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 Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2012 7:40 pm
Jordan shook his head. "I don't hide it to get a laugh at anyone. Why didn't I tell you before? Because the first time I talked to you on Twitter, you decided to insult me by telling me don't be a homo. You'd never have listened to me, or hell, probably not talked to me at all." He shrugged. "You made it clear you think being gay is something to be laughed at and avoided. You tell me - does that make me want to tell you I'm exactly that?"
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Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2012 7:48 pm
He crossed his arms. No way was this getting turned back against HIM. He practically pouted defiantly as he stated. "Yeah but if you knew I was like that why did you even ******** /bother/ talking to me? Was that why you wanted to kick me around in that spar? Is that what this whole ******** thing was about?" he could feel himself slipping off the edge of rationality, but for some reason this whole thing felt like a very deep very personal slight against him and he felt decidedly hurt all over again.
"I guess that's why Jerry got a little audience with his snide comment and s**t. I KNEW something was going on. I should have ******** known it." He eyed the cup on the table, he wanted to pick it up and just HURL it across the room, break something, anything, just deal with this fury. He turned his vivid blue gaze on Jordan.
"I ******** trusted you you know."
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Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2012 7:55 pm
"Because I wanted to see if my first impression was right or not," Jordan replied. "There was some spite involved, yeah, I'm only human. But you sounded like you might be a decent guy if you got a chance to be, once I talked to you."
He raised an eyebrow. "If you hadn't stalked off, you would've heard what I told Jerry after you left, which was that that'd been harsh and I didn't want to hear it. I don't take s**t from my friends, either, and kicking a guy in the pride is like kicking him in the nads, and that's just not cool."
He met furious blue eyes with a calm stare. "I don't fit in the little box you have in your head. Are you going to totally blow me off because of it? Or are you going to use the brain you've got and think about it rationally instead of blowing your top because you can't handle things being different?"
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Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2012 8:06 pm
Rep held off on his instinct to lash out and break things, still tense, still confused beyond all belief. He didn't know if he /had/ ended up being the same as that first impression, but he didn't even dare ask.
He outright looked away though at the mention of that horrible moment, wanting to believe him but as always drawn to that path of least resistance, of just assuming the worst and that this was some sort of backpedalling effort. He didn't know. Still the fact remained he'd /heard/ it, as untrue as Rep felt it was. But he couldn't even defend himself. "Oh I'm used to being kicked. I think kicks to the pride hurt way more than anywhere else. Even though they shouldn't, a guy should be ******** invincible in his own mind."
He frowned again at Jordan, looking hopelessly lost, torn five different ways, still bristling as he snarled. "I can't /afford/ to blow you off because of this." He didn't really have many people he even trusted a fraction. "Everything in me says I should, that I should get the hell out of here, that I don't even know who I'm ******** dealing with anymore. But I ******** can't. Because I've told myself I need to /change/ this s**t. I need to change these ******** instincts. So yeah. I'll try ******** rational."
He didn't look rational however as he frowned, trying to calm down his hemmed up emotions. "Its not ******** fair."
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Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2012 8:20 pm
"Nobody's invincible," Jordan said quietly. "And if you go around thinking you are, you'll do stupid s**t because you think you can't get hurt by it. Nobody's exempt. Anyone can die. Even if you go on thinking that this person you love will never die, that s**t happens to other people, that somehow because they weren't dead every time you checked before, people die. For stupid reasons, at stupid times." He paused, took a breath, noticed that his hands were clenched white-knuckle tight around his coffee cup and consciously relaxed his grip. "Rep, dude. You're an a*****e and a bigot - and that's just plain blunt honesty right there - but I kind of like you anyway and I think you could be someone I could be proud to call a friend. And that can't happen if you do s**t-stupid things because you're not thinking and you think you're invincible."
He took a mouthful of coffee to give himself a moment to calm down. Then he said, "I haven't changed. All that's happened is you've got a new fact, and you can look back and see that some s**t you've said you wouldn't have said if you knew it. Because it's offensive, and you knew it, but you weren't thinking about it. So think."
He took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair, forcing himself not to look away, not now. "Life's not ******** fair."
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Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2012 8:33 pm
Rep stayed looking away as Jordan spoke, once again the guy proving he could hold onto reason reguardless. He did glance over fleetingly as he mentioned someone dying, and even someone as emotionally numb as Rep wasn't too stupid to pick up that it had to be a fleeting glimpse of some raw nerve he didn't even know existed. He even spotted the way he relaxed his grip, though he said nothing about it, feeling he was in no place to discuss something so private, that he'd got an accidental glimpse at a crack in the other sun's armour, nothing more.
He almost went on the defensive again as he was called an a*****e and a bigot, but that quickly faded in the face of another look of shock and confusion. Yeah, he was way out of his ******** depth here, he could tell, no one had ever actually told him that they wouldn't actually mind being a friend, hell he doubted the people he called friends would say they knew him if anyone asked them. So it was odd. "Yeah. Maybe. I just always found it easier to tell myself I was invincible in the hope maybe someday I'd actually believe it and it'd be true. You lose enough s**t, you build walls. Good strong ones that keep everyone waay the ******** out."
