Notes: I'm soooooo sorry it took this long to get this out! I'm not dead, just a bit lost! I had major writer's block with this story. Thanks to Neko-chan for her SUPER huge review!! This is for you, Neko!

     "Well, then what's your favorite food?" Jessica skipped ahead of the group and walked backwards, questioning the blond boy. She managed to keep out of the way of his swinging cane, and also keep from being tripped at the same time, quite a feat for the klutzy blond girl.
     "Artichoke and Anchovy salad," Mason replied, testing her reaction.
     "What, ewww!! How the hell could you eat something that VILE??" she stopped walking backwards, coming to walk next to her boyfriend, Vaughn. The group, consisting of Nick, David, Eddie, Vaughn, Jessica and Mason, were walking to the courtyard, where they usually ate their lunch on sunny days. And today was as sunny as they came.
     "I'm kidding. I like them both, just not together. My favorite is Taco Salads." He laughed at the 'hmph!' sound she made.
     "Fine then, be that way. What's your favorite book?"
     "What is this, Jess?" Vaughn asked. "The Spanish Inquisition?"
     "Huh?" They sat down on the stone benches ringing the elm in the center of the courtyard and got out their lunches.
     "BECAUSE NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION!!" the boys said in unison. Loudly.
     "What?" Mason asked, tilting his head slightly. "I'm a bit confuzzled."
     'He looks so cute like that,' Nick thought, then shook his head. "One of the Monty Python movies. Or possibly the TV show. I'm not sure."
     "Movie?"
     'Oops' "Oh, right, sorry. Visual thing," he muttered, looking at the ground shamefully. Mason's next words however, caused him to snap back up.
     "Stop that!! You don't have to walk on goddamn eggshells around me simply because I won't ever understand 'Visual Things', or because I happen to get picked on a lot. I'm not some baby just because I've had a hard life, and I refuse to be treated like one again. Just explain what you mean and be done with it, don't say 'Sorry' and act like you accidentally nuked Canada!" Mason gripped his cane tightly in his anger. The others evacuated the scene. In the 3 days they had known him, they had come to realize he had a temper like his aunt's: Short, Volatile and Violent.
     Nick reached over and touched Mason's hands gently. "That's the thing, Mason. I don't know how to act around you. Some subjects seem to upset you, and you withdraw into yourself. Some things make you explode. Half the time, I'm not sure what to say. For the first time in my life, I'm thinking before I speak. And I don't know why."
     Mason pulled away from Nick's warm grip. "Maybe I just don't like you," he replied caustically.
     Nick felt like he had just been hit with a baseball bat. "What?"
     "I meant what I said. Maybe I don't like you."
     "You act like last Friday never happened." Nick murmured softly.
     "Nothing happened on Friday."
     "LIKE HELL NOTHING HAPPENED!" Nick jumped up from the bench. Looking around sheepishly at the various surprised students nearby, including his own shocked friends not too far away, he sat back down. "Like hell nothing happened on Friday," he repeated firmly. "You fucking cried on me."
     "So I broke down," Mason hissed. "Happens all the time. Nothing special. Remember? I'm just the blind brat, the poor baby." With as much dignity as a blind boy could muster, he stalked off, taking his backpack, but leaving his picked apart lunch.
     Nick came out of his stupor as Vaughn's hand met the back of his head. "Ow! What the hell was that for," he cried, looking up at his best friend.
     "What the hell did you say to him?" Vaughn demanded. "We're supposed to be keeping an eye out for him, not chasing him off!"
     "I didn't say anything! He just got touchy all of a sudden and stormed off. He's like a fucking girl!" In his anger, Nick began to slam his things back into his backpack and clean up his lunch mess and Mason's.
     "Hey!" Jessica stamped her foot in indignation. "What the hell's that supposed to mean?"
     Nick rolled his eyes and resolved to dig himself out of the grave he wasn't aware was under him. "I mean that the female body's hormones are different from a guys, and that you have a different grasp on emotions then we do. You're more prone to extreme emotions then guys. No offense meant in the statement."
     "None taken, Nick. But it's not me you need to apologize to. You need to find Mason."
     "But I didn't do anything!!"

