victory_road | [ august catch-up catch-all ]

[ he knows ford's museum/gym hybrid is still in the stages of being set up. he also knows that ford has been staying on the land and had a house done first. he's been by once or twice when it was being built.

he knows he needs to level with ford about some of his history - specifically the truth of the situation and why he has some trust issues. as hard as it is to talk about, he needs to start this out honest.

so, he stops at a nearby shop in violet that sells alcohol and sends a message to ford as he's picking stuff out. ]

Hey, up for some company? Need to talk to you about my old job.

[It's a little odd still to have something like a permanent home. Even his house in Gravity Falls hadn't really felt like his after thirty years absent from it. The closest he's had was the boat, and he and Stan didn't get to spend much time on it before he showed up at Mom's house.

Which is to say despite being all moved in Ford still feels like a visitor in his own home. It'll be a while still before he settles, for the given value of settling a man like him can achieve. Company sounds good right now.]

Of course. I have an actual couch for you to sit on now.

[What luxury!]

[ jack imagines he's going to feel the same way whenever he gets his place in cherrygrove. he had, at one point, owned the old farmhouse his parents had, and had used it and kept it maintained - but it had never really felt like his, without them there.

and he's been on the run so long, permanency has seemed dangerous. which is one of those things he needs to talk to ford about. ]

Nice. I'm bringing the housewarming booze, then. Do you want me to grab any food before I head over?

[ clearly already in violet! ]

Yes. Surprise me.

[He's never really had a housewarming. Conversation Jack wants to have aside, this might be fun. Company in his house that isn't either family or business? How novel.

It doesn't entirely occur to him that this is a little date-like, what with the food and booze. He's used to thinking of dates as specifically outings where you dress up and go to a restaurant and pretend to be normal. Maybe a movie too. That's what a date was when he was still young enough to contemplate dating, at any rate.]

[ jack isn't thinking of it as date-like either, considering he's laying his history out for ford. he just feels it'll be easy over drinks and food.

he settles on the old drinking standard, pizza, getting two pies and then making his way over to ford. he'd intended on keeping his pokemon put away for this, but after juggling them all he concedes to taking jolene out, letting the sylveon hold one of the pizzas as he heads over.

he knocks on ford's door, and when he answers, he clears his throat. ]

Someone ordered a delivery? [ he teases. ]

[The house itself is back behind the museum. While the buildings made to house the junior trainers aren't far away, it's easy to tell which one is Ford's: it's the biggest and it has a Decidueye perched on the roof. It's two levels and round because of course Stanford Pines couldn't have a house that's shaped normally (and perhaps has reasons to want a minimum of hard angles). It's made of the same concrete and stone as the face of the gym, and when Ford opens the door Jack can probably see past him to more of the same stone offsetting the plaster walls in key places.]

You joke, but this house doesn't have nearly enough liquor in it yet.

[Pizza, yes, very exciting, but he heard there was booze? He's got a whole cabinet that is woefully under-stocked.]

Come in. Put your coat anywhere.

[This house does have a row of hooks by the door. Ford's trenchcoat is conspicuously not hanging on them. Instead it's hanging from the back of one of the living room couches trying its very best to pretend to be one of the woven wool blankets already doing that job.]

[ round is a little surprising in general but it fits ford, somehow, so jack doesn't blink about it too much. he chuckles and passes over the back with the two liquors in it. ]

Well, that's why I bring the party, right?

[ please imagine jack morrison trying to 'party'. he picks up the pizza from jolene, allowing her to greet ford enthusiastically as he steps in and looks around. it's a nice mix of rustic touches and modern convenience, and jack makes an impressed noise. definitely worth the wait.

jack sets the pizza down on a nearby countertop, and drapes his (callsign-emblazoned) jacket over the back of the nearest chair. he's not wearing his normal armor underneath it - just a grey shirt. ]

The place looks nice. I'm guessing you helped with the designs?

To a point. None of my PHDs are in architecture, but I had a say in the aesthetics.

[One of his PHDs is in fine arts, so that's a word he's allowed to use. He crouches down on his haunches to give Jolene's ears a ruffle and (if she likes) allow her to scamper up onto his shoulders. He's wearing his usual turtleneck so she's got plenty to grip onto.

