(Untitled)

[gonna_live]

Jordie's over for dinner. And it's fun. And he helps, which is best of all; it offsets any strangeness there might be with the whole entertaining people thing. Jordie rides over protests and sets the table; he even dries dishes. And after dinner they all settle into the living room with wine and start to tell stories. Kaylee finds herself telling a

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[walk_ins]

"Because it shouldn't."

He's starting to sound angry.

"Look. I don't even know why I'm bringing this up. Let's pretend I didn't. It's -- what, two in the morning? Three? I call a do-over."

[simon_doctor]

"Little after two, yes," he says, quietly. "One of those conversations you can only have at this hour of the morning."

Long pause.

"We can drop it, but I want to ask you one thing first."

[walk_ins]

Jordie doesn't reply. It's as good as acquiescence.

[simon_doctor]

"Will you talk about this with someone, soon? If not me?"

[walk_ins]

"Absolutely not."

[simon_doctor]

He's silent for a moment.

At length: "That's a fair answer."

[walk_ins]

"If it's not an issue, I don't have to talk about it." Calm. Nearly cold. "Clearly."

[simon_doctor]

"Jordie --"

You said you'd drop it, he snaps at himself, what are you doing?

"If I said that, after something like we just talked about, you'd tell me not to be an idiot."

[walk_ins]

Jordie's sitting upright with his legs crossed, with his hands on his knees; sometimes the position is meditative.

"Do you understand nothing about shame, Tam?"

Jordie's hands are clenched, his spine is too straight, his shoulders are tense.

[simon_doctor]

"A few things."

His voice is quiet enough that it'd be lost under the sound of snow falling, if they were sitting any farther apart.

"Such as how it's the most useless emotion there is when it comes to something you can't control. Especially a feeling you can't control. And how that's where it seems to come up the most."

[walk_ins]

He slumps, just a little, as his head lowers.

[simon_doctor]

"And you can't --"

He's been told this; somehow he's never quite understood it until now. Never quite believed it.

"You can't make yourself stop feeling something because it's irrational, or, or inappropriate."

[walk_ins]

Low: "You tell anyone this and I do something drastic. All right?"

[simon_doctor]

He doesn't bother pointing out that Jordie knows things that could ruin Simon's entire family if they were to ever become public knowledge. (Maybe that's even what he means by drastic.)

He just nods, and listens.

[walk_ins]

"Her parents tried to keep me away. Toward the end. On the grounds that I wasn't family, because I'd never bothered making an honest woman out of her."

It's painfully old-fashioned; the law, however, is the law.

"She wasn't technically my wife. So they argued that it didn't -- it meant -- I didn't have a right to be there."

It's not all self-loathing.

[simon_doctor]

"They what?"

Simon straightens up sharply, in shock.

"...Why?"