He intended to get drunk tonight. It was an unhealthy coping mechanism, Jordan knew, but sometimes that was all you had at hand. It was a good thing that he'd taken to keeping a small stock of the kinds of liquor he liked; it would probably be less pathetic to go get smashed at the bar instead of alone, but when the only bar around was owned and run by the source of the problems you were drinking to get away from, however temporarily, it made things considerably more awkward.

He poured a shot, downed it, poured another one and sat down at the kitchen table, contemplating the small glass. The problem with this, of course, was that even drunk, one had to have something to do. Reading or drawing mazes was out, or would be out in short order as his focus and coordination degraded. Sparring was out for similar reasons. He considered that that might be fun anyway, if he could find someone willing to put up with his impairment; he discarded the idea after a moment, because anyone who would be willing to have a playful spar might get concerned, and anyone else would either not agree to the idea in the first place or use it as an excuse to beat him mercilessly, and he still had some pride left. And Twitter was out, because he would undoubtedly encounter what had provoked his mood in the first place: Rep's new, brightly agreeable, perky persona.

He downed the second shot and pulled the bottle over. He should be happy about this, shouldn't he? Some time ago he'd thought, and said so, that Rep should censor himself a bit, haul back on the abrasiveness and be more cooperative. For his own good. To make people like him more. And now Rep had decided to do it, and had, in typical fashion, thrown himself entirely into it, pushed it as far as it would go. And Jordan had been amused, briefly, and then as it became obvious that this was not stopping, he'd found himself hating it, hating every moment of it.

This was not the Rep he knew; or, rather, it was, but censored and contained, bright and friendly, and Jordan knew what Rep thought of that and of the people who behaved that way, and this had to be hurting Rep, to hold himself in and accept what he hated and submit and apologize, to do it all so publicly and openly. To talk about his weaknesses and let others have them without a fight. Slow torture, and submitted to voluntarily. Or maybe Jordan hadn't really known him at all after all, and by extension hadn't known Harrison either, when the other man was accepting this without protest; and he should be hoping for that, because the alternative was that Rep was hurting. But that thought cut deep.

Jordan put the shot glass down and drank from the bottle instead, giving up on the idea that he was capable of moderation or control tonight. It was a mockery of the man he thought he knew. It was a mockery of himself, and much as he knew that this was not about him, he couldn't help seeing himself in it, or maybe himself seen through another's eyes: pleasantries and kindnesses, impossible to interpret, impossible to gauge as honest or false. A false front that showed flashes of truth, and the truth was indistinguishable from the lies, even, sometimes, to those who knew and loved him.

It was and had always been about control, and Jordan wondered now, for the first time, what he had sacrificed for that control over himself. He had been an aggressive, bossy, straightforward child, he remembered, unafraid to speak up and assert his opinion, but in the wake of his father's death he had closed himself in, contained everything and censored what he showed, what he said, what he felt. He'd thought of it as being strong. He'd thought of it as growing up. Had he been wrong? Had he smothered a vibrant, vital self beneath a pleasantly smiling mask? What had he killed to be what he was?

This was about him. This was about Rep, and Jordan drank again, feeling the burn of alcohol and the skew and fuzz of the world as the liquor made its way into his bloodstream and his brain. Did he love Rep for being what he couldn't? Was it that simple, that selfish, that awful? It couldn't be. It couldn't. He wouldn't allow it. He didn't want to think about it.

Jordan, Ferros said.

I'm sorry.

Silence in his mind, and the pained sensation of concern, of acceptance and simultaneous rejection of the entire thought that he needed to apologize at all, of a tired endless pain that mirrored and accompanied his own. I'm sorry, Jordan said again, and got up, weaving a little on his feet and taking the bottle with him. He didn't think he could fill a flask at the moment, but he didn't want to leave the liquor behind and he didn't want to be alone with his thoughts any more. Maybe he'd go to the bar after all. Maybe he was a little envious of the ******** week-long bender Rep had gone on, running away from everything that hurt and doing it spectacularly and publicly. Jordan couldn't do that. Jordan wasn't that kind of person, or at least the image he'd built so carefully and deliberately wasn't.

In two months it would be a full year since he'd walked away from what he wanted most. In two months he would have spent a year alone, realizing slowly and inevitably that he had built his entire life around what he didn't have. How could you repair yourself when you didn't have all the pieces? How could you become whole when you defined yourself by what you were missing?

He had tried to reshape how he thought of himself since, but there was still something missing, still something given away that he could never get back. Given willingly and fully. He didn't want it back, not to give again. But the hollowness left behind ached. Almost a year, and still the pain of giving his heart away in two pieces had barely dulled. Maybe in another ten years it would subside, if he lived that long. He knew the half-life of his own pain. He didn't want to live that long if all there was left was to wait for the hurt to dull.

What he had was what he had, and that was all he could count on having. "If you love something, let it go," he said aloud, and drank again. "If it doesn't return .... it was never yours at all."