The kitchen area is across the living room from the entryway. The backsplash and counters are that same stone. It's a little under-furnished still, not quite cluttered enough to feel lived in, but the pizza boxes on the counter go a long way toward that. There's just something homey about a simple pizza night.]

Now, did you want to eat first and talk after, or is this pressing?

[He has the sneaking suspicion it might be the latter, or else Jack wouldn't have brought it up to begin with and definitely wouldn't be plying him with food.]

I'd hope so - you did put down money to get this place started.

[ jolene gives a soft bweep and hops onto ford's shoulder, rubbing her cheek against his. jack gives a little smile in seeing it. she may love him too, but ford is definitely her favorite.

ah yes. talks. jack's expression sobers a bit, and he leans on the counter. ]

We should probably eat and talk. I know we're taking this at our own pace but... I'm not sure when it's appropriate to talk about my past. I decided it's best to lay it out now.

[Ah. So it's this kind of talk. Ford had guessed it might be, but Jack had been vague enough to leave it questionable. Well. Jack's right, they probably should have it out. If this is a relationship that exists primarily because of trust then openness should follow, right?

It's going to be fun to see how much he still thinks that once the ball is in his court and he has to talk about Bill.]

Okay. My night's free.

[Meaning, Jack can take his time. Ford has already done the 'tell your entire tragic backstory' thing before and it can be pretty taxing. He steps around Jack and into the kitchen proper, opening a cabinet and pulling out two glasses.]

Now that I have a permanent home I can indulge in the luxury of drinking my Midori out of an actual glass.

[Wild.]

Hopefully it won't take up the whole night.

[ he gives ford a little smile as he leans against the counter some more. meanwhile, he tugs over one of the boxes to open it up and take out a slice.

he chuckles a bit when ford mentions the midori. ]

You're living in the true lap of luxury now.

[ it's teasing. ]

I guess I should note that I'm not... expecting you to do the same. You take it at your own pace - I'd rather just get this out now.

[He kind of does feel like this is luxury, is the thing. It's very strange. Normal people have permanent places where they keep all their things, permanently, that they have room for because all that space is theirs. He's spent so long living a life that he carried in his coat pockets. This doesn't really feel like his life yet.

Since his priorities are very much in order, he opens and pours his Midori before so much as even checking what kind of pizza it is that Jack ordered.]

You didn't have to bribe me with food to get me to listen to you, you know. [That, too, is teasing. He drops a lot of that joking air as he settles in at the counter with his drink.] We'll see. It might be wisest to tackle one thing first and then go from there.

Edited 2019-08-06 01:38 (UTC)

[ as much as he is teasing - yeah, it's sort of a luxury for jack too. he's been no stranger to luxury in his life, but he's eschewed it for the most part these last few years.

differences, with him and ford. and don't worry, he's paid close attention to ford's particular pizza preferences. the plain old pepperoni and sausage is for jack.

jo hops onto the table, sitting down primly because she knows one of these old men will give her a piece eventually. ]

I'm bribing myself with food and alcohol to get me to talk.

[ and ford as well, too, but jack is well aware the kind of person he is. he reaches for the whiskey to pour himself a glass, taking a sip before he decides to just. dive in. ]

I think I've told you bits and pieces. Grew up in Indiana, got pegged for a genetic enhancement program. Don't know if I told you the second part - that the government wasn't supposed to be doing it. Top secret, even after it mostly failed.

[ he waits a beat, shaking his head. ]

Me and a few other guys made it, but the rest who went into that program died.

[ right off the bat: a dose of survivor's guilt. ]

[The double-edged sword to having this kind of conversation with Ford is that not much in it will really shock him. He's seen and heard and experienced so many strange things in his lifetime that much of what Jack is going to tell him, he'll take in stride. There won't be as many awkward questions or pauses to explain basic concepts. On the other hand, having this kind of conversation with Ford means it might not go the way it generally does. Ford is not a man that tends toward platitudes. He says what he thinks, and this has got him in trouble before. Hopefully not tonight.]

That's often why that kind of program is kept under wraps. A high mortality rate is expected. They wouldn't have gone ahead to testing on humans with that ratio of success to failure unless it was considered acceptable.

