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Jordan opened the door after a moment. He'd changed into sweatpants and a t-shirt, and his hair was still damp. "Hey," he said, nodding tiredly in greeting, and stepped back to let Melvin in. The room was tidy, recently swept and clean; the desk and shelves were organized and a stack of neatly folded blankets and sheets had been set on one end of the couch, ready for Melvin's use. There were no decorations on the walls, but it wasn't entirely impersonal.

"I'm making tea," Jordan said, and turned back toward the small kitchen visible through the side door. "If you want some, just say so." The mission had been a strain. He'd just let Melvin get settled without hovering over him.

"Thanks." He'd put a few things away before Melvin got there, but it was mostly that Jordan liked his room clean when left to his own devices. He took a second cup out of the cabinet in the kitchen and leaned on the counter, hands braced on the surface and head down, as he thought about the question. "No, but close enough," he answered after a moment, then turned around to look through the door back into the other room, studying Melvin.

"Didn't really mean to air all the dirty laundry out where everyone could hear." He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, embarrassed again. "I don't know what I expected. I wasn't thinking. Just ... angry."

"No." Jordan shook his head. "Something was - warping my thoughts. For a little while, I thought everyone was deceiving me and out to get me. With you, that became -- " he hesitated, deciding how to phrase it " -- the thought came to me that you wished it'd been me instead of Rin." He looked away, his mouth twisting. "In my right mind, I don't think that. Not really."

He turned to pick up the kettle from the burner and pour hot water into the mugs, using the tea as an excuse not to meet Melvin's eyes, not wanting to see what that admission might bring out. He needed a moment to compose himself, as well.

"You're not useless," Jordan said, and turned around, leaning on the counter, his hands folded around the edge of it. "Hell, you knocked me out of whatever it was that happened this mission. Kept me from going after anyone else."

He nodded minutely. "I'll try not to," he answered. "As long as I'm capable of making that decision." He swallowed, his mouth turning down. "You, either. Don't make me kill you, don't get heroic about it if -- well, if." Their life expectations were severely shortened by their job, but that didn't mean that he wanted anyone to sacrifice themselves.

Jordan gave Melvin a blankly surprised look. "Dude," he said, "that's literally my job. I'm a Sun. I get in the way of what's trying to hurt us and hit it back, protect you so you can do research and analysis or whatever other assignment you've got. Protecting you doesn't mean I think you're useless. It means that I'm doing what I've trained to do so you can perform your job more efficiently and not get attacked while you're doing it."

He winced, and everything about his posture drew in, his shoulders hunching slightly, elbows tucking closer to his sides, hands tightening on the edge of the counter. "I left because Rep didn't want me near him and I felt like Harrison didn't care if I was there or not." He sighed. "The Rift and what happened right after really ******** with my state of mind. I started withdrawing more, and they wound up feeling that I didn't care, so there was -- there was a distance, and that worsened some problems that we hadn't really known were there. That part, it's sort of complicated."

He took a deep breath. "Sometimes, when we fight, Rep can't handle it, and he runs off to his hoard or somewhere else to sulk. He doesn't come back on his own when he's feeling shitty, so he has to be tracked down and told he's still wanted." A ghost of a smile. "High maintenance. Me, sometimes I need to get some space or calm down so I don't freak out further. Or sulk, to be fair. I do come back most of the time. But I was feeling increasingly alienated and unwanted, and neither of them said anything or gave any indication that it bothered them if I wasn't there." He tipped his head back and looked at the ceiling. "I got jealous," he admitted, "and I pulled away further, because I wanted to be asked to come back. To get some kind of sign that I was still welcome. Still wanted."

He turned around to pull the teabags out of the tea and drop them on a small plate on the counter. "We'd lost a lot of trust in each other," he said. "We didn't really talk about it. The resentment got worse, and Harrison thought that me pulling away meant that I didn't care and didn't want to be there. Self-perpetuating cycle." He brought the mugs out of the kitchen area and over to the couch, putting one down on the coffee table in front of Melvin, then claiming a chair off to the side. "The thing about Robert is sort of tangential. Rep feels like Robert is a threat, to him or to me or to both. It's a jealousy thing, I think. It's not rational, as far as I can tell." His mouth compressed briefly. "If -- well. No, not if. Either way, he's going to have to deal with it, because I'm not giving up my friends."

