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Jon spun around in surprise, shoes in one hand, about a dozen pairs of underwear in the other, Blackberry still lodged in his gob. He looked completely blown, half undressed and frazzled; not his most charming. He spit the smartphone from his mouth and into his shoe.

"I thought I told you--" Jon began, but paused. If he were a machine, he'd be crashing and rebooting. Reed's words sank in; he had been serious about pretending to be some hired grunt? Completely caught off guard by the gesture, the monotony of his usual expression faltered and a genuine smile ghosted his lips. It was gone in the next second.

He hooked his foot against the loop of a small black bag that had been sitting near his ankles. Looking positively ridiculous, lifted his foot and the bag along with it, motioning to it with a jut of his chin:

"Grab this, would you? and follow me."

Though he could have taken it himself, he decided to keep the ruse up if only to catch a word with Reed. He waited for the redhead to grab the shower bag before he walked down the hall again, disappearing into the safety of the bathroom.

Jon set his shoes on marble counter, struggling with the urge to rearrange this things in an orderly fashion; he settled with aligning the tips of his shoes with the edge of the counter to cope.

"Self-repairing," he joked mildly, tugging his shirt off and stuffing it into a clothes bin. Things had to be all-but self-repairing in this kind of neighborhood. He refrained from telling Reed how his mother nearly sued the maintenance crew in their building for a leak that had lasted for maybe five minutes. Four minutes, forty-nine seconds, his mother had told him. Eleven more and they're out of a job! Then again, she'd been pretty hammered at the time....

"I'm pretty sure this side of the apartment is my territory or what have you," he said, tugging his belt free and rolling it around his fist. "So you can hide out in my room if you don't want to sit and chitchat with his royal majesty."

He smirked, shook his head, "I shouldn't be too long."

"I don't think he'd talk to you at all. I'm just entertaining the thought of you trying."

Jon crossed the bathroom and checked the towel closet, a little surprised by the fact that it was a walk-in. He felt for another light switch and flicked it on; mostly bare save for a few shelves with some necessities already provided. He dragged a thick, rich red towel from a like pile and shut the door behind him.

"Well, see, this is my bathroom. Wouldn't want to clean up after myself, you know? He took the master room with has its own bathroom." Jon pulled the shower door open to check the spray of water from the jets. He'd never quite understood the purpose of clear doors when the whole idea of a bathroom was privacy.

He snorted, "Diamonds? That's absurd. It's shampoo and conditioner made from the blood of lambs and the tears of orphans. I'm not putting on a show if you're going to sit in here and watch, by the way."

Jon kicked off his pants.

"I never thought past what the hell color underwear I was going to wear," Jon shot back, pulling bottles free from the bag. He scratched his head with the butt a shampoo bottle before tucking it under his arm and fishing out some Tylenol. Trying to function on two compiled headaches, a tight schedule and an empty stomach was killing him. He popped two pills into his mouth and escaped into the shower, getting to work and wasting more soap than necessary in his haste.

"Vardaman didn't say anything, did he?" Which was actually code for, he didn't ask anything, right?

"It's probably piss," he said lazily, scrubbing himself raw. Jon wanted nothing more than to sit on the ledge in the shower and take his time, maybe doze a bit. Alas, he had a job to do. He paused every so often to swipe suds from his body to inspect a mysterious scratch or a flowering bruise, hissing when curiosity got the best of him and he pressed his fingers into the latter. He tugged the shower arm down and doused his head beneath the hard spray.

Jon laughed at Reed's expense, eyes cutting past the fogged glass to look at him. He couldn't say he felt sympathy for him.

"What about those parties of yours? And your leather? Make your own fun," he suggested. Jon blanched and focused on the elaborate tiling in the shower. He stared at the knob, reaching forward to turn it off. He succeeded in making the water several degrees cooler instead.

"Think up some elaborate scheme to save Wally," Jon said, another useless suggestion. A part of his brain was grilling him as to why Reed just couldn't buy the damn bird off of the bar; he seemed to have forgotten what 'poor' meant somewhere between Reed's apartment and his. Then again, there would just be another Wally to take the place of the former within the hour. Jon couldn't relate. He hated birds.

Jon regretted bringing up the leather. He glowered at the slick tiles as he squeezed the last of the soap from his hair. He pushed it all back away from his forehead and twisted the knob again, slowly, feeling a rush of cold water that shot at him before he turned it off. Despite putting up a mental block, he couldn't get passed the word 'leather.'

"Well, show it off to me then," he said at last, hating every last word as it came out of his mouth. Double went for Reed, triple for himself. There was a lot of hate in that little shower stall right then. Jon popped the door open and snatched his towel free. Just one night and he knew he was in for a long line of repercussions.

"It's not like I'm going to be as busy as I used to be." Jon stepped from the shower, toweling off his hair; his tail was flicking again, irritated with himself.

Jon tried not to shrug as he pulled his pants on (now with briefs!). He wished he could have claimed disinterest, but it would be another fantastic lie. Who would have guessed that on his first day in a brand new city he would completely dismantle years of hard work towards self-preservation. He couldn't afford to screw up, not like this. He tugged on his undershirt and pulled on the dark blue dress shirt over it.

His eyes shut as he attempted to keep his anger in check. Getting mad would not be beneficial at all. Jon sat on the edge of the toilet and grabbed his socks and shoes and nearly crushed his Blackberry in the process. The calendar popped up with a reminder.

"Reed, you should be proud of yourself," he hummed after several seconds of silence - which he took to curb his frustration. "You helped me successfully ******** up - no pun intended - three years and three hundred sixty-four days of celibacy."

He lifted his hips and pocketed the phone and in all seriousness, no joke or fib, warned: "You're not off the hook."

Jon finished tying his brown dress shoes and climbed to his feet; he belatedly noticed that his belt didn't match his shoes and cursed under his breath, undoing it again and practically tearing it off. He couldn't even dress himself now, what the hell. He tossed the belt on top of the clothes bin.

"Some people need rules, Reed," he said, speaking as though addressing a child. He crossed the bathroom to the counter and dug through shower bag for defrizz cream, his brush, and a hair tie, getting to work on his curls. He hacked away at his hair with the brush. After staring at his fuzzy outline in the mirror, he wiped a clear space - erasing one of Reed's lewd pictures - and frowned at his reflection. The colorless gray of his eyes was beginning to echo the blue of his shirt.

"It was a good idea at the time," he said, mussing his hair as he applied the lotion. He began pulling his hair back, gathering it into a high ponytail, "In my first semester of college I went from a four-point-oh to a point six-nine. It took me the rest of my college career, summer classes, and abandoning my social life to get it back up. I don't want to go back to that. Some people need rules. I need rules or else I'll be more concerned about who I'm doing next instead of what I'm doing next."

Jon pawed his bangs free with a sigh. This new assignment with Vardaman was big, bigger than he had yet to realize. The last thing he wanted to do was be pulled off of it, or fired completely, for negligence because of his own lack of control. He had people to prove wrong, himself included. The guilt was already creeping its way into his bones, shame flitted through his stomach. He shook his head and turned away from his reflection.

"What on earth are you talking about?"