     "Thanks for letting me talk to you without my sister or Mason around, Mae." Nick flopped down in a less then graceful slouch on the park bench, the typical manner of teenage boys; ignoring the patronizing look Mae sent his way.
     "It's not a problem, Nick," Mae replied. "You sounded pretty upset on the phone. And you didn't come over on Monday or this morning like I thought you were. I was kinda disappointed. You and Mason seemed to be hitting it off on Friday and Saturday."
     "Well, that's kinda the problem." He covered his face with his hands and sighed. "Everything seemed to go just fine this weekend, like you said. But yesterday, at lunch, Mason blew up at me for something I thought was petty. He hasn't talked to me since."
     "Oh. Well, what exactly did he say?" She sounded concerned for her nephew.
     He briefly outlined the argument for her, including the part about nothing happening the previous Friday.
     "Well, Nick, he does have a point."
     "Huh?" was his articulate and intelligent response.
     "Mason does have a tendency to break down randomly for odd reasons. I don't think he has the world's best grip on his emotions. He was raised not to let them show, so when the do, they tend to be in weird outbursts like Friday."
     "But then why would that have anything to do with him no liking me?"
     "Well, Mason's got a bit of a trust issue. He's had very little contact with the guys until recently. The school he went to before, Barbery? They taught him how to interact with the world around him, and become an important member of society and all that crap. But they were constantly writing to me, saying how untrusting he was, or how he wasn't getting along with ANYONE up there. So it's not just you. You've just got to give him a bit of space, to get used to you. Leave him be for a couple of days, and see if things don't clear up a bit. Ok?"
     Nick smiled. "Yeah, just peachy. Well, I better get going. Amy wants me home soon." He stood up and walked away, smiling the whole time.

     But by the following Friday, things had not only not gotten better, they had actually gotten worse. Mason had refused to even be by Nick, avoided the other guys, and was starting to do things to deliberately annoy Mae. The finally straw came when he was eating dinner that night, face pointed in her direction, and eating his mashed potatoes with his fingers. She asked him to stop, but for all the good it did, she might as well have been speaking Russian. She finally had had enough.
     "Shit, Mason! What the hell is wrong with you?" Mason turned his face away from his aunt, not saying a word. She reached out and gripped his chin, turning his head back to her. "You may not be able to see me, but dammit, you WILL face me!"
     To her annoyance, his face was completely blank. She paused in her anger to study him, releasing the pressure, but not her hold on his face. He seemed to be waiting for her reaction. Testing her . . . She gasped slightly at the thought.
     "Is that what this is, Mason? This, and your fight with Nick and the others? Are you seeing how far you can push before we push back?" Still no words, but a slight widening of his eyes, and stiffening of his shoulders reaffirmed Mae's belief.
     Before she could say anything else, he pushed back from the table, and her, and fled to his bedroom. Mae had no choice but to follow at a more sedate pace, wincing as he slammed the door. Opening it a lot softer then it had been shut, she peered in, choosing to look around the room before speaking.
     Nothing adorned the walls of the room, nothing speaking of the person living within their confines. She walked over to his closet and pushed open the doors. Emptiness greeted her eyes. No clothes, no shoes, just some empty hangers. She likewise opened his dresser, finding it just as empty as the closet. Though it had been months, all his clothes were still in the trunk he had returned from Barbery in, as if he believed he was going to be shipped off soon, and didn't want to bother unpacking. Mae supposed that's exactly what he was thinking. She turned to the bed in the corner, gazing at the figure curled up in a ball in the middle.
     "You don't really expect to stay here, do you, Mason? All your life, you've been pushed from one place to another, no on really wanting you." She sat down on the edge of his bed, and placed her hand on his shoulder, frowning when he flinched. "That's why you're pushing Nick away. You don't quite conceptualize 'Friends' and figure it will hurt less if you don't have any when you go. And you're attacking me for the same reason: to make your inevitable departure happen faster."
     Mae sighed and laid her forehead down on his side, her voice becoming little more then a murmur. "What you don't understand is, that you're not going anywhere. I'm not getting rid of you. I know we took a bit to get used to each other, and you spent that time at Barbery, in Seattle, but I genuinely like having you here. You're all the family I have left, and I don't want to lose you. But you're pushing me away, Mason. I don't want to have to choose between you and my sanity. Please understand that I'm not getting rid of you. You can put your clothes in the dresser, because if you don't wear them, they'll be there a long time. I love you, very much, and it hurts me to see you don't trust me at all."
     Mason made a whimpering noise, and rolled over to face Mae. She took in the tears on his cheeks, and the shame on his face, and wrapped her arms around him. He sat up, and buried his face in her shoulder, still not saying anything.
     "This will work out, Mason," she whispered into his hair. "But you have to want to stay, too. You can't have me, or Nick, do all the work."
     "I don't want to go anywhere else," he whispered back.

End notes: There, it's done. I'm sorry it took so long to post this. ::sheepish grin::