Welcome to Gaia! ::

Thorne felt his entire body warm up under Lucas's insistent touch, the feel of fingers on skin, breath tickling his lips. He was light-headed and dizzy with it - this strange, unmanageable feeling inside of him. He huffed, a slow animal sound at Lucas's mock critical look, and cocked his head. "It's hard, it's hard," he teased in return, nuzzling Lucas teasingly, "I love that smile. Making you cry would be the last thing I'd ever want to do."

Oh, they were such ******** cheeseballs. The biggest dorks. And Thorne felt radiant with it - the possibilities before them. The concept that this could work. Maybe, after all this time, they could be happy.

"I'll show you," Thorne hummed softly, "I'll take you where they grow. One day."

He leeched off of Lucas's warmth, listening with hums and small noises of affirmation as he slid his down and against the others chest, peppering the man with ghost kisses that teased and taunted. His mouth opened into a laugh at the accusation. "I never said I'd play fair!" He opened his eyes and scoffed, grinning at Lucas. "Keep up, or you'll never beat me."

He tilted his head and let Lucas touch where he wanted, a soft trill of surprised pleasure escaping his throat when Lucas ran a hand over his scar. And despite all the kisses he'd already stolen, Thorne still wanted more. He was greedy and restless and Lucas was all that he could see.

"As you wish," he laughed in return. His expression changed, burning and fond and dangerously wicked, when Lucas bit his bottom lip. There was nothing more endearing than the sight of it, and Thorne felt a different sort of emptiness in the back of his throat. He knew exactly how to sate it. He just wondered how long he could last teasing Lucas out here.

And when Lucas asked him if he was happy - Thorne had to pause. Not because he didn't know the answer, then and there. But because he had never asked the question himself before. Rather, he hadn't recognized the change - when had complacency become nervousness, the edge of happiness, tipping over, here and now?

"You really have to ask?" Thorne teased, but his eyes had softened and he looked at Lucas now like he was something else. Something men and women searched for in churches, in prayer, in reaching for the edge of the divine. "Yes. You are - bright, and phenomenal. I am waiting to wake up because I still have to reconcile this idea that you're real. That you look at me when you have an entire world out there waiting for a chance to be close to you."

Thorne tilted his head, the slightest nod, the playfulness in him ebbing into something else. Something more. Wild and hungry, alive and nervous and genuine. He leaned back just enough to fully see Lucas, to look at him - to wonder.

"What about you, Lucas?" The question was soft, the sound of thunder in the distance. A storm on approach. "Are you happy? Despite this - all of it... could you be happy, here?"

Thorne laughed. "Yes, what else do you expect from me? I can't always be climbing through your window. Things would get boring." His eyes flared with amusement, his expression wild and untamed. "I can't have that, can I? I don't want you to get bored of me so fast."

He shook his head, laughter shaking his shoulders slightly, and when he looked up at the other man again, his cheeks were flushed. But Thorne had never felt more comfortable, more at home in someone else's arms. There had to be something to say about that - about how far both of them had come in so short a time.

"I learned to play the game by cheating," he retorted, licking his lips, the very image of a cat with a canary, "I told you I'd eat you raw, didn't I? I warned you all those nights ago, and look. You still came back. I'm just glad you consider that winning." Yes, they were insane. Yes, this was insane.

So many things balanced on a precipice, and Thorne wondered when they would tip. They were both of them wild and electric, beasts of emotions. It was a good thing they had Rylan in their lives to hold them down. The fitting third piece. It was strange, it was comforting, and Thorne had never experienced any of it before.

"Well," Thorne added slowly, his voice coiling with warmth, with a softness that was rare for the tempest of his personality that made him what he was, "You let me. And I think that's more important, don't you? I want to explore all of your cards, Lucas. All of your ins and outs." He opened his eyes fully, unaware that he'd closed them in the first place. His breath blew from his lips and he said slowly, "You're the first, you know? To touch - them - the scars... and not flinch away. That first night - maybe that's one of the reasons I stayed."

It was a strange confession, one he'd never thought about, but Thorne felt the memory vivid and awake inside of him. Hands sliding, reverent and gentle. Eyes filled with some strange passion, but no judgment. Nothing brutal, nothing pitying. Just - just this. Just this.

And then Lucas told him that he saw him, and maybe that's what Thorne had been looking for all this time. His eyes lowered, and his heart jammed in his chest, uneven. He shuddered at the touch and leaned in, and every hungry instinct inside of him burned and burned and burned. When he looked up again, it was reverent. It was like he was watching something unreal - something past the boundaries of what it meant to be human. He had visceral memories inside of him - memories of storms approaching, of rain falling on his skin, unyielding. He had memories of watching oceans crash, ruthless, into the cliffs.

Of things so powerful, so overwhelming, so large they made him feel small. And now, he watched Lucas look at him, trace his fingers against his scars and tell him he saw him and not the memories, not the traces of the past. And he felt that same, overwhelming presence of something beyond his power to grasp again. And what other name could it have but love?

"I..." His throat coiled, uncertain with sound. "I want you to have it. All of it. Me. And I want..." His hands traced the edge of the metal arm, where prosthetic connected to flesh and blood and bone. "I want you. All of you. Because I see you too, Lucas. And I don't know that there isn't anything in the world that has ever been more beautiful to me."

It was a confession. It was too much. Thorne knew his presence to burn and overwhelm, but that was all that he was and knew how to be. He couldn't be anything less. His laughter was gentle and humorous when Lucas tried to count the questions. He let himself be stripped of his shirt, rolling his shoulders and putting his fingers gently to Lucas's hips.

"I don't think I need them," Thorne hummed softly. "Not anymore. But perhaps one day? For different reasons."

And he paused, his smile devious.

"You're running out of time, Lucas. And I'm running out self-control. Ask me anything."