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 Posted: Sun Aug 28, 2016 3:18 pm
Chris Watts || 25/25 || Can you not
"Still the truth though," Chris countered, eyebrows raised in a dare to challenge him. He could play this game too, twist it enough that he wasn't breaking rules but it would still benefit him. He didn't like it, but he would do it. It was only fair.
The court had its own ways of doing it too, since the living proof of it stood in front of him.
He wondered why he felt so hunted by Bootleg despite the languid movements of the other, the way he acted so slow. Was it the eyes? The way he talked? He couldn't pinpoint it but it felt nervous. Like being too close to a predator.
He met his gaze all the same though, stared full on, for once didn't try to back up when he was stepped all too close into his space. He could feel the body heat radiating off the other, the way his smile seemed a little too sharp.
So focused on other things, he hadn't expected the blow.
"I-I," He stuttered, it feeling like a punch to the gut. He cut his gaze away from Bootleg, turned his head away and tried to breath. Chris knew half of it, but it didn't make it hurt any less, didn't soften the blow of the truth that was being thrown his way. "I know," He finally said, voice soft, accepting.
With this, he was weak when the other Thorne went in for the kill.
Chris couldn't even formulate a reply then, couldn't think of anything except the way his heart stuttered in his chest. He had been the most dangerous thing, it was no wonder why he had been forgotten. You didn't keep a hold of dangerous things, of unimportant, insignificant things. You let them go. Chris had been all of that and then some.
The truth hurt.
He sucked in a breath, trying to remember how to breathe, trying to remember how it felt like to be whole and not like his heart had been carved out. Like he wasn't the ghost that he was told he was.
"I know," He whispered, "I know. But I can't help myself."
It was a long minute as he stood there, dragging on into two where he just stood there. Finally he looked back up at Thorne, anger from before fully gone into something resigned.
"Why do you have a mask and he doesn't? Why are you afforded so many luxuries that he cannot have?"
3lkbones "I ******** HATE YOU, HOW DARE YOU" - me, always
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Posted: Sun Aug 28, 2016 4:36 pm
Thorne (Masked) | | 25/25 | | Bitchier
"If that is what you want it to be," Thorne remarked, entirely at ease to let Chris believe what he wanted. Even here in this corridor, playing this game of Truth or Dare, the air still felt stung through with lies and unspoken things. Thorne was content in it, the way he was content in the violence of breaking others. But it wasn't enough though.
It wasn't enough.
A peel of laughter stripped itself from his throat at Chris's response to him. Humans were circular. They could learn the answer a thousand times over - let it go, let it go, let him go, - and run themselves into the ground trying to find another way. They ran themselves through familiar sins.
"See," Thorne breathed out, turning to realign himself Chris in a single fluid gesture, a soft whisper of sound and movement, "You cannot help yourself. So you keep causing all of this pain, helpless, selfish. Put a dog at the end of its leash and it thinks of freedom. Put him at the end of his leash and oh, he thought of you." He moved forward, and for a minute he was a perfect replica.
He was Thorne, unmasked. He was fond and gentle and his eyes were bright with the warmth that had spilled between the blond and him in the middle of the night. On top of kitchen counters or curled on couches with white noise playing in the background, the scent of freshly potted plants arching across the air. He was the person that made Chris quiet, made everything real again. His smile was a familiar knife, warm and silent as it slid in. The quickest way to the heart was through the fourth and fifth ribs.
The quickest way to the heart was through a different type of murder.
"Chris," he said, and it was Thorne's voice, echoing and warm. Fond and kind and hopeful, so hopeful. "It's me, it's me. And you'll be my favorite scar."
And it was an echo of all the nights that he had played pretend. All of the nights when Chris had asked him is it you?
He reached like he would touch Chris. Like he would tug a lock of his hair the way he'd grown used to, or nudge his shoulder with his.
A heartbeat longer, and then Thorne drew away, and it was like shattering glass only to realize the empty space on the other edge. His eyes glanced up to Chris. He returned one hand to the small of his back.
The other came to draw along the length of the scar like a ghost against his neck. He didn't smile. Not really. There was a different sort of violence here. It burned through him, corrosive electricity. Different taste. Different taste.
The question made his head incline towards one side.
"You don't know?" he hummed softly, eyes lidded. His smile was slow and leisurely. "This," he said, reaching to touch the edge of his mask, "is what makes you safe from the Tithe. Your get-out-of-jail-free card." He paused, sucking in a breath and striding forward. Closer, closer.
"I am afforded these luxuries," he added, slowly, "because when this is all said and done, I will devour him whole. And there will be nothing left. This is my reward. And this is her will. Truth or dare?"
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Posted: Sun Aug 28, 2016 6:26 pm
Chris Watts || 25/25 || Agony
If Bootleg was going to let it go, Chris would not question him. He stood uneasy still though, feeling like he had been given something too generous. Like he was missing a point being made.
He had to take it though. No other options.
The laughter surprised him, eyes flicking to the other in worry, concern. Wondering what he'd plan next, what he would do, what he would say. How Chris could defend himself, or if he would be left open to the next blow.
"I am," He said, but there wasn't pity in his words now as he stared at the ceiling again. Just a tired sort of knowledge. "I am and that's why I won't stop. I'll... I have to try. If only because I'm too selfish to let go."
Because when he looked back, everything he wanted was in front of him.
It was safety and comfort, it was the knowledge that he could say anything and he would be indulged in his stupid ideas. It was cupcakes at 3 am, it was the alien vodka, it was coffee and it was box cutters and being used to help move in a house because they were friends. Messy hair and laughter and home, god it was the feeling of home.
It was Thorne in front of him and for a solid second, everything was alright in the world.
There was nothing Chris could say, nothing he could do but lean in. Complete the contact, lean into his warmth like he had once, make this horrible nightmare melt away. Everything would be right in the world, he hadn't ******** up, he just hadn't slept for a number of days again.
The illusion broke just as quick when Thorne pulled away, Chris finally realizing his words. The final echo of is it you, the reply of it's me, but wrong in so many ways. He jerked back, eyes flicking up to Thorne with betrayal, with distrust, a number of other emotions.
He sucked in a breath, tears filling his eyes. One slipped down, then another, and he closed his eyes willing himself to not cry. He would fix this, he had to, he had to.
