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It was Geneva's turn to surprise him with emotions and faces he hadn't seen in her before, and unsurprisingly, he was thoroughly surprised. Her ears turned, her gaze averted, her heart must have been pounding: the cyclops could see it clearly, and he regretted having been angry at all the second her expression shifted. When he'd questioned her, she relaxed -- but an expression of a sad sort of perplexion darkened her pretty face. She'd never known her mother; he could emphasize, as the Colibri Soul that had mothered his litter was not even a face in his mind, empty of childhood memorizes. He didn't know the touch of his parents, the methods in which he was raised, or if he'd even been happy. He didn't know what his world had been growing up. All he knew was that somewhere along the way, he'd raped and killed and ruined.
She mentioned a Jordan. The way the name rolled off her tongue, he knew this Jordan was -- had been -- something special. ...Why did that put him on edge? Something turned in his stomach. Who the hell was Jordan? What did he do, break her heart and leave? That fucking...
His thoughts had gone as such until she broke the silence she began when she continued. Everything she said, everything she mentioned about changing to a new person and becoming unrelated to who she was -- it was like a mirror. Jefferson's eye widened and stared in sheer, shocked disbelief, his lips tightened, his ears tipped in a mild distress as if he couldn't believe what she was saying. I became a mother. He'd just "become" a father. The second she looked away, he snapped back to reality and straightened himself, though the shock and awe was no different. Shame crossed her face, darkened her delicate features, brought dirtiness to something beautiful. His brows furrowed. Jefferson didn't want to see her like that: shamed, sad, embarrassed. Every time he'd shouted at her, it had been what he'd both wanted and didn't want; the second such a reaction came from something he hadn't done, it broke his heart because he couldn't do a thing. Granted, had he been the one to make her so upset, he could have killed himself for doing it in that blind fury of his. However, none of this crossed his mind.
Jefferson might have stepped forward to comfort her, might have brushed against her in the way she did he, but he didn't. He stood stiffly on his three legs, the fourth slightly bent off the ground as always, as the ocean waves wriggled up between his toes. He stood like a rock in the water: unmoving, unyielding, untouched. However, his emotions fought internally, compassion creased his face like heartbreak, and he couldn't seem to move. Now that that name -- Jordan -- had been raised, Jefferson was suddenly afraid to touch her for different reasons than he had before. Beforehand, it was because he was the leader, and she was some nagging little girl who wouldn't leave him alone. But now... it was because he somehow didn't have the right to. Like it somehow wasn't his place or he couldn't bear to do it.
Realizing he'd been silent all the while, the brute turned his green-eyed gaze to the water. He didn't know what to say, that much was obvious. Instead, he glanced back up at her with a more collected gaze -- a most shocking one, in fact. As if the masks were gone and the masquerade over, it happened.
His other eye opened.
It was sightless and a terribly pale color, but it was open. Jefferson looked at her with both eyes, though he saw through only one; the brute suddenly had no energy to hold it shut as he always did, had no drive to keep that flaw hidden from the girl who already knew everything about him and wasn't worth withholding anything else from. He hadn't opened that eye in months, and never before around someone else. Hell, not even Addison had seen, and she'd lived with him and crawled into his bed on multiple nights of nightmares and terrors. He breathed in, he breathed out. "Who was Jordan?" The cyclops said quietly, raising his head. He spoke gently, encouragingly; it sounded like something she hated to admit. She'd made him do it, and though he hadn't admitted it... somehow, it had helped. It was her turn.
