Who: Cameron Morris and Jacinto Garcés What: Pool, dinner, arguments. When: Dec 6th, evening. Where: Eastside Billards → Guzan Rating: medium, but cameron + foul language = otp Status: Closed/complete
He walks alongside Ace, quiet for the cigarette dangling from his lips, muscles humming pleasantly from the four beers running through his bloodstream. The evening had started and progressed almost as he'd expected: he made fun of Ace, he drank his money, and he played a lot of terrible pool. Even as a teenager, he'd always been much too impatient and too uncoordinated to play with any finesse. He relied on his God-given mental abilities to stagger his opponents, bursting into their heads with whatever song he could think of at the time. Tonight, he'd been rather fond of the Three's Company theme song.
Come and knock on our door, we've been waiting for you...
He hums the tune a little around the filter of his Marlboro and glances sidelong at his companion, enjoying the easy silence. They've not talked too much this evening. It's a careful waiting game with people who live across party lines. No gathering or memories of friendships past and present can prevent it. Eventually, they will argue about ideals. Someone might leave upset. Now he and Ace are going to have dinner, they are going to have to talk to each other in a place that's not a dim bar, and things are probably going to decline.
Focusing on pool was only one way to stay it, however. Cameron has other ways to steer the conversation. He reaches up to flick his cigarette away once they reach the door of the restaurant, pulling it open for Ace to step inside.
"Sooo," he drawls as he steps in behind him, waiting until they are almost upon the hostess’ podium to ask, "you getting laid lately?"
It was like stepping back in time. Their conversation wasn't half as light, guarded now and more barbed than it'd ever been at school, but under the dim hanging lights and through the crack of the billiard balls, Jacinto had felt almost at home again. The songs in his head weren't new, nor were Cameron's deepening scowls when his score fell behind. He was a bad loser and a worse winner, but Jacinto didn't mind fumbling his shots and giving credit to the tune looping in his head. Come and dance on our floor...
The only addition, of which they seemed both doggedly aware, was the topic they couldn't broach. Couldn't, or wouldn't, or at least not for now. It was that that kept Jacinto's shoulders tense, and his smiles smaller than they would've been.
The door gave a gust of air as it closed behind them, and Jacinto opened his mouth to speak to the hostess when Cameron's snide question made him freeze, then smile apologetically to the woman staring, and then, "Two, please." She gathered their menus and led them down the restaurant, to a booth that Jacinto slid into and waited until she was gone before sighing, "You're a child. No, I'm not 'getting laid lately'. You know I'm not." He leaned an elbow on the table and ran a hand through his hair. "How many people even know what that song is anymore, when you put it in their heads?"
It's so easy to ruffle Jacinto - even after all these years - that he can't resist any chance to do so. He snickers to himself, pleased by the reactions of all parties involved as they're led to their booth. He slides onto the bench opposite of Ace with a grin that only grows, eyeteeth shining in the dim light of the restaurant as he unzips his coat.
"Don't be that way, baby," he laughs, pulling one arm out of a sleeve, then the other. "I'm just lookin' out for you."
Ridiculing each other is safe and easy, and he'd have no qualms about continuing the entire night to peck at each of Jacinto's flaws. But like all roads of conversation between them, eventually it would lead to ruffled feathers, hurt pride, and one joke too many would set them on edge. For now, he watches Ace fret in his seat with something like amusement, though there is fondness there too. It has been too long since they've - no, since Ace - has attempted something like this.
He plucks the menu to open it, eyes roving over their options. He could be a pissant and order the lobster, and no doubt Ace would pay for it, albeit grumbling. Punishment for taking so long to come to his senses in the first place. Tucking that fact away for later, he flips towards the drink options.
"There's 'bout as many people who remember that song as there is that remember the last time you had sex. Seriously, there's no one?"
A glimmer of movement out at the corner of his vision makes him look up, in time to see their waiter begin to approach. The boy is young, dark haired and surly looking, but as weak of mind as all young men are. Cameron watches from over the rim of his menu, using the glossy cardboard to conceal his growing amusement. What was that about going easy on Jacinto?
