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It's a Friday night, and Jack isn't working, which is weird. He's also invited Aaron over, which is additionally a little weird, AND he's mentioned that he's wanting advice of the religious short, which may in poor taste as it is 1, a Friday night and 2, the second night of Hanukkah.
But here we are.
Jack's not in PJs yet, or perhaps has changed into real clothes since he's going to be spending time with someone other than his housemates, and greets Aaron at the door with a nervous sort of smile. "Been a bit," he gestures the man in. "How's life been, for you?"
Aaron explains he'll be by after the services at Kol Tzedek, and then makes good on his promise. Fresh from placing second in Ninja Warrior, Aaron is back to being a humble salt of the earth rabbi who went through a heck of a midlife crisis on local television. It's been a heckuva year for the guy, in short.
Aaron steps inside and unwinds the scarf from around his neck, grinning affably. "Good, good. Got in shape. Cleared my head. Charges dropped. Did the American Ninja Warrior thing. You know. My dog now has more instagram followers than I do, but that's to be expected I guess."
"I caught a bit of it on TV, looked pretty epic. The Ninja Warrior thing, not you getting in shape or any of that," Jack clarifies. "Thanks for coming over, I know this is a...weird time. D'you want anything to drink, soda, water...?" He leads Aaron into the sizable kitchen.
"Water would be great, thanks! Trying to cut out the soda as much as I'm able." Aaron follows along after, unlooping his backpack and setting it down on a chair before leaning in the doorway to the kitchen to observe matters. "Enh," Aaron responds with a small shrug, "it's as good a time as any to help a friend. What can I do for you, Jack?"
Jack gets a glass from one of the cupboards next to the sink and flicks the water filter on the tap to 'on' before filling it up.
"Fancy sodas can sometimes trick my brain into thinking I'm having a beer - which is a hell of a lot better than actually having a beer. So we've always got some." He hands Aaron the glass and grabs a bottle of soda from the fridge for himself before gesturing for Aaron to follow him into the living room.
There's a pile of tangled cords in front of the TV from the various consoles and controllers, and Jack steps deftly around it to sink onto one corner of the couch with a quiet sigh.
"I uh...I don't...know where to start, honestly, I..." he twists open the soda and takes a drink, looking for all the world like he's having a beer. "I...have a history. I bad one. With religion. Christianity, I guess," he clarifies with a grimace. "And with Mearc and now Lux really starting to...I don't know, pursue? A more active religious life, it...I know it's different, but I don't feel it. Y'know? And...I don't know if you're even the right person to talk to, given you and Lux, but..." He sighs. "I dunno." Another grimace, and he takes another drink.
"I hear that a lot from a lot of people. Jewish, Christian, Muslim, atheist. It's not a unique experience or a unique opinion, and certainly not a dangerous opinion to anyone. So, you're safe and respected in your feelings right now." Aaron remains leaning in the doorway until he gets his drink, then turns back out to the living room to follow along, setting down on the couch opposite Jack.
"Nothing about Lux's or Mearcstapa's belief requires your agreement or participation. They don't lose anything from you being uninvolved in their religious practice. I'm sure they'd enjoy having you involved in how to keep a Jewish home and conversant in Jewish custom and practice. But learning that doesn't require any belief on your part."
"It's..mm. It's not about belief, so much, it's..." He shifts uncomfortably and takes another swig of his drink. "You say 'keep a Jewish home' and my brain hears 'keep a religious home' and then immediately translates that to 'keep a Good Christian home' and...I don't know how to separate the two. And I want to, like I said I know how different they are. I've made a point of learning that. And maybe this is just shit I need a therapist for. I just...don't know what to do, or how to fucking fix it. It's dredging up a lotta my past shit in a way that...I don't wanna dump on them, either. You know?"
"I don't know, actually. The Jewish home I grew up in was loving and supportive. I went to the best schools I could qualify for, had a good meal to come home to, a lunch to take to school, and for all that we were struggling and working class? My upbringing, but for a few incidents unrelated to how I was brought up, was pretty much ideal. I say that just so that you're aware my advice may not be the greatest on this score. Or at the very least, when I suggest something that sounds like a fantasy world alternate universe possibility when you hear it? It's because I literally don't know. Of course, that also means my advice will be unjaded and not colored by defeatism. So. As with all things, I can tell you what I think but it's ultimately going to be up to you to decide which way to go." Aaron takes a sip from his water and sets it aside, then turns back about to give Jack his full attention, his smile golden retriever guileless.
