Summer is far too busy pretending she doesn’t care to notice how provocative Stiles is being. It’s hard; she wants so badly to talk to him, to ask why and understand. She’s too used to being able to guess, predict, infer, from what people feel — not knowing is frustrating.
Abstractedly, she orders, tapping her debit card against the counter while they wait. She keeps her gaze forward, which is why she doesn’t notice Jesse coming up and trying to punch Stiles in the face.
This time, Stiles is less prepared, mostly because he’s turned his back on Jesse. It was probably a mistake, but it’s the kind of mistake Stiles makes all the damn time, instigating and then putting it out of mind, letting his fractured attention span steer his brain elsewhere long before anyone else has let it go. He turns as a reaction to the sense of somebody in his space just in time to catch Jesse’s fist straight in his nose.
Something feels like it cracks, and Stiles legitimately shouts in indignant rage.
Both hands fly to his face and, yes, that’s definitely blood, if he’s lucky his nose isn’t actually broken. “You asshole.” He snarls, and then he’s launching himself at Jesse, discoordinated but determined, kind of the way a young bull might rush anything that annoyed its short temper. He’s not the most practiced of fighters, but Stiles is far more muscular than he seems or gives himself credit for, lithe when he stops thinking too hard about the task of controlling his body and just lets himself do it, and he knows more than he even realizes about joint-locking.
The only difference is, this time he’s not really trying to avoid causing Jesse pain.
The sudden sharp pain of Jesse hitting Stiles’ nose cuts through Summer’s shields the way a shout cuts through earplugs. Her gasp of pain is swallowed by Stiles’ shout and she whips around in time to see the two boys attacking each other. Fury turns her stomach, and she can’t put any effort into /stopping/ them; she’s too busy patching her shields.
By the time Summer can pay attention to what’s going on, Stiles has Jesse on the floor, and a couple of the bowling alley staff are trying to separate them. She clamps her hands together in a futile effort to stop the tears, but it’s too late. She’s not even sure why she’s crying, only that she’s overwhelmed. Too much emotion, half of it her own; too many people, too close.