[PRP] life decisions (Jordan, Harrison)

[prolixity]

Some day, Jordan reflected sourly, he would learn to settle things before they circled back and bit him in the a**. Yesterday had not been that day. He sat on a piece of driftwood and looked out at the waves, absently digging a hollow in the sand with the heel of his boot. He'd detoured only far enough to pick up a water bottle before coming down to the beach.

Everywhere private held memories, and he'd wanted to avoid that, but it wasn't possible. This was, at least, fairly neutral. It offered the risk of a titan or a smaller menace interrupting the conversation, but Jordan preferred that chance to the chance of being interrupted by a person. Living in a fishbowl made everything awkward.  

[Toshihiko Two]

The beach wasn't safe. Harrison had seen enough bodies washed up. But just going to Jordan's new room seemed like...

He wasn't even sure where it was.

He knew s**t yesterday taking a turn for the worse had been on his shoulders, but he didn't see how Jordan and Rep could just ignore everything either. He knew why they did. It just seemed shitty.

Jordan had left, but nothing had gotten resolved, and Harrison still didn't know what he was left with. He was wearing a ring (not Jordan's) although they kept all three of the other set safe.

He and Jordan didn't fight often. Sure as hell didn't spar.

But he thought it was a good idea to meet, to talk. He could pick out Jordan's figure, and made his way towards it, body language stiff and closed off. He kept his hands in his pockets.

"What's on your mind?" Harrison asked.  

[prolixity]

Jordan looked up as Harrison approached, and just looked at him for a moment. Harrison was pissed, and he had every right to be, and Jordan felt like an idiot and an a**, missed him ferociously, and yet still there remained that uneasy undercurrent of anger and resentment. It made him feel sick, along with the remnants of the hangover he'd spent most of the morning recovering from. "Wanted to apologize for being an a**," he said, "and maybe try to explain some things, and listen to you. If you wanted to say anything."

He looked away and fiddled with the water bottle to suppress the urge to reach out. "I forgot myself for a while there, and I'm sorry."  

[Toshihiko Two]

Harrison shrugged.

"Rep was an a*****e to you. I told you to talk to him about it. You left. And now that he's stopped being an a*****e, you guys want to hook up again. It's like, you know, what am I supposed to take from that?"

"It's not a sex thing. I love you," Harrison mimicked. "He wants to ********, you're here. He doesn't, you're gone. So, I don't know. I'll listen."  

[prolixity]

Jordan's shoulders stiffened. "It wasn't like that was the only goddamn time I talked to him about it," he said. "It wasn't one conversation and I left. It was all the conversations that happened and didn't happen for months, all the s**t he asked for and I did and it made no difference. It was that he wouldn't even fight about it so we could talk about it, and it was that I'd thought you and I were okay and suddenly you were telling me that I'd been ******** up all along and I never even knew it, and he wouldn't even be in the damn room with me so every time I came home, the room was empty and you were off with him, wherever he'd run away to." His mouth twisted. He hadn't meant to be bitter about it, or not this bitter, but he guessed he still was.  

[Toshihiko Two]

"Mostly ones that didn't happen. Because you ******** avoided talking to him about it. But I'll give you that, okay. A couple of conversations. I said I had problems, which was true, but that's what you do in a relationship. You ******** figure out your problems, and you work through them. Okay, that was like. That was the page I was on. It mattered, to me. I mentioned it because I wanted to work s**t out. I didn't want to give up."

Off with him. But that was part of the deal. A deal he didn't trust Jordan with. It had never been the same relationship, and he'd thought that was okay, but maybe that was part of the problem too.

"Look, with Rep- you're right. You're right to be mad about that s**t. But you're not right to forget it ever happened. If he's going to ******** around with you like that, it's because he doesn't care about you. And if you let him, you don't care about him either."

To Harrison, it was like Rep didn't care that he had hurt Jordan. He just felt good, wanted some sex, and what was wrong with that? Jordan didn't care if Rep was hurting, or what his motivations were. What had caused all the trouble in the first place. What did it matter if things were finally okay, if all the rejection was gone?

And Harrison was just supposed to be okay with any of that? Even if they were willing to ignore it, he cared. It mattered to him.

"You two can't even respect yourselves. It's ******** up."  

[prolixity]

"I'm not the only one that avoided talking about it." Jordan made his hands unclench, shook his head. "I guess it's a moot point now. With you, it -- on top of everything else, on top of how much I was hurting, to find out so suddenly that you didn't know I cared, that you'd never known and never asked -- when I realized, really realized that he just wanted me gone and wanted you to himself, something broke in me. It was too much. Maybe that makes me weak, but I couldn't take another night of being alone in a room that was supposed to be ours." He laughed painfully. "If I left, at least it'd be my choice."

