Jaxon h. Wessel Jr

She nods along as he speaks, and she doesn’t really feel bothered by the fact that she suddenly find herself sitting back in the first place they met, she looks around his room as the noises from downstairs filter up to them. She leans forward and puts her elbows in her knees, “this is really strange. I might have met those others, I met a French girl too, but I don’t know if the guy I met was a party kind of guy.”

They’d met when it was late enough for him to leaver her thinking he was one. Not many people enjoy being out and about that late without a reason, and most good parties went on all night. “So if we can assume we’ve been paying visits to the same people, this isn’t just some moment of losing our minds.”

She leans back and shakes her head, it’s starting to give her a headache and she just really wants to go home to her pets and curl up in bed and sleep for the next week. She stands and watches him for a moment, she has a feeling this won’t be the last time she sees him, or the other two she’s already seen. “Well, hopefully I’ll be going home. Have a good one Jax.”

“Or we’re both equally crazy,” Jax says with a smirk on his face. It makes him feel slightly better to know he’s not the only one incredibly confused by the situation. Only slightly. He’s had a growing headache for the last two days that’s only getting worse with time. No matter what time of day it is or what’s going on, there’s a dull throbbing that won’t disappear.

“I’m Peyton,” She shakes her head at his mention of some family golfing trip, she remembers those, forced to go and be a happy smiling family, dressing up in fancy clothing to impress the other fancy dressed rich asshole. “Sounds like an ass kissing golf trip to me, I’ve been on a few of those and I’d rather be anywhere.”

She was so thrilled she didn’t have to go on any more of those, the money was hers to spend as she pleased, she wasn’t interested in making people want to support her, or spend their money on her. She’d invested her money well and now she just relaxed and did what she wanted. Though she was sure had her family had their way she’d be still going to all the events they could, preferably with some British Duke on her arm or something. The thought makes her cringe.

“That apartment we left, was of a girl named Kelsey, we’ve been hooking up for a few weeks and she’s wanting more, I should have backed out earlier but I fucked that up and now I’m here.” She shakes her head, it was her own mistake, things would have been better off for the both of them had she just let her go. She stops quickly and turns towards Jaxon, “has this happened to you before?”

Jaxon remembers the days of booty calls and friendly hookups. He misses them, to an extent. There’s something nice about not having to worry about dates and plans. Instead, you just swipe right, send a couple of messages, and suddenly you’re half naked on a pretty stranger’s couch for half the night. It’s all no worries, no fighting, and no nagging. That’s the part he misses.

“A couple of times. Some pretty French girl and a guy who knows how to throw a good party. And now, you.” 

She can’t help but laugh a little, of course that’s something he says, a lot of people always point that out when they aren’t from here. So what if most of the world drives on the other side. But she lets the comment drop and starts to walk in the direction of her flat. “I guess you could say I was having my own kind of argument, a girl I’d been having fun with wanted something more out of it.”

She sighs at the thought of Kelsey, the pain in her eyes still lingering in the back of Peyton’s head. She usually dropped girls easily but for some reason Peyton still felt an urge to go back and make things somehow right with the other girl. “Is it really that hard to get that maybe I just don’t want a commitment?”

The words are out before she can stop them and she doesn’t like the idea that  she’s having some conversation about a not really break up to some random American she just literally popped in on. But they seemed to be having the sort of similar issue with a girl and Peyton thought that must be something, there has to be a reason she keeps meeting these random people. Relationships are messy, as she witnessed with her American guy and his girl.

“Girls can be so frustrating.”

“Amen,” Jax says with a shake of his head. So women troubles brought them together. Not what he expected, not even a little bit, but he’ll take it. It’s nice to have a conversation with someone who doesn’t know either of them really. Mystery British girl isn’t trying to fix his problems or take Kaicee’s side. Instead it’s just mutual complaining, which works fine for Jaxon.