The masks, it made sense. They were protection from the tithe, the reason for a masquerade, why there was magic to put them in place if you didn't have one. And God, Thorne was up for the tithe as much as Adoelle. It made his blood boil that he was at this point, that Shiloh was. He wouldn't let it happen.
He watched as Bootleg came closer, listened to how he was worthy of what Thorne wasn't. Oh and Chris, Chris had enough. He had enough of this game, had enough of being tricked and toyed with and picked at. In a swift motion he grabbed at the collar of Bootleg's clothing and using what he could, pushed him towards the wall he had been on.
"You deserve nothing," He growled, mere inches away from the other's face. "You are nothing but a farce, a cracked mirror, an imperfection. I will see that you won't win."
His breathed heavily for a moment and then, realizing how close he was, how his hands were on the other Thorne he dropped his collar. Backed away, ran a hand through his hair the best he could while avoiding his flower crown.
"Dare."
elkbones "i havent tried to brutally murder you i've just tried to emotionally scar you for life" - elk
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Posted: Sun Aug 28, 2016 7:09 pm
Thorne (Masked) | | 25/25 | | Pissed Off and Ready to Wreck Chris
And oh, there it was.
Thorne watched as Chris fractured and fell apart, a gorgeous creature even in the death throes of a fall. He blinked and blinked again beneath the mask. His head tilted to one side. He watched Chris cry the way he watched something in a controlled environment being torn about. Beautiful like demolition, someone had once told him, that is what a human looks like when it cries.
His chest felt hollow. Aching. Stretched. There was a hungry fettering thing inside of him. A rotting happening, that had been happening for hundreds and hundreds of years out of sight. It made his hands ache. It made him want to find his twin. It made the ache at the apex of his knuckles sharper, sharper still. He wanted to beat them into the soft mimic flesh of Thorne, real. Thorne, who felt, who felt too much.
Thorne who hoped and dreamed and loved and lost and tasted it all, swallowed it down, and opened himself to more.
Chris grabbed him, dragged him close, and Thorne breathed out sharply at the closeness of Chris. This burning star in Thorne's world. A planet around which he could orbit, if only for awhile until they both fell apart. Thorne let out a soft, slow breath that refused to betray the restlessness inside his bones waking up.
"Is it really me who deserves nothing?" Thorne breathed out, tilting his head back and up at the other man. "Is it really me that deserves less than him? Than you? You selfish creature." He did not smile. There were moments where he could pretend flawlessly. This was one. But he made the choice not to. This was a different game.
"You broke them once. You hurt them once. When you fail, when you leave, do you know what will happen?" Thorne blinked, and his eyes were wild beneath his mask. "Where do you think scars come from? They come from people like you." He moved closer so that they were nose and nose.
Without even hesitating, he slipped a nail against the edge of Chris's mask and ghosted his mouth against the warm wet tear streak that went up against the plane of his cheek.
He pulled back before Chris could lash at him. Broken rules weren't something that he concerned himself with, but he was still waiting to see what the fault lines told him. How far Chris could fall.
"You would know," Thorne said softly. "Aren't you bleeding out between the fracture lines right now?" he pressed his thumb to his lip to remind Chris of the tear streaks, the weakness he'd let slip loose. "At least I know what I want."
And then it was finally there. Dare, dare, dare. Thorne smiled, and slipped beneath that facade once more. His twin in his place. It was as easy as breathing. It was as simple as it could be.
It tasted rancid in his throat, but this was a game, and he was going to win.
This was a game. And he would break the one thing holding his twin together, no matter the cost.
Dare, dare - dare.
Thorne blinked down at Chris, nothing but a perfect reflection of fondness and hope and curiosity. Could he have come to love him? Oh, but he certainly would have tried.
"Touch me," Thorne said, his voice soft and gentle, slow and sure. He tilted his head. The mask stayed silent. And then his voice fractured just slightly, in that roughened, sleep-husky way that Thorne had spoken with Chris all those nights in the safety and comfort of themselves. Each other.
"Hurt me."
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Posted: Sun Aug 28, 2016 8:25 pm
Chris Watts || 25/25 || ******** Dead
There was nothing elegant in the way Chris was crying. It was silent, oh it was silent and it was small, unnoticeable unless one was really looking out for it. But there was no grace in these tears, this was not the weeping that was depicted in novels where the protagonist got a moment of weakness.
These were the kind that should have not been shed at all. Purely human, purely selfish in the way that humanity was. He was crying for something that he had lost of his own accord, crying for something he could have prevented if he hadn't been so blind. So selfish, so stupid.
It was self destruction in its purest form.
These tears, this anger, it was all unwarranted but Chris had it anyways. He was selfish and stupid and oh, oh did he hurt inside. Not good enough, never good enough, always on the outside, always looking for somewhere he could stay. His family had moved enough that Chris hadn't managed to find stability until he had made it on his own and even then it hadn't felt like enough. Home wasn't somewhere made alone, no matter how hard he tried. No matter how much of himself he gave away, hoping to get back.
He had almost had it too.
He had Shiloh and Jamie, Thorne and Jeremiah and Algie and it was starting to feel like he had a place. That he had given enough and had made the foundations of his home and was starting to build it up.
But he himself was the one who set fire to the entire thing.
"Oh, but aren't you selfish yourself?" He hissed, "What do you care about but anything but yourself? I'm willing to admit it, but what about you?"
It was a blessing the other didn't smile - he might have punched him if he did. He might have done something he would have regret.
"I won't fail, I won't do it again. I would rather die than fail again," He breathed, closed his eyes.
He blinked them open in surprise at the action, his breath coming out in a shudder, then jerking back like he had been slapped. Hands released easily from the fabric, steps taken back to avoid the contact. But it was already done and his skin burned from the touch, from where he could still feel the heat of his lips.
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
But he couldn't call him on it, couldn't claim broken rules when he had broken them himself by touching the Imitation. He could only blink in shock, in anger, in disgust. His hand faintly touched where he been grazed, before wiping at it. But it was already ******** you," He bit out, but the damage was already done. He hadn't been unnoticed in his own downfall and he was paying for it now, paying for being used so easily. "I know exactly what I want."
He wasn't sure if it was a lie or not.