[ there's a kind of bitterness to jack's expression - not at ford himself, really, but because that's how it was told to him later, when he was strike commander. acceptable losses in order to turn the tide of battle. it worked, hadn't it?

but he doesn't say that to ford, instead he just sighs. ]

Yeah. I know I've mentioned the robots to you - the Omniums, and the attacks they were putting out. A few dozen dead guys for a few super soldiers that could get up from the worst hits was deemed the best choice about that. It's why they picked guys like me and my friend Gabriel Reyes. We were already "leader material", [ he uses air quotes here ] so in part it was to preserve their command force.

And I won't get into the dirty details of it but yeah - that's what he and I did. He became my best friend on those battlefields, and I'd damn well say he was the better of the two of us in getting us through that war. I may have been a commander, but Gabriel was the leader.

It didn't make sense that they offered command of Overwatch to me after the war was over. Overwatch was supposed to help people rebuild, restructure, secure funding and keep people safe and broker peace with the Omnics. It did after Gabriel approached me about the need for a black ops side to our peacekeeping organization - Blackwatch. Somewhere to go where Overwatch's respect for politics wouldn't allow it, to take care of threats before they became threats.

[ he looks a little tired explaining it. so yes, he's well aware of the hypocrisy there. ]

Edited 2019-08-07 00:26 (UTC)

[Ooh. Ah. Yeah. There's always somebody else, isn't there? Someone else tangled up real tight in the messy history. A friend, a brother. Something like that. If it's possible to eat pizza thoughtfully, that's what Ford does. This is why thinking of yourself as a lone wolf is never productive: it's basically never true.]

And you took him up on it, I assume, because having the not-entirely-legal wildcard on your side instead of operating completely on its own was the smarter move?

[He knows Jack well enough by now to know that Jack is smart, and more than that, that Jack isn't a young rosy-cheeked military boy who believes unflinchingly in the power of government. Probably wasn't by the time he got out of that program, never mind by the time he was done fighting in its war. As someone who more often than not was on the wrong side of the law, Ford very much appreciates when someone is willing to admit that often, that's necessary to get results.]

[ jack absolutely considered gabriel a brother. his closest friend, his best one. jack finishes off his slice and takes a long drink of his whiskey. ]

I don't know what he would have done if I hadn't taken him up on it. But I could see the benefit of having someone who could move quickly to do what needed to be done. I was already tired of the red tape, even if I got good about moving through it.

[ he raises a hand to rub his chin. ]

And Gabriel was a good guy. He was a little rough around the edges, but he'd done his damn part in winning that war.

[ he's quiet a moment. ]

Was. We started getting hounded by an organization called Talon, and Gabriel got sloppy in dealing with them. Talon had political opinion turning against the necessity of Overwatch, partly because there was some truth to not needing us anymore.

People got killed or brainwashed, and we started seeing signs of spies. Gabriel blew Blackwatch wide open in a botched mission, and I violated an international peace treaty to send in Overwatch to stop a bomb in England. We had to shutter Blackwatch while we dealt with it all.

I don't know what Gabe was thinking but he confronted me. And ... he set up a bomb at the same time. Brought the whole building down on both of us when we started fighting.

[ at least - that's what jack's been told and mostly believes. what the reports say, what the evidence he has finds. and then there is gabriel being on talon's payroll now. and still, there's a part of him that can't believe it. ]

Edited 2019-08-07 01:45 (UTC)

Ouch.

[So. Your classic betrayal. It's not about the war, not really. It's about one man. Ford can relate. And he can also see a lot more clearly where those trust issues stem from, and why Jack wanted to lay them out on the table this early. The past relationship he's hung up on isn't the one where they just drifted apart, it's the one where he got a building dropped on him.

He is self-aware enough, now, to know that a certain amount of delicacy is required in responding to this. He's just bad at being delicate.]

At least it gave you a reason to disappear.

[That's... neutral? And part of him thinks maybe that was the intention the whole time. To give them both a reason to disappear. If Gabe knew about that bomb and didn't get the hell out of dodge then he intended to be there when it went off, and that either points to a suicide mission or an orchestrated cover-up.]

I can't imagine remaining a conspicuous public figure was a viable option at that point.

You could say that.

[ jack's tone is, at the very least, very wry. as painful as the events of the past are, he's aware of there being some 20/20 hindsight in them. he's had time to get used to the idea and... the whiskey is helping. ]

It was off the table, yeah. Gabriel wasn't wrong about there being double agents in Overwatch - not just Talon's, either. With my 'death' they were able to sunset Overwatch, especially since I'd taken responsibility for the mistakes we'd made. They gave everyone gag orders and sent them on their way. I went underground and started gathering research from old Overwatch bases, following the threads and cleaning up the mess we'd left.

