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 Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2016 7:32 pm
so about that
Chris snorts, giving Thorne a grin. "You think you can't charm me? Thorne, you clearly aren't looking beyond yourself. But I suppose Mare is just looking out for you. She has good intentions, just... bad execution." He would know a thing or two about that.
Chris takes another bite of eggs, savoring them. Thorne was good at cooking as well as baking, it was almost unfair really. Almost. The payoff was too good to be truly jealous though.
"Fine by me, it's good food anyways," Chris says and then cuts into them, taking a bite. They would of course, come to it later but for now he is content to eat a good breakfast with Thorne.
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Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2016 7:48 pm
on a scale of one to ten
Thorne laughs, a throaty, melodic sound. He waves the bartender down for another drink, glances at Chris with a smile spread across his lips. Here in this quiet, in this space where they're nothing - just two bodies existing - he feels nearly like he could. Like he could do something. Anything.
"I'll keep that in mind," Thorne drawls in return, playing with the rim of the tumbler as the bartender deposits a bottle of amber liquid in front of him, smiles at him enough to signify Thorne has been here enough to be remembered.
"So," Thorne adds, eyes closing as he leans his cheek into the knuckles of his right hand, "any heartfelt questions you want to ask me tonight? I'm always rather easily tempted after a shot or - three."
It is a tease, an edge of a dare, an invitation. Why not, after all? Why not?
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Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2016 8:54 pm
on a scale of one to ten
Chris picks up his glass and sips at his soju, a wry smile on his face as he watches Thorne wave down the bartender. He wonders if it was another place, another time where they were strangers, would Chris had approached Thorne? Would he try to flirt with him?
"Please don't," Chris says honestly and laughs. He runs another finger along the rim of his glass, simply watching Thorne. Indulging in the moment.
"Heartfelt? I don't know about that," Chris admits, leaning back. "But I do have questions. Most of them pointless."
He picks up his glass, takes another sip of the clear liquid. Gives Thorne a curious look and then asks, "So, have you dated anyone before?"
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Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2016 9:00 pm
on a scale of one to ten
Thorne tilts his head at Chris, eyes lidded, watching and wondering similar things. For a moment he teases the idea in his head - of them as strangers. In that world, he would flirt with Chris, he knows already. They would dance around each other, they might even share a dance. Would they go home together? Would Thorne work up the nerve to kiss him?
It such a paralyzing thought that Thorne brushes it away, fiddles with the edge of his glass.
"I'll take them," Thorne says, "I'm in a giving mood, after all." He pauses, wants tell Chris that nothing with him is pointless, but he hopes that the gaze he settles on the other is enough to show it instead.
"One relationship in college," he says, soft, "And something short lived a year or so ago. Not quite so serious, and not very heartfelt, if I'm being honest with myself about it all." He smiles. "For all of my genius and charm, I am usually more trouble than I'm worth. Or so I have been told."
He tilts his glass, hums softly, takes another burning sip, and looks at Chris.
"You?"
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Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2016 9:09 pm
on a scale of one to ten
He lets his daydream go on for a second longer - just another second, just the barest hint. Because in this daydream, in this wonder of another world, Chris is brave enough to dance with Thorne. He's brave enough to steal a kiss, because he's wanted. Desirable.
When did I fall for Thorne so hard, he wonders, and it chases the dream away. These are not feelings he wants to navigate right now, these are not questions he wants to know the answer to. He will sit on those thoughts and feelings until they burn themselves out into nothing.
"Oh, I'm honored," Chris says around the rim of his glass, smiling. He drains the last of his current glass, pours himself another as he listens to Thorne.
There's a snort as he puts the bottle down, says, "You're certainly trouble, but never more than you're worth. As for me well, a few my freshman year in college, another a couple years back. Nothing special, nothing fancy. They lasted about as long as expected, once they found out who they were dealing with."
He just rests his fingers next to his glass, considers his next question. "Did you go to bars often? Back in college, when you were dating."
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Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2016 9:26 pm
on a scale of one to ten
"You should be," Thorne retaliates, slow and melodic, laughter curling in his throat. And yet something else sits there. Something fond and desperate, single minded and wanting. Hopeless and hopelessly there. "It's a rare thing. Only few have earned it."
He lets the whiskey burn his throat, smooth all the way down, and warmth blooms in his chest, but it doesn't chase away the world inside of him, growing like the veins and roots of a plant, taking residence in his rib cage, in his heart.
