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~~~~~~~~~



Make a decision, Jessie...

a. Car

b. Train

c. Walk



~~~~~~~~~

"<...I don't like your logic,>" Jessie said quietly, "" he paused, resignedly, ""

"" she squeaked, clutching the dress tightly in her hands.

"" said Corie, "that.>"

"" Jessie answered coolly, ""

"" Cressa exclaimed, puffing herself up and boldly seizing his arm. She proceeded to pull him over the edge of the road and down through the bushes, scooping up her cloak as she went. "so much fun!>"

Upon reaching the bottom, which was thick with trees on this part of the highway, Cressa spun around to face him with a look of sheer glee.

"" she cried, ten times more eager than eager. Dropping the bundle of clothes to the ground at his feet, she lunged at him excitedly. ""

Jessie, however, had other ideas. He deflected the first hand that shot out towards him with ease, catching the second as it managed to grip the material next to the join of his robe. Drow robes, being basically long sheets of material wrapped and tied around the body cleverly, are notoriously easy to undo if you know the right place to fiddle. One hard tug in that spot, and the whole thing would come undone. Still, it needs to be said that having clothes which are easy to remove is a boon in certain situations...

"" he told her.

"" she answered happily, groping hands retracting immediately to her sides. When she didn't budge an inch from her spot, standing and staring at him with a broad, expectant grin on her face, Jessie raised his eyebrow at her.

"you are perfectly capable of standing over there," he said, gesturing to the appropriate spot several metres away, ""

Her face fell like a rock plummetting to earth. "You ruin everything!>"

She unconsciously balled her hands into fists, stomping her foot like an insolent little girl. In that split second, Cressa's tantrum-voice and tantrum-face did indeed make her appear much younger than she normally did, which was in turn much younger than she actually was.

"" Corie said, reappearing around Jessie's shoulder again. However, it was he who cut in rather than Cressa.

"" he said gently, proffering his arm for the bird to hop over to her mistress. ""

Cressa did indeed perk up immediately at the thought. "" she agreed heartily, allowing the bird to hop onto her own shoulder before wheeling around and marching to her spot of exile. ""

Raising his eyebrow at her back, Jessie crouched down to fish the dress she had originally produced out of the pile of cloak and other material. He took a better look at it and made a face - mildly effeminate or not, his body wasn't going to fool anybody in a dress as tight as that. Tossing it to the side, he began to rummage around in the pile, pulling out a couple of choices and quickly discarding them.

"" he called over to her as a third outfit went flying, ""

"" she answered, grinning sweetly towards the trees.

"<...Slutty,>" he replied, slightly reluctantly. If he was worried about insulting his friend, however, he needn't have been concerned.

"Oh," she giggled, ""

With a glance in her direction and a small sigh, he picked another dress from the pile, and miraculously appeared to strike gold.

"" he said, getting to his feet with the article in hand. It was longer than the others, for a start, and made of chiffony rather than clingy material. It almost reminded him of...

""



~~~~~




"fine.>"

"<Shut it.>"

""

"<Shut. It.>"

""

"" the tortured sorceress cried, ""

"" Jessie sighed.

"" Corie jeered, elated, ""

"" he snapped, finally adjusting the bottom hem of the skirt. The dress actually fit him rather well, in fact falling just a little bit lower down on his thighs than Cressa's thanks to her enhanced proportions. ""

The witch spun around eagerly, almost dislodging Corie, who'd been blatantly facing the wrong direction, from her back. The abused bird squawked irritatedly. Jessie hadn't been sure what reaction to expect from Cressa herself, but laughter was probably low down on the suspected list.

"Um," she said at length, still trying to control her giggling, ""

Jessie just rolled his eye. It would have been strange to take that as an insult. In actual fact, a comment on his inability to masquerade as a woman was a veiled compliment. ""

"" she said, through one last cough of laughter. ""

Coming forward, she stooped to pick up his discarded cape, which was now lined with his removed weaponry - yes, all of it. Drow are, as has been referenced several times already, very easily the masters of concealing things upon their person... but, recalling the luggage which now lies stashed under a tropical fern back at the spot where their escape plan was concocted, unfortunately not miracle workers.