He sighed. "Most of the time I don't. I'm trying to be friends again, just friends. I was drunk and lonely and I wanted to pretend for a while that nothing had gone wrong. It wouldn't have gotten anywhere. If all I wanted was sex, I would've said okay when I talked to him at the bar." It occurred to him that he didn't know if Harrison knew about that. Well, if he didn't, he did now.

The final accusation made him wince. "It's ******** up," he agreed quietly.  

[Toshihiko Two]

Harrison had known about the bar. He looked surprised at the wanting you to himself thing though, that was genuinely new information. Was it true?

"Hey, I did talk to Rep about it. And then I talked to you about it. I thought he was having troubles over...over personal s**t. That you guys needed to work it out. I know it was tough. And, after you left I was like, I guess it was too tough for us to be worth it."

He shuffled awkwardly.

"He said that? That it was about me? Then...then why, all of a sudden...what, does he like. Not want us to ********, but he's okay hitting on you- why is he such an a*****e?"
 

[prolixity]

"It was personal s**t, s**t between us, that was there, that was a huge part of it. He didn't -- at the end, I felt, honestly believed that he no longer wanted to work it out, and that the only thing I could do to make things better between him and me was to leave." He looked off into the distance, frowning a little. "When we talked last, he said he was jealous of me, that he wanted to have you to himself. I don't think it was all the time. And I guess I couldn't get too mad about that, since I got jealous about you being more his sometimes." He shrugged uncomfortably.

"I don't know. I ... " He swallowed, his voice going a little rough. "I didn't want to leave, but afterward, I felt like I'd been trapped for, I don't know how long. I don't know what I want. I want to feel like I can be happy and not lose myself, but I want to be together, too. More than that, I still want to be friends. I did mean it when I said that." He looked up at Harrison again. "I like the tea," he said.  

[Toshihiko Two]

Rep was jealous, sure, and in their kind of relationship that caused trouble. But this was the first he'd heard about it. It made sense. He'd never been upset about Rep or Jordan being together. Not sex, anyhow. That part had been good. Just like he'd never felt guilty being with just Jordan, or just Rep, and how he liked being with both of them. He was only upset when one or the other was getting hurt.

And they had been hurt, and hurting each other. Just not in the ways he knew to look for.

"Yeah. I noticed you were...talking more. I'd say, you don't have to be scared of Rep, but-" Harrison shrugged, weaker this time. It was who Jordan was, worrying about people. Rep worried too. As far as Harrison was concerned, if people were going to get upset, that was their business. He wasn't going to walk on glass around anyone that couldn't chop his head off.

But for Jordan...it was all delicate and complicated. It had always been that way.

"Yeah, friends," Harrison said, a little tiredly. What could you say about a guy you'd fought with, who'd saved your life on occasion, who you'd shared a room and a bed and a hell of a lot else for as long as they had? The word friend gave him an achey feeling. He gave Jordan a small smile, rubbing his arm. "I figured, you know, everyone's always giving you coffee supplies, and I thought- so- good. Glad you liked it. I...the supplies were good, for carving s**t, mine were old and I- you know, I'm not an artist or nothing, I just trace s**t out, but- we got some detailing in for the bar, so. I know you came around and helped. That was...I appreciated it."
 

[prolixity]

Jordan watched Harrison's face, listened to the cynical tone begin to soften out of his voice, and believed, finally, that Harrison hadn't seen it, maybe just hadn't ever caught the jealousy and the wide dark chasm of misunderstanding. That he hadn't sat by and let it happen, that maybe he hadn't even chosen a side because he never saw a side to be chosen at all.

They hadn't talked about it, or about much at all, and Jordan regretted that intensely. It maybe hadn't been all his fault, but he carried a lot of the responsibility for it. He'd been blind, and had assumed, and been wrong, and he was paying for it. "I was in a pretty bad place in my head," he said quietly. "I'm ... not okay yet, but I will be." In time, maybe, and Harrison was right about not respecting himself, and maybe he needed to figure out how to do that before he could do anything else.

"I saw," he said, and didn't say, you're good with your hands, because that was a step too far, said instead, "it looks really good. You did a good job on it." He hesitated, licked his lips unconsciously. "The ceremony was nice."

The smile made his chest hurt with a tiny edge of hope that he couldn't help and couldn't squash and couldn't quite believe, a thin fresh slice over a pain that had not healed and had only begun to dull a little. He wanted to get up and wrap his arms around Harrison and be held. He'd been avoiding this, in part, because being so close and so far was difficult. He stayed where he was. It would get easier, eventually.