“I’m Jaxon, by the way. That was my fiancee, Kaicee. She was yelling at me because I refused to bail on a fundraiser I’ve been organizing for six months to go on a family golfing network trip with her lawyer parents.” Jaxon sounds spiteful, because he is. Kaicee’s family throws their money around. 

It’s old money too, for generations and generations the Montague’s have had some serious cash. Normally it’s a perk - Kaicee doesn’t expect him to take care of her like she’s some ‘50s house wife - but right now Jaxon’s being petty and resentful. The fundraiser will keep brothers like himself, who can’t afford dues on top of the other heavy college expenses, afloat and the fraternity in the green.

Peyton takes a minute to let everything sink in, he’s the third person she’s just randomly popped to, jumping into his space or head or whatever this thing is, she’s finally passed the idea that she’s going crazy or some shit. “No, I got here at the end of it. You’re the third person I’ve had a moment like this with.”

She wonders for a moment if he’s had more people show up with him too, crossing her arms she leans against the wall, and waits. She’s still not comfortable with all of this, having random people just show up and invade her space, she’s interested in how it all works, as far as she can tell, by now all the people she’s met might just be real people. “This is bloody weird.”

She wants to just go home, climb in bed and go to sleep for another day, just forget all this shit happened, forget about Kelsey and just be done for a while. She hears a honk and opens her eyes and she’s back at the apartment, standing in the dark sidewalk in front of the building and she sighs, turning to see if her guy is still with her. She’s relieved that it’s dark, because if people can see her probably talking to air she really doesn’t want to have someone knocking at her door wondering if she’s going crazy.

“Thank God,” he breathes out. Jaxon’s head is still his own, even if he is going crazy. “No offense.”

Jaxon feels exhausted. Whether it’s the being visited by random strangers with weird accents thing, or the fighting with Kaicee things, and he moves from his desk to his bed, sprawling out. He closes his eyes, wishing for mystery girl number two to be out of his room. Jaxon likes time to process fights like this, and even though it isn’t her fault, she’s kind of interrupting that. He opens his eyes to see if she’s still there and suddenly he’s no longer in his own room.

"They’re driving on the wrong side of the road,” Jaxon points out as he falls in step beside her. They’re very obviously in the UK. Judging by her accent, Jaxon would guess Britain, but he isn’t one hundred percent on that.

She doesn’t like the way the conversation is going, Kelsey had sent her some flirty texts and called her over, they’d had some fun. They’d had a lot of fun and Peyton had just stepped out of the other girls shower when things had started to go south. Whenever Peyton starts up with someone, the casual hookup now and then she makes it clear she’s not really looking to have anything serious. She likes the freedom of being single. Being able to go and do as she pleases without having to let anyone know.

But apparently things have gone on too long and Kelsey starts broaching the subject of dating. “We’ve been at this for a while, we’re good together! Why can’t we just see where dating goes.”

Peyon’s shoulders tense and she sits on the bed that Kelsey still lies in, wrapped in a sheet and Peyton tenses more when she can feel the girls eyes staring into her back, “I told you before we started this it wouldn’t go anywhere, I don’t date. You knew that going in, if you’d hoped for more, you shouldn’t have answered my call the first time.”

Pulling on a boot Peyton can see Kelsey sitting up closer to her, leaning on the wall behind the bed, “hooking up was fine at first, I just don’t see what the big deal is with trying.”

Peyton rolls her eyes and gets off the bed, moving to find her shirt, the entire time she searches she can feel eyes on her, tracking her every move. She knows Kelsey is waiting for an answer and Peyton wants a minute to just find her shirt before she says what she wants, she doesn’t want to hurt the other girls feelings but she’s never been the type to soften her words. Grabbing her shirt she turns to Kelsey as she pulls it on. “Look, we’re good in bed. That’s as far as I want thing to go, I don’t make a habit out of dating anyone, and you’re not going to be the first girl to somehow change that.”

