[PRP] Chill (Jordan & Rep)

[prolixity]

They hadn't been sleeping together. The fact was alternately deeply depressing and infuriating; or not quite alternately, since the periods of hurt and anger were often enough separated by a kind of dull, numb blankness that Jordan thought that he should be alarmed about, but when it was foremost in his mind he couldn't summon any kind of intensity whatsoever. The appearance of control over his emotions was the thinnest possible facade, held together only by silence. He had never drifted so aimlessly or swung so wildly between moods.

(Almost never, whispered a part of him. Almost never. It had happened before.)

When numbness began to ebb and turn to a hot raveling bundle of anger, he got up from the book he'd been pretending to himself he was reading and headed silently out toward the training fields. He refused to take this confrontation to Rep's bar, because he needed to have this conversation and Harrison expected him to have this conversation, but Rep still needed his space, his refuge, and tainting the pleasure of work and ownership and safe refuge would be unforgivable. If he did this while he was numb, he would be unable to say anything; if he did this while he was immersed in grief and guilt, he would leave his throat bare and get it ripped out; that left anger, anger and the promise of a fight, and the idea felt grimly satisfying, for the moment.

He waited beside the path that he knew Rep was most likely to take at this time of day, and when the other man came into sight, he said, loud enough to be sure he couldn't be easily ignored, "So you can't even be in the same room with me now? Are you going to leave the island next, just so you never have to be reminded that I exist?"  

[Baneful]

Rep had been training for most of the morning, trying to push his problems to one side in favor of keeping himself in shape. It was a tactic which normally worked but it left him exhausted. He was going to head to the cafeteria for a snack when he found himself face to face with just the very man he'd been preoccupied about a great deal of the time and trying to avoid thinking about.

His first reaction was defensive as always.

"Why? Would you ******** like that? Would you rather I was the one who ran away for a change just to ******** switch s**t up?" he snarled. "And you know as well as anyone I can't ******** leave the island. Not ever, no matter how far away from people I'd like to be."

 

[prolixity]

Jordan smiled, an expression with more teeth than friendliness. "You already did. What else do you call taking off to go sleep in the bar just because I showed up to take a shower and get some clothes?" He shrugged, a quick and fluid motion. "You're the one who apparently can't be within twenty feet of me without having some kind of meltdown. How's that for being the one who's running away?"  

[Baneful]

"It's called not wanting to be there is what." he crossed his arms, all bristling standoffishness though underneath he didn't really feel the anger he was exuding. "It's called having nothing more to say. I said it all before and I ******** hate having to repeat myself. It's not my ******** job to hunt you down and find out what's wrong with you, I told you what I want. You wanted some other ******** chance, I didn't need another chance, I just want this s**t to end is what."

 

[prolixity]

"I've said it all before," Jordan repeated, thoughtfully. "You just want it all to end? So if I'd said, no, it's not worth it, you've hurt me too much, I'm done? If I walked away. If I left, what would you do? Would you decide I was the bad guy here, after I've tried my damndest to do what you've asked of me? Would you think it was better, knowing that you'd lost me forever? Would you try to kill me, because I was better off dead than with anyone else, regardless of anything I've ever said or thought?" He watched Rep steadily, and said, without even thinking about it, "Nothing makes you happy, and nothing will ever make you happy."  

[Baneful]

"You did try, no one said you didn't try. But the fact is that you can't change the very ******** essence of who you are. You can't and you shouldn't. And it's taken me a longassed time but there comes a point where I'm like. Maybe we aren't good for one another. Maybe I'm too cruel and controlling for you and maybe you're too independent and yet dependent for me. And if you left, I wouldn't try to kill you, because I don't think you'd be better off dead than with someone else. I guess I wouldn't care. Because at this point I don't. You go and ******** around with Robert and whoever and there's a line there that you won't ever compromise for me. So why would I waste my time being jealous?"

He narrowed his eyes. "At least Rin was dedicated to me and me alone for a long time. You were never dedicated to just me. Not even for a second. If it wasn't Ferros it was other people's opinions, it was something. And that's fine. But I want all or nothing and no matter what you say right now, you are incapable of giving me all."

 

[prolixity]

"Why would you waste your time being jealous? I don't know, you tell me, because you are and you have been." Jordan smiled faintly, but his hands stayed clenched into fists, white-knuckle tight, and there was nothing friendly in his eyes. "You want all or nothing, you say. So. You resent Harrison for loving me, then?"  

[Baneful]

"I don't resent Harrison. Because he gives me all." Rep said, and there was no question in his mind that this was the case. "I couldn't ever resent him. He's never denied me anything at all, he's never kept part of himself away, he's never held out on the s**t that's important. Don't bring him into this."

He looked away. "And if I was jealous it was just me ******** wasting my time, because I didn't at that point know any ******** better."

 

[prolixity]

"Bullshit," Jordan said, gently, furiously. "He's intimately involved in this. In us. And if you wanted you, only you, I gave you the chance, months ago, to define me, to tell me what you ******** wanted me to be, and you told me that you didn't want that. You wanted me to be me. I've started to define what that even ******** means. For the first goddamn time in my life. And now you say no? Now you say you want everything? Now you want me to be what you are?"

