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Robert had four doughnuts in front of him. Each of them had one bite taken out, and they were all sitting in a row. He was staring at them intently, looking as though he expected them to jump up and start dancing any minute. But in the end, he nodded sagely and picked up the maple doughnut, chomping down messily on the confection.

When Jordan caught his attention, he looked up with a mouthful of doughnut, and blinked. He swallowed hard, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, before taking a deep breath, and-

Choking on some doughnut in his throat.

Robert coughed out all of the doughnut as he was knocked in the back, and then cleared his throat, and looked up at Jordan with a mixture of sheepish guilt and broiling anger. He couldn't decide exactly how he felt, so instead he ended up just looking extremely lost and confused. It was a childish expression, for a childish man.

"Thanks." He grumbled quietly, before picking at his doughnuts again.

The thought of sticking his batleth where the sun don't shine would have usually made Robert feel better in a situation like this.

But all at once, he realized it only made him feel sicker to his stomach.

He slumped, and started crushing doughnuts with his thumb.

"Not really."

Robert lifted his hand up and rubbed his nose, sniffing hard. He refused to look at Jordan, but at least he wasn't destroying his doughnuts anymore. "Okay."

And a beat later, he let out a short sigh. "I'm sorry I flipped out on you, too." He sounded genuine, but it was clear he was still tight lipped and holding back.

It was at the word weird that Robert finally looked up at the man, an expression of incredulous wonder passing over his face. "You don't want things to be weird? You. You don't want things to be weird." He was trying - it was clear he was trying so very hard not to actually sound angry, because he knew he had no right to be angry.. but he certainly wasn't happy, either.

And there was no way in hell things weren't weird.

"Do you have a time machine? Because I think that's going to be your best bet right now. Maybe the labs can set you up with-" And then he choked, reminded of the last time Jordan was in the labs, and ended his sentence there.

".. Things are weird, Jordan." His eyes narrowed, but his expression softened into something akin to desperation. "Things are very weird.

Robert's heart clenched when Jordan admitted that he was his best friend. It hurt to hear that, because he knew it was true - and he knew the man in front of him was his best friend. Jordan was his brother. The man meant far too much to him for it to be healthy, and he knew it. But Robert never had that magical ability to shut his feelings off, like he'd seen others do before. He knew there were people out there who could see the danger of loving someone too much, and just.. stop.

All he could ever do was love them more. And the hurt continued to grow, unencumbered by how much he loved Jordan. Both emotions expanded in his heart until he had to pound his chest to ward the pain off. He knew he looked like a gorilla at the moment, pounding away, and it was embarrassing enough that he looked like he was about to cry.

The sound of the chair squealed on the linoleum as he stood up quickly, ready to run. The table shifted in the wake of his hasty movement, and it stopped him from turning tail and leaving.

Robert stood there silent, and fought with his emotions. The struggle was easy to see, a moving canvas on his face.

"You're my best friend too." The sound of Robert's voice was higher pitched than usual, and it cracked with emotion. As soon as he heard himself, he knew it was pointless to hide how he felt. So he lost the battle, and let the tears come. "I need you. You know that. But I can't-" He wiped his red eyes with his arm. "I don't know how to fix anything. I got no answers. I'm not supposed to be the one with answers, anyway. And this is why."

He sounded like a child. He felt like one, too.

There was something liberating about seeing the pain echoed in Jordan's face. It wasn't like he wanted Jordan to hurt - but god, to know he wasn't the only one..

"It's not your fault." Something broke within him. He was smiling, but it wasn't a friendly smile. It was the smile of someone who had to finally let go of something he'd held dear to him for a long, long time. "It's mine. It's really mine." There was laughter in his voice - sad, pathetic laughter. "I had this - ******** - I don't even know. I had you on a pedestal." He sniffed hard, and his hands in wild, erratic punctuation of his words. "You were supposed to be the one constant in this place. Even if we all died, even if everything went to s**t, even if Petra finally got sick of me and gave up on my sorry a**, there was one thing I was always going to be able to count on."

His hands dropped to his sides, and he finally looked Jordan in the eye. There was far too much heartbreak for a grown man to bear hiding in those eyes. "You were always going to be perfect."

It was unsaid, but clear, that he no longer thought that about his best friend anymore.