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((This takes place in early December prior to Cause for Suspicion on December 15th.))
It must have been about a month since Sinope had taken Elex up on his offer to spy for Faustite in exchange for crashing in his family's boat. He continued to write up reports once a week for the captain and performed his tasks to the best of his abilities while continuing to collect energy for his faction. Since he observed others for fun and documented information for Acubens as a Dark Mirror Court record-keeper anyway, Faustite's assignments weren't all that troublesome. In fact, they were a welcome distraction from his ever-growing homesickness as well as from boredom now that he no longer attended school. One evening, however, a new discovery overwrote everything else on Sinope's mind.
After returning from one of his information-gathering outings, the teen had risked powering down in order to visit one of his favorite libraries without Sinope’s ostentatious outfit. Jack hadn’t been browsing familiar book sections long when the public computer lab caught his eye and it occurred to him just how long it’d been since he’d checked up on his Facebook. His parents, who he tried to avoid thinking about as much as possible, sprang to mind and propelled him to search their pages. They seemed to be doing as well as could be expected for parents who had lost their only child. Guilt nearly forced him to log off and close down the window. Nearly, but not quite.
Curiosity led him to Elex’s page, wondering how the young Yorke was faring in his return to society, limited as it was. One link led to another, from the Facebook pages of the Yorkes to other affluent people they were associated with. The name 'Cameron' eventually popped up, inviting Jack to click it and discover that it did, indeed, refer to the family of a certain, familiar dancer. Wondering what sort of content he would find on the handsome young man's page, the redhead opened it. Rowan's Facebook was more or less what he had anticipated...except for one thing. His status said he was in a relationship with Elex Yorke.
In a relationship. They were in a relationship. Dating. Courting.
It shouldn’t have come as such a shock. Their families ran in the same circles. If Erol had learned that his brother actually liked men due to Sinope’s false claim, just as Sinope himself had, then perhaps he and the rest of the Yorkes had come to terms with it. If it had to be a man that Elex was in an official relationship with, however, it was going to have to be a man with the wealth and status worthy of a Yorke.
A landslide of emotions threatened to crush his functionality, each dealing a heavier blow than the last. What was this? Jealousy? Of what? Whom? Rowan? Of their happiness? Or was he just angry? Was he upset that he hadn't been told? Would he have been fine with him if he'd been told? Why had he had to find out this way?
Maybe it was a joke. Maybe it was just a false claim made by Rowan. How could they have been dating? Jack recalled Elex once speak of dating with longing as an opportunity he thought he would never be granted. Later, when he'd asked if they could be considered dating, he specifically remembered Elex saying how he felt dating implied courtship and spoke of it with contempt - how he felt it was about white lies, second faces, familial appeasement. So, then, what was this? Had that just been a lie to shut Sinope up on the matter? Or had he just found out along the way that he could get from Rowan what Sinope hadn't been able to provide?
Holding his head in his hands, Jack leaned on his elbows before the glowing monitor and closed his eyes to avoid looking at it. He took deep breaths and attempted to calm himself with reason and logic. He had no reason to feel hurt or betrayed. Yes, he and Elex had slept together, but they had never confirmed any sort of relationship between them. That was on him for having naively jumped to such conclusions. Elex was under no obligation to tell him anything about his life; love affairs or otherwise. He could have had all the intimate interactions he'd wanted and there was nothing that gave Sinope any right to know. It was none of his business if Elex and Rowan were dating.
Or was it?
Sinope had known from the night that Elex had first shed a tear in front of him that he had been bound in some way to that young man whether he’d wanted to be or not. When Elex hurt and he knew, he hurt too. At first, he’d panicked, fearing that he would be condemned to play the role of Elex’s protector, which meant goodbye to his life of living on the sidelines. As time had passed, however, his panic subsided. The half-youma’s calm nature, rare intelligence, and supernatural power pacified the senshi's worries to the point of complacency. Sinope concluded he’d been silly to worry that there was anything Elex might not have been able to handle, let alone anything he’d need someone else to protect him from. But there was something he'd overlooked.
Emotional attachments. In Sinope's opinion, they were the most hazardous threat of all. If Elex and Rowan were dating, it was likely they were going to get emotionally attached to each other. Perhaps they already were. Attachments like that meant emotional damage inflicted on one another whether they meant to or not. While Sinope was usually all for letting people hurt themselves or each other, this was one time he couldn’t just stand idly by. He had to protect Elex. He had to protect Elex to protect himself, because if Elex got hurt, so would he.
That night, as he headed back to the boat, Sinope came to a decision. Unable to sleep, he devised a plan to protect all of them - Rowan, Elex, and himself. If it failed, then he would accept the fact that Rowan and Elex's bond was too strong for him to mess with and back off. If it succeeded...well, it would hurt all three of them, likely, but it would be for the best. The pain of breaking up now while their relationship was still fresh would be nothing compared to breaking up after a length of time thinking they knew each other and finding out they were wrong.