"It eh...wasn't like that for me, I'm sure you've figured that out." Jack's smile in return is a little bitter. "My parents weren't particularly religious one way or another, but my aunt and uncle..." Another grimace, another drink. "I realized I was trans in the goddamn Army, and it was still a better deal than living with them. But I do wanna hear what you think, 's why I asked you over." There's the slightest hint of a teasing tone at that last sentence, as Jack works to lighten the conversation just a little bit.
"Well. I can whip out the Judaism 101 book and tell you all about how to keep a Jewish home, but that's not going to be as important to Lux and Mearcstapa as asking them what having a Jewish home means to them. Maybe it's Shabbos night meals and lighting the candles. Maybe it's a particular high holidays tradition particular to their beliefs. Who knows! Whatever they've internalized and latched onto isn't likely to harm you, I figure, and you're unlikely to view it as a threat if it's coming from them. You can read a book or two and decide what sounds like something you'd like to try. You can come to services on occasion, or swing by the houses of other Jews in town for Shabbos dinner and see how different homes observe the mitzvot. It's not your home and you're free to leave whenever you want. If it's awful, if everything dances on your triggers, then you should probably start with a therapist, if you really desire for progress." Aaron gives a small, non-accusatory shrug. No harm in a little therapy.
"Yeah, therapy is um...mm. I know I should. Kinda hard to find one that hits the shit I need 'em to, and that I don't feel like I have to actively hide some of my shit from. Like, you know, the fact that I disappeared off the face of the planet for six weeks a few years ago, and I can do magic. You know." He gives Aaron a small smirk. "Mearc has invited me to go with him to some of the Friday night services, and...I want to, but...I'm afraid I won't be able to handle it. And I don't...wanna saddle Mearc with having to Deal With That."
"You could come in separate rides and leave separately whatever else happens. That way if you decide to duck out, he's not obligated to leave with you, and you're not pulling him away from anything important to him. If you both agree to the terms ahead of time, the fact that he chooses to stay shouldn't be held against him." Aaron offers another of his small 'these are just suggestions not orders' shrugs, his smile remaining reassuring. "And I do get what you mean about it being hard to find a suitable therapist, which is why I offer my rabbinical services to all of the supernaturals out there. I'm the next best thing. And I'll try to get better training to do a better job at it, but I need to be realistic about my approach and training. Which is grounded in Reform theology, not in psychiatric medical science."
"That's...mm. Yeah, I guess we could try that. But me having to leave is still something he's have to deal with, even if it didn't physically affect him, you know?" A beat, and Jack grimaces. "And driving my bike home while trying to hold off a panic attack sounds like...a bad idea. I know it's worst-case scenario, and yeah I could find a place to get it over with before going home, but...mmph. Makes me wonder how complicated is too complicated."
"I could ask Ziv to be ready to drive you home, they can use my car. I'm used to taking the trolley home from Kol Tzedek, anyway. So it's not even an imposition as far as that goes. And Ziv is one of the Lost's healers. Both body and mind. So they'd be ideal to be the one to drive you if that were necessary-- and before you suggest it would be an imposition on Ziv? It's a mitzvah!" Aaron lifts The Rabbinical Finger as he puts that capstone on his cunning plan. "Any way you look at it, Jack, the three of you are going to have to confront your inability to attend religious services of any sort, or your inability to confront your possible inability to confront your inability to attend religious services of any sort. And to my memory neither one of them ever listed a lack of courage or unwillingness to confront a hard obstacle as one of the reasons they love you. So I'd err on the side of the things about you they do admire."
Jack grimaces again. "I...don't really know how to confront it. Especially not in a way that won't just make shit worse, for me. That's...yeah. I don't know if straight-up exposure therapy's the way to go, right now. But I don't...really know what else to do."
"Well. I have a lot of ideas on that score, but all of them would involve suggesting different religious practices that you all could try together to say if they trouble you. But I also don't want to do that without involving Lux and Mearcstapa in the conversation. Since I'd be obligating them to run with my ideas, and that's not fair. You know?" Aaron drums his fingers on his knees a few times then puffs out a sigh, "The reason I am being so vague and talking around things is just... me not wanting to dictate practice. So we might try meeting with them, too? And if you want to keep it just you and me, maybe start small. See what observations they do at home that you can share in. Whatever that might be. And if you don't ever see any, get curious and ask. It may be that they don't do them around you because they don't want to upset you." He pauses then concludes, "For the record? Not wanting to go to a religious service in a stuffy old building? I get that. But it does make it harder for me to help script your engagement with it. You'll have to seek it out in your own life and engage with it on your own terms."
