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 Posted: Fri Apr 29, 2016 4:52 pm
He hadn't visited America. In fact, her home had been a place he avoided. It had been the place where Horace had broken into, and he felt a sort of shadow of judgement in being tied with Jan at times as a sort of second of Horace. Not wanting to be associated with it, he didn't approach America's home. It was her sanctuary after all, a place someone should feel peace, and he wasn't sure if even being present would somehow make her nervous or just bothered as he was openly close to Jan on Twitter. He couldn't help but take a stance on siding with him whenever he felt necessary while hoping not to be the ridiculous white knight, and so that meant shields sometimes clashed with her's. Before, he felt in the right, but both Jan and Lawr had slowly unraveled his previous ideas that what were facts and truths were lies and ignorance on his part that only made him feel like an uneducated fool for defending him so openly and with such confidence that nothing could be otherwise.
It was surprising America would even allow him to come to her home, wondering if the woman grew tired or bothered by so many of Jan's relations approaching her in one way or another. While it wasn't exactly cause to visit, it was still a visit to someone's home, and so he brought a bottle of bourbon he hadn't touched, deciding after failing to make a halfway decent bow, to just leave it as just a bottle and not a highly decorated one.
Taking a breath, he knocked at her door.
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Posted: Fri Apr 29, 2016 7:25 pm
The door opened and America took a moment to take him in and another to look toward the side of the house an unwelcome shadow might be found. Stepping aside, America gestured to Melvin with a worn smile. "Hey there, Mel. C'mon in." He's led to the kitchen, and the house is all lovingly polished floors and sunlight, streaming through breezy curtains and this place most of all. It's the heart of America's home, and like so many other things, worn clearly on her sleeve. With a small huff of laughter, she gets out two tumblers. "Glad you came prepared, 'cause I think we might it."
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Posted: Fri Apr 29, 2016 7:46 pm
"You seemed tired enough at the Beach party. I felt....well, I at least owed it to you to have some sort of payment for putting up with me." He said, taking a seat and taking the bottle in one hand. He found the tab among the red wax top and pulled it off before untwisting the bottle. Glancing about the home, he had him momentarily reconsidering dorm rooms. The place was spacious, wide open, with the warmth of sunlight that an abundance of windows could only provide. The place was decorated with the keen eye for keeping things comfortable. It was strange to be sitting in a house at all. The bar was one thing, but this was an actually standing building complete with a kitchen table.
As a guest, he poured them both a drink, but not before trying to discreetly inspect his glass. Spots? No spots? Smears? No smears. The sunlight streaming into the room provided plenty of inspection light, and he slowly poured his own glass.
"I guess I should just start this then. I wanted to talk about Lawrence since he seems to have just showed up. You...seemed to have a lot of knowledge about Jan overall. i wasn't sure if there were other....hims or ...or names or something before I met the Jan I know. I don't exactly know how you even met Jan."
He had been avoiding talk of their history whenever talking with Jan as it always seemed like a bad idea. It had been one of the factors that Jan seemed to indicate made him upset at Horace and came as a sort of silent warning for Melvin never to bring up with too much pressure.
"Oh, um...you can say you don't want to talk about something if it comes up. Just....don't jump out of a window please." He felt he should be using disclaimers now.
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Posted: Fri Apr 29, 2016 8:07 pm
Settling in across from Melvin, America took a sip and then gave Melvin a wan smile. "I'll tell you anything you wanna know, Mel. I've got nothing hide. I first came across Jan on twitter. He was still doing that bible-thumpin pet psychic routine real public back then. Callin' me s**t like harlot and offering to talk to my dead mom for me, offered to talk to me dead Pa until he realized the man's still alive." She rolled her eyes and took another sip, making an appreciative sound for the drink. "All for a price, of course. Offered to de-gay Harrison for money as well. That sort of thing, real sleazeball. During that big hurricane week, we crossed paths in person, didn't know he was the Twitter guy until after we'd ********. He kept being awful, but I thought it was just," she shrugged, "the typical kind of awful found in a certain sorta guy. Took me awhile to realize he was stalking me. I don't know when or what ******** switch was flipped that made him start, but soon he was just...always one the edge of my day." Legs crossed, she tapped her heel against the edge of the chair, "How much do you wanna know, Mel? I don't mind tellin' but I do mind having that trust thrown back at me. I don't like it when I tell a person some of this and they decide it's harmless pigtail pulling or some angry ex bullshit. I don't like being told I'm bragging or I just want attention or that I like it." Even Taym had thrown that one at her. That she seemed so delighted every time something happened.