It was awful watching the Bootleg slip into Thorne, into familiarity. It was like watching a monster transform into someone of your family, someone who didn't care about you but was willing to use their face. The worst part was when he tried, when he really tried, it was near impossible to tell them apart.
Oh he could find small flaws, he could find the differences between them physically, could see where they didn't quite line up. But when the other tried, oh when he truly tried, it was like seeing his friend come back to life.
A ghost, standing before him.
Longing crawled up thick into his throat, almost choking Chris as he looked on this Thorne. Oh he wanted this so badly, but it wasn't his to touch. Not now, not ever again in his life. He had lost that privilege.
"Touch me," The ghost said and Chris just watched, hands itching to move, to come closer. But he wouldn't, he couldn't, it was not something that was allowed. Not something he could do.
"Hurt me," He said, in the voice Chris knew was the last remnant of home. The last piece he had taken for himself, to keep as everything burned down.
Something in Chris broke.
"No," He begged, shame gone. He backed away from Thorne, trying to get some space. "No, anything but that. I can't, I- Please."
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Posted: Sun Aug 28, 2016 9:41 pm
Thorne (Masked) | | 25/25 | | Popcorn.gif
Selfish? Selfish was the baseline of Thorne's existence. Selfish was the rule by which he lived his life. Melany may have held his leash, but Thorne allowed it. There was a reason Thorne allowed it. He wanted to crush the world between his teeth. He wanted all of the lights to finally, finally go out.
He wanted -
"We are one and the same, you and I," Thorne drawled, hissed, purred. "At least I am not ashamed of who I am. At least I do not hide it with pretty words and desperate actions." He paused, blew a soft, sweet tune like a lullaby. "I'll hurt whoever gets in the way of what I want. Can you admit that as well? Because you would. You would."
Thorne watched the fracture lines deepen. Chris was falling apart faster, faster with every word. He trembled and cried and oh - his twin would have wiped those tears away. He would have collapsed them to the ground together. He would have touched those wounds and favored those scars.
But Thorne only wanted to lick away the tear tracks, and drop the match and run his knuckles over the flames. He only knew how to break things. But Chris tasted different from the rest. Thorne's lashes fell over his bright eyes, dark and heavy, and he waited. He held his breath and waited.
As his twin, he tilted his head, the slow, questioning gesture that mimicked his mirror image when he was invested. When he was looking at a piece of unfinished art. An approaching storm. A music box that sang a melody, broken and asinine to anyone but him. When he was looking at Chris, most of all.
He watched his words shatter through.
And oh, it was a spectacular fall.
Thorne's eyes flickered at the response. Genuine hurt seemed to flash across his face, disappearing into the corners of his eyes. And then - a painful sort of fondness. Another mocking whisper of something broken in another room.
He cut the space between them easily, catching his hands against Chris's face. It was a gentle touch, it was a sweet lullaby. Before screamed at him in atrophy. After wondered why the victory felt hollow.
"It's alright," he said softly. "It's alright, Chris. I understand."
He tilted his head, he echoed the gestures. Everything about him was a tender gesture of heartbreak, of selfless need for Chris to be alright.
There was a break of silence. A moment where there was nothing but their breath mingling together, the silence of the narrow corridor. The distant drip of water and the echo of laughter. Time moved on around them. But here - here it slid differently. Here it alternated. Past, present, future. Here it was a fault line that trembled. Here, Thorne hated Before and After all at once.
Within a single, fluid motion, Thorne pushed. They hit the ground together, two bodies entangled. The stones caught against his knees sharply, but Thorne brushed it away with ease, leaning over Chris with a slow, soft hum of sound. Lyrical, questioning.
"It's alright," he said again.
This time he was neither of the twins. This time he was an ugly juncture. Something in the middle. Hungry and fond and angry and cruel. He leaned in with liquid grace, easing their bodies only a hairs width apart. The heat pooled in that space, dangerous. There was nothing here but shadows, and the brilliant blue of Chris's wet eyes.
"After all," he said slowly, and pushed away from Chris, guiding the other mans hands up with him, caught by the wrists, "It was an impossible dare."
Thorne sat back on his haunches, his weight pleasant and heavy against Chris's stomach with his legs hooked on either side, the cape slipping from his shoulders to pool at his waist.
He drew Chris's hands up against his neck and his chest, to the pulse-line that drummed there. It chanted against the points of burning heat where they connected.
Alive, alive, alive, it whispered and shouted and sang.
"After all," Thorne said again, his expression painful but accepting, fond but broken beneath his skin, full of heartbreak heartbreak heartbreak, full of the constellation of emotions buried in the hollow of his twins bones, "If you cannot hurt me, you will destroy him."
His eyes lidded, the mask jangling softly as he tilted his head to one side.
"It's one or the other." He pressed Chris's hands harder to the pulse, to his skin, to the parts of them that burned together, like stars in collision, a new galaxy being born.
"It's your choice. Him," his voice slipped, dangerous and wicked once more. "Or me."
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Posted: Sun Aug 28, 2016 11:14 pm
Chris Watts || 25/25 || Dead inside
Were they the same? Were they truly?
Chris was selfish but what he wanted were people - he wanted them to be safe, wanted them free of this place. If he hurt them in the process, it wasn't what he wanted but at least the end result would be better than this. At least he could get himself out of their lives, if they wanted it.
But did that make him the same as the other?
"No," He whispered, "No, we're not the same. Similar, but not the same."
He would admit he was selfish, would accept that he was too selfish to let go and would hurt those he loved in the process if it promised that something better would come for them after. But he wasn't low enough to be the figure before him, the one taunting and leering at him.
Or were those just pretty words to rationalize everything to himself? Chris couldn't tell anymore.
He was falling apart rapidly, crumbling under the pressure, under the ghost and guilt of everything from before. If he had just been the structure from his own fire from before, now he was becoming nothing, wood creaking as it slowly turned to pieces. He could only watch in horror at his own collapse.
The ghost, Thorne, it looked at him and that hurt, he never wanted that directed at him again. The fondness was just as bad though, a perfect replica that Chris had to remind himself again and again it wasn't him. Couldn't be him.
His skin burned at the touch as he was caged in again, as he lost any distance he had made in his stuttering retreat. He felt like he was on fire, too aware of the embers on his face, the gentle flicker of heat. Too soft, too sweet, all right and yet so very wrong.
