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 Posted: Wed Jun 10, 2015 11:08 am
"Maybe so." Jordan sighed. Ferros shifted in his mind then, and Jordan blinked as it occurred to him that he did have a single relationship in his life in which there were no walls, no boundaries, no secrets. He shared a wisp of gentle affection with his weapon. Maybe it would be too overwhelming to share everything with another human; maybe it was impossible without this kind of bond, in which communication wasn't diluted or obscured by the imprecise nature of language or the necessity of interpreting another person's actions. He put the thought aside to return to later. "You could argue that love is inherently impractical," he suggested.
"I'm not sure there's a concrete answer at all. What's right for someone could be entirely wrong for someone else." He shook his head a little, thinking of Rep and Harrison and how they worked and didn't work, and how he had worked and not worked with them, and how much redefining and renegotiation would be necessary if they should decide that he was worth trying for again. There was hope in that thought, and there was a deep weariness. Was he strong enough? He didn't know. It would hurt, probably. But absence hurt too, and grief, and it had been a very, very long time since there had been no real pain in his life.
He nodded to Horace's promise that the conversation would stay private. "It stays in this room," he agreed, aware that if the question were reversed, he'd have preferred the promise to be spoken aloud.
A question escaped Horace, almost as though it had fought its way out on its own. Jordan looked at Horace, carefully gauging his reaction as he spoke. "I don't think that loving can be wrong. Not in itself. It's what you do with it that gets into muddier waters." He traced his thumb pensively along the rim of the mug he held. It would be intensely hypocritical of him to criticize Horace for wanting something and someone that had the potential to break him. "I don't know all the details, but from what you've said, it's been dangerous for you to love him. Would it hurt you more to act on it or to hold back?" Gently, he added, "It's on you to keep yourself safe, or not."
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Posted: Thu Jun 11, 2015 12:37 am
"That could be true," he conceded. "But if love's impractical, I figure it needs practical things and concepts applied to it, to even things out." He wasn't sure where he had been going with that statement and shrugged. There were impractical parts of love he had stopped hoping for, had forced himself to stop, had lied to himself that he no longer wanted. He fell silent then, toe curling in his shoes, fingers pausing in their tapping. Of course there was no one answer, and if there was, he didn't think Jordan would have told him. He sighed. Horace had tensed after asking his question, but he visibly relaxed at Jordan's answer. Loving wasn't wrong, but acting... It was, of course, a matter of pain. Of carefully weighed pros and cons, it was endurance; it was fifteen months and sixteen days and a hand that would never have the same strength again. Was it acceptance - of everything? He would always fail that count. "I though you'd say something like that." He gave a small, bright laugh and rubbed his hand across his face. "I would never ask to be saved." And in the word saved, a little bitterness leaked through - the memory of unkind hands, cruel words, and the dismissiveness that came with simply being an 'inconvenience'. Horace wondered yet again, what would have happened. Would he have drifted down to the ocean's bed or washed up on Deus' sandy shore to be taken as a warning? Death had been the only outcome, but maybe he would've understood things better. "They are different kind of hurts, I think. It depends on if my body or my heart is weaker. Endurance, maybe." He trailed the word around in his head, like it drip into the disused corners of his mind and liked the feel of it there. If he could hold onto words, phrases, it would be enough. He would be enough. He didn't think he'd ever be safe again, if Jan came back. When Jan came back. "I... don't.." He cut himself off, unwilling to finish that thought. "Are you safe, Jordan?"
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Posted: Thu Jun 11, 2015 5:23 am
"It's the being together part that needs practicality," Jordan agreed, one corner of his mouth pulling up in something that wasn't quite a smile. The hard part, and the easy part. He didn't and hadn't wanted to be a chore, but that didn't mean that doing it right wasn't work. Anything worth doing took some kind of work.
"Saved," he murmured thoughtfully. There was bitterness in that word, a grudge and a kind of wistfulness, and the shape of what had happened was being slowly carved out by the words Horace used to talk around it. Jordan found that he wasn't sure he wanted to know. It had been pain, and it had been hurt, and it had been cruelties, and still Horace wanted to be taken back with a longing no less intense for being held in waiting. There was a criticism and a judgment inherent in the word saved that wasn't in rescued, and the way Horace used the word suggested that he meant it that way.
Was he safe? He turned that question over in his head. "As safe as I can be," he answered. It was a non-answer, and he knew it, but he couldn't honestly say yes, nor could he say no. He was safer than he had been, maybe; he didn't want it that way. He wanted to feel again.
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Posted: Fri Jun 12, 2015 1:28 pm
Practicality. If he could corral his love, shove it into some corner so that it would behave and do as told, he would in a heartbeat. He didn't like feeling like this - the horrible twist and tug of affection and love warring with anger and fear. The insecure possessiveness, the fear of him returning, the fear if he didn't awaken from his pod again... He would tell himself the things he needed to hear over and over until he believed them and until they were the only things he knew. This would be his practicality because there was no other way to survive. He had to make it so everything was okay. Saved - it was easier, worlds easier, to focus his hurt and anger on the way America and Taym had come to him, the things they had said and continued to say. He swallowed and looked at Jordan a little oddly. "What do you want to be?" It was clumsily phrased, but Horace thought it was a time for vague maybes and circles of words that weren't quite cages.
