Re: [Evans & Peel: Jack & Holly]
"It's not the same as hooking," Holly insisted through his slur. Pornhub wasn't the same as hooking. There was an important differentiation in Holly's mind, one that maybe wasn't universally shared, but he wasn't a hooker. Okay, all that talk of money for sex aside, he didn't think of himself as a hooker. It was, maybe, judgmental and entitled to place that kinda importance on the differentiation, like he was better somehow, but that wasn't the reasoning behind it. It was all about what he thought was right for him, and he kinda hated the thought of strangers all up on him, which was probably more than Jack needed to know. "Digital, they just look, right? They don't touch. It's not the same thing."
He tried to take a sip from his empty glass, lifting it thoughtlessly to his lips like some massive n00b. He gave Jack the shadow of a grin over it, deadpan in mirth as Jack thanked him for assuming he, Jack, had been with someone at some point in his life. Hey, it was a compliment. No 40-year-old virgin here, right? "Why did you do it if you were with someone? Were they not enough? Did you get bored?" Questions spilled, and he'd already asked Noah those same things. He was jaded, okay? That was the one thing about doing sex work, right? It absolutely made you aware of the fact that guys were kinda sludge. "You're saying it's better because there's only good stuff and none of the, like, day-to-day grind shit." He thought that was what Jack was saying. Okay, he added that to the mental filing cabinet. The notecard with the information might be booze-missing come morning, but it was filed away carefully right now.
"So, you're straight," Holly clarified. Even not wasted, he would have considered Jack's response politic. Never wanting to be with a man sounded like it left space for doubt or something, at least in Holly's interpretation. Maybe it was just a desire to avoid labeling, which could totally be a thing. He just nodded at Jack's observation about never wanting to engage the clientele before. So, right, the fact that Noah was clientele was kinda massive.
Anyway, Jack kept talking about the town as if it had some magical power to do things. Holly, again, thought about that tiny town in the Twilight Zone, and he kinda didn't like it. He didn't like anything about this version of Repose. Well, no, see, that was the problem. There was one thing he liked about this version of Repose. He pushed away his glass. "Okay, okay. I have a show to do anyway, and I don't want to puke on your bar, so, yeah." Yeah. Standing was no fun, but he managed it, and he gave Jack a look that was all wasted youth and mussed. He was messy, was Holly, and Holly never did this kinda messy. "Maybe find something that isn't a bottle or a place that sells bottles. That's this kid's advice," he offered.