame atop her shoulders flaring high and wild. She pushed him away and lurched back from him like he was...like he was a poisonous snake or something. Harry had never felt as loathed as he did in that moment - not even when she chewed him out at school the other day. The sense of rejection was like a slap across the face.
By the time Dean came hurriedly back, she was crying, absolutely inconsolable. She hadn't said a word to either of them - just took herself in her arms and ran back home. That was the last time they'd played together; she wouldn't even acknowledge his existence at school for the next month. Later that day, his mother had sat him down and grilled him about what she'd heard from Mrs. McCormick; he'd tried to explain that it was all just a joke, but she didn't buy his excuse, and neither did he; on some level, even at that age, he knew he was jealous of...well, jealous of Jasmine's other half. The part of her that kept her from him, the part of her he didn't like...didn't want...
...Didn't he? Because just now it had felt a whole lot like he did. For all that he'd made crass jibes at her over the years, teased her about preferring her body, this was the first time he'd thought of her head as a woman...the first time he'd been attracted to it, instead of put off by it. Well, no, maybe not instead of; the idea still unsettled him, but...in that moment, holding her close, looking into her eyes...
He just didn't understand it. He had thought he'd known his own feelings, but somehow, even though he still didn't get her bizarre nature, even though he still felt confused and disturbed by the idea of one person existing as two separate pieces...two different (but linked) beings, even...there was still this feeling that he'd never felt before, that he'd firmly believed he never would feel. Jasmine...Jasmine-the-head...she intimidated him, but he...he was attracted to her anyway...and now...
...and now, somehow, it was like she suddenly wanted to be friends again? Even after what he'd said the other day? He couldn't understand it. As far as he knew, she'd wanted nothing to do with him for years, and she'd just chewed him out afresh the other day; he remembered the way she'd looked at him, as if she were looking at...what? An impostor? Some kind of reanimated corpse? But now they were suddenly on speaking terms again...? He didn't object, but he didn't get it...
...and it didn't help any with the question of what to do now, now that he'd gone and made it awkward... Should he just go back into the theater? Pretend nothing had happened, and things weren't weird and uncomfortable? But they both knew that wasn't true...still, it might be better to just move on than to try and address it, when there was no non-awkward way to do that...
Harry heaved a heavy sigh and stared into the mirror. Why did he have to be like this? And why did he have to feel this way...?
Jason had lost track of the plot around the time she'd gotten too tired to hold her head up, and she'd completely stopped paying attention to the film now. She felt a bit bad about having Dean holding her up to see it, because it was all going past in a blur of images and noise. He had...Harry had...he'd tried to...!
It'd been one thing to have that weird, awkward interaction with a random jerk at the gas station the other day, and to only realize what he'd been trying to do after the fact, when Lucy explained it. But there had been no mistaking the implications just now. Her friend - her one-time friend, in another reality, with whom she was hoping to patch things up - had nearly kissed her; had wanted to kiss her, which was just as confusing. Why would he...!?
Okay, she wasn't stupid; she knew why a guy would do that, but...where had this come from? Even in this reality where she'd always been a girl, didn't Harry dislike her...her head? She remembered the things he'd said the other day - well enough that she had to think back to the Harry she knew to keep from getting mad all over again. He was apparently into her body, but her head freaked him out? That thought made part of her surprisingly sad; her body's shoulders slumped a little, and she felt a knot in her chest. Something prickled at the back of her...what would have been the back of her neck, or maybe still was, wherever it'd gone.
But she could also understand, a bit. She'd been pretty freaked out herself, at first, and it still seemed extremely weird when she stopped and thought about it. And even in this reality, it wasn't like dullahans were apparently common. It wasn't too surprising that a human would find something like her, so close to human but so obviously abnormal, to be off-putting. But...that didn't make it feel any better...
Jason sighed heavily; her body slumped back in her seat. Even if she could wrap her head around that, there was still the part where he wanted to kiss her. Another guy- But no, no, that wasn't how anyone else in this reality saw it, was it? To anyone but her and Lucy, the only thing wrong with the scenario was how forward he was being; in other circumstances it'd be seen as totally normal for him to cup her jawline in his sturdy hands, there in the darkened theater, take her gently by the head, and pull her into-
Her body squirmed in her seat, and her face flushed hot against Dean's slightly damp palms; she felt him start a little as he noticed it. "Uh, are you okay?" he whispered.
"F-fine," she stammered. "I'm fine."
"Uh, okay," he replied. "Um, I'm not holding you wrong, am I?"
"Uh, n-no," she said. "No, this is...fine." It wasn't a lie; he was being fairly gentle and considerate, even if his hands were a little clammy. But it was still different having someone else hold her, and as confused and flustered and embarassed as she was right now, she really just wanted to bury her head in her breast, wrap herself in her arms, and shut out the rest of the world completely. But if she just reached over and took herself back, he'd definitely take it the wrong way...
They sat there in awkward silence for the final few minutes of the film, until the credits rolled and it officially wasn't weird to get up and leave the theater. Dean gingerly handed Jason's head back to her body, and she stood up to find, to her surprise, that she'd developed a fairly major crick in her muscles; apparently her legs and lower back had been under a lot more tension than she'd realized for a fairly long period. It didn't take a genius to figure out why.
They and the rest of their little group made their way down the row and out of the theater as the speakers blared some vaguely Celtic pop song. Mary and Lucy were chatting about the movie, but she honestly didn't remember a thing about it, not after what had happened. Oddly enough, to her mind, Lucy was still letting Mary carry her head, though she stuck close behind. Wasn't that...weird? Didn't it feel unnerving, not just having someone hold you, but actually carry you around? She didn't know what to think - but she was still too preoccupied with everything else to get too hung up on it.
They re-entered the lobby to find Harry standing there, staring off into space in a half-daze. "Oh, uh!" he sputtered as they arrived. "Uh, h-hey. Sorry, I, I guess I...missed the ending...?"
"Uh, y-yeah," Jason said. "Yeah, it was...a thing, definitely." She glanced to Lucy, hoping for a save from her cousin, but she was still talking excitedly with Mary. Had the movie been good, then? She had no idea...
Harry glanced awkwardly at Jason, who glanced awkwardly at Dean, who gave Harry a look of confusion. Meanwhile, Samantha, the young centauress, was staring at Harry and Jason with a confused look of her own.
"Um, so," interrupted James, who was pretty baffled himself by the vibes between the different members of the group, but who had a herd animal's natural instinct for reading the room, "you guys, uh, wanna get something to eat...?"
They turned to him almost in unison. "Yes."
