WHERE:Vallo City: Park WHEN:June 27th, 2021 (Backdated) WHAT:Zeke drags Jake to the music festival during Pride weekend to celebrate his birthday. WARNINGS:N/A STATUS:Complete
It was dumb, but it felt right being there with Jake during a Pride event. They have been friends for far longer than they had been lovers, but there was still a fondness that Ezekiel felt for the older man that had not gone away despite the two of them agreeing to be nothing more than friends.
Of course that agreement had come about because Ezekiel had been afraid of getting close again, after losing Raven and finding Jake hadn't remembered their time in Tumbleweed together. The agreement had come about through fear, plain and simple. But it was what it was and now they both had to move on, as far as Zeke was concerned. So despite the fondness that he felt, they were there on the lawn at the park watching a band perform during this Pride event, as friends.
Pulling two fresh beers out of the cooler they had brought with them, Ezekiel opened them and offered one to Jake, who was sitting next to him on a picnic blanket. His outfit today was a lot more subdued than the one he had worn during the parade yesterday. He actually had on a shirt, instead of glitter pretending to be a shirt.
"I think there's an intermission coming up soon," he said, slouching a bit as he pulled out his phone and started to scroll through the set list that had been published online for the music fest. "Yeah, in a few minutes. You want to go grab something to eat from the food trucks and call it dinner?"
For someone who dealt with the realm of art and the emotion it carried and provoked, Jake had never been all that great navigating it himself. He knew why, years spent hiding the reality of self from family, friends, the fact that he grew up with a father who considered most emotion a form of weakness needed to be purged from the body. Suck it up, boy and all that. So once Jake was allowed to be himself within the confines of the Library and outside of it, he was far behind his fellow Librarians in terms of honesty with himself and the trials and tribulations that came with.
Such as his sexuality as well as the ramifications of friendships becoming relationships and back to friendships again. Ezekiel and Raven meant the world to him and the memory download into his brain, that subtle ache returned with their missing third and how to deal with him and Ezekiel and no longer being together in that way. He was not clingy and he understood Ezekiel’s logic but he couldn’t help but worry that in addition to losing the relationship, the friendship would soon go the same way with the awkwardness between them.
He couldn’t have been more relieved when Jones invited him to listen to music at Pride and actually made an attempt to find something worth wearing to Pride but also that he’d been comfortable in. Jake should not have been surprised that he did manage to find a flannel shirt in Vallo in the two shades of purple and blue with a pair of jeans and Converse sneakers.
Accepting the beer from Jones, he reclined back on his elbows, squinting over at him in the sun. “That sounds fine with me. Think they got tacos? Maybe pulled pork.” Or some strange cuisine from the other creatures that called Vallo home. Jake tried a couple and it was rather hit and miss as to what was human palette appropriate. “Pulled pork tacos. That would be amazing.”
Ezekiel knew a lot of the awkwardness had come from him. He had been hesitant after Jim Kirk and the mess with him, of being wanted and then not, and then with Raven not coming through to this world with them...he was gunshy. It wasn’t something he could put himself through again. Which was why he was being careful with whatever he was doing with Tina, it was why he pulled away so fast when Jake finally got the memories of their time together.
But finally, they were approaching something close to normal and he was thankful for it. Because this friendship with Jake was the first genuine connection he had made and he didn’t want to lose it, not for anything.
“Sure, if the birthday boy wants pulled pork, we’ll find him pulled pork,” Zeke said, flashing the cowboy from Oklahoma a grin. “You having a good time?”
At the mention of his birthday, Jake snorted softly and took a swig of beer. “I don’t know, man. I feel like we hopped so many places by now that it certainly don’t feel like it. I have given up figuring how old I am ‘cause that math makes my head hurt.” Math had its place in history, art, and architecture but not a single person of the past left clues how to calculate the back, forth, and accommodating the times landed in.
“Two bands previous, I was beginning to question my decision but I have come around. Yeah, I’m really enjoying myself. Thanks for inviting me, man.” He held up his bottle to tap it lightly against Jones’s, the glass making a light sound as it did that sounded loud after most things being drowned out by the music. “Good to get out of the library for a bit too. I love it there but I think I was starting to acquire my own layer of dust from the stacks.”
“I feel like we might not be aging at the same rate or we might be reset physically each time we make a jump,” Ezekiel admitted, letting his bottle of beer dangle from his fingertips as he considered the science behind it. “Tina’s been my main source of observation, but don’t tell her that, she’ll throw something at my head.” He grinned here, clearly not bothered by the thought of it.
Jake sat with that a moment, trying to find some kind of theory to back up Jones but then again he doubted that the science world had much to offer in that area. Cass probably knew more or would be able to tell them if it did have some ground in fact but she’d yet to show up. He wasn’t about to give up hope that the trio wouldn’t be reunited some day. Instead he nodded with a relenting expression, a silent acknowledgement that Jones might be on to something. A reset in aging, pseudo-immortality. It wouldn’t be the strangest thing they come across.
The mention of Tina didn’t go unnoticed, Jake casually taking a sip of beer as he glanced over at Jones. “You probably give her plenty of reasons to do that already,” he joked, grinning. Tina seemed like the sort to have damn good aim too, especially with who her found family was. “So you two are hanging out a lot.” He let the statement hang, not forced casualness but actual, genuine curiosity. If there was something more happening there, that was a good thing.
Ezekiel didn't question the why of everything anymore. Maybe they'll get answers one day, maybe they won't. But if he stopped to try and find the answers to all of the questions their universe hopping gave them, they would definitely start aging in rapid time because there wouldn’t be enough time in the world for that.
So he focused on the day to day problems and didn’t try to get invested in anything much. But considering the amount of people he had collected into his friends pod, it was a losing case for that.
“Nope!” Ezekiel said, setting aside his bottle and standing up. “Definitely not talking about it, thanks! Let’s get that food, yeah?”
Jones could be hard to read at times but Jake didn’t need an expert in body language to tell him that there was something more there than met the eye but what it was, he didn’t know. It took him and Cass forever to learn an inkling about what passed for family with him and even then they had to dig themselves as well as be told.
Admittedly now that he considered Jones one of his closest friend, that was a book that Jake kept trying to read while trying to be respectful in certain areas as well.
While he didn’t push, the smile grew bigger, more entertained by the reaction it got to his statement. “Ain’t that adorable,” Jake stated as he sat up, unable to help getting in one last dig, “but fine, let’s go get me some messy tacos with everything on them.”
Relieved that Jake wasn’t going to push him on this because hell if he knew what he actually thought of Tina beyond the surface level attraction, but Zeke wasn’t trying to examine all of this today. Especially with his ex who he also had complicated feelings for. Not today, Satan, he thought as he packed up their stuff and gathered their trash.