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 Posted: Sun Jan 12, 2014 10:12 pm
"That's what you just said!" Jordan hissed, furious and frustrated. "That you want me to be strong so you can let your guard down!" He grabbed at Rep's arms as Rep moved to seize him, resisting the pull. "What I want is for you to care enough about me that you don't want to hurt me, that we can meet in the middle when we want different things!"
He caught Rep's eyes, a stark, lonely blue stare. "If I were ashamed of you," he whispered, "no, if what I say and what I do hurts you, is it enough that I love you? Does that make up for it? That is what you are asking of me. You're asking me to change what I am to let you be what you are. Is love enough to make up for that?"
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Posted: Mon Jan 13, 2014 6:04 am
Rep's frustration was growing and growing the longer they spoke, he felt like Jordan was wilfully not understanding what he was trying to say and Jordan probably felt the same way. It was like they were talking in circles, constantly looping back to the same argument. Hand to hand wasn't working, Jordan wasn't pliable either, it left him one single option, and it wasn't an option he really wanted to use when their room wasn't big to begin with. "I just ******** TOLD you. I told you the reasons I want to hurt you, I told you that I can't make any ******** difference in the moment even if I didn't want to hurt you, it's ******** inevitable."
Tracey's earring was thrumming now, the runes on it glowing with restrained power, he wanted to summon him badly. "If all we can do is ask each other to ******** change to be tolerable, maybe love isn't enough, maybe we have ******** irreconcilable differences, is that what you want to hear?"
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Posted: Mon Jan 13, 2014 6:15 am
"It's not. It's not what I want to hear." Jordan gritted his teeth and stopped pushing, letting go to wrap his arms around Rep and bracing himself for the inevitable shove, to be pushed away again, rejected again. "I don't want to be apart. I don't ******** know what to do, I don't know what to say, but I won't let you go, I refuse to give up on this. I won't."
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Posted: Mon Jan 13, 2014 6:30 am
Patience was not something Rep had in abundance and finding himself caught up in another hug only made him lose it, the argument thusfar had been a back and forth, hot and cold, up and down conflict that left him feeling disorientated and dizzy, at one point he'd felt like there was an understanding, a route out of it, but once again that avenue had slipped away, replaced only by irritation and distress. He did shove Jordan away, rankling at the perceived dominance of the gesture once again, he didn't want affection, right now with his emotions a twisted mess, all it did was weaken his defences and scare him, scared he wanted to lash out and more and more Tracey seemed like a viable alternative.
"What you can ******** do for a ******** start is stop touching me." he snarled. "It's not what I ******** want, its what you want. Right now it just ******** makes my skin crawl. It's pushing and its ******** pissing me off." he bristled, backing up. "And why won't you? What's the reasoning right down at the ******** heart of that decision?" He didn't want to lose what he had either, but he had to know why. He had to ask these questions or he'd never ******** know. Is it just ******** control again? You want to make it that if it ever ******** falls apart its me who does it? Are you just ******** afraid of being wrong? Because I'm ******** lost. You don't like what I am, which is a ******** malicious p***k who takes as much delight in hurting others as being hurt, who will never ever stop no matter how much you ******** wish it. I'll never be tamed, I'll be yours but I'll never be yours. Everything about me drives you crazy and everything about you drives me crazy."
He seemed to steady for a short time, looking Jordan over. "But I can ******** live with that, I ******** enjoy the way you make me feel, but sometimes I ******** doubt if you are strong enough to handle me in return. Like I might ******** break you if I push too hard. Because here you are again, on the edge of breaking."
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Posted: Mon Jan 13, 2014 7:07 am
"You know why I'm pushing? Nothing happened when I left you alone," Jordan snapped back. He straightened, standing stiffly; though he'd expected to be pushed away, it still stung. "I told you a while ago, there's only one way you can get rid of me. I want to stand with you. To give you what I can give you. Believe it or not as you will, but I want you to be happy, and I want to be part of that. So as long as you still want me, I'm still here." His mouth twisted. "You told me that I had run away when you needed me. But you never asked me to stay."
He suppressed the urge to cross his arms defensively, left his hands empty at his sides. "You refused to break me, when I was going to let you," he said quietly. "When I wasn't strong enough to stop you, for a little while. You won't. I'll fight you if I have to, but you won't and can't break me now." He took a careful breath. "That's even, at least. You're hurting, and I'm hurting, and somewhere in between is us."
