[OTA] Just another game

[heartsthespades.livejournal.com]

He'd been laying low, keeping quiet for...several days, really, though he'd started giving serious consideration to Ceiro's offhand idea about a museum for the assorted in-storage artifacts he'd spent way too many years organizing and cataloging. And that was odd for him, to be giving credence to the ideas of a man he'd been planning to replace as long as he'd been king. But there it was.

For now, however, Jordan was down at the Four Suits, alone. He had bourbon, though not enough to get him drunk, of course; a pool cue and the table to himself. It was a good way to deal with some of the recent stress without looking like he was dealing with the recent stress - there was something satisfying about the sound of the balls knocking together, but to all the world it looked like he was just playing a game. And honestly, in a lot of ways? Jordan was always playing some sort of game.

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[heartsthespades.livejournal.com]

It's not hogging if no one's asked if they can play, like Cooper just did. Jordan looks up and gives their cook an assessing look. There was a time not that long ago when he wondered if Cooper had painted a target on his back.

Couldn't be too careful, after all. "Grab a cue," he says.

[heartstrine.livejournal.com]

If anyone has a target, it's Cooper from that brother of his. He's been an Eight for two years now, and he's happy where he is. Wren might steal the kitchens from him if he goes up any higher.

"Loser buys the next round," Cooper says as he pulls out a cue, careful to use his right hand. He's not entirely ambidextrous, but back in the old days when he was a kid and thought being a Royal would be the greatest thing since Vegamite he'd perfected all sorts of tricks to hide his left-handedness.

All in good fun. See if Jordan's been paying attention.

[heartsthespades.livejournal.com]

Jordan can honestly say he's not entirely sure what Eight Hadyn has his eye on. It might even be a Nine, which would be...annoying, unless Jordan gets to Ten first.

"Sounds like a deal," Jordan says, and merely lifts an eyebrow when Cooper picks up a cue with his right hand. He's fairly sure he's seen Cooper play tennis with his left hand.

[heartstrine.livejournal.com]

"Your table, Mate. Your break." Cooper racks the balls. "How's that brother of yours? Recovering alright?"

[heartsthespades.livejournal.com]

Jordan circles the table before bending to break, glancing back up at Cooper. "You know Hadyn wouldn't ever complain," in public, at least, "but I think he is. Itchy hit him hard, of course." Jordan was probably more worried about that than the bullet wound and the coma.

[heartstrine.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Jordan. He came to the pub to escape the doom and gloom and try to forget that fixtures in his life are suddenly gone. He heaves a sigh.

"Itchy delivered me. Frankie was off Deck. Hard to think of the place without him. And Lance...." He'd wanted to be Lance when he was a kid.

He cocks one hip, leaning a bit on his pool cue and watches the break. It had been almost twenty years, but he still remembers what looking out for a kid brother had been like.

"He'll be apples with you keeping an eye on him."

[heartsthespades.livejournal.com]

Jordan just lives to burst bubbles, Cooper. He sinks a ball on the break, and keeps going.

"He was an institution." One of the few who didn't eye him with intense dislike and distrust when he'd arrived in the Hearts, any grief over Dwayne battened down. As ordered.

"He'll give me gray hairs, I don't have any doubt."

[heartstrine.livejournal.com]

Hearts liked to believe they were happy and carefree and nonjudgmental, but they had their prejudices and preconceived ideas same as anyone.

"S'what kid brothers are for, Mate. Answering the phone before you when your girl calls, tattling to mum and dad, and grey hairs. All part of the package." One corner of his mouth lifts in a wry smile. "Wish to hell I still had mine around."

All this dying was making him morose. Cooper takes a healthy swallow of his beer. The poiint of coming down here was to get away from that rot.

[heartsthespades.livejournal.com]

"That's why I always hid my phone from Hadyn," Jordan says as he sets up another shot. "Self-preservation."

He shot the ball before speaking again. "I feel a little bad that I never managed to have a relationship with Itchy myself," he says. But then, when they met, Jordan wasn't keen on letting anyone in. Some people might say that's never really changed.

[heartstrine.livejournal.com]

Cooper's lips twist thoughtfully. Itchy had a tendency to be...judgmental...sometimes. Not something a teenaged boy ever really appreciates.

"Can't say I had much of one myself. I remember a lot of bloody lectures, though." He'd been a wild child back then, full of himself and with an eye for the sheilas.

And angry, ready to challenge the entire Deck after Jack died, pissed at the world and everyone in it until his mum and dad threw up their hands in disgust and pushed him on his grandparents.

[heartsthespades.livejournal.com]

He had been, and Jordan was clear-headed enough to admit that Hadyn - only eight, cute, shellshocked - had been easier to like than a sullen teenager. And was still easier to like at twenty.

Well, he supposed he had his own advantages. "Heh. But I doubt you had to deal with his babysitting-as-abstinence program, growing up in the Clubs." Not that Jordan could say he did, either. His mother had not been impressed with that idea, to say the least.

[heartstrine.livejournal.com]

"Babysitting-as-abstinence? What's that? Take care of someone and start feeling fraternal instead of interested? Can't say that I ever did. Mum just took me into town and showed me where to find rubbers and dad knocked me in my noggin and said it was on me if I got killed by some girl's fire-breathing dad."

[heartsthespades.livejournal.com]

"Mm, no, making you babysit so that you never want to have sex, in case you ended up one of those." He shrugged. "I don't think it worked as well as he would have liked."

[heartstrine.livejournal.com]

"Right, because babies make a teenage male's hormones plummet." Not.

[heartsthespades.livejournal.com]

"I'm pretty sure he credited us with more common sense than we had." And finally he misses. "Your turn."