[Uni: Student Housing] The Go Getter [Astrolabe]

[Jaron Grunn]

Jaron wasn't sure why he was leaving, exactly. He knew that if there was anyone in the world to talk to about anything that was on his mind, it would be Astrolabe Abelard Dusk. But the feeling of fleeing felt right to Jaron and he just went with his gut, as his mind wasn't all that clear to listen to at that very moment. His eyes and his focus was very linear, very direct; he wanted out and in his mind all he could see was the mental picture of the landmarks of how to get out of wherever Astrolabe had brought him. Would he bring himself back to the ship? Or maybe just right to the ocean - he wasn't a good swimmer, maybe he would drown and just end all his misery and overly emotional suffering once and for all. Before he heard the doors close after him, a strong hand from a strong arm twisted Jaron around and caught him off guard. Jaron's hands reached out for something to grab onto but he found himself in Astrolabe's arms, safe and sound and still on his two feet. He gave a little chuckle as he stood there, now facing Astrolabe (or at least his chin, but that was still part of the man) and didn't dare look up into his eyes. Astro's hand went to his other arm and held him there, almost as if he was scared Jaron was going to run away again. It was a common occurence for him to run from anything emotion-driven in which the emotions weren't pretty, lovely, and fun to entertain in one's mind. But when it came to something difficult to process, Jaron ran. It was something that Sev dealt with easily, as he was able to recognize the signs and seize Jaron before he could leave, but with Astro it was different. They never really had deep, emotional discussions about anything in the past. Not that their relationship was superficial, it just never had a need to delve into the inner most thoughts of their minds. Jaron took in a sharp, deep breath that he held for just a moment. The scent of Astrolabe was on his mind again and that almost soothing-like sensation of nostalgia, of easier times, went through his troubled mind and he let out a huff of a sigh through his nose as his lips pressed together. He flashed a cautious look up to Astrolabe, Jaron's eyes now free from any sign that he was near doing the C-word. "So, I guess," Jaron said softly, in a tone that was hushed to the point that no one besides the two men would hear what he was articulating, "I'm not ready to talk about just yet, am I?" His arms remained limp at his sides as his feet kept him erect and standing in front of Astrolabe. Jaron wanted to lean against the man and just close his eyes and shut out everything around him. Shut out everything that had happened to him. He wanted to reach his arm around Astrolabe and just grunt in a hug, but he held himself back. He stood there without any hint of action of his body, maybe as a way to show Astrolabe that he wasn't about to flee on foot as fast as he could from the tavern and from his past. "Sorry about that." He took in a deep breath again and stood up straighter, his chest puffing out as he adopted a proper posture as opposed to a slouch of a stance. "How about let's try that again, round two?"

[Astrolabe]

Regaining his balance, Jaron made no move to pull away. As Astrolabe looked at his friend in concern, he kept a light grip on Jaron – not because he thought he would run off again. It just seemed that contact was somehow more supportive than his useless and clumsy words could ever be. It was true – the two men did not have a history of sharing deep confidences, not about their emotional state of being. But, observing his friend right now, Astrolabe thought that in those days, when they were young, it hadn’t been necessary. They had been close enough that reading the more subtle hints of what was going on had worked well. As boys, they had not had heart felt tete-a-tetes. Maybe that’s why it was so awkward now. But as they had been apart for years, that other non-verbal connection was gone – or perhaps it was just dormant. Hopefully the latter. The question was – how were they to revive that affinity? As Jaron spoke, so quietly, Astro nodded, waiting for some cue as to what they were to do next. But his friend stood, unmoving, as if he were in a limbo of inertia. Astrolabe considered pulling him closer – or turning him loose – but he himself was caught in the hesitancy of not wanting to do the wrong thing. So, he waited, as unmoving as Jaron. When finally Jaron spoke again, Astrolabe nodded, letting his hands drop slowly from those hard arms. With Astro keeping an uneasy eye on Jaron, they stepped back inside the tiny eatery and took their seats again. As a distraction, Astro took a sip of the kelp beer, finding it not quite as repulsive as he had the first year that he had lived in Zeltiva. With his hands wrapped around the tankard, he looked at Jaron, saying simply, “It’s me who should apologize, Jar. I . . . I don’t know . . . what to say. What to talk about.” He shifted a bit, squirming as an outlet for his internal discomfort. Then he smirked just the slightest bit. “It was easier when we could just pile on one another and grapple all of it out of our system, yeh?”

