Undeniably In Denial

Talking to Camron again; never really something I thought I’d be doing. I guess I figured he’d hate me or something, but apparently not. Also, neither of us have mentioned the fact that we basically made it public that we dated and that we loved each other. But don’t get me wrong; it’s not like I want him back or anything. It’s just weird talking about (or not, for the right things) that sort of stuff with your ex. Well, I do miss him too. He was such a great friend even before we dated. I’m really looking forward to the Paris concert, but that’s almost two weeks away, so I guess he and I will just have to keep talking online and over the phone until then. Of course, that shouldn’t be too hard; we haven’t seen each other in over five years. What’s two more weeks?

“So he’s coming to our show in Paris?” Jason asked, coming around from behind to face me.

“How and why do you always do that? You scare the crap out of me,”

“Do what?”

“You’re forever just popping up out of nowhere and scaring people. Mainly me,”

“I guess I’m just a ninja,” he laughed, shrugging. “But you never answered my question.”

“It wasn’t a good question,”

“What do you mean?”

“You read the conversation; you know full well that he’s coming to the Paris concert,”

“I know that!” he said, his voice cracking from the highness of the pitch.

“Then why’d you ask?”

“It was a test, and you’ve passed,”

“What test?”

“I wanted to see your reaction when I brought him up...to sort of gauge how over him you are and all that. And you passed,”

“How’d I pass?”

“Well, for starters, you didn’t blush when I mentioned him, you didn’t stutter out an answer real quickly, you didn’t try and close down the chat to try and keep me from seeing it, and you didn’t act like you didn’t know what I was talking about. But what you did do was ask a legitimate question. And the ‘why’ to that question is so I can do these tests. So far, you’ve passed them all,”

“You know, you should become a therapist if Karma ever splits or anything. You’re really good at this kind of stuff,” I said, turning in my chair to look at him as he leaned against the wall casually. “You could be like those women on T.V. that are always bringing in troubled people and help them through it.”

“If I ever have my own talk show, please shoot me,” he groaned, shaking his head and laughing a bit. “But in case you forgot, I did major in psychology in college.”

“Oh, yea, I did forget,” I chuckled. “Hey, are you okay?”

“Yea, why wouldn’t I be okay?”

“Because you always start trying to help people out and you do stuff like this when you have something on your mind that you’re trying to not think about,”

“Now who’s the therapist?”

“Still you. I just know you, Jason. I’ve known you forever. I know how you are, and this is just one of your things. So sit down and for once, let me be the one to help you. What do you have on your mind that you’re trying to bury? You’ve been like this for almost all the tour so far. What’s bugging you, man?”

“Oh, why must I like guys? Are we always so confusing?”

“Yea, most of the time,” I laughed. “So this is a guy thing?”

“Yea,” he mumbled.

“Who?”

“I don’t wanna say,”

“Please tell me?”

“No,”

“Why not?”

“’Cause…”

“’Cause why?”

“’Cause I don’t wanna,”

“Why not?”

“’Cause I don’t?”

“Aw, is he straight?”

“Only half,”

“Okay, so he’s bisexual. Do I know him?”

“Yea,”

“Alright, so who do I know besides me and Ianto that’s bi?”

“Why do you automatically exclude you two? I’m not saying that it’s one of you, but you guys aren’t completely ineligible for me to like you,”

“So you like Ianto?”

“I never said that,”

“No, but your face said so. You’ve known me forever and nothing has ever indicated to you liking me more than a friend. So it’s got to be Ianto. Am I right? Do you like Ianto? Do ya? Do ya? Huh? Huh?”

“Jesus Christ, yes, I do! Just shut up about it!” he groaned, falling backwards on the bed that was next to us.

“What, are you embarrassed?

“Sort of,” he mumbled, face turning red.

“Why would you be embarrassed?”

“I don’t know!” he groaned again.

“Well don’t be! And you should tell him, too,”

“But I don’t want to tell him!”

“What are you, five?” I laughed, referring to his complaining.

“Yes,” he grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest as he sat up.

“Seriously, though,”

“Can’t we just let it go?”