I thought Gabriel had died in that explosion like I should have - but you don't keep soldiers like us down. A few months ago, before I arrived here, it turned out he'd survived too, and was working for Talon now. When he saw me, he shot me.

[ there's a bitter twist to his lips now. betrayed twice, essentially. ]

I guess you could say I developed some trust issues from all of that.

[Okay, he can't just say 'ouch' again, but... ouch. Instead he downs the last of that first glass of Midori and pours himself another one while carefully arranging his words in his head.]

Do you think he was working for Talon when he set that bomb?

[Something tells him the timeline here is important. Not the real timeline because they can't exactly get a good picture of that, but the timeline as Jack perceives it. How deep that betrayal runs.]

... Yeah, I do.

[ the length of time it takes jack to get those words out belies that even he's not sure of the timeline. but he does believe it; all evidence seems to point to it that he can find.

whether it had been for years or a month is debatable. ]

There are points I think he must not have worked for them - that mission he botched involved him killing a Talon agent - but then again, that threw open all our dirty laundry and dealt a blow to us politically.

[Boy. Jack doesn't always sound like a government agent, but when he does he really does. The last time Ford heard talk of this caliber was four years ago and he was impersonating a commanding officer to get his entire family out of being detained and possibly disappeared. How time flies.]

Critically destabilizing an already-crumbling flagship organization very well might have been thought to merit sacrifice.

[Translation: he can absolutely see a political organization murdering one of its own to make something look more convincing.]

But this is all conjecture on my part, and maybe it's not helpful.

... Would it be helpful for me to tell you that I have absolutely no plans to drop a building on you?

Yeah, exactly. I don't think there's any real value for their agents.

[ jack is about to say something else and then ford says he has no plans to drop a building on him. it takes jack a moment and then he busts up laughing. ]

Oh, so if it happens it's an accident? I'll keep that in mind.

[ he grins a little more, before his expression grows serious. ]

I know it's kind of an extreme situation, but I've spent the last five years not talking to any of my old friends or trusting anyone. If we're going to make it work, I wanted you to know what you were walking into.

[Laughter is good! Laughter is really, really good! It's way better than yelling or existential dread, which are the two responses Ford is used to getting when he opens his mouth in conversations like these.

Five years, though. Ahaha. Five. Oh, that's such a cute number. Five. So small. And now he's faced with a very tricky decision, because the obvious way to respond here is by saying he's not walking into anything because this is already the space he's been living in for half his life, and then that invites the rest of it. Talking about that Ford is like talking about someone else, someone else he really hates admitting to having been. It always comes with the fear of that being the thing that makes the person he's talking to leave, even if he knows in practice it speaks to how much he's changed.]

Extreme is relative.

[So much is. The tattoo on his left wrist, the lock of unicorn hair with the words 'morality is relative' twisted around it, is there specifically to remind him of that. That and Mabel, who he still misses every day and who would probably be agonized if she knew this kind of romantic drama was going on without her.]

I think I might understand more than you expect. Our situations are... similar.

[ he can see ford is thinking about something, after his comment on extremity. jack pours himself another glass but doesn't drink it, instead getting another slice. he gives ford the time to find his words, doesn't stare him straight in the face while he does it.

I think I might understand more than you expect.

it doesn't surprise him, but his eyebrows do raise a bit. ]

Huh. Wonder what the chances of that were, then.

[ that in a cosmic kidnapping, they'd find and get on with each other. but he leaves it open for ford to keep explaining if he wants. ]

Oh, I could calculate it. I spent much of my life studying a weirdness attraction principle. Like finds its way to like.

[The specifics might be a little different to the equation he worked on in Gravity Falls but the basic idea remains the same. It's the same principle that led to an entire pocket dimension of lost Mabels.]

It was more like thirty years. In my case.

[ that has jack leaning forward a bit. thirty years does outdo five by a whole bunch. he gives a little wince. ]

Jesus. That's rough.

[ jolene gives a little concerned noise, getting up to settle herself in front of ford... and also perhaps steal a bite of his pizza if he's not looking. ]

[Yeah. That's rough. He realizes there's not much else to say to that. He weighs the merits of elaborating further while he gently but firmly puts a hand on Jolene's face and pushes her across the counter and away from his pizza. Stop that, you little criminal, he sees you.]