Distantly, he was aware that he'd been getting louder and louder, that he was yelling. "You want me to be a sexist, racist, homophobic a*****e completely unaware of the contradictions in his own ******** worldview? You want me to be someone who can't ******** stand himself so he hates and hurts anyone who's not him? You want me to hate myself so completely that I can't even see that I hate myself? Well, hey, that's easy! I can hate myself! I already do." He laughed, an ugly, awful, humorless sound. "I hate myself so much I'd rather change than lose you. Everything I've ever done that matters, I've done for someone else. I should never have let myself love at all. ******** any whore who let me, like you did. Pretend that love didn't matter. Pretend I didn't care. Hey. Look at that. Just like you."

He looked down at his hands, touched the gold and silver ring, a slow, gentle, reverent caress, then took hold of it and carefully and deliberately took it off, flung it at Rep as hard as he could. "I asked you to marry me because you're not me. Because I loved you as someone else, someone who's not all of me, someone I could love anyway. Someone I could finally be safe with."

He gave Rep a gentle smile, pained, betrayed, furious, forgiving. "I was wrong."  

[Baneful]

Rep listened, but he didn't get angry, there was no anger left in him right now, only a weighty sort of resignation. It was always easier to just embrace what people said than to try and argue. He'd argue the sky was green and the grass was blue, but he didn't have a leg to stand on when people told him he was inconsistent.

When Jordan started yelling he flinched despite his instincts not to. He'd had to deal with H giving him an honest estimation of his character and hadn't even managed to cope with that before he was once again on the sharp end of someone else's tongue. It was a raw sick feeling, as if the words were tearing some void in him that it took a slow trickle of denial to fill every time. Fighting he understood, fighting was easy, violence was easy, when it was words he stood like a helpless child and tolerated it because it was warranted. There was another spike of nausea as he was called a whore, when Jordan stated he wished he'd never loved at all.

But it was the ring that shattered him, that made all of that hurt and pain gurgle down the drain leaving nothing but a hollow and much worse void of nothingness. Jordan was a good person, a person who'd tried, who'd twisted himself up and done anything he could to be what Rep demanded him to be, to the point of relinquishing his own identity. He hurt everyone, he just did. If it wasn't Rin, dying while he was helpless, it was this, it was the knowledge that everything he did put Harrison in danger too. He'd promised Jordan he'd never leave him, that he'd do everything not to hurt him, and yet here he was, proving himself wrong all over again. He was only ever the worst of himself, only ever the monster people told him he was.

It wasn't fair, hating himself shouldn't pull everyone else in as collateral damage, but it happened all the same. And because he didn't have a resolution for this, because he didn't see a way out that didn't involve Jordan either having to be broken and someone else or gone, he'd panicked and tried to get rid of him. And now it was working he was having to come to terms with all the hurt and pain, the fact that he wanted to withdraw any memory of the time they'd had together.

And for Rep, illogically, items meant as much as humans. Every object was laden with the emotions and memories that went with it, it was why he cultivated the hoard, his gathering of memories that no one could ever really take from him. He would never throw away his ring, even if everything went wrong, even if it had been the other way around and he'd been told to leave. So he couldn't comprehend why Jordan did it now. It felt like a complete rejection, complete and absolute before he could do it himself.

"Yeah. You were." he said, his voice quiet and soft, leaning to pick up the ring from where it had glanced from his coat with a thud and a blossom of pain through his shield he'd only dimly registered. No one was safe with him.

And it will be all your fault.

Well it was now, and that was fine. Jordan hadn't done anything wrong other than be unable to understand why Rep couldn't stand the thought of being trapped, of being in a situation where love and contact was something he would have to deal with no matter what. He couldn't explain it without breaking, why it had been so terrifying and harrowing that nothing he could ever do would really push Jordan away, that he was beloved wether he liked it or not. It should have been reassuring but it had made him run, and now he was here.

He turned the ring in his fingers. Whore. Sexist. Racist. Homophobic. a*****e. "I'm sorry it came to this. I'm sorry I led you on. I hoped it would work."

 

[prolixity]

Rep didn't even bother to deny any of it, or to argue; he stood quietly and let Jordan yell at him. Jordan watched him pick up the ring, and stood there with his hands at his sides, feeling its absence acutely already, aching to reach out and take it back, put it back on, keep it and everything it meant. He stayed where he was, his eyes stinging.

He had to swallow hard before he could speak again. "I guess I was the extra guy, after all," and he heard his voice shake. "Keep it for me," he added, and stopped himself from saying, if you ever want to give it back, because he'd pushed and pushed and kept trying and in the end all that it had done was that he'd driven Rep away from him for good.

He couldn't even ask for a last kiss. "I love you," he said quietly. "Take care of him, okay?"  