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Posted: Fri Jun 12, 2015 1:47 pm
"Mmm." Jordan considered his words, looked off towards the window instead of meeting Horace's eyes. "Loved," he said. "Thought of. Not left behind." Some hypocrisy there, too, he thought. He had left because he couldn't face the idea of being told to leave, and if it hadn't hurt it would be grimly funny.
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Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2015 8:47 am
He grimaced. "None of those sound particularly safe." All of those things relied on other people which inherently made them unsafe. "Relying on other people for things is hard. There's never a guarantee." Loved, thought of, not left behind. Jan hadn't loved him back, couldn't, and he wondered how things would change when he came back. He wasn't sure if he could handle everything again. Horace had never been first in anyone's thoughts, would never be. In the people who mattered, there would always be someone before him. And he'd been left behind, here, awake while Jan was in some pod. He shook his head. It was a trifecta of everything a person could want, everything that was so hard to obtain and it hurt. "It'd be nice if we didn't need those things." He exhaled slowly and took another drink of his lukewarm coffee. "Do you know what you're going to do?"
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Posted: Sat Jun 13, 2015 10:48 am
"There's some things you just have to hope for, I guess." Jordan sipped at his coffee and grimaced a little as he discovered it wasn't really hot any more. "I'm ... not ready to give up on it. Not yet." He gave Horace a contemplative look. "I think it's part of what makes us - people." Not human, because they knew through firsthand experience that there were people who weren't human, and humans who weren't quite people. "Needing one another." He set down his mug, considering the question. "I'm going to keep trying and keep asking until I'm told to stop. I left because I thought I wasn't wanted, and it was a mistake." He shook his head a little, and his mouth settled into a determined line. "I might ******** up again, but I'm not going to do it the same way, anyway."
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Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2015 5:58 pm
Horace snorted. "Still, being entirely self-sufficient might be nice, although I guess it would have to come with a measure of not caring." And it was nice, caring about other people. Horace enjoyed having friends, he had more than enjoyed being with Jan until... until then. "Well, what's easiest isn't always the best." He listened pensively as Jordan spoke; there was a sort of determined hope in his voice that fascinated Horace. He was quiet for a moment, absently rubbing his index finger along the rim of his coffee cup. "I hope you succeed. You sound so... so sure. It's complicated, I know, but I really think you'll find that happiness." He smiled briefly, before falling silent again. Horace felt history looming over his head - he would rinse, repeat if he got the chance, hope for a better outcome. And if not, well, it wouldn't matter because no one would try to save him a second time. In all the ways he'd replayed, even in all the ways his nightmares had shown it to him - he didn't get a happy ending. Not if Jan didn't want him, not if Jan did. He wondered if it was a little like throwing himself against an insurmountable wall in the hopes of knocking it down.
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Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2015 10:51 am
"I don't think I'd want to stop caring." Jordan leaned his elbows on his knees and laced his fingers together. "Can't care about everything, or you'll kill yourself trying. You gotta decide what to put it into. Still ... I think not caring at all, about anything or anyone, would be ... dangerous, maybe. To yourself, and to anyone around you." "I'm sure of what I feel," he said quietly. "For a while, I hoped it would fade. That I'd be able to let go and move on. It'd have been easier, probably, to just write it off and look for something not so complicated. But doing that would be lying to myself and anyone else involved, and I won't do that." He smiled a little, ruefully. "I hope you're right. I hope you'll find some happiness for yourself, too." He wasn't as certain; Horace seemed troubled by what he felt, still tormented by what had happened or what hadn't. Whatever it was, he'd need to find some kind of peace with himself before he could find peace with anyone else. Jordan kept that thought to himself. He didn't think Horace would want to hear it, at least not now, and saying it would cross that subtle line between offering what he felt so that the younger man could empathize and giving perhaps-unwanted and unasked-for advice.
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Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2015 9:53 am
Jordan was, of course, right. The amount and the who of caring and loving was a delicate balance, one he wasn't sure he could ever pull off well. Horace's friends were treated to the brunt of caring too much, to the point that he worried about invading their personal space. Conversely, those he had decided not to care about... Horace found himself reacting towards them with a cold callousness that he hated seeing in himself. "Sometimes what you feel might be the only truth you need," he said ruefully. Horace still hoped for a happy ending sort of thing, something where he wasn't so afraid, where everything was happy and- He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He hoped, but he did not expect. "Happiness is something deserved, isn't it? And for me, I-" The alarm on his phone went off, the shrill beep a generic tone he used to remind himself it was duty time. "And I have a shift I have to get to." Horace stood and rolled his stiff shoulders, a little thankful for the interruption before he veered into far too specific territory. "Thank you for the coffee, Jordan, and the conversation." He clapped a hand on Jordan's shoulder. "Good luck."
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Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2015 2:01 pm
"Not always. What you feel can make you act really irrationally." Jordan gave Horace a pensive look, studying his expression. "Who defines the deserving part?" The alarm on Horace's phone went off, and the younger man got up. Jordan got up as well, picking up his cup to take it back to the kitchen area. "You're welcome. Feel free to drop by again sometime," he said, and nodded. "Good luck to you too." The conversation had given him a lot of food for thought. He suspected that he'd be mulling it over for a while.
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