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Why would one be up at 7am and still not be ready to leave by 8:30? Because excellence requires patience, care, time, and an obsessive awareness of the temperature of the current social trends. Not that Kaleb ever went 'off classic' delving much at all into the Mod scene, but he still found a way to articulate flair into what might otherwise have him mistaken for one of the Jr. Board of Directors somewhere. There was no sound, but the door to the common bathroom between Jay and Kaleb's rooms was open and the light was on. Apparently shaving and hair were equally a precise ritual. He even used a straight razor like it was 1910 possibly for the pretense, and likely for the precision. Weirdly there were asterisks that faintly blemished his back by his right shoulder and another maybe 4" below that. The razor tap-tap-tapped on the edge of the basin as his morning seemed to start with some Ben E. King chosen from the 'library of congress' vinyl collection in his room.
Jeb on the other hand, wakes up, looking like even in sleep he managed to be fighting a nonstop battle as well. His hair is a mess, there are rings beneath his eyes. He's probably sporting a new bruise on his cheek that he didn't have the day before, if Kaleb had been paying any attention. Though, it was only really Jay's job to mother hen at Jeb for getting into fights anywhere where there were other human beings. Though, let's be honest, if you stuck Jeb in an empty room with absolutely no people, he would find a way to get into a fight with a garbage can.
Jeb yawns in an overly loud way as he wanders almost blindly into the bathroom, only to be met with another human being who was doing a /lot/ with his hair. "What on God's green earth is all of this?" Jeb asks around another yawn. "You're a strange creature, Lettuce."
Kaleb was making all of the strange faces one did to keep the skin tight as to not hack into himself while shaving. The ambient sound of his voice answered while he continued with his morning ritual. "It's called shaving, Jeb. Crazy concept, I know. Some do it when there may be important things going on. Or they may be seen. By anyone." *tap*tap*tap* "It's shaving cream. do NOT lick it off my face." His eyes glanced Jeb-way with the briefest of pauses. "You're usually just going to sleep at this hour. Why are you up asking me 80 questions already?"
Jebediah smiles despite himself. Kaleb's snark has never grated on Jebediah, it always just makes him laugh when the other man is sarcastic with him. Kaleb is a source of endless entertainment in that respect. "Should grow a beard out, would make you look rugged and all dangerous. Max might even like it." Jeb teases him as he leans against the doorway. "Well, hell, Cabbage, Ah thought Ah'd get up early and spend some time with my favorite guy. And since Jay's not here, Ah thought ah'd spend some time with my second favorite guy." He winks at Kaleb, that smile not falling off of his face at all. Kaleb's sass is endearing to him. Jeb takes it as a token of affection.
Kaleb squint either trying to see what he was doing as he shaved or deciding that this meant that Jeb clearly needed a wider array of people. Could be either. "He probably would. I've thought about it. Works for Stark. I think for now Max can keep the goatee." He rinsed one side of the blade off then the other and washed his face after letting everything be put away where it needed to go. "Jay was out late with Sam at the club opening. He got to play last night." There was a pause and he really hated that he couldn't go. Might not ever with how thunderous clubs get. The guilt wiped away with the towel that dried his face off. "There may be something you can do." Oh goodie he's going to delegate, isn't he?
"Scruffy Kale, could leave little marks when y'all kiss. Try it out sometime, I'm sure you're plenty pretty no matter what Kale." Jeb compliments as he continues to hang in the doorway watching this meticulous affair that Kaleb subjects himself to as Jeb clears his throat and tries to rub the sleep off his face. "Make you some coffee? I already started some." Jeb asks, assuming that the only time Kaleb wants anything from him is when it's in the form of caffeine.
Kaleb rolled his eyes and gave Jeb a dry look actually speaking like a normal person. "I am not going into any details of my personal life, Jeb." Which was actually true as he kept up a 0 PDA lifestyle on any and all fronts and anything that might be judgable by society battened down hard. It was odd having this discussion at all but he presumed this also meant Jay told him. Well good. Subdued off the point of coming across irritated his tone shift slightly to a mild, but genuine appreciation. "Coffee sounds great, thanks." Wow a thank you? Holy Merkle Mother of Gorm. He rolled his once affected shoulder and rubbed atthe scar, "Jeb, you seem to have caught on a bit to… decorum." Uh oh. This was leading.
"Ah ain't askin', pal. Ah don't wanna know anythin' about it. Ah was just sayin', could make for good kisses." Jeb says, stretching his arm behind his back when Kaleb thanks him and that has Jebediah's eyes narrowing in confusion. Why would Kaleb ever thank him for anything? "You sick, Cabbage? Ah can make you some soup if you're not feelin' well." Jeb offers and then his eyes narrow again. "Look, ah'm not the brightest, ah think you know that. You're gonna have to speak simpler to me. Decorum?"
Kaleb sighed and turned to Jeb and spoke with a stark, but non hostile frankness laying it out for him. "riiiight. Look, I need you to tell Sam that this passive aggressive shit he's talking about my brother Kellan about being gay is going to cease or I'm going to find a way to have him hating life in short order." He had that look to him that Jeb would understand like a first language. That prissy sunnova socialite who had healed two bullet wounds was absolutely willing to try and take a fite-bite out of the champ. Oh surely he'd lose but it didn't mean Kaleb backed down ever. "He wants to protect his brothers? Fine. He needs to find a real threat because I will go to war for mine."