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Geneva stood with her head hung low. She refused to meet his brilliant emerald gaze. It seemed to much, to shameful, to encounter whatever would play out in his features. He was silent for several long moments. She let the sound of the surf surround her, felt the breeze against her face. And still, she refused to look, refused to see what might be there on his face. She didn't know what she was afraid of exactly - his condemnation, his compassion, his absolute apathy. She wasn't sure was she wanted. Although she didn't want to see a reflection of her own feelings on his face. That would undo her. She finally found the courage to look at him, and found that he had turned his head and gaze out to see. What must be going through his mind? He was probably disgusted with her. She looked at the scars lining his body. What stories did those markings tell? It was quite easy to see that his life hadn't been an easy one. And now Geneva too held scars across her body, but the wounds that would undo her dwelt inside her. And she had revealed to him her greatest vulernability. There would be no turning back for her, at this point, a breaking point or a point of new growth. She wasn't sure. And finally, the Patriarch looked back at her. She held her breath, her head hung low and her tail between her legs as she waited to see the way he would react. And he shocked her, first with the solemn look on his face, and then he opened his eye. Geneva blinked her lime green eyes, her ears lifting off her head as she stared at him for a moment, closed mouth and trembling. She had never imagined that he could open his eye, and she tried her best not to stare. It was obvious that he could not see out of it - its color was so different from the vibrant green of his other eye. But still, he looked at her, unflinching. Jefferson might be half blind, but the gray wolfess felt as though he could see right through her. Right through everything - the way she tried to make him open up, her quiet moments, her internal pain - his simple gaze stripped away everything, every layer until there was just simply...her, with her quiet ways and her hopeful heart. She wondered what he would see. His words came, but she didn't feel that crushing weight this time. For now, there was only honesty. A hollow sense of heartache lingered, but she no longer felt as though she was pouring salt in her own wounds by bringing this up. Now, things simply were the way they were...and there was no way for her to change them. "Jordan was my mate," her soft voice was steady as she spoke, "He died last October."
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He should have been affected more, but he wasn't. The first tinges of anger and confusion had already passed when the name first appeared; expectancy had dulled out excitement and anxiety, and all that was left at her admission was a quiet, modest gaze. Her reaction to his two-eyed gaze was expected as well, trembling and gaping, and the cyclops could only drop his head to the water and heave a quiet, silent sigh. His eye shut once more; he hadn't intended to open it, anyway. Jefferson never intended to open the ugly thing. He made for a terrible monster: all looks and sounds, but no bite behind it. He couldn't even scare away a little girl.
All at once, the sting of seasalt on his wounds surged and the hybrid winced, temporarily losing his footing on his and making a small splash as he stumbled a step to the side. He held his bad leg higher, pulling it from the water's venom as much as he could. The raw, barely healed wounds that his son had gifted him with danced all over the useless leg; the sting of the salt had been repressed and ignored beforehand, but like the usual rawness of his emotions that resulted from conversations with Geneva, he had a difficult time containing the pain once more. Gritting his teeth, the brute spared her no glance and instead turned to the shore, walking a worsened limp towards the sand. "Sucks to be him," the idiot bitterly replied over his shoulder, soon collapsing his whole body down into the sand.
Head placed over his good leg, the brute closed his eyes and breathed away the sharp bolts in his leg. The cyclops forced himself not to think further into her words, and simply repeated them instead, as if trying to clarify. "So the guy croaked and you came here with a pup thinking things would be better," he grumbled, eyes still closed. "To make it worse, you came here after a while still working at it." Jefferson scoffed, moving his head just barely to look at her. "What were you trying to find in a place like this?" Because you won't find it here.