[Jaron Grunn]

To be honest, Jaron had no idea what to talk about either. It was the huge elephant in the room that neither men knew how to truly address its presence. Jaron sat back in his seat and wrapped his long fingers around the mug again as he looked over to Astrolabe who apologized and Jaron shook his head in response. Jaron practically invited that sort of reaction from Astro, it wasn't as if he had overstepped a boundary. If Jaron had never brought it up, it would have never been brought up by Astrolabe, at least intentionally. He gave a soft sigh as he felt his shoulders relax and roll back. "It was a lot easier then, but it was easier for you. I couldn't ever keep myself up on that damn mat without you finding some side I thought I covered and bamn, I was on my back, winded with you laughing triumphantly over me," Jaron said with a cocked brow as he hazarded a sip of the beer. It tasted ... green. Not something that he usually associated when eating or drinking - comparing them to colours - but there it was in his mind. "I just... I dunno how to talk about it, Astro. It's..." He gave another sigh as he looked down to the green liquid again. That anxiety and fear that he felt just minutes ago was more under control - or repressed - and let his fingers go of the mug in front of him as his finger tips felt that familiar groove in his palm that it had worked raw. His finger idly pricked at the wound that was forever trying to heal itself, and failed due to Jaron's constant tight-fisted response to stress. "I don't know where to start. What to tell you. What to say. How to say it." He said with a little laugh and gave his head a shake as he looked back over table with a smile. "How about you ... ask questions and I'll tell you. Give me a point to say something?" Jaron didn't want to try and impose too much on Astrolabe by telling him he hoped the man across the table from him would ask a zillion questions. That way, he would be relieved that everything was out in the open and the elephant in the room was addressed. And, after that, hopefully they could go back to the way they were before - just guys being guys. Jaron's eyes settled on the curve of Astrolabe's biceps; he would have to try and work hard on his own size, somehow, before he entertained the idea of trying to let the wannabe-mage pin him to the ground again. If he was able to do it when they were younger with ease, Jaron had no doubts in his mind that Astro could still do it without even breaking a damn sweat. The bastard.

[Astrolabe]

Astrolabe gave Jaron a half-smile at the recollection. It was true – he was bigger than Jaron and usually that was enough to give him the advantage. On the other hand, his friend had gotten in his fair share of victories when it came to the more brawling style of actual hand to hand combat. To his mind, they had come out fairly even. As Jaron went on, the small smile lapsed and Astro looked at his own glass of green beer pensively. He stroked the surface thoughtfully with the ball of his thumb. Wasn’t that what had made Jaron bolt just a moment ago – him asking questions about Sev? This seemed confusing – and Astrolabe was already more often than not in a state of mild puzzlement over what was going on around him. So he frowned, trying to sort things out in his head. He could reach no conclusion, though, other than that Jaron wished for him to try again. So he did. He thought he’d try for something . . . upbeat. “What’s your favorite memory of Sev, Jar?” He asked, sneaking a glance at that worn face to see if he was going to break and run again.

[Jaron Grunn]

"Favourite memory," Jaron mused for a moment as he stroked the end of his scruffy chin. This was something that was easier to talk about, the happy times and not the most recent memories that Jaron had of Sev, or the last memory he had of Sev alive. He looked over to Astro with a big grin on his face as he gave a nod of his head at the memory he wanted to recall. "It was when Sev was trying to teach me how to use a bow and arrow. We tried the crossbow but he wasn't that fond of it, so we tried to do that instead. It seemed simple enough, right? You hold the bow a certain way, your body is positioned like so," Jaron took up the appropriate posture as if he was a pro at archery, or at least a pro at archery in which he didn't have to actually hit anything, "And then you take aim and shoot the arrow at your target, right? Well it seemed like the perfect thing to try and do out in the field. Pick off your enemy before they get close to you." Jaron let out a grunt as he remembered more of what happened. There was no indication that he was about to flee or do anything out of place, if anything he looked relaxed. Calm. Confident. Though the prematurely-aged face still held onto that tired and pale complexion which didn't suit him at all, but was a side effect of one so lost in their thoughts that they paid little attention to themselves. "So we practiced a bit out in a field, Sev and I, and when I tried to shoot a target, well, things didn't go as they should. --You should know that I hadn't been fully on this idea. Why would I want to stand there and wait for my enemy to come to me, when I could either ambush them or just charge at them, weapon and intimidating yell ready to go? -- Well when I took aim and tried to shoot this one target down the way -- I had managed to hit it before, after a few times, and Sev grew confident that I was getting comfortable with the bow -- my hand slipped, the bow went flying into the air, and my hand went flying to Sev's face. I broke his nose." At the recollection of the memory, Jaron could almost feel the impact from the hit on his hand. He cracked his knuckles by flexing his fingers idly on the table as he glanced down to them for a moment before looking back to Astrolabe. "Now, that doesn't sound like the best memory, does it? But after he got himself up to his feet, laughing, I stood there confused and trying to fix it. Not that I knew what to really do other than try and plug it and tilt his head back, but he laughed and laughed and laughed. He said something like, 'I guess this is why Sorn never tried teaching you archery. You're just naturally better at busting a man up with your fists than with something as elegant as a bow. You're hopeless, Jaron. No one can ever teach you a new thing.' I was pretty bummed when he said that, but under the blood I could see that stupid grin on his face and knew there was something more. 'But I won't give up on you, Jar.' Sev said. He put his hand on my shoulder and looked me in the eyes and said, 'I'm stuck to your side for good, whether you're a surly old dog or not.'" Jaron kept a silent grin on his face as he noticed that Astrolabe was sitting there, a little awkward, uncertain what to say. "Wish you could have come back to Lhavit. You would'a liked him. I would have loved to see you two drunk, trying to pin each other down. I'd probably piss myself laughing watching you two duke it out. Both stubborn jerks that thought they were physically superior to everyone," Jaron chuckled as he looked back over to Astrolabe who was leaning forward on the table with an odd look on his face. Jaron reached over and shoved him back in the shoulder. "Don't give me that face. Just give us time and we'll be back to where we were before. Just, you know. You being a little fatter than you were before..."

