Overdue Conversations Characters: Jason and Reggie Setting: Gym, 8 pm
Jason had spent about an hour or two cleaning up the chaos in the workshop before heading back to his room. He had read for a little bit, then had dinner before starting to get ready to head over to the gym.
He was looking forward to seeing Reggie. Earlier, when he had gone looking for the other man, he had had a vague idea about just wanting to talk for a while, but now... Well, he figured that would happen too, but now he honestly just wanted to see the other man. At least with Reggie, he didn't have to worry about the other man having a mood swing and deciding to try and take his face off with a wrench. The woman earlier today... She had reminded him of being back in real prison, with all the posturing and threats that came with that. While he had to have been at least decent at that considering he had been mostly left alone while in the State Prison - and considering that the woman today had ultimately decided she liked him, which was disturbing enough on its own - it didn't mean he liked it. Hell, he had threatened that woman, and even though it had been a response to her threat, that wasn't something he was okay with. It was just one of the reasons why he was looking forward to seeing Reggie; he didn't have to worry about any of that shit with him.
A few minutes before eight, Jason made his way over to the gym, not wanting to be later than their agreed upon time, even though he remembered that Reggie had admitted to having a tendency to be late. If nothing else, if Reggie was late, he might take advantage of the time to work with the heavy bag for a few minutes. He was surprised then, to see Reggie already there, waiting for him. "I thought you said you weren't the type to be early," he pointed out as he approached where the other man was sitting.
Reggie had actually spread himself out across one of the gym mats while he was waiting. His day, thankfully, had not been nearly as eventful as Jason's. Actually, it had been downright boring. It was why his face lit up right away when he saw Jason walk into the room.
"I got bored," Reggie admitted, sitting up and folding up his legs so that he could actually hold a conversation like a normal human being. "Can't just sit in my room watching the minutes tick by." And didn't THAT sound kind of sad? He actually cringed a little when he realized that.
Jason almost laughed at Reggie's comment, until he caught the other man's grimace. He had assumed the other man was joking, but now he wasn't so sure. "You could have come and found me," he said quietly as he sat next to the other man. "I mean, I know we said eight but... I wouldn't have minded if you turned up early. Or I'm sure there was someone else here that was as bored as you were." It occurred to him about halfway through that maybe Reggie hadn't wanted to come find him, which is why he quickly added that last part.
Reggie was still kind of adjusting to the idea of even wanting to care about someone and what they thought of him, much less actually doing so, which was why he had cringed a little when he caught what he had said. "Well, I could have, but I didn't know what you were up to and wanted to give you your time before coming to see me." OK, now he just sounded like a girl! He had to stop this. "Anyway! Come on and sit with me or something before I say something ridiculous." Might as well make fun of himself.
Sitting cross-legged on the mat, Jason leaned over to bump up against Reggie, smiling slightly to show he wasn't judging the other man for what he had said. "Well, consider this me giving you permission to come find me whenever you get bored. Or even if you aren't bored. I don't mind, okay? There's nothing more important I have going on." Whether or not Reggie picked up the implication that he was the most important thing to Jason at the moment didn't really matter. He had said what he wanted, and now he was going to do as Reggie had asked and change subjects. "But anyway, now that I'm here, what did you have in mind?" He had to admit, he had been curious ever since Reggie had sent him that message, even though the other man had insisted that there was no particular reason behind the slightly sentimental nature of his request.
Reggie was relieved that Jason didn't find it weird what he was saying. He found it weird, but he admittedly just wasn't used to it. "I may have to do that then," he said simply, a little happy to move on the just the same, even if Jason made him feel a bit better about it. "Figured it would be a good way to meet up and relax together," he said. He hadn't really had a specific thing in mind for them to talk about. He had just simply wanted to be in the other man's company.
And that made Reggie feel all like a girl again, to think about that.
Jason did laugh then. "Well, I'm not going to complain about that plan." Putting his hands behind him, he leaned back on them, grinning as he watched the other man. "Although, now that I think about it, I'm not sure we've ever just relaxed in here." The first time they had met had probably been the closest, and even then, he had been pretty focused on the heavy bag.
"Hey, sometimes I can come up with pretty bloody good plans when I put my mind to it," Reggie teased, staying upright for now while he took the opportunity to watch Jason lean back. Very nice view, if he said so himself. "No, we've sparred in here and we met in here, but usually a gym isn't for relaxing," he admitted. "Not that we can't use it for relaxing, though."