"Hi, my name's Ted and I'll be your server tonight." The young man sets down their waters and picks up his pad, then looks straight at Jacinto. "You have really pretty eyes," he says, and then looks a mix of alarmed and embarrassed.
Jacinto blinked, mouth open, and then his eyes darted to Cam. The menu couldn't hide the swell of the other man's cheeks as he grinned, and Jacinto bowed his head and gave a wincing smile before saying, "Thanks. Uh, just a water for me, please."
He'd never been fully comfortable watching Cameron trick and twist humans into saying - doing - things they wouldn't normally. It was cheap. Unethical. Another divide between them; Cameron felt no remorse about exercising his advantages over humanity, whereas Jacinto constantly felt the want to apologize for his. "No, Cam," he said aloud, hoping his friend would read it as both answer and command - or if not command, plea.
"And you? You have... someone?"
Once the waiter is gone with their drink orders, blushing and sputtering, Cameron lets the menu fall and props his elbows on the table. Jacinto doesn't like it when he does these sorts of things, never has. Then again, Jacinto hardly liked anything that would lead to him being noticed by the world - not unless Cameron dragged him by the nose into it first.
"Nah." He gives his head a shake and scratches at the scruff of his goatee. "Well, I get laid, if that's what you're asking. But it's nothing serious." Syndicate agent flings were all well and good, even welcomed by him, as long as they didn't involve emotions. "You know me, Ace. There's no white picket fence out there for me, baby, only an episode of Jerry Springer."
Laughing at his own joke, he shifts to fish an icecube out of his water and pop it in his mouth. It crunches loudly and makes his next words sound wet. "You look good, though. Glad to see you can still feed yourself over there. Cut your fuckin' hair though, hippy."
Over there. A little dangerous. He lets his gaze linger a little longer on Jacinto, then drops it to the menu again. "Tell me what I can't order, so I can order it immediately."</font>
Jacinto propped up the menu and glanced over it, lips rolled together thoughtfully. "Ah," he said after a pause. "This salad. It is the cheapest thing here, and you can't order it." Would that work? Definitely not, but he wanted to prove to Cameron that he wasn't as tense and humorless as he felt. "At least," he mumbled, forehead furrowing, "I don't see any lobster..."
He could afford it, no matter what Cam found. A teacher's salary wasn't much, but he bought very little outside of food and films. Saving up came as naturally to him as getting dressed, which is to say that he did it automatically and paid very little attention to the results. His account already had far more zeroes in it than he'd thought possible.
"Jerry Springer? Is that still airing...? Huh." He cracked a small smile, but didn't look up from the menu. "How many kids you have running around, then?"
"Plenty," he answers with a shrug. He does not mention the lobster on the menu. He does not even look at the salad, because he already knows that he wants noodles. There is beer in his system and more on the way, and now he craves salty, starchy things. They will taste even better because they are free.
"You ever heard of the Quiverfull movement? Crazy evangelical Protestants, you know, the whole lo, children are an heritage of the Lord, and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man, so are children of the youth?" Smiling and waiting for the fact that he has just cleanly quoted the Bible to sink into Jacinto's mind, he leans back against the booth. "It's not such a bad idea after all, you know? We can only steal so many of yours a year, doesn't it make so much sense just to breed our own?"
He sucks his teeth and shrugs, still playing it straight. "Better return on time investment, man. Plus, mine are cute because they've got half of me in 'em."
His attempt at a smile withered. Steal so many of yours. The topic they'd agreed - silently or not - to avoid was now hanging between them. Was this what the rest of the night was going to be like? Cameron baiting him with it, making Jacinto the one that had to look the other way?
"Lucky for them it's only half," he replied with a forced smile, and cleared his expression when the waiter returned - still flustered - and set down their drinks before making another hasty departure. Jacinto watched him go and rubbed at one temple with his index finger. "You're giving him a sexual crisis now. Look at him. Panicked because you made him tell me I have pretty eyes." Did that mean Cameron thought he had pretty eyes? It was such a juvenile thought that Jacinto bit at his lip to hold in a smile.
