Yet the silence had quite the opposite effect on Jon as he bunged hot water over awaiting tea bag. Liquid and leaves swirled and steamed, temperature just south of boiling over like the thinky thoughts filling up his head. Renly was clearly being polite, patiently waiting for further statement or question, a topic of real substance he might latch onto and reply. And here you are, old chap, bottling up tighter than a frog’s arse as Robb would say. How’s that useful to anyone?
But where were they going? Jon hadn’t a flying fuck of an idea when he’d first spoke, only hoping his host might have snatched up conversational baton and continued the relay round that first quarter mile.
Inhaling slowly till air filled the very bottom lobes of his lungs, Jon exhaled over the surface of his tea, puffing hazy mists into a cylindrical vortex; heat and moisture and tension all dissipating together. He thought back to the taxi ride. It was a drunken blur, the hand on his groin and lips at his throat serving to further distort recollection but that singular moment between stoplights remained vivid. When green became yellow became red and he’d heard, loud and clear as the prayer beads dangling from rearview mirror clacking together as the taxi slowed then stopped, three familiar words in the most unlikely context.
“‘I love you.’ That’s what you whispered to Loras.” Finally confessed, but he didn’t say it back.
In the kitchen, with those steel cutters and a mad, naked man within wielding distance, Jon wasn’t about to point out tenderest of subjects in such an American fashion. Tactless bollocks, that. He liked his kidneys right where they were, ta very much, slowly but surely filtering the evening’s alcohol from his bloodstream, pissing out his cock anywhere he pleased and not through a belly tube into a plastic urine bag the rest of his life suited him just fine. Still, euphoria of sudden discovery the parallels which shaped their relationships could not be entirely ignored.
This was a burden they both shared; level ground to build a foundation upon.
“You know... Robb doesn’t say it, not really. Not the way I wish he would, but he shows it and I think Loras does, as well. He loves you; you love him.”