Spring was a menace.

Not in the sweet, sunshine-and-blooms kind of way that had the entire city shedding their winter misery for iced coffees and outdoor brunches. No, spring was a personal assailant — an onslaught of brightness, heat, and smells that crawled into Jason's skull and settled there like termites.

The sun was too high, too sharp. The air reeked of budding life and whatever sickly floral thing the old lady down the hall sprayed on her doorframe like it was a holy ward. His skin felt weird under his clothes, too tight in some places, too loose in others, the collar and sleeves of his shirts and hoodies irritated his scent glands. It was like his body was misfiring.

He could almost hear Bruce’s voice in his head: “Breathe. Control it. Mastery of self is key.”

Easy for him to say. The man ran on pure repression and privilege.

Jason? Jason was feral.

By the third day of this hormonal uprising, patience was a carcass in the rearview. The neighbor’s perfume made his head pound, the sun made his eyes burn, and the scent of whatever his roommate was cooking made his mouth water and his stomach churn all at once.

He tried. God, he tried to tough it out, but the bathroom cabinet started whispering sweet relief in the dead of night. So he broke the unspoken rule: never touch someone else's stash. Especially not when the stash belonged to his roommate, the only bastard rich enough to afford the good shit.

He didn’t even read the label. He just popped two — maybe three suppressants? — with a glass of orange juice and waited.

And waited.

What came wasn’t relief.

No, what came was fireworks.

Something in his chemistry grabbed those suppressants by the throat and spun. The effects hit sideways, ramping him up instead of dialing him down. Jason spent the first hour pacing. Then climbing. Then pacing again. Then he reorganized the spice cabinet alphabetically and by flavor profile.

By the fourth hour, he’d broken two mugs, reorganized the bookshelf, punched his pillow, and texted his ex situationship a GIF of a cat doing a backflip.

Somewhere between hour six and seven, the hyper-awareness went nuclear. His senses didn’t just perk up, they stood to attention like a goddamn military parade. Every noise had texture, every scent had shape, every color looked like it was shouting at him.

So when the front door cracked open, Jason was already waiting. Perched on the kitchen counter like a deranged little gremlin, legs swinging, hair a static disaster.

He'd torn off his hoodie, tank top clinging to him, hair sticking up like he’d been electrocuted. His pupils were blown wide, pretty blues swallowed by inky black like some feral animal caught in headlights.

“You ever notice how loud air is?” he said the second his roommate stepped inside. “Like, I can hear it moving. That can’t be normal.”

Then he squinted. “Also, did you always smell like bergamot, or is that new?”