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Posted: Fri Apr 29, 2016 8:57 pm
There was a jabbing crawl across his skin at how blunt she was about it all, but considering the dms between them and just on Twitter, she had said these things before. Jan had had a tact with his honesty, but America threw it out there with the least amount of soft buffering possible. He expected some degree of slow growth to the questions, a tender lead up to the climax, but it was a short, swift explanation of events.
He purposely took a drink at the start, seeing no need to address the dead mother part of the story, before setting his glass down.
Yes, the bourbon had been a good idea, but he wondered how much of a lightweight America was or wasn't. Was one bottle enough for this entire talk?
"I'm…not here to throw this in your face. I know I've…been on the defensive before on Twitter. I wasn't as informed as I thought I was. Jan had been honest with me, but it seems not AS honest as I thought. I defended him on a few things before finding the complete opposite to be true." The dressing up for one thing. Charlotte was another. Lawrence was the newest of these revelations.
"I've been learning more and more as I go, and I want to hear it from all sides to figure this all out."
"Lawrence has shown up and it presents a sort of….well….I don't know even how to put it. Was he Lawrence when you met him? Did he ever say he was another person or name back then? Even when….you guys messed around?" ******** made him want to move back so he didn't say it. Before, he would think people like America and Horace were people Jan might ********, but Lawr had said the same thing to him now. It put him in a category that he thought he shouldn't be placed in. Not after all this time. Jan ******** with people and Melvin knew that. However, he didn't ******** him. It was different before.
Was it Lawrence or Jan who had been with her? Or was it both and Lawrence and Jan were just puzzle pieces to a whole. A piece he loved and one he had to tolerate in order to accept the whole?
He wasn't here to stop the relationship. He was here to figure how to even be with Jan or -
He wasn't quiet sure anymore.
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Posted: Fri Apr 29, 2016 9:10 pm
There's a twitch of the lips at Jan had been honest with me, but she refrained from pointing out the flaw in that. Idly tracing around the rim of her glass, America considered the question a long moment before answering. "At the start, sometimes there's be this little change. He'd be all shucks missy I'm just a simple cowpoke and then it'd go off kilter. His voice would get cold or his face blank. I think it was when we sparred, the night he cut me open..." A gesture toward her chest, scar covered over in inked flowers. "That he made it real clear that Jan didn't really exist. That under it all was a cold, broken thing that didn't know what it wanted, it just ******** wants." America took another sip and went on, "This current Lawrence is just a...a fuzzy sweater over what's been there all along."
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Posted: Fri Apr 29, 2016 9:28 pm
Melvin had to raise a brow at that. "A fuzzy sweater? That?" He said, pointing behind him as a vague direction of the rest of Deus. "I suppose it's a fabric I just find uncomfortable then." Or allergic.
Serious again, he thought of this unknown CORE. The nameless being that acted as the base Ken doll to whatever it was wore all these names.
"So..." He said, working on what he was trying to picture in simple understanding to better start as his foundation to the more complex aspects to the man he was sharing a bed with (though not as warm as it had been.)
"There is a base." He set his hands on the table as if he could place a physical thing to such an abstract idea. "A nameless being at the heart of Jan and Lawr. And Jan and Lawr are outfits that he tries on to better understand feelings he thinks he can't attain?" Jan had said he couldn't feel anything but wanted to try. Lawrence said he couldn't feel anything and just said it in a way that cut off after that.
"Or to....to get something? Or to ....to explore something? Or is Jan a costume for Lawr who is a costume of this nameless being? Is this layers or just switching out one outfit at a time for another." He looked up at America for her own theories or insight on the matter to better enlighten him on what he was struggling with.
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Posted: Sun May 01, 2016 3:54 pm
"From what he's said to me now and then, a bit of both. He's curious about s**t all the time," America sighed into her drink. "But that just feeds into the other, getting what he wants. Right now? He wants people to accept him, he wants to marry me, he wants to say he's doing the right things and not have immediate ******** evidence to the contrary. So he acts like a guy who can do those things." The girl leaned back in her chair and regarded Melvin levelly. "But there's no thinks about the can't attain. It's a ******** in his brain, Mel. You seem to be hanging onto hope or something, about what he is. You're in Life, right? You could probably get his medical records from back when he was a kid. Maybe that'll help." After a moment, she added, "You know he stopped being Jan at me a long ******** time ago. Stopped being him at most people after Horace. You must've liked it a lot, for him to keep that one up just for you."
