Daniel (danhoffman) wrote in neogenesisrpg, @ 2009-02-09 00:04:00 |
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Entry tags: | dan hoffman, jason song |
Who: Dan & Jason
What: Talking about what happened.
When: Sunday evening
Where: Dan's place
Rating: PG
Status: Complete
After waiting an hour after sending his last email, and calling Dan's phone to only reach his voicemail Jason decided that waiting for the other to get back to him was pointless.
Driving with sprained wrists was a challenge, but he managed to navigate his car off campus and to the apartment building downtown. Once he was released from police custody, he went looking for Dan without any luck. He was sure after being contacted by his friend and getting a cryptic email that the man was back home. He pressed the button and hoped the other man would answer.
He wasn't taking visitors or calls. Swamped with formalities and lost in his own thoughts, Dan all but jumped out of his chair at the sound of the intercom. In a manner of speaking. Safe in the knowledge that he wasn't expecting anyone - as well as the fact that the police had proven they didn't bother with doorbells - he slid out of the living room and into the hall.
"Yeah?" he sighed, sincerely hoping it was Jehova's Witnesses and not the only other likely candidate.
"It's me," Jason answered anxiously, the tension making his voice waver. He cleared his voice and spoke louder, "Jason. Can I see you?"
The answer was undoubtedly no, but he wasn't going to be difficult. This had to be settled and the sooner the better. "Come up." He pressed the intercom button hard, letting the other man in and hoping - hoping - he could deal with this before it became a problem for Jason.
Jason went through the doors and made his way to the elevators. He wondered if the nervous feeling he got as he walked the near empty hallways of the building would ever go away. The sense of security that he once held while inside had all but been taken from him the night he was dragged out.
Regardless, the person he needed to see still lived there, and he wasn't going to let his nerves get in the way off it. He stood before the new door that had been put up in place of the one that was shattered, and ringed the doorbell in lieu of his usual knock.
Dan opened on the first ring, not eager to postpone a conversation he never wanted to have. Not like this, in any case. He slid the bolts open and froze in place.
"What happened to your face?" The words were out before he could stop them. Like he didn't know.
"It looks worse than it is," Jason ducked his head and looked to the side to hide the worst of it. After a week, the right side of his face from his forehead to the curve of his cheekbone was covered with a dark bruise. "The doctor said it'll probably be another week before the color will start to fade. It's nothing serious."
He didn't come to talk about his injuries, he didn't really want to talk about them with anyone. He came to see the other man, and he crossed into the doorway without invitation. It was better than standing there being stared at.
Jason wasn't thinking about the cryptic email when he dropped into a crouch and latched his arms around the man in a tight embrace.
Daniel froze at the embrace, something like guilt burning deep in his chest. He was at the root of the other man's injuries. He was to blame. He was responsible.
"Jason.... Jason, stop." He took him by the shoulders and pried him off. Every touch felt foreign. His skin didn't feel real. His hands didn't feel like they were his own. This was what it meant to be a ghost.
Caught off-guard, Jason was put off-balance when the man grasped his shoulders and pulled him away. With his wrists bound in unbending braces as they were he couldn't catch himself when he stumbled back. He landed on his backside with his arms still in front of him.
"What's wrong?" He remained sitting on the floor as he looked at the man with a wounded expression, more at being pushed away than anything else.
Dan bit his tongue in three places, substituting one pain for another. "Did I hurt you? I'm sorry." He wished it sounded less angry. He wished so much and for so many things...
He could feel anger rise in him like a wounded beast, cornered for too long. "Come into the living room."
Jason looked away at the tone in the other man's voice and pulled himself to his feet, it was hard to resist apologizing for invading the other man's personal space. Instead he muttered a soft, "it wasn't your fault."
He took the invitation to move into the apartment, taking in any changes from the last time he had stood in the same spot.
Dan moved into the living room, torn between waiting and making amends and launching himself head-first into an apology. "Did they charge you with anything?"
He figured they wouldn't, but he made conversation. It was just as good as saying something real.
"They told me I was being charged for resisting arrest, obstruction, and that they suspected I was whoever hacked into the government servers," Jason answered as he sat down, "they interrogated me, I don't know how long, next thing I remember is they put me in a taxi."
He shook his head, "when campus security called the cops because they thought I got mugged and was making it up, they were told there was no record of me being arrested at all."
"There won't be," he nodded, voice tight. "What happened to us is off the record. We can't sue." There wouldn't be any recourse, not like that, in any case.
"And I should tell you, it's not safe for you to be here."
"Why not? If you did anything wrong, they wouldn't let you go." Jason said as he hugged himself with his arms, "I've had a lot of time to think about it. If they can make up reasons to keep me in jail, for things I didn't do. Then it can happen again. It doesn't matter who I'm with or where I am."
"It matters if they think you haven't learned your lessons," Dan snapped. "They didn't release you. They're watching. You associate with people like me and they'll know." The reason they had released him had less to do with innocence and more to do with hopes and plans and ulterior motives.
"What if I talk about what happened? What if I refuse to get married? What if I refuse to take the serum? Because I want to," Jason said and clenched and unclenched his hands in frustration, "I want to be with you. If it'll happen again if I stay with you, so what? It'll happen again eventually."
Dan turned to face him, heart in his throat and a headache pounding against his temples. "Then I don't want to be with you. Not when it means you get to risk your life for nothing. It's not worth it. It's pathetic."
"It isn't pathetic, it isn't," Jason argued, unable to look up and meet his gaze. "I just can't run away. If you're risking your life, I can't just stand to the side and watch. If something happened to you, and I wasn't there, I'd have to live with that..."
"Jason... you don't have to protect me." It wasn't his place. The risk... "Nothing's going to happen to me. I promise. You don't have to worry."
"You don't have to protect me," Jason snapped and looked at him, his voice shaking with restrained anger. "That's what this is, isn't it? Nothing's going to happen to you, but it isn't safe for me to stay with you. It's bullshit, Dan. I don't know everything, but I'm not stupid."
Dan reigned himself in, resigning himself to the realization that he couldn't, however much he wanted, twist Jason's arm in this. "I'm about to go public with a foundation whose only purpose. Only reason of existence... is to fight the government. And I'm probably going to piss off some very important people. You don't want to be a part of that."
"I don't? I'm pissed at the government. I hate what they've done, I hate what they could do. I can't go to work, I can't play violin, they hurt me just because they could," Jason closed his eyes, hating that his eyes always watered when he was angry. "I hate feeling so helpless. Even if I can't do anything...I can't give up."
He lingered on the edge of whatever relationship they'd built and watched it crumble. Watched Jason crumble. And took his hand. "Sit down." It was the opposite of 'get out' and what he should have said, but they were gone far, far beyond the should have's. "I'm sorry."
Jason shook his head at the apology, and sat down. He wiped his face with the fingers of his free hand. "I'm not mad at you," Jason muttered, holding the man's hand like he was afraid he'd make him let go. "I just...haven't talked anyone about what happened. Everything's catching up..."
"You didn't tell your sister?" he asked, making conversation and clutching at straws because the alternative was too frightening. The alternative could end with Jason dead. He held his hand a little tighter at the thought.
"I don't want her to worry, or tell my mom," Jason gave a wry smile, "the last thing I'd want is for her to know. My grandmother was a dissident against the fourth republic, she was arrested, and died in prison when mom was fourteen. I'm not so worried about her knowing, but what she'd do after she found out. She'd make more trouble than the both of us combined."
Dan mirrored his smile, despite his better judgment. "This is going to end in tears, you know. Sooner or later." He didn't say it to be the voice of pessimism, but for honesty's sake. Why enter a relationship that was bound to lead to pain? "Your mother would probably tell you as much. And she'd be right."
"My mom would say, 'what's the point of fighting if you don't have something to lose' and she'd be right," Jason leaned over and rested his cheek against the backs of their clasped hands. "I made up my mind already. I don't care how it ends, I'd rather it end later than sooner."
That wasn't going to be up to them, he thought with the detachment of a man who was going to die. The things you could attribute to drugs, he thought. "I don't want to lose you." Not as a byproduct of a fight that never should have involved him.
"I don't want to lose you," Jason said with a heavy sigh, "that's why I'm here."
There had to be a mathematical model that proved the two - losing him and losing his life - weren't mutually exclusive, but Dan could quite come up with it. So he kept quiet and kept their hands locked. He'd have to factor this into theirs plans, but it could be done. He hoped it could.