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 Posted: Sat Oct 01, 2016 7:14 pm
so for now let's get away
They had talked about it once.
They had talked about in once in New York, when the weather was cold, and they were eating hot pot, and things in the world weren't so crazy. Thorne had asked where Chris had wanted to go and outside the obvious answer, Chris had wanted to take a roadtrip of the US and as it turned out, so had Thorne.
The conversation had moved on though and so had the times, so much that it was possible that it could have been forgotten entirely. Lost to so many other things, like the fight, like the fetches, like the disturbing developments in Ashdown's weather. Like Chris and Thorne's new powers, like the steady development of the two of them learning to live with each other in the same space, learning to breathe with each other around and trust.
The thing though was Chris had a very good memory.
The latest in Ashdown's weather was making him a little stir crazy - all the rain was driving him nuts. It made gardening close to impossible, it made going outside to get things a hassle, the flash flood warnings that buzzed on his phone constantly as they turned on and off were giving him a headache, and he really wanted something to do. So as he laid on the couch one day, head in Thorne's lap and aimlessly flipping through a book while they watched TV, Chris was desperately thinking of something, anything to do.
The conversation in New York was what came to his mind, eventually.
Chris thought about it for a very long time. He knew he wanted to do one and he knew Thorne wanted to do one, but wanting didn't always mean getting. But the facts were this: Chris didn't have anything better to do. His TA job had cleared up, since the university had found some poor, unfortunate, somehow willing grade student to take on the job and Thorne worked... well. Chris didn't really know how, but he knew he had enough free time. They both knew people who were willing to take the cats, they knew people who were willing to plant sit, and it was the peak season and time for getting out of Ashdown. No one wanted to do road trips in October, and especially no one wanted to even come to Ashdown in his miserable weather. It was the perfect time to leave and hit up stupid tourist spots and spend a good week or two with Thorne.
So he asked him, a few days later, messy haired from sleep and making a passable breakfast, bread rising on the counter (he wanted as much leverage as he could get and if that meant making bread, Chris was going to make ******** bread) if Thorne wanted to go on a road trip.
It didn't take long to get a yes from Thorne - maybe he was just that bored, maybe he was falling to Chris' (nonexistent) charms, but it was a done deal once he asked. They packed, they made plans for where the cats were to go and what was going to happen to the plants, they even baked, and then finally they were ready to go.
The car was Thorne's, the plan was nonexistent (Thorne apparently had a vague idea on where to go according to him, but Chris was the one who wanted to drive first), and they had the only goal of getting back on Halloween but Chris and Thorne were going on a road trip.
It was going to be great.
He had made and bought some stuff before they left, to eat on the road. Some sandwiches made with the last of that bread he'd baked, some granola bars, easy stuff that could be eaten with one hand. Coffee was in the cup holders, acquired from Starbucks and the sweet monstrosities that they both liked (two pumpkin spice lattes for both of them, because deep in their hearts they were basic white girls with a penchant for pumpkin items during October), and there were blankets in case Thorne or Chris wanted to sleep. Basically, the car was prepared, the cats were dropped off, and even as early as it was it was time to go.
So Chris starts the car and makes their way out of Ashdown, out of weird rain and weird magic, into something hopefully normal. He would normally be sleepy at this time but he's wired, adrenaline in him, excited. He spends a lot of time with Thorne already, this is true and isn't anything new or special. But to get him for a week without the possibility of having anyone or anything interfere that's magical or otherwise, that's what he's thrilled and excited about. To just have a week of hopefully normalcy, driving through America and learning what horrors awaited them in a form that wasn't ******** magical (Chris in particular was looking forward to the fields of corn and hell signs that awaited the in Ohio), that was what he wanted.
Also, the new food to try, but that was only a bonus in a field of frankly what was looking like a long deserved plus.
For a long while Chris is quiet, allowing only the music to play as they make their way out of Ashdown, just watching the long stretch of forest and whatever else that makes up the scenery. It's still raining and the roads are almost empty except for whatever unfortunate other person is going to work at seven in the morning, their commute what Chris is assuming, is a living hell. The cats being dropped off at six were a lucky boon, probably born of Jer working at the station and Alg being a teacher which required early wake up and allowed Chris and Thorne to escape without bothering anyone. It's almost too early to speak and he sips at his coffee, tries to remember what being alive is. They'll undoubtedly have a fun day, but for now he feels like a ghost as he drives.
He drums his fingers on the steering wheel, cardigan on and a beanie that he stole from Thorne on his head. A good third of his wardrobe he feels has been stolen from Thorne, things in the mix that he doesn't remember buying for himself but he wears all the same. He wonder if Thorne has that too mixed in his clothing, things that Chris bought but ended up being Thorne's. He spends so much time over now that almost all his clothing is here, only a few bare items back at his apartment.
He wonders, very briefly, if he should ask Thorne about moving in.
But it's too early for that kind of thought, a step in a direction that's more than he could think or hope for even if all his plants have already moved over and basically his entire life. There's not a chance in hell that Thorne likes Chris back so instead he sips his coffee, drums his fingers on the steering wheel, and wait as traffic slowly piles into the road as more sleepy people start in on their way to work.
"Where are we going first?" Chris finally asks after the radio plays the same song for the third time in a row since he's been driving, a tune that's starting to get on his nerves. He doesn't want to plug in his phone yet either, even though they bought a pretty decent aux cord and some nice car chargers.
[wc: 1256]
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Posted: Sat Oct 01, 2016 11:44 pm
so for now let's get away
The morning was going nowhere, nowhere, but they were.
Thorne hadn't expected anything to come of their conversation in New York City. At least, not for a long time. And even less so in the days following their stint at the bar together. For awhile, the doubt had eaten at him that Chris did remember and wasn't telling him. That he was the one that had ******** up so magnificently that now they were dancing around a secret that neither wanted to touch. But that irrational fear had faded in the days since then, even though sometimes Thorne woke up burning, woke up terrified and guilty of his own thoughts.
So when Chris idly asked him one night if he wanted to leave - to take the car and drive and drive and drive - with him. Only him. Thorne had said yes, but the reality of it had not settled in until he was suddenly standing at the foot of his own bed, trying to think of what you put in a car when you wanted to drive into the middle of nowhere and get lost. He had only ever done it once, alone. He had only done it once, to get lost or find himself or simply exist. But the truth was it had only made him lonelier, made him want for human hands and human warmth, the touch of skin on skin. But being lonelier was easier, so he'd found his way limping back to New York City and stayed for the rest of the year. A nowhere creature trying so hard to take root.
For a few, helpless months, he'd tried to convince himself that he could settle down in Ashdown. That he could make his roots here. In that godawful first apartment. In those terrible first weeks, first nights, those days that seemed far away now. But roots had never grown. Or - they had, but not in the dirt and soil of Ashdown itself, and Thorne had never recognized them until he'd been pulled from them, uprooted, forced into servitude, forced to become something else, something new.