She sees the hurt in Kelsey’s eyes before she turns and walks out of the room, she hears the other girl get off the bed and follow her, grabbing her jacket Peyton turns and sees Kelsey standing at the doorway, “I know you have feelings Peyton, one day this whole bloody cover you have is going to fade, and you’re going to find out that being alone isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Don’t bother calling me again.”

She hesitates at the door for a moment, Kelsey’s words sinking in before she pulls it open and quickly makes her way out. She knows things with Kelsey had gone on longer than she had originally planned. She doesn’t usually keep girls numbers longer than a week or two, but it’s been a while since her and Kelsey had started to fool around and there had been a few times she’d been planning on ending but the words hadn’t come. Peyton walks through the doors of the building and she finds herself inside a room just as a girl slaps some dude and storms out. She looks behind her and the door is gone and she turns back to see the girl gone and the dude is still standing there. “Did you deserve that?”

“Yes and no,” Jaxon answers as he rubs at his jaw. The slap hurt more emotionally than physically, but Kaicee does take a kickboxing and mixed martial arts class, so it wasn’t like. He can feel slightly swelling but knows it won’t bruise up or last very long. Kaicee hadn’t intended on doing physical harm to him, he knows it. It takes him a minute to realize there’s another one of these people - Jaxon’s taken to calling them visitors - in his room this time. He can hear Kaicee slam the front door of his Greek house and Jason sighs, sitting down heavily in his chair.

“She started it,” Jax says by way of explanation. He doesn’t want to talk over what just happened with anyone, let alone a complete stranger. He looks over to make sure the door to his room is still closed before he engages in conversation with, well, himself. None of his brothers come to offer him support after his fight, which is how he prefers it. Jaxon likes his privacy.

The music is what throws Luke off at first. Why are they playing something so old in the club tonight? Sure most of the people there know this type of music, but it’s just not something that is normally played there. But then again none of these old school decorations where something Luke ordered or had been in any club since the mid-nineties. Everyone seems to fit into the scene though.

Luke can’t help but startle a bit as he fully realizes that once again he isn’t where he should be. The club seems to reappear around him and he realizes he has stopped moving and the guy in front of him looks slightly annoyed. He gives a small smile before motioning that he needs to a drink. The guys is back dancing with someone else before Luke is even a few feet away. It doesn’t matter though.

He needs water. He must be dehydrated, some water will surely help clear his head. Luke barely has to look at the bartender, a girl barely twenty one that he hired, for the water cup to appear in front of him. He downs it in two gulps and whips the sweat from his forehead. It’s strange. Two nights in a row seeing places that are clearly different from where he is that moment.

Luke looks around the club before his eyes land on the guy standing next to him. He doesn’t fit in there. The black mess shirt looking straight from the nineties and like it would match more to the place he was before dancing with the girl. He blinks a bit, hoping the guy will disappear but instead he finds himself back at the old school party.

“Holy shit.” 

“Aww, not again,” Jaxon groans out. The club he’s in is way nicer than his frat house. Whoever set up this gig cared way more than Jax ever has about decorations or themes. Then again, this is an actual bar and not some frat house, so they’re making actual money here. Jax walks up to the guy blinking up at him like he’s a goddamn ghost. He’s way too drunk, and simultaneously way too sober to deal with this right now.

“Double shot of your cheapest whisky,” He groans out, hoping it’ll snap mystery boy out of the “fish out of water” look he has on his face. The shot slides over to him and Jax chugs it back. The thing is, he doesn’t know if it’s real or fake. He can remember the burn of cheap Jack on the back of his throat, but does he actually have it now? Jax doesn’t feel the head rush either, and that double sucks. Not only is he stuck in some strange place where only one person can see him, he can’t even get drunk there.

Cassidy blinks a couple of times, then glances around her room, now sans cute-nameless-American-guy. It’s like a scene out of a bad Lifetime or Hallmark movie, getting interrupted right before she could learn his name.

