It was amazing how much more valuable life seemed when it wasn't a guaranteed commodity anymore, Jon reflected, staring down at a particularly greenish penny at the bottom of the fountain. How had this happened? How had he gone from living, loving, and pretending that there was no tomorrow, to landing himself in the middle of a reality in which there really might not be? Well, that wasn't entirely accurate. There would be a tomorrow. And a day after, and the day after that, and so on, probably. But now, it was entirely possible that there might not be another year...or even another six months. Fuck that, he thought. He wasn't going down that easily.

He shifted, the stone edge of the fountain pressing uncomfortably on his tailbone. He was sitting facing the inside of the fountain, jeans rolled up to his thighs, legs dangling into the frigid water. He could see his toes, distorted and white somewhere beneath the rippling surface, and he swished his feet absent-mindedly before grasping the edge of the wall and scooting himself to the side a little. An unexpected pain registered in his left hand, and he brought his hand up, hissing at the sting. The stone, apparently sharp enough in the place he had grasped to cut through his skin, had left a small cut on his finger, and he made a face, plunging the finger into the cold water, forgoing any concern over what microorganisms might be living there in the hopes that the low temperature would make the cut feel better.

A tendril of red snaked out from the cut, twisting away in the water as he watched. He swirled the cut finger, trying to obliterate the traces of his traitorous blood, and sat up, leaving his hand dripping, resting on the smooth rock surface beside him. He drew a hand through his hair, grimacing at the dark brown strands that pulled away. How long would it take, he wondered, before he didn't have enough of his own left to lie about it anymore? Maybe he should just shave his head now, and say it was a random impulse. Brett would think he was being even more of a complete dork than he was already, though. Jon sighed. His relationship with his brother was one of the most complicated things in his already-complicated life. They'd been at each others' throats for what seemed like forever, but they were still brothers, and no amount of fighting could change that. But Brett didn't know about all of this. Jon couldn't tell him, because..well, Brett thought he was a wuss, anyway. Jon had a feeling this would just make it worse.

Whatever the case, he wasn't going to give up. He knew it wasn't realistic to just take things for granted, to pretend like nothing was wrong. But he'd be damned if he'd sit around and feel sorry for himself. If he had three months, six months, or hell, years to live, he wasn't going to waste them in morose little fits of self-pity. He was sure Brett had spread all kinds of stories about him, intentionally or not, and he probably had a reputation to overcome. He had a feeling, though, that there was someone at this school not already devoted to his brother's cause. He just had to find them...

So absorbed was Jon in his own thoughts that he didn't even hear the the footsteps behind him as someone else came up. He leaned forwards slightly, peering down into the water. It was a lot clearer than his mind felt at the moment. He'd told himself that he'd just act like nothing was going on, and try to convince everyone else that it was the truth. At first, it hadn't been that hard. He'd gotten winded a little easier playing lacrosse, or when he ran track, but for the most part, he was all right. As time had gone by, though, he had realized that for all his pretenses, there were mornings when he woke up and had to summon every shred of willpower in him just to roll out of bed. Today had been one of those days. He felt sluggish, like everything around him was flying by and he was moving in slow motion in comparison.

If he let himself fall in, would the coldness of the water wake him up? The water, despite the chilly air around him, looked so tempting. He leaned forwards, eyes focused on the darker portions of the water near the bottom. It wasn't that deep, and he certainly wasn't desperate enough to make some lame suicide attempt in water that was two feet deep at most, but he just wanted something to snap him out of this fog he had fallen into.

The something turned out to be the voice of another boy, who'd apparently come up behind him when Jon wasn't paying attention. He heard something about bacteria, and couldn't prevent the smile of irony that spread across his face. Bacteria...bacteria were the least of Jon's problems. "I'll remember that." he said, though, since the guy had been nice enough to offer him a little advice - more importantly, that he'd cared. He didn't think he recognized him, although that wasn't really much of a surprise, considering he'd been here less than a month.

"I'm Jon." he said, holding out his right hand, which, fortunately, wasn't the one bleeding. "Don't think I know you."

After something of an unsettling hesitation, the other boy took the hand Jon had offered, and Jon shook it, enthusiastically as he'd always been taught, but not so hard as to wrench off his hand at the wrist. "Alexandre." he repeated. trying his best to pronounce it as the other had. There was a foreign lilt to the other boy's speech, but Jon hadn't quite identified the nationality of it, due to the soft tone in which the words had been spoken.

"Sophomore." Jon replied, labeling his own academic level. "Just transferred here from Phillips Prep in San Diego. I'm from New York, though, originally." He wasn't sure why he thought Alexandre would care, he was just trying to provide some sort of circumstantial information about himself. "No, I don't surf." he added, cracking a smile. "People seem to think if you live in California, you're a surfer guy."

"How about you?" He was fairly certain that he'd receive an answer that might not be expected of every ordinary student; there was usually a large international population at a west coast school like the one he'd attended previously and he'd had some experience with accents and the like, but he didn't want to assume.