"No," he begged again, not even sure what he was replying to. "No."
It was starting to blur, the definition between the ghost and Thorne. There was too much detail, too much affection being sent his way that it couldn't be anything but real. But Thorne wasn't here, he was somewhere else.
Something that was unbroken in him wished, desperately, that he was strong enough to push himself away. That in his break, this moment, he could leave, could call the game off. He had gotten his question answered, he did not owe anything else to this imitation. But how could he walk away when Thorne, even a ghost of him, stood in front of him? How could he walk away from a small part of his home, his family, when it stood there.
The silence was there and it was peace and then, in one fluid motion, it broke.
He let out a startled breath as he hit the ground, his back sending out signals of pain, his head hitting the ground last with the softest blow but one that hurt nonetheless. He looked up with surprise, unable to hide the shock on his face from the sudden change.
He didn't know what was about to happen, didn't want to know what would happen. His cheeks felt strange from the lack of touch, from the heat that was no longer there.
If he had been staring at Thorne before, he did not know what he was staring up at now. It was not truly the Imitation, the bootleg. It held too much fondness for that, too much softness, something that spoke of nights they spent together long before the other had come along. But there still was that feral hunger about from the other, the hunger Chris hadn't been able to pick up before it was too late and he was far too entangled in a game that he couldn't leave.
He could only take shallow breaths as he leaned in, as his space turned into theirs, until he felt like he was burning with the shared heat. As he took in the planes of violet eyes and tried to find something familiar, something that was purely Thorne. Something that didn't hold the threat of being hurt, of being tricked or lied to.
It was a blessing when he pulled away, it was a curse. He felt his hands move of his own accord and could only let his body be pulled along like a puppet, unable to fight. An echo of a memory.
Chris, His voice fond, soothing, kind, It's just me, here. Put it down, let's go lay down for a second.
It was fine for a second. It was fine for the moment, as his hands were pulled up, as the cape slipped. He was being convinced to let go and it was fine, it was fine, until -
They were laid on his pulse point and everything was wrong.
Danger, danger, danger, it sang, feeling the thrum of life there. He shouldn't have been touching and he looked at Thorne, at the Imitation, in alarm.
He should have left when he had the chance.
"No, oh god no," He begged, realizing what was being asked of him. His hands burned on Thorne's skin, fire of his own making burning his home. He could not handle that gaze, he couldn't handle the heartbreak. These were not things he should have had, these were not his.
The mask jangled and Chris struggled uselessly.
His hands were caged in, the grip tight enough he couldn't pull away, Thorne's body weight fully on him. The heat continued to burn him and the more he struggled fruitlessly, the more he realized that he would not get away from this.
"God," He sobbed, crying outwardly now, harder than before. The words were starting to blur together, muddy, indistinct. "No, please." It was useless though, another pointless struggle. He would not be getting out of this, he was not the victor of this game. There was no choice for him.
"Him." A breath in between, another set of tears to stream down his face, "Or me."
"I'm sorry," Chris sobbed, "I'm so sorry."
Then his fingers curled around his throat, delicate, like flames licking the skin, before finally he pushed.
elkbones get the ******** away from me
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Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2016 12:12 am
Thorne (Masked) | | 25/25 | | Having an existential life crisis? Like what the ********?" Thorne echoed. "What is the difference? Our goals, our intentions? You won't stop until you've won, you've said." He paused, pressing his tongue to the roof of his mouth. "Hey, teacher," he added softly, "You've thought through the collateral damage too. So what if mine is bloodier? There are different breeds of hurt. You really think I'm the one playing games here?" His eyes lidded. He looked thoughtful and solemn. He looked like neither of the twins. He looked -
Hm.
"Look inside of yourself, and what is breaking apart in there, before looking at me," he said, and his was voice slow and mellow. It dripped with a different sort of poison. Gentle and methodical. It wondered and waited and it did not know the chemical reaction it might create. There was no wonder this Thorne had slipped so easily into this role. Into this life. Into hibernation until this point.
Similar. The same.
What was the difference?
His twin and him - oh, but they were merely two sides of a coin caught in the air.
Similar. Apart.
Thorne hummed again. He pushed his claws inward, found that flame that he'd burned so hideously with Hux, with Vale. But Chris was a strange and unknowing creature. Before still drummed through his bones. After could taste it. And Thorne knew the warning bells of danger. But Chris wasn't a poison or a knife or a bullet in the dark.
Chris made both sides of him quiet.
And that was a dangerous thing.
Chris's voice cracked through the corridor like a gunshot. No, he said. Pleading, begging. Thorne had known the taste of mercy once. No more, no more. Thorne had thought about forgiveness once, but he'd been cut on its teeth. No more, no more. He watched Chris break and it tasted sour in his mouth. It would have been a pretty sight to let his twin see this too. Oh how tragic it would have been! Shakespeare might have rolled in his grave, longing to write their story into a play.
The lines blurred between them. Thorne had to blink away the mixture of emotions that pushed against his belly like a disease. He was rotting from the inside out. Festering. A part of him, suddenly painful, wanted to push his palm to Chris's mouth and let him sob until there was silence, until there was nothing. A part of him felt the whiplash of need, of a sudden, visceral hunger for violence.
Because Thorne had never been able to convey himself in words. And Melany had turned that to her advantage. She had taken him and turned him into a tool.
They were a collision course the moment they hit the ground together. A wrecking ball against the side of a building, the final blow. This was what it looked like when stars collided. Nothing was ever more beautiful than in creation. Chris was falling apart, but Thorne knew that he was too stubborn. That he would drag himself back up. So this wasn't really destruction. No, not really.
His throat felt hollow. His mouth was dry.
I hate you, Before and After thought together in unhappy harmony. But they were really singing a different tune.
"Chris," he said, slicing into Chris's own litany of rejection, "Chris."
The name drew itself from his mouth like a prayer.
And then he was apologizing, this beautiful creature, this selfish thing. Apologizing, as though he had ever been in the wrong. And Thorne wondered if he knew how open he made himself for monsters like him to slide the knife inwards and angle it up. Thorne wondered if all humans were like this. Broken from the beginning, always picking up pieces of themselves after another storm came through, apologizing as though that would mean anything. Apologizing as though they would ever change.
