[PRP] Invoice (Jordan, Rep)

[Baneful]

Rep refilled Jordan's glass and his own. "Safer too, mind that time at Dakota's party when Jerry ******** blew his roof off? That was all I could ever think about when I was chasing up the wards. I went to ask H you know, he quoted me at like 200K to make them. Found someone cheaper finally, the guy drives a ******** hard bargain." he shook his head. Life hunters were always their own breed.

"I can't even follow instructions. I try and make food and I just guess s**t and estimate times cause surely I can make the instructions better. And it all goes to s**t." With Rep part of it was always a subconscious effort to save his pride, to never really try at all so he could never really be vulnerable and mess up. He downed the shot and waved the glass vaguely. "Actually happens a lot to me."

 

[prolixity]

"That's Jerry," Jordan pointed out. Then he considered the thought for a moment. Jerry might be in here eventually, and it wasn't like there weren't other loose cannons around, metaphorically or otherwise. He winced a little at the price. It might not be affecting his balance any more, but the thought of the expense still pained him. "I hope you got a decent deal out of it."

"Well, if you know what you're doing when you estimate, that's how you make new stuff." He took the shot. "But you kinda gotta learn how to do it before you try and wing it. If it's complicated anyway. Even sometimes if it's simple. I burned tomato soup once. Set off the smoke detector. Tia shoved me out of the kitchen and told me to go do something useful." He laughed.  

[Baneful]

Rep was really starting to feel the kick of the alcohol, he hadn't eaten in a while and apparently not having a good drink in months played merry ******** hell with his resistances. He didn't care though, he felt safe in the bar and trusted Jordan's company. He could get as drunk as he wanted.

And of course with tipsiness came the softness and sentimentality that always did. "Aye, I did, the woman was like... " he waved a hand. "... rude. But she did it for a reasonable amount."

He grinned at Jordan's story. "Burned tomato soup. I didn't even know you could ******** burn liquids. That's an achievement. You should have gotten a badge for that." His tone was gentle and teasing despite his words. "Think the worst thing I ever did was tried to microwave a can. Without opening it. I figured if plates worked, why the ******** wouldn't a can?"

He leaned on his elbow, refilling both their shots again. "Mibbey when you learn to cook you can cook me something?" he said hopefully.

 

[prolixity]

"Eh, rude, half the ******** island is rude," Jordan shrugged. He gestured with the empty glass, a careless dismissal of the behavior. "Got used to that. What'd you end up paying?"

"It didn't, like, catch on fire or anything," he clarified. "But it smoked and smelled gross. There was this layer of brownish sludge all caked on the bottom. Tia made me scrub the pot since it was my fault it was nasty." He laughed at Rep's return confession. "Dude, did it catch on fire? You can really ******** a microwave up like that."

He sipped at the whiskey instead of taking the whole shot at once this time, starting to be aware of the dizzy coursing of alcohol in his head, making his joints feel comfortably loose. This had been a good idea, he decided. They were talking, they were friends, it was nice. "Okay," he agreed, "but lemme practice a while, okay? When I don't suck at it. You got any requests?"  

[Baneful]

"I don't even remember." he said grimly, not even bothering to try and recall the exact amounts through the untrustworthy fuzz of his thoughts. "Numbers were never my strong point."

"And lucky it didnae, it just smelled weird and sparked a bit, worked for a while after that." As far as what he wanted Jordan to make him. "Cake would be the best thing to make, just. No soup." He grinned wolfishly. "No till you get soup making down to an art."

Swigging another shot - what number? He'd lost count by now - he leaned over a bit to lean his shoulder against the other man. "Shame I still don't have anything I'm good at to do in return. I never really had anything to offer you."

 

[prolixity]

"Kid I knew microwaved a fork once," Jordan said meditatively, "went off to watch TV so he didn't see the sparks, whole thing burst into flame, set the kitchen curtains on fire. Fire department came and everything. He was paying for that thing for months. Nobody ever let him forget it, either."

"Cake, okay, chocolate, right? No soup." He laughed, relaxed and feeling good enough to take the teasing in good humor, without the paranoid tension of wondering if there was malice behind it this time, not waiting expectantly to be snapped at.

He stilled entirely at the light touch, eyes unfocusing, breath escaping him in a soft sigh. He should pull back. Just for a second, just right now. In a second he would. He regarded the shot glass, observed that it was still too full, made it empty. "Put it on the tab," he said, with a laugh that wasn't quite all there.  

[Baneful]

"Sounds like something I'd do. I'm lucky I didn't ******** end up known as fork kid. It might have ******** changed my whole life, I'd never have gotten here. Life ruined by a fork in a microwave." He felt relaxed, happy even and it wasn't just the alcohol at work.

An arm got slung around Jordan's shoulders and he got a squeeze. "Chocolate cake aye, you know what I like. With that like, spready icing." his eyes went glazed for a moment as he imagined it. "Maybe ice cream. I'm ******** biased towards ice cream now." It had become a Pavlovian response.

He removed his arm courteously but still didn't really vacate Jordan's personal space or lean off him, he didn't think anything of it, he was still comforting, still comfortable. "The tab is getting really ******** long with s**t I owe you. You really need to claim it back someday."

 

[prolixity]

"He was old enough to know better, too. There were a lot of forking jokes at school." Jordan laughed again, remembering it. The kid in question had been upset for the first week, but had eventually resigned himself to his fate. His family had moved away eventually, the dad's job relocating, and maybe the fork kid had finally escaped the incident with the move.