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Sucks to be him. Geneva's ears peeled back against her skull as the Patriarch turned from her, obviously in pain as he wobbled on to the sandy shore. She felt her heart beat begin to grow louder, the volume of it competing with the sound of the surf. She felt it in the dryness of her throat, and the emptiness of her mouth. She stared at his back as he made his way to the sand, collasping to the ground. She felt her face contort, felt the harsh edges of words, jagged and acidic, burning on her tongue. She had opened up, had shared the hollow ache in her heart, the thoughts that sat like icy rings around her mind, casting a constant shadow over everything she did. And he had dismissed it, and not only dismissed it, but callously. She sucked in a harsh breath, her expression shuddered and her eyes steely and flat as she regarded his back. She supposed she should have known better, to have been fooled into sharing. She had felt at peace briefly, had felt as though she was in a safe zone with Jefferson. But it still burned. She had overestimated her tolerance, her patience regarding this subject. Had she misunderstood his tone? She wasn't certain. Still, those careless words rang in her head, pounding her skull to the point of pain. Her expression hardened, a scowl imprinted on her features, a foreign movement of her facial muscles that froze her features into a look that felt strange. She had rarely felt anger, but now it burned, skin deep, bone deep. She walked stiffly out of the water to stand over the prone Patriarch, her mouth turned downward in distaste, disgust. She had a moment to blame herself for this situation - he had hurt her feelings, and this definitely wasn't the worst thing that had ever happened to her. But in this moment, she didn't care. She felt wounded, and instead of hiding, shying away, she felt herself rise above the insecurity. She didn't stop to consider what he might feel. For an awful moment, she didn't care. "Oh, I don't know," she hissed. "I guess I just had this burning, unfulfilled desire to have a confounding idiot talk down to me and belittle my feelings. Guess I'm just sick that way."
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Well, the mission was a success. One way or another, that tiny bit of him that had been wanting to prove he could both frighten and anger her down to the core was subsequently satisfied, and at the same time, he did feel a little guilt. In fact, the guilt was a bit more than he'd expected; Jefferson had pictured himself laughing, laughing like the ignorant fool he was, and finally being released of the gray-furred pest that so badly wanted to make him into something more than a monster. He'd expected that once those emotions had surfaced in her -- hate, disgust -- she would finally let him be, move on with her life, and leave him behind. As she stared down at him with piercing eyes colder than he'd ever seen in the girl, he realized what he'd done had been for the greater good. Scaring her away now would free her from her self-inflicted contempt. It would free her from the bind she was trying to form with a creature who deserved no such attention, no such kindness. She had nothing to gain from him; perhaps she was beginning to realize it.
"Yeah, maybe you are," he hissed back, eye thinning. Her anger upfront was undeniably overwhelming; Jefferson was accustomed to a gentle-hearted, sway-with-the-wind Geneva, not one whose fury actually sent chills down his spine and lodged lumps in his throat. Yes, he felt guilty. Yes, it would be worth it. Crimson Dreams had far more to offer a kind soul like Geneva's than Jefferson or any of the other hopeless dreamers of Phoenix Valley. She'd always have a place there, even if she left... even if Jefferson said she didn't, he knew she always would.
The brute pushed himself up gradually from his hinds to three legs, scarred leg nearly numbed with sting and bite. He faced her eye to eye, undauntedly pointing emerald green against olive. "You're angry," he growled. "So the confounding idiot was right all along. I warned you." ...Too much. He'd warned her too much. He'd told her to go away, to leave him be. His eye turned to the ocean gravely, still hearing its devious tempts and yearnings, but the cyclops only cringed and lowered his head. Some day, but not today.
He turned as he always did, facing his gaze away from her and starting away in his three-legged retreat. "Go home, Geneva," he muttered darkly. The idiot's heart ached, his stomach twisted, his jaws clamped. His voice didn't want to speak. And yet he did not know why... he did not know why his mood had so quickly changed again at the mere mention of her mate's name. He'd been shocked, awestruck before -- and then suddenly dragged in the dirt upon his own falling. "There's nothing left for you to find here." Or in Phoenix Valley.