"Selfish creature," Thorne hummed, but it was praise, it was love, it was something fond and something baleful and he didn't know the difference between Before and After anymore.
His twin could sing one tune, but Thorne had been reborn into this tragedy with both echoing underneath his skin. He had the memories burned and etched and growing, rotting, penetrating through his skin. He was suffocating on what he had been before Melany had given him a new body. He was suffocating on what he had pretended to be afterwards, in those days when he had truly believed that he was the other other other.
That he was the person Chris looked at when he thought of home.
Anger sang out again, rich with the promise of violence. Thorne leaned his head downwards as those delicate fingers tightened around his throat. He let it happen, let the world spin dangerously as his body started bellowing warning signs at him. His eyes saw starbursts of black, midnight crackling through the dark with sharp bright flecks of white. This was the edge, the edge.
It was sudden, the reaction. Maybe Chris had believed that Thorne would let him do it. Maybe Thorne had wanted in that moment to let him. But then he gave a sharp, sudden tug, and took Chris's hands away from his neck, now bruised and coloring with the signs of abuse.
His head fell back and he drew in a sick, harsh breath. His eyes flickered to the ceiling beneath the mask. His eyes flickered down to Chris. His weight came down harder against Chris now, and he dragged one of the blonds hands to his mouth, pressing his lips to the knuckles, an open mouthed kiss.
"See?" He murmured. "Same."
With vicious, quick, nearly violent ease, he took the hand away from his face and pressed it to Chris's stomach, tangled together with his. When he leaned down again, he let the dreamers other hand go and slid his unoccupied fingers up to find his pulse. It drummed beneath his fingertips. It was every mile over the speed limit he had ever gone. It was lightning ricocheting off of the rooftops. It was a molotov cocktail in his hands.
Shall I throw it? He thought, cruelly.
He spoke and he was neither. Neither. Just a juncture, an ugly creature stitched up from remnant thoughts and hungry dreams that weren't his. Age-old hunger. Insatiable, untamed.
Mother forgive me, he thought, sadly.
"I wouldn't mind if it was you that killed me tonight," he said, "But if that is your conviction, if that is the length to which you will go in this world... it's too short. It's not enough."
His nails bit into the dip of Chris's throat, the soft point of flesh and pulsing heat. Stars in collision. A galaxy being born. How brutal could he be? How brutal could Chris be? Well, surely they were here to find out.
"Stop begging, teacher," he said softly, fondly, hungrily, as though he were waiting on Chris for something. As though he were a salvation, or a prayer going nowhere, or a knife slipping in. He leaned up, grazing his teeth against the soft skin of Chris's jawline, against the wet pattern of tears. In a kinder world, this might have felt like a gentle gesture. A kiss to take away the pain.
But neither of them were kind. And this was not a night for that elusive thing.
"Selfish creature," he breathed, "Pick yourself up and try again."
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Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2016 5:00 pm
Chris Watts || 25/25 || ******** Up™
"Both," Chris said, "Neither. It doesn't matter, you don't need to know the details. Maybe you're even smart enough to figure them out." He pressed his mouth into a thin line, watching the other. He wouldn't stop until he won, that was true. But what he was winning, well, it wasn't entirely for himself. That at least he was sure of.
"Don't call me that- Don't." It was an echo of the emerald room, of something he felt he had won back, but it was coming out of the wrong mouth. Coming out with the word words, with the wrong infliction. Poisoning it, turning it to something wrong, something that he didn't want to hear.
Teacher, teacher, hey, don't worry, it's me. Those papers can wait, they won't strangle you in your sleep.
"You are nothing but games," Chris replied softly, unsure of who he was looking at. Of what he was dealing with, something new and unexplored and most definite of all dangerous. A galaxy he couldn't comprehend, didn't want to comprehend. Didn't want to look at, in case he found that he was looking at something closer to him.
"Sure. Whatever you say," He said lightly, but already the work had been done, the poison already coursing through his veins. Chris had never been good at guarding against the sly, the sneaky, things that crept up on one in the night. Brute force he amazing at, could let slide off his shoulders and ding off the armor he had crafted over the years of his life. He was no stranger to insults, to things coming straight at him, but oh he was weak to everything else.
And the other had just sunk his claws in deep.
The same, similar.
Who was he to claim that they weren't the same? When he looked inside himself, when he looked at the broken pieces that made him up, what he saw looked a lot like what he was fighting against. Whole from a distance but splintered, shattered, things that couldn't be repaired.
An imperfection of a being.
He had come into this certain of who he was, of what he was going for. Ignorant or unwilling to see his flaws. But he was being forced to see now, being forced to look at what he truly was and what he saw he didn't like. He wasn't any better than him and it burned, seared him into his core.
There was no difference. There was no mercy.
Don't, he wanted to say. Don't make me do this, don't make me be you. The words laid on his tongue heavy, waiting for him to spit them out, to give him strength. But there was hypocrisy in them, for wasn't he already the same? Oh a different path but a similar goal, just one with less blood and he hadn't seen it.
Why, another unspoken question, another unspoken plea. He couldn't fathom the reasoning to this, the reason his hand was being forced. There was little he had done, could do, but he was still here. And he could ask and ask and ask but he would never get an answer, would never know why.
Through his tears he could hear his name being said by Thorne, could hear it slicing through his thoughts. Here and in the past, an echo and in the moment, sounding like a prayer, like he was something to be revered. Who it was saying it like that, he couldn't tell. He wasn't worthy of it either way.
Selfish Creature, he said and Yes he thought back, breathed back out in a sob. He was selfish and inhumane and worth nothing, worth no one.
His head tilted down to meet Chris' fingers, fluttering on his neck before tightening and Chris could only stare, could only watch as his tears spilled down, ugly, messy -
He shattered on that ground.
He didn't know when to let go, when was the point of no return. He had never been inclined to hurt like this, never had gone through with it. He could throw a punch, block from an attack, but he had never placed his hands here with the intent of harm. It felt wrong but he had no choice, his hands caged in by the other's, unbending, made of iron.
The person on top of him blurred, Thorne and the other, Thorne and a ghost. One and the other, both at the same time. The longer he looked the longer he wanted to pull away, wanted to close his eyes, but those were options not available to him. Stop, stop, stop, his mind screamed, but he didn't know when.