"Anyway," he said, slouching back against the booth, "you would be a terrible father. Controlling your children, making them bring you things. Little maids that look like you. And since when did you read the Bible?"
Jacinto's admonishment rolls off of him with another shrug. His head tilts to watch their scrawny server go about his business at other tables. Ace's reaction is not as volatile as he'd hoped, though it is certainly welcome all the same. Jacinto didn't believe him, and why should he? the amount of rage he could inspire people just by spinning tales like breeding or drowning kittens was as baffling as it was amusing. Why would anyone believe it's the only thing the Syndicate ever did?
"I read a lot of things. You know, in between desecrating turkey corpses and all that." His tongue slips between his lips, looking thoughtful, and then disappears just as quick. "They almost didn't invite me to the party, talking some bullshit 'bout how they didn't want it ruined. But they did, and someone had a bet to eat an entire turkey by his onesies." He pauses, glancing at Ace with a tiny nod and knowing smile. "He did, though, and didn't even wretch once.
"And when he was done I just," his hands lift, motioning as if he were putting two little beads on the air. "Pop, pop, done. Everyone wins."
Except, they'd still bitched about it later. Such delicate hearts the future leaders of the world had. Cameron picks up his beer finally and takes a swig from it. It's not bad, but food would be better. From across the room, the waiter abruptly twists to look towards their table, face a little green. It's clear he doesn't want to come back, but he's going to have to.
"I warned them, you know. Warned Isa," he admitted, smile going sheepishly lopsided. "I told her you would try to steal a turkey... I didn't think to say anything about the eyeballs. You just--" He mimicked Cameron's gesture, still smiling. "Popped them on? No making it talk? That's... surprising."
He paused when the waiter returned and did his best to keep his eyes down and his tone casual as he ordered. The less he looked at the boy, the less terrified he'd be, maybe. He wondered what he would've done in the boy's position. Probably swapped tables with someone else on shift. Waiters weren't paid enough for severe embarrassment. "Thanks," he said when the boy took his menu, and realized with a twinge that he'd used his teacher voice. "And another, uh, another water please."
The waiter looked to Cam, pen at the ready, and Jacinto shot him a stern glance across the table. Leave him alone, please.
"Actually, slash that. You should get him a beer. He's just too embarrassed to ask for one himself."
His eyes are pointed nowhere near Jacinto's teacherly face, focused only on the waiter instead. He smiles up at the boy warmly and proceeds to give his dinner order, but there is more going on than that. He's grinning by the time the boy takes his menu, and why shouldn't he be? Humans - especially the young - are so easy to exploit that it doesn't tax him at all to plant suggestions rapidfire: bring the beer, comp it, and do it all because he has nice eyes. "Thanks, kiddo."
As the waiter wobbles away on unsteady legs, he stretches his own out beneath the table. They knock into Jacinto's without remorse. Another swig of beer is taken. A moment of silence passes, where he wonders if Jacinto will challenge him. He is rude and unruly, but it is not because he's well on his way to being drunk.
He's always this way.
"You're telling then that you talked to Isa about turkeys, but not me?" His brows flatten, and the next time his foot connects with Jacinto's shin it's definitely without remorse. "Fuck you very much."
"Ow--" he hissed, flinching and shoving back at Cameron's foot on instinct. "I talked to you about turkeys," he reminded his friend through his teeth, "remember? You were angry I wouldn't buy and cook one for you." He snorted. "You're right about the white picket fence. A wife would never tolerate you."
He was over thirty years old and kicking his former best friend beneath the table. He should feel embarrassed, but instead felt strangely exhilarated; he could not - would not - behave this childishly at Willowbrook, even when he wanted to. Playful fights with Jamila or teasing Emily, they were different, almost informal. Even on opposite ends, he and Cameron were closer.
"What did you do to him," he asked, jerking his head towards the waiter's retreating back, "huh? You don't smile like that unless you're doing something you shouldn't."