Chris asks him if he'll go on the road trip and Thorne wants to say he would go anywhere with Chris. The end of the world, even. But it seems too much even in his throat, so he laughs and agrees and tells him that he'll find a map, load the car. There's blankets they can bring, pillows they'll play tetris with in the trunk. The Camaro is a nice steed, and he knows it will serve them well. The plan burns through his mind, nothing but starbursts, but that's alright. They had both agreed to it, a game to be played out, an adventure to be had on the road. What point was there in calculations? They had enough money, they had an ending destination, and Thorne knew - somehow they would make it. Somehow, they would be alright.
(Will you though, a voice hummed in his head in the shower at 5AM that morning, his fingers raking up against the wet of his hair, the memory of lips on his burning something hot and guilty into his stomach like an iron, like a brand that will somehow show, will you when you want him like that?)
Thorne wanders through his bedroom in a daze. He smells the scent of the soil, the scent of ink and fresh rain, petrichor. He breathes deep and tastes Chris, all of his cardigans and his button down shirts, his fingers pressed to Thorne's side in the mornings that are quiet now. He looks and it is a shared space, because it was never his alone, and it could never be again. Every part of this warehouse is a stitchwork of parts, neither of them wholly Chris's or Thornes. Their clothes, their blankets, their world blends together, breathes life into each half, and he wonders whether or not he'd ever be brave enough to ask if Chris wanted to just move in with him.
But it's too much, with the kiss still hovering inside of him like a seed he's swallowed trying to take root.
So he packs a duffel bag of clothing, throws it in the trunk of the car. They clutter the backseat with backpacks and boots and a miniature cooler for snacks. They drop off the cats. They prepare. The starbucks is easy enough to get drinks from, and the scent of pumpkin spice lattes fills the air just as much as the rain does, and Thorne cannot help shivering and laughing, sleep hazy, as he brushes a drop of it all from Chris's lashes, Chris's jaw, never close to his mouth. The Camaro purrs to life beneath them, a faithful beast, and before he can think much on it, before he can even breathe, they are on the road. The Camaro slashes through puddles, through the rain and haze that has crowded over Ashdown in recent days.
For awhile, the silence breathes a steady rhythm through him. Thorne comes more and more awake with the help of the latte and the sound of the engine, soft and subtle beneath the hood, Chris in the next seat over. The long stretch of Ashdown dissolves quickly enough into forest, into valley, into the meandering nowhere of the rural East Coast. They fly by Boston. They go, and go, and go, and they do not stop. As the car slows, and the rest of the world wakes up and ruins the illusion of loneliness (at least until they hit the ancient highways, the ones that travel nowhere, to desert, to the husks and shells and ghost towns of the United States), Chris asks where they'll go first, and Thorne doesn't have an answer. Somewhere hangs on the tip of his tongue. Somewhere with you. But as with all things lately, he bites it back because the lingering fear is this: that one day Chris will remember that night. And one day he'll know that Thorne wants and wants and wants, hungry and incomplete without him.
And that he is selfish and he would take it if he could. Has already stolen something he shouldn't have.
Thorne reaches forward and fiddles with the radio, until something else leaks out, not quite somber, but quiet enough to fit the still grey clouds hanging over them and spreading to the horizon line.
"The ocean," he said idly, "before we head inland. There's this nowhere beach down south, and if the rain stops following us, we should try and find it. And what then, do you think?" He asks Chris. They're fleeing Massachusetts. Where next, where next? The plan is to end on the West Coast (maybe Seattle) and limp or fly back. But the East Coast is a hungry terror. It is wild just as much as it is urban. "Virginia is nine hours, less if we drive fast. We can skim the south and head in afterwards, and pick our way from there." He draws lines in the air of the coast, of Massachusetts and Virginia and all of the other sea-side states. "But it's your choice, driver. Take me somewhere nice." ( total wordcount: 9207 (1201/620/1419/512/541/597/365/851/1535/702/860) )
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Posted: Sun Oct 02, 2016 12:41 am
so for now let's get away
There have been some admittedly weird days between them lately, when Chris thinks about it.
When he thinks about it for awhile, lets his mind really settle on it, it starts with the night at the bar. The night he doesn't remember, can't really remember, just settles on the edge of his mind like a vague memory. He knows what's leading up to some of it - he remembers sitting in the bar with Thorne, he remembers hitting two bottles of Soju. But things end there, like a tape that's been cut too soon, and it just leaves Chris frustrated. Because something definitely happened and Chris can't remember, but Thorne clearly can because it's evident in his actions.
It's not something that's spoken loudly, hell if it was anyone else maybe they'd think nothing would happen at all. But Chris can see it clearly, can see it in all his moves and actions, no matter how small. An eye for detail used now on one person he's spent all his time with (or maybe an eye developed from being around him so long - Chris doesn't know and doesn't care) and things aren't adding up that should and it leaves Chris frustrated and empty handed. He almost could have all the pieces, but there's just a long blank spot in his memory, and a growing question of what.
Because Thorne very obviously avoids being near Chris' mouth now, averts his fingers from there and is careful where he touches. Because there's an underlying jittery sort of energy underneath his motions, where sometime he stutters, hesitates for a moment before touching Chris. It's always a millisecond of a thing, something easily missed by the untrained eye. But Chris is attuned to Thorne and he knows and while it doesn't affect their relationship badly, it's still something bothering him.
Chris could, if he really wanted, ask Thorne about it all. He'd probably receive a straight answer too, as they both didn't really lie to each other about anything. Secrets created stress and while they didn't share every detail about their lives, they didn't keep anything away from each other that needed to be told. But it felt, it felt wrong to ask Thorne about this. Something deep in him knew that Chris needed to figure it out on his own, somehow find that missing memory and piece it all together himself before he confronted Thorne about it all. Before he asked exactly what was up.
He didn't feel bad about it per se and Thorne didn't seem to hold any ill feelings towards Chris about it either, although he was directing everything inward and it frustrated Chris. He wanted to know what he was missing, what Thorne seemed to be beating himself up over, woke up so stressed over. It was related to him and it was in turn starting to bother Chris to make him worry. Was Thorne going to leave him? Was he going to be left alone?
That scared Chris to the core because he at this point could not imagine anything without Thorne.
Oh he would surely survive if it did come to that. Chris was good at picking up the pieces, at putting himself together until he put together a passable facade and no one was worrying about him because he seemed alright. Seemed whole. But Chris knew something would die in him the very moment something like that happened, he would lose something that he'd never get back. Chris would survive, but he wouldn't be good at it, wouldn't enjoy it.
Because his home was Coalsmoke now, was a place were the seams of their life bled together until you didn't know what was what. Their plants blended together into one, papers and ink into canvas and paint, everything Chris and Thorne owned having paint marks or ink marks, or coffee stains or something with dirt and cat hair and it was ChrisandThorne, a single breath, spoken together in a rush. There was no separation between them anymore, just two people whose lives had merged together.
It was why he wanted to ask, why he wanted to see if Thorne would answer yes. Would let him in, would have him cancel the lease on his apartment. It was coming up eventually, he had made it back in May, something that felt like it was far too long ago. Had signed it a week before Blackfriars roughly, had signed it saying he was staying another year. The owner had been thrilled, since Chris was quiet and clean and punctual with rent, but now Chris was wondering if it was worth it.