It was a blessing the choice was made for him, his hands pulled away suddenly by the twin. The bruises that were set there were by his own hand and he suddenly felt sick, scared of what he had done. Scared of what he was capable of, of what he could do to Thorne now that he had done it once.
"Yes," He sobbed, his hands limp, not his own to control. The ghost of a kiss edging along his knuckles, not comfort but a confirmation. Yes, I am the same to you, he thought, it's been proven now.
The minute one hand of his was released he placed it over his eyes, trying to block out the sight of those bruises, the proof of what he had done. His other hand was limp in the other's embrace, too hot to the touch, burning.
His pulse was a million miles a minute, adrenaline fueled, from what he had done, from his tears, from laying on this floor.
"I won't," He said, teary, breathy, "I can't. I won't kill you. Anything else."
The nails dug in and his pulse continued to race, a proof of life even Chris could feel, echoing in his bones, his teeth. Would it be cut out now? He didn't know if that would be a blessing or a curse. To live or to die.
The tears didn't stop, wouldn't stop, and oh Teacher once again. It sounded like a dream but it tasted like damnation, word black and poison from this one. He was both, he was neither, but it didn't matter. Thorne was and would continue to be Chris' downfall, no matter the version.
If this one proved to be more of a blade than the other, that was only Chris' fault for not noticing from the start.
A mouth ghosted along his jaw, another echo of a gesture much more tender and he shuddered at the touch. Sharp, everything was sharp between them, nothing kind. But his tears began to slow, to trickle to a stop regardless.
Pick yourself up. There was only one way to go.
"What do you want?" He asked when he felt some form of calm, empty. Tired, but the only way to go was onward. "Truth or dare? Which is it?"
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Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2016 9:08 pm
Thorne (Masked) | | 25/25 | | Sad (TM)
There was a difference, Thorne thought, between people that knew one another and people that understood. It was a fragile, delicate line. Some people woke up one day realizing the difference. Some people never saw it at all. And the difference was this: you could know as many people as there were stars in the sky. The difference was this: how often did stars collide?
Similar, the same.
Thorne breathed in, out.
Similar. Apart.
Thorne felt the caged heat between their bodies, their hands, every starburst and blazing light between them. It cut upwards into his body. A bullet, maybe. It was so quiet between them apart from the sobs and his uneven breath. It was too quiet. He felt so still. His tongue flicked up against the soft curve of his mouth and into the wet hollows there. He tasted like smoke and wine and something ferrous. His body was a fractal of image of something dangerous. Danger, keep out was painted on his skin in every primal movement, every lupine howl in the form of words.
He allowed his thumb to rove over the hand he'd trapped against Chris's own chest. His body quivered. There was gasoline in his bones. Chris held a match in every breath he gave and every sound he tried to swallow down. Drop it, drop it, Thorne wanted to snarl at him, just so that his hands could have an excuse to move, to hurt, to hold and bruise and break. Because what else could they do? What else had he been made for? Nothing, nothing.
The difference was this: when Thorne touched Chris, he went somewhere.
He inhaled and there was a sharp, acerbic taste in the air. He inhaled and he smelled smoke and the damp that came from late night rain. He felt thunder in the rotting deep of his chest, trapped beneath his ribs. Teacher, teacher, his voice exhaled, I dare you to put those papers down. Strips of skin pressed together, never in anything longer or more concentrated than a brush of shoulders. Hips bumping, legs jostled. It was the accidental brush of heat grabbing for the same thing.
No more, the victorious, waking part of him would say every morning, Enough. No more.
The victorious, waking part. After.
Melany had always talked about consequences, and here was his. It laid beneath him, stretched out in the silence apart from his shattering. Thorne blinked. His mask felt heavy. He wanted to look at Chris. He wanted to tear a hole in the world and watch the blackness of the galaxy alone with the other man. His hands felt restless, violent. He was on the edge of something, somewhere. The hall with Chris. The warehouse. Cars going nowhere, nowhere on the highway late at night, the speedometer racing.
What happens if we crash?
Thorne felt Chris's words more than he heard them. I won't, he said, and Thorne snarled. There was an snapping sound, a sharp cruel motion. Thorne drew back, drew his arm back, drew a fist. He looked two seconds away from punching Chris into the stone floor, black and blue, here and then gone.
His fingers ached for the contact. He wanted to do something, anything but talk. His mouth worked for a moment. For the first time in a nightmarish eternity, Thorne felt the words trap inside of his throat. Melany had taught him how to turn them into knives, slice apart the world with his teeth and with his tongue. Blood was a bad stain on the carpet. There was a simpler way to break people to ones whim. But here, now, he wanted to pummel his own blurred consequence of emotions into Chris.
"You won't," he said, and his voice was cold with fury. Open, raw. He felt like some torn up road, some rotting star in collapse. He was not tired of their game. He was tired of something else. After all, everything decayed with time. If not outside, surely within. His fingers tightened, shook, unwound again and dropped to his side.
"You won't." He tilted his head. His eyes seemed duller beneath the mask, an animal running itself ragged beneath a cage. What had he come for tonight? Maybe he'd wanted more fire from Chris. Maybe he'd wanted to remember the taste of a mistake. Maybe he'd wanted to remember that he could be as cruel and ruthless and hungry as his mistress, who would devour the world if she could. Who would strip it and unmake it, the way she unmade everything until it was beneath her whim.
"Do you want to know a secret?" Thorne sat back on his haunches, heavy on Chris's stomach. Their hands stayed tangled together against the other mans chest. Before and After. It didn't matter anymore. "I'm tired of this."
He was tired of decaying. Going there and back again. He was waiting on an end, an inevitable end. He'd thought he could wait forever if he had to. This was a world of thieves and murderers. We live such cyclical lives, he'd thought once. Even violence tasted rancid now, but it was the only thing he knew. He'd been bred on it, fed on it, and now he was tired of it, but there was nothing else. Only this black hall remained. Only this somewhere that he went with someone that was just as selfish as him. This galaxy in atrophy.
Ten to fifteen seconds, someone had told his twin once in a memory, that's how long it takes for you to lose consciousness.
"I'm tired of it," Thorne said again, his voice husky and deep, melodic and low, "I'm tired of decaying. I hate you, I hate you. Do you understand? I cannot stand what you've done."
