Welcome to Gaia! ::

Jordan filled Horace's cup and handed it back, then pushed the box of sugar cubes along the counter toward the other man. "It does good things now and then, and the small-community effect would still be in force without it. News might travel a little slower and more arguments would be conducted face-to-face. No way of escaping the conflicts, grudges, and opinions either way, really," he opined. "And hey, if all the drama that's currently conducted on Twitter was kept private, what would we do for entertainment?"

One eyebrow angled a little at not an average meeting. "Met him on the field, I'm guessing? I did too." Jordan smiled wryly, his eyes going a little distant. "He's smarter than he'll admit to, and his sense of humor matches up well with mine most of the time. He's a stubborn a*****e, that's both a pro and a con, let me just say." More seriously, "A survivor. There's a fire in him that won't go out." Jordan sipped his coffee, wrapped his hands around the mug and interlaced his fingers, looking off toward the window, unfocused, clearly seeing memory instead of what was in front of him. "He sees me," he said, quiet and contemplative, "not the me that I wear, underneath that." A slow sigh, a little sad. "When we're not out of sync, that is."

He shook his head, looked down into his coffee mug, and refocused, his gaze returning to Horace. "Not anything I could have expected," he said. "But there it is."

"There are no secrets around here," Jordan agreed wryly. "Takes a little getting used to." He was a private person by nature and habit, and learning to keep his private and public selves less stringently separated had taken some time. It was a balancing act that he was still navigating.

He snorted. "I'm not going to kill you for recognizing he's hot. I'm not about to tell you I never get jealous, but I was pretty sure you were pushing it for effect rather than seriously. If you really wanted to piss me off, you'd have to try harder, and maybe a different tack. Rep's a lot more hair-trigger." He shook his head.

"Maybe so." He sighed. "I like to think I do, but sometimes it's not so easy." He left it at that, still vague; he didn't mind Horace, cautiously liked him, but he certainly didn't know the kid well enough to talk about the messy details of what had gone wrong. He smiled a little at the offer, sipping his coffee. "I'd appreciate that. I'm not going to tell you not to needle them at all, that's clearly an unreasonable goal, but if you could avoid bringing me into that it'd be helpful."

"It'd be a hefty tome. Number two: tentacles at the beach. Number three: zombie babies. The list goes on." Jordan ran his thumb absently along the handle of his coffee mug. "Well, if you're all right with being alive, far be it from me to take that privilege away," he laughed.

He nodded in agreement. Messy was probably a severe understatement for many of the entanglements people were involved in, but it would do as a brief summary. "Thanks," he replied, sincerely.

The question made him pause, studying Horace again as he decided how much he wanted to say. "I've been seeing things all my life, like many of us." He sipped at his coffee. "My brother could see them too, so most of the time I was pretty sure I wasn't crazy. I was approached a few years ago while I was in college." A small pause, no more than a breath. "After his funeral. My contact suggested that I might find out more if I agreed to come here." He half-shrugged. "In a roundabout fashion, I did. They really don't tell you what you're getting into, though. I don't know what I would've done if I'd had full disclosure, but I suspect that there are people here who wouldn't have agreed if they'd read all the fine print." He thought of the conversation with Harrison, thought about the family he'd left behind with the quiet, dull ache that always accompanied the thought.