But he was too afraid to ask and he was too afraid of what Thorne would answer and it just led back to that one blank mind in his memory, a gap of something that held too much importance that Chris didn't know about.
If he tried really hard and sat down and focused, sometimes Chris could get snatches of images from it. His hands somewhere warm, cupped around something. The cold of condensation from a glass, the low rough hum of voices. Small things that answered nothing, gave him nothing to worth with no matter how hard he tried to jam pieces together. It was frustrating, he was frustrated, and the rain made everything worse.
So while it was the rain that mostly drove Chris to ask about the road trip, it was also that night that made him ask.
Because he wanted something back, something that he had inconceivably given up on that night. He wanted that easy motion between them, he wanted that hesitation that Thorne held gone. If there was any form of bonding better than a road trip, Chris sure as hell didn't know it and he didn't want to find out. Because with this, definitely with this, they could make new memories. They could get rid of that old one, they could get something back. They'd be them again, perfectly, fit together.
(On the worst nights, on the very worst nights when he was close to no sleep for days and wracked with anxiety and laying in bed with Thorne desperately trying to find something, things whispered to him. Told him that Thorne would leave him over this, that it would create a gigantic divide in their relationship. It scared him badly, straight through his core, left him breathless and worried. Constantly, constantly worried.)
He ignores it though as they sit in the car together, as Thorne moves and fiddles with the radio, lets the obnoxious song fade into something that fits the moment, the sky. He likes it, he likes it a lot, and he's glad for Thorne's intervention.
"Give me directions to it," Chris says instantly, the words falling off his tongue without hesitation. He is an island boy through and through, the ocean and the sand in his blood, and Thorne is offering him something that he cannot and will not resist. "We'll find it in even if there's rain, I'll make sure of it." He wants to hear the roar of the ocean, he wants to feel it in his blood. The rain was never a factor when it came to the sea either, it may have made its waves messier, but he loves it all the same. Salt and sand and shell, cold wind whipping through his hair. He can feel it now.
"Virginia sounds nice, I have no qualms with it. I do want to stop in New Orleans when we're in the south though, and somewhere in Texas. See if they're as crazy as they all say," He jokes, smile easy in his mouth, on his lips. He's okay with anything though, okay with whatever Thorne suggests so long as they're in his car and it's just them and the world against them.
[wc: 1306 ]
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Posted: Sun Oct 02, 2016 1:14 am
so for now let's go away
There is no way around the fact of what Thorne wants.
Of where Thorne has placed his roots.
He has been nothing for so long though, a nowhere creature, that understanding what Chris is to him is as much a shock as it is a fear, as it is something warm and dangerous in his hands, like a soft galaxy being born. He could shatter it with the wrong movement, could destroy all of the things he loved and needed and reached for in one fell swoop. And sometimes he's afraid, some nights he's petrified, that that action that started the fall was kissing Chris back. Because Chris didn't remember, and Thorne trusted him enough to accept that -
But what if he did?
And what if he had simply kissed Thorne because he was drunk, because the words came easy, because for every truth Thorne gave him, Chris would remember and shirk from it.
Thorne had once seen a man truly bent to the reverence inside of him for his God. But Thorne bent now to a different emotion in his body, wholly turned towards Chris. Wholly burning from the want and need and desperation that spilled inside of him for the other man, like a dark maw waiting to swallow him up, swallow him whole.
And if he told Chris of that beast inside of him, possessive and seeking, loyal to a fault, would he run? Would he be smart, be safe, take his leave for good? They'd promised forever, and Thorne had meant it with every fractured part of him, but -
Would Chris want him like this? Would Chris want him with his searching hands, his hungry heart, the empty chasm inside of him where he'd been uprooted over and over again, never laid to rest?
Thorne doesn't tell him because he is selfish. Because he wants Chris to stay more than anything. Because even his heart atrophies, even if he has to learn to live with swallowing glass, swallowing this nightmare inside of him that could be a dream (could be a reality, a hopeful part of him whispers, but it is hummed into silence, because it comes from a dangerous place), he would live through it, through walking on knives, just to be with him.
So he holds his hands above his heart, so that Chris will not see the wreckage, the understanding in him of what he is and who he loves.
Chris speaks up, and Thorne hums a soft melody to the song the radio echoes out to them through static and stuttering silences. He maneuvers his way around in his seat, nothing but long legs and stretching arms, until he has his head leaned against Chris's shoulder and his legs are curled on the passenger seat.
"Alright," he says gently, "I'd like that. It's miles of nowhere land, and someone just beat a path down to the beach one year and it still exists. I think you're supposed to stumble on it by accident."
He shifts again, turns his head and puffs a warm breath against Chris's neck.
"Alright," he says, "South it is. We'll go as far as we can, and then turn inland towards Texas. To the west coast. With luck, we'll claw our way up from California to the Oregon beaches. And then Deception Pass and Ruby Beach, and even the San Juans if you want. If you're not tired of me by then."
And then the radio changes and hums a soft song of wandering love. Thorne tells Chris where to go, lifts his head sometimes and points out familiar pieces of land, the rise and fall of civilization, finite and mortal, the very opposite of them.
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Posted: Sun Oct 02, 2016 10:41 pm
so for now let's get away
Chris is starting to realize what he really wants, when he lets his mind wander.
He doesn't ever let himself really think about it, is what the problem is, but the thing is Chris more than anything wants Thorne. He wants him not as he has him now, although now is such a lovely thing that he would never in his life want to leave, but he wants him as something more. He wants him in every way possible, wants him not only as platonic but something more. Something, far, far more.
The thing is though is that Thorne deserves far, far more than what Chris is.
Chris isn't blind to his flaws, although he desperately wishes he was. Chris is only a side character, someone meant to bleed out in the side, someone who wasn't meant to shine as brightly. He is boring, ordinary, and most of all plain. It's clear as day, clear as crystal, as time goes on and confirms everything. Thorne the noble, gorgeous, amazing. Chris just Chris, who speaks with the plants, who is here to help the others.
Stubborn Chris, boring Chris, plain. Ugly. The ghosts of his past, his previous tormentors, they stay with him even years beyond what happened. Ghosts living in his scars, scars that he shouldn't have, because what is Chris but someone who is only their to prop up? Side characters have their troubles, but nothing so clear cut, so defined. He has accepted his flaws and misgivings but he was still haunted, still told at moments what he shouldn't forget. When he believed for a second he could be more, ten year old scars came to haunt him. A long time to hold on, but Chris has always been patient, has always had a memory on him that was far too good. Stubborn, unable to let go.
Ten years was not long enough for Chris to let go, no matter what Hyejin said, no matter what he let her think.