Because he went somewhere, he went somewhere. Chris thought he was the only one shattering? Oh, what a sweet little lie. He felt the black muck of his soul dripping, dripping down. Chris had opened a hole in his chest. He felt the broken outline of him angle outwards, and drew in a sharp breath.
Chris asked what he wanted and Thorne knew the meaning but the words struck a different match inside of him.
What do you want? Chris asked.
Freedom, fullness. The world. To feel awake, awake, awake.
Another answer, more selfish than the last, bubbled up in his mind. But no, he would not say it. Would not even think it. This was the advantage of age and decay: you learned how to keep secrets and keep them well. Secrets were best kept when you did not think them. Did not feel them. Did not let them know you were there.
Thorne sighed and leaned back down, touching their foreheads together, so close that they could kiss.
"Dare," he said against the corner of Chris's mouth. And there was something unspoken there. A cruel sort of wish.
What do you want, Thorne?
His eyes fluttered closed.
Make me feel alive.
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Posted: Tue Aug 30, 2016 9:19 pm
Chris Watts || 25/25 || Still some fight
The silence between them felt like violence, the time between them different. Malleable, another place in and of itself. In this hallway, in this cramped space forgotten by the guests, they had created their own dimension and time worked both too fast and too slow.
Too fast when he had hit the ground, when he had been just bantering, when this had really all been a game.
Too slow when his hands had been wrapped around Thorne's throat.
But in this time there had always been something to fill it, words, sometimes even actions, but there was never anything empty. Never anything as still and silent as this, never anything as dangerous as this. The silence before the kill, the sort of quiet that surrounded a threat, something that could hurt, could maim.
Above him was the threat, all sharp angles, a copy of someone he loved but one infinitely more dangerous. A blade in the dark, a bullet, cruel words and crueler actions all hidden under a mask, and even then Chris couldn't let himself pull away. Danger, everything was danger, but here he was pinned beneath him and sobbing because he had been too weak to walk away.
The hand trapped between them burned, sun hot, the touch hurtful and yet gentle all the same as he felt the thumb stroke his hand. Nothing like Thorne, nothing like anything that he had ever had before. Thorne had been comfortable, warm, like a summer's embrace. Real and warm and there, constant proof.
This was all too much, like the one above him would burn away any second under his own heat, his own brilliance.
Because even Chris could admit that the threat above him, the danger, the knife poised to kill, it was a beautiful one. Maybe it was his bias to Thorne, to home, to the way there was a hum under his skin when he thought about home (what used to be home). Chris pulled his hand away from his eye and poised above him, bruised and terrible and a force of his own, he was still beautiful.
Oh, even poised in his anger, he was still beautiful.
For a moment, for a single moment, Chris ached for him to punch him, to mark him. To beat him into the ground and leave him there, let him bleed before Chris would finally pick himself up maybe just leave. But for that moment he wanted to suffer, to pay for what he had done in the most physical sense that he could even imagine.
But the moment left him, just leaving him stunned at what was above him. A threat, a beauty, the one in the same.
"I won't," He said back softly, tears still streaming down his face. Empty, done, he didn't want this anymore. Couldn't want this anymore, couldn't do this anymore. He had won the game, Chris was ready to quit and let it go.
"I won't," He echoed, oh and this time he could see the threat. Could clearly see where this twin and Thorne differed, where they had been broken differently. Thorne had been beaten into submission, broken, but there was still something there that Chris had been able to find. Oh but the Twin, how different he was. Something was lost there, something that Chris couldn't tell.
The weight on his stomach shifted, but the hand stayed there, still a sun on his chest. He wondered where it would go, what would be said to him. What secret that he had apparently earned the privilege to hear.
Chris hadn't expected it to be that.
He had no answer to that, nothing he could say. A tired empty sympathy, perhaps, but not one that could be expressed in words right. It didn't even feel that he was the same tired - even when it was down to his soul, bones weary of living, of being.
Because Chris, at least, wasn't tired of his being.
"I know," He croaked, eyes tired, eyes empty. "I cannot stand what I've done either." It wasn't mocking, it wasn't pitying, it was just the truth. Hollow and standing there between them, entrapping the actions of this night and even beyond.
The last of his tears slipped out, leaving behind something tired, something broken. A calm born of being worn out, but a calm nonetheless and Chris would take it. It was all he could do.
Pick himself and move onward.
He closed his eyes, let himself feel the pressure of the Twin's forehead on his, pretend that it was it was his other. Let himself pretend that he would be able to go back to what he had before.
Dare, he said. Dare, he breathed against the corner of Chris' mouth.
Oh, Chris had been granted a last chance.
What do you want, Chris had asked and it had been as much a question to the other as it was to him. What did he want, what did he need, what would grant him the best outcome. Selfish creature, he was and a selfish creature he would be until the very end.
Even with the knife poised above him, Chris had still been thinking about Thorne.
"I want you," He said, "to give your mask to Thorne. I want him to have it before the tithe too, before its protection wears off. I want him protected."
There was a chance, he knew, that his request wouldn't be granted. That it would be outright ignored, that he wouldn't give Thorne the protection that he had been granted. But Chris was going to try, was going to fight, because he had done what had been asked of him. Because he had hurt and harmed, but he still wanted more than anything.
What do you want?
His safety.
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Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2016 11:34 pm
Thorne (Masked) | | 25/25 | | Being an a*****e (TM)
Thorne sighed out, a lurching sort of sound that carried weight. His breath tangled against Chris's skin, taunting. He leaned back, enough that Chris could see his eyes beneath the gold dusted rim of his mask. With care, the blond would be able to pick out the unmaking inside of them.
The way he stitched himself back together. Unwinding the parts of him from Before and stitching a pattern over them. After. He was not the weak creature that his twin was. He would remake himself as many times as it took to be the monster Melany wanted him to be. The monster that he was beneath this skin. Rotted. Ugly. Grotesque.
You could steal a body and a life, but for how long?
Oh, well.
As long as it took.
As long as was necessary.
So Vale was a coward. So the rest were on a spectrum of terror, of monstrosity just like him. What were their sins? What was his?
Thorne looked down at Chris and his lips pulled apart into a snarl or a smile. It was hard to tell in this shattered light, this quiet and empty space. How much of this was a game? Well he'd won. He'd won. Here lay the broken pieces of Chris and he had won.