She swept the voluminous garment around his shoulders, carefully attaching it around the center of his chest. In this one fluid movement, his entire upper body, including his neck and arms, was totally concealed.

"" she said, pulling a pair of black stilettos out of an indiscernable whereabouts. Jessie seemed just as surprised to see them as anyone else might have been.

"" he said, slipping his bare feet into the shoes. They fit perfectly, and he gave her a look. "<...Have you been planning this?>"

"" she sang sweetly, bending down to do up the slender buckles for him, ""

"...Hm."

"" she breathed, satisfied, as if she'd just performed a hard day's work. She stepped back, examining him, and almost immediately frowned. ""

She dove back in, hitching up the material and rolling it to keep it in place. Jessie, of course, protested. ""

"" she mumbled, concentrating on keeping the material secure, ""

He didn't bother arguing any further. Instead, he concentrated on shifting his weight from side to side while Cressa fiddled and fussed, getting used to the new center of gravity imposed by the shoes. His attempts also came to a halt when Cressa snapped at him for 'fidgeting.'

"" he snapped back. Cressa, however, ignored him, finishing her work and stepping back again.

"" she commanded, with energy akin to an aerobics instructor, ""

The look he threw her must have been quite dirty, from the expectant 'get-on-with-it' face she pulled in return. And so, he complied.

The look of pleasure and approval on Cressa's face lent her something of an unusual glow. "<Now you look like a woman.>"

"" he answered grimly, posture immediately slumping. It can be drawn that this was the last piece of information which could have made him incredibly glad out of all the pieces of information in existence throughout the entire spectrum of planes: charted and uncharted.

Cressa was not oblivious to his poor attitude. She did, however, choose to take it very lightly.

"" she began breezily, dancing forward to pick up her own cloak and sweep it around herself. For once, a couple of dislodged bits of clothing courtesy of Jessie's search fell out, but she immediately swept them up, bending her body like a ballerina and tossing them back into their homes with the easy finesse of a juggler. All the while, her advice continued in a stream of adroit animation. "human man into letting us get into his car... and then, of course, keep us there. Honestly, it shouldn't be too hard.>"

Jessie did not look terribly convinced.

""

Just exactly what else the perfect posture entailed Jessie never found out. Cressa trailed off, looking off to the side, as if seeing something far in the distance.

Her face split into a grin just as Jessie began to grow impatient, arms folded across his chest beneath the cloak.

"" he snapped, ""