"Since it was your plan the night the power went out, I'm willing to agree with you about your plans," Jason told Reggie, grinning as he did so. For several moments after that though, he was quiet, watching Reggie - which could be distracting at the best of times - and thinking. He had... been wondering a few things, but now that he was here, he wasn't sure about asking. At the very least, he figured it would be awkward to simply ask his questions with no preamble.
Hoping to find an opening to ask some of his real questions, he started with something else, though no less important. "Okay, so since we're going about relaxing then... Tell me something about you. Something I don't already know." No matter how well they were getting on, the fact of the matter is, he had only known Reggie for a little over two weeks. For all their talking, and all the time spent together, there was still a lot he didn't know.
"Something about me then?" Yeah, they probably did need to do some talking. Even Reggie could see that. Still, he appreciated that Jason was willing to ease into this some. It would keep his head from exploding, at any rate. "I can sing when I'm in the mood to," he offered. Usually, that mood meant being drunk, but he didn't say THAT part. Oddly enough, the fact that he had a voice was something that he usually kept to himself (other than the drunken times), although he couldn't say exactly why. "What about you? Tell me something about you."
What Reggie said caught him off-guard. That was exactly the sort of thing Jason had been talking about. He never would have guessed that, and now that he knew, he sort of wanted to know more about that. "Really? You do know this means I'm going to want to hear you sometime, right?" Considering for a moment, Jason finally answered, "I'm not actually ticklish. That was the lie." He wasn't sure if Reggie even remembered the stupid two truths and lie thing they had had to do, but he had never actually told the man the answer to that - hadn't told anyone actually - and he figured it was probably time he did. He couldn't quite bring himself to admit that the part about intentionally breaking someone's arm was true, but hopefully the other man would get the implication without him having to actually say it. Plus... Reggie had seemed awfully excited about the idea of him being ticklish. "Okay, tell me something else."
"For you, I'll sing. I'll even sing without drinking myself stupid first." It wasn't that Reggie was bashful about that sort of thing. Reggie and bashful just didn't really go together. It just...oddly wasn't something that he liked to do for most people. Made him feel vulnerable. He'd do it for Jason, though. In a heartbeat. "Really? You're not ticklish? Damn, I was looking forward to testing that out." It made him realize just what the truth was, but he didn't want to ask about that quite yet. "Let's see...another thing. Probably not a shock, but I didn't graduate from high school or anything." Not exactly shocking, knowing him.
Jason couldn't help but smile at Reggie's offer, understanding that this was apparently a big thing for Reggie, even if he didn't know why. He wanted to say thank you, but since he wasn't sure if Reggie wanted that, he settled instead for leaning over and bumping up against the other man and responding to the rest of what he had said. "Well, you're still welcome to test it out, but I think you're going to be disappointed."
Despite the fact that Reggie had assumed it wouldn't be a shock, Jason was surprised to hear that the other man hadn't graduated high school. Granted, Reggie didn't seem like the type to really enjoy school, and probably had gotten bored with it fairly quickly, but... He knew the other man was very intelligent, and he had simply assumed that, like him, Reggie would have stuck it out, even if he didn't like it. Still, even though he was surprised, he wasn't going to judge the other man for that. He had dropped out of college, after all. Shrugging, he said, "You seem to have done pretty well for yourself anyway. Well, aside from ending up here, I mean."
"Yeah, might still wind up testing it out," he admitted. If asked, Reggie couldn't tell anyone specifically why he didn't like to sing in front of people. Usually, it was left to being in the shower or when he was drinking, but he figured that he'd do it for Jason if he wanted to see it.
He could see that he had shocked Jason by that little revelation. It was something that he'd never thought too much about going back and finishing, even while he was originally in jail. Education just wasn't something that was really for him, it seemed. "I ran away from home so many times that my father just got sick of coming and finding me to put me back in school and keep control over me," Reggie explained. It was how he remembered it, anyway. "Oh yeah, I did well enough," he said with a laugh. "When I was seventeen, I cleared out one of my father's bank accounts and fled to America. Figured he couldn't make me come back home if I was in a different country." That...was probably the first thing that Reggie had said about his father directly.