Thorne tasted the empty hollow in his throat. He was still hungry. He still wanted more. But not here, not here. He could look somewhere else. Not here, where the glass on the floor would cut him if he picked too closely at it. His eyes fell to Chris, cruel and cunning, considerate. He milked the sight for its worth. A broken soul and a fractured mind. His expression switched.
Do you really think you can save him as you are now? he thought, and the question was reflected in the tilt of his mouth and the crease at the corner of his eyes. Pick yourself up, the night isn't over yet.
Sighing, Thorne eased himself to sit on Chris again. But this time he laced his fingers with the fabric of the other mans clothes and hauled him up to meet him sliding his grip to the underside of his arms. His nails bit into the tender flesh there. Bruising, cruel. A reminder, maybe.
"Teacher, teacher," he drawled, "not so clever. You're predictable, aren't you?" He leaned forward and bit away the last of the tear stains. He nosed against Chris's mask with laughter, an open mouthed last kiss as though in goodbye. But oh, they would have more games tonight if he had any say in the matter. But this one - he would not lose.
"So cowardly and cruel. Why don't you just give him yours if you're so willing to go the distance for them?" He asked against his mask, his breath husky and sharp. He nudged his nose up against Chris's mask a little more, a tease, just to jostle it, before snarling, the sound a reverberation of sound and violence against Chris's skin.
His body was a rotting ground, a festering pit. He didn't want their game to end, but he also knew he was at the end of his leash and straining it already. He wanted to bite into the other, he wanted to listen to the sounds he could make when made to fight back. He wanted to mark him in a way that could not be hidden. His teeth scraped a line of heat down Chris's jaw.
When he leaned back, he touched the bruises on his neck and exhaled.
His eyes flashed, wild and snaring. The rabbit mask sang its familiar song. He was nothing but heat and energy, hunger and starvation and a stomach that could not be filled.
His mouth moved again, back to the corner of Chris's lips.
"I want you to remember this," he said and his voice was a whisper or a shout - it could have been either, weighted as it was. "I want you to know what it's like. To condemn someone to death to save another. I want you to have that sin on your hands." His hands slid to Chris's back, as though to embrace him. But his nails dug in painfully sharp, to the point of bruising, of nearly breaking skin.
"I want to remember my death," he hummed, "It's yours, it's yours, it's yours."
With ease, he pushed himself off of Chris and stood above him, readjusting the cape at his shoulder, the mask on his face. With every small movement, his form became refined, elegant, and dangerous. A true underling of Melany. An untouchable creature that lived in the night. His eyes glowed with a wicked sort of mirth, a hungry sort of contemptuous hate for the blond below.
"Who do you think won this game?" He asked Chris, his eyes lidded, curious, further and further away with every breath. "Teacher, teacher. The night is young. Better run before they come looking."
His smile was vivid and violent.
What was his sin?
"Better run before I eat you raw."
Greed.
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Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2016 4:12 pm
Chris Watts || 25/25 || Being an a*****e back
Pick himself up, put himself back together.
It was a struggle to try and be something again while Chris was laying on the ground, a monster looming above him. All amethyst eyes, something put together from parts that Chris didn't know. What was he defined by, what did he know? Did he have to put himself together like Chris did?
What came from putting on Thorne's skin like this?
So much he didn't know, but the answers to the questions he wanted were not going to come from here. He would have to find the on his own, find a way to make everything right. It was the only thing keeping him going, keeping him from outright leaving, from trying to escape this hell. It was that Thorne needed help, that Shiloh needed help, that he had to get out people he cared about before he tried to raze the building to the ground.
But first, he had to put himself together.
He had already achieved a sense of calm, had already managed to make himself stop. It was helpful when he had nothing else, nothing else but a slightly pointless anger that he had only gotten from blindly groping around. From feeling for parts of himself, something to use as a weapon, a defense.
It hadn't done him much good in the end, because above him was still the monster.
He could see the question in his face, could see it in his eyes and his mouth, body language he could perceive but did not want to decode unless he found something he didn't want to answer. Instead he focused on his eyes, the weight on his body.
The sensation of nails biting into his flesh, bound to leave bruises, indentations.
"I don't need to be clever," He whispered back, shuddering again. Even through this all he had not gotten used to the feel of the Other on him, the sensation of someone else. "I just need to be able to get what's needed." His hands braced himself on the Other's shoulders reluctantly, trying to hold himself up.
So strange in comparison to all the other nights, to where he had never had this much contact. It was like whiplash.
"Why fall on the sword when I can get someone else to do it for me?" He breathed, question purely rhetorical. But he also knew that if he tried to his his mask to Thorne, he would have been refused. He would have been fought against, would have lost another battle. Thorne was fully resigned to his fate here, was fully resigned to the idea that Chris was going to leave and he wouldn't for a second let Chris fall for something that he viewed as useless.
So Chris had to be smarter, had to be more clever. Had to make sure Thorne would get the protection he needed.
He sighed at the closeness again, a soft puff of air against the other's face. Had he not been so worn out the snarl might have surprised him, might have gotten a reaction. But instead he took it was it was, as the violence directed towards him, as something of primal fury. Had he really been so predictable, for a reaction like this? Had he been predictable enough to gain teeth against his jaw, his fingers starting to dig into the Other's shoulders.
Or was he just that simple of a playtoy?
He closed his eyes at the words, tired, so tired. So broken. It would be his fault, he wouldn't let himself forget. The Other was stupid for thinking he didn't know the minute the idea came into his head, the minute the words left his mouth. But he would bear the weight of this death and more if it meant he could get out those who mattered.
He had already lost enough by being stupid, this was nothing at all.
Yes, he thought as the nails dug into his back, as he felt the bruises began to form. It's mine and I will bear it.
It was startling to see him push off Chris, for his hands to slide down as Thorne stood up. As he pulled himself into elegance, into nothing like he had been moments before, something between everything.
Something that was his own and not a copy, but dangerous and beautiful.
"Don't ask stupid questions," Chris said in reply, but the statement held no real bite. He pulled himself up slowly, inelegant and slow as the other had been so refined. Gently adjusted his mask and then, with as much pride as he could muster, turned and left.
There was nothing left here.
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