"" she said smugly, coming back round to attention. Her grin was a matter of foreboding, to say the least. ""

~~~~~~~~~

Just what kind of game did Cressa think she was playing at? Perhaps that was the exact problem - she thought she was playing a game.

She was up to something still. It wasn't like her to just ignore him like that. Usually she would have been all over him, trying to persuade him to play along, and the harder she tried to make him bend the more unflinching he became. Well, sometimes, anyway. The fact that they'd even ended up in this situation showed that Jessie could be persuaded from time to time. Though in this case he hadn't been persuaded so much as he'd put his faith in Cressa and her ideas.

Had it been misplaced?

...Definitely.

Well, that mistake was in the past. Now, he could choose to quit playing her pawn, and he was going to do just that.

Except... knowing Cressa, she'd definitely end up in some sort of trouble. He couldn't abandon her entirely, even if he'd wanted to - which he sort of did. No, that was stupid. Storming off like a huffy child wasn't going to help anyone, as tempting as it was. He needed to get a hold of himself. Find his focus.

A car beeped its horn behind him, startling him out of his skin. He stepped out of the way, and a boorish carload of men, who were already swilling beer by the looks of things, pulled past. As he turned to face them, the majority of passengers could faintly be heard wolf-whistling through the closed windows, and a couple made infantile kissy-faces against the glass. Jessie's nose wrinkled, and he drew himself up a little straighter.

It seemed dithering in front of the house wasn't such a good idea either. The fact that he couldn't wait around out there became even more obvious as the car parked itself right up next to the door, and several of the louts began to get out. A couple of them signalled and called to him. Hurriedly, he began walking up to the house.

"Alright, sweetheart?" shouted one as he went past. The rest were following suit. "Where you going, darling? Hey, sexy, do you fancy a drink?"

He trotted round the corner double-quick. What did it matter if it looked like he was running away? It was very probable the majority of women ran away from them, too. Thankfully, they didn't seem to be following, so he made his way round the side of the house, thinking of what to do.

At the back of the building was a towering metropolis of used beer crates. The music was louder this end than it had been at the other. Peering over one of the stacks, he could see a back door - open. Voices became apparent. Then, as he watched, someone shouted something about 'shutting the door,' and just that happened.

Jessie crept around the towers close to the ground, watching and listening. The door suddenly opened again - violently, as if kicked. Jessie jumped to the side, pouncing over a shorter pile of crates and into a hollow like a gigantic black panther.

He couldn't quite make out what was going on, but it seemed like three of the men were arguing about something. The one who was arguing against the other two gave up, and the door closed again.

There was a window he hadn't seen before, as it was hidden from most outside angles by the crates. He crept up to it and slowly peered inside - what luck! It was a window directly onto the room where the party was going on. Come to mention it, the whole thing appeared to be one gigantic room on the inside, but his field of vision was severely restricted and so he couldn't be sure. It seemed very open-plan, in any case. A big table was set up, luckily on his window's side of the room, and there, her back to the front door, sat Cressa. She was smiling smugly, with a hint of cunning, and he recognised the expression as the one that indicated she'd just danced her way through a negotiation and gotten her own way with the greatest of ease. As he looked at her, she looked up at him, and met his eye directly. He wasn't exactly easy to spot, thankfully, as the window was at a bit of an off-angle to the table, but she honed in on him as easily as if he were there in the room with her. Her lips twitched, and she raised an eyebrow at him. He glared back.

The men who had been arguing were taking their places. Two of them, at least - one stood, leaning on the back of his friend's chair, though of course he couldn't tell if it was the one who'd been argued down or not. A couple of the louts from outside were standing around the table, too, but most of them were lounging with beers on a couch in the background. He could hear and see them laughing and talking. The people at the table were silent by comparison. Joe was standing, his face a mask of tension despite the drink in his hand, beside Cressa's chair. Jessie couldn't tell if he was uncomfortable, nervous or just worried about something. As he watched, the man walked around the table to stand next to one of the others. His back now turned to Jessie, all puzzling was forced to cease.

Cressa was smiling throughout, her hands folded, queen-like, one over the other on the table just in front of her.

"" said Corie, the voice of the devil, from somewhere or other around his cloak, ""

"" Jessie replied. "Sh. "

Cressa had turned her head to one of the men as he addressed her. Her smile sweetened, and she reached out demurely to accept something from him. Oh, no, please don't say they were letting her cut the cards. Biggest mistake they could have made. The chance of any of the men winning the first game had dropped to zero before it had even started. Sure enough, she took the trick. The next person dealt. She took it again, and again. The pot gravitated to her side of the table as if she were a black hole. Some of the men started to argue with her. She smiled at them, and lost a few hands on purpose to show them she wasn't unbeatable. Then she was back stronger than ever, decimating the other players' funds and cutting through their strategies with a cruel, unflinching efficiency that hadn't been present before.

Several of the men got up from the table, but only one or two new players sat down. Cressa was playing it cute rather than threatening, so that they didn't feel intimidated by her and hold back their valuables, but the players who were still sober had lost confidence nonetheless.

Then, apparently at Cressa's suggestion, the game changed. Dice. This was a trickier one for her to consistently win at without looking suspicious, so she hung back, flirting with one of the taller men. Jessie recognised him as having played off against her at cards until the bitter end. He would've been better off quitting straight away, because now his determination had caught her interest. He couldn't even run now. It was too late for that. If Jessie had some advice for him, it would simply be to pray.

Of course, he didn't understand the danger of the predatory female laughing with him beside the table. If anything, he was praying that she'd come closer, not lose interest. All the while, Cressa would play just one game from time to time, and always win. The atmosphere was getting increasingly boozy, and so no one seemed to notice. More men started to hang around her, competing for her attention. At one point, it descended into a mini-brawl between the man she'd originally been charming and a newer soap who'd gone a step too far, in the opinion of the first. Cressa giggled at the chaos, and took a sip of beer.

It had been about an hour and a half since Cressa had gone inside, and the potential for danger was becoming less imminent all the time. He'd seen it before. As the men became more drunk, they'd unwittingly come further under Cressa's control. The balance of power was tipping tremendously in her favour, and Jessie began to lose interest. Turning his back against the wall, he slid to the ground, falling back into his own thoughts.

He must have fallen into reverie at some point, because suddenly, before he knew it, he was ripped out of his contemplation by the hair. There was noise everywhere - voices, half lost amidst great, world-breaking crashes like the roll of thunder.

He'd been yanked to the side, thrown to the ground and pulled up again by the hand twined roughly in the back of his head before he caught any snatches of meaning to what was going on.

"--black bitches," a man's voice was slurring. Jessie's hand made stinging contact with cold metal where the floor should have been - the crates had been knocked all over the place, which was probably how he'd been discovered, and the most likely source of the great ruckus. "---elves, cheats and thieves--- all my money!"

Another hand was seizing, yanking at the front of his cloak. Unfortunately for whoever was trying to molest or steal from him, the special ties holding it in place couldn't be undone by force alone. "---take it out of you, dark elf slut."