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Posted: Mon Jan 13, 2014 7:25 am
"And why did it matter if nothing happened? Impatient are we? Was it just too much to deal with that your ******** day to day happiness was impacted for a while?" He scowled. "And you want me to be ******** happy. Is that just happy the way a ******** kid wants its crying mother to be happy? Because it makes them uncomfortable? And I never ******** asked you to stay because I can never ask. I don't ask. I expect people to know or leave." He hadn't been able to ask Harrison to stay with him when Shiloh had gone down, all he'd been able to do was kiss him and watch him walk away, knowing that it would likely be the last time he'd ever see him. His greatest fear had been death all alone and yet even then, when it had mattered the most, he hadn't been able to ask for what he needed. "It's not fair to ask people to ******** read minds, but that's what I ******** need. If you are waiting for me to ask you'll be waiting forever."
The frustration and hurt was tangling in him, coalescing into a single sharp protest. Tracey finally summoned, his weight resting on the floorboards precariously between furniture, making whatever surfaces his serrated feathers sat on creak. "I can't break you now?" he said, dangerous and thoughtful. Can't was a word which always smelled like a challenge when it arrived on the scene.
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Posted: Mon Jan 13, 2014 7:54 am
"For one, I don't actually like being unhappy," Jordan said, scowling, "and for another, we don't sleep well when you're not in bed, as you may have noticed." He shrugged tensely. "Selfish? Sure. You're also being selfish by staying away. And if you're not convinced that I could want you to be happy for your sake, for its own sake, then I don't know what I could say to convince you. Accept it, or don't." He studied Rep's expression, reading the hurt and frustration and unhappiness there. "I know now," he said.
His eyes flicked down to Tracey, the deep black outline of feathers resting on the floor like heavy guilt; then he looked back up at Rep. "If I say yes, you can, I'm too weak for you. If I say no, you can't, you have to try," he said thoughtfully. "So." He shrugged again and moved to circle around Rep towards the door. "No answer is good enough, and I guess we'll have to see." He looked back to catch Rep's eyes. "Break s**t in here, and we're both going to have to explain to Harrison why, but come out to the field and I'll give you a free shot, if you want one."
Weirdly, analyzing and explaining his own reactions had steadied him, calmed him down. He didn't feel like a jangling, furious bundle of nerves any more.
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Posted: Mon Jan 13, 2014 10:58 am
"Good for you." Rep snapped. "Because aye, I completely love watching you and Ace be unhappy, and I sleep really ******** well on that cold floor in there with only some sheets and pillows, that's why I went in there clearly. To sleep better and be selfish." He snorted. "And no. I don't accept it, you want honesty here it is. I don't think you do want me to be happy just for my own ******** sake. I don't buy that for a ******** second. People like you don't ******** do things simply for the altruism of one person, right? Its got to be part of your larger ******** plans." he held up a hand "And before you ******** jump in and defend yourself like no I just love you, I feel things too, I care blah ******** blah - I don't think its a bad thing."
"If you want to know how I feel about s**t? I don't care about people. I don't. I just can't. I don't give a s**t about them or their wellbeing. I won't actively hurt them but I won't ******** hesitate to either. I put them dead on a par with items. ******** I'd sooner save a nice chair than some person, at least a chair is useful to me. It's a simple ******** fact. When I help people its because I want people to think I'm a decent human being, cause I ******** want them to like me and need me. Its for me. Its not for them." He pointed with the hand not holding Tracey. "Ace, and in a different but not lesser way, you are not other people to me. You are me. I will share with you guys, I will protect you, I care about you. Because I care about me, that's the only c**t I really can. But if you want to be in that place, if you want to be close as it gets to me, you have to tolerate that if I will hurt myself to get what I want I will sure as ******** hurt you, unless you do the same as Ace and decide that if I do hurt you you will lose trust in me forever. And if you make me that ******** ultimatum then one day you might have to hold to it and you better ******** mean it."