I told you that I spent that time traveling the multiverse but not how, ah. How I got there to begin with. But I have to warn you, it's a long story, and it paints me in a... less than flattering light. To put it mildly.

[And no matter how many times people reassure him that the very fact that he's concerned about it means he's not that man anymore, it still bothers him. It will always bother him. Hell, Jack has already said as much to him once, but Jack didn't know the full story then. Maybe the details will change his mind. Who knows. Jack's story is that of a man who through no real fault of his own was put on a pedestal, fell from grace and had to abandon his old life. Ford's is the story of a man who shot himself in both feet and then took out a saw to cut them off for good measure. To him it doesn't really feel comparable, even if Jack might think different.]

So you probably should know before things progress much further.

[Because the real thing that might threaten their relationship is that he has a tendency to be a garbage person and not, like, his relationship baggage. Definitely. Ford Pines is good at priorities.]

[ other father how dare you. she settles just on the edge, next to his arm. totally for comfort and not for sneaks.

jack listens to ford and does him the grace of at least appearing to consider it. but after a moment he nods. ]

I get you. But I can promise you that whatever you tell me isn't going to make me change my mind about who you are now.

[ he puts a hand out in case ford needs it - but he knows that they're both Bad with Affection and probably more so during stressful times. he gestures with his other for ford to start when he's ready. ]

Edited 2019-08-27 03:27 (UTC)

[That sure is a nice sentiment and it'd be great if Ford could accept it at face value. He appreciates it either way. He notes the offered hand but doesn't take it; hand holding is a whole separate beast and he doesn't want to complicate this.

Now where does he start? He's done bits and pieces of it with different people but never the whole thing at once. He doesn't even know if he should attempt that now, but it's all so tangled up. The rest of the time things have come up as they apply contextually. Maybe he can just... abridge it. That's probably best.]

All my life I was teased for my hands. I never had any friends except for my brother because no one wanted to be friends with a freak. So when I was old enough and had myself a college grant the first thing I did was decide I was going to dedicate my life to studying the abnormal, and that led me to the one place in the United States with the highest concentration of reported weirdness: Gravity Falls. The more I studied the more it became clear there was something larger at work, some principle I needed to crack, and I was missing the key puzzle piece.

[He takes a long, fortifying drink.]

I found an inscription deep in a cave that could summon a being with answers. I read it. And that's how I met Bill. He appeared to me in a dream and told me that he was a muse, that he chose one great mind a century to inspire, and that he had chosen me. And I was stupid and arrogant enough to believe him.

[That's not exactly it. He was starved for validation. But it's easier to call himself stupid than it is to call himself desperate.]

Stan would have seen through his conman act in a second, but I wasn't-- we weren't talking. At the time.

[ there's a lot to read between the lines here. if his brother was his only friend, why weren't they talking? he imagines there's many and sundry reason, but he also knows ford can hold a grudge like a motherfucker - so how long had it been.

but he doesn't ask, he just listens. ]

You've mentioned parts of that, about Gravity Falls, and - you've mentioned Bill. [ usually sounding like a bad ex though. he rests his chin in his hand, watching - but making sure to busy himself pouring a second drink so he's not just staring at ford. ]

['Mentioned'. Yeah, he's mentioned Bill. That's generally what he keeps it to. A little slip here and there, never elaborating, because elaborating necessitates explaining where he fits in and then it all falls apart. But he knows from experience that the moment he starts giving any details the picture will paint itself. Best to not beat around the bush.]

We had a working partnership. He was a source of information for me and I was his conduit into our world. He couldn't enter it himself, but he could possess my body as he pleased. That was our deal, binding until the end of time. [That's not it, that's not all it is, and he knows he has to clarify if only to drive home exactly how stupid he was.] You would think a man raised Orthodox would know not to make deals with demons but I was too infatuated with him to think rationally. Here was a higher being beyond human comprehension telling me that I out of everyone in a hundred years was the best and the brightest. Of course I fell for it.

[He turns to look at Jack and his expression is haunted.]

Have you ever had an out-of-body experience?