Jeb crosses his arms tight across his chest when Kaleb dresses down Sam in front of him and he's torn between wanting to punch Kaleb for Sam and also wanting to punch Sam for Kaleb. He knows that Kaleb is in the right here, there's no reason for Sam to be so rude about Kellan being openly gay. He's not hurting anybody, especially not Jay with his 'gayness'. "You're asking me and not Jay." He points out first, in a bit of awe. He assumes that Kaleb doesn't think anything of him. "Is it because you know Ah'll punch Sam for you? Listen, Ah'll talk to him, but ah'm the little brother, littler than Jay, so he doesn't have a biological birthright rule that says he has to listen to me. I can try and make him see reason, he's mostly a good guy, just raised in a place around a book that says you can't be gay because you'll go to hell and Satan will tickle your insides from the outside for the rest of eternity." He fixes Kaleb with a stern look. "You're not going to fight Sam though. You don't know how to do that without your powers, and that's just not playin' fair, and also, Sam fights dirty. Then Jay will be mad at both of you and I know yer real close to Jay."
Kaleb watched Jeb flatly, patiently, "Why? He can't not have his. I honestly don't give a damn about fair. I care how my brother is regarded in his own home and to my face. If he has a problem with it he can just not come here. I didn't go to Jay because Jay has his own bullshit to deal with and he ought be focusing on that and making his own decisions for what makes him fucking happy unhamp-… without other people telling him how." Aftershave went on and soon the thirteen minutes of choosing his 'armour' for the day would start. "I'm not aksing you to fight anyone for me Jeb. I don't pay you for tht."
"Ah understand why you're angry, but you don't need to cuss at me, Kaleb. Ah didn't tell Sam to come over here with his Gay-Fearin' bullshit, did Ah? Ah didn't even tell him to come over at all. He just did. Ah didn't personally invite him to come over and talk badly about yer brother. So don't take it out on me just because Ah'm closest to you when yer mad." Jeb says to him, a little heat rising to his tone. "It's bullshit, the way he talked about Kellan to you, it is. And Ah'm sorry about what he said but his actions don't speak for me. Don't speak for Jay either. Ah'll talk t him, but you… you gotta get way nicer about.. talkin' to me ah guess. Ah don't know. Hell." Jeb frustratedly waves off his request violently. "Ah'll talk to him. Ah'll punch him too. Ah don't want no damn money either. Ah'll fix him, and if he don't wanna be fixed then Ah'll tell him he can't come 'round no more. That Ah'll come to him when he wants to visit."
Kaleb was just a furnace of fury that liked to kick off in all directions. Still he actually relented to teh request wading over to pick out shirts…and…vests. Christ everything in his closet was almost OCD meticulous with it being pressed and hanging neat and organized: vests with adjacent slacks. "Jeb" He sighed, "Fine. I have no issue with you. I'm not subtle if I am, ask Jay. I bite my thumb, but I do not bite my thumb at thee, sir." A little piece of him died knowing Shakespere would go right over his head. Echo looked down at his shoes and sighed. "I don't care if he comes around. He's jsut not bringing oppression and the bullshit out there into here. We've fought 1 years for a place that didn't have that and he's not allowed to take that away from him. He wants to be cool? Groovy. If it bugs him that much he can just… I dunno."
Recognition sets into Jeb's features a little. "Weren't that from Juliet and Romeo?" He did go to a school, Kaleb, albeit not a great one, but he graduated. "Ah don't care who any of you love. Love is love. And it isn't cool for Sam to talk badly about Kellan. Ah'll talk to him and if he don't wanna listen to me because he won't, because Ah'm just his little brother and he don't think ah know nothin', then ah'll tell him to shut his big dumb mouth whenever he is over here if he ain't got nothin' not gay-fearin' to say. And if he says anythin' rude to you, about you, about Kellan, about anyone, about even Max, ah'll punch him. You can always learn someone somethin' by punchin' em." Jeb rubs at his bruised cheek. Had he done the teaching or the learning for that one? "Okay?"
Kaleb paused and looked up to Jeb curiously. "DIdn't even occur to me bout me and Max." It was a state of being for him. Huh. Blinking at the Guthrie in teh room he gave the vague compliment, "There may be hope for you yet. And I know. Jay's taught me a few things." Did Kaleb just admit to Jeb that Jay slugged him? Sure sounds like it.
"Jay… Jay hit you?" Jebediah doesn't seem to believe that with how much Jay seems to adore all these roommates of his. Why would Jay have to hit Kaleb? Excpet for Kaleb's a callous jerk sometimes, but Jay was seemingly born with an endless fountain of patience. Jeb had tried it. A lot. "Damn, Lettuce, Ah didn't think anyone could make him that mad."
Kaleb picked out his shirt and vest and finished getting dressed rolling his sleeves to half and half again when done to prevent bunching. "Jeb, you have to really care, to get that angry. That's why your brother's a good man."