-- WHEN THE LIGHTS GO OUT [Ashton]

The morning started as it usually did for Ashton—late. He knew that it would have been a smart idea to get up when his alarm went off at six in the morning and finish his Math homework but he also knew that this bed was fucking comfortable. Lying on his stomach with his face pressed into the pillow, the Earth leader decided he could wait it out a little longer. It was not until he heard the morning mumblings in the common room grow louder that he realised that it must be close to the start of class. He yawned as he emerged from the room, pulling a shirt on as he went and nearly bumping into one of his friends. "Sorry," he said automatically, chuckling, and the other Earth smiled. Not many of them had significant problems with anger and so you were about as likely to start a fight in the dormitories as you were in the classroom. His homework remained neglected, sitting pressed underneath two heavy textbooks whose contents he did not care to peruse. Instead he flopped down on the couch between two others and threw his arms around them in exaggeration affection. "What a great morning, eh?" Understanding that he hated it as much as she, the girl laughed softly. Their other friend gave him a weird look before he caught on and rolled his eyes in a good-natured manner. "Good morning my ass." Yes, Ashton agreed with him there. No morning involving school was a good one.

Clarke was the same age as Ashton, his former room mate before he'd moved into the leader's singular dorm, and Jodie a year younger. He considered them both pretty good friends, so when Clarke shrugged his arm away and asked, "So what's your plan for the day, Ash?" the Earth elemental was reminded of something he'd arranged to do. "I was thinking of playing some sports, actually. Casual, like. Wanna tag along? You can come too, Jodie." Jodie nodded enthusiastically while Clarke, also agreeing, was more subdued. "Anyone else coming with?" Jo's chipper tone made him hesitate. Would they judge him? He and his counterpart had already made the announcement about their acceptance of a traitor but he was not sure of individual opinions. "Lark," he said truthfully and caught a gleam of recognition in Jodie's gaze. "She's in my class!" Clarke merely looked contemplative and Ashton could not tell if he approved. "Do you guys mind?" He hated asking, like he was offering his new friend up for judgement, but he knew it was necessary. Thankfully, both shook their heads. "As long as she doesn't try to toast us if she loses." Clarke's words were a typical sign of stereotype and Ashton couldn't blame him. He saw Fires in a very similar way. "Lark is alright." It was time for class, then, and Clarke left with Ashton while Jodie slipped down another corridor in the direction of her own.

Perhaps due to their chatty nature, Ashton and Clarke had been placed as far apart in the classroom as possible. Clarke sat on the far right, in the very front beside the door. Ashton was in the back corner on the left side of the classroom. It was an arrangement they'd grudgingly adapted to. The Water elemental Ash was sitting beside seemed in a restless mood today, pegging him gently with erasers until Ashton finally turned to him and raised an eyebrow. "Wanna hang out after class?" Thomas was a pot-head, a stoner, and so he wasn't a part of Ashton's 'usual' crowd, instead hanging around frequently at parties. It didn't bug Ashton too much, though, and he would have said yes if not for his earlier plans. "Can't," he said. Though he was whispering, he could feel the teacher glaring at them. "I'm playing some sports with friends." Tom's eyes lit up. "Can I tag along?" Ashton opened his mouth to respond and the professor said loudly, "Quiet in the back of the room." Closing his mouth and ducking his head in mild embarrassment at being caught, Ashton instead gave Tom a nod and bent his head back over his own work. Damn it, he was so bad at Math.

That in mind, he was relieved when school was done for the day and he was able to escape into the sunshine. Clarke met up with the pair outside the classroom and said that Jodie would meet them by the entrance. Sure enough, she was there when they opened the door. "I saw Lark in class but I didn't want to be creepy so I thought I'd wait for you guys." Ashton laughed and Tom raised an eyebrow at her, Clarke saying nothing. He was quiet for an Earth elemental but Ashton always had a habit of making him talk more than usual. He spotted Lark and made his way over to where she sat, grinning when he was close enough. "Hey!" Though Ashton had been prepared to get obligatory introductions out of the way, Thomas seemed to take it upon himself to make the first move. "Yo, you're Lark, right? Fire chick?" Like most Waters, Tom was outgoing. He was also a prankster, though Ashton hoped he had nothing up his sleeve. Upon his initiative, Jodie smiled at the Fire elemental. "We're in a few classes together. I'm Jodie, this is Clarke." She gestured to the quietest member of their group and he, too, offered a smile, also adding a light wave. "You came prepared, huh? Should we start with some soccer?" He could see that she had one of the black and white balls nestled in her bag.

