Somebody that you used to know [Jake]

[Morgan Tonaya]

Jordan had been a bit deprived of the dog part for the few months that Morgan was adjusting to his regained eyesight. The sun sometimes really hurt his eyes, even with sunglasses. The waning light of dusk however, was no problem at all. It was a bit late for other dogs to be out to play, but Jordan seemed to enjoy the company of his human and his neon-green tennis ball.

“Bring it back Jor! Good boy! Good boy~!” Morgan cooed, catching his dog as he leapt into his lap and knocked him from his sitting position and into the grass. Jordan’s training as a seeing-eye dog made him a dream off the leash, and so it lay asked underneath a large oak tree. Morgan ruffled at Jordan’s ears as he took the ball away. The dog yipped excitedly, his butt waggling in the air as
Morgan poised to throw the ball again.

The ball sailed through the air and Jordan shot after it, bringing a wide smile to Morgan’s face. The dog began to bark, but suddenly veered off the course of the ball. Morgan squinted and pushed the frame of his glasses up on his nose, quickly rising to his feet.

“Jordan! Heel!” he called, jogging to catch up with the dog and whatever distraction it had found.

[Jacob Lawrence]

A free man once again, Jake had been spending a lot of his time with the dogs. The months away from them had been difficult and while he knew they were only receiving the best care, it didn't mean that Jake felt any better about leaving them. And that, my friend, is why he was laying in a heap with all four of the the dogs on the cool grass. Beta was laying on his chest, his huge ears splayed out, while Ein and Gabe were on either side of him, and Buccaneer was curled around his head. Jake was smiling ear-to-ear.

He didn't care if it was getting late, that the sun was dipping below the horizon, or that the normal hustle and bustle of the park had quieted down. He was quite happy just laying with his beloved dogs. (And yes, he was talking to them too. They liked that.) However, his pack of four suddenly became a pack of four when Omega Jordan came barreling over. His bark roused the other dogs, who started to wiggle and bark in return. When Beta leapt from his chest, nearly knocking the wind out of him, Jake sat up to greet the newcomer, cupping the dog's face and rubbing his ears. "Hey there good boy."

But where there was Jordan, there was bound to be Morgan. A sudden tightness formed in Jake's chest, a mixture of anticipation and dread. The last time he'd ran into Morgan it had been a fluke, in this exact same place, but he'd panicked and lied to keep the man from knowing it was him. Jake would have been lying if he'd said he didn't want to see Morgan again, but he was still cautious as he looked up at the quickly approaching blonde man.

Something was different, Jake realized far too late. Jordan wasn't wearing his harness and Morgan was running towards him deliberately. If that meant that he could see again, then Jake really had nothing to hide behind. And that made his stomach turn uneasily. Swallowing thickly, Jake looked up at Morgan as he came closer, eventually offering up an unsure "Hi."

[Morgan Tonaya]

Jordan had just found the one other person in the dog park. Of course. He had a knack for doing that. Morgan slowed his jog as he approached the other man, still smiling genially. It was only when his face came in to focus that Morgan's face fell completely.

Jordan had managed to find the only other person in the world Morgan had sworn he never wanted to see again.

"Jake." Morgan greeted stupidly as Jordan obeyed his command nervous, coming to sit under his outstretched hand. The dog was clearly excited and didn't stay still for long. He was in contrast to his stock still owner, who was frozen in the spot.

"What the fuck are you doing here?"

He wasn't a cursing man, since his momma had some delicate sensibilities and she didn't teach him to talk that way...but there were some cases where words came before thinking did. Morgan was thinking about a lot of things--- how did he get here? How long had he been here? Did Levi know? Did the police know? Where on earth had he been?--- but none of them were which words he should use.

[Jacob Lawrence]

That sealed it then. Morgan had his sight back (which although gave Jake the slightest hint of relief, still wasn't enough to overpower everything else that he was feeling) and he'd recognized Jake for who he was and now it really was impossible to escape. His hands fell into his lap as Jordan moved to Morgan's side, having to hold back a flinch at the biting tone in Morgan's voice.