His eyes widen in surprise, cheeks puffing briefly as he pushes back again at Jacinto's legs. So often, Jacinto is the one who refuses to be anything resembling playful. "Then I guess it's a damn good thing I have you here instead to nag me," he shoots back in low tones, then very decidedly puts his boot down. Their legs are pressed against one another beneath the table, his straining not to be pushed back again. "Jesus, why are you kicking me? What are you, five?"
The ridiculousness of his own actions - and protests - are not lost on him, but he simply does not care. There are meaner, more outlandish comments he could make, but for the beer or relief in finally seeing his former best friend, they stay somewhere in his throat, covered up a grouchy rumble when he picks up his beer again.
"You'll just get all bleeding heart on me about it, so shut up and drink your damn free beer when it comes." His leg muscles flex against Ace's, and he wonders just how angry Ace would be. It would be worse - it could always be worse, with him. He disliked humans and their judgement, and if he wanted them to feel the same humiliation he'd been subject to in his younger years, he would not hesitate at all.
"So, are you going to actually tell me anything about your life, or just sit here and ridicule mine all night?"
"My life?" He's smiling still, but it's wry. I don't have a life is tempting to say, and not untrue. "It's not very interesting. I cook, I teach. You know me... I- I take walks, I guess." He knows how pitiful Cam will find all of that, how lacking, and he gives a little shrug. "I don't have anyone to get me into trouble anymore, so I stay out of it."
It's not bad, his life. He likes it the way it is. Quiet, private, the door shut. Sometimes he wishes someone would barge in the way Cam had and pull him out by his arm, but never enough to seek it out. Jacinto glances up when the waiter returns with a beer and a mumble that he can't make out, and then the boy is gone again, and he has a beer sweating onto his napkin. "And I wasn't ridiculing you. I was..." He smiles down at the table, then gives a little shrug. "Anyway, you started it."
He could push back against Cameron's knees - another juvenile instinct, better suited to his students than to him - but Jacinto stays still, trying to force himself to let his muscles go slack, to pretend this kind of easy contact didn't bother him. "Just leave him alone from now, ok?" he mutters, turning attention away from himself again. "The beer is enough."
"Stop talking about the waiter. I don't care about the waiter. Nobody cares about the fucking waiter." When the fight drains out of Jacinto, so does Cameron's patience. He makes an annoyed noise and waves a hand, drawing back in his seat again as he does.
His real issue is with the scene in front of him. Ace wilts, he always does, and it's always too easy. When they lived together it had been easier to coax Ace into some state of agitation and be something besides many shades of yielding. The fact that he was a teacher was hint enough that these things were possible, even if he only chose to show his personality to children.
"And that's disappointin', man, it really is." He gives another shake of his head, wondering if it would just be better to sit in annoyed silence until the food arrives. There's a habit of this between them too, and he has weathered many a tense period of silence from Jacinto in his life.
But Cameron has learned there is always one more rung to escalate things to.
"So, what? You're just gonna teach and take walks for the rest of your life? You remember the old bag who taught your subject when we were there? You really want to be like that?" His lip curls briefly at the memory of her, of Willowbrook in general. He'd been so wrapped up in everything the school had to offer, eaten up all of their agenda without so much as a blink. It's almost embarrassing to think of it now.
His gaze cuts to the window, disinterested in watching Jacinto cringe and wince through criticisms as he always does. "Promise me you're gonna do something else with your life besides that place."
He smiles, half-hearted, knuckles of one hand held against his lips. "I've thought about it," Jacinto admits. "Leaving. But you know what I'd do? I'd hide in some suburb, and find some nine-to-five, and... I don't know. Adopt a dog. It'd be worse. I have friends there, Cam." Friends who stayed. It goes unsaid; Cameron might safely toe the line, but Jacinto knows that if he tests his limits, their night will be over fast.