It's all this that keeps Chris in check, keeps him from trying to seize something more. Thorne had his own scars Chris knew, he had traced some with his fingers and some with his words, the rest hidden to elsewhere. He had let himself see it all and want, but Chris knows that he is not for this. Thorne needs someone who will understand, who can help him out and if that means someone else with scars or someone with none at all, Chris is neither of these things. He is all cut on the inside, thick scar tissue that has partially healed but still hurts, nothing that is as elegant as Thorne. Nothing that is as brutal as what Thorne knows, as what Mare painfully reminded him of before he was pulled back down to reality. That fight still rings in his ears, the realization, the gravity that he had been hit with. Thorne had apologized, but the apology hadn't been needed because it was a truth that Chris had blinded himself to.
But even knowing the truth doesn't make Chris want it any less, doesn't make him know the reality he cannot get.
So he doesn't think about it, he lets it slip away from him like a dream. Pretends that in every touch there is nothing, there is no heat, there is no desire for more.
Chris, the ghost says, the biggest of all and the one who hurts the most because she is kind and no matter what he does she will not leave, You are worthy of love too.
Maybe, he thinks back, but not with someone like Thorne. Who is something good, who deserves something more and wouldn't think of Chris like that. Would never think of Chris like that, no matter how much he wanted. The other facet of this situation, the other set of issues that Chris also knows. For as much as Chris knows that he is not worthy of Thorne, he also knows that he would never be thought of in that way.
Thorne certainly sought contact with him, certainly physical affection, has their lives bleed together. But that is the limit of them, the line that couldn't be crossed. They were to be nothing more and Chris knows it painfully well, even if Thorne says nothing outright. Because who would want Chris? Who would want something like him, something messed up in all the wrong ways in the smallest form, all slight edges and wrong angles. Not someone like Thorne.
It's because of all this that he doesn't let himself think about it much, doesn't let his mind wander to what he wants. It's not a thought out process as more of an innate knowing, an idea he's turned over so many times that it comes naturally when he even so much as thinks about something more. Nothing jagged that he cuts himself on, no that was something different, that was a ghost of ten years, a decade, but this is a smooth stone, a calm acceptance. Bitter, perhaps, a pill he doesn't want to swallow, but nothing that he would allow himself to fight. The truth is always something that had to be accepted.
(Oh but sometimes when he can't help himself, when he's too weak, he blocks it out. He lets himself daydream of dark hands on him, of skin on skin. Of hugs that are something more, of lips on his face. He dreams and he dreams and he locks it away and feels shameful for even having it.
Do not discredit yourself, the ghost whispers to him all the same though, You are worthy of it. You are allowed it, you are worthy of love Chris. You are not unforgivable, or a person that is nothing.
He feels all of fourteen again when she says that and that's the part that hurts the most, he feels all of fourteen years old and standing by that ocean and scared, so scared and the world way too big.)
He wants Thorne but he will not have and Chris does not for a second let himself think about it because it hurts.
"Those are the best beaches," Chris says softly, relishing in the warmth that is Thorne, that is his head on his shoulder. A puzzle piece fit to him, long limbs and edges that fit him. "Those are the ones untouched by us, where the ocean rules. I love those. Maybe I'll even get some shells."
There was a collection he owned at home, a jar in the back corner of his apartment that he didn't look at, refused to look at even though he kept it around. Hyejin had forced it on him and he couldn't bring himself to give it back, to throw it away. But he feels good here and safe and he thinks that maybe with Thorne, he can add to it. Just once.
"I'll never get tired of you," He replies, amused. "We could be the last people on earth and I'd be thrilled, because then it'd mean I could monopolize all your time. But that's a good plan."
The radio switches over and he lets the silence take over, just listens to Thorne as they travel, as his eyes wander over the land. New and yet old, sights Thorne has seen before and things Chris himself is eager to learn. But most of all Chris is just enjoying Thorne's companionship, the contact, the head on his shoulder. If he could, if he was daring enough, Chris would reach out a hand to take his. But he is not yet, he is scared, and so he sits there and he listens and he sometimes offers information of his own but mostly he tries to learn what Thorne knows.
[wc: 1296]
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Posted: Mon Oct 03, 2016 12:14 am
so for now lets get away
Thorne lets himself rest against Chris until finally, he tells him to pull over. They park in one of those strange little divots in the road, nothing but dirt and gravel and dense forest on one side, spiking up around them to hide the salt breeze that trembles in the air. For a long moment, Thorne doesn't move, doesn't even bother to do anything but breathe, but lay against Chris as though it is the end of the world and they are driving away from the fallout, the collapse of civilization, on a road to nowhere, and the only difference between then and there and here and now is that they would have taken the cats with them.
He breathes out, a deep sigh, and turns his head into Chris's collarbone, his nose against the others neck. He wants to say thank you, but surely Chris already knows those words are too weak and shallow for everything that lives inside of Thorne. He wants to say I'm sorry, I wish I could be what you needed me to be, I wish I could be better for you -
He wants to say I want to be the one. I want to be yours. Let me be yours.
But all of those words in his throat feel like chains or whips or bullets, and if he breathes them out, Chris will hurt and Chris might leave, and that is worse than this, than all of it. Thorne will take what scraps he can get, what contact he is allowed. Even when the dreams burn him from the inside out. Even when they are nothing, just fragments, just -
(A warm press of lips against the curve of spine, lazy circles against bare skin, the press of open, lazy kisses against the scars of Chris's face, and his own neck bared open to be slit or kissed or marked -)
Thorne hates himself for wanting it so much that sometimes he can barely breathe. Thorne hates himself for the line he walks, for the fact that there is a line at all. He hates himself for the whisper of religion in his bones, telling him of sin, of saints and God's wrath. He hates that it is in his fathers own voice, usually. That even now, three years into the grave, he is still an omnipresent haunting, like a ghost in Thorne's bones.
He hates himself because once, his brother had found him in hysterics outside of Sunday Mass and had to skip it to drive him out into the middle of nowhere, where he'd broken down in the passenger seat and Declan had had to hold him until he was calmer, calm enough that Declan could speak to him.
It's alright, he had said, I love you. God loves you. It's alright, it's alright.
Because his father had carved them both from his lush religion, and even as far as Thorne had tried to run from it, the remnants still lingered in his bones. He was not sure of his belief anymore, only of the rhythmic, whispering creature within him now that sang hymnals, sang latin, spoke of prayers and God and the devils legion and Hell. He was not sure he was someone worthy to be within cathedral walls anymore, because he wasn't sure, hadn't been sure for years now, that anything existed there but his fathers ghosts and mortal fear and salvation waiting in the hands of men who would never give it to him, would never let him live without wanting to strip him to his flesh, his skin, his body, and try and dig out the sin in his bones like stealing marrow, like stealing every part of him that made him the patchwork concept he was now.
"You say that now, but by the time we're in Seattle, I hope you still think so," he cannot help murmuring against Chris's skin. "I think I would like that too, you know. Being the last people on earth. There is no one else I would rather hand myself over to than you."
He hopes then that Chris can find his shells, can find his own treasure out here in this world that they occupy, the liminal spaces where highway meets civilization, meets nowhere, connects, and disappears again into nothing. He is selfish and happy, here and now, that Chris is with him, because he wants to monopolize his time. Because once, someone had laid with him in the back of a truck under the stars smoking a pack of Marlboros, and Thorne had been young and stupid, and had asked, "Do you love me?"
