[ watching the way jack recoils from him hurts, but there's a dark, angry part of him that whispers at least he isn't trying to hit you and he feels relieved in all the worst ways. joseph tries to ignore the voice, wants to move forward and take jack's face in his hands and soothe away the fear there, kiss him and kiss him and kiss him until he smiles again, but even he's not that much of a masochist -- jack would just push him away, and he's had enough of that to last a lifetime. he's tired, so tired, of being jack's dirty secret, living his life in shadow, waiting for calls that got further and further apart until they stopped coming at all. he'd meant to use his time with the cdc to try to move on, to work through the mess that jack had left of his head and of his heart, and now --
now he can't do that, because jack makes him stupid. if he'd known that jack was going to be here -- well, if he'd known that, he never would have said yes in the first place, but -- he would have expected a reception something like this. maybe not with these exact words, because they don't quite make sense following everything they've been through in shiloh, but the fear, the desire to put as much space between them as possible, the assertion that he shouldn't be here? he would have taken those for a given.
that doesn't make them hurt any less, and joseph looks down at the floor, trying to breathe past the sudden terrible pressure on his chest. ]
They didn't tell me you would be here or I wouldn't have said yes.
[ that was meant to come out... well, differently than it must have. it was meant to be about joseph respecting jack's wishes and staying away from him because jack didn't want to see him anymore, not...
but that same dark, angry part of him means it like that, too, means that he doesn't want to see jack anymore, would let the world die in order to avoid seeing him. that darkness wants to see what jack looks like when he's the one getting his heart broken, instead of the one doing the breaking. ]
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now he can't do that, because jack makes him stupid. if he'd known that jack was going to be here -- well, if he'd known that, he never would have said yes in the first place, but -- he would have expected a reception something like this. maybe not with these exact words, because they don't quite make sense following everything they've been through in shiloh, but the fear, the desire to put as much space between them as possible, the assertion that he shouldn't be here? he would have taken those for a given.
that doesn't make them hurt any less, and joseph looks down at the floor, trying to breathe past the sudden terrible pressure on his chest. ]
They didn't tell me you would be here or I wouldn't have said yes.
[ that was meant to come out... well, differently than it must have. it was meant to be about joseph respecting jack's wishes and staying away from him because jack didn't want to see him anymore, not...
but that same dark, angry part of him means it like that, too, means that he doesn't want to see jack anymore, would let the world die in order to avoid seeing him. that darkness wants to see what jack looks like when he's the one getting his heart broken, instead of the one doing the breaking. ]