This was, by far, the most Reggie had talked about his home life. Jason was curious, and wanted to ask - even if this wasn't quite the topic had been planning on focusing on - but at the same time, he didn't know if Reggie wanted to talk more about it. After a moment of hesitation, he asked, “Why’d you run away so many times?" If it wasn't something Reggie didn't want to talk about, that was fine, and he would understand that, but if he was willing, Jason wanted to know more. Because this... This was something he didn't understand, thanks to his own better than average home life. He wanted to understand Reggie though, so he was willing to ask, even though he wasn't sure Reggie would answer. The fact that Reggie had finally simply run away to America meant that he was pretty sure there was more to the story, but it was also likely not a good one.
Well, he hadn't seen any of his family since his brother's funeral (at least, he thought so, anyway), so why talk much about them at all? He didn't give a rat's ass about the lot of them that were left. "My mother died when I was little, and my dad was a rat bastard if there ever was one. My older sister was him made over, sadly. My little brother, Nathan, though...Nathan was a real sweetheart. Could get along with anyone..." He trailed off for a minute before scratching his head. "Anyway, couldn't stand to live with my father and his female clone anymore. Probably selfish as hell of me to take off like that, but that's something that was done a long time ago."
Well, shit. Jason didn't know what to say to any of that. Knowing Reggie, he was pretty sure the man didn't want sympathy. But he didn't know of any other way to respond to that. Pushing himself forward, he sat up so that he could reach out, running his fingers across Reggie's arm, not sure how much contact the other man would want at the moment. "It sounds like you needed to get out of there, so I don't know if that counts as being selfish. Besides, even if it does, sometimes being selfish is allowed."
Reggie was actually quite happy for the contact, leaning into it slightly. "Well, looking back, I kinda wish I had brought my little brother with me, although I'm sure my dad really would have come looking for me if I had done that." He wondered if Nathan would have been alive today if he had done such a thing. It hadn't even crossed his mind at the time, though. That was why he felt like a selfish bastard over it.
"You know you can't spend too much time thinking about the what-ifs. It'll make you crazy if you do that." Jason had done enough of that after he was arrested. Personally, he had found that it just made things worse. It certainly did help. Since Reggie had leaned into the earlier contact, he shifted over, so that the two of them were side by side. It wasn't much, but it was something. Now, he just needed to think of something else to say. He knew that Reggie had shared more than he was expecting from the other man, and that it was his turn to say something, but he didn't know what. He didn't have any similar experiences, nothing really he could offer along the same lines. As he considered what he was going to say, he distractedly tapped his fingers against Reggie's arm, not even really noticing what he was doing. Finally deciding against the topic of why he was in prison, he decided to tell Reggie a little bit about his own family, despite the fact that talking about it made him uncomfortable, although for a different reason from Reggie. "I'm an only child. My parents were... Very involved. Don't get me wrong, they were great, but when you're a kid, sometimes you just want them to leave you alone. Still, I know I got lucky, having a close family like that. But... I haven't spoken to them in almost three years. I mean, I tried, but I never heard back from them." Which had hurt more than he was willing to admit, but he was pretty sure his problems weren't much compared to Reggie's family problems.
"Yeah, crazy," Reggie agreed with a huff of a laugh. He knew that he shouldn't think too much on what might have been, but when you were in a prison cell like he'd spent three years of his life being, you tended to have time for thoughts that made you crazy. When he felt Jason's fingers tapping against him, he shifted slightly and took Jason's hand in his, holding onto it tightly. It was nice to have someone there to touch and anchor him a bit. "I think just about everyone wants their parents to leave them alone when they're a teenager," he pointed out, frowning when Jason said that his parents hadn't contacted him since he'd been in jail. "That...that's awful, since you were so close. Is it...is it because of why you went to prison?" Reggie actually didn't know what Jason had done to be here in the first place.
Jason should have known that would have brought the conversation back around to why he was in prison in the first place. As much as he wasn't looking forward to that particular conversation, he knew it was one that would need to be had eventually, even though it wasn't exactly the one he had been planning on having tonight. Sighing, he shrugged in response to Reggie's question. "I guess. I suppose it could be the simple fact that I am in prison and not so much the why, but I guess the specifics don't really matter." He hesitated for a moment, careful to resist the urge to tighten his hold on Reggie's hand. The other man wasn't the only one grateful for the contact. "But the fact that I'm in for aggravated battery and involuntary manslaughter probably didn't help."