The laughter of that mouth chased him even now.
"For now," was the answer. "Do you?"
For now, Thorne had echoed, to hide the hurting parts of him, the too young places that hadn't hardened over yet. He had allowed those hands to trace patterns against his unmarked skin, the small of his back, biting and teasing and playing, the heat of summer curling around them and stretching them thin. He knew now that he'd never loved that person. There was a difference between love and loneliness, and he knew it now because now he looked at Chris and for how lonely he was he would not ask that sort of question of him, would never cross that line, because he could live with being lonely and in love if that meant he was happy. Even if that meant that one day he became happy with someone else.
Do you know about the law of entropy, that mouth had asked against the small of his back, nails biting into his hips, digging him closer, closer, they say that heat, once lost, can never be regained.
Thorne pulled himself away from Chris without wanting to, really, and opened the car door. The ragged path cuts down a sloping hill eventually after a few minutes of trees and logs and fallen things, and leads them out beside a hungry cliff face that has been worn away over time. The ocean roars and whispers and sings to them from here, a salt breeze catching in Thorne's hair. The morning is still grey here, still overcast, and the sandy beach stumbles with rocks and seashells as the waves come in, wash out, come in again. Thorne smiles at the sight, kicks off his Toms, and turns to Chris.
"Come on," he says, "Walk with me. My mother used to do this thing whenever we'd go to beaches - she'd wander along the shore for shells and tell a story until she found one."
He smiles at Chris, offers him his hands. His scars flash beneath the tattoos, straight and true, but he tries not to be afraid of them. For Chris, he tries not to be afraid.
He says, "So I'll tell you a story as we go and find your shells. I'll tell you any kind of story you want, just ask it of me."
Because he remembers the way his body had curved, less human and more a tool, pressed down into the bed of that truck, under the blazing heat of summer and the desolate, far-away stars full of dead light reaching, full of lonely thoughts going nowhere, going nowhere, drowned out by the breath at his neck and the bite of pain inside of him that was not all physical.
He remembers thinking, Desire is much like heat.
But with Chris, he knows it is not desire. He looks at him and something deep and hungry and desperately loyal stirs in him, a beast that might have been with him forever, through all of these cycles, each and every one. It is the thing that whispers in him and says, Oh. There you are. I've been looking for you. It is the gentle sadness inside of his chest that has been with him since birth, wondering at its origin only to find Chris and know. It is love, sure and deep and true, so true that Thorne aches from it. That he lets it rest like an anchor inside of him that will moor him to this point forever, this world where they are alone, just the two of them, in the silence before the end of the world. Of their world. Of this, all of it, if Thorne ever forgets himself and opens his mouth and condemns everything they have because he was selfish and wanting and just wanted to be whole.
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Posted: Mon Oct 03, 2016 11:37 pm
so for now let's get away
The moment Chris parks he turns off the car, lets them just sit there. Thorne is a weight against him, a comfort, and he likes it. He likes the moment of peace, the way he can't exactly feel the power or magic he held in Ashdown. He is normal, just someone in a car with their friend and a trip planned out ahead of them. He isn't going to be reborn, he isn't trying to find an answer to a problem that's had 19 tries of people solve it, he isn't looking for inconsistencies in people so he can try and figure out if they're real or not. It's simply them, just a pair of people, not a lord and a visitor but just Chris and Thorne. Easy, simple, two people with stories and pasts but nothing that has to matter in this moment because it's only them.
If he lets his mind get away from him, he can almost imagine it like he had said before, it just them in the universe and only them. There's only the wilderness and Thorne and the possibility of anything in front of them, stretched endless on the horizon. He shifts in place to allow a better position for Thorne, drapes a now free arm around Thorne's shoulders. Inhales, exhales, allows him this moment to commit to memory without any guilt of what he wants and what he is allowed.
He will just allow everything to be for now.
"We'll see who's wrong and who's right by Seattle then," Chris replies easily, softly. "It's agreed then, we're fated for each other if the apocalypse happens." It's a gentle tease, but there's still immense fondness. Not discrediting what was being said, the truth admitted between them, but switching it a little to make it lighter. The trip itself feels slightly somber, this switch from something so heavy to something new and freeing and it's a hard adjustment.
Chris especially doesn't know what to do with it, this feeling of weight lifting off his shoulders. He's used to a whiplash of adjusting from good to bad, from bad to worse, until finally worse becomes the good and the cycle begins again. He's never had the reverse happen to him, at least not that he can remember recently, and it leaves him off kilter, off balance. It makes him think, makes him want, has him taking memories of the now and putting them elsewhere, so when he thinks about them he can spin them into his daydreams. Can tweak the details until the line between reality and fantasy becomes blurred in those moments he allows himself. Everything he's used to is crumbling around him and he's not alarmed by the change but it's an adjustment he's trying to make on the fly in these first hours so he doesn't become obvious, doesn't let on to Thorne there is something more there.
Because he's been keeping this to himself for so long, that even if he knows Thorne would reject him, he still doesn't want it to actually happen. He doesn't want to see disgust in Thorne's eyes, he doesn't want this relationship he's made crumble. He had left once and it had left him empty, left him hollow and ugly and something he didn't want to be ever again. Having Thorne, being Thorne's, these may have been something he could never have but he wanted to keep this company, these touches, the almost that he held cradled in his hands, small and warm and absolutely his.
Thorne pulls away and Chris follows, opening the car door and taking a deep breath of the ocean air. It's for a second like being back home, salt spray in the wind and wild land around them until they went down on their carved path to the beach, to sit and think and play. But there's a bit more here that isn't home, the sky isn't right, the temperature not warm enough, small things that aren't enough to make it a perfect replica of home. But he follows Thorne down to the beach and loves it all the same, because it is known to only them in this moment and it is theirs and all he needs is a beach and Thorne.
"Okay," Chris says easily and peels off his shoes, leaves them by Thorne's to find later.
He doesn't mention that his sister, that the ghost, they both used to do this. The collection that was in his apartment was not made by his hand, it was a cultivation of things and stories in an old glass bottle that was meticulously taken care of. In the past it had seen more action as time had gone on, if no addition to it, the opening of it to run fingers over the memories collected in there. Chris couldn't bear himself to do it now a decade later, still afraid he'd cut himself on the edges and never be able to come back. It had happened once before, it could happen again, and there was too much to lose if that happened again. He still had to protect Thorne, had to protect Jamie and Shiloh and everyone else that he cared about.
It's only a second of a moment, a sliver, but for a second he's fourteen and back at Jejudo and they are all on the beach. There is a rambling story coming out of her mouth and Chris isn't listening so much as admiring, as letting the words wash over him and give him peace. Hyejin is far on ahead, shoes left behind with them as she runs and tries to get some of that animal energy out of her and so it is just the two of them walking this shore as she looks for more things to add to her collection.