The Changeling runs a distracted hand through his hair. "Honestly the...concept of engaging at all, with any of it...the more I talk about it, the more my brain's just throwing red flags at me, which is obviously the opposite of what...I want. I think. I want...to not be pulled back into fuckin' high school whenever I so much as think about religion, but...I guess that's what's up, right now. Makes it hard to wanna make any plans to do...anything."
"Right. And by tradition, we're the ones that tell you to go away the first three times you ask to convert. So trust me when I tell you it's not like I'm trying to twist your arm and force you into doing anything you don't want to do. That's really what I keep coming back to. All questions of theology and psychiatry aside, ultimately this is a question of 'Is it worth it to know'. And what things it's worth knowing what things about. And what you're willing to risk to know them. It's about you, in short. You knowing yourself. My advice on that score would be to trust your gut, whatever your gut is telling you. But don't ignore what your heart has to say, either."
"I - no, I don't think you're trying to get me to do anything, that's..." Jack shakes his head. "Most of it's that I don't know my damn self, knowing what I feel and what I want, and what my gut says...'s shit I'm working on, but. Especially with stuff that hits my past, I...dunno." He curls up on the couch a little. "Just feel like all the choices are the wrong ones. Which isn't your fault."
"Speaking personally? A lot of the times I look back on, where I was hung up on a problem, paralyzed with indecision, not sure of what step to take to move forward with my life? It was actually just fear. And that once I was able to identify the fear, name the fear, I was able to ask for help in overcoming that fear. Not in general, but in specific. And then I found once I had moved forward, I wasn't even afraid of that thing any longer. I'm not saying this is just like that, but... if it is? Maybe considering what's lurking behind the obvious fear. What's the root of it. Because religion is just the wrapping your issues came in, not the contents of the box." Aaron sinks back into the couch, folding his hands onto his stomach to project ease and comfort rather than any sort of authority.
It's probably a good thing that Aaron can't see the way Jack's Mien is flickering and shuddering as he draws his knees up to his chest, as if to protect himself.
"Yeah, I...it...I don't. Really like to think about it. At all." He takes a few very conscious breaths.
"And my place here isn't to pry," Aaron observes with a small shrug of the shoulders. "So if you want to talk about this more, we can, but if you don't, then we should pick something else to talk about, or I should be getting out of your hair." His grin remains nonjudgmental. "I'm sorry you're going through this. I know it sucks. I wish I could just snap my fingers and make it stop, but I can't. And I'm sorry for that, too."
"Feel like I should talk about it, it messed me up in all kinds'a ways, but...dunno 'f I can." Whether he wants to or not doesn't seem to be part of the equation, here.
"And I mean it's like...I'm not special, for growing up in a place like that, I'm not the only one who has to deal with it. So. I'll deal."
"Then let's talk about it until you have to stop talking again," Aaron suggests, keeping Jack firmly in the driver's seat, here. "You're also not not special, either. You're the only one that went through precisely what you went through precisely the way you went through it. My grandfather used to say every man goes to his own war. And I didn't really get that until I'd bled for something. Sure. Lots of people went to that war, but none of them went to yours. And your unique experience deserves being offered a unique perspective."
"Mmm." It's a noncommittal noise, like Jack doesn't really believe it. "I...dunno what to say, really, my aunt and uncle were shitty to me'n my sibling, and they were Fundie Christians. Went to church...a lot." He's talking to his knees, rather than to Aaron.
"How were they shitty to you and your sibling?" Aaron inquires in his usual guileless way. If it ever occurred to him to violate someone's trust for personal gain, he hides it extremely well.
"They...mm. My sibling and I were...close. Like...literally telepathic, close. And they're the reason we're not anymore, they literally thought we were possessed, made it their mission to 'heal' us. And it worked, Jane an' I haven't been in each other's heads since!" His smile is bitter. "An' I got punished for doing shit like cutting my hair and wanting to be less femme, and Jane couldn't protect me from all of it. And they shouldn't've had to." He ends with a shrug, like he's trying to pass this all off as no big deal.
