[PRP] Outside the Tent (Rep + Harrison + Jordan)

[Toshihiko Two]

Harrison wasn't chatty leaving the tent, but he wasn't holding on to B0nez either. Rep had agreed to go outside easy enough, any how.

Fighting it out in camp wasn't a good idea. Fighting it out outside of camp was worse. And there weren't a lot of places to go, just the two tents and the patrol circuit. Harrison didn't want to fight, though.

When they'd gone far enough, Harrison turned, shoulders stiff. "I don't care if you've got a personal ******** problem with me," he started, "But you can't...do that. I don't have to help you. But I sure as ******** don't want to be looking over my shoulder in the middle of battle thinking it's going to be you that does me in."  

[Baneful]

His good mood persisted feebly in the face of the situation, enough to stop him from becoming too choked up with emotion. He just had to remind himself it was Harrison. Despite.. everything. This was the guy he could talk so ******** easily to before. And he'd attacked him in a fight where they needed to have their eye on the ball. He could have ended up so much worse.

Despite it all he was unable to meet the other man's gaze for long, looking away at the ground. "I know. I mean. Like. You are right mate." he hated his tendency to use the word mate when he was nervous, when he was trying to back out of a situation he wasn't man enough to handle head on. It didn't help most of the time it just offended people who reminded him they weren't his ******** mate. "I..I wasn't trying to hurt you like. I mean. It came across that way but I wasn't trying to hit you. I was angry. Irrationally angry. Angrier than I can remember being in a long ******** time."

Oh where was his backbone? Here he was apologising to the guy he'd seen kissing Jordan. But at the same time it had been a two way thing. He couldn't lay the blame solely at Harrison's feet because it was easier. "I'm not trying to excuse it. It wasn't excusable. It was a ******** liability and if like.. Simon or whatever had been there at the time, I probably wouldn't be here. "

He looked back at him, determined if he was going to be honest, he was going to at least ******** look at the guy. "And there is a personal problem involved, aye. But not one that would ever ******** warrant hurting you. I was just.. raw from it."

"I was going to ask you to be my buddy on the mission at the time. And then you still came over. And..I was confused and ..********.. I'm sorry. I am sorry." He didn't assume Harrison would even know what he meant.

He was such a ******** coward.

 

[Toshihiko Two]

Harrison had been expecting anger. Terse agreement at best. An affirmation that he should watch his back at the worst.

What he got was contrition.

And a hell of a lot of it.

He'd thought it was over some kind of...homophobic s**t, or whatever, who knows, what with the boyfriend comment and everything, but with the current direction of the conversation he was starting to assemble a different mental map. He just wasn't sure what it was a map of.

"S'alright," he decided, feeling sort of embarrassed. He hasn't wanted, or expected, the guy to grovel. "s**t happens. I just...took it personal, I guess. Not like we've got a long time to live in the first place, but I'm not exactly ready to roll over, and I don't like being rushed."

He hesitated.

"So what is the problem?"  

[Baneful]

The sense of relief as Harrison seemed to have let go of his anger from earlier was almost palpable and as such Rep found himself once again filled with that sense of niggling self disgust. His instincts were in direct conflict, here he was on one hand so inclined to rage and hate and resent the man for what he perceived as a direct betrayal, and on the other so ******** afraid that he'd ruined the friendship they had forever. And for whatever reason, here and now his anger was failing him.

"Not asking you to do either." he stated, at the very least the relief providing a chance for him to recoup his dignity a little, resume a portion of his previous false confidence. He stood up a little straighter, relaxing out of the anxious posture he'd been in the whole time. It was much easier to pretend you were confident than to actually be that way on the inside.

And then Harrison asked. He knew it was coming, but the question still sounded like a nightmare to him. His first instinct was to somehow try and make light of the whole thing, as if everything was the way it was and the Jordan thing was as frivolous and silly as the investigation into the power of Jerry's glasses. But at the same time he knew that wouldn't help anything, that at the very least for the sake of the friendship he'd had - however one sided it may have been - that he would have to do what Clerise had said and man up.