"How flattering," Thorne retorted, wry, "You'll have to tell all of my exes that. They were so busy seeing my tattoos that they didn't see the scars. And once that was apparent, I was either fragile or a molotov cocktail."
He rolls the tumbler in his palm and hums, a raw-soft sound of thought.
"Then they were missing out," he says, "If it were me, I would never have let you go."
He says it hopelessly, his eyes flicking to Chris, to the lights, to the soft backdrop of the bar they were in.
"Yeah," he says, laughing a little, "I was - louder and more volatile when I was younger, and we were all wild. More often we would just take a car and drive to some beach or some lake, and end the night there."
He glances at Chris, curious and wondering.
"Why?"
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Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2016 9:39 pm
on a scale of one to ten
"Well then," Chris says, teasing, fond. "It seems I've managed to come across something special then."
He picks up his soju then but doesn't sip, just lets the glass stay in his hand as he rests it on the bar.
"Sounds like you just picked wrong people," Chris says easily, words sliding out of his mouth far too quickly for him to stop. "Admittedly, the tattoos are enough to stop anyone. But being unable to look beyond everything outward, into what you really are? Stupid of them."
His eyes flick to Thorne and his mouth curves into a smile. "Well, you have me now. That counts for something, doesn't it?"
He hums a little, considers Thorne's reply and then without warning, slams back his soju. It takes a second but he feels it going down, turning into a pleasant glow in his chest. Liquid courage.
"Flirt with me, like you would in a bar. I'm curious."
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Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2016 9:54 pm
on a scale of one to ten
Thorne laughs.
"No," he says, low and husky, "You have it backwards. You are special."
The words are rough in his throat, but they come easily. Easier than breathing, easier than anything else in this world. He puts the tumbler down and lets himself turn to face Chris fully, the ebbing navy glow of the bar catching on his cheekbones, the sharp angles of his face.
"You wouldn't run?" he can't help breathing out, a question and a soft marvel of intrigue. Chris always manages to surprise him, always inverts everything he knows about himself, about the world, about the people and all of the things they see when they look his way, on its head.
And then Chris tells him to flirt, and Thorne feels his entire heart splinter. His mouth works - this is a game, he tries to tell himself. This is just - they're buzzed, they're enjoying a night out. And this -
Chris means it as a game. Thorne bites down on the atrophy of the garden in his chest. He hums out, a low breath of sound.
This is a game.
So Thorne lets their knees brush. He runs one of his knuckles over all of Chris's, a warm stroke.
"Well," he says, drawls, and suddenly his voice is deeper, husky, hungry in a way he never allows. It isn't predatory, not necessarily, but lupine. There is an elegance to him now as he shifts, playful, hunting. Something to be desired. Something that desires. "Where shall I start?"
He smiles, eyes lidded and mouth curved.
"Your eyes and your voice, or everything else?" He leans in, eyes roving down, roving up. "Shall I start with compliments, would you rather I take it slow? I'm sure others have tried and failed before."
He runs his finger over Chris's knuckles again.
"But you'll let me, won't you?"
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Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2016 10:07 pm
on a scale of one to ten
"You're the first to think that," Chris remarks, but there's still a smile on his face. Still something happy about him as he fusses with his glass, tries to not let the compliment go to his head. The soju was clearly affecting him.
He turns his head to look at Thorne, truly appreciate the light catching his face, the way it illuminated him. It made him look powerful, it made him look beautiful. He was born for places like this.
"Why should I?" He asks, genuinely surprised. "You've got scars, certainly, but that doesn't make up all you are. If that's all they saw, they're stupid. You're nothing to be feared." His mouth is set in a hard line, a tremble of anger to think anyone would do that.
Chris turns and he can see Thorne shift, slide into something warm, something elegant and playful. He poised it like a game but truth was, Chris just wanted to monopolize Thorne's attention. Pretend that like, in the daydream, he was something attractive, interesting, desirable.
The contact on him is like fire, setting all his nerves alight. He looks at his hand then back up at Thorne, his mouth settling into something amused.
This isn't real, he reminds himself quietly, then lets himself be fully drawn in.
"If I wanted just compliments, there are plenty of other things I could've done," Chris purrs and raises an eyebrow at Thorne.
"Do you have anything to actually talk about? Pretty words won't get you very far."