[Astrolabe]

Astrolabe listened to Jaron’s little story. But more than that, he noticed with relief that Jaron’s tone of voice and his body seemed to relax. The good memory seemed to put him at ease, and Astro thought that, for once, he had made a good choice. It was an odd recollection for his friend to claim as one of his favorites, Astro thought. But he could see why Jaron would think it so. Jaron had always been something of a drifter – a boy, and then a man, who preferred his own company to that of others, for the most part. Astro had been one exception. Clearly, Sev had been the ultimate exception to Jaron’s tendency to keep to himself. So it made sense, in a way, that a man who would promise to always stick by Jar, to always be there with him and for him – that would mean a lot. That Jaron actually believed Sev’s promise and welcomed it spoke volumes about the kind of man Sev must have been. “Yes – it is a shame. I wish I had known him. I wish I had seen you with him, Jar. Even if it meant me getting my ass busted.” Astro grinned at that. He was competitive, but he relished a good opponent. He didn’t really mind getting beat – if the match had been a good one and well fought. “He must have been the best – to have won you over.” Astro smirked a bit. “Never thought you’d fall for anyone, Jaron. I guess you surprised me there.” His eyes took in that rugged, lined face – still every bit as handsome as when he had last laid eyes on it. Astro thought back to how it had been between them – good friends, that had been it. He really had not ever thought Jaron would be the kind to actually fall in love – not so hard, so deeply. It wasn’t as if Jar had been a real player. He liked to flirt, that was for sure. But at the end of an evening, it was an almost certainty he’d wander home alone – by his own choosing. What few times they had discussed such matters – half drunk usually – Astro had come to the conclusion that Jaron just had very high standards. He wasn’t exactly picky – he just knew what he liked, and seemed to rarely find it. Apparently, Sev had been the one. With a sad thought, Astro hoped for Jaron’s sake that Sev would not be the one and only. His smile softened a bit. “Yeah, I know Jar. Can’t rebuild it all in five minutes.” Patting his belly, he added, “It’s all muscle. Trust me. I’ve been doing pretty well – wrestling. So I really try to keep in shape. There’s actually some good money to be made.” He gave a mock grimace. “I figure I better be good at something, ‘cause I’m sure not going to make a living with magic.”

[Jaron Grunn]

Jaron let out a little grunt when Astro told him about how Sev won him over. If anything Jaron thought that he was the one that had to work at getting Sev to want to be with him and not the other way around, but he could understand where Astro was coming from; in the past the two men never really flirted with others (at least around each other) so this was something that they never truly talked about. When the situation arose and Jaron was the subject of someone's affections, he was very abrupt and cold with them to the point of telling them to find the nearest cliff and jump. "Yeah, well. He was a special guy. Though I wouldn't undersell yourself Astro, I'm sure you could have won him over both on the mat and with a drink in your hand." The L word - Love. He did fall in love and he fell pretty hard for Sev and the prospect, even the mere thought of loving another man made Jaron uncomfortable. He had thought that all the love in the world that he possessed was directed at that one man and now that one man was gone - what was he supposed to do in the mean time? Pick up the pieces of what remained of that love and try and hold it in his hands, hoping that another man would love the tattered remains of love that Jaron possessed? He pushed those uncomfortable thoughts out of his mind as he gave his head a physical shake and he emitted another low grunt. "Yeah. Who knew I was capable of such a thing, aye?" He looked over to Astro who patted his stomach and Jaron flashed him a smirk as he tried to take in more kelp beer, and made that same disgusted face once more. Jaron's body was snug with the jacket over his body so he wasn't able to show off the way that Astrolabe's body was on display, as he felt that he had to show the man that he was no push over, either. "Well, if anyone ever wants something to explode in their face you could be the man to call. Funny how any time I think of magic, in general, I see your face and the results of something that was supposed to be simple and harmless explode all over you. Still makes me smirk to this day," Jaron said with a chuckle. "But if you can wrestle - and like - why do you stay in school? It's not like anyone is forcing you to try and be a mage. It's like trying to get me put on a proper suit and look like a proper gentleman." Jaron shook his head and sat back against the seat, looking over to Astrolabe with a mock-scowl. "That's never going to happen."