"Did they use their religion as a foundation to justify doing these things to you? Forcing you to dress femme, forcing you to conform to a certain standard of womanhood that they particularly valued? Or was that all just implied?" Aaron ticks his head to the side, eyes narrowing in obvious curiosity. This is not a childhood he knows, by his own admission.
"Yeah. Used religion to justify smacking me when I fucked up, too. I...think it helped that it wasn't my parents, would'a been harder to hate 'em if they were, if that makes sense."
"Hate is an awful strong word," Aaron says as though putting a finger on that thought for the moment. "It makes sense to me, yeah, that it would make it harder to hate someone if they happen to be your parents. Sure. But hate, like I said, is a strong word." He gets back to that dropped finger. "Hate is a really active thing. It takes focus and intention. I find a lot of times people use the word hate really mean something else entirely. Disdain. Antipathy. Disgust. Or any number of other things. That all said, if you actively hate them for what they did to you, that will change how we should be approaching this."
"I don't...I dunno." Jack curls into himself again, his answer sounding more automatic than anything.
A moment later he takes in a slow breath. "I try not to think about them enough to have any sort of feeling about them at all. But...the world'd be better without them in it, an' I don't think I'll ever not be angry at what they did. Are doing, honestly, they're like 45 minutes away and as far as I know haven't changed at all."
Aaron's eyebrows lift slightly at the intensity of the emotion being discussed, his head nodding just a touch. Not so much in judgment or consideration, just sort of denoting he's listening. It's hard to register an opinion about another person's trauma if you're not a huge jerk. "It sounds like you have a lot of good reason to be angry, but I think you're beyond hate at this point. Just what you feel I can't say, but I don't think it's hate any longer. Which isn't a bad thing. You're moving past them, for all that you're obviously still holding on to those events. Which makes sense, since you and your sibling are out of their reach at this point. They only had a say in what you did, not in what you're doing now."
"Worked hard to make it that way," Jack mumbles. "Got out as soon as I could, and ran headfirst into other trauma," he says with a humorless chuckle. "But it uh...they're the ones who started it all, and I can't...I can't see myself not holding onto that."
"I never really saw the virtue in forgiving someone who didn't ask for it and change their behavior. It serves entrenched power structures, abusers, bullies, and the genuinely unkind. At the expense of those they abuse and betray. It doesn't provide anything like justice or promote a positive peace. So, yeah. I can't see you not holding onto that, either. They've done nothing to encourage you to set it down." Aaron ticks a small shrug of his shoulders with this admission. "Forgiveness should be earned."
"I'm sure God will forgive them," Jack scoffs. "If they even believe they've done anything wrong in the first place. Which I doubt. All of it was 'for my own good', they were 'making me a better Christian', so..." He grimaces and rests his chin on his knees. "And they still think they can, She calls me every six months or so..."
There's a lot he could respond to in there, judging from his expression. But he latches on to the last bit first and purses his lips thoughtfully. "Do you actually take them? Do you talk to her?" Aaron takes another sip from his glass and shifts to get more comfortable on the couch.
Jack/Calamity/Cian/SageYesterday at 4:15 PM
"Oh fuck no, I've had her number blocked since before I moved out." Another scoff, and he shakes his head. "She got a new one a couple months ago, left a few messages before I got around to blocking that one, too...wondering if I was still cutting my beautiful hair..." He rolls his eyes.
"How are they getting your number and address?" Aaron knows some of what Mearcstapa and Lux do on the side, so he's fully aware they should be able to make themselves incognito if they thought of it before now. "Have you not thought of that? Changing your number, and going unlisted, and all of that? Or have you thought about having a third party talk to them for you? Communicate firm boundaries, and then begin collecting dates and times for a potential harassment case? It takes some time, but you've already been enduring this for years, so you're used to that. But we could possibly help you make it stop."
"Don't think she's got my address, but it's a little hard to go underground when I'm a prominent member of a fairly powerful union...and who's gonna pick up a case about an aunt who just wants to talk to the kid she raised, anyway?" Jack sighs. "I've thought about changing my number a couple times, it's just...not something I've had the time or energy to deal with. There's always a bigger fire to put out, y'know?"
