August, 2006
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Jonathon didn't have that much stuff.
He wasn't sure why it was disturbing, but it was.
Jonathon needed a place to stay and, because he was lonely, unbearably so, Jamie was letting him stay for a few weeks. JR was busy these days, and while Maggie was back in town, she wasn't being very receptive—to his great exhaustion, she seemed to more unforgiving of his role in keeping Miranda from Bianca than she did that he was beginning to actually call Jonathon Lavery a friend.
Jonathon, he had quickly found, was difficult to deal with at times—he was like some emotional roller coaster, and while the medications helped him stay steady enough to function sufficiently at work, it wasn't by much. He'd been on so many medications, over the years, that they were having difficulties finding the right mix for him that would keep going but not enough to push him to his breaking points, physically speaking.
They had yet to succeed.
One second, the other man could be quietly still and relaxed, almost to a disturbing point with blank eyes and shallow breathing, and the next he would rush into whatever movement he could find, muttering under his breath. If Jamie was honest, he would admit that he had no real idea why he was letting the murdering abuser into his apartment.
But he was.
His mother had at first accused him of something like a morbid worship, and while she had been right all along with his feelings for Babe, it was as far from that as anything he'd ever felt. He wondered if, maybe, it had something to do with JR, or something at least related to JR—that was what his instincts were telling him, and he was finally learning to trust those.
It had only taken a kidnapping rap and a handful of stupid actions though, so that wasn't too bad, right?
Oh, and the complete and total destruction of his family, too.
"You look like you're trying to understand something."
He paused in his thinking, glanced up from his sightless gazing of his lunch to where Jonathon was standing, fiddling with his Cuban sandwich, playing with his the way he did with all of his food. There was probably a story behind it, like there was a story behind everything that Jonathon seemed to do without thinking. He flipped the meat around, scraped off the mayonnaise and mustard and put on his own, and then sliced it repeatedly.
It probably had some meaning for him, and Jamie was grateful he didn't know it—too many of Jonathon's unconscious meanings had bad history behind them, and while Jamie cared about Jonathon— Wait, was cared even the right word? Or was he just trying to be there for Jonathon the way he hadn't been there for JR?— he found that, more often than not, he didn't want to know about them.
"I'm thinking," he admitted and Jon smirked, looking very pleased with himself as he threw away old pickles and took new ones out of the fridge, which he had spent the night before organizing. Who organized their fridge, though, right? "You always get that look on your face when you think, that stupid one."
"Which look?"
"The one you always have on your face."
Jamie gave him a dirty look, noticing how Jonathon looked even more pleased with himself, and shook his head, finally taking a bite of his Cuban, letting Jon continue to play with his. "Why do you even buy a sandwich anyway? All you do is throw everything on it away and start over again. It's a waste of money."
Dark eyes pinned him, studied him before Jon narrowed his eyes, as if he had just come to some quiet decision about the younger man. He'd seen the look before, and Jamie had found that it wasn't as disquieting as it probably should have been. He didn't speak until he had finished his fiddling and put the stuff away and when he did speak, his voice was flatter than usual, which wasn't actually all that unusual with Jonathon.
"I'm working on it." This so stated, he stared down at the carefully constructed sandwich, staring at it as he tugged at the corner of one thumbnail, making Jamie wince slightly. By the time he finally started eating, Jamie was licking his fingers clean and digging through the paper bag for any morsels left, frowning when he found none and then glaring at the fridge, wondering if he should brave Jonathon's cleaning tics--tics for a chance at finding something else.
He had come for a few weeks, how was it now months later?
Loneliness, that had to be it, he decided as he strapped courage to his spine and slunk towards the fridge, scowling at the way Jon shot him a warning glance not to screw anything inside up, and purposely not looking as Jon took his pills, swallowing them dry the way he did when he forgot to drink something with them.
Jamie had never been good with taking pills, not when he wasn't curious about them. He could clearly remember the ordeals he had put his dad and Dixie through when his mother had been away for business when he had the flu, and how many pills he had destroyed before Dixie had finally managed to coax the stupid thing down his throat while his father held him wrapped up in a blanket, dodging small fists and wire-bound teeth.
He couldn't quite comprehend how anyone could swallow those things dry.
By the time Jonathon finished his food, Jamie had devoured the rest of the Chinese food from three days before and was working on the last pitiful remains of the Cherry Garcia, studiously ignoring the hard stare that was now focused on him. "Did you get your eating habits from the pig?"
It took a moment to get the reason behind the taunting and, flipping Jon off with his spoon, he mumbled, "Babe's not a pig—"
"Isn't she?"
"Why the hell do you hate her so much?"
"Have you forgotten what the hell that bitch did to my sister?"
Apparently, he realized with an inward cringe, remembering how hard Erin had hit the ground when tackled by the blonde, yelping in surprise at the sudden vicious attack for no reason that any of the family had been able to figure out. According to the witnesses, Stuart among them, JR and Erin had just been shopping for the dresser that Erin wanted for her guest room.
And then, down went Erin, with Babe on her like white on rice.
What did that mean, anyway?
Rice wasn't even naturally white—
"You're thinking again, I can tell."
Jamie flipped him off with the spoon again, glaring as best as he could with the brain freeze sinking in.