~~~~~~~~~



Make a decision, Jessie...

a. Sweep the leg.

b. Break the arm.

c. Reverse the hold.



~~~~~~~~~

Jessie wasn't in the mood for waiting around to find out. By the time the first drunkard stumbled around the doorframe and peered blearily out into the late afternoon, the last whip of a cloak was disappearing around the corner and only thing left on the scene was the injured member of the party, sprawled out on the ground getting acquainted with his own blood.

Cressa, inexplicably, or perhaps unsurprisingly, clothed only in her underwear, bounded out from behind him.

"Now, now, there's nothing to see! C'mon, guys, let's get back to the party!" she sang, facing the men and throwing out her arms as if her body were a curtain. It would have been more effective if she hadn't divested of her robes...

"He looks hurt."

"Nonsense!" she cried, giving a little tinkling laugh. The idea was truly laughable. "Haven't you ever gotten drunk and passed out in a pool of your own blood before?! I know I have!"

They were under her spell. They believed her.

Stepping back towards the door, she ushered them back inside with a few waves of her arms and just a little extra coaxing. They allowed themselves to be herded like sheep. "Now, come on! Inside, inside! What are we all standing around for?!"

The bewitching sorceress, however, didn't follow them. Once they were all clear, she shut the door firmly, and turned her attention back to the wounded man. Very slowly.

She didn't approach, you see. She stayed in the door frame, watching him. Her expression was indiscernable, but her lip was curling, and her eyes were narrowed in unmistakeable nastiness.

He might have been dead already by that point.

Then, he suddenly turned his head and coughed, spitting out a mouthful of blood that must have trickled down the back of his throat. She glared at him all the more solidly for it.

All at once, she shivered in the darkening day, and opened the door. Music hit the scene, but only for a few moments, as she sharply stepped inside and shut it. Not much time passed before it opened again, releasing an instrumental section into the wild, and the drow returned, wrapped up heavily in her full gear.

She'd looked almost fragile before, by comparison. Which is ridiculous, isn't it? A towering, busty, bad-tempered woman with destruction in her eyes can't look fragile, can she?

At that point, Cressa hovered again. Whether it was mere indecision or not could not be said. The dither continued long after she'd started to walk towards him. Painfully slowly, she took long, graceful strides, her hair fanning out behind her. It was as if she were torn between purpose and, perhaps, a small amount of fear.

She looked like a ghost as she drifted across the small distance. The clack of her heels was unearthly.

Well, well, well. Here we are again. This just keeps happening to us, doesn't it?

Cressa looked down on him as if he disgusted her. She kicked him unceremoniously, rolling him over onto his back. He groaned, and the woman grew rigid inside her cloak.

She knelt down beside him abruptly. Some of his blood immediately got on her clothes, but she didn't seem to notice. His face was just a crimson mess, but she reached out and touched it, lifting up his chin as if to give him the kiss of life.

"I'll tell you a secret, okay?" she said pleasantly. He groaned, and coughed, aware that someone was speaking to him but only on the brink of consciousness. It was then that she smiled, and bent forward, and pressed her lips to his. Her long hair dropped into the pool of liquid, patchily staining it with rouge. Then, smiling still, she pulled away.

"Men are pathetic. Oh, they can pretend," she soothed, tracing her finger in a small circle around the blood on his cheek. "They can convince us that they are gods, and we believe them. We believe them all too easily."

That small, unhappy smile still on her face, she brought up her stained hand and began stroking his hair, as if he were a child with a fever. He groaned again, and coughed more blood, adding back to the stains Cressa had managed to wipe away with her dark mouth. "But this is what it always comes down to in the end. Don't you see, my darling? You were always destined to die. You were destined to die the moment you convinced me to get down on my knees and beg for your love."