Reggie had figured that, whatever it was that Jason had done to end up here had been bad, because he hadn't mentioned it yet. Reggie knew what he had done was painfully stupid, but, all in all, it was more embarrassing than really BAD. Plus, Jason's family had apparently stopped talking to him over it. Still, when he heard what it was, he didn't want to jump to conclusions. There HAD to be a reason behind it. "What happened?" Reggie asked simply, keeping a hold of Jason's hand.
Grateful that Reggie was giving him a chance to explain, Jason considered what he was going to say for a moment. He didn't want to get to into the whole mess, but he needed to make sure Reggie understood what had happened. "Beat the shit out of a guy I caught beating his girlfriend. Not going to lie, I lost my temper; it was pretty bad. I deserve getting charged for that one. But... he told the police that I was also the one who attacked his girlfriend. So I ended up getting charged with attacking both of them. And his girlfriend was pregnant. The baby ended up dying and I got charged for that too." It was something he had mostly come to terms with a while ago, so he couldn't even bring himself to sound bitter about the whole thing. It was just something he had to deal with.
"Sounds like the fucker deserved to have his ass kicked to hell and back," Reggie remarked when Jason explained what had happened. He could see Jason losing his shit and nearly beating to death someone who was hitting his girlfriend, but he couldn't see him attacking a woman, especially not one that was pregnant. Maybe it was naive, but he just couldn't see the man he had met and grown to know doing such a thing. "Guess it came down to your word against his. Guy never get charged with beating his girlfriend before or something?"
"I guess not. And last I heard, his girlfriend wasn't speaking to anyone about anything, so it wasn't that she refused to testify, but... The whole thing messed with her head and she wasn't handling it. So yeah, my word versus his, and I had already made the mistake of admitting to attacking him. I guess it was just easier for the jury to see him as the victim." Jason shrugged again, leaning slightly against Reggie and briefly tightening his grip on the other man's hand. He was grateful, more so than he could say, that Reggie hadn't reacted badly to this whole thing. "Anyway, I try not to dwell on it too much. It sucks but it is what it is, and being angry about it just makes things worse."
"Not exactly shocked that she wasn't dying to talk about it to anyone," Reggie admitted, even though he felt that she still should have admitted that her boyfriend beat the hell out of her rather than a firefighter that possibly kept her from being killed. "Yeah, most lawyers will usually tell you to not admit to anything unless they say so. They're slick like that." He squeezed Jason's hand back. "I guess I see where you're coming from there. No point in dwelling."
"Yeah. I probably should have listened to him," Jason said with a slight laugh. He had foolishly assumed that because he was telling the truth, that he had no reason not to admit to what he had done and assume that things would work out. "But yeah. So that's out there. Anyway... What were we talking about before this?" He didn't really care what Reggie changed the topic to, so long as he was no longer the focus of it. Or at least, not his family or why he was in here.
Yeah, truth didn't always mean that much in a court of law. Not that Reggie was innocent of anything that he had been charged with, but he had seen and heard of it happening to others. "We were trading bits of info about each other that we didn't know before tonight," he offered. "Tell me something light about you that I don't know then." They definitely needed to lighten the mood a bit.
Right. That was how they had gotten onto those topics. Jason considered what he was going to say, before he grinned. "Okay. You know I did martial arts, right? Well, I was... seven when my parents first signed me up for Taekwondo. I won a couple of state championships when I was in high school. And since then, I've also done Judo, Jiu - Jitsu, and Shaolin Kung Fu." Still grinning, he nudged Reggie. "Your turn."
"So, you're like a Kung-Fu master then, basically? That's actually kind of hot," Reggie said with a bit of a grin. Yeah, they definitely needed to lighten the mood currently, so he was going to put his best foot forward on that. "So, me next then..." He trailed off, thinking for a few moments before coming up with something. "My favorite color is blue." Hey, simple but true!
Jason laughed, both at Reggie's comment about him being a master as well as the fact that the other man found that hot. "Not by a long shot. More like, jack of all trades, master of none. I've never actually focused on a style long enough for that. But I am pretty good." Still, he nodded when it was Reggie's turn, grinning. "Blue, huh? Okay then... my favorite food is enchiladas."
"Well, I've gotten to see a little bit to know that you're pretty good," Reggie pointed out with a smirk, nudging Jason slightly as he said it. "Enchiladas, though...been a while since I had anything like that." He wondered if Carmel knew how to make them. "So, me next....not even really sure what to say now...you got a question you've been itching to ask?"
