storm ◇ jasper hale ◇

chapter thirty-five ; declining health

"You look amazing," Paul said as Madej walked up to him. Madej smiled at him and pushed into his arms, glad of the warmth that exuded from his friend. "You smell like the leeches,"

"Well, I do hang around them," he said, then turned his face into Paul's neck. "You're real warm, I'm so cold,"

"I do turn into a gigantic wolf, so the whole transformation requires heat. Somehow. Not sure how that one works."

"Probably your body trying to compensate for the different body structures, and exuding heat to make sure your wolf form doesn't appear all the time,"

Paul made a noise in the back of his throat. "Maybe. You OK?" he asked, putting his arms around Madej.

"You are not gonna believe what the fuck has been going on,"

"Oh, really? Do tell."

Madej almost didn't know where to start; so much had happened since he had last seen his friend. "Well, Edward proposed to Bella -" he started, only for Paul to make a whooping noise, cutting him off.

"OH SHIT!"

"Calm your tits, that's not just it."

Paul gasped, looking like he didn't know what could be worse than Edward proposing to Bella. "I'm scared."

"She rejected him. Then yesterday, I was hanging out with Jasper -"

"Is that a secret way of saying you guys were fucking or?" Paul asked, eyebrow raised as he looked at Madej.

Madej punched Paul's arm, which did nothing but hurt his hand a little. "No. But he fucking asked me to marry him too. Like, what the fuck?"

Paul started to laugh, hard. He pulled away from Madej as he giggled to himself, arms wrapped around himself as he presumably tried to imagine Jasper trying to ask Madej for his hand in marriage. Madej felt a little bit unimpressed by his reaction, but then again, he should've seen it coming.

"You said no, didn't you?" Paul managed to say.

"He barely managed to get down on one knee before I shot him down," Madej said with a nod, feeling only the tiniest bit of guilt. Well, Jasper had just sprung it on him and they hadn't talked about that kind of thing before. Madej couldn't recall having a conversation with Jasper about marriage anyway; that kind of thing wasn't really up Madej's street. He preferred the quietness compared to the exuberance of a wedding. Not to mention he was still a teenager and didn't want that kind of thing.

"You're so cruel," Paul said, then fell into a fitful of giggles once more. "Never change, Mads."

"I mean, I don't know what he expected because I'm not marriage material, and I am horrified by the idea of marriage - oh, Bella wants to marry me so she doesn't have to marry Edward, wanna officiate the wedding?"

"You're both so chaotic," Paul said, nodding his head. "And yes, I will officiate your wedding. Where is she? Let's piss off the leeches,"

Madej shrugged. "I would've guessed with Edward, but she ... called it off with him? Unless they're now back together, but at graduation, they weren't together. I have no idea what's going on in their relationship, and I never wanna know. It all sounds so complicated."

"And what, your relationship with Jasper isn't complicated?"

"No, but it's gay."

"That's-that's not ... oh, whatever." Madej snorted, seeing the way Paul gave up the argument before it started. "But wait, isn't Bella, like, bi? So it's not really straight?"

Madej frowned a little. "Honestly, I forgot. There are so many queer people now, it's hard to keep track of them all."

Paul rolled his eyes. "Come on, let's get some food in you; don't think I haven't noticed you losing weight."