"Anyway, I like teaching. If I get old doing this... I could be happy." He shrugs. His answer might infuriate Cam more than a taunt or a lie, but he sees no point in either. Cameron knew what his answer would be before he ever raised the subject. Jacinto wondered why he'd bothered. "You really think some other life would be better for me?" His smile widens, and he hopes to ease Cameron away from his frustration. "It's like you, right? If you weren't an agent you'd be... something so close to it it wouldn't matter. A cop, FBI, always a day away from suspension because you listen to nobody." Affection is putting a weight into his tone he doesn't like; he makes himself lean back and rub at the label on his beer with one thumb. He used to find Cameron's strange brand of encouragement flattering. In school he'd glowed to hear every you can do better than that. Now he just finds it sad. They've known each other too well, too long. Jacinto would always be a hermit; Cameron would always be a rulebreaker. Trying to shove them in other molds would never work; they were both too stubborn.
"What else could I possibly be, Cam?" he says quietly. At a thought, he gives a soft huff of laughter. "I could teach human high school, I guess. God. That would be a breeze, after this..."
"M'not drunk enough for this conversation, maybe," is his own mumbled answer, still stubbornly staring out at the street. It would be easier if he were drunker, possibly. Roaring some belligerent, angry answer back would be a simple thing, or he might turn the whole thing into a joke altogether. As it is now, Ace's answers bring about a familiar frustration that burns just beneath his skin. "What a shitty answer."
For over a decade he's listened to his friend sell himself short. Arguing about it does it no good, neither does threats of physical violence. Ace is happier to waste away, selfish and comfortable. The affection in his tone falls flat on him. He wants for nothing, he says, and Cam hears the underside of the point: he's happy being inaccessible to people like him. It stings and it rankles him, but it's the same reaction he's felt since he left the cozy halls of Willowbrook.
He huffs a sigh, long and overdramatic, moving only to drag his beer closer and take it past the halfway mark. Staring out a window morosely and ignoring the person across from him is immature and childish, but his benevolence wanes quickly in the face of rejection.
"A dog would hate you," he finally adds, "because you'd never take it out for walks."
"Dogs love me," he corrects, unmoved by Cameron's sullen windowgazing. His smile is still fixed, but softer; he regrets that he's disappointed Cameron, but he's unwilling to lie or soften the blow. That is, he thinks, part of why Cameron had liked him to begin with: he was quiet, private, even shy, but when his mind was made up the strongest force in the world couldn't bowl him over. They were alike there, if in little else.
Jacinto picks up his beer and takes a drink, passing some of their silence by twisting it around on the table to read the label. The list of ingredients scrolls mechanically through his head, and then he wets his lips and says, "I take walks by myself. Around campus. Before everyone wakes up. It's the best time to do it. No... running, yelling. I'd get along with a dog just fine. If you're too sober for the conversation, don't bring it up, maybe." He glances up. "Or drink faster."
It almost feels like he's being baited, and he might be. Ace's special brand of passive aggression was usually very deliberate and strange, from what he could gather: passive until aggressive. He glances backwards, brows lifting.
"Or maybe you surprise us both and say what you really mean, you fuck." He takes up his bottle again, but there's something spiteful about the way he gulps down the liquid. As if to say, fine, I will drink faster. "Go on, say it. That even though you've got real friends and real potential on the outside of that school you like to hide in so much, you'd rather do just that. Fuck everyone else."
He's not being fair, but he never is. Nothing about their friendship deserves that. A finger wrapped around the bottle lifts, pointing at the man across the table. Maybe he is drunk enough after all, he thinks, because he suddenly has no shortage of words.
"I don't get it. You hate what I do, you hate what I am, you'll even go as far as telling me 'fuck you' in a text message, but as soon as I get you in front of me, nothing. Suddenly it's my problem, like I've fucked up your entire life and made it impossible for you to do anything, when in reality you just don't want to."
His smile fades with every angry word and jab of Cameron's finger. Had he said too much? Too little? In his mind he'd spoken plainly, but now Cameron accuses him of lying. Jacinto licks his teeth and looks away. "It's not your problem. You didn't fuck up my life, Cam." He says the curse between his teeth, and it sounds odd, like a toddler repeating a new word. "You think this is what I like because of you? My whole-- everything about me, because of you?"