He had every right to be angry, after all. Not that it made Jake feel any better to think that, but it was true. "I was laying with the dogs... but that's obviously not what you meant." Jake, still off guard just from being near Morgan, cursed himself for that brainless remark. "I... I didn't want to run away anymore." He finally said after a long stretch of silence.

His hand came to rest on the back of Ein's neck while the dane wagged eagerly, his thick tail thumping loudly against the grass. There was so much that Jake had thought he would say to Morgan if he had the chance, but looking at him like this it was as if the words were miles beyond his reach. "I'm sorry, Morgan." Standing up so as to be even with Morgan, Jake's fingers curled and uncurled at his sides.

[Morgan Tonaya]

And he had the nerve to make jokes.

Before everything that happened, Morgan couldn't have been mad. He could only have been relieved or saddened, probably both. On some level, he was both of those things. But being in that dark so much had changed him enough that he absolutely hated to be lied to. It made him so angry.

"Yeah I bet it gets tiring after a while." Morgan snapped back, his mouth turning down in a heavy frown. His eyes squeezed shut. Christ why did he have to look like that? So forlorn?
He'd obviously been spending too much time around the dogs.

He was picking up their tricks.

"Don't bother apologizing. You already did your damage." He grunted, scratched Jordan's head absently, and looked down at Jake. "How long have you been in town? Have you contacted Levi?" Morgan asked distantly.

Of all the things he thought would happen...this was not one of them.

Next thing his father would call him wanting to make amends.

[Jacob Lawrence]

Jake turned his head away just a little when Morgan retorted, but tried to hide it by instead scrubbing his hand over his face. If it had been rough dealing with Levi's frustration, Morgan's was nearly heartbreaking.

But Jake had sworn that he'd find some way to right his wrongs, even if here, right now wasn't exactly how he'd planned to go about it.

"A while." Jake replied honestly. He was done lying. "I bought a house a while ago." Scratching at the back of his head, Jake looked down at his feet. "But I... haven't been staying there the past few months." He wasn't sure if he should just come out and say he'd been locked up for those months, but if Morgan inquired further, Jake wouldn't try to hide it.

Nodding, he continued. "I spoke with Levi the other day." That had gone better than he'd expected, actually. He wasn't holding his breath for this encounter though. Especially not the comment that was like a knife right in Jake's chest. He'd done his damage indeed, that was overwhelmingly obvious in the way Morgan spoke with him.

"Please, Morgan. I know what I did was wrong. I've been trying to fix things, I'd do anything to take back what I've done."

[Morgan Tonaya]

Morgan mulled that information over for a moment. There was no way he could still be on the run and be able to buy a house. Pilot Ridge was a small town, and the police would know his face. He must have served time. Though the logic was fairly sound, Morgan didn't ask. He figured it would come up eventually.

Sighing heavily, Morgan shook his head in distress. He couldn't decide if it was better or worse that Jake and Levi had spoken. Jake went on. Something about doing anything. About knowing he was wrong. But Morgan's fists were balling up and could barely hear anything.

Without warning he hauled a cross punch right into Jake's face, watching with both horror and sick satisfaction as the other man's head cracked to the side. "There is no way you could ever take back what you did to those kids!" Morgan hissed quietly. "You kidnapped Levi and Niko...God even knows what you did to Jesse and Fiona." His hand throbbed with a blossoming bruise. "That kind of damage doesn't come undone, Jake. It just doesn't."

[Jacob Lawrence]

Jake only caught a glimpse of Morgan's fist out of the corner of his eye before it crashed into his jaw. He might have thought how familiar this was as when he'd ran into Cobalt, if he'd not been so focused on how much that hurt and how surprising it was that Morgan of all people had hit him. He had every right to, after what Jake had done to him, but the significance was not lost on him.

Swearing under his breath, Jake rubbed at his jaw. He could taste blood, but made no comment. Jake knew he deserved that and so much worse. The dogs, on the other hand, barked and whined, Gabe even growled, but with a wave of his hand Jake was able to settle them down. Ein moved to sit protectively on his owner's feet, and Jake almost smiled... until Morgan started again.

