For the want of a Moose... [Mathias]

[jumpupanddream]

Lukas was in a bad mood.

He couldn't quite put his finger on what had annoyed him so much today, but he had a funny feeling it had started quite soon after he had woken up. Mathias had kept the entire dorm awake well into the early hours of the morning, yelling at his electronics that never seemed to work for him, and the sun had been coming up earlier and earlier recently, so all in all, Lukas had gotten approximately 2 hours sleep the previous night.

He was cranky, tired and everything people did put him on edge and unable to cope with even minor annoyances. Teachers who couldn't spell. Classmates who insisted on acting like idiots. Students in the library who were screeching at the top of their lungs. He couldn't take it any longer.

And now... this.

Lukas didn't understand how this could have happened. Admittedly, he was the first one to leave the dorm room this morning, but he hadn't left that much earlier than usual and the others normally followed him out soon afterwards.

How in the world had it become so messy?!

The bin had been tipped over, its contents spilled all over the floor. The laundry basket was overflowing, and Lukas was sure that there would be more dirty clothes in the bedroom, lying on the floor or on people's beds. Abandoned textbooks and notepads were strewn across the floor of the living area and he could see gaming paraphenalia everywhere.

And so, Lukas did what he always did in these situations: grab a large black bin bag and put everything he found that he didn't know what it was into it, and put the rest of the stuff away where it was supposed to go.

As he wandered between the rooms, Lukas came across a number of items he didn't recognise. A sketchbook with nothing but doodles of ponies in it. A broken game controller. A worn out moose teddy bear. Some sheet music for flute and saxophone. (Lukas didn't even know anyone that played flute or saxophone.) All of these items went into his black bag.

After his tidying spree was complete, the room now spotless and everything back in its rightful place, he left the black bags outside of the room and felt a lot calmer. For some reason, the act of cleaning had made him feeler a lot better, and a lot less angry. Finally, he was able to sit down and read his book without feeling irritated.

Obviously, he had no idea of the consequences that his actions would have.

[MATHIAS ANDERSEN]

Walking down the hallways back to the dorm, Mathias could honestly say he was extremely tired. It wasn’t like he had a bad day or anything, or anyone got on nerves or irked him, in fact, the day had been quite quiet, and ever since that accident he’d had with Lili, people seemed to be more prone to leaving him alone. Or well some seemed to enjoy snickering at him, claiming that he got his ass handed to him by a ninth grade girl. When in all truth, he really did, but it wasn’t like she meant to do it. She did feel awful about it, and it was out of her power to stop what happened anyway. What happened, happened, and though it did take a few days of rest for him to feel at least somewhat ready to go back to school, he hadn’t really gotten into any trouble since then, so he’d been feeling a lot better. Especially because people weren’t messing with him either, so he wasn’t in a bad mood at all.

He’d just been particularly exhausted lately. Heck, he didn’t even have the energy to fight against the kids who were messing with him. Maybe he was getting a cold or something. That would just be icing to the cake wouldn’t it? Mathias had never really been all that good at handling colds. In fact, he handled them very badly. Like not getting enough rest, running around until he fainted, refusing to take any medicine, and whining. Whining a lot. His mother had always told him that she couldn’t handle him when he was sick, especially because his stubborn level always seemed to grow dramatically.

When he got to his dorm room, he noticed the dorm patrol kids picking up a large garbage bag from the room and he narrowed his eyes. Last he checked, they didn’t have that much garbage in their little garbage pail. In fact, last he remembered, it was almost empty. Lukas never let it overflow. Ever. So then… the black garbage bag had to have meant that he was in a sour mood and went on another cleaning spree. Oh great. He probably threw away another of Mathias’ homework assignments or some of his mismatched socks or lucky marbles. Didn’t Lukas know by now that he needed those marbles to do well on tests? Honestly…

But he was much too tired to take the bag away from the dorm patrollers anyway, so he simply pushed into the dorm room, and moved over to his bed, which was magically fixed from when he pulled out of it earlier in the morning…Which must’ve meant that Lukas DID in fact go on one of his mad cleaning sprees.

He glanced over to Lukas to ask about it, only to see the boy with his nose shoved into a book. Not that that was a new sight. It was almost as if the Norwegian boy never stopped reading. Really… the boy needed to get out and make some friends. Or else he would have no one to go dancing with on dance nights, and then Mathias would feel bad and have to drag him along with whoever he was going with and it would be complicated and wait… what was he even talking about?

Sighing to himself, Mathias pulled off his sweater and plopped down tiredly into his bed, which felt extremely good to him until he placed his head on his pillow only to find that the familiar lump of his favorite stuffed moose was completely gone.

“Hunh…” He sat up again and lifted his pillow into the air, wondering if the small moose’s normal place had been shifted, only to see that it was completely gone. His eyes widened a bit, and he hopped out of the bed, lifting the sheets up with them.