Unable to fully contain his pleased grin in response to Reggie's compliment, Jason gave a small shrug, rocking slightly into the other man when he was nudged. Caught off guard by the question that followed - mostly because yes, he had been a couple of things he had been wondering about, had just been trying to figure out how to ask - Jason tried to cover up his surprise with a smile as he asked, "What makes you think I've got a question?"
It was nice to feel Jason against him when he rocked back into him. He'd actually had a feeling that Jason might have had something on his mind that he needed to ask, and there was honestly something that he felt he should know himself. "Just curious," Reggie said. "Wondering if there's anything poking around in that lovely little brain of yours."
For several moments, Jason was quiet as he considered whether or not to ask the question that had been floating around in his head for a few days, as well as how he should ask. Unfortunately, nothing really came to mind, which left simply asking. Sighing, he leaned against Reggie, though he didn't look at him. "So... What exactly is this? With us?"
Yeah, that was something that Reggie was sort of wondering himself. He found it nothing short of amazing that he had been comfortable saying 'boyfriend' to Zach, but it had slipped out before he'd even thought on it. "Not exactly sure," he admitted. "More than I've ever attempted before, honestly." That was also some stripped to the bone honesty.
While Jason wasn't terribly surprised to hear that Reggie didn't really know what this was any more than he did, the other part caught him off-guard. Not letting go of Reggie's hand or otherwise breaking contact with him, he looked over at the other man, confused. "What do mean, more than you've ever attempted?" Given some of their previous talks, Jason couldn't imagine Reggie meant with a man, but... Well, the other possibilities seemed just as unlikely.
Not something that Reggie liked to admit to, but he supposed that this would be as good a place as any to really come clean about that. "Well, let's just say that my life up to this point was not conducive to any sort of relationships or real stability, shall we?" Hell, there were some things he had once done for money that REALLY didn't pass that sort of test, but he'd probably never bring that sort of thing up.
There was more to it than that, Jason could tell. However, he didn't push, not when Reggie very obviously didn't want to talk more about that. Still, he couldn't help but be a little surprised about the whole thing. He wanted to ask what had changed, and why Reggie had wanted to try this now, but... Well, they hadn't actually established that they were doing this yet. "Okay, so..." He paused for a moment as he considered what he was trying to ask. "What do you want? With this, us, right now?"
Honestly, what had changed was meeting Jason, although Reggie wasn't sure how to put that into words without sounding ridiculous. "What do I want?" He couldn't help but laugh. "I really don't quite know what I want, but I want it to continue, I know that much." He wished that he had more definite ideas about this sort of thing, but thinking too far ahead was just something that Reggie Delallo did not do.
Jason couldn't help but smile in response to Reggie's laugh. "Well, I'm going to admit, I'm glad to hear that." He hadn't been sure what he was going to do if Reggie had said otherwise. There were still the details of all of this to worry about, but... That was the big thing. It made asking about the details much easier. "Is there anything that's not working for you? Anything we need to change?" After all, this was the first time Reggie had done something like this. And wasn't that just a crazy thought?
Reggie honestly couldn't imagine saying otherwise, considering what he had admitted about himself tonight as well. As happy to lucky and open as he could be, there were apparently still things that he didn't share about himself with just anyone. "Things are working pretty well so far, I gotta say," he remarked. "What about you? I take it you're a bit more familiar with...with this than I am." It really was kind of embarrassing to him to admit that he just wasn't familiar with relationships and how they went. Shouldn't he have done this by now?
"Don't worry. I'd say you're doing pretty well," Jason assured the other man. He could understand the other man's uncertainty. Hell, relationships of any kind could be confusing, even when you knew what you were doing. "I'm good with the way things are, good with the direction things are heading. Still not sure what to call this, but since that seems to be the biggest problem we have right now, I think we'll be okay."
"If the worst problem we currently have is labels, then I think we're doing pretty good," Reggie said, feeling himself starting to relax. He hadn't even realized it, but he had kind of needed this, them talking things out. At least now he knew where he stood with things between them.
Letting himself relax back against Reggie, Jason took a moment to simply enjoy the contact with the other man. They hadn't quite covered everything, but the rest of the details could be worried about later. "If we get to a point where things aren't working for you, you have to let me know. Can't fix it if I don't know what's wrong." He wasn't too worried about that for now, though.