Ashton was oblivious as usual to how uncomfortable Lark really was. Being such a friendly person by nature, it was hard for him to grasp how awkward crowds could be for certain people. His friends were pleasant enough to her, at least, something that he'd admittedly been a tad worried about. Especially with Tom, seeing as he was not an Earth and had no obligation to Ashton other than as a friend to be kind to her. The Water in question nodded when Lark confirmed her identity. "Tom." He cast her a cocky sort of half-smirk that was nevertheless friendly. Thomas' attitude could take some getting used to but he'd been Ashton's classmate since the ninth grade and 'used to it' didn't even begin to describe how jaded the Earth was toward him. He was a good guy with bad habits. "Two on three sounds good," he said. "Us two versus you three sound good?" He gestured first at himself and Lark, then at the rest of the group. He didn't want to make Lark too uncomfortable too fast by making her team up with someone like Tom. The Water was good at making things awkward if you didn't know him well. "We can switch up the teams at the end of each game?" He voiced it as a question, wanting the approval of the group. Jodie and Clarke both nodded, Tom giving an emphatic thumbs up.

Jodie was probably the best player on the other side, outmatching both Clarke and Tom with her skill. She kicked the soccerball up into the air and bounced it off her knee, rolled it over her shoulder and kicked it back up with her heel. Ashton smiled and Tom grinned, shoving her playfully. "Don't show off, Jo." She responded by kicking the ball as hard as she could, all the way to the edge of the woods a fair bit away from them. "I'll get it," Clarke offered. "Sorry about that," Jo laughed, not really sounding sorry at all. She was friendly and nice but she was proud as well. Ashton was eager to see how good Lark was and if she could compete against the other three. Ash himself was decent enough, having been a tad modest before. He played quite often recreationally, it simply wasn't enough of a hobby for him to get really good. "How was class?' Ashton asked Lark as Thomas gave an exaggerated sigh and lay back in the grass. "Tom and I nearly landed ourselves in detention." He grinned sheepishly, seeming amused by the thought. It wouldn't be the first time he'd gotten sent to detention. Ashton was not violent and hardly ever went down there for fighting but he missed classes, forgot homework, disrupted classes... he was no angel.

"You play sports too, huh Lark? You on any teams?" Jodie's voice was friendly enough but Ashton wondered if she had an ulterior, competitive motive. His lips formed a smile at the thought. He was used to Jodie's attitude. "Jodie's on the soccer team." The Earth girl, currently tying her hair back into a tight ponytail so it didn't move around and get in her face when she was running, nodded. "Forward." Clarke returned at that moment and Jodie grinned at them. "Prepare to get your ass kicked, Ashy." Tom backed her up with an enthusiastic, "Yeah!" and Clarke merely continued smiling. Ashton exchanged a glance with Lark and grinned himself. "Hey, don't count us out yet." As the school's actual soccer field was reserved for gym class at the current time, they devised a make-shift field with a tree as one 'goal' and a worn path through the grass down toward the lake as the other. He was a bit concerned about kicking into the lake but not bothered enough that he said anything. "We'll probably need to alternate goal-keeping," he said to Lark, seeing as there were only two of them. "I'll take first round." He didn't mind goal-keeping, after all. He was a bit better at it than he was at scoring goals anyway.