Someone had come up to talk to them — a pretty girl that Cas only caught a glimpse of before she was back in her room — and then the guy she’d been talking to was gone.

Just to be sure, Cas spins around a couples of times, slow and steady as she surveys her room for any trace of her — intruder? guest? — who is nowhere to be found.

“Merde,” she curses, tapping her fingers on the textbook. At least that’s real. Shaking her head, Cas settles back down in her chair.

No more cute boys. Time for math. Her current worst enemy. One that she feels she just might be able to conquer this time.

Shaking her head, Cas settles back into her chair, crossing her ankles and reaching for her pen. As she presses it against the paper, striking out her previous mistakes, she sees it.

Her hand, stained with lipstick a few moments ago, now clear.

The night was going on without flaw. Not that Luke was surprised, he did plan it after all. Once the night was underway there wasn’t much left of Luke’s job to do. It was all the before behind the scene stuff that made this night run smooth as butter that he was responsible for. Most the times even got to blend into the crowd of moving bodies and enjoy his work with the hundreds of others in the club.

Tonight was one of those nights. Luke spent the first few hours after opening observing. He helped move more stock from the back to the bar, spent time up on the stage with the dj, even found time to finish the stack of paper work he had in the back. He could have went home an hour ago. But he stayed, jumping with the crowd to the a song playing much to loud that Luke doesn’t so much hear it as feel it with every cell in his body.

The smile on Luke’s face is huge. He can’t help it. He lives for this scene. It’s part of the reason he got into this line of work. He enjoys being the one planning the events as much as being out in the middle of the dance floor right now. Even more then he use to knowing it is only pulled off because of his hard work. Bodies move together and Luke is just one of many in the sea.

He isn’t sure when him and the guy in front of him started dancing. Their bodies move as one, the nameless male’s body unable to get much closer to his. They move in beat to the music and Luke isn’t sure how the song seems to change mid way through. He pace is different, still a high beat party song but different and Luke is still moving with the man but they feel out of beat with the song now.

The new neon lights and strobes he bought six months ago to replace the old one disappear and Luke’s body seems back in beat with the new song except his dance partner now is clearly female and not male. Luke doesn’t stop dancing. His head feels foggier, like he had been drinking which he hadn’t. The stage isn’t in front of him, the dj gone and Luke can look to his left and see the stereo which is currently playing music through a new crowd of people. A much different crowd from the people who were in his club a few minutes ago.

It’s another Friday night, which means another Alpha Kappa Alpha kegger. Their budget is well in the green, thanks to Jaxon’s abilities and coordination with some of the other board members. The theme for the night is Throwback, which really is just an excuse to dress up like old boy band members or rappers. Jax is in one of these sleeveless mesh shirts - he likes to show off, okay? - and pants that are shiny enough to use in landing airplanes. It’s all over the top - and decorations to match it - but Jaxon’s a little bit drunk and enjoying the party. Well, mostly enjoying it.

Kaicee has started complaining early. Jax knows she doesn’t want to be there, but it’s kind of his job to make sure it run smoothly. Well, maybe it isn’t his job per say, but Jaxon put all of the effort into budgeting and planning it, so he’s going to stay. Eighty minutes into the party, they get into a huge, predictable fight. It ends with Kaicee smacking him on the chest and storming out. For a minute Jaxon considers following her, but then Matt hands him another beer and fuck it. It’s not his job to please her every whim, and if she doesn’t want to hang, he can find someone else to dance with.

As Jax makes his way to the dance floor he doesn’t dwell on the fact that more often than not, it isn’t Kaicee he’s dancing with. They’ve been fighting, a lot, but Jaxon loves her so he ignores it. It’s been working, mostly, but some days it doesn’t. Tonight is one of those nights.

