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 Posted: Fri Jan 03, 2014 5:00 pm
"How do you protect him from himself?" Jordan swayed towards Harrison, wanting to touch him and certain now that he would be rebuffed. "I don't know what to do. Everything's wrong and I don't know how to fix it, I should know how and I don't." His voice had gone strained and hoarse by the end of the sentence. He should know how to make things right, but he didn't. It was like being suddenly blind, groping in the dark with his map taken away.
How are you supposed to know?
I should. He needs me and I can't even touch him. Jordan swallowed hard.
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Posted: Sun Jan 05, 2014 5:08 am
Nothing Jordan said made real sense, every time he asked about Rep it was set opposed to him. How do you fix him, how do you solve him, he's a problem and maybe he's a problem that needs to stop.
"He's not- he's not a ******** problem," Harrison grieved.
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Posted: Sun Jan 05, 2014 5:24 am
Jordan rocked back a little. "He's not a problem. He - he does things that are going to screw him over, and he can't stop, and I don't know how to help, and if I can't help he won't need me any more." He choked the words off and stood in the snow for long moments. Then he shook his head.
"I"m saying it all wrong. I don't." Tentatively, he moved closer again, reaching out to touch Harrison's shoulder, then to slink his arms around him, wire-tense and ready to pull back at the first sign that he was going to be pushed away. "Look, I'll - I'll go ask to borrow that ring, the one that makes you tell the truth, and you can ask me, I won't fight it or anything."
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Posted: Sun Jan 05, 2014 5:52 pm
Harrison held back on to Jordan very tightly, trying to swallow the snow tears. The emotional rush was just this side of manic, the joy edging intrusively in between the loneliness and mistrust and frustration, making him want to half-laugh and half-cry and it was a weird, dizzy bubble.
He unrooted one hand from Jordan's back to mop up his face one more time before he started growing icicle spikes.
"Tsst, ha, you and that, that ******** ring. You squirmed outta ******** question except for mine. I know better than to think that thing has any more of a hold on you than anything else. Anything you don't want."
Harrison held on again, wiping the rest of the tears onto Jordan's snowman shoulder. He smelled inexplicably pepperminty.
"Course Rep needs you. There's a lot that a*****e needs, and that this a*****e needs. But it's not like, on account of this thing, or that thing, we're not going to not need each other any more."
Just things like being dead.
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Posted: Mon Jan 06, 2014 2:14 am
"I wouldn't -- " Jordan put his forehead down on Harrison's shoulder, sighing. "I guess it wouldn't be very convincing, just having my word that I wouldn't try to keep things back." He'd half wanted it to know for himself that he was telling the truth. What could he trust if he couldn't trust himself?
"It -- if all else was lost, if we were dead anyway, all of us, that was, I would never," and he stopped, pressing his lips together. "I'm going to stop before I dig my own ******** hole any deeper," he said, and breathed a long, uneven breath.
He held Harrison close, shaking a little from the force of emotion, feelings too big to contain and the artificial overlay of Joy not helping in the least. "I don't know why you want me around, but I'm here as long as you'll have me." He wasn't being pushed out. That was enough.
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Posted: Mon Jan 06, 2014 8:05 pm
"Somebody around here's gotta know the definition of diplomacy," Harrison said, "but I wish you'd up the aggression on your foreign policy. You let any random ******** push you around. And random ******** are d-dumbasses. I mean. Not as half as dumb as me. But dumb."
Harrison wished he could stop crying like an idiot.
He took a deep breath before saying, quiet, "I came out here to ask if you wanted to come back. Couldn't get to sleep."
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Posted: Tue Jan 07, 2014 1:59 am
Jordan stopped himself from saying I don't, because if he was being honest with himself, he did, and maybe it was time to stop, and maybe it had been time to stop a long time ago. "You're not dumb," he said instead.
Did he want to come back? "Yeah," he said, and, quieter, "please."
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Posted: Wed Jan 08, 2014 8:05 pm
"I am dumb," Harrison insisted, kissing Jordan's forehead and finding his hand.
He walked back, Jordan's hand in his, through the snow. There was something cool and calm about the landscape, and by the time they got back to their gingerbed, Harrison was ready for the rest. Even if it was somewhere between a snowman and a reindeer. His wings hung in a frosty arc off the side of the bed, and when he dreamed, it was of a distant and warm Christmas morning.
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Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2014 2:12 am
Jordan shook his head, but he was too tired to insist further, tired of arguing, tired of the tension and stress. "We'll be okay," he said instead, and hoped that that was true. He laced his fingers with Harrison's and walked back in a silence that was close enough to comfortable.
It took him a long time to get to sleep, but he drifted off eventually, dreaming of chill and quiet and peace.
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