jordan temple || district nine || fin

[Tom]

jordan temple
eighteen years old
male
district nine
nick robinson
a bit more of an optimist, naive and caring, wears his heart on his sleeve
son of retired gangsters, twin brother to maxwell
the heart to the head

[Tom]

The window has never looked the same to him. A crack that had started forming along the center to the edge of the window like the split of honesty that their parents had, which didn't exist. Daring his finger to run over it as he looks to the place where people pass by with hooded coats and hidden horrors under them. Nine was their home from the moment that he came out of his mother's womb with his twin brother. Gangs, drugs, and all sorts of different things that terrorize a place where families aren't normal and prefer to shoot their neighbors. The world was meant to be a cruel place where violence ensued along the streets of Nine. At least, that might be how his brother saw it.

All he can see is the beauty behind the broken glass. How a simple line can create a new perspective to look upon and split the world into two. The cynics and the dreamers. Nine was a mess, but there is beauty along it's crime ridden streets that he can see. Everyone had a story and everyone mattered in this world. Not a single life deserved to be lost to meaningless violence or meaningless loss. Everything had a place in their world, but he could see between the lines of cruelty and violence and find the beauty of Nine. As he sits along the windowsill that gives way to the rest of the world that they live in, he can see the faces of people that pass by.

Beauty in every single person that passes. A girl with freckles that has the step of a careful mind as she approaches the square past their house. A man with a scar along his eyebrow carrying something in his hands, but he can see the obvious sign of a gun along the underside of his pants, probably heading off to deliver some sort of drugs. A little boy who was still stuck in the innocence of childhood, skipping along to the sound of his own little footsteps. They all mattered in this world, just like he did. All of them have a place to be in their world. His place was here, among the family of ex gang members and his twin brother who believes that he's the moral compass of them all.

Memories of thinking his parents had been normal people with no past that involved harm. Hate was the first thing he felt against them when he found the mementos that resided from a past with complicated lives. Normal had never been normal for them, but he could still dream that they had a family that was unlike the others. Hidden behind a facade in his head, he acts like nothing's different than before. Maxwell knew. Call it a twin thing, but he could tell from the way that his brother talked to them. The tone in his voice that sends a chill down his spine from the harshness that is always there.

Two skinny boys who were opposites on the inside. A fire and ice that always melt and snuff one another in different situations. Jordan shares almost everything with his brother, same face, same body type, same everything, but they couldn't think in a similar way. Max was always cleaning up his mistakes with that icy undertone to his voice and quick wit that he didn't obtain. His own fire coming from the emotions that he doesn't dare bottle up from everyone. Straight to the point of how he feels as he lets out his frustrations in tears and screams into a pillow like a child time and time again. All he can do is remember the times of playing like children with toys and things, missing the days when things weren't so complicated around them.

That's life though. A never ending cycle of the same note that hits in the same way on a record. Endlessly spinning and spinning with the twang of complications and maturity until that note is an endless stream of noise clawing at his mind. Lips upturn slightly into a half smile as he looks to the sky trying to remember how things used to be before the record's note changed with the mementos. Caring words always coming from his tongue with a sweetness that his brother doesn't have, at least straight away. Sarcasm was more of Max's thing. Memories of sharing everything he had with his brother. Children who played dumb children games until the day went to night and the gangs came out.

Jordan still didn't understand what his parents meant when they threatened to mortally wound their neighbor over a silly disagreement. Maxwell had told them that it wasn't morally right to do that, while Jordan wanted to solve the issue at hand with a fair agreement built from kindness in his heart. Either way, Maxwell's cold words always know just the right way to dig deep down in his chest and twist a knife when they fight. His twin always knows just the right way to dig down to the core of his being like he's trying to solve him from inside out. When did he lose faith in their beautiful world. Jordan never knew what did it for his brother, but he still pushes on his beliefs in seeing the good in everyone. Putting forth effort towards people who both deserved it and didn't deserve it.

He's had his trust broken too many times to count, but he still tries for them. Everyone deep down has some good in them that doesn't rise to the top right away. A silence fills his head as he climbs down the steps of his childhood home into the open air that fills his lungs with a breath of the freshest air that they have despite all of the other things that could be in the air. A skinny boy with pale skin that marches along to the beat of his own drum in his chest. Brown eyes that scan the area to enjoy his leisurely walk from a home full of chaos to a district full of chaos. Long arms and legs that swing in tune with his heartbeat and the sound of cement and shoe that is tapping into existence. A small smile pulling on his lips as the cool air gives way to afternoon where the heat begins to take over.

A corner that he rounds, remembering just a week ago of the poor boy who dropped everything in his hands, where he helped the kid pick up everything, only to be threatened by another guy with another weapon who thought it was righteous to steal from kids. Max had saved him from that one in the end, after all, Jordan's own sense of righteousness always leads to his own problems. Black eyes in school and he still smiled through it all like he didn't walk through a field of human landmines every day. Maxwell always asked him how he could still see the good in people and all he can say is one thing.

"Why can't you?"

That's where it gets dropped for the moment. As he marches past the square, his lips hum a tune of something he heard along the streets by a musician barely getting by with the earnings of music in the square. No one noticed the time when he gave the guy a decently big tip that he spent a long time saving up himself. The way that the guy smiled gave Jordan everything he needed to feel like he wasn't letting the world down. The beauty that he could see shining through the grime in their skin. Feet take him away from the square until it's silent for a first time in forever where he finally lets his mind let go.

Everything is beautiful. Everything is amazing.

Everything except for him.

Broken and internally suffering from everything. Exhaustion in his skin as he knows that kindness is hard to keep. Knowing that no one thinks like he does in the world. Beauty and goodness that resides in everyone, he's alone in this world. A dreamer walking among the cynics who threaten to prove him wrong. Every single damn time, he's been right and he's not gonna back away on his beliefs, but still, why wasn't he like the rest of them. All he can see are the flaws in himself. The pieces that he knows aren't good. The anger of his emotions that take over, until he bursts into flames/ Body melting away into an emotional outcry for stability. Everyone's eyes always on him like they knew what he did for others and expecting it again and again. Jordan disliking to disappoint the people who watch him with a careful eye, he moves among them only seeing what he wants to see and not the truth.

Oblivious to a world that surrounds him, he only lives in his own mind where everything is safe and he can't get hurt. All he can do is heal there and that's how he preferred it.

No heartbreak if there's nothing for anyone to take from him.

The silence breaks into the loud bustle of people as he feels himself putting up the walls again.

As he approaches his home, he can hear Max's words int he air around them. Always questioning, always there, and always right, no matter how much Jordan hated to admit it. As he looks up to the window, he can see the crack once more, a new perspective on the world he's used to living, he waits, just taking in that window that he had just been behind like he's always been behind one staring into the real world.

The metaphorical one stills as he opens the door with a smile on his face and ex gang member parents who had children when they finally escaped the system. At least they cared for them, even if they didn't have any moral compass. They still carried kindness in their hearts that he showed them. A smile on his face as Max rolls his eyes at something said out loud. There was always a place for him at home, even if he was pretending like he's not drowning in himself.

There's a crack, but instead of fixing it, he stares at it thinking of when it'll finally shatter into pieces.

Because one day, it will.

[Tom]

whoa, he's done

[ghosty]

"why can't you?"
another lovely tom bio <3