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"Yeah, there's a couple of things I want to get done before the end of the world," Jordan agreed. "Next weekend off I get, I'm finding somewhere with a beach that's got sun and spend a day just doing absolutely nothing. Nothing at all. Just getting warm." He grinned. "Rather do that before the apocalypse."

He lifted an eyebrow. "Well," he said, "I was just being a smartass, but hell, why not? What would you get? I've been sort of thinking about one."

"When I was a kid my hair used to get almost white in the summer from spending so much time outside," Jordan said, a little wistfully. "I burn once a year and then I'm good the rest of the summer. You're so pale, though, I'm not surprised you burn bad."

"That sounds pretty cool," he said, trying to imagine it. He eyed Rep curiously. "Hurt a lot? I mean, I thought my industrial stung a bit, but my pain tolerance is pretty good these days." He absentmindedly touched his earring, considering. "Well, after the world ends you can look up a good shop to get it done, huh?"

"I miss the sun." Jordan looked wistful. "Used to it now, but it's nothing like where I grew up." A moment of dissonance; he realized abruptly that he hadn't said like home. He'd changed so much. It was almost unsettling to think of it.

"Hurts more over bone?" He vaguely recalled having read that somewhere. "Makes sense, I guess, less soft tissue to absorb the vibration. Bones have a lot of nerve endings." He shrugged one shoulder. "More pain, more adrenaline and endorphins."

He pushed his hair out of the way so Rep could see the piercing more clearly. "Got this a couple of years ago when I started college. One of my friends went off on this whole thing about identity changes and symbolism and stuff, but it wasn't anything like that. I just liked the look of it and my aunt didn't want me to get piercings while I was living in her house." He laughed. "The hoops look good on you."

"Yeah? Most of my friends did some kind of sport or hobby," Jordan said. "Pretty competitive. Some of the guys I surfed with were stoners, but I didn't hang with them much. Way to perpetuate a stereotype, and I had other stuff to do."

He laughed. "Hard for earrings to look girly on a big guy," he said. He drew one knee up, propping his foot on the bed and resting his elbow on it. "Thanks," he said, smiling. "Gotta say I don't like the subdermal stuff some people do, though. Really not my kind of thing. Surface piercing, depends on where and what, really."

"Eh, I was never much good at surfing. Spent more time off the board than on. But I liked it," Jordan said. "I was on track team in high school, did some climbing, hiking, mostly the kind of sports that didn't involve throwing a ball through some kind of goal." He laughed. "I never had anything I could blame the shadows on, and Andy could see 'em too, so I knew they weren't drugs."

"Hah, I was still a beanpole when I got here," he admitted. "Daily weights and swinging Ferros around took care of that, though. Robert and Leon, they're just like that. Still kind of surprised sometimes that Robert listens to me. I'd hate to be on his s**t list."

He wondered briefly why Rep was looking so skittish, but the last sentence answered that question. He blinked several times, and could feel himself blushing. So that's what Jerry meant about - It was a good thing that he had a brain-to-mouth filter, really. His stream of consciousness could have gotten him in a lot of trouble right now. He tried not to visualize. "Oh, er. That's pretty unusual," he said after a moment.

"I didn't talk much about them. Andy did sometimes, but he quit after a couple of times getting sent to the shrink for it. Dad always got pissed when we talked about it, too. So I just kind of tried to ignore it as much as possible, and keep everyone's attention off Andy so he didn't have to explain when he got weird." Andy had learned not to talk about it to anyone else after a while, and Jordan hadn't ever liked to talk about it in the first place, so it had ended up something that lay just under the surface, always ready to erupt. Jordan wondered, now, if he had kept in contact with Before, would that have changed? Would they have eventually broken the silence about the shadowy things, if only between themselves?

It was a moot point now; dwelling on the past was only going to depress him again. "Robert and I went through the testing in the same group," he said. "He was my backup. Still is." It was why Robert had been the first person he thought of to call for help on the external mission, and why Robert had arrived promptly. Got your back, bro.

He smirked a little at the sudden defensive tone, still blushing, but having regained some of his equilibrium. "By unusual I hope you don't mean drunken. That'd be a hell of a surprise to wake up to after a night out."

"Probably, but also probably covered their asses about getting sued," Jordan pointed out, and grinned. "Hell of a funny mood, man. That's great."

"I'd be lying if I said that." He laughed. "Usually nothing too permanent, s**t like climbing a tree over the edge of a cliff, going looking for snakes, illegal fireworks. One of my friends set a fire once doing that, but he never got caught and it got put out right away. Good thing, too. Grass fires are serious stuff in summer when there hasn't been rain since February."