Taking interest in anything that his friends were passionate about, Ashton's green eyes lit up when Lark mentioned writing a new song. "Ooh, really?" He always envied people with the talent to write and compose music but it was a good kind of envy, more of an admiration than a fierce jealousy. He didn't think he could be angry at anyone because they were good at something. That was unfair. "What's it about?" he wondered. "Or is it for the guitar?" He wasn't entirely sure what went into the process of singing and song writing so he frowned softly as he corrected himself. It was not an unhappy look, merely a confused one, and he shrugged and cleared it up a moment later. No use dizzying himself by trying to work it out. He'd let Lark tell him instead, for he trusted her words more than he trusted his mind on the subject. The fact that some people did not like to open up about their talents was not something he took into consideration. He was a nice guy but he was so curious and friendly that he often forgot that many people had boundaries. 'Think before you speak' wasn't a phrase that he lived by. He did enough thinking at school to last him a lifetime. He laughed when she called him a rule-breaker. "What'd you do?" People could get detention for any number of reasons at the Academy so he told himself firmly that he shouldn't jump to conclusions.

As Jodie was an Earth elemental, any anger she had quickly evaporated and her competitive nature lasted only for the duration of the game. She'd sneer insults to distract her opponent during the match itself and then shake hands with a smile afterwards. It had confused Ashton in the beginning but they'd known one another for long enough that, just as with Tom, he was used to her. Speaking of Tom, he swaggered forward confidently when Lark spoke. "I'll take it." Jodie rolled her eyes at him but didn't protest and it seemed that Clarke would be Ashton's equal when it came to goal-keeping. Ash wasn't surprised, given how calm and quiet his fellow Earth was. Once the game had started, he tried his best to focus on the ball rather than the players. He wondered how Lark would fare when it was two on one but didn't really mind whether they won or lost regardless. He blocked the ball quite a few times before it actually slipped past him, owing to the fact that Jodie called his name and distracted him. "Hey!" he shouted, but he was smiling slightly and sounded good-natured. "I don't think that's allowed!" She placed a hand over her heart as if offended. "I was only trying to warn you!" Ashton laughed. Warn me, my ass. He put the ball back into the game without protest, however.

After they'd played a few rounds and switched teams several times, most of the group agreed that it would be a good idea to stop for the day. Ashton wasn't about to protest, seeing as they'd been playing for a while and he felt really thirsty. "Hey, Lark," he said, to get her attention. "You want to head down to the mess hall or something and get a drink?" He'd arranged this whole thing in order to hang out with her so he figured he'd let her know he wasn't planning on ditching just yet. Jodie, Clarke, and Tom seemed to have other plans. The Water elemental was the first to leave and the others came over to say farewell before they did. "Good game, Lark," Jodie said, nodding and holding out her hand. Clarke just smiled slightly. "Nice meeting you. Don't mind Tom." The boy had left abruptly without so much as a warning. It was typical for him and so Ashton shrugged it off easily enough. Jodie and Clarke left together and the Earth leader smiled at his friend. "I think that went well. What about you? Jo and Clarke seem to like you. Tom... well I can never tell with him, really." He laughed and shrugged. "He's a strange guy."

He tilted his head when he realised she'd avoided answering what it was about, catching on and smiling softly. "Is it like a secret?" He could deal with that. Ashton was nosy and very persistent with his questions but even he understood the meaning of something kept private. If someone made it obvious that they did not want him to push any further, he would stop. He wasn't always the best at picking up subtle cues but her outright evasive answer had been hint enough. It didn't bother him. "No, I wouldn't expect it's that easy to write an entire song, eh? Well, good luck!" He was envious of her talent but not in a bitter way. It was more like he was happy for her but at the same time wished he could have that sort of gift. He hadn't really found anything he was really good at, besides manipulating his element of course. Maybe that was meant to be his speciality in life. He laughed when she said she'd gotten caught sleeping in class. "Not getting enough sleep at night? I hate when that happens. School starts too early." At the same time, Ashton knew he'd complain about there being no time for fun in the day if it started in the afternoon and ended too late. There really was no way to win. He'd prefer it didn't exist. "Tom and I were just talking." It was a good thing the teacher had let them off with a warning. Detention was more boring than school.