Jacinto lets a laugh escape before he rolls his lips together to hold back the rest, still looking at a booth across from them: the wood detailing on the side, the gap where the upholstery is tearing free. "That's... It's the most egotistical thing I've heard you say in a long time. Real friends..." There's a bitterness in his smile, and he looks down at the edge of the table now, rubbing his thumbs against it. He can't look at Cameron. "Real potential. To do what? I'm not... I'm not useful. I know I'm not. Those who can't do, teach. Yeah?"
He swallows and forces himself to look up, tensing when he meets Cameron's eyes. "I do hate what you do. I've never tried to hide that. I wish you'd come back... but I know you won't. Do you think if we drink together enough, you berate me enough, I'll... duck my head, agree to change sides, Cam?"
He stares at Jacinto, eyes wide. Their state doesn't have to do with anger, not even with embarrassment. He is simply surprised that his former friend has managed to so grossly misinterpret him. They slowly narrow to a squint yet, head tilting as he tries to sort it out in his mind through a haze of aggravation and alcohol.
How in the world?
And does he really, really want to have this argument right now? His hand moves again, then he abruptly drains the rest of his beer in one large mouthful. The empty bottle hits the table with a decisive tap and he moves, sliding out of the booth to stand. It almost looks as if he's going to pluck up his coat and leave, but he simply pivots around the table and begins to lower himself back into the booth on Ace's side.
A few patrons turn their head to eye what's happening, but he pays it no mind. He gives Ace's shoulder a shove, forcing him back against the window, and settles himself into his new found seat. "Your ass is all warm," he mumbles, frowning as he shifts around against the leather
But that's not the point, he reminds himself. The point is Ace.
"There's some really weird shit goin' on here, so let's get real close in an attempt for you to understand me better." He props an elbow on the table and sets his head in it, staring at the man he has trapped in the seat with him. His own eyes are dark and glassy from the alcohol, but there is no anger in them. For all intents and purposes he seems still in good humour, but underneath, he wonders. Is this what Jacinto thinks of him? That he only means to badger and browbeat him into changing sides? That he's only another mark for the Syndicate?
"I don't think I fucked up your life, Ace," he says, blinking slowly. His free hand toys with the beer he'd scored for the other man, thinking maybe he’d take it out of spite. In the end, he slowly pushes the sweating bottle towards him. Maybe it'd be better if Ace were drunker. "I think you think it's my problem you won't see me half the time. I think you blame me because I left, and not because you won't come out on your own. Because you don't fucking want to, and you won't man up and say it."
And suddenly, there is Ted. He clears his throat, face blushing beet red as he delivers their food to the tables. He mumbles something about enjoying their meal and rushes away again. Cameron watches him go, then turns to face his bowl of noodles. Noodles!
"And for the record," he adds, prying apart his wooden chopsticks, "that shit about you being useless has never been true."
Cameron traps him, close enough that he can smell the beer on his breath, and Jacinto swallows and keeps his eyes trained on his friend, every second. He feels less endangered and more like a child taken aside by their parent; this is not a conversation, but a Talking To. His nervousness - at their closeness, at the dull blink of Cameron's dark eyes, at the topic they've crossed - is plain on his face, but he manages not to flinch when his friend cracks his chopsticks apart.
"It has," is the first thing he can think to say, quiet and petulant to his own ears. "It is." A frown. "You think I don't want to see you?" His indignation sounds too weak. Jacinto looks away and wets his lips again. "Alright. Sometimes I- Sometimes I don't. You're not always easy to be around, Cam. Less, now."
He'd like to pick up his own chopsticks, but the end of the packet is underneath Cameron's wrist, and he can't bring himself to grab it. Instead he takes a sip of his beer, shoulders hunching the longer his friend is beside him. "And anyway, I can never tell... what you want. From me. You always have some reason and I still can't always tell when you're joking. A turkey, or... your, your fucking Candy Crush lives."