It still wasn’t there... Oh God... where the hell was it? Where… he never moved it, no one else knew about it, unless… unless… he had found his moose on the ground when he woke up a few times… maybe… maybe… maybe when he was in his morning rush, he didn’t notice he’d knocked it down.. and… and…

He suddenly whirled around to face Lukas, knowing exactly what happened. But instead of messing with that right now, he dashed into the hallway to see if the students were still out there, only to find that they were gone. Long gone…

Long gone…he turned around and moved back into the room. Oh Lukas was so dead. He was beyond dead. In fact he was already in heaven at this rate. How many times did Mathias have to tell him to not throw away shit that wasn’t his!? Once a week!? And now the kid had thrown away the lucky moose that he’d had since he was three!

Mathias was tired of telling him, and now he was going to have to take the punishment.

He moved back into the room to stand in front Lukas, before he snatched the book away and slammed it on the side table. His face was livid.

“Lukas!? You didn’t happen to toss out a small stuffed moose that wasn’t yours did you!?” Of course he already knew the answer. Of course he did. But he was just going to have to let Lukas face that answer himself. Maybe then he’d learn to keep his grubby mittens off of things that weren’t his.

...And now Mathias was certainly in a bad mood.

[jumpupanddream]

Lukas didn’t look up from his book when he heard Mathias enter the room. He was far too used to the others coming and going to get distracted by them solely entering the room. And besides, he had only just calmed down a little, and he was fairly certain that engaging in any form of social contact with the Dane would only really succeed in winding him up again. Mathias tended to have that effect on Lukas. Their personalities were just too much of a clash for them to ever talk properly and one or the other of them would just end up yelling, or Lukas would storm away in disgust. Why they were ever made roommates, he had no idea, but he suspected it was some sort of sick joke that the organising staff had.

‘Let’s see how long it takes for the students to kill each other,’ the poll probably went. He wondered which other rooms would be on the list, running through in his head the list of students in the school. That British girl in his class and her roommates, definitely. The Swiss guy who always carried a gun around, too. Lukas shuddered, suddenly a bit happier that he at least had Kiku with him to keep him sane.

(After all, Lukas didn’t like being angry or cold to people all the time. He wasn’t sure that anyone did. He just didn’t know how to react around people in a positive way and so found indifference was a much easier emotion to handle. It was nice having someone who at least vaguely understood that in his dorm.)

The book he was reading was interesting, at least. It was a fairytale-esque story; set in Eastern Europe, which Lukas himself had never visited, though he had read many books about the countries there. It wasn’t a particularly complex book, definitely not what he was used to reading, but it was a nice storyline all the same, and it made for a good change in his reading material. He probably wouldn’t read it again, but it would be a shame not to finish it now, especially as he was already half way through it.

Out of the corner of his eye, Lukas noticed Mathias getting up off his bed and frantically pulling the duvet and blankets off. Honestly, after he had just tidied as well? He rolled his eyes, but didn’t pay much more attention after that, once again returning to his book. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he noticed when Mathias practically flew out of the door, only to return a moment later, but nothing really registered until his book was slammed out of his hands.

Mathias looked furious. It was pretty scary, to be honest, though Lukas would never admit to that. Instead, he just raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms.

“I don’t know. Possibly. Did you leave it on the floor?” Lukas honestly could not remember what exactly he had picked up and thrown into his bag whilst cleaning. There was a lot of stuff, but everything he knew belonged to someone he put away. It wasn’t his fault other people couldn’t take care of their belongings. “May I have my book back, please?”

[MATHIAS ANDERSEN]

What in the world was Lukas even thinking!? Did he seriously think that it was OKAY to just throw out other people’s things willy-nilly? One of these days Mathias was going to have to toss out some of Lukas’ so called precious reading material and see how much HE enjoyed it. This was seriously grating at his nerves… how did one think it was okay to do this?

Yes. Mathias was furious. He was beyond furious in fact. Which meant something or someone was going to have to bear the brunt of his anger. And looking directly in front of him, it seemed like Lukas was the cause and he was going to also be the solution.

“I don’t know. Possibly. Did you leave it on the floor?”

No. He didn’t LEAVE it on the floor. Well not on purpose anyways. That was probably one of the few things he wouldn’t EVER EVER leave on the floor. Especially not on purpose. Maybe if it was on accident.. and he didn’t know about it. That was the only way. THE only way. The ONLY way he could ever leave his little stuffed moose on the ground was if he didn’t know he had knocked it down in his sleep. That was the only way.

“May I have my book back, please?”

Oh Lukas and his books… one of these days… one of these days Mathias was going to take those books of his and shove them so far up his as—

He decided to stop his own thoughts at that as he let out a rather snarled response to Lukas, “No! You aren’t getting your stupid book back!” He could feel his hands balling up into fists. And with each second that passed they were being balled up even tighter, “You are going to help me find that thing you threw away. I don’t care if you have to dig through eight-five dumpsters to find it. You are going to help me! Then maybe I’ll give you your stupid book back.”