"They make it easy, these days. Just a phone call and it's done. If you already have group texts set up on your phone, notifying people is easy. Update your sig file on your work e-mail, shoot out an FYI e-mail with your new number, and you're good to go. Cut them out that way, if you want. Or I can try speaking with them, if you feel like going down that route. With the intention of making them leave you alone." Aaron then finishes off his water and sets the glass aside on a coaster before resuming his recline into the couch. "As to the 'who would take up your case', it's a matter of documenting facts. Make note of when you get calls. Make sure to document when you inform her you don't want to speak to her any longer. Continued calls will pile up. At a certain point you just bring the evidence to the court and ask for a protection from abuse order, present your evidence, and do it while filing charges for harassment. The one will get entwined with the other, she'll have to leave you alone as a condition of trial. Which gives the order more teeth. If she keeps it up, she winds up fined or in jail. It rarely ever gets to that level, though. Usually it ends before a guilty verdict, and they wise up and drop it." Aaron ticks a small shrug, "You deal with a lot of weird family stuff as a rabbi. So you pick this sort of thing up."
"I don't think you speaking to them would help." It comes out fast, in one breath, and Jack shakes his head.
"Changing my number's probably the best way to go, I...don't think I've ever actually told her to stop calling me. She...I mean neither of them did the whole boundaries thing, me'n Jane didn't have a door on our bedroom, I hid my phone so she didn't know I had it 'cause she'd monitor it, and whatever." Another shake of his head. "I...'m not good at boundaries anyway, and especially not with her. Blocking her and just...not talking to her's been about as much as I can do, you know?"
Aaron lifts his hands to denote he was just offering, grinning despite himself and the topic. "That's fine. I have to admit I relish old testament spouting Christians who don't speak Hebrew. They're very easy to slam dunk on, theologically. And I'm all about the game, you know? Bringing the brick to the house for HaShem." Aaron says that totally deadpan, which is probably part of the shtick. "Hopefully you'll get better setting boundaries once you have a solid one established with her. Still, at some point for a legal process to be upheld? You will need to, at least once, clearly state your intent is to never speak with them again and to not be contacted any longer. Once that's done, you can be out of the picture entirely, pretty much. Save for documenting contact from them that others aren't around you to document for you."
"I...I mean fair enough. My uncle's just...nasty and antisemitic, you don't gotta deal with that unless you really wanna. But like I said, it's prob'ly not gonna help. I...dunno 'f it's worth all that, honestly. The legal shit, I mean. Just the thought of it's exhausting."
"Of course it sounds exhausting. Abusers design every remedy to their presence to be exhausting, and there's nothing more abusive than a liberal with a pen and a law book." Aaron offers a tight lipped, regretful smile at that. "So the way out of your circumstances are so onerous and punitive and wrongheaded that the only people willing to go through all the necessary steps is someone who is actually the focus of a long-form steady campaign of abuse. Because capitalism." Aaron gives another small shrug. "Which is why we'll all be around to help you if you decide to go through with it."
Learning that the uncle is an antisemite causes Aaron to smile in a manner that manages to not be wholesome, which is saying something given the givens. "Honestly, that makes it more tempting. But I'm still leaving it up to you."
"I...mmm." Jack falls silent, glancing out the window into the dark. "I don't know...what they would do to me, 'f you went there. This address is unlisted, we've got a PO box, so it's not like they'd have an easy time finding me, but..." He lets out a small shiver.
"Again, you don't have to decide anything tonight. I'm halfway joking to try and keep your spirits a little light. Although I would be willing to talk to them if it would actually help in any way. Just for the record." Aaron leans forward onto his knees and lets out a small sigh, "I think that right now you need to decide what you're going to do to move forward from here. The one thing you seem to know for certain is that this can't go on the way it is. Once you've settled on a destination, we can work on a first step together. That's how all journeys start, after all."
Jack's shoulders drop a little, relaxing slightly as Aaron reassures him that he's mostly joking. "It's just...a lot. A lot of choices I gotta make, and then shit I gotta do because I made those choices..." He sighs. "'S a lot to think about, too. More'n I've thought about any of this in...a while. It's uncomfortable as fuck."
"I'm sympathetic to that. A year ago my life was completely different. Different circumstances necessitated the change, but I'm in a new line of work, living in a new place, living with a new belief system, with new friends, doing things I never would have imagined possible, never mind possible for someone like me." He puts the verbal scare quotes around the final phrase. "Deciding where to start cutting is scary as hell, but it's the first part of creation. It's all easier from there on in."
"A year ago I'd just get drunk to forget she called at all." Jack's smile is bitter. "Heh. She prob'ly called around this time, too, she tends to do it around Christmas. 'Cause family, or something." He rolls his eyes. "Never been one big on the holiday, anyway. Not a lotta people to share it with, so I just end up working so everyone with family they wanna see can take the day off..."