So when a cute little thing slides up against his front, Jaxon slides a lazy arm around her hips, putting Kaicee at the back of his mind. She’s tiny and small and smells kind of like lavender and it’s all good enough as ‘90s party music drones on around them. Jaxon closes his eyes, just moving and not thinking. A half a dozen beers makes that easy - the not thinking thing - and he just enjoys the beat of the bass thundering around him.

“Are you?” she counters, raising her eyebrows. She’s definitely real, that’s for sure — and he sure has hell looks real. He looks just as confused as she feels, and — honestly, it’s kind of cute on him.

Maybe she wasn’t stuck in some weird limbo between a high end makeup store and her room, she’d ask him to explain that math problem to her, though — for some reason, she just knows it now.

What was challenging at few moments ago now feels like child’s play. Math has never come easily to Cas, but she feels like she could breeze through that assignment now.

It’s unnerving, to say the least.

“You’re speaking French, mon ami. We both are, yeah?” And his French is just as good as hers, though heavily accented. American. He’s American, and he’s in her room in Paris, speaking French, holding her textbook and cursing someone called Josh.

But he’s also in a very brightly lit high end makeup store, clutching shopping bags and looking at her like he’s seen a ghost — and maybe he has. Maybe she has.

Maybe they both have.

“Maybe we’re both real,” Cas says quietly. And, well — there’s really only one way to find out.

Calm down. On three, Cassidy.

She counts to three in her head. Licks her lips. Then reaches over and curls her fingers around his hand. Brushes her thumb over the lipstick, and nearly freezes when it smudges. Spreads over his skin.

“Who are you?” she asks again, barely a whisper this time, tearing her gaze away from their hands — both stained with the same smudge — to lock eyes with him.

“No, I don’t know French. I barely passed English... huh.” So in her world, they’re speaking French, but in Jax’s it’s English. Weird, but it makes sense... kind of? Jaxon’s an adaptable guy but this isn’t normal, it isn’t scientifically possible. He may be more of a math guy than a science guy but he knows reality and this is something out of a movie. Someone’s going to yell cut and the scene will end, right? The world will go back to normal where he doesn’t show up in a stranger’s apartment to help with math homework while being halfway across the world.

“I’m-” And then there’s another arm on his shoulder and Jaxon nearly jumps out of his goddamn skin as Kaicee wraps her arm around him. He looks up and mystery girl is nowhere to be seen.

“Babe, you okay?”

“Yeah.” Jax answers with a shaky laugh. He casually looks to the right and left, but she’s gone. Not a bad trip. Not a day dream. It was real. She was real. And he didn’t even get her name. “Just spaced out. My head hurts.”

“Oh no,” Kaicee says with a pout, reaching up to place a kiss on his cheek. She ruffles his messy hair and hooks her arm through his, directing them back towards the car. Thank God.

“We’ll get you some food on the way home, ‘kay?”

“Yeah, fuck,” Cas echoes, looking at the pristine lipstick display, then back at her desk — as if she’s in two places at one — at the very tall, very tan, very muscular guy holding up her textbook.

“I — this is my apartment,” she says, but as soon as she does, she’s staring at a row of Kat Von D liquid lipsticks instead of her math assignment. Cas reaches out to touch one of them, and as her fingers curl around the tube of Lolita II, she opens the cap to swatch the product on her hand, to see if she can really feel it — and she guesses that she sort of can.

It feels — it feels hazy, like passing through mist or fog. Like bubbles at the top of a glass of champagne. Here one moment, gone the next.

“I don’t understand,” she says quietly, looking at the guy’s hand, holding her textbook. The hand where he has a swatch of lipstick identical — absolutely, completely, one hundred percent identical — to the one on hers.

Before she can stop herself, she reaches out, but stops herself before her fingertips can brush against his skin. Because — what if she doesn’t feel anything? What if he’s not really there?

And — what if he is?

“It’s — it’s your color.” Cas lets her hand fall. Gives him a small, lopsided grin. “Very in right now. Very, uh. Chic. Tres bon.”

“French.” Another dumb realization said out loud. Jaxon is batting zero for two today as he realizes the main difference in the textbook in his hand. She must think he’s a fucking idiot.“Your textbook is in French.... Am I speaking French or English?”

The headache is building, growing far too quickly to be normal. Is any of this normal?

“I swear to god if Josh spiked my drink again...” he mutters, low, placing the textbook back down on her desk. Halfway through the motion he realizes there’s freaking lipstick in his hand. It’s the exact one she was just holding a second ago. Or was Jax holding it? He can’t remember. Her smile is very pretty but it doesn’t shake the confusion or fear of the entire situation.

“Chic,” Jaxon repeats sounding like a goddamn parrot today. He shakes his head and puts the lipstick back, his hand shaking a little bit. Jaxon moves to brush his hair off his forehead and nearly hits himself with a shopping bag. Right, he’s back at the mall now. Were the bags on his arm in her apartment? Fuck.

Math isn’t exactly Cassidy’s strongest subject, but she’s got elective spots to fill up, and a future doctor should be good at math, right? It’s kind of expected, after all. Once you’re a doctor you’re automatically supposed to be at least decent at math.

Cas knows this, knows the material well enough, but that doesn’t make it any less tedious. And as an additional fuck you, apparently her answer’s wrong — according to the answer key, anyway. Which is fucking bullshit, because she used the right formula — she checked twice.

When her mistake is pointed out, though, it just seems to click into place — becomes obvious, which would be great if she hadn’t been corrected by some guy with an accent, in her locked apartment.

If this is one of her roommate’s new hookups or one night stands, she’s going to rip Viola a new one.

“Who the fuck are you?!” she almost shrieks, shoving her chair backwards, grabbing her mug off the desk brandishing it at him. A quick once over tells her that, nope, she’s not going to be able to take him. As if his height isn’t bad enough, he’s stacked as hell too.

So, fight is out. Flight is it.

She’s about to toss her now lukewarm coffee at him and sprint for the door until — until they’re not in her bedroom anymore. She’s sitting next to — who the fuck is this dude — the guy who was in her bedroom on a bench. Pandora, Macy’s, Sephora — they’re in a shopping mall of some sort. “What?” she says, looking at him for an explanation. “What the hell is this? Where is this?”

“Woah, this isn’t the mall,” Jaxon breathes out, sounding like an idiot as he takes in mystery girl’s apartment. It’s small and cute - and once again not the freaking mall - and the panic that’s building in Jaxon’s stomach builds a little bit. Did someone spike his drink last night? Everyone knows that Jax doesn’t like to trip during the school year, and if someone messed with his beer there will be hell to fucking pay.

“It’s the mall,” Jaxon says like she should know. Well, she should because she’s there with him. But also, they’re still in her apartment? His head is starting to hurt, really badly, and it’s not from the beer he had for breakfast. This is a head-splitting kind of feeling, starting at the base of his skull. In a matter of minutes it’s going to be bad. 

Suddenly they’re back in the mall and there’s a middle-aged guy looking at Jaxon like he’s fifty shades of crazy. Jaxon shifts all of the bags on his arms and stands up, abruptly, motioning with his head to mystery girl with her not-so-mystery french accent.

It gives Jaxon a chance to look her over and damn, she’s pretty. The accent’s kind of hot, too, and if he wasn’t so confused he might have paid her a compliment. He hides in the corner of the makeup store - Altra? Ultra? something like that - and sucks in another breath. And suddenly, they’re in her apartment again.

“Where is this?” Jaxon repeats her question, even though technically he didn’t answer hers first. Jax lifts the textbook off of her desk so he can see the cover, marvelling at that strange ghost sensation again. Like his brain knows he isn’t really there. It’s comforting in a way. Possibly means he isn’t going crazy. But Jaxon’s brain is scrambling to keep up as he looks back over at her again.