"You're going to need another jar at this rate," He teases her, soft and fond and affectionate. She laughs but says nothing in reply, just looks over the collection of shells she is holding in her shirt before considering another one that they stumble upon. Chris hums lightly, hands behind his head as he walks along slowly, enough that she can catch up without even having to think.
"Do you think we'll always be together?" She asks suddenly and Chris pauses, turns in his motions. She looks suddenly serious, drawn up to her full height, steel in her backbone as she looks at Chris. He feels like she is looking through him and it is an unnerving feeling, one that sets him on edge because he has never seen this from her in all these years and he doesn't know how to deal with it.
"I think all the way until we die," He answers honestly, nervously, after a long moment of thought. He wouldn't promise forever because he didn't know if he wanted forever, not even with those two. She had accepted the answer then easily, steel slipping out and smile coming back into place, the walk continuing and her rambling stories starting again.
Chris hadn't wanted forever then but he knows now, he knows that he wants forever with Thorne. Not because he doesn't want to die, but because he simply wants to keep on going with Thorne. There is something in the world that is worth it with Thorne and he'd keep fighting for that chance if he could, until his fingers bled and his bones broke, so long as they had a shot at it.
He looks at Thorne and he sees Thorne and his hand and takes it in his own, clasping to it tightly.
In Thorne he sees a future and he wants it, because this is the first time he can imagine beyond just a few years and it's amazing as it is terrifying.
"Tell me about yourself," Chris says, gently tugging Thorne along so he can look at the shells before the tide takes them away. "Tell me a story about yourself, something happy. Something nice."
Because he wants more of Thorne, he wants all that he can get, so he will ask for stories and hands and hot burning pinpricks of contact that will linger long after he lets go, after Thorne lets go. It's much like the ocean, like being in the water, the after affect of the tides lingering in his bones but this is a hotter, warmer thing that almost brings Chris to shame. But he wants it all the same so he pulls Thorne along so he can feel him later, begins to look on the beach for something to add to her collection, something lovely.
The first thing he finds is a sand dollar and for some reason, he feels better when he does.
[wc: 1461]
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Posted: Tue Oct 04, 2016 6:10 pm
you and i were - you and i were -
Somehow they crawled down south, and then slid gracelessly into South Carolina. It wasn't that they'd meant to, not really. It had just happened. Thorne would have been pleased to spend all of his time on the road or in hotel rooms, enjoying nothing more than to terrorize Chris with poor renditions of songs that came up on the radio or sticking his feet out of the car window when there was nothing around them but trees and wilderness for miles, for days.
The sticky heat here clung to their skin and the climate had changed slowly from the sickly cold rain of Ashdown to the wet heat of the innards of an animals mouth, with the only relief coming in storms blowing through. They passed through nowhere spaces, highways cracked through with ugly markings, dense green thickets burrowing into the landscape like stubborn burrs. The car was damp with sweat and heat sometimes, no matter how far the window was rolled down, or how high they turned up the air conditioning.
Somehow, they'd found their way to one of the hiking trails in Kentucky. Instead of holing up in an air conditioned hotel room or listening to swing music at some 20's knockoff bar, they'd gone spiraling into the wilderness, the Camaro parked in the dirt of a forgotten parking lot, some double queen hotel lined up back in the city for the night. Thorne had laughed as he'd pulled Chris along on the trail, climbing over precarious log bridges that ran above clear, swaying creek beds and running streams. He wasn't sure where they were going, here, only that the world around them was running ragged with the last defiant breaths of summer, all the leaves turning color, the humidity crawling down their backs.
Thorne should have known better, honestly.
He really should have, when the sky cracked open above them with a deafening roar of thunder, and the rain came down like a thick sheet. Thorne sputtered to a stop where he'd been wandering ahead of Chris, trying to discern the path forward, and couldn't help a surprised shock of laughter registering deep in his throat that was nearly drowned by the rain and another clap of thunder somewhere ahead. He'd been the fool who hadn't checked the weather, had barely even registered anything before the moment Chris put coffee in his hands and even less until they were parked outside of a hiking trail they'd found somewhere in the rural hunger of the world.
Thorne turns to look at Chris, his white henley already soaked entirely through and entire useless in hiding his chest, and laughs again, his smile wide and guilty and shameless somehow at the same time.
"Oh," he says while laughing, obviously taking this in some sort of hilarious stride, and comes towards Chris, shaking out his head to no helpful degree like a dog in a storm, "I guess that was the surprise of the day, just not the one I was thinking of. How far do you think the car if we sprint?"
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Posted: Tue Oct 04, 2016 9:53 pm
you and i were - you and i were -
The road trip was going well, as far as road trips were concerned. They were sliding their way through the states, crawling their way south, the weather changing with every mile they passed. Chris didn't really know where they were going and didn't care, more focused on the time spent between them. In messy hotel rooms, in the car where there were many, many song renditions, in coffee shared and sandwiches split and weird long rambling observations of whatever was going on outside because there was only so much wilderness one could take before they started getting deep.
Chris thrived in the weather change, the humidity clinging to him like a blanket, like a second skin he wore well. He complained, but it wasn't anything major, the type you did just to have something to complain about, grinning the whole way through. He enjoyed the rain that blew through as well, but it was clear that he was enjoying this as much as he enjoyed the trip. As much as they passed through nowhere with only each other, with the tantalizing idea that they were the only people left playing on the edge of his mind when they went miles with no one else on the road. When they passed through those weird midway points, the highway at 3 am and the welcome stations and sometimes truck stops.
In Kentucky Chris was weak and couldn't deny Thorne the idea of going on a hiking trail, of spending a day in the wilderness. Somewhere that would be theirs, like Other Ashdown without the danger, or well. With, since Chris' powers had faded and he wasn't immune to plants anymore, had nothing to save them except what they were given. It was exciting in it's own way and he laughed along with Thorne as he was pulled along, enjoying the south, it's defiance in the face of autumn. He was sweaty and hot but he had water and he had Thorne and it was enough to keep him going, to some promised beyond at the end of the hiking trail. He wondered how Thorne would react if Chris told him that the end didn't matter, so long as he had Thorne.
He considered opening his mouth and saying it, but the weather stepped in. It cracked open them, unleashing a thick sheet of rain and Chris blinked in surprise, his own feet stopping because he wasn't sure what even was going on. He shot Thorne an incredulous look and then laughed himself, unable to believe what exactly was happening. They hadn't checked the weather of all things (or well, Thorne hadn't, but Chris would leave that alone for now) and were paying for it now, on some hiking trail in deep enough that it'd be a bit of a ways back.
Chris stumbles his way over to Thorne, happy and pleased (and admiring the view, although his own light blue shirt is soaked completely through and leaving nothing to the imagination) and laughs with him again. Even in the rain he's bright and happy, pleased.
"Not close enough at all," Chris replies, rearing back to protect himself even though the rain was already hitting him with water, Thorne's hair absolutely nothing in the downpour. "We might as well walk and make sure we don't die, rather than run and get the same effect and probably slip in mud. I'll admit, this was a pretty nice surprise."