[ it sounds an awful lot like a story he's heard a too many times before. that this one is special, that they're the exception to the normal rule. he's not the usual target of it - although he'd gotten it a little, he guesses, with being given overwatch - but he knows how the reasoning goes.

it's hard to steel his expression. sympathy can be misconstrued as pity so easily, and he has a feeling ford won't like either too much. ]

Yeah. But I suspect not the way that yours must have been.

[ he shifts to face ford a little more, drink forgotten in the moment. ]

In some ways it's the same, I imagine. The, ah, the loss of control, the -- mm.

[Okay. Start over. It's fine to talk about this and especially it's fine to talk about it with someone else who's been through hell and gets it already. It's just hard to unlearn the mindset that it's over, it's done with, it's just something that happened and he shouldn't be bothered by it. Still being effected this long after the fact feels like a weakness, even though he logically knows it isn't, but for all Ford insists he's ruled by logic alone he's more or less always defaulted to the whims of his emotions.

Maybe approach it from a different angle. His voice is carefully neutral while he talks, primarily to help him get through it. He can talk about the factual things that Bill did easily. Talking about the effect they had on him is much more difficult.]

He would take control while I slept. And when I realized his true intentions -- to enter my world and raze it to the ground -- I could denounce him but there was no way to lock him out. So I stopped sleeping. I taped my eyes open. But the human body will die without rest eventually and I had to be alive to work on a plan to stop him, so he always had a way back in. I would pass out and wake up worse off than I had been before. As a being with no physical form of his own he found pain novel. Amusing. He would fall down the stairs rather than walk, that sort of thing.

[It may be becoming apparent now why Ford has trained himself to go for so long on so little sleep. It's not a pride thing or a bad study habit. It's an old fear, but he insists it's the other two because it's easier.

He clears his throat.]

Not anymore, of course. He's dead, and if he wasn't, the plate in my skull would keep him out. But when I say that I have difficulty letting people in it's because I did once, literally, and -- and you see how that went.

[ a picture becomes a lot clearer in jacks head as ford talks.

the difficulty jack has had getting ford to stop and rest. jack knows the importance of it, can fall asleep quickly. it's not unusual for him to go to sleep and then wake up with ford still awake and mostly in the same place.

he knows how hard it is to let go of something like that. of course, any ruminating on that skips a beat when ford mentions falling down stairs rather than walking. ]

He threw you down the stairs because it was funny?

[ sure, ford wasn't 'aware' of it at first, but that deserves to be called out explicitly. he does manage to shut up for the rest of the explanation, though.

he raises a hand to rub the back of his neck. ]

Yeah, I'd say that leaves more than a few scars on a guy. [ emotionally, physically. he's a little at a loss for words, and once more keenly feels the absence of people like angela, who were always better about this. ] Between us we've got enough baggage for an international flight.

Actually I'm no longer allowed on airplanes.

[He manages a weak laugh and the ghost of a smile before his expression sobers again, which is a funny turn of phrase when he's had enough alcohol by now to maybe feel a little fuzzy around the edges. It's helping, just a bit.]

To detail everything he ever did to me would take longer than either of us wants to spend talking about it. The important part is that it has left marks, however much I wish I could ignore them. I should be able to. It's been years -- but. Anyway.

So long as I never hear you humming We'll Meet Again it should be fine.

That makes two of us then.

[ less explicitly no-fly list, more because it'd be too easy to identify him if you tried. jack, meanwhile, tops off his whiskey. ]

It takes time. And they don't ever go away, you just... learn to deal with them better. Like a sore muscle.

[ jack has to point that out. it doesn't matter if it's been one or ten years. people's paces are different and you don't come back from some despair horizons. ]

I don't have any plans to start. More of a oldies guy myself.

[ jack's oldies are still probably things ford has never heard of. ]

Also... thanks. I know this wasn't easy.

That's the thing. I have learnt to deal with it. I thought I had.

[The thing is he considers 'shoving it down and doggedly moving forward' to be dealing with it. Until he showed up in this world he'd never really talked about it. He certainly has never worked through it. He's had a few conversations here and there that have made some progress but he's never really had closure. And he's not really smart enough about his own emotions to know that's what he needs. He told himself to suck it up and move on because he had to, and he did. Why wasn't that enough?]

I always... worry. I worry that when someone gets to know me, the probability of them leaving me increases. Familiarity breeds contempt, and I'm not always easy to be around. I would argue that I'm not easy to love. But I am trying every day to be a better man and I think I succeed more at it the more cause I have to try. I would like to be able to give you reasons to stay.