"The problem. Is ******** complicated." he stated, giving Harrison the blank look of a man with his defences up entirely. "******** hugely complicated. But long story short, I saw both of you. Back at the fields." He clenched his hands into fists, determined his confidence would persist. "I..I was like coming over to ask like if you could watch my back. And next thing I know I realise I'm out in the ******** cold and s**t and the knife was already in my back. I figured that I'd just been..being strung along all this ******** time, the whole ******** time. That things had been just a cruel ******** game."

Your game had me doubting everything I am. But the words wouldn't come.

He couldn't fit words around his own feelings, why seeing them together had bothered him at all, that was all too huge, too complex for him to address. Clerise had made it seem easy, he couldn't find a way to. The best he could do was imply.

"It ******** hurt and I reacted shittily. But that's sort of a given with me in reaction to anything. I didn't get a chance to cool down about it or confront either of you, before could ******** cope at all we were being attacked."



 

[Toshihiko Two]

"Strung along?" Harrison repeated. Low blow and betrayal made a lot more sense. He hadn't been in the mood to gossip about boys earlier, but Candace had it right on the nose. "s**t, man, I ******** offered. But uh- I mean, I figured you weren't interested. I wasn't trying ******** with you or anything." Harrison shifted awkwardly. "Well, I mean, I was but- not...I wasn't trying to mess with you."

When had this gotten complicated?

"...Sorry."  

[Baneful]

Oh god. He struggled very hard to get his head around what to say to that. The amount of emotions bickering like crazy in him were a tangled mess of ******** that he didn't want to touch. So he tried very hard not to.

"I wasn't interested." he stated, figuring he had to get to the central problem here. "Or at least I shouldn't have ******** been. I'm not. Or I wasn't...Lets just ******** say you two cast a lot of ******** doubts that weren't there before." He waved a hand vaguely, trying to dismiss the issue as much smaller than it felt to him. "So to see that. It felt like that s**t was just you guys seeing how stupid I could look without realising it. I mean you say you offered" saying it out loud made him go a little redder than his sunburn was currently making him.

"But how could you have? If..like you two were." he shook his head. "Never mind that."

He didn't feel like he deserved the apology somehow, the more he talked with people the more he felt slowly that it was him in the wrong, no one else. "And you shouldn't have to apologise mate. Its me with the problem here I think." A problem he'd probably been trying to ignore a very long time.

 

[prolixity]

He needed to patch up, after those scorpions. Maybe get some water, if there was any available. Sydney had done well on patrol, even if her enthusiasm had probably been amped up by cookies. She should also get some rest and water. Preoccupied with practical concerns, Jordan almost missed the two familiar figures standing off to one side of the tents, talking quietly; when he saw them, though, his steps slowed.

A complicated mix of feelings welled up in him, guilt and anger and hurt and a tangle of want and need that he had no idea how to sort out. There wasn't much chance that they were talking about anything else. He should go on inside. Not interrupt. No, this mess involved him too, was at least equal parts his fault and his responsibility. He waved Syd on to the infirmary tent and changed course, bracing himself for - what? He didn't know.

He paused a few feet away, hoping he didn't look as uncertain as he felt. "Hey. I, uh," he started, then trailed off. What was he supposed to say?  

[Toshihiko Two]

"We weren't- uh. ...Hey, Jordan." He was feeling pretty guilty himself. Rep did deserve an apology. He shouldn't have been talking to Rep so much after the party. s**t. This was just such a mess. He and Jordan hadn't even...well, there hadn't been a lot of discussion, but he thought he should at least clear up what the fight in the tent had been about.

"There was a misunderstanding," Harrison qualified for Jordan, "I thought he took a swipe at me on the battlefield. ...But it was just an accident. Is all."  