He sighed, it was a battle he'd lost for the time being, a battle that had cost him something of what he'd believed for a very very long time. He finished off his own coffee, eyeing Jordan thoughtfully as he did so, finally getting the inferno of his emotions back under control. "No kidding its not fair. You think you've got it all sussed out and then someone comes along with a ******** giant sledgehammer and breaks what you thought you knew into tiny bits." it was his turn to smirk over his cup, though not unkindly.
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Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2012 8:44 pm
Jordan put his coffee cup down, empty, and rested his elbows on the edge of the table, laced his fingers loosely together, looking suddenly very tired. He'd wavered on the very edge of losing his calm, pulled it back by a bare margin. "I know, dude. I know. You don't let anyone close, so they can't see you're faking it," he sighed. "I can understand that one."
He looked up again, half-smiled. "I came out here because I had a goddamn bad dream and I didn't feel like being alone in my empty room, and I didn't want to bother anyone with it. Even my team. How sad is that?"
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Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2012 8:51 pm
Rep nodded, he had a feeling, well a suspicion, that the other guy had similar walls to him, just much, much better. To the point he couldn't be sure how right he was. "Yeah, though you end up in a little ******** box of your own devising as a result." He shrugged, keeping up appearances was so hard.
He shook his head at Jordan's comment, as if dismissing it being weak or sad at all. "Nothing wrong with that." he shrugged. "This place can be ******** lonely and..sometimes there's s**t you just don't want your friends to know. Especially when they think you are untouchable and you feel like its your duty to stay that way for them." You lived up to what other people expected, he thought wryly, remembering his conversation with Clarice.
"And if that's sad then I don't even know what the hell I am. I'm scared to go back to my room like a little kid, in case I die." And the idea of being killed, on his own, in his sleep, scared him more than absolutely anything else. "No man, you really aren't sad at all, trust me."
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Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2012 9:09 pm
"And you closed your own goddamn box, so you can't even blame anyone for it," Jordan agreed. "I should take my own advice, huh? I'm not invincible either." He smiled faintly. "Thanks, Rep. I feel a little better." A moment's hesitation. "Just so you know. I didn't like hiding stuff, but sometimes I have to choose what I'm going to say when, because that stuff matters."
Then he picked up his coffee cup again and scowled at it. "There's something very wrong with this cup," he announced. "Namely, the fact that it's empty."
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Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2012 9:15 pm
"Mhm, exactly. So sometimes you just like, blame yourself." He smirked "And no, I don't think you are. But you are way, way better than me at making it seem like you are indeed invincible. Had me believing it too." he waved a hand vaguely "And don't thank me, you don't have anything to thank me for. I'm the one who flipped out at you man. And yeah. I understand. Some things are /dangerous/ to say at the wrong time. Some things you can never really say at all."
He couldn't help but smirk playfully reguardless. "Well my cup's pretty empty too. Apparently I stress drink. Was that comment a hint that your cup needs a refill? Because I will, but I warn you I make ******** terrible coffee."
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Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2012 9:27 pm
The smile turned into a wicked smirk. "A good poker face will get you a long way if you've got enough willpower to just hang onto it long enough," Jordan said. He picked up his cup and got up. "Just, y'know. Remember to think, okay?" He clapped a hand on Rep's shoulder in passing, heading for the coffee machines.
"The coffee is terrible here," he called back over his shoulder. "But it's coffee."
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Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2012 9:43 pm
Rep gave him a lazy smirk as he passed, content that at least for the time being the tension was gone as fast as it had arrived. It was rattling to him how fast he swung between one extreme and another around Jordan, even while the guy managed to keep himself cool. "I'll leave that willpower up to you." he replied "I'll remember to think, if you'll remember you aren't invincible either." He got up himself. "Actually, I think I'm going to head to bed. And hopefully not wake up /dead/ tommorow." he ran a hand through his hair leaving it an utter disaster.
He shot a glance over to the coffee machine. "And if s**t dreams swing around again and you want someone to like, kill time with who /isn't/ expecting rediculous s**t out of you. My dorm is 197. And no, I don't give a ******** if people wake me up, I hardly sleep as it is." He shrugged lazily. "I'm an a*****e and a bigot but I'm a /bored/ one."
He eyed the cup debating putting it in the sink. Nah, someone else's problem. "But in any case. Night. Wish me some luck, I'll probably need it."
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Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2012 9:53 pm
Jordan refilled his coffee cup; two cups wouldn't keep him awake for more than an hour, and he could use the relaxation more than the sleep right this moment. He turned back to give Rep a smile, an unreserved one. "You got a deal," he answered. "My room's 113 if you get this crazy feeling that you want to hang out."
He chuckled. "Yeah, well. Robert's an a*****e too, and he's my best friend; I dunno what that says about me. Anyway. Night, dude. Good luck with that sleeping thing. And the waking up thing too." He leaned back against the counter and sipped meditatively at his coffee, he'd go back to his room in a little while, when he'd finished mulling over the conversation.
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Posted: Sun Mar 04, 2012 9:56 pm
Rep nodded, making note of the number. Glancing back for just a moment before vanishing along the corridor back to his dorms.
He had no idea what he was doing anymore. He needed a little time to think.
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