Who: Jace Kent & Aidan Thorn What: He wants company but doesn't know how to ask for it Where: Phoenix, Arizona When: Sunday, late afternoon, June 12th 2016 Warnings: TBD but probably nothing huge Status: Incomplete
Thank god this happened on a Sunday.
As weird and inappropriate as it was, that had been one of Jace's first thoughts, when he'd heard the news. Not because he was in any way happy about it, he wasn't. But if he had to hear about it, he was glad it was on a day where he wouldn't be going right to the office. Tomorrow, first thing Monday morning, he'd have to make some phone calls and set up a few preliminary meetings on the Agency's behalf, put on his professional face and pretend that this whole thing didn't affect him as deeply as it had. Contrary to what might be popular belief, Jace had layers. He didn't let a whole lot bother him ninety percent of the time, but he wasn't incapable of feeling something, or being personally effected by a tragedy. He wasn't stone cold and heartless, and the carefree face he put on most of the time, especially when he went out at night to hook up, it wasn't an act, or a mask. It was him, amplified. In some ways it was an elaborate coping mechanism, a way to compensate for a younger Jace, a less sure Jace, one that was regularly a victim of hate and hid from it a lot.
Once upon a time, Jace had been that little gay kid. The one that got ridiculed and bullied in school for 'acting queer'. That weight you carry, the one that tells you that in some ways your life will always be in danger of being snuffed out by someone else's intolerance, it doesn't just disappear once you're finally out of the closet after spending years in it for fear of being a target for people who wanted to hurt you. In fact, if anything, that fear only gets stronger. Jace was never as closeted as a majority of queer kids usually were, but once he was out, he was out. He never forgot what it meant to be that exposed, when you were someone who didn't fit into that tricky little box of extreme heteronormativity, but it was always a bit different when it came to something like this. Something like a mass shooting of fifty people in a gay club was an intensely jarring and terrifying reminder that it could have easily been you, or someone you loved.
At least fifty people reported dead at a gay night club during Pride weekend, with many more reported seriously injured. All because they had the audacity to be out and proud, and love who they wanted to love without openly fearing public ridicule. But these innocent people got a lot more than public ridicule, they got bullets for their troubles. Even for someone with as hard of an outer shell as Jace did, someone who normally let everything roll right off his back, that was more than a little hard for him to stomach. Hard not for him to take personally. Coupled with the fact that today marked the anniversary of his father's death, Jace didn't think it was all that dramatic to assume he was being purposefully and personally attacked from all sides. Tomorrow he'd have to put on a face for it and be impenetrable again, but right now, he could wear any kind of face he wanted.
The thing was, Jace didn't do so well on his own. He was a creature of comfort, he liked to be around other people, but he didn't know how to be around other people like this, and he also didn't know how to ask for it. Admitting to weakness wasn't exactly a strong suit. He just knew that he didn't want to be alone today. He considered calling Adam, but for once, he wasn't really in the mood to hook up, and their arrangement didn't typically extend to heart-to-hearts. He even considered calling Finley, but they didn't really have that kind of relationship. Finley was a fun friend to have, when it came to boosting up each other's egos and trading (read: bragging) notes about their latest conquests, but Finley didn't exactly strike him as the sentimental type. These were the reasons he clung to, to avoid acknowledging the fact that one of his first thoughts when he decided to call someone wasn't even the two of them. It had been someone else. Sort of an old friend. (The other 'old friend'. Jace had chickened out of calling Joseph.)
Jace put up a good front on the phone, badgering Aidan until he agreed to meet him at the storage facility where Jace kept the Enterprise, under the pretense of keeping Jace from hurting himself or the ship. It was local, at least, so it wouldn't be like Jace was dragging him too far out of his way. Jace had wanted the Enterprise closer to him, so years ago he'd convinced the Agency to actually release the ship into his custody instead of keeping it in one of O&R's magical expansion rooms. They helped set him up with a storage unit with the same magic based principles, just to keep the place small and unassuming from the outside. What was that annoying Doctor Who line? Bigger on the inside? Yeah, same basic principle. As a bonus, his ship was closer to home, and he could visit it whenever he wanted. Something Jace had gotten in the habit of doing whenever he needed to take his mind off something. Kirk might not be much of an engineer, but Jace was a pretty skilled mechanic. He knew a few things. He also liked to tinker. So that's why when Aidan showed up (Jace had given him the security code to the storage unit so he could just let himself in), he would most likely find Jace down in engineering, his head under one of the monitors in the computer bay.