#8 Return A Favour

"No, it's okay..." Jax hurried to reassure Mathias that he wouldn't mind honouring the agreement to spend the morning together, even if it had been a hasty arrangement made to escape embarrassment. "I've had a weird couple days and kind of wouldn't mind the company?" if Mathias didn't want to hang out with him now that Nyx and Kaspian weren't there to convince, that was also fine. Jax could just go back to the common room like he'd originally planned.

Raising an eyebrow at Mathias, he couldn't help but smile. It sounded as if his housemate had been struck with a touch of jealousy, hadn't it been obvious that Nyx liked him? They seemed to always be together, he thought that they'd have worked it out ages ago- but then, they were teenagers and perhaps that was giving them a little too much credit.

"Well obviously Nyx likes you" he muttered, flicking through his sketchbook until he landed on a clean page. "She'd probably already made plans with Kaspian and didn't want to hurt his feelings by bailing on him this morning" Jax figured it must suck for Matt, considering he'd just told the girl that he liked her and she went to hang out with someone else, but at least he'd received a positive response from her.

Jax startled a little when Mathias asked him about his sketchbook and he gave the slightest of nods in return. "A little..." he figured that this was an attempt at making conversation, because nobody had ever really asked about his drawings before.

"It's kind of therapeutic? Drawing" he expanded, flinching slightly as Mathias seemed to leap effortlessly into the tree that he was sitting beneath. He had never seen someone climb a tree so quickly, but figured that maybe... This was normal Mathias behaviour. 

When Mathias explained about the trees that they had back home, it made more sense- he'd probably grown up climbing those huge trees and that was why he seemed so at home in the trees. Jaxen preferred to keep his feet on the ground, but maybe that was because if he fell and broke his neck Reena would kill him.

"I don't really mind spiders... Maybe you could show me the tree sometime? I mean... If I ever stop by your place?" he suggested, before realising that sounded rather assumptive of him "-not that I'm asking for an invitation! Just... If you ever wanted to show me, that would be cool" great now it seemed like he was expecting an invitation at some point, and he didn't even know if Mathias considered him a friend.

Jaxen should've expected a question to follow-up his words, but how was he supposed to answer truthfully. He didn't completely understand everything that had happened recently himself, and he reckoned Reena would have more questions once she wrapped her mind around all of it- did he really want to explain all of that to someone else?

Shrugging, he stared determinedly at his sketchbook without making any attempt to actually draw anything. "I don't know... I learned some stuff recently, it's messed with my head a little" he didn't want to go into it at that moment, especially as he wasn't sure if Reena would appreciate discussing the matter with someone else after she'd only just found out herself.

"'Artsy drawing' just takes practice" Jax said, smiling at Mathias's description and closing the book slowly. He didn't tend to show other's his drawings, especially before they were finished... Unless he'd drawn it specifically for that person. "I draw a lot of things... People, animals, objects... I guess it depends on what mood I'm in?" maybe he'd show him one day, or maybe it would remain private.

When Matt mentioned that he'd never been allowed to invite anyone over to his house, he understood that. He never had friends visit either, but his reason for that was probably different to Matt's. "Are girlfriends allowed?" he asked, not entirely understanding the rules of sleepovers, but he assumed each set of parents had their own rules for how they dealt with them.

"That would be cool!" the tree that Matt spoke of sounded like a cool subject for drawing and Matt seemed cool too. Even if he couldn't return the offer of inviting him to hang out at his house, he hoped that wouldn't impact their friendship.

"I think Lunch will be starting soon, wanna start heading back?" they could always hang out later that evening if Matt wasn't too busy hanging out with Nyx.