[Astrolabe]

Astrolabe smiled at Jaron’s attempt to bolster his self-confidence. It wasn’t that he was truly lacking in it – he just knew his own shortcomings all too well. Without seeing Sev in action, Astro couldn’t really say if they would have been seriously mismatched or not. And as for the drink at a bar . . . well, Astro wasn’t much of a charmer. Though, he did have far lower standards than Jaron ever did, so that made pulling far easier . . . “Well, I guess you are a man of many surprises,” Astro said softly, looking at Jaron thoughtfully. But at his friend’s question, the smile dropped from his face. Sighing gustily, Astro frowned at his green beer, his hands moving restlessly over the surface of the tankard. “You’re completely wrong there, my friend,” he said, the unhappiness clear in his voice. “I have an entire family of parents, grandparents, uncles, cousins – all of them great mages, and all of them shaking their heads over me – the only failure in the whole damn lot of them, I guess. You know how it was, when we were kids – how I had to hide the fact that I was wrestling from my parents. Well, just think of how they’d take it if I told them I was quitting school – to be a wrestler!” He laughed but the sound held no mirth. “They can’t force me to become a mage. Hell – that can’t even pay my tutors to make me into one, no matter how much we all want it.” He paused. “No matter how much they want it, I guess . . . “ His voice trailed off and he stared unhappily at the table top. “But I guess it’s worse,” he finally said, softly. “Having what you truly desire and losing it, more than never having it in the first place . . . right?”

[Jaron Grunn]

Jaron smirked at the fake laugh - admitting that to his family would be something that would be very, very awkward. They prized intelligence and magecraft above everything else in Astrolabe's family, so for him to be something that was "less" than a mage was something that was frowned upon. They might even write him off as dead and never speak of him again if he admitted to something so asinine as wanting to be a wrestler. Though the question and the problem was now in the open, Jaron regretted putting it right in front of both men. It was a sore subject for Astrolabe, being the more physical and less "mental" of his family members, it was a problem that the young man had had as long as Jaron knew him. But to take it to the level of university and still not get the hang of it, well, Jaron could only assume it was harder for Astrolabe to go home with bad marks and no skills to show that his parents' investment in his future was worthwhile. As Astrolabe's head tilted down forlornly, Jaron reached out for his chin and brought it back to level as he smiled over to him. His other hand reached out and punched at Astrolabe's shoulder to try and shake the man from his sadness. "Well, hey. No need to be mopey over that, Astro. You're good at something, very good at it from what I remember. Don't go beating yourself up over that. Sure it's not what your parents want, but you're your own man now. You need to fess up to not being what your parents want and just go for what you want. You know? You think my parents are happy with the fact I'm not carrying on the legacy of being a farmer around Lhavit? They're not that pleased, but they didn't hold me back." Jaron sat back with a muted growl that came out more as a low grunt than anything. "I know farmers and mages are two different classes, but you get my point. "You're going to have to come clean with it sooner or later. And honestly, Astro? I'm pretty sure they know it even if you don't talk about it. No offence, but I've never really thought of you as an outstanding mage. Just this big guy that could pin me to the floor faster than I could blink..."

[Astrolabe]

“Well, yeah, they know for sure I’m a complete failure as a mage. But they don’t know I’m good at wrestling – nor would they care.” Astro said, a slightly bitter tone in his voice. “They’d be embarrassed by it, though. I can’t hardly blame them. And it’s not like I can make a living as a wrestler. So, the options are a trifle limited.” He sighed gustily. His eyes switched up to Jaron’s, knowing that he was trying to make him feel better. Astro smiled slightly. “So, yeah – still blowing things up – and that’s not likely to change.” He leaned forward, both forearms resting on the table top, the tankard held in both hands. “I have a brilliant idea. How about you teach me how to use a petching sword and we can hit the road together – hire ourselves out as mercenaries. I’ve always wanted to see the rest of the world.” His voice rose a bit with a subdued intensity. “I’ll fake some big catastrophe and let everyone think I died in it. Then my family can heave a sigh of relief and go on with their magical lives and not have to worry about me.” He laughed with a bit more humor in it this time. “Hell – I probably wouldn’t even have to fake something big – if there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s blowing things up at the wrong time.”