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Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2016 10:29 pm
on a scale of one to ten
Thorne's head spins with every word out of Chris's mouth, and no, he does not regret taking him out for the night, but certainly his stomach atrophies at the concept that this game isn't real. This world has to end when the sun comes up. Chris asks him to flirt and Thorne wants to take him home and put his hands on him, slow and steady and rhythmic, and whisper sweet nothings to him in all of the soft divots he's marked and mapped and memorized with his eyes only.
He wants to -
"Then you're the first to think that," Thorne echoes with a smile, "Most paint me into something two-dimensional. I am either this - " he tilts his head and the rose on his collarbone, nestled beneath sleeping nettles, glitters in the half-light, "Or I am this." And now he draws a finger over a paper thin scar that cuts a diagonal line beneath his ear. "And both are beautiful, but never together, and never in a way that can be loved in equal parts."
Thorne smiles, wicked, and there is an edge to him, lupine and predatory now. Hungry for the contact, for more. He slides his finger further, presses it to Chris's pulse.
"I have plenty things I could talk of," Thorne remarks, "But what kind of gentleman would I be not to remind you how far out of my league you are?"
He breathes out, sharply, an animal sound, and leans in. His mouth ghosts the corner of Chris's.
"Alright," he purrs, straight into the blonds ear, "What should we talk about instead then? I am a generous creature, I wouldn't mind letting you lead."
He tilts his head up, teeth grazing the bottom lobe of Chris's ear with his words.
"Or, shall I tell you all of my thoughts? How much I think about you, your lips, what they'd feel like against mine?" He pauses, laughs. "You know I think about painting you. No, not like you're imagining. I want to draw flowers down your back, against your spine, hyacinths to apologize, roses for what you mean to me. Mallow, maybe, and rainflowers." His voice turns deep, a lord's voice, burning raw and hungry.
"I want to run my hands against you, every part of you, so that I can show you just what a beautiful creature you are."
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Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2016 10:44 pm
on a scale of one to ten
He wants and he wants and he wants and every fiber of his being aches with it. Chris wants this so bad he can taste it and the problem is that it's sitting out right here in front of him, a game he set up so he could see what it'd be like to have a dream come true, now coming to haunt him. He wants to reach out and take it for himself, make it a reality, but it's impossible. Close and yet not.
So instead he categorizes the lines of Thorne's face, his lips, the way he is enchanting, spectral. He will dream of this and it will not be enough, it will never be enough, but it will be something to get him through the nights.
Delicately, a hand reaches out to touch the scar he's been offered, trace it lightly himself. "You can't be one without the other though," He says quietly, his eyes on the scar, on the roses. "What happened?" He asks much more gently, quiet enough that if Thorne doesn't want to say he can pretend it wasn't heard. He's curious, but he won't push.
"Out of your league? I think you need to get your eyes checked, you sir are the one who's out of my league. No, not even, you're out of my damn orbit," Chris laughs, his eyes turning into that squint that happens when he's truly happy.
It ends quickly though, turned into something that is shivering from Thorne's ghosting at his mouth. Close, close, close enough if he turned his head, closed the distance-
He shudders again, pleasure, teeth on the edge of his neck. "Ah, so you want me to be your canvas then? What else would you draw, when the flowers were done? I never took you to be so poetic as to know flower meanings either. Mallow, rainflower, it's different," Chris says, his voice rough with wanting, still trying to be smooth.
This was a horrible decision, but he forges on.
"Ah, what did I say about compliments? We need far more than that."
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Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2016 10:59 pm
on a scale of one to ten
Thorne drags in a deep breath, shuddering, powerful, but his eyes share a different story. He wants so many things and they starve him, choke him. They are a growing garden in his chest. If they opened him up, cut him apart, the want would still linger, deep within his veins. He is aching, desperate, and he wonders why Chris asked him for this.
He wonders if Chris knows how much this hurts.
"No," Thorne responds softly, "I will never be one without the other. And I will never allow for someone to try and make me into that again." He raised one of his hands, pressing it against Chris's, against the scar. "Everything," he breathes, eyes half-lidded. Because this was his world, his very core made up from birth of violence, of the atrophy of peace into chaos, highway signs going nowhere, exit ramps he could never reach, his fathers lush religion, buried in his bones. "It was my father, first."
And he does not smile, but he tilts his head, grazing Chris with a piercing stare. It waits and watches, cautious, even though a part of him still stays unafraid. Chris will not run. He trusts him not to run.