The game had been fun and the outcome positive. Apparently Lark thought so to, even admitting it in her own way. "Of course they were!" Though he said it as if their refusal to play would have been absolutely absurd, Ashton hadn't been quite as confident as he'd put across to Lark. He'd wanted her to feel optimistic and so he'd tried to be as positive as he possibly could. It seemed it had paid off in the end. The Earths weren't nearly as judgemental as, say, the Thunders, but they still stuck heavily by the alliances. All of the elements did. Sometimes he wondered how it felt to be defective but even Ash wasn't going to ask something like that. Ashton sighed in relief at the air-conditioned hallway, glad that the dungeons were far enough away that their fierce heat did not penetrate the air. He didn't know how the Fires stood being down there every day, really. "No problem!" he said cheerfully. "Any time you wanna hang out again, I'm up for pulling a crowd together." He prided himself in his social prowess, at least. He couldn't play guitar or carry a tune but he sure could network with a wide range of people. "She's good, isn't she? Do you like being challenged?" He was honestly curious. Some people hated it, others thrived off it. Ashton didn't mind either way.

The halls were mostly empty, the majority of the students taking advantage of the nice weather outside. They could not be blamed, for it really was nice out. He figured he might go back out in it once he'd had a drink and rested up a bit. Maybe Lark will be up for it, too. For now, though, his main priority was to quench his thirst. "Hey, guys, come here for a minute!" Ashton blinked and paused in his stride, glancing back down the hall to where Tom was gesturing to them from a half-open door. The Earth leader glanced at Lark and raised an eyebrow, then shrugged and approached the Water, following him into the room. "What is it?" Rather than explaining, Tom laughed and replied, "Sorry, Ash, Lark." Before he could get the words 'Sorry for what?' past his lips, Ashton heard the door slam shut and the room was plunged into darkness. Completely windowless, it was pitch black enough that he could see absolutely nothing in front of him. "Ugh, Tom," Ashton said in exasperation. "He's always doing things like this. I think he might have locked the door... can you light things up so we can find a way out?" He would have directed his gaze toward Lark but as he could not see her, he was unable to do so?

Ashton nodded, realising that now would be a good time to drop the subject. He might have been oblivious to certain cues but there wasn't anything much clearer than a flat-out secret. He grinned when she said she might let him listen one day, excited at the prospect. He tried not to get too ahead of himself, in case she changed her mind in the future, but it was a thrilling thing. He loved to watch his friends express their talents. "Sure, I'd like that." He couldn't drink in bars but he was sure it would be alright as long as it was an official all ages gig. He was almost old enough, he would be if he lived in a province like Quebec, but it would be another year before he had real freedom. It was alright, though, because Ash wasn't a heavy enough drinker to mind. He drank only socially, at parties with friends. "You do? I had no idea. Is it hard?" He'd never had insomnia before, didn't know how it felt. He knew how it felt to be incredibly tired after a night of staying up but he did not know insomnia. He hoped it got better for her sake. "That does sound good," he agreed. There was mild surprise that challenges didn't infuriate her but he didn't voice this, realising that he was stereotyping again. I need to stop that. He always felt guilty for slapping labels on people but he could not help it, especially when labels at the Academy tended to be a lot more accurate than any one elemental would care to admit.

Though Lark's grip was gentle when they were plunged into pitch black, Ashton still jumped slightly in alarm. He was an easily alarmed person, after all, quite jumpy even if there was no reason to be. Getting locked into a room where you couldn't see two inches ahead was definitely a sensible place to be a little nervous. He did not fear the dark, though, and once he realised it was Lark's hand that had brushed him he relaxed and didn't bother trying to shake her off. It was nice to know where she was so that he didn't go to take a step and slam right into her. There was no need to add injuries to the insult of Tom's unfair prank. Ashton himself was not all that offended, used to Waters and their little games, but he was quite surprised at Lark's reaction. The room was quiet enough for him to hear her affected breathing and he wondered why she was worrying as much as she was, not connecting immediately that it was a phobia. He thought perhaps it might be anger and felt a pulse of fear. Then he chastised himself. You shouldn't be afraid of your friends... He couldn't help it, though, and he swallowed nervously, flinching when she slammed her fist down. As long as she didn't hit him, it would be okay. She's mad at Tom, not you, he reminded himself, calming a little at this. "If you're still there, Tom, you've had your fun!" he said, rolling his eyes in irritation despite that no one else could see. "Open the door." Nothing. Not even a giggle from the other side of the door, no sounds of breathing, footsteps, shifting. "Seems he left." It sucked for them, really.