[Baneful]

Whatever confidence Rep had been convincing himself he had utterly dissipated as Harrison said Jordan's name, following his gaze instantly to the other man. Oh god. Both of them. He had ceased even trying to sort out his jangling emotions, one moment terrified, one moment fond, the next some tug o' war between fight or flight. It was a mess.

He was expecting Harrison to maybe be condemning about what he'd done, to tell Jordan yes, he had tried to kill him. But he didn't. Rep could only blink in fleeting surprise and give the moon hunter a searching look, grateful. He didn't think he could have handled being torn down in front of Jordan right now in any fashion at all.

"Hey." it was feeble but it was all he could think to say.

 

[prolixity]

"Oh," Jordan managed, then added, "that happens, that fight was a mess." He stuck his hands into his pockets, looking to Harrison, then Rep. It was his fault that they were having this problem now rather than later. As much as he wanted to pretend there wasn't an issue, pretending it wasn't there wasn't going to make it magically go away.

He swallowed hard, and said, "I guess we've got some sorting out to do, huh."  

[Toshihiko Two]

s**t. s**t s**t s**t s**t. What did that mean, sorting out?

"What sorta sorting?" Harrison asked, uneasy.  

[Baneful]

Nerves that were already tense to begin with got so much worse at Jordan's statement. He was used to "sorting out" someone to mean beating the s**t out of them, he knew that wasn't the case here but the connotations did absolutely nothing for him. This was, he figured the point when he'd be informed that he had been stupid, that the two of them were in a relationship and that it'd be best for all of them if he just backed off.

He felt ill and didn't even venture to say a word, just nodded.

 

[prolixity]

Jordan ducked his head, feeling his stomach knot up with nervous tension.

Just say it, Ferros said, exasperated.

I'm trying. "I didn't mean to make things - complicated," Jordan offered. "I mean, I haven't even asked what this is or anything," and he glanced to Harrison. Was it serious, or had it just been a response to the silent threat of imminent death, on either or both of their parts? "I guess I figured we could figure it out later. I didn't realize you - I don't know," he said, frustrated, and met Rep's eyes for a moment before his gaze slid away again. "********," he muttered.

Why couldn't he seem to have feelings for anyone without it getting confusing and painful?  

[Toshihiko Two]

Alright, he hadn't been expecting that either. What was Jordan even talking about? Harrison didn't really...do casual relationships, normally, but they had two weeks and it started as a why the hell not kind of thing, but if they both made it out...

He didn't know. Like Jordan said, he figured they could figure it out later.

"You didn't," he said uncomfortably, "make anything complicated. It's my fault."  

[Baneful]

It was not what Rep expected, he was braced for a crushing and definitive no. Only for there to be a sort of seeking uncertainty he hadn't expected, hadn't expected at all. And they'd been going to sort it out later, until he ruined that and put them all at risk with his stupidity. He wanted to simply get out of there, let them deal with it without him being in the way, he crossed his arms, defensive.

As Jordan met his gaze though, however fleetingly he could have winced. It was like all the emotions he'd somehow managed to get in check over the last hour or so had shifted in their restraints. It wasn't fair at all how he always felt the other hunter could see right through him, right down to the things he wished he could just bury for all their sakes. Things he shouldn't be feeling in the first place.

He could hardly bear to see the sun hunter put under more pressure, especially now of all times, and this time it was his fault. He'd added another burden to this mission simply because he couldn't keep his damn feelings out of the way.

A surge of anger coursed through him, aimed squarely at his own stupidity. "Its neither of your faults." he stated, controlled but concentrating as if the words took a lot of effort. "Its my fault for not being able to keep control of my own ******** reaction to things. I should have kept my mouth shut and been professional. " It was so much easier to just return to the bravado like an old friend.

"Instead I just had to go and inflict my ******** issues on everyone else like a little b***h. The only person here who should be apologising really is me."