|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2013 4:30 am
"I did." he said, without hesitation, too close to meet Jordan's gaze but enough to get lost in the blue. "I loved you guys before I even really understood what love really was. I wanted to be with you both no matter what like, to keep up and be like part of things." In his mind it had meant keeping pace regardless of his own hang ups and issues, no time to let them trip him up or ruin it for him. "I just chose to make bits of it easier is all. I do it with a lot of things. I even did it in the diving contest."
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2013 4:39 am
Relief and fresh hurt, all tangled up together. The easiest route, he remembered that. "You're making choices with feelings instead of thoughts," Jordan said, sensing his way through it. "And okay, a lot of time that works out okay, but sometimes when it hurts too much, it's making you do things you don't really want to do, isn't it? Things you wouldn't have done if you'd had a minute to remember that that'd be bad later?"
His hand curled around Rep's arm, stopping short of clinging, though not by much. He hadn't understood how close they'd maybe been to losing this, still had no real idea how many times Rep might have just gone along with something. "We - I haven't hurt you, have I?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2013 4:55 am
He had to concede with a nod the truth of the statement, the old lady, betrayal on the roof of the blue casino, any number of regrettable mistakes. "Aye. That's true, it does like. Sometimes make me ******** up or just do things. It's a risk, I'm no denying that. But there like. There isn't any option sometimes, there's nowhere else to go. I'm no meant to drink or get high, and if I had to just deal with it.. I don't think I could."
Shaking his head he went on. "Naw, you haven't hurt me, never. I was just. Stupid and scared and s**t." And there hadn't been time, there hadn't been time for anyone, it had looked like the end was heading towards them with inevitability, even after it was averted there was that lingering doubt and urgency. "I just needed to man up." He smiled as if trying to hopefully trivialise the extent of it. "It's like my man the ******** up power."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2013 5:10 am
"Too much pressure," Jordan said thoughtfully. Something was tickling at the edges of his mind, but he couldn't pin it down. He sighed. "I don't want you to have to keep dealing with the times when you can't find an answer. I just - don't have an answer for you. If we can find something that'll help, will you consider it?"
A little of the apprehension bled away at Rep's answer. "It's not bad to be scared. It's what you do about it that matters." Echoes of long-ago conversations, memories of helplessness and creeping fear that never went away, seeing his own fear in Andy's eyes and trying to figure out how to explain that it didn't make him a wimp or a bad kid or anything. That it was just fear, and that you just lived with it when it didn't go away. He choked on the recollection, swallowed hard, closed his eyes and tried to push it away --
-- and wasn't that just hypocritical, when he was trying to tell Rep not to turn away from what hurt? s**t.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2013 5:19 am
"If there's some other way and you think it might work, I'll try it." As long as it wasn't playing instruments or some of the things Jerry did that he felt were a fate worse than death. "As long as it doesn't ******** with my pride or dignity, no that I like think you'd ask me to do anything like that."
He tried not to think about the times when he'd been most afraid, but they were still after all this time close to the surface, near enough he could feel them all in their neat and labelled little places where they never went away, bound in the shackles that kept the monster of rage, instinct and violence at bay. "It's the times when there's nothing you can do about it that I need it for. When its like. When everywhere on the outside is too much and the only place to go is in. When I can't fight or run."
It was his turn to lean in closer to Jordan as he closed his eyes. "It's the door to the walls. I thought you'd know what it felt like." There was a loneliness in his voice he couldn't disguise, he'd hoped of all people, as the one he'd first found with defensive emotional walls of his own Jordan would know what it meant to fully retreat behind them.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2013 5:26 am
"No, I know," Jordan answered, his voice a little ragged. "I'm an idiot. You lock up the thoughts, I lock up the feelings when it all gets too much. You've seen it." He opened his eyes again and swallowed hard. "I haven't figured out how to get around it either. I'm trying. I'll find something, I'm supposed to know how to fix things."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2013 5:31 am
"Who says?" he said with a lazy smile. "I don't remember anyone making you chief fixer. You aren't allowed to do everything on your own any more remember?" It was easy for Rep to turn the tone more positive than he felt, he was aware it wasn't ideal, the way things were made him do heinous things without a flinch, drop his morality in favour of reaction and action. But there needed to be some other way, some fall back. "It's a problem but it's not just your problem. I might not be good at doing anything but breaking things most of the time. But like." He gently ran a lock of Jordan's hair between his thumb and forefinger, soothed just by the nearness and contact. "Let me help too? Maybe there's like. Maybe there's somewhere in the middle we haven't found."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2013 6:05 am
Jordan nodded and breathed deeply, comforted by the closeness, by the understanding. Help, freely offered. "Yeah. There's gotta be. We can find it." He smiled a little. "You know me better than anyone."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2013 10:42 am
Sometimes the abscence of Killzone was felt more than normal, Rep felt it now, sure the other man would have had things he could have suggested to them to help and saddened he was no longer around. Still, he was hopeful they could figure it out together - somehow.
"I do like, do it less now at least. In the meantime though I guess just..don't trust my judgement when I'm like, under pressure."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri Feb 22, 2013 10:50 am
"Well, between the two of us we've got about one full working brain under pressure, right?" Jordan said, some of his more usual teasing tone returning to his voice. "That should count for something."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2013 6:08 am
Rep smirked. "Aye, that's true. Though yours works better than mine, logic is a whole lot handier than just plain instinct when it comes to missions and making decisions and s**t. All I'm any good for is being pointed in the direction of s**t to kill and then like yelled at till I stop when I get too far out of it. At least we like, have a balance sort of right?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2013 12:15 pm
"You're good for plenty," Jordan said with a faint smirk. "I think we make a pretty good team." He slipped his arm around Rep's shoulders, added quietly, "Thank you."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2013 3:23 pm
"Aye. We do. I like, thought it from even like those first times we talked." He hadn't understood the feelings at the time, the deep resonant connection he'd felt, that lingering terror at the thought of being denied the chance to feel it again. "I guess like, this is how I function like. Like I was this sort of. Bit of a person with all these like gaps and holes and stuff and was just falling apart." He drew a diagram in the air with his finger. "But you guys like fill all those gaps, all the stuff that isn't there. It's like being whole. Like I'm thigither."
He leaned affectionately on him. "Whit I'm saying is like, thank you."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2013 3:29 pm
Jordan smiled sideways at Rep, affectionate and gentle. "I didn't, like, know how to say it to myself then, but I knew you were worth waiting for." He leaned over for a soft kiss.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Feb 23, 2013 3:43 pm
"I'm really glad you did." he said, voice low and confiding. "I was so ******** afraid like." Even just thinking about the emotions from that point in time threatened to overwhelm him, all the anxieties and fears put to rest but their memory as vivid as a photograph. "Like I can't even put into words how scared I was that there wouldn't be room for me, like that I couldn't keep up, that if I'd ******** up or not been able to that you wouldn't have waited up. And like. I know now that you would have."
"I keep feeling like the me before is more and more like a stranger."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