It concerned him that she didn't use her powers to light the room and he had almost forgotten she was holding his arm until she let go. It was when she started to speak that he realised she might have been scared rather than angry and it took him several seconds to register this. What do I do? He was good at comforting people but that was when they wanted comfort. Would Lark snap at him if he tried to be consoling? He decided to take the situation slow. "Again? This has happened to you before?" Not that it would be very rare, thanks to the population of Waters in the school. Sighing softly and running a hand through his brown hair, Ashton felt felt the wall. "I'm going to try and find the lights." He accidentally nudged Lark with his foot and mumbled a quick and sincere apology before stepping in the other direction, moving slowly and bumping into several desks and chairs on the way. At one point he nearly tripped but caught himself on the edge of a table. "I'm okay!" Eventually he found the wall and felt his way along it, a triumphant noise rising in his throat when his fingers touched the light switch. It made a soft click when he flicked it... and nothing else happened. "... Looks like he's cut the power. For fuck's sakes, Tom!" Swearing was unlike him but if Lark was scared, it upset him that Tom would go that far. "Where are you? I need to find my way back over there..."

It was lucky for Lark that Ashton was not a judgemental person and felt only sympathy when he realised how scared she must have felt. He was scared of spiders but it was the only legitimate phobia that he had. Thinking of how he felt when he spotted one of the creepy, eight-legged arachnids from across the room, he could only imagine what Lark was feeling now. Like being trapped in a whole room full of spiders. The thought made him shiver and he tried to work a little faster in finding the lights because he wanted to make this better. That was one of the few things he was good at. He liked fixing things for his friends, solving their problems and simply being there for them when they needed a shoulder to cry on. "I'm trying," he promised her. When he flipped the switch to find nothing but a still-dark room and a soft click greeting him, the brief rush of frustration filling him. It faded and died quickly because he was not an angry person by nature. It was hard for him to retain the ugly feelings of rage and hate. He didn't even hate his ex after all she'd put him through. Leading him on, leaving without a word, coming back and starting it all over again. He did not hate Tom despite how cruel the prank had been. He was upset with him, though. I'll get him back for this... In reality he'd probably only give his friend a stern talking to, chew him out for a while. Tom would roll his eyes, laugh, insist that Ashton took things too seriously.

He felt awful for Lark when he detected the fear in her voice and he stumbled awkwardly through the rows of desks toward the sound of her voice. With a complete lack of light in the room and not even a crack under the door, his eyes had nothing with which to help him adjust to the gloom. He found Lark eventually and rested a hand on her shoulder, once he found it, realising that she was on the ground. "You going to be okay?" He had almost asked if she was alright but caught himself in time and realised what a stupid question that would have been. He did not try to reassure her that it was just dark, the old 'everything's the same in the dark that it is in the light'. He knew that, she surely knew that, neither was stupid. Just like Ashton knew that a spider on the opposite wall could do nothing to him and yet it still made him quail and pull his feet up onto whatever chair he happened to be sitting in, if indeed he was sitting. "And hey, you shouldn't apologise. I'm afraid of some things, too." Spiders. Not being good enough. Dying. Being left alone. He did not want all of his friends to go away and leave him. He relied on him and fully acknowledged this fact. He needed his friends to feel like he was wanted by someone, somewhere. And he was alright with putting himself down to make it better for them. He'd tell her about his fears if it made her feel like she wasn't weak. He'd do anything for a friend, anything.