Yes he was hurting. He’d had that stupid toy since he was like three. His mom had given it to him when he’d gotten hurt and was bedridden in the hospital. It was during those days that he felt extremely alone… that his moose would keep him company…and at night… hearing the screams of the patients… to a three year old boy… that was the scariest thing that one could ever hear. And when Mathias felt scared… he would simply snuggle the moose.

Sure it sounded stupid and sappy to a now eighteen year old boy, but it was one of those things… one of those lucky things of his. One of those lucky things of his that kept him from dying of some random car explosion because he had bad luck…

In fact. His moose was the luckiest item he owned. He had to get it back. He just HAD to… and it was then that he realized he just HAD to do quite a few things..

[jumpupanddream]

Lukas blinked at Mathias’ somewhat extreme reaction to what he had said. He wasn’t even entirely sure what was going on. Ok, he’d managed to pick up that Mathias had a toy moose that had gone missing, and he thought that Lukas had picked it up during his cleaning session.

(That… wasn’t an unfair assumption to make. If it was on the floor, Lukas would have picked it up, and as he didn’t know it belonged to Mathias, it would have just gone in his bag. It wouldn’t be the first time he had accidentally thrown away something that belonged to one of the members of his dorm. This would, however, be the first time someone had reacted like this about it.)

No, he understood that much. What he didn’t understand is why Mathias was making such a big deal out of it. From what he could gather, and vaguely remember, it was just a toy moose. Surely Mathias could get another from somewhere? Lukas himself had seen a shop when he was around in the town that probably sold teddy bears, and if they didn’t, the gift shop at the zoo was bound to have something similar.

Something inside Lukas twitched and pounded when Mathias insulted his book. No one insulted his books. His books were his escape from this place, a way that he didn’t have to deal with teachers, stupid classmates and idiotic roommates. “My book is not stupid,” he managed to say through gritted teeth. If Mathias did anything to it, Lukas would not be happy. It wasn’t even his book, after all. So, not only would Mathias have to answer to him, there would also be the librarian, who, whilst usually lovely, was a hell-hound when it came to her books and their protection.

The logical, functioning side of Lukas’ mind, however, could not dismiss Mathias’ request. For some strange reason that he could not comprehend, Mathias was attached to this toy of his. Lukas had (probably) gotten rid of it. It would only be fair if he assisted in getting it back. Though, if Mathias expected to jump into the dumpsters (and by the sound of it, he did), he had another thing coming to him.

Lukas sighed, rubbing his head. “ Please give me my book back, Mathias, and then I will help you look for whatever it is you’ve lost.” After all, if it really was his fault, it was the least he could do. And maybe it would stop him getting seriously injured also, he added as an afterthought, as judging by the way Mathias’ hands were balled tightly and shaking, he was seriously close to hitting something. And that something was probably Lukas. Great.

[MATHIAS ANDERSEN]

Mathias raised his eyebrow, “It’s sitting there on the table. You already have it back! But don’t take it with us.” He grabbed a hold of Lukas’ hand, and pulled him rather forcefully off the bed, glad that he managed to hold back the swinging of his fists. Not like he really wanted to create an angry Lukas anyway.

“And yes…your book is stupid.” He could feel a nerve somewhere on his forehead twitch a bit. He didn’t even know why he bothered anymore. That stupid book was all that Lukas cared about anyways. He didn’t care that he had done something unintentionally cruel. He glanced at the book a moment, then back up at Lukas, before he paced out of the room and down the hall.

He knew that walking off without Lukas gave him the chance to run away and avoid this responsibility he had to help Mathias out. But he hoped that if he just let Lukas follow of his own accord, he wouldn’t have to listen to his overly pessimistic remarks or his usual use of sarcasm, which usually just flew right over his head anyway.

So he knew that the hall monitor kids usually took the trash out. But he never really paid attention to who the particular kids assigned to hall monitoring the dorms were…so he couldn’t ask them. And in a normal circumstance he would’ve just asked someone else, but right now most kids were either doing after school activities, studying, or hanging out with their friends before they were forced into their dorms for the night or before they were overwhelmed by the days homework, and he most certainly wasn’t going to ask Lukas.

Asking Lukas would be like giving into the devil. Well it wouldn’t be that bad, but he wasn’t going to let Lukas think he could take the lead. Mathias was going to listen to what he said, and not vice versa.

Yes. He was quite mad about this. Definitely mad enough to act this irrationally. Not that he’d ever admit that he was acting irrationally. Cause he totally wasn’t acting irrationally. He was just really frustrated with Lukas and his stinking habits. He was even more mad that his habits were backfiring on him.

Maybe it would be best if he asked Lukas now that he thought about it though… Lukas was the only person whose location he was sure of, and Lukas was supposed to be helping him… and maybe it would be better for him if he didn’t act like such a bratty little kid so much…

He released a sigh, before moving back to Lukas, “Okay, I’m still mad at you, but I’m not going to act stupid. Tell me where the hall monitors take the trash.” He began to knead his hands together rather anxiously, avoiding Lukas’ rather icy glare at all costs.

((This post sucks I'm sorry. ;_; ))