"What a lie," he said, "were your raised with that liar's mouth or is there someone that ever made you feel unworthy that I have to fight?"
Because Chris was wrong. Chris was a planet Thorne could orbit around for the rest of his life. Could linger in the shadow of, forever if necessary, simply to know he was there.
"My canvas," Thorne breathes out, "my lover, for as long as you'd let me. Perhaps I'd paint swallows on your shoulders, perhaps I'd kiss them once they'd dried. I'd draw a galaxy along your hip, spiral nebulas and stars and planets against your thighs."
He leans back, only enough so that he can see Chris's eyes, the bright teal that off-sets the night dark of his own. He breathes out and it is a sound heavy with desire, with wanting that threatens to swallow him whole.
"And then I would kiss you," he says, raw and cruel and burning, "everywhere but your mouth. Until you were begging for it, until you would be daring enough to call me cruel."
His mouth curved, a dangerous expression, a smile that did not entirely hide everything alive within him, everything that was not simply a game.
"You mistake the truth for a compliment," he breathed. "You think you are not everything and more to me?"
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Posted: Thu Sep 29, 2016 4:16 pm
on a scale of one to ten
Chris closes his eyes, feels the soju burn in his chest, opens them again and takes a breath. His fault, this was his fault, but he has to keep going because he can't reveal anything. Can't show how much this is affecting him, can't show his hand. He's terrified for Thorne to know and shun him, scared that if Thorne knows he will lose what he's gotten. So he has to keep playing, even if this is starting to burn him from the inside out.
"Don't," Chris says, it sounding like a resolution. Even if he won't be the one to do it, he'll make sure whoever Thorne finds won't be like the others before. The least he could do. He savors the contact of Thorne's hand on his, looks at him a long time. There's so much he could say here, he wants to say here, but there's also so much he doesn't know how to tread.
His own father, even if their relationship was slightly rocky, at least was something of a father. He didn't know much about Chris but their relationship was something. Maybe, if he knew about Chris' orientation, it would change. But he hadn't ever had a time to really figure it out, too caught up in family tragedy that when it did happen he pushed it off for college and by that time it didn't matter. Maybe someday he'd tell his family. Most likely, probably not. Hyejin was the only one who needed to know and she already did.
"Who was the second?" He questions, sounding like a threat. Like he'd fight whoever Thorne said, like he'd make a stand against the world. He wanted to, desperately. Thorne did not deserve to be hurt.
"Someone," Chris echos with a laugh, "Try an entire island. Try an entire school district. Same, but just foreign enough in each country to earn teasing. My 'dark' skin color, my hair, my eyes, that earned teasing in Jejudo. But here, oh here I just happened to be half-korean." Oh and this, this is bitter. He still holds resentment, still holds some hurt. He'd accepted he was average and not good looking long ago, but scars were still scars and they still hurt when he pressed on them sometimes.
"As long as I let you? You give yourself little credit, I'd let you for all of eternity. It sounds like you don't get much from the deal though, I get all of you and you get just me. Are you sure you don't want more?" He teases, gently, but he's breathy. He wants this more than anything, wants what Thorne has painted in the dim of this bar. He wants paint on his body and Thorne's hands on him and-
His cheeks flush, redden. He wonders if Thorne can see it in this light but he keeps his eyes on Thorne as his breath hitches a little.
"You," Chris says, "Play an awful game. What is there to say I wouldn't pin you down and force it from you?"
This is where he adverts his eyes, unable to meet Thorne's gaze. When said plainly like that, Chris doesn't know how to refuse. He tries anyways.
"How am I? I'm just. Me."
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Posted: Thu Sep 29, 2016 8:28 pm
on a scale of one to ten
These minutes with Chris feel like hours, like beading droplets of years, of centuries that Thorne has forgotten but lived one hundred times over. Have they been here before? Traveled down this road before? In the lives that he has forgotten, did he chase Chris this way? Was he ever close? Did he ever let himself wish and dare and act?
Thorne says, "Too many to name, too many to count." The answer is unsatisfactory but so is the story; he was a dog dripping rainwater in the house of his father. He was a wolf in sheeps clothing. His wealth masked the truth of the matter, the life he'd lived with blood on the first four knuckles, the taste of kerosene in his throat, a lighter always close to tipping, held between the fingers of cruel men.