“No, we can’t just let it go. This is affecting you not only on the inside, but on the outside too. You’re not who you used to be, Jay. This is messing you up; holding this in. You need to tell Ianto. Even if he doesn’t like you that way, he’ll understand. And you need to get this off your chest, not only to me, but to him. I hate seeing you like this, and I want the old Jason back. The one that would spout random things that make no sense. The one that wasn’t up my butt all the time trying to help me out with my relationship issues when he can’t even figure his own out. I don’t like that side of you, Jay. It’s so damn boring. I love you when you’re random and crazy and hyper. I don’t like you as much when you’re like this. You’re starting to worry me, man. I don’t like being worried about you,”

“I don’t like this side of me either, but I’m just so afraid of what will happen,”

“What do you mean, afraid of what will happen?”

“You three are like my best friends in the whole entire world. If I dated any of you, and then we broke up, I wouldn’t want to lose that great friendship. Look at what happened to you and Camron -”

“No, this is about you right now, not me,”

“I’m not trying to make this about you. I’m comparing situations. Like I said, look at what happened to you and Camron. You guys were such great friends, but then you broke up and you two haven’t talked for over five years. I don’t want that to happen. I don’t want to be the cause of our band breaking up, if it comes down to that. You don’t know how bad I want to tell him, but I just can’t do it,”

“Jason…are you crying?”

“Yes,”

I leaned over and wrapped him in a hug, rubbing his back comfortingly. “It’s okay…or it will be at least. Just calm down a bit. See Jason, this is not like you. You never cry dude, never. You must really have it bad for Ianto.”

“Yea, I do,” he sniffled, laying his head on my shoulder. “Shit, I hate not being able to ask him out! I’ve never had issues asking guys out before now.”

“How long have you liked him?”

“Since the big snow,”

“The big March snow? Back in Jersey?”

“No, the big July snow in Texas. Yes, the March snow!”

“Well, I just wanted to get my facts right,”

“Yea, it was back in March. Remember those couple of days that everyone was snowed in and nobody could go anywhere because the snow was piled so high?”

“Oh yea; Mae and I were stuck at your guys’ aunt’s house,”

“Well, Ianto had come over for a while and we were messing around on our guitars for a bit. But ‘a bit’ turned into a few hours and a few hours turned into six and then the next thing we knew, we were snowed in. After we figured out that there was no way in hell anyone was getting out to go anywhere, we decided to watch a movie and have a sort of sleepover thing to wait out the storm. And then the next morning we still couldn’t move the cars, so we hung out some more. Same thing happened the next day. Then, the night after that, the roads were clear enough that Ianto could have gone home if he wanted to. But he made up some excuse and stayed another day. I think those couple of days together are what made me like him like this, because after that, it seemed as if something changed within me towards him. Probably because we got to know each other a lot more. He now knows about my mom’s alcohol issues and why she’s in jail; the whole story, too,”

“You told him the whole thing?”

“Yea…all of it,”

“Wow, Jason, it took three years for you to tell me,”

“And you’re the only two that know the whole story. My brother doesn’t even know everything,”

“But your brother was there,”

“Yea, before he passed out. A lot happened after that and I never told him it all,”

“But you told Ianto and I all of it? Even the things Tony doesn’t know?”

“Yea. I trust you guys with my life…a lot more than I trust Tony. But anyways, Ianto and I talked quite a lot then and now I feel a lot closer to him,”

“You know what I think?”

“What do you think, Reese?” he asked, mocking me.

“I think you should ask him to dinner tomorrow night,”

“We’ve got a show tomorrow night,”

“No we don’t,” I smirked.

“Really? Since when?”

“Since I can’t sing,” I smirked again, talking in a really raspy voice. “Oh, it’s horrid, Jason. I've lost my voice and I don’t think I’m going to be able to do the gig tomorrow. I'm going to have to be silent all day long and drink lots of peppermint tea and other things like that. I guess you’ll just have to ask Ianto on that date instead! Oh, no!”

Jason laughed, grabbed my head, and kissed my forehead. “I love you, man!”