Together

106. It kills me

Are you going to age with grace?
Are you going to leave a path to trace?
-Bastille

Shoupe heads into the house, JJ trailing behind him much like a puppy with his tail between his legs. He tosses the keys to Shoupe's personal truck on the counter. They'd driven separate since Shoupe was working. Not that he was anymore.

Once again, Shoupe decided that his shift was abruptly over upon seeing the condition of his kid. He stops in the kitchen, grabbing a glass and pouring himself a tall water rather mechanically. He's not even thirsty, he just needs something to calm down with.

JJ sheepishly gnaws at his lip, leaning against the table, hands gripping the edge, while Shoupe looks forward, choosing to not look at him.

"You want to tell me what you were thinking?"

JJ looks up but the deputy is staring forward. He doesn't know what to say. What could he possibly say that would excuse his actions? He got Kie hurt, he provoked a fight with Luke, practically got the shit kicked out of him, and Luke was being sent to jail. It's all too much and he doesn't have a clue where to begin.

Shoupe takes a measured breath. "Do you not have any regard for your own well being?" he demands. JJ opens and closes his mouth, but the words still aren't there. "I just don't get it, JJ."

"What?" he asks, finding his voice.

"How you can continue to fall back with him," he snaps. "You tell me you're afraid of him, that you want nothing to do with him, and then a week later I'm hearing about how you followed him?" Shoupe's tone is incredulous. "What is it that you actually want, cause I'm having a real hard time understanding this behavior."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"You keep seeking him out, JJ!" Shoupe exclaims. "Look, at your face," he gestures. "I just don't understand how he can keep doing this to you and you just keep going back."

"I'm not."

"I want you here," Shoupe says, ignoring JJ's denial. "You know that. But if this isn't what you want, you need to be honest with me. I'm not gonna hold anything against you."

JJ had grown in his trust and affections with the deputy. They had forged a bond that Shoupe didn't think would be broken, but there had to be something he was missing. He couldn't get around the fact that JJ consistently lied to him about his interactions with Luke, and kept putting himself directly in the man's path.

He was beginning to think that the relationship they had was preventing JJ from being honest about what he actually wanted from Luke. That he thinks that he has to choose. That Shoupe would reject him if he said he wanted something from Luke.

"That's not—," JJ starts, growing frustrated, mouth agape. "I'm not trying to be with him," he continues to deny. "You just don't let me handle shit with him."

"Handle him?" Shoupe gawks. "Every time you're alone with the man you come back looking like you were jumped—"

"It's my choice!" JJ yells. "He came looking for me and you just stepped in and took over." His gripe with the deputy over that hadn't even begun to be touched on. He let it go because he had a workaround for Shoupe's protectiveness, but now that that plan was done and over with might as well step into it. "I wanted to handle him on my own and you just won't let me."

"Because it's not your job to protect yourself any more, JJ!"

"I know!" he screams. "God, you've made that so fucking clear, I get it. But this isn't about you." He starts to explain. "I needed to let him go my way, and I couldn't do that with you, you're just..." He doesn't even know how to express it. "You care too much."