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Geneva gritted her teeth against his careless tone. He seemed to brush off her anger as if it was nothing. But it was something, to her. It was turning her inside out. All the colors around them seemed sharp and in contrast with one another. Everything had a bright edge. And all she could do was sit and grit her teeth and try not to do something that she would regret. And at the same time, a large part of her didn't care if there would be regrets. Something had broken open inside of her, like a floodgate, and suddenly the world was technicolor again and she could taste the edge of the wind on her face and feel everything from the grains of sand beneath her feet to her teeth against the inside of her mouth. All she could do was feel. It was the first time in nearly a year, she had just let go of everything. Every little memory that held a mournful song sang through her bones. Everything she had been holding back, holding in check, tightly against her chest to keep herself from being hurt again, was suddenly out in the open. And she was furious and elated and taken aback all at the same time. Geneva had worked too hard to patch herself up, pull herself together into some semblance of control. She had picked up the pieces of her shattered life, and the woman left standing in the ashes had been someone she hadn't recognized. Restraint had been her greatest ally, and her greatest enemy. Geneva narrowed her eyes at the one-eyed man. She was tired of running, tired of taking cover from the things that might frighten or hurt her. She had learned, and should have known, that no matter how far or fast she could run, everything would catch up with her. There was no such thing as a safe place. Time might not heal the wounds, but she'd be damned if she would live her life in the shadow of her experiences. And she'd be doubly damned if she would let this ingrate order her around. She walked boldly into his path, not bothering with restraint or second thoughts. She invaded his personal space, bumping her nose against his, cutting off his line of retreat. "Perhaps I should go," she said breathily, still angry, still teeming and confused and unwilling to walk away from whatever reason. "But then there'd be no one to teach a pompous, vacuous idiot manners and people skills."
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He wanted to be left alone. He wanted to be left to complain to himself, wallow in his misery, contemplate horrible deeds and never move to start them. He wanted to be left alone so he would be treated like the monster he was, deserving no compassion or companionship. The brute was dangerous; he'd raped and killed and thought nothing of it once, and those he surrounded were always at some sort of risk. He could not give up Phoenix Valley; Iskata had entrusted the lands to him in her stead, and even if he was some sort of terrible, unforgivable freak, Jefferson knew honor. He knew trust, but he hardly practiced it. He knew kindness, but he hardly gave himself room to show it before realizing that he'd gotten too soft.
The three children he had met had been at least a year, meaning that his history of rape and killing were still in a recent past. Perhaps he was different now, perhaps Geneva had managed to break some of his walls one way or another. He might have admitted to it. But what she did, what she constantly tried to do, wasn't worth it. Needless to say, after such an episode, Jefferson had earnestly expected her to turn her back and leave. He'd expected it to be that easy... or that hard. But like she always did, like he should have expected her to do, she intercepted him once again. Her stance was so uncharacteristically bold that she did not flinch when they bumped noses, nor did she make the means to avoid the collision. Jefferson stumbled back, eye wide with irritated disbelief.
The brute's first reaction was a noisy groan and an overdramatic rolling of the eye. "Dear God, when does it end?!" His neck bristled and the idiot resisted every urge to bare his fangs and snarl, now knowing well that scaring her away wasn't even worth the effort. "You've got your shit, and I've got mine. Isn't that good enough for you?" He sighed and fell limply onto his haunches, throwing his head back and glaring ruthlessly at the sky. His voice dropped to a normal level, however, and he heaved a long sigh before speaking. "All our stories are the same. We live, we forget, we regret, we die. Sometimes you love, and sometimes you don't." He thought of DaVinci quickly and his complicated, troublesome love affair. After a pause to breathe, the brute dropped his eye to the girl again. "You're a lover, Geneva; I'm not. You can't change who I've turned out to be. We can't all end up happy." Emerald pierced.