"We were working together, so I protected you," Jordan pointed out. "Anyway, I'd rather you not die." He wrapped his hands around his mug, sighing.

"I didn't," he admitted. "It was a mistake. I ... was behaving really irrationally for a while." He looked away uncomfortably. "I know I screwed up," he said quietly. "I've had a lot of time to think about it and figure out what I did wrong and why, and to understand things about myself that I didn't get at the time. Plenty of time to kick myself over what I should've done instead of what I did."

Ferros rumbled quietly. I know, Jordan answered. Dwelling on it again.

"Rep is open about most things. But he didn't want to talk about it, he just wanted me to not be there." Jordan sipped his tea, taking brief refuge in the mug. "I understand more of why that happened now. Before you ask," he added, "I won't tell you about that. The reasons behind why he felt trapped aren't something I can talk about. But he felt like I wouldn't go away even if he wanted me to, and because we weren't talking about it, I thought it'd help if I reassured him that I wasn't going anywhere and I still wanted to be there even if we weren't close." He shrugged one shoulder, staring into the tea. "Didn't help, obviously."

"I don't really know," he answered. "Robert's been one of my closest friends since the trials. We went through that together, and he was kind of my second-in-command then, which is why he still calls me Boss a lot of the time. Maybe that's what it is, that that's something Rep wasn't around for. It's never been that kind of friendship, though."

He rubbed his thumb along the handle of the mug. "Rep's jealous," he said. "And loyal. He ... well. Harrison's a special case. He'd do anything Harrison asked him to." He left himself out of the statement. "Other than that, I don't believe he'd abandon you easily, or at all. And I don't believe Harrison would ask him to. It's not a fair statement to have made." He swallowed hard and grimaced, some of the bitter anger he'd displayed during the fight itself reawakening in his eyes.

"We used to talk. Things ... got broken, somewhere along the line." Jordan rubbed his face with his free hand. "I don't even really know when. Not precisely." He set his mug down on the coffee table and rested his elbows on his knees, hands hanging loosely, turned inward. "I don't know. Sometimes I think we're just not good for each other, me and them. They're good together. They're good partners. I got out of step somehow." His voice roughened, strained and hurting and tired. "Maybe it'd be better if I just let them hate me for being the a*****e who left, who didn't try to fix things. Just get on with our lives separately and let them be happy together." As he spoke, his chin tilted downwards, half-obscuring his eyes under his hair. "I love them. I miss them. Home is where they are, and I want to go home. But only if me being there won't make things worse again."

He took a slow breath, swallowed, and reached out to pick up his tea again, sipping it while he regathered his composure, not bothering to hide the depth of his feelings but grateful to have something else to talk about. "Suns spend a lot of time training and sparring," he said. "Allan talks about nakama, as far as I can gather that means something like allies or people important to you. Sun's got some pretty crazy people, but we back each other up most of the time."

He shook his head. "I always thought Robert would've been a better fit in Sun or Moon, but I'm not part of that decision process, and he never asked for a transfer, so he must get something out of it. I don't deny he's kind of crazy," he added with a ghost of a smile, "but he's still my friend. Mimsy's also crazy, and I've been careful not to appear to be a threat to her claim on Robert." He shrugged a little. "If I decided I'd only be friends with people who weren't crazy, not only would I have very few or no friends, but I suspect it'd be an exercise in hypocrisy."

At the implied question, he sat back in his chair, resting one heel on the cushion of the chair and cradling his tea in both hands. "Rep fights with everyone," he pointed out. "Loudly and frequently, whether or not he likes you. It's just how he works." He regarded Melvin over the rim of the mug. "You have the tact of Godzilla," he said, "and you have your eccentricities, but I know I can rely on you. If you say you'll do something, by god, you'll do it, and you're concerned about your friends." He sipped his tea and added, "You're interesting to talk to, and I like you." He resisted adding, hell if I know why, suspecting that that would hurt Melvin's pride.

You like to take care of him, Ferros put in.

Yeah, but he was worried about being a burden, so I'm not about to suggest that he needs to be looked after. Even if he does sometimes.