It was the truth, Jake knew that, and it hurt just as bad to hear it from someone else's mouth as much as it hurt to hear it in his own thoughts. "You think I don't know that, Morgan? I hate what I was, what I did. I regret it every moment of every day. They were just kids... they didn't deserve any of that." There was no defiance in Jake's voice, no fire. It was flat with the knowledge that what he'd done was absolutely wrong. "But I can't just accept that nothing can be done. I can't just turn my back and pretend it didn't happen. I have to do something."

Desperation was apparent in his voice, in his eyes that had finally found Morgan's face again. He wanted so badly to believe there was a way he could fix this, he wanted to prove that he wasn't a bad person, but more than all that he wanted Morgan to understand.

[Morgan Tonaya]

Morgan was livid that Jake was a limp noodle through all of this. He just took what was coming to him. What he deserved. But he didn't seem convicted, just tired.

"I think you should never forget it!" Morgan huffed, shoving his likely-injured hand into his pocket. "I think it should torture you and I think it should change you." He shook his head. "You don't have to pretend it never happened, but turning your back certainly isn't the way to go and that's exactly what you did. You turned your back on them."

Morgan closed his eyes and got to the point of what they were really talking about. "You turned your back on me. From the very beginning, you lied to all of us. And you think you can just come back in to town like nothing is wrong?" Looking Jake over with incredulity, Morgan continued. "How can you go out knowing you might run in to Levi? Or the Campbells?" Morgan gestured out to the city, the smallest town he'd ever known. Almost everybody knew everybody, and if that wasn't the case then everyone knew someone who did. "Worse: Me."

Morgan let his hand drop to his side. Jordan whined and pawed at him, laying down on the ground with his ears plastered against his head. Something clicked in his mind then as he looked down at his dog. "...You did run in to me. Right here. A few months ago." Morgan looked at Jake, his eyes glossed with tears. "You lied to me. Again."

[Jacob Lawrence]

Feeling heavy, as if he were carrying the world on his shoulders, Jake could only stand there helplessly. This was he'd told himself over and over that he'd have to face, that he would face, in order to make things right. He thought he'd prepared for it, but hearing those words coming from Morgan was something he couldn't brace himself for no matter how he tried.

"Then if I can fix it and I can't run away, what can I do, Morgan?" His palms turned up, his hands lifting only to fall by his side again. He sighed, turning his head and spitting a mouthful of blood rather ungracefully into the grass. "This is the only place that ever felt like home to me." He said quietly after a moment of looking around.

Setting his hand on top of Ein's head, Jake closed his eyes. "I never wanted to lie to you, Morgan. I wanted to keep you safe. If you had known, if they had known... I don't want to think what would have happened to you. And I realize it was selfish of me, to stay with you with MSAD always over my shoulder, but I loved you Morgan. That wasn't a lie." And to be honest, Jake still loved him. And it was absolutely heartbreaking to feel this distrust, this contempt, and to see the hurt that he'd caused in Morgan.

Seeing the tears in Morgan's eyes, Jake clenched his jaw despite the shooting pain that arced through it. Of course he would figure it out now. "You were happy. You were smiling. I panicked... I didn't want to ruin that." He pressed his lips into a thin line.

[Morgan Tonaya]

Morgan was shaking his head, his mouth twisted his disgust. "You have to fix you, Jake. There's no fixing what you did." His eyes flicked to Jake's. Through his glasses his gaze was cool, but not frigid. He couldn't bring himself to be as cruel as he wanted to be. He couldn't bring himself to say something that stung as much as what Jake had done. He would not lie. "But there's always hope for someone who means to change."

Hope. Morgan couldn't believe it, but he hadn't really lost it after all the things that had happened. Underneath the quickly thinning layer of angst and anger, he truly had some hope for Jake. Truthfully, he'd always hoped he would come back, that he would change.

That he would stop lying.

"You're doing a pretty good job of ruining it by lying, Jake." Morgan pointed out harshly. "If you want anyone to believe you about anything, you'll have to start relying on the truth. Panic or not."

