Re: Tory & Jamie: the Apartment
That was partly why Jamie liked old people. They had experienced stuff, they knew things, he didn't feel the weight of responsibility of imparting serious knowledge that could theoretically switch a kid from being into academics, or idk, baseball and have them commit to a life of getting so hard over the ballet discipline they didn't get a hs diploma (not that Jamie had like, hang-ups about that stuff). Old people brought their own stuff to the table, and he liked hearing about it. "Decrept is like, thirty," Jamie said with the smiling confidence of knowing exactly where arbitrary boundaries were drawn, and because Tory's humor was like, disarming? It was the intent, which Jamie got, but it still had like, the intended effect.
"I never tanned. You have to do it evenly if you're going to dance anything bare-chested and after I hit maybe sixteen, I stopped being out in the sun a lot, so I'm mostly pale. I thought maybe the ginger, sun thing was a myth," and he glanced upward, at the guy's hair, which was seriously red. He didn't hear frustration at all, Jamie. He heard the same kinda like, reaching for stuff that was probably way beyond reach but the reaching itself was kinda the point and felt the tug of recognition. "Ballet's the same, only less like, expert," he said, and it was more thoughtful than Jamie had been since Tory had showed up, "You're constantly looking for ways to make it better. You're never going to get all the way. So yeah. Passionate. It's a good thing."
He didn't know that like, touch hadn't even been a thing, if he had maybe it would have been less like, utilitarian. Jamie's fingers were warm, and they flexed around Tory's wrist as he shaped the guy's arm down, worked his elbow into something more of a curve rather than like, limp and folded the guy's fingers into a kind of cupped shape, softened. The socks were ridiculous, and Jamie's gaze snagged hard on highlighter yellow, and he looked into Tory's face with one eyebrow cocked. "Did you think you'd miss your feet or something?" But yeah, without the shoes, easier, and: "Heels together. You want to turn your feet out, from like, the hip, so they're pointing outward. I'm not going to have you go down on my coffee table, you got this."