"Progress," Aaron calls that admission. "Yeah, Christmas was never a big deal growing up for me, either." Aaron delivers that joke with another straight face, though a grin breaks in eventually. "If it's any consolation, Hannukah isn't even one of our major festivals. It was sort of tacked on. Its story isn't even in the Torah. The only reason it's as big a deal in the US as it is-- because it isn't, really, anywhere else --is because of how commercialized Christmas became here. A mixture of jealousy from Jewish kids, guilt from Jewish parents, and exploitation by American capitalists. And here we are. But, yeah. Not that big of a deal, is my point."
Jack snorts quietly at the joke. "Yeah, Mearc's told me a little about that. Your big holidays are in the fall, right?"
"Yep. Our calendar is a little funny, but in the fall primarily. There's others smattered about, but the High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur fall in the fall, one after the other. New Years, roughly. And the day of Attonement. Which is different, I'll note, than the day of forgiveness. Which ties back into what we were discussing earlier." Aaron gives a bit of a grin as he draws the the line from one facet of the discussion to this one.
"Mmm." Jack nods. "Makes sense, I guess. It um...you saying that...forgiveness should be earned, that..." he gestures, "thank you? 'S not...something everybody thinks, I'm pretty sure, and...yeah. Thanks for saying it out loud."
"It's a tenet of faith for us, honestly. Teshuvah, the ritual act of contrition, is a thing in Judaism. So much so it's cultural at this point. The way saying 'bless you' when someone sneezes is now divorced from religion per se in the English speaking world. Point being, you're just living in a culture blind. I'm glad you get to hear it from me, though, if you need to hear it. But, yeah. Forgiveness is earned. No matter who is doing the forgiving. Some out of reach deitic concept of a bronze age nomadic bunch of goatherds? Or you. This will probably be one of the few things where you can say 'Good enough for Jack, good enough for God.'"
"I think my aunt would actually cry if she heard those words in that order," Jack says with a shake of his head. But he's smiling, at least. "'Cause 'God forgives all', y'know?" It's sarcastic, the way he says it. "Don't think there's anything they could do to earn it. Hell, I don't think I want them to try, that'd just make it fucking worse..."
"I'm never one to say never, but I'm tempted to agree with you." Aaron screws up his face a bit and shakes his own head with a mirthless laugh, "'God forgives all' is such--" Aaron cuts himself off and lifts his hands in a gesture of not wanting to proceed. "Nope. I'll get going and I won't stop, and you don't need to hear it. Suffice: if they believed that was true, they wouldn't be acting like you have anything that needs forgiving."
"Mmmh." Jack grimaces as he nods. "Yeah they uh...didn't like when I asked them about that. I stopped asking questions pretty quickly."
"Not very logically consistent, are they," Aaron observes with a small, wry smile. There's a small beat, "Am I being helpful at all? I wasn't sure going into this what you were hoping to get out of it, and I'm trying to toe the line between 'hearing you out' and 'being helpful' without crossing any lines that would be ethically awkward... Like behaving like your therapist, for example."
"Don't have a therapist, so you're all good," Jack returns that wry smile. "But yeah, this...yeah. Uncomfortable as fuck, but...I needed it. Just gotta...figure out what the fuck to do, now."
"Well. Then my work here is done," Aaron concludes with a bob of the head. "There's no need to go diving into this head first and without a life preserver. If you haven't come to a decision after a few days or a week or two, we can circle back together and chat about what's holding you back. Because we both agree that right now you just need to decide how you want to move forward." Aaron pats his knees with a note of drawing things to a gradual close.
"You got high hopes 'f you think it'll only take me a few days," Jack mutters, but he smiles at Aaron. "Thanks for coming over. Say hi to Ziv and Chewie for me, yeah?" He slowly uncurls from his position on the couch, wincing as his muscles complain.
"Well, I do have faith," Aaron jokes as he rises up to his feet, opening his arms to Jack to offer him a hug at the very least. He'd kept his physical distance up to this point. "I will say hi to the both of them. I'll try to tear Chewie away from his adoring public long enough to get his attention." He rolls his eyes a bit at this. "You're going to be okay if I check out, then?"
"Yeah I'll be fine." Jack waves Aaron's worry away, and tries a smile. It works, mostly. He's still clearly a little shaken.
"Someone'll probably be home soon 'f I need distractions, or I'll take Moss on a long walk. I'll figure it out."
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