[Jacob Lawrence]

"I'm not lying. Not now. Not anymore." Jake shook his head, his voice firm, resolute. He wasn't going to lie anymore. Not to Morgan, not to himself, not to anyone. Lying had gotten him nowhere in life, it had only caused trouble and problems that he still didn't have a way to solve. Even more profound than that was that it had hurt the people he cared about the most: Levi and Morgan.

But since that unexpected meeting with Morgan those months ago, Jake had truly dedicated himself to fixing himself. "I turned myself in to the police shortly after that." He admitted finally, only the third time he'd done so. Not that he'd really had that much opportunity, considering there weren't many people that he interacted with. Ella was about it and she had only mocked him for it. Levi had been more worried about his dog. He wasn't sure how Morgan would respond to it, but he didn't expect the fact that he'd served time would make anything better. But honesty was what Morgan wanted and it was something that Jake was more than willing to give.

"And after I got out, I contacted Levi. I had to keep my promise to him." Jake was steadily becoming more aware of the ache in his jaw, the adrenaline from earlier already starting to wear off. "He was so happy to see Buccaneer." He looked at the aussie who was sitting obediently at his side, his ears perked up at the sound of his name. It was superfluous information in the long run, but Levi's grudging acceptance of what had happened had been a major milestone to Jake.

Fixing Morgan with an earnest look, Jake said, "I really have been trying, Morgan."

[Morgan Tonaya]

Running out of steam, Morgan withdrew his hand from his pocket and scrubbed it over his face. His knuckles were a dark red, proving once more that he was going to be seriously bruised. He seemed so sincere. He'd always seemed so sincere. How was Morgan supposed to discern when he wasn't?

"You went to prison?" Morgan asked in a strangely neutral way. He no longer seemed hostile, but he wasn't being remarkably supportive either. He was cautiously curious, eager to know the truth. He was glad to hear that Jake had served his time, even if it probably wasn't long enough. It was something.

He felt his chest tighten when Jake eyed him with that look. It was so perfectly sincere, Morgan had to turn his face to the ground. He rubbed his thumb over his tattoo on his wrist, chewing the inside of his cheek. "Then hopefully it will all work out for you soon."

[Jacob Lawrence]

"For the past three months." Jake clarified, his eyes catching sight of Morgan's discolored knuckles. He didn't dare imagine what his face must have looked like. "I got sick of hiding. So I confessed." It was due to his willingness to cooperate and testify against other members of MSAD should they be located that his sentence had been cut short. Which he had been grateful for, he missed the dogs and Ella something awful while he'd been locked up.

When Morgan looked away from him, Jake felt his heart sink. As much as he had hoped and dreamed and wished that he could make things right with this man, it was becoming more and more apparent that it wasn't likely going to happen. Gripping his own bicep with his hand, his fingers digging into the fabric of his sweater, he tentatively asked "You hate me, don't you?"

Jake didn't know what kind of an answer he was looking for. Maybe it was hope that this wasn't a lost cause, maybe it was some sort of finality that nothing he did or ever could do would get him what he wanted. Whatever it was, he was looking to Morgan with his brow furrowed, eager to have some sort of closure one way or the other.

[Morgan Tonaya]

"No." Morgan snapped suddenly, seemingly awfully intense for not being full of hatred. "No. I don't. And as much as I want to, that would make things, a lot easier, I never will." How could he? Morgan didn't think he'd ever really hated anyone. Not truly, anyway. And God, Jake just looked so broken...there was no way he could. "That's not who I am." Morgan ran his hands through the hair at the back of his head, drawing out the curls thoughtfully. "No matter what happens between us I'll never be that."

He let the 'us' slip. By all accounts there was definitely no 'us.' Despite himself, using it felt right.

"I just..." Morgan sighed and stooped, hugging Jordan close to keep from crying. "I'm just torn, Jake. I meant it when I said that I would always love you, but I also meant it when I said I didn't know who you were. Or are, for that matter." He buried his face in the side of Jordan's face as the excitable pooch tried to lick his face. "I thought you were gone forever. I was finally okay with it. And now you're back. What am I supposed to do?