Of course, the reaction is tame. Of course, Jacinto's answer is vague criticism wrapped in his own special brand of self doubt. He nods, because what else is there to do?
"Maybe you should think about that, Ace." He points at the man beside him with his chopsticks, experimentally clacking them together. The movement is slow and clunky, his fingers too thick and his mind too impatient for the unwieldy little sticks of wood. "Maybe if I didn't need a reason all the time, I wouldn't have one."
He brings the hand with the chopsticks closer to himself, trying in vain to position them right with the opposite hand. It's easier to focus on them than what he's just heard. There are many, many people in the world who can't stand a lick of his presence. That Ace can't isn't surprising. It's not as if they'd never fought in the past. That it's a reason that people from Willowbrook push him away is what stings. Pari did it, Ace did it, others did as well.
He steals glances a glance at Ace, so hunched and small now in his space near the window. Was that really it? He's a Syndicate Agent and hard to be around. Why bother anymore?
Wasn't absence supposed to make the heart grow fonder?
Self awareness, even at an age past thirty, is still a harsh mistress. It makes the chopsticks in his hands suddenly very frustrating, the promise of gummy noodles and salty broth less appetising. He squints down at the bowl, fingers still. "Would you rather I just leave now?"
"No." There's no hesitation in his answer, and he hopes Cameron notices. It's simple and soft. He doesn't want Cameron to leave; that's part of the problem. His friend is by turns abrasive and magnetic, and Jacinto is too easily drawn in by the latter. To refuse to see him, that was easy. To leave him once he had? That was hard. Memories of their time together kept him hopeful that one day they could settle their differences, that they'd fall back into old, comfortable habits. Leaving - or telling Cameron to go - was surrendering to inevitable truth: things would never be like they once were between them.
"No, I don't want you to leave." I want my chopsticks, I want you to stop thinking harassing me is the only way to get my attention, I want you to stop using my sexuality as a punchline in your pranks. He thinks of saying all that, but the idea of Cameron's reaction - laughter? ridicule? disappointment?- makes him clear his throat instead and say, "Do you, uh, do you want a fork?"
That might be the wrong thing to ask too; Cameron hates being underestimated. A wince. Jacinto still feels trapped beside him; hunched and tense next to a bear that might fix its attention back on him at any moment. That Cameron is verging on drunk doesn't escape him. It might be better, he reasons slowly, to pretend he's not scared. Fine with this intrusion; more collected than Cameron thinks he is. So he looks down at the chopsticks beneath Cameron's wrist and says, in a measured voice, "Can I have those? Please."
Ace doesn't want him to leave. Ace wants him to stay. The quick admission is reassuring in its own way. It draws some of the tension out of his shoulders. It could just be out of pity, of course, and he's wondered that before. Willowbrook Staff and Centurions have an enormous capacity for believing themselves rulers of higher moral ground. Though the image hardly fits Jacinto, there's always the niggle of doubt that he's only just entertaining him.
"I don't need a fork," he answers automatically, but his friendly tone sounds out of place when compared to their conversation only seconds before. Forced. Worse, he's not even sure he wants these noodles anymore. He lifts his wrist when asked, watching Ace scoop his chopsticks away silently, and even that seems false.
Even so, Ace wants him to stay. So he'll stay. Even if the air is incredibly thick between them now, made worse by their close proximity. The careful, chummy feeling they'd cultivated in the bar is completely gone now, shattered by his own antics. Jacinto seems calmer now, almost bored with him.
The chopsticks are still uncomfortable and unwieldy in his grip. They've always been his enemy. But he decides silence may be better for now and bends his head over the bowl, starting the tedious process of trying to get noodles to mouth.
The first try sends them all splashing back into the bowl.
The second, he manages to get most of them to his face.
The third, he loses half of them to his lap.
He licks his lips and squints down at the noodles nesting on his Levis. His mouth turns down into an exaggerated frown as he picks them up and throws them on a napkin, nodding a little to himself. Of course.
Still silent, lifts an open palm to Ace and gives him a knowing glance.