[Baneful]

Rep didn't look up from the ring. He wanted to reassure Jordan, he wanted to argue that he wasn't the extra guy, that he'd had the most pull in the beginning, that things had just been complicated. He wanted to explain the point where it had gone to s**t. But words had always been difficult for him and lately he felt so hollow and empty that there was no energy to pull on to say anything. And irrationally, he was afraid, because he'd pushed Jordan away so far and the man had every weapon to use against him, and had moments ago proved he was unafraid to go for his insecurities, his contradictions when he was hurting. He couldn't trust him with the truth of the matter, not that telling him would fix it or change anything.

He didn't want to keep the ring, not because he was put off by anything it represented but because by keeping it Jordan would not be. It was a deep and awful anguish and he found himself wishing he could cry because it would at least be an outlet, but no tears would come at all.

Take care of him. He wasn't able to take care of anyone, people always got hurt. Harrison always got hurt. He made dumb decisions and he dragged the other man into them, he was selfish and cruel and stupid. And now Harrison would be alone with those things, and Rep didn't know how safe he'd be. H was right, he'd probably realise Rep didn't deserve the love he received and would leave him. And he'd deserve it too, because he'd done this shitty thing to Jordan who had never wanted anything other than to be with him, with them and to do his best to be what they wanted.

All of his instincts said he wasn't doing the right thing, but they'd been saying that since Shiloh had died, all of his measures of what was right and wrong were off. And he told himself, it was better to let the other man go than to keep him in a relationship where one of the people who supposedly loved him couldn't even stomach him touching them.

"You weren't." he said and to the other question he couldn't even say I'll try because he'd tried that already and look how far it had gotten him.


 

[prolixity]

"I'm sorry," Jordan said, almost inaudibly, exhaustedly, feeling cored out and empty and frozen, everything in him shutting down one part at a time in neat, tidy sequence. Ferros voiced a sound like a howl, inarticulate and aching. "We're sorry." But it didn't fix anything and it never had.

He turned away, looking at the ground without seeing it, and started down the path toward the beach. He would have to go back to the room and sort all the things that were his out of what had been theirs and figure out what to do with himself now. He would have to explain to Harrison what he had done and why and that he was breaking one more promise, and he realized as he thought it that even if Rep ever decided that he wanted to give the ring back Harrison would never trust him again, and he would be justified.

There was nothing left, and all he could feel was the echoing numb emptiness that he had brought down on himself. Maybe next time they met they would be able to love each other without so much pain.  

[Baneful]

Rep finally looked up and it was only to watch Jordan go. He wanted to call out, to call him back, to stop him from leaving, to say everything had been ******** up, that at the core of everything he didn't want him to leave and to be alone, he wanted to keep him. But he had wanted to keep Rin too, and she hadn't been happy with him, not really. Jordan wouldn't be happy with someone who was always so cruel, so controlling, who wouldn't let him touch him or be with him. If he stayed it would always be like a pet, subject to Rep's whims and jealousy, denied the opportunity to even be with Harrison when Rep wasn't there. He was too paranoid to even trust the two when they weren't in his sight and he'd always known that wasn't okay, it wasn't healthy. It was too much to ask of him to have him stay when there would be so many rules and restrictions, when his freedom would be denied.

"I'm sorry too." he said.

Tracey was cold and bitter in his thoughts, dark and watching, shifting as Jordan elaborated that it was not just him who was sorry. But Tracey did not feel emotions the same way as humans, the Tracey which had been human would have cried, would have had to deal with heartbreak too large to cope with. The Tracey that was was merely bitter. Ferros has been his once, he felt it inherently in his being. But now he belonged to someone else, he belonged to Jordan and there was no way to pull him back, to claim him. He was not his guardian any longer, there was only Rep who had never been good enough but who he would need to forge into what he needed. It would be a long road and he lamented that it was necessary, he lamented that they would be more vulnerable without Jordan's strong abilities on their side, to help shield them from the death that waited around every corner, but he did not feel sadness, only the dark. He was not sorry, he did not regret what he had possessed and he did not comfort Rep, he never truly did.

He stood and stared long after Jordan was gone and didn't know what he was going to do, what they were going to do. He found himself dwelling on mazes he wouldn't be able to complete any longer after failing this last one so completely. No more comfortable sprawled warmth, no more being in the middle of affection or defended on both sides. He prodded the thoughts like testing a broken tooth and found them raw and painful. The ring almost hurt to hold, feeling heavier than he could remember and he thought of those careful fingers it had rested on, tentative and uncertain, trying to learn what was almost impossible to learn.

Nothing will ever make you happy.

And it had been a fair statement to make, he'd tried everything and Rep had snapped and snarled and now he'd given up. It was all fair, it was cause and effect, and it was ultimately all his fault. He fought and struggled so often and then when he was left with what he'd thought he'd wanted he felt like he'd been cheated, like he'd been possessed with some desire that wasn't him and now was left with the backlash of that compulsion.

But he didn't stop Jordan, because one day he'd realise that he had a whole life ahead of him, that he was brilliant and beloved, that he deserved so much more than what Rep could ever give him, that he could make normal people happy and that the flaw did not lie in him, but in the void he had been pouring his effort into all along.