Organic

[Asher Scott]

Asher yawned, glancing at the time again. 12:09 AM. The light of his laptop was the only one in his dorm room, and it was making his eyes ache progressively more with every achingly long minute that passed by. He shook his head, trying to ignore the fog of sleep threatening to take over. Half a page more. Superpowers or not, he decided, essays sucked.

* * *

“...Come on, Ash. The cold shoulder is getting old.”

Asher didn't respond. Head turned to look out the passenger window, he watched the fields of sagebrush and sandy hills go by, wishing he had a room in the car to shut himself into like he'd had back at his dad's house.

Jonathan Scott ran a hand over his close-cropped red hair, bringing it back to the steering wheel with an audible smack. “Come on,” he repeated. Asher could barely see him out the corner of his vision but he could feel his father's eyes on him.

“And what?” he finally asked, voice coming out raspier than he intended. He cleared his throat. “Come on and what, talk to you and tell you how crappy it feels not to have you around anymore?” He could already feel his face burning. It was more than he'd admitted to his dad during his entire two-week visit, and almost more than he'd said at all.

“Yes!” Jonathan grinned, and Asher felt an unfamiliar bubbling of anger. The triumphant tone in Dad's voice was... grating, to say the least. “I do want you to tell me that, Asher. It's a heck of a lot better than just sulking all day, every day, you know? I know you're mad, and that's okay. But this'll probably be the last chance we have to talk face to face for a couple months. Even if you just yell at me, it's better than nothing.”

“I don't want to yell at you.” Asher turned to look out the window again. “Mom misses you too, you know.” He regretted saying that instantly, but his dad didn't seem upset by it.

“And I miss her. Let me tell you a secret, son: divorce is horrible.” Asher rolled his eyes. As if he didn't know. “But when it has to happen, it has to happen. And I know you'd rather stay out there with your mom than move to another state with me.”

That was the worst part, the part that kept Asher miserable the last few nights he'd spent sleeping in an unfamiliar room at his father's new house. Much as he loved and missed his father, he didn't want to move away from his friends and his mother, didn't want it, he didn't want it, he-

What was happening? His shoulder was itching. Looking down, Asher saw his hands shaking. There was something moving across his skin, like little blue shadows...

“Dad?”

He could feel the pressure of something splitting open the flesh of his shoulder. It didn't hurt, but it felt wrong, unnatural. His head began to grow light, vision spinning, colors fading as his mind began to shut down to the sound of shattering glass and screeching tires and the voice of his father shouting something at him over the rushing noise in his ears...

* * *

“Mm?” Asher felt his body twitch itself awake and opened his eyes. The power light on his laptop was flickering, its screen blank. Pressing a random key to wake it from sleep mode, he took his glasses off and rubbed his heavy eyelids, looking at the computer's clock when the monitor came back up. He'd slept for about two hours...

He forced out the closing paragraph of his essay one letter at a time, saved the document, and closed the laptop, setting it haphazardly onto his nearby desk before rolling over and going to sleep.