[wc: 574]
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Posted: Tue Oct 04, 2016 11:24 pm
Thorne catches Chris with his hands laughing, sliding them up his arms to his shoulders and grinning at the catch he's taken in. They are truly in the middle of the wilderness now, the scent of petrichor heady in the air. Thorne trains his eyes on Chris's face because if he doesn't, he will give away everything that he has worked so hard to preserve within his own body, lest it get out and escape to somewhere where Chris can see. But he cannot deny this, them, here in the middle of nowhere where for all he knows, the rest of the world has ended.
Perhaps they will come back from the deluge to a scene out of some movie, where the rest of civilization has been reduced to whispers, nothing but empty cars and cities overgrown with ivy, untamed plants. The apocalypse will come. And they'll be alone. Thorne has a second, an instance, in the deluge where he sees it. Sees them scavenging gasoline from broken down stations, stealing mixtapes and ancient cassettes from nowhere pockets of land in the midwest. They might find survivors somewhere. Small pockets of civilization. They'll trade clean water for burgers at a diner still standing. And when they hit somewhere nice and they're tired from the drive -
They'll make a home.
"What? You don't want to see me fall face first into a river and get myself even wetter?" He asks, as though it is possible. As though somehow in this deluge there's even a chance for him to get soaked more than he already has. The rain isn't cold, the humidity still a tangible thing in the air, like a dog constantly panting down his neck, nipping at his throat and back and legs. He uses one hand to push his hair back, rain dripping from his long dark lashes. He watches water bead at the edge of Chris's chin and wants to catch it with his mouth, and the thought is so provoking, so shameless, that all at once Thorne blinks and flushes and his stomach does flips.
He had been so good about it, so kept. Even when they tousled on the hotel beds, or argued over the backseat of the car, or went careening into each other on the lines of roadsides while trying to find some strange and abstract feature, he managed not to dream. He only allowed his mind to wander in showers and in the rare times when he was alone, still in bed while Chris went for coffee or morning breakfast to bring back to the room, his body curled into the mattress until the heat stifled him so much that he had to go drown in the shower and pretend he'd mistakenly timed it for when Chris returned.
"If we walked out to the car," Thorne cannot help saying, a soft laugh on his lips, "And found out the rest of the world had been washed away, would you still be happy that we were the last people on earth?"
There's a gentle tease in it, but something that runs like a current beneath. An undertow, sliding against his words like a lullaby sound.
"What would you do with me in that world?"
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Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2016 6:39 pm
you and i were - you and i were -
Chris laughs again at being caught, brings his own hands up to cup Thorne's forearms and grins beautifully. It's just them in this downpour, the world gone, and Chris relishes in it as much as he did when they were climbing through the trail. Relishes in this feeling of being human, of being trapped by weather and things that they couldn't affect, not like they could in Other Ashdown. Relishes in this feeling of Thorne being his and only his, not taken by some court of some title but just - there. For him.
He thinks about maybe never going back to Ashdown, just staying like this with Thorne. Driving across America and finding some small town to settle down where no one knows their names, their pasts. Where they are just them and it can only be them and the universe doesn't conspire against them. But they have people who care about them back in Ashdown, people they care about, a house and a job and things that cannot be left behind so easily to do that. A feeling that they must do whatever they have to, so that way whatever they are fighting doesn't win. But for the moment, Chris just wants to believe that they can do that - can travel into the night and leave everything behind for moments just like this one, where it's just them and the rest of the world be damned because nothing else would ever matter.
"I don't think that's even possible," Chris laughs, eyeing Thorne with amusement. They are soaked through to the bone in one of those sudden showers the south is ever so fond of springing upon people, warm and hanging onto the last vestiges of summer in a way that only the seasons can truly do. It feels lovely and Chris watches, spellbound, as Thorne pushes his hair away from his face, water casting along his jawline. He wants to run his hands through it, he wants to take and interrupt the wetness to leave his own trail left by his hands. Instead he lets his hands drop instead, gives Thorne a rakish smile and pretends that his face isn't flushing and he never had the thoughts at all.
Because this whole road trip has been an exercise in control, in things he kept to himself and did not ever exercise. In every fight over breakfast and night curled into bed together, Chris nudging himself closer until he can drape an arm over Thorne's waist and pretend it's purely platonic. In every moment their shoulders joust together and hair ruffle and smile bright and happy and everything Chris wants to bottle and selfishly keep to himself. Chris so badly wants what he can't have and it's hard to keep it to himself, enough that he has to escape sometimes, goes to get coffee or breakfast and pretend that he isn't thinking this, goes in the shower where the heat blurs everything together and he can't think beyond the steam. Inhales, exhales, makes sure that nothing shows at all.
He looks at Thorne in this rain and in his beauty and he wants so badly.
"Absolutely," Chris says without hesitation, his own smile soft, wanting. "I've said if before, you know, you and I could be the last people on this earth and I would be thrilled."
He considers the question as he steps forward into Thorne's space even more, his hands shaking slightly as he tries to keep them to himself.
"Anything," He says, "Everything. You'd be mine and no one could stop me."
[wc: 595]
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Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2016 7:39 pm
you and i were - you and i were -
Thorne presses his lips together to stifle a second laugh, but the corners of his mouth dimple into a smile anyways, and the rain runs rivulets against his cheek and jaw. He remembers the nights spent out in the space between the back of his house and the rest of the world, watching storms roll in, wondering if he should come back inside but always waiting until the last second to sprint. He thinks that he is this way with Chris, always toeing the edge of something before dashing back to comfort, always watching the sky split open but dodging the bullet by never facing it at all.
How he wants to though. How he would.
Chris speaks just as thunder booms again, and Thorne has to duck his head closer to hear, hands sliding up to Chris's jaw and face to cusp it as he does so. Their noses brush, and he jolts with guilty realization as he sends them stumbling back a few paces, not really caring about the wet squelch of greenery beneath their feet or the slick pull of dirt and grass as it gives way to mud and muck, the stream burbling up somewhere around them. A flock of birds bursts from the nearby brush. If he listens closely, he can hear things moving all around them, alive in the world that they stand in.
Nature wraps around them, bends like a river leading them further along. Thorne doesn't think of the rest of the world or how wet he'll be when they get back to the car, or Ashdown, or any of it. He doesn't think of death or dying or blood or rot because he inhales and it is Chris. Nothing but Chris and the petrichor of the world, the stable heartbeat of an ecosystem burning itself through its cycles. Death and rebirth, life ebbing and flowing. It was a beautiful system, living in their bones as well. Maybe this was the first time Thorne had found Chris in his life in all of these cycles - but he prayed that the stardust in his bones that would continue into another cycle, into a bursting revival of birth and death again and again would remember him from now on.
"I hope you stop and remember," Thorne says, soft and low, "That the same can be said from me to you."
Reiteration. Reflection. Thorne wants to press all of this garden in his bones to Chris, a beautiful, chaotic creation he'd built and structured just for him. He wanted to take it like a garland, a blooming bouquet, and kiss him across the distance. From here to there was less than a breath. He could feel Chris's breath mix with his, a different sort of humidity than the dogs breath swamp of this ancient forest and this unbearable Southern humidity.