[Oof. That was a lot of sincerity all in one go. He might be tapped out for a minute or two.]

[ jack almost says that sometimes, a man might need to learn new ways to process things. but ford keeps talking, and jack wisely doesn't add anything to listen. which is good, because that is a lot of insight he didn't think ford would offer.

he shifts a little, bumping his knee against ford's. holding out a hand or offering a hug doesn't seem right. ]

I ... spent a lot of time avoiding getting close to people. Maybe not for the same reasons, but just because if no one was close I wouldn't have anyone to disappoint again.

I think the best thing we can both do is try, and remember we're trying. Because I'd like to stay, and I don't want you to just be putting up with me either.

I think that will work, for now.

Which reminds me. You're welcome to the couch tonight.

[They've been drinking an awful lot after all, and even the amount of pizza they've both consumed can't totally cancel it out.]

It's big enough that you ought to fit on it.

[If he were smoother and more used to this sort of thing he'd offer his bed, he isn't and he doesn't. He already just did a very intimate thing. One at a time.]

[ no, this has been a lot; jack appreciates that they're not going to negotiate sharing space while sleeping.

jolene gives a noisy yawn, deeming it time to pick her way into ford's lap. jack reaches out to scratch her back before she can worm her way too far. ]

I'll take you up on that. Probably in no state to be travelling at the moment.

[ thankfully it's not like he is sweaty or gross.

besides, he has a feeling it'll give him a chance to make ford breakfast that's not over a portable grill. ]

[Ford isn't even thinking ahead to breakfast. He's still chewing over the conversation they just had, picking through it with the determination of a man who wants very badly to solve a problem and only halfway knows how. It occurs to him that he got so caught up in the Bill issue that he didn't even talk about Stanley and, actually, perhaps that's for the best. Out of the two wounds that one is far more raw, and from past conversations Jack knows as much as he really needs to. That Ford messed up somewhere along the line. That he regrets it. That he misses his brother terribly. No point in putting more detail to it now when they're both already tipsy and emotionally over-extended.]

Probably not.

[He gives Jolene's ears a thoughtful rub, then lifts her up in one arm as he stands.]

I'll get you a quilt. I have an entire hall closet with spare things in it now. Very fancy.

[ there is a lot to think about and go over. jack's sure there's more things to talk about and more issues to give a heads up about. even he didn't lay every single problem out on the table - just the big one.

so if there are things missing, it's fine. jack's not going to ask for all of it at once. that's kind of what this relationship thing is, right? learning about each other.

jolene wraps one ribbon around ford's arm, and jack shakes his head a little at her. traitor. ]

Oh, now we're truly talking about the lap of luxury if you've got spare quilts. You import them too?

[ he's teasing. ]

[It's not being a traitor, it's showing affection for what is clearly her co-parent. It's fine.]

Oh yes. Imported from the finest local home goods store.

[He reaches into the closet and pulled out a folded quilt. It's all black and orange and when Ford tosses it to Jack it becomes apparent that it's covered in a pattern of Pumpkaboo and fall leaves. What is Ford if not a man with a brand?]

There's more in there if you get cold.

So, Poke-kea, or whatever it's called here.

[ ford absolutely has a brand and jack chuckles a bit upon seeing the patterns. he doesn't comment otherwise on it, draping it over his arm. ]

Thanks. I should be fine. Even without my special genes, cold doesn't bother me. I grew up in Indiana, remember?

Of course. I'm only sorry that I don't have a corn field for you to camp in.

[There it is. There's a bit of recovery after that heavy conversation. Maybe that's the alcohol talking. Maybe he'd just be like that anyway. Hard to say. He hefts Jolene a little more firmly into his arms and turns to head toward the bedroom. Obviously she's coming with. She gets foot of the bed privileges.]

I'll see you in the morning.

Shame on you for that.

[ it's easier to end it on something like that - light, a little joking. jolene waves a ribbon at jack - yes, she knows where she's sleeping tonight. jack shakes his head but, he waves a little hand at them. ]

Seeya in the morning.

[ he will be making breakfast. ]

[ august catch-up catch-all ]

FORD

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1/2

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peeperoni

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cw: physical and mental abuse

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I THINK... IT'S DONE

NOW IT IS DEFINITELY DONE