~~~~



"Jessie! Jessie!"

Oh, fantastic.

"Jessie, wait up! Please!"

He didn't reply, or stop, or even hesitate, storming down the road towards Durem like an encroaching thunderstorm. He didn't want to deal with him now. He hoped Cressa wasn't following, either. She could go and meet the Maker, her and her stupid games and her inability to take anything seriously. She was supposed to be his friend, so why could she never think about his feelings? She'd already blown up at Coline, blown up at the Temple, and now she was blowing up what was meant to be a very important and serious task - something that was meant to right the problems she'd caused in the first place.

Then again, he was sort of blowing it himself by getting so upset. Why couldn't he just cool it? What was the matter with him?

"Look, I don't know what that guy did to you, but we can sort it out-"

"He didn't do anything to me!" Jessie cried finally, whirling around to face Billy-Joe in exasperation. The human came to a wide-eyed halt in surprise. "Look at me, alright? I'm a man," he snapped, yanking at the proper joining point in the cloak. It fell away from his front, revealing a very non-womanly upper body and part of an obviously non-womanly neck and shoulder. "So you're barking up the wrong tree!"

Seething, he waited for some kind of violent outcry from the farmer.

It didn't come. Instead, Joe just looked sheepish.

"Oh... no, I knew that," he said quietly, folding his arms and shifting from one side to the other. He was blushing again. It's strange, isn't it? No matter how much mental preparation you do, you can still end up an awkward wreck when it comes down to it.

It was Jessie's turn to be wide-eyed with shock.

"...Excuse me?" he said. His voice sounded more than a little strangled. "I must have misheard you. You said you knew... that...?"

"I knew you were a man," Joe replied, blushing more furiously and glancing away. Jessie gawped at him. "You didn't exactly hide it too well after the beginning."

"Well - yes, but... well. I must have misunderstood your intentions, then."

"You didn't misunderstand nothing," Joe replied, more firmly this time. He couldn't seem to meet the drow's eyes out of embarrassment, but after a short while of silence he managed to crane his head up. He gave Jessie a small, grim smile, and dropped his gaze again. "I'm what my mama calls 'a bit bent.' The other guys put it nicer. 'f*****t' is a pretty-soundin' word, isn't it?"

It wasn't entirely certain whether the entire world had frozen, or if he was just stunned. Just... stunned. Joe looked very nonchalant by comparison. He'd had all afternoon to prepare himself. Jessie'd been expecting a secret to be revealed - he'd just expected it to be his own.

It seemed like they'd both been hiding their hands from each other. It just so happened that Billy-Joe held the trump card.

"...Well," said Jessie, in rather a high, unsettled pitch. "Goodness. I didn't know - I mean, I don't know if I've run into too many gay men. Gay human men," he added quickly, just to be truthful. Honestly, he'd run into far too many gay men over the years for his liking, but this was quite a first. "I... suppose I was under the impression that... it isn't done in your culture?"

Joe's reply was very flat. "It's not."

"Oh."

"Your real voice is way prettier than that fake thing you had going on, whatever that was."