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She had wound him up again, and he went off spinning into another tirade. She felt some small sense of satisfaction as he lifted his gaze to contemplate the sky. At the same time she felt a helpless frustration. He seemed as mixed up, as confused as she felt. He, too, was helpless against the tide of emotion, the pull of it. She felt a small stretch of relief to know that she wasn't the only one who struggled for control. There was a difference between them though. Geneva hid from herself by trying to control how close anyone got to her, she tried to keep form getting hurt. Jefferson might have started out doing the same. The difference was that he was suffocating himself. Geneva recognized this, and it assuaged her anger somewhat. It made her feel a little quieter, gave her room to breath. She took a few, even breaths as he raised his voices. As always, she found his words ridiculous. She waited for him to calm, to quiet as the sound of her own heartbeat receded from her head. Anger was still a burning edge, but she felt less reactionary and more like a thinking being. She regarded Jefferson coolly as his words painted her as a fool once more, as he cast about words that seemed to contradict her outlook. As always, he frustrated her, and as always, she would meet him head on. She waited, and added a bit of her own dramatics as she rolled lime green eyes at the man, ignoring the piercing gaze, refusing to be pinned by the emerald stare. Are you quite finished?" she asked, still a bite to her words, though she had noticeably calmed. She regarded him for a moment. "It isn't good enough for me, and it isn't good enough for you either." She took another small step forward, a physical reflection of her mental state - she wouldn't back down on this, wouldn't give him the space to run. "You act like you have it all figured out, but you don't. You're a liar, Jefferson. You act as though this weak facade of mediocrity is not only all you have, but all that you could possibly have." Geneva exhaled noisily, staring at him intensely. "You act like love is beneath you, or too far above you - but that's a lie too. You've loved. You love. It is as plain as day, the way you are with Addison." She cocked her head to the side. "But go ahead, tell me I'm wrong, if it will make you feel better," she challenged.
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She shot back at him, and that was that. He was tired. He was so tired of fighting with her and all the explanations, all the chances she kept giving him and forcing him to believe. Her words, when angered, sounded so much like his own that it was sickening. Geneva knew harsh words. She knew how to cut with the use of language just as he did, although despite all the useless skill he had in it he'd only been able to break her this one time. It wasn't worth it. Jefferson acknowledged to himself that he didn't like her angry. More specifically, he didn't like to see her angry, and he didn't like to be the reason for it, either.
The brute lowered his head in some sort of defeat, inevitably giving up and allowing her the win. On any other day, he would have jumped right back at her as always and fought with her until the end, but too much had happened. His body ached, his leg still stung, and too many emotions and thoughts had flourished in his mind that he was losing his numbness to it all. Things were breaking through. Things were making him feel something other than anger and retaliate with pain or sadness instead of sarcasm. He was tired. Suddenly, he was so tired...
"Believe what you want," the Patriarch murmured. The brute unconsciously lowered himself to the sand once more, plagued with a type of weariness that had evaded him for days on end since the eyes and voices of his children had replaced insomnia with sleep. "I won't tell you you're wrong. I'm a liar... I know." Green eye already shut and lost to her, the Patriarch regained the typical numbness he knew so well, doubled only by the sudden need for sleep. As he always did when sleeping, Jefferson became... peaceful. "Be on your way, Geneva..." his voice slurred wearily.
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He was constantly surprising her. First, he lit a fire within her that blased through all her best intentions and now his demeanor had changed entirely. Wonders would never cease as long as she associated with Jefferson. It seemed as though his tiredness fell over him like a veil, and the fight was gone out of him. He had been trying to make her go, to leave him, and it semeed he hadn't wanted to fight with her at all. Still, she pressed on, stubborn as he could be within different situations.
She backed up a step or two as he hung his head, stunned that she had "won" this battle. She didn't feel as though she had won anything. Instead, she felt unsettled and confused as ever. He seemed to have that effect on her. She looked closely at him, his body language, and weariness was written in every line of his body. Geneva sighed, swallowing her anger with some difficulty.
"Fine," she said, her voice close to expressionlss. She didnt know what to make of him now, didn't know what to do. She felt a little awkward, which was something she had never felt around him before. Scared, startled, curious, and now infuriated, but never had she felt so self conscious around the one-eyed male. She just shook her head. "I'll see you soon," she said, both a promise and a plea. She didn't want to leave him like this, but there was nothing else to say. Perhaps they could start over, or forget this had happened. Maybe she didn't want to fcrget at all. This had been important. She couldn't make sense of it all.
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