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Posted: Sun May 01, 2016 4:59 pm
That was enough for him to take a long drink.
Curiosity. The way it was explained to him by Jan, these were his interests. This included people. America. Horace. Him. Interest. Or maybe his masks were his curiosity, crafted to explore what he was curious about. Wear a fireman's suit when you wanted to pretend to save people from burning wreckage. Wear a nurse's outfit when you wanted to care for people at their bedside and check their heartbeat. It was the closest he could guess as his mind wasn't Lawrence's and could only make his own constructed comparisons to what he could understand.
What ate at him was that everyone else knew Jan wasn't Jan before him, and that he was responsible for it. He was to blame for Jan being around so long. it wasn't for Lawrence. It had just been for him, to the point it drove Jan insane. He broke the mask he loved so much.
Maybe - he was the one who destroyed his own happiness.
Staring at his glass, he could only muster a 'huh' at that at first.
"I didn't now there was another, so I did like Jan a lot because he had only been Jan to me." It hadn't been for Lawr then, being that way. It had been just for him.
"Guess that's what lead him to get stressed out and run off." Off into the jungle, avoiding him and going to Horace's instead. He had been avoiding him, because he made him Jan.
So....things would be better for Lawrence now since he didn't have to pretend? He could just be himself.
"Guess that means Jan won't come back now."
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Posted: Sun May 01, 2016 6:02 pm
"Jan'll come back if Lawrence has a use for him," America rolled her eyes at the thought of it. "But the hole he's tryin' to crawl out it was one of his own makin'. He chose to be a traitor. He chose to be violent and murderous. He chose to be awful. He chose to starve himself and he chose to get you to care for him. What stressed him out were the consequences of his own ******** actions, and let me tell you a thing Melvin Wood..." Finishing off her glass, she set is down on the table with an authoritative tap. "If he comes back, it's not gonna last. This one isn't gonna last, either, but none of his attempts at being a person can last while what's underneath keeps on persistin'."
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Posted: Sun May 01, 2016 6:22 pm
He couldn't help but stand a little straighter, be a bit more alert, at hearing his first and last name spoken. It wasn't full, but it still had the tone of someone wanting to make a point.
So he listened.
Quiet, he set his arm upon the table and leaned in, trying to gauge her. "Are you saying you want to...take out the horrible thing you said is underneath....or destroy it and the host?"
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Posted: Sun May 01, 2016 6:30 pm
"No," she answered quietly, "I meant it when I said I don't want to kill anyone else, not even him. I can't take responsibility for Lawrence anymore than I already do. I just wave the red flags, so folks can have a bit of warning."
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Posted: Sun May 01, 2016 6:42 pm
He sighed then, leaning back as he poured them another glass.
"So no eradication. No cure. So there really is no answer. Damned one way or another. You can wave flags and fight the good fight. The smart ones can steer clear."
And for him, well, he wasn't all that smart. He could either flee and watch the destruction from afar, or be there to prevent what he could and see for himself. If Jan returned, it wouldn't be something he could enjoy full now anyways. It would only hurt Lawr and him both.
The idea of leaving Lawr alone said something he didn't want to be part of - that monsters didn't deserve anything. That killing someone meant you were doomed to be alone.
"Thank you....for the warning. I don't want you to take it as me not believing you, or not appreciating this talk. I want to see what I can do. If....if I catch word anything might be strange or going on, I'll try to wave a flag your way. If that even helps."
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Posted: Sun May 01, 2016 7:28 pm
"I'm not tellin' you any of this to tell you what to do, Mel." She lifted her glass with an appreciative nod. "I guess that's the thing, for some. They hear me say all these things, and somehow they hear me telling them what to do. Like I'm gonna tear them down for an informed ********' choice that's theirs to make." America closed her eyes at the memories that touched on the same topic. What it meant to speak out when you felt it was important and what it meant to respect the decisions of those who understood what you were saying. She held the glass to her forehead like it could just soak those thoughts away for awhile, and then tossed it back because hey, maybe it could. "I'd appreciate any word of warning you'd have to give, Mel."
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Posted: Sun May 01, 2016 7:34 pm
"Ah. Sorry. Sorry."
He held the glass, taking another drink. The glass to her head seemed like a sign that even talking this long was draining her.
Rising up from his seat, he finished his glass. "I'll do my best to keep you informed of any changes. Even if he gets in a fowl mood or just doesn't come home for a while. And....I'll check into those records."
"Thank you...for everything."
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