"Oh," he repeated, wincing slightly at the compliment. If only he could muster some clever words to deter him, maybe this conversation wouldn't take the course he knew from uncomfortable experience it would. "Um."

Blast it all.

So, instead of saying anything, he nodded his head at the man and turned around, walking off towards Durem, but more slowly than before. Joe trotted forward and began to keep step with him.

"Sorry for throwing you. You didn't expect this, did you?"

"No," Jessie replied, very honestly. Very stupidly. "Not at all."

"Always the quiet ones, I guess," Joe laughed. He paused. "You're gorgeous, you know that?"

"Um," said Jessie stiffly, "No."

"You sure about that?"

"...Maybe?"

He laughed again, and Jessie felt his skin prickle with discomfort. "I've never met anyone like you before."

"Well, I'm not exactly dazzling you with wit and effervescence at this moment, so I can't quite see where you can draw that conclusion from," he babbled. To his horror, Joe laughed once more. This was bad, and getting worse. He needed to think of some way out of this, and quickly.

"You and Cressa sure have a funny way of saying things," he observed.

"Where is she, anyway?" Jessie couldn't help but explode. That goddamn woman. He hated her, but if she could come bounding over and rescue him right at that moment he swore he would kiss her stupid face.

Joe shrugged, hands in his pockets. "Last I saw she was dancing on the tables in her underwear." Of course. "But I don't want to talk about her. I want to talk about you. You're something else, Jessie."

The drow didn't reply. Billy-Joe looked at him carefully for a moment, and then tentatively risked a quesion. "Is that your real name?"

"No, it isn't," he answered curtly. He wasn't concentrating too hard on the conversation by that point in time. If Cressa wasn't going to come and save him, he had to think of the most gentle way of escaping by himself. "But it's all I'm known as up here."

Joe noticed the mild testiness in his tone - glanced over at the worried, searching expression on his face. However, he didn't want to leave the topic. "What's your real name? If... you don't mind me asking..."

"I don't," he said, "Mind, that is."

His mouth had run faster than his mind there, working of its own accord. His thoughts stopped whirling, and backpedalled.

That was strange. He really didn't mind. "It's Drisdril."

"Dhh- duh-" the human fumbled. It wasn't that he'd said it quickly, or made it purposefully difficult - it was just the first time he'd ever heard a name that sounded like that. It was strange, and foreign, and harsh... but beautiful. "Man, I can't say that."

"It's okay," said Jessie, not bothering to tell him he could just drop the accents. He didn't want Joe to start calling him by his birth name, now that he was back in his perpetual state of annoyance. Which begged the question of why he'd told it to him in the first place. "Honestly, just call me Jessie. That's my name now."

Even as he said it, he could hear Joe stubbornly testing the other name out under his breath, again and again. He couldn't help but feel more angry about it, for some reason.

He was pleased when the man lapsed into silence, but it didn't last long enough for his liking. "You know, we could go back and I could drive you-"

"No thank you," said Jessie, through slightly gritted teeth, "I want to walk."

"Durem is a big place-"

"I grew up in a city five times its size," he said bluntly, and Joe wisely shut his mouth.

Once again, though, he seemed incapable of holding it there. "I can't imagine a place that big."

"Good. You don't want to. It's a horrible place."

Joe looked at him in dismay.

"How can you say that about your home...?" he asked, "I mean, I got problems too back at home, everyone does, but that don't mean it's a bad place."

Jessie snorted at him, and stopped to face him. "Do you know what I am?" he asked incredulously, as if the other man had just made a thoroughly childish observation.

Joe seemed very uncomfortable with the turn of the conversation. He met Jessie's eye uncertainly, as if his love interest were indeed suddenly morphing into some horrible creature in front of him. "Yes... of course... But I'm not judging you or Cressa on th-"

"As you shouldn't," the Captain replied dismissively, but it was the approving kind of cut off that a teacher gives when a child answers a question they're already certain they know the answer of, "You're a good person, I can see that. But everything you know about dark elves here on Gaia is multiplied by about twenty in my homeland."

