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Jordan had ******** it up pretty badly last time. There had been a whole sheaf of other problems that had ultimately contributed, and he'd been pretty unstable himself at the time, but Rep reverting to the Queen again had shaken Jordan's nerves and brought out a rush of painful memories. He'd learned, he'd pulled himself out of the self-destructive spiral, he'd resolved to do better if he got a chance to do so and he was working at it. He was still unsettled by what was happening.

He'd gone back to his room long enough to take a fast shower and get clean clothes after the long patrol path through the jungle, had tied his hair back in a ponytail and pulled the coat and scarf back on even though he was off duty and going down into the towns for personal time. He wasn't going to imitate that other self that he wasn't, not in this time and place and reality. He would be who he was here, and while that included the memories of another self's life and what he'd learned from that, he was himself. He had a lot better idea of what that meant now.

He breathed deeply and pushed the door open, heading into the Red Bull with as calm an expression and as calm a mind as he could manage.

A man walks into a bar, Ferros said.

Jordan couldn't help laughing at that. Thanks, a*****e. The ring's red stone lit briefly, and Jordan could feel Ferros's smug amusement.

Jordan claimed the stool next to Rep's and returned his smile, looking him over. "Yeah," he answered, both reassured and caught a little off guard by the gentle tone of the greeting. "Doing okay?" Rep looked ... relaxed, holding himself confidently, but the hard-edged arrogance Jordan had expected from the Queen was softened somehow. Was there something different, or were his memories slanted? Was the alteration in Rep, or in himself? "Nice shirt," he added, quirking a slightly crooked smile to show he was teasing a little.

"What're you having? Something with too much sugar in it?" Jordan asked, grinning. "I think I'll have a whiskey sour tonight." Rep was comfortable, cheerful, apparently not in a mood to test or needle at the moment; Jordan decided to just enjoy the company, take the moment as it came.

"I think that one's Harrison's," he said, tilting his head to take a look at the shirt. It was brightly colored and not Rep's usual style, and it certainly hadn't been on Jordan's side of the drawer. "Yeah, it is. Looks good, though."

He could say that, he reflected thoughtfully, and thought that maybe he didn't do that enough. Don't take it for granted, he reminded himself.

Jordan had started to move to get up, but he stilled, surprised, as Rep actually went to go get the drink. He hadn't expected that. "Thanks," he said, and accepted it, just sipping. He wasn't intending to get too drunk just now. "Pretty sure he expects you to steal his shirts sometimes," he said, angling one eyebrow wryly.

"I like being able to see the sky," he agreed, his eyes unfocusing a little as he thought of it. "It's good to watch the sunset from the cliffs. I don't write poems, though."

"You like having things that belong to people you care about," Jordan said after a moment of blank surprise. "You don't steal mine as much. Not your style." He quirked a smile. "You like showing off your ink, too." He reached out to touch Rep's arm, gently tracing the curve of one of the tattoos where it showed beneath the sleeve of the shirt. "And you don't always bother to wear clothes at home."

His eyebrows jumped at the question. "Not that I know of," he said, and didn't say, you would've thought that was pretty gay, because if Rep honestly didn't remember the layers upon layers of painful, thorny defense mechanisms, Jordan didn't want to try to explain, at least not now. This was not the Queen, he was starting to suspect. This was ... maybe not anyone else, but a Rep without memories, without some or many of the hang-ups that he carried and fought and held jealously close. Without the history that had made him so fierce, without the history they shared, without the pain they'd inflicted on each other, but also without the closeness and understanding they'd shared. "If you decide you want to, I'd like to see," he offered.

"Your style's more casual than mine, usually," Jordan explained. "I've been accused of being metro." He took a thoughtful sip of his drink, watching Rep. "Your shoulders are wider than mine, though. If it's not stretchy it might be tight." He let his fingers trail along Rep's arm a moment longer, quietly pleased by the absence of skittishness, but feeling a slight edge of melancholy as well. Would Rep get his memories back, return to his usual self? Either way, they'd have to negotiate boundaries, define what was acceptable and what wasn't; Rep hadn't asked about what they were to each other, either before or after this, and maybe he wouldn't.

He laughed a little. "You like being comfortable," he said, "and we don't mind." It had been awkward for a while, before they'd settled things. Some things were still awkward, but clothing wasn't as much of a concern any more.

Jordan hesitated a moment, considering. This was weird s**t by definition, and weird s**t almost always was temporary, and it was likely that the Rep he knew, with all the memories and defenses and walls and sharp edges, would return and be less than pleased with this other self. But if this was permanent, what would happen? What would he do, what would they do? There was little reason to discourage this new interest. Or maybe this wasn't new, Jordan thought; maybe it was only something that had been kept firmly suppressed, held at bay because it was somehow unacceptable to the roles that Rep had clung so desperately to. "Do what you want," he said finally. "I think you should. Do what you like to." He pulled a grin onto his face. "Want to try surfing? I never did get a chance to try teaching you."

"You like collecting," he said, and waved his hand to indicate the bar, the way it had been decorated. "You like to hunt and explore. You swim, you dive off the cliffs here." He'd kept away from that hobby, aware that it was an expression of something solitary, something not often shared, something he hadn't been offered. "Me, I like making things. I do origami, paper folding you know, and I draw mazes, and I like to go through books and pull together information from different sources to figure stuff out. I read a lot." He grinned. "Sometimes you move my books so I have to put them back in order." It was almost a game by now, and Jordan made loud irritated noises when it happened, but that too was part of the game.

Tidy, and that phrase brought back vague echoes of yet another self, a different other, time and place the same but world shifted sideways, different. "You could probably pull it off," Jordan mused. "Something fitted, I guess." The dreamlike not-memory ached. "I like hanging out with you," he said, and looked sideways at Rep, seeing the man he knew and every other version and someone entirely new all at once. It was dizzying and strange.

"I've always liked water," he said. "Learned to swim as soon as I could walk. I'm told that I went straight for the ocean whenever I got put down on the beach, as a kid." He drank, licked the rim of the glass contemplatively. "I mean, sure, tentacles and s**t here, but we still swim."

He laughed. "You solved a couple of mazes by drawing a line across the walls from the start to the finish, ignoring all the rest of it. After that, I drew some stupidly simple ones, 'cause if you were going to insult me, I was going to insult you back." A sideways grin. "I'll teach you to make tigers, but you might have to wait a little so I can learn to do it right first."

He sobered a little at the last inquiry. "We share a room, yeah. We ... " He trailed off, considering what to explain, how to phrase it. His own left hand was bare, no ring on his finger. "You and Harrison are married. We were separated for a while, I was living in a different room. When the dorms got damaged, you both came to live with me again. We're ... working on it. We've been living together, sleeping together. You and I have been, uh, intimate again. Harrison and I are still figuring it out." He rubbed a thumb along the curve of the tumbler he held, said quietly, "I don't know what to call it. We haven't discussed it yet. Whatever else happens, though ... you're my friend, and I love you."

"Imposing, if done properly," Jordan said, and smiled. Intimidating, he'd almost said, and then changed his mind at the sudden thought that maybe Rep wouldn't take that as a compliment.

"I might go down to the beach, later," he said. "Now that I'm thinking of it, you know?"

"It was a game," he answered. "Between us. At first I wasn't drawing the mazes expecting anyone to solve them, I just drew them because I liked to. I think you wanted to see what I'd do if you didn't solve it the usual way."

He shook his head at the question, said firmly, "You never cheated. That wasn't -- that wasn't involved." It was strange to hear Rep using Harrison's name, rather than the affectionate nickname. "I was the one who left. We were under a lot of stress. Having problems and not talking about them, or not understanding. I was in bad shape, too. Headed for a breakdown. You and I got ... disconnected, I guess. Out of step. We ... we were hurting each other for a while, trying to fix things and making it worse instead." His voice had roughened as he spoke, and he looked across the room without seeing it. "I thought I wasn't wanted anymore." He drank, giving himself a moment to let the pain of the memories ease. "It was more complicated than that, but I couldn't see that, then."