Thorne leans back slightly, looks up at Chris. His eyes are night-dark, back to their original color now that they are so far away from Ashdown that the ebb and flow of magic doesn't touch him, just leaves him in dry-dock, human again. He slides his hands down and drops them so that he can ruck them up against his own neck, fingers lacing at the back of his neck, every part of him soaked through, drenched wet like he'd taken a dive into the sea.
"I'd be yours," Thorne echoes back, and tilts his head up so that there is a dangerous slope to his jaw, a wild look in his eyes, hunting. "And who's stopping you here and now?"
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Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2016 8:11 pm
you and i were - you and i were -
Chris leans into Thorne's touch on his face like always, not even thinking about the motion, about the instant reaction. Trained, ingrained, something he can't stop even if he wants because he is always drawn to Thorne's touch like a moth to a flame. He wants and he wants and when he is given he is unable to resist, has no self control to slow down and only everything keeping him going. He stumbles back with Thorne and laughs slightly, hands coming up to rest on his shoulder, to steady them. He had joked about falling but he's not sure he actually wants to do it, although the results would probably be fine. He would always be fine with Thorne, no matter the occasion or moment.
It's this that keeps him from thinking anything else, this moment in time where it's just them and rain. Because it's hard to think of anything but Thorne when they are pressed close enough that Chris can see darkness of Thorne's eyes, every pinprick of light and color. Close enough for their noses to brush, for their breath to mingle. He cannot think of anything else when Thorne is pressed up so close to him and he wants to let go of that careful self control he's set up for himself. He wants to let the rain wash it away and he wants to cross the distance between them and allow himself something he has never ever allowed himself before. It is only a breath's space between them and he used to never understand that phrase but he does now, pressed this close.
Chris looks at Thorne and it's a moment between them, silence that is measured. Because Chris has been trying, out here in the south, in this great trip, to start to learn that he is enough. That he is not someone for the sidelines but someone worthy of what is being given, being granted.
"I'm trying," He admits, quietly, but enough Thorne can hear. Because it's Thorne who started his process, who gave him the thought to try and tear that idea apart. It's hard, something so ingrained into him, but it's something he can try for because Thorne makes him feel like he's meant for something. Meant to be worthy of someone, instead of being in the dark, the supporting role. Thorne makes him feel like that maybe in these cycles, it wasn't Chris who was running after someone but maybe that it was someone running after him. That maybe, maybe it was Thorne.
It's not true belief, it's not anything full, but it's a start and Chris will cling to that as they make this journey.
He lets his hands slide from Thorne's shoulders as he shift his hands, looks at him with consideration, with thought. Wonders if Thorne knows how dangerous a game he is playing with Chris, how close Chris is coming to do something he would regret. Wonders how Thorne would react, if Chris did do anything.
"I don't know," He says, loose, casual. Looks up to the sky like it would give him answers, like it would calm the speeding of his heart. "Do you want me to? Do you want to be mine? What's stopping you now, as well?"
[wc: 542]
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Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2016 9:25 pm
I'm trying, Chris says, and Thorne exhales, a sharp sound like a gunshot. But his expression is wild, watchful. He drinks in the sight like a dying creature at the edge of an oasis. Water beads from his open mouth, out onto his lips - drip, drip, drip - and the sound carries through his ears.
"Then I'll say it every day if I have to," he says, "Until you understand what you are to me."
His eyes flick over Chris, considering, contemplative. There is a hunger in his belly, his chest. His garden has grown to the edge of its shell. If he doesn't let it out, it will suffocate him. But better this beautiful death than to ruin what he has with his own two hands. His mouth slides open, teeth bared in an expression like a guilty smile. The conflict of his entire being crests in the corner of his eyes.
This, as with all things, is a test of his own self-control.
His hands stay grasped at the nape of his neck. The rain drips from him in steady rivulets. The thunder echoes now. It is a symphony of nature, it heralds no one but its own. Thorne can feel the entire world turning around them, the shaking turmoil of a wet storm crushing through the forest like this. He can feel his heart as well. It burns like a firefly-bright flame in his chest.
"With everything I am," Thorne says, honestly, "I want it more than I can bear." And then he laughs, a symphonic note that sounds almost as chaotic as this rain and thunder, this natural cycle of death and rebirth. "I'm afraid you'll leave me," he answers honestly, and drops his gaze, skirting around Chris and turning to look back at him.
"Come on," he says warm and soft and aching, the pain in his chest like fire set to that garden between his ribs, "As much as I love to shout at you in the rain, I don't want us limping back home with the common cold because we couldn't make it back to our hotel in time."
An out. He is giving Chris an out.
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Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2016 9:57 pm
you and i were - you and i were -
Chris trains his gaze back on Thorne, pulls it from the sky and the thunder and everything around them and he stares for a moment. I want you to understand what you are to me, too is what he wants to say. The words rest on his tongue, heavy, thick with longing. He swallows them down.
"Okay," Chris says and it's an agreement as much as it is acknowledgement. "Okay," He repeats again. Feels the resolve in his words, in the air, thinks a little more than he can do it. That he can break himself of this thought, of this habit, make himself into something new. Something worthy.
He smiles back at Thorne and it is almost as guilty as his, at this admission of his own weakness. Of the fact he had to fix something in the first place - but Thorne will never judge him and it's this fact that Chris is confident in to admit he had a problem in the first place. That he was even working on something, anything, in the first place.
The smile sits there, settles, as he watches Thorne in this element. Turns to something fond, something wanting, longing. This all feels like a dream, like some fantasy, and those words that spilled out of his mouth he doesn't regret but for a second he wants to take them back. They feel too raw, too open, too bare. Like he is revealing his hand of cards way too early and way too soon, that Thorne will somehow instantly know what he wants and what he thinks. That Thorne will somehow hate him for it.
"Then be mine," Chris says and it's something he can't keep in him, the rain washing away part of his self-control. Washing away everything that he's been so careful to keep in check because he wants, no, he needs Thorne to know what he means to Chris. If he cannot say it directly then he will answer to Thorne like this, will try and make him learn with what he can. "I won't leave you, I can't," He says, tries to quell his fear. Because Thorne is so much of Chris now that leaving would be hard, would be something that Chris couldn't bear. They were a pair, something inseparable, something near irreversible.
But they can't be in this rain forever and this truth has to end and Chris looks at Thorne, looks at the out he is giving him. And since Chris is afraid, since he is losing grasp of his tenuous hold already of what he wants, hands slick with the rain that is falling, Chris takes it. He takes it and regrets it, but he knows he would regret anything else far, far more and it burns him but it is what he must do. It is this, all or nothing, and he would rather suffer than set everything he loves on fire.
"Alright," Chris says and he's just as warm, but in pain. "Admittedly, I think I'm immune since I already got a cold this year. It's your turn to be sick."
He smiles and starts the walk back, leading them this time.
[wc: 530]
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