He pauses and turns his head, eyes drinking Chris in, roving up and down. He is hungry, a starved creature howling at a faraway moon. He wants everything he cannot have, and Chris is nothing but starlight in the corner of his eyes, dead light reaching from a thousand light years away.
"You are not just anything," Thorne breathes, snarls, the sound ripping and predatory and protective, "You are more than the boxes they tried to put you in. And how dare they even try." There is something thunderous there, lightning and thunder, burning in his throat.
But it is compressed, compartmentalized. Thorne lifts his head and looks at Chris, so close he can feel his breath, so close he could kiss him if he was allowed. But he was not allowed, he would never be allowed, because why would Chris give him something like that?
"What," Thorne drawls, "You don't think you are worth your weight in gold and more?" He smiled, the lazy lupine smile of a greedy creature, an inhuman thing. He is a dragon playing with a prize that he cannot keep, turning it over and over again to memorize it before it fades away. "I would hoard you forever, like some beast out of myth, and maybe one day they would have to send a knight to save you and slay me. What a fairy tale." His eyes flick, half-lidded and galactic, burning night-dark and bright at the same time, as though brutalized by a thousand different stars.
"No one ever says how the beast loves their treasure though," he adds, ruefully, teasing, his voice husky and low, "not really."
Thorne laughs at the mention of games, swallowing the thickness in his throat like glass. Oh, this is painful. Oh, this is the worst. Of course he would fall in love with an impossible creature. Of course it would only make sense to be like this.
"You are the one who invited me in," Thorne says wickedly, but his eyes graze over Chris and he cannot help adding, "Is that a challenge? I would like to see you try." But there is nothing more he could think of to desire, than to have his own game inverted, to have Chris's hands on him the way they had when he'd found the weakness in his wings. To have him be the one to draw pleas from Thorne's lips. Because he would. He would.
He pauses, and then says, "Where do you want me to start? Your wit, your bravery? The fact that you saw me when no one else did? That you were everything missing that I'd been looking for?"
He tilts his head, so close that he could let their lips meet.
He says, "I wish you could be kissed. I wish you would let me kiss you."
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Posted: Thu Sep 29, 2016 10:05 pm
on a scale of one to ten
Chris frowns, but he doesn't move his hand, not yet. He lets his fingers trace the scar, before he finally pulls back. Keeps his hand to himself. "Am I in that number?" He asks, but it's simple curiosity for once, not self-hate. He wonders, because he feel like he has hurt Thorne. Wants to know if he can fix it.
Thorne's eyes roam over him and Chris feels - he feels like he's something. Like that he can obtain Thorne, can hold something impossible in his palm.
But for the moment he just returns Thorne's gaze and cups his hands around Thorne's face, trying to will his own calmness to Thorne. "It's okay, it was the past. I'm fine now," He says softly, "Kids are stupid."
He pulls his hands away from Thorne's face, moves to the bottle and pours out maybe half a glass of soju. Not the amount he wanted, but enough to give him a sip and let him wonder how fast he had gotten through the soju. Was this his second bottle or his third? He didn't remember.
"You're the only one who believes that," Chris says easily, dodging the question. He smiles despite himself though, gaze half lidded and resting on Thorne. "Send someone to save me? What an entertaining story that would be, seeing someone trying to take you from me."
He hums for a second, then says, "We could write something new. A tale where the treasure wants to stay with the beast far more than just some random knight. Where they stay together."
What he wants more than anything is it to not be a tale, to really be with Thorne. But Thorne would do with better, someone else, and so he keeps this to himself. It's not a wish he will get fulfilled.
"I'll do it then, just to prove you wrong," Chris says, his own mouth drawn into a smirk. He wants it too, he wants to absolutely do it. He remembers Thorne's wings, the power he had, and he wants it again but this time by just his own strength. By his own hand and his own mouth, no handicap on Thorne, just them.
"You can find all those qualities in other people," Chris brushes off awkwardly, unused to compliments. He doesn't know what to do with this attention and so he focuses his gaze back on his drink, runs his finger on the rim of the glass again.
But Thorne's close and in his space and he's forced to meet his eyes and-
And Chris wants and he is so, so tired of sitting here.
"All you had to do was ask," He says quietly, dangerously, and in a swift motion leans in.
He leans and places a very drunk kiss against Thorne's lips, arms coