Welcome to Gaia! ::

Isiah bit the inside of his cheek, but it did little to hide a hearty laugh that rose from his chest. Q and him?... please. He wagged his head wearily, yawning behind his hand. "It's not you," he said quickly. "It's because you're with me. Kaegan wouldn't know gay if it cockslapped him across the face, so he just assumes anyone I run with is..." He paused. "Well. In it for the benefits, I guess. I wouldn't take it too seriously."

Isiah sat up and swung his legs over the cot. "Why. Not comfortable?" Oh, he knew why. He knew Q was probably musing long and hard over his supposed gayness. Isiah didn't really understand why it was such a problem for Q- why his masculinity was so easily hurt. It seemed to happen increasingly often these days.

Isiah felt he was more masculine than Q, gay or not. The way they conducted themselves set them apart on the scale by many, many degrees. And yet he never felt the need to well.. prove it the way Q did, or the need to nurse his hurt ego like a wound.

"I don't know why you let other people get to you so much," he began, after a long silence. "For someone who used to kill people for a living.. you sure are sensitive. I always thought murder had a way of hardening the heart."

He quirked a brow upward, folding his arms over his knees, rolling his head on his shoulder slowly. "Kaegan isn't above you. He's your level. Or lower, considering what he is." He sighed, shoulders low, his muscles tense. "And if you never cared, it makes me wonder why you do now."

Isiah gave Q a confused look. "A fat lot of good that's doing him, Q. The marines aren't here anymore. In ten or twenty years, everyone who knew what they were will be dead. The rest will just be hearsay."

He rubbed the back of his neck with a long soft sigh, rolling his eyes shut, shaking his head slowly back and forth. "Your priorities are so backward... I wonder about you."

"It's about survival. What Kaegan thinks or does is not essential to our survival, so you shouldn't care about it. Those are your priorities." Isiah paused for a long moment. "OUR priorities. Or that's what they should be."

He leaned back against the crumbling brick wall, folding his hands behind his head. "What do you care about, Q? What's important? What Kaegan thinks because he used to be something?"

Isiah turned to look at him, his brow furrowed inward, trying to read him. He didn't get it. How could someone supposedly smart enough- patient enough- calculating enough to wait out and kill a man.. Couldn't make sense of his own, admittedly simple emotions boggled him. He turned his eyes away, sighing.

"Don't feel like going back to WHAT?"

"I put on my mask to survive. You put on yours to protect your ego. Different story."

He released a long groan. He was strangely frustrated with Q, unjustifiably so, and he knew it's because Q had this strange reverence and respect for Kaegan that had mirrored his own when he was young- and he now considered, stupid.

"I don't know, Q. You want to be all touchy feely and stuff, fine, suits me. It's easier when you're just honest anyway."