He leaned into the squeeze, unable to keep himself from doing so. He'd gotten mostly out of the habit of casually touching people while he was with them, hadn't quite picked it back up, and he felt like he was starving for it; not even for sex, just contact, just affection, and he was buzzed on the edge of drunk and that made it hard to decide to be virtuous. "Someday," he said, as lightly as he could, and didn't mean it, much.  

[Baneful]

"Hahahah. I guess there's worse s**t to get called I guess, at least he wasn't a woman or it might have been kind of awkward." The affection for Rep had been instinctual, there weren't many people in the world he touched when he wasn't trying to intimidate them, in fact there was probably still only two. Most people when he touched them or got into their personal space he was using his body as a weapon, using his own repulsiveness against them. With Jordan it just felt natural and reflexive and without the voice of better judgment which vetoed his terrible decisions, he fell back into old patterns very easily.

"You say that but you never will." Rep said with an edge of petulance. "You never did ask for much from me." he said, finishing off the last dregs of his drink and pouring another while topping off Jordan's, again out of habit. If he was getting something for him he had almost always remembered to bring something back for the guys when he was able. The Sun hunter was impulsive at the best of times, but with alcohol thrown into the mix on an empty stomach he was even more impulsive than usual. He moved to lean his chin on Jordan's shoulder. "You jus.. you just wanted someone near you, and I'd use that as a weapon all the time because m'so <******** up in the head." He sighed. "I'd get flashbacks to s**t you know. That was what spooked me. But I liked you. I liked your body, I liked your company. You weren't those people."

 

[prolixity]

"Coulda been worse," Jordan agreed. "Would still call him Fork Kid if I ran into him again." He considered a moment. "Maybe not, he might recognize me. Probably never happen," he decided.

"I like to do stuff, when I like someone." Jordan ran his finger around the rim of the shot glass. It wasn't thin enough to sing, he thought. "It's not like. Owing anything. I can't just, just let someone like me, I gotta be useful somehow. Words, people will lie to you, but if someone takes care of you you know they want you to be okay." He listened to Rep's explanation, thought about it, winced as the implications set in. "And I wouldn't just leave you alone. Jesus. I'm sorry. I coulda asked."  

[Baneful]

"I don't know why you can't just let someone like you." he said, leaning. "Because like, do you never think like, maybe like, people want to be leaned on too? S'like one of those archway things, if only one side of it is leaning its going to fall." He shook his head. "When people like, expect me to be dependent I think I s..start to act like a ********' kid. And maybe that's when it goes downhill. And for me like, people taking care of me have always just like, been something to exploit, something that won't last." He stared at the shotglass again, contemplating ignoring his stomach's uncertain complaints and filling it up again. "Its only when they leave that I realise I've even been doin it."

At the other comment something about his expression went carefully and decisively blank. "It's fine. Even if you asked I might not have said anything. You didn't know, you couldn't know you just wanted to be close and there was nothing wrong with it."

 

[prolixity]

Jordan's eyebrows arched, and from the fragile, startled, weirdly young look on his face, it might actually have been a thought that he'd never even considered. "Oh," he said, very quietly, and he picked up the shot and finished it off.

He wanted to apologize again, but a glance at Rep's face told him that he had misstepped, and he only nodded. He slumped forward, crossing his arms on the bar and resting his cheek on his elbow, pulling gently away because if he didn't he wouldn't, and he couldn't any more. "I'm not sleeping real well," he said, not accusing or quite whining, just stating a fact.  

[Baneful]

Rep didn't really need apologies, he didn't expect them and most certainly not from Jordan. Having him pull away was worse than he'd really expected and immediately he pulled his hand away, looking stung. But rather than wallow in his hurt -because he'd done this same thing a million times to Jordan - he put his hand right back on his shoulder determinedly regardless. "I remember" he said. "You don't sleep well on your own. Nor do I."

He took a drink from the bottle this time with his free hand before placing it back between them. "Have you tried..really tiring yourself out beforehand? Sometimes that works for me."

 

[prolixity]

Jordan closed his eyes for a moment, not trying to pull away again yet. He didn't really want to. What he wanted was to turn back and lean into Rep's side, tuck himself close and pretend he hadn't ever left. He stayed where he was. He understood a little better why things had gone wrong now, and objectively he could appreciate that that might be a good thing, but logic wasn't playing a large role in his thoughts just now.

"Sometimes," he said. "If I wake up in the middle of the night I exercise. Don't like to just lie there." He sat up, wobbled a little, reached for the bottle anyway, because he was already pretty drunk by now and he might as well keep going, and because when he sobered up again he wouldn't have an excuse as to why he wasn't pulling away, wasn't leaving. It was kind of pathetic, but if he couldn't be pathetic when he was drunk, when could he?  

[Baneful]

Rep didn't have the voice vetoing everything and normally that was terrible, but right now it simply made him insistent, less afraid of offending people, of ******** things up, of being repulsive. He noticed Jordan wobble - oblivious to his own wobbling - and reached up to pull him into a hug disguised as wanting an easier way to reach the bottle. It was sort of both.

"I would say I meant exercise, but I'd be lying." he said, rubbing a cheek against the other man in another of his oddly feline quirks of affection. "Maybe you could try other things?"