He began to walk again, and Joe kept careful step. "Dr- Drisdril," he pleaded. Ilharess, clever boy. He'd figured it out on his own. "It doesn't matter to me what you are, or what you've done, or what your family have done. You're not like them anyway if they're so bad, I can tell. I think you're the most beautiful person I've ever met."

Jessie ignored him, jaw clenched, but the other man suddenly seized his arm. "Please listen to me!" he pleaded, "This may be the only chance I ever get in my life to do something like this, so I need you to hear me out!"

Oh, jal'uoi'nota, kijuki and vith. He was using that tone. It was the tone that always got him.

Rissy, Rissy, Rissy. You haven't gotten any better at this with years.

He turned back to Joe, very much defeated. He'd have to hear him out, at least. He couldn't break his heart by running away now. It was the same mistake he always made, but he kept on bloody making it. He was still his mother's sel'tur'lotha'uss, her jibin'ust'dalharuk all these years on.

He must have been wearing a more sympathetic expression by far, as Joe suddenly sighed. "You're beautiful."

"Mm," said Jessie. So he'd been told.

Wait. Was this what it felt like to be Coline?

Dear god, he was an absolute idiot. "Look, Joe... I'm not gay. That's it. That's all."

"...Not even a little bit?" he whispered back. His eyes flickered naturally down to the dress. ******** Cressa! Xsa'ulu'il jal'uoi'nota'ol avari!

"No. Well," he corrected, but almost immediately covered it up with another negative. "No."

"Well?" pressed Joe. Jessie looked away.

"Well what?"

"Well what you well what!" he said, bringing up his other hand to take Jessie by both of his arms. "You hesitated! What does that mean?!"

It meant he hadn't learned his lesson. It meant he was too kind for his own good. It used to mean thinking only about himself.

Cressa once said he'd adopt a sack of grain if nobody else was in need. Hahahahaha. She didn't know he could be selfish, too. Not to mention stupid.

"It means I made a very big mistake many years ago," he said, "A couple of them, to be more precise. But they all tangle up into one massive, monumental mistake that should never have happened and must never be repeated."

It was only after a short silence that Jessie looked back up at the other man, and, with a shock, saw that he was crying. Tears were spilling freely out of his eyes, even though he wasn't making a sound.

"I know I need to think about what you want, too," he whispered eventually, "But this is my first and probably last chance. If I let you just walk away I would never, ever forgive myself."

"It's not your last chance at all, Billy-Joe..."

"You don't understand!" he cried, "My entire life I've had people telling me what to do and how to be and the way I should be living MY life! You have no IDEA how that feels!"

Jessie glanced to the side. He had a better idea than Joe could ever have imagined, but remained silent.

"I just want to do something that will make ME happy, just this once!"

"I understand," he told him this time, "Better than you could ever imagine."

"How?" he sobbed, "How do you?"

"Because that was my big mistake," Jessie answered soothingly, placing one of his own hands on the man's shoulder, "Doing something that made me happy, just that once. Except it didn't make me all that happy. Sort of. But at least it was my choice. Or at least, I thought it was, at the time... turned out it wasn't..."

Joe didn't seem to understand, but it wasn't totally his fault. Jessie wasn't aware that he wasn't making a lot of sense, but couldn't quite do anything to rectify it. His conversation skills had abandoned him, and he'd ended up babbling like a fool.

Joe also seemed to take his gesture very seriously and gripped him harder, pulling himself nearer to Jessie. "But if it's a mistake, it's my turn to make it. Let me make a mistake. Please..." he begged. There was no hesitating now. "Let me kiss you."

Well, well, well. Here we are again. This just keeps happening to us, doesn't it? This is always what it comes down to in the end.

"It would still be my mistake! Look, I'm not going to be irresponsible and let you do this. It will only lead to more hurt in the long run!" he said, in a last-ditch attempt to make Joe see reason. He didn't see it.

"Please."

Jessie was weakening even as Joe brought his hand up to cup around his jaw. It was just one kiss. It wouldn't hurt him to do it, but it would hurt Joe to reject him.

Surely just one little kiss wouldn't have any far-reaching consequences?