"The ******** alternative is we keep s**t the way we had it before, but without the pretences. I won't change. You don't change. I don't expect you to do anything for me without some innate gain for yourself, with both of us wanting the same thing, and vice versa. You don't ask me to stop what I can't and I won't ask you to have to confront me about it. You stay free to ******** do what you want, I don't ask all of your time every day, and the same holds true for me. We love each other with those boundaries established so this s**t doesn't happen again and you stop ******** pretending you hurt on my behalf but because I'm your possession, you hurt the same way I ******** do, because I'm part of you, you are part of me and both of us are selfish ******** desummoned Tracey. "And you are right. I don't want to have to explain this s**t to Harrison because he will never understand it. Because he does s**t just because he's pure, because he's committed, because he's true. Because he's what we ******** need to keep us stable. He's the morality we ******** TRY to echo and that's all there is to it." he smirked.
So stop ******** dancing around trying to ******** mirror everything I say and ******** tell me what YOU think and then we can go spar and I can see if my ******** guesses are true.
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Posted: Mon Jan 13, 2014 12:17 pm
Jordan suppressed the reflexive defensive urge and let himself just listen. Rep wasn't entirely right about his motivations ... but neither was he entirely wrong. Jordan's sharp awareness of his presentation, his careful wording and mirroring were manifestations of underlying motive. He cared, and it wasn't fully selfish, but it wasn't fully altruistic, either. Interaction was a dance of what he wanted and what he could ask for, what he gave and what he received.
It wasn't often that Rep just gave him a piece of the puzzle, and this was a key piece, one that clicked into place between sections only loosely arranged to link them all together, to form a clearer image. Right, wrong, or otherwise, he knew more now. Maybe he would never understand fully, but he understood more than he wanted to admit. It was, in the deepest sense, Rep against the rest of the world, and the only reason anyone was given any deeper consideration was by being allowed in, being no longer other.
He let the corner of his mouth pull up in something that was almost a smile. "I forget, sometimes, that you do think differently," he said, half an explanation, half an apology. "I need you because you are mine, and you've always known that. Not control. Just selfishness." Rep would neither understand nor believe the altruistic part of it. "I've never been able to consider giving you up, even when it almost ruined everything. I won't ask you to do what you can't if you won't ask me to do what I can't." He sighed. "I trust you. God help me, I trust you, even when you hurt me."
He looked back to the bed, at the lovingly carved headboard. "He doesn't understand, but he loves us anyway, and I can only try to return that as best I can."
When he looked back to Rep, something in his eyes had calmed again. "I'm ready," he said.
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Posted: Mon Jan 13, 2014 2:07 pm
Rep nodded. There was relief in it because he'd expected Jordan to fully deny what he had said, to be unwilling to concede that what he did was one hundred percent driven by other people's wellbeing. And in denying Rep that, he would be once again asserting his superiority over Rep's innately flawed view of the world. But to Rep's surprise he didn't deny it. Of course he didn't confirm either, Jordan never gave more than he had to, every word was fought for and earned and that was what made the game interesting in the long term.
"Then don't ******** give me up, and I will never leave as long as you are sure that I am yours. And you are willing to remind me of that fact." once again that smirk that clicked into place with the menace of a weapon pulling back its safety appeared on his features. But he was amused and somehow pleased. "And you'll still have ******** my word that whenever you need me I'll be there, and though I might hurt you, because I will never learn how not to, I will try not to, and the harm that comes to you will always be but a fraction of the rage I'll ******** bring to bear on the people who would hurt you."
"You get to stand as close to me as anyone can without burning up, because you are strong enough to stand the heat." Something in him moved and smiled in the darkness. He could feel Tracey's pleasure with that metaphor, with the evocative link with Ferros even through the silence like a far off heartbeat. He understood that relationships could function even when the underlying machinery was not quite on kilter. Ferros had withstood what he was capable of, and more and more he began to see Ferros in the other hunter.
"And good." Rep said, not letting the smirk drop. "Let's go."
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Posted: Mon Jan 13, 2014 2:45 pm
"Those are terms I can accept," Jordan answered. Something had eased in him, something coming loose and falling away, and for the first time in months he felt as though they were settling back into balance. "I'll cover your back and be there when you need me. I'll keep my end of the deal, and I won't try to fix you." A faint smile answered the smirk, a familiar mask answering a familiar mask, call and response. "I like the heat."
I will always forgive you. And there was an echo from deep in his mind, their mind, a fragment that answered that thought and would answer it every time. They weren't quite clear on whose it was any more, if they ever had been. It didn't matter.
Jordan nodded, and opened the door.
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