We need to get out of here. That much was obvious, but how? It wasn't like they could break the door down. He wasn't that strong and Lark probably wasn't either. This was a castle, it wasn't a shabby little building with doors hanging off their rusty old hinges. She hadn't answered him earlier but he decided that he would try once more, "What about your element? Can you handle it without a source?" For the first time he almost wished that he smoked if only so that he carried a bunch of matches around in his pocket. "If a catalyst helps I could maybe get some grass or something, sticks." As a twelfth grader he prided himself in his ability to finally create things from nothing that actually resembled what they were supposed to be. At least it's not winter. It would be worse if the room was freezing cold or something because then both of their powers would take a hit, suffer. "I'm sorry about Tom," said Ashton, sounding truly apologetic and miserable. "I didn't think he'd try something like this. I shouldn't have let him come." The Water elemental was a trickster and Ashton regretted saying 'yes' when the other boy asked if he could join their sporting fun. Would have been better with just Jo and Clarke. It was too late for that now. He knew that.

He sat down beside Lark when she took his hand, placing his other over both of theirs in a sign of comfort. He'd have smiled at her if he was able to see her or she him, but he figured that in the absence of light this was the best way that he could convey his desire to help her out. He knew how bad it felt to be afraid. "Well I'm certainly not going anywhere." Barring the fact that the door was locked and Ashton was as trapped as Lark was, the Earth elemental was not the type to abandon people in their times of need. He was unaware how much she hated relying on him, wouldn't have known quite what to say if he knew. He liked it when people felt they could use him for support. People could take all he had and come back for more, it wouldn't matter, he'd give until there was nothing left to offer any more. That was his personality. "I don't think anyone likes it. It's alright, I won't judge you." Lips twitching in the darkness and a pensive look on his face, he thought back to some incidents in his own childhood that he'd rather put behind him. "You know, when I was in fourth grade, a spider crawled over my foot and I screamed like a girl. I fell out of my chair and everyone was laughing, they wouldn't let me live it down for months." In a way, he was offering her leverage. I have weaknesses, too. She could hold them against him if she wanted to, if it reassured her through her own.

He nodded when she said that she'd manage, then remembered gestures were wasted on her. "Okay." It was like talking on the phone and forgetting that the other person could not see you. He worried that the traumatic experience of the darkness might kill Lark's ability to call upon her fire but he allowed a sigh of relief when the area lit up softly. He found himself blinking rapidly in the light but he smiled once his eyes adjusted, glad that she had this at least. "Here, so you don't have to drain your strength..." He closed his eyes for a moment and focused, and just like that, grass started to sprout from what appeared to be his palms, though it flopped over sideways like it had been cut by a sickle the moment he released his hold. He then drained the life from it, made it dry and brittle. It didn't feel good to kill life like that but the grass could be set alight with much more ease when it wasn't thriving and healthy. He set the dry grass down in the wastebasket so that it wouldn't catch any of the desks on fire but would be a source of light that didn't eventually cause Lark to pass out from the drain. It would probably take a while for her to weaken but he didn't know how long they'd be in here.

He looked surprised and even a little offended when she asked him to make a promise. "No, of course not!" he said quickly. "I would never tell anyone." He was not the type of person that would sneer and jeer about another person's weaknesses, spread the word so that everyone could pick on them. Why would she even think that? He couldn't help but feel a little wounded that anyone would suggest it was part of his personality. She doesn't know me that well, he reminded himself, trying to soothe himself. "I think so. The bell should ring again soon for dinner, we could always bang on the door until someone notices. I think he must've jammed it from the outside." The doors locked from the inside, after all, but when he'd tried it after attempting to flick the lights on it had not done any good. Maybe he'd used the old chair-under the door mechanism or otherwise jammed the knob. Someone outside could probably see. "I don't think it'll be too long before someone shows up." He figured it was best to wait for the bell, though, because they'd hurt their hands pounding on the door too long or run their voices hoarse if they spent too long shouting. Overall, this was a shit situation to be in. "Are you feeling better?"