Re: Travis/Thomas
While Travis talked, TJ had lit his cigarette and sat calmly smoking looking both into the night and at Travis' reflection in the part of the window near his head. He really ought to just pull the bed over to the window if he was going to be spending so much time sitting there smoking.
"Sure, let's be honest." A long, slow stream of smoke floated past his lips before he smirked. "Say that I trust you and consider a partnership and you'll give me allegiance, back me up, let me choose my own companions to spend time with? Doesn't sound like our definitions of friendship are really that different after all. What happened to 'no strings'? Seems it doesn't really exist, does it? It's just a different deal, a bargain struck. You want me to stop caring about pleasing my parents, but you're just like them.
"You tell me you don't want to know what my life was like, but you're more than happy to tell me all about yours whether I want to hear it or not. And, then you play these question and answer games as if I owe you because you offered. You don't think I'm a kid or stupid, but your default is the negative opinion, based on assumptions you've made based on that life you don't want to know about, didn't have to think about until you got saddled with me for an assignment, and have no clue about. The same life, I might add, that you think I should turn my back on because you think it'll be better for me to be myself by distancing myself from the things that have defined me my entire life.
"And, you know what? I didn't actually say your partners suits looked more or less in or out of place. I said clothing choices make a statement and that suits aren't always right for everything. But, if he could make that statement and it went with who he was, so what? He wasn't a normal cop. Why should he act like one if he didn't have to? What good would it have done him to dress as less than he was?"
Taking a long drag on the cigarette, he flicked the ash out into the darkness while he held the smoke in, feeling that slight burn before exhaling. "You know what the real problem is? I think you don't like the fact I don't care about being an assignment." Being an assignment was more stable than this illusory 'no strings' friendship Travis preached. There was never a question of where you stood when you were an assignment. "It makes you feel better about yourself to make 'friends'. That's what's in it for you, which is why the only time you want to know anything about me is when you want me to answer your questions, why there's a lot of talk about why I should change my priorities, stop thinking about the people who have influenced me my entire life, be my own man. Of course, you're not changing anything since is the way you'd rather do things. And you're just as stuck on taking what your partner would think of you into consideration, even though it's wrong for me to do the same."
Though he smiled, there was little warmth to the expression. "Like I said, you're just like them. You want it your way and you think you know what you can offer me to toe the line."