[PRP] Uncomfortable truths (Jordan, Rep)

[prolixity]

"I'm glad you were all right," Jordan said, and wondered, very quietly, what it would have been like to meet a fourteen-year-old Rep. Strange. Maybe not so good, from what he knew of Rep's childhood. He'd probably never know.

"We lose people sometimes," he admitted. "But that's the risk you take on any mission. I think I'd get paranoid in Death."

"Have you?" he asked, a little sadly. He was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "I'm sorry I didn't come around earlier, anyway. I ... wasn't sure if you'd want to see me." Maybe he should have kept the last part to himself. Maybe not.  

[Baneful]

"Me too. I'd be a shitty pathetic little kid." He found it difficult to remember what he'd been like at fourteen, finding most of his childhood a murky and hazy wasteland of unpleasant experiences. He'd been quiet and withdrawn, scared to talk to anyone up until the point that it all flipped on its head with puberty and it became fighting everyone instead. "It would have been ******** awful, more awful than this."

He shrugged. "I guess if you need someone patting your butt all the time then Death isnae the place for you. I don't mind Cael, he's scary but for as many times as I've gotten maimed he's saved my a**."

Giving Jordan a sad look, he tried to understand why the other man could have ever thought even for a second that he didn't want to see him. "Why wouldn't I?" he asked with a softness he didn't normally put on display. "I ******** love you." he said, because it was true. "I was happy to spend every single day with you not all that long ago, why would that change just because the sex did?" He shook his head.

"I've just no been questioning any of it because I never feel like I'm worth anyone's friendship."
 

[prolixity]

Jordan laughed. "Saved your a** instead of patting it, huh? Just as well, that would seem very strange coming from Caelius." He couldn't imagine the Death lead praising anyone.

I love you cut sharp and deep, water to an immense thirst, salt in a still unhealed wound. He kept himself from flinching primarily by force of will. "You never came back," he said quietly, his eyes sliding away, feeling a strange mix of shame and anger. The sense of being unwanted had solidified, over time, into an absolute conviction, and he didn't know if it was better or worse to be told that he'd been wrong. "People leave. I'm used to that. I get by."

He took a careful, steady breath. I didn't have a reason to come see you was true and false all at once. Why did this have to be complicated? "I was angry for a while, and then ... I don't know. If you still want to be my friend, I'd like that."  

[Baneful]

Rep nodded. "He doesn't function on a level where praise exists. Its safer, I can't ever disappoint someone like that because by definition I like am always failing them." The absence of being told he was worthless was praise enough for Rep.

"/I/ didn't come back?" He said in a moment of sharpness. "If it's easier to ******** blame me then go for it, but the way I see it wishae me who was avoiding you, I've been in the same places I always was. I guess waiting for something that never came." He'd tried to make other friends but in the end he was never quite /enough/ for them. Mark had been a friend but now all he did was talk about Caroline and insult him, something which needled him deeply and had fractured the positive things he'd thought about the other guy. Friends didn't do that s**t to friends.

"I was never no your friend." He said quietly.  

[prolixity]

Jordan studied Rep's face, feeling a sharp pang of sadness for the depth of self-loathing that the assessment betrayed. It was something he'd known, but being reminded of it always brought that sympathetic sorrow back. He didn't point it out or try to argue; that was an argument he wasn't prepared or braced to have now, either. He didn't know if it was something he was even allowed to touch any more.

"We were both waiting in different places," he said, and didn't sigh. "I suppose it's pretty pointless to try to assign blame." He lifted one hand to rub across his eyes. His chest hurt obscurely. He was not over this at all. He'd known it and it hadn't prepared him.

"Then we're still friends," and that would have to be the name for it; that was what was left of what they'd had. It would have to be enough. "Thanks," he added, voice coming out a little rough.  

[Baneful]

"Aye." he said grimly. "Nae point." Though inwardly he was as always caught in that contradictory state where he both blamed himself for everything in the whole world while taking the blame for nothing.

There was a scrape of a chair as he slid it back and stood, closing the distance between them without warning, hugging Jordan close - as close as boobs allowed - in a startling show of affection. "I've needed friends." he said, and it was a voice ragged with exhaustion.

Prolixity

 

[prolixity]

Wrapped in a sudden hug, Jordan froze for a moment, then his breath rushed out and he returned the embrace. It was familiar and alien at once, warm and too soft but still Rep. "You sound tired," he said.

He hadn't understood, until just now, how hungry he was to be held, to be touched. The occasional passing contact with acquaintances wasn't the same and wasn't enough. "I missed you," he heard himself say, and he hadn't meant to, and the shock of that reminded him that he couldn't have this. He let his arms slide away, pulled back gently.

Baneful

 

[Baneful]

"Really, really ******** tired." he murmured into the hug, Jordan feeling the way he always had.

And then Jordan was moving away and he couldn't deal with being robbed of the comfort so suddenly when he needed it. He reached out again and clenched his hands around the other man's sleeves, tears prickling his eyes, though he didn't cry, he was good at that much. "Don't." he half pleaded, before knowing he didn't have the authority to ask that much any more. He dropped his hands and backed off.

"Sorry." he said. "I'm sorry."
 

[prolixity]

Jordan's hands lifted to curl around Rep's shoulders, holding lightly for a few moments, until Rep let go. "I'm sorry," he said raggedly, and kept himself from reaching out to pull Rep back in and just hold him until they both felt better. He couldn't afford to allow himself that. "I should probably go." You should go home, he didn't say, swallowing the hurt and anger that accompanied the thought.

He looked back long enough to catch Rep's gaze again. "I'll come by more often," he promised. "I won't avoid you." Maybe contact would help create emotional calluses over time.  

[Baneful]

Rep wilted as Jordan said that he should go, feeling like it was just another reversion to the way things were before. He hugged himself instead, as if it could somehow soothe the hollow feeling it all gave him.

"Please." he said, because that much was all he could ask for.

 

[prolixity]

If he stayed any longer, his resolve would break. Jordan nodded, hesitated, reached out again long enough to grip Rep's shoulder once more, and then turned away. He left at a quick walk, his head down, his shoulders held tense. He wasn't fleeing, he told himself.