jamie and eric-32-Jamie makes it through the pain

The pressure of the windowsill returned to Jamie’s awareness. The pain starting to give way to shakiness. Shakiness and that gentle tug. If he could move he should leave, Jamie decided. His body felt achey and numb as he continued to climb the steps. His head lowered, his hair falling into his face, Jamie thought about the position of his body. He kept his back straight and his step swift. In case his gait gave away the discomfort he was feeling in his body.

But it wasn’t just physical. Jamie felt drained, almost in a good way. It left like huge weights had been lifted from his chest. Tears wanted to follow. But Jamie wasn’t so weak as to give into tears. He swallowed, but his throat felt tight. Jamie could only think about what would come. Think about when Master Brown found out what he had done. Think about what Eric would say the next time he saw Jamie. Or do…

Jamie did pass a student rushing down the stairwells at unsafe speed. She was actually wearing stiff white student robes. Students usually only wore their white robes during ceremonies. Jamie turned to watch her bright red hair bounce after her as she raced down the steps. Besides being itchy, they were hard to keep immaculate. Jamie didn’t remember Master Brown mentioning any auspicious events, and there certainly weren’t any graduation ceremonies going on this time of year. As the girl rounded the stairs below him she sped out of view and Jamie let the distraction of wondering about her purpose leave him too.

The bond strength test was in two hours roughly. Jamie had seven more flights of stairs to climb, but his pace was picking up. The youngest, least prestigious masters were housed at the top of the four towers allowing the older more profitable professors the easily accessible suites. The lower suites were also larger.

Jamie planned to meet Eric at Master Dragonbreath’s classroom for the test. Although he wasn’t entirely sure that Eric would remember where to go. Eric was never completely awake in the morning when Master Brown told him the things he was supposed to remember that day. He was so asleep in fact that this morning Eric put his boiled egg into his oatmeal and mixed it in. Eric seemed to register that his oatmeal didn’t taste quite right, by the grimace that had been on his face, but that didn’t stop him from finishing the bowl.

Five more flights. Jamie felt mostly back to normal, physically. He could climb the stairs at his normal pace at least. If he showed up on time to Master Dragonbreath’s room without Eric, that would raise suspicion. As much as Jamie wanted to put off dealing with the consequences of once again being bonded to Eric… Maybe Eric would play Jamie’s game of pretending everything was normal. That nothing big had happened. Then Master Brown and Dahlia and Bridgett would never say anything.

But really what was the worst that could happen? It’s not like Master Brown was going to punish him. No worse, she would want to have a heart to heart with Jamie to discuss his psychological scarring. She would want to know why he did it. Eric will want to know why…

* * *

Jamie was trying to settle into his work, but his eyes kept nervously twitching towards the clock. He had finally admitted to himself that he needed to bring his research back to ground zero. That no matter how many pretty graphs or complicated transformations he made from his data there still weren’t any distinct trends. And ground zero meant more research. Being fairly caught up with the leading edge of bond related publications, Jamie decided it would be worth his time to reread some old “favorites” for anything that he might have missed the first five times. It was either that or pick a new subject to devote his life to.

Forty-five minutes until Master Dragonbreath was expecting them. When should Jamie leave? It would only take fifteen minutes to walk there, but he would have to find Eric first. Or at least he should. But if Jamie was any judge of distance and position based on the tug of the bond, Eric was at the same height above the ground, but too far away to be in the West Tower. And he hadn’t moved position significantly for awhile… Could he have gotten confused?

“Eric? Wher-“ But before Jamie could finish the thought message to Eric the echo interrupted him, “Ee-er-ri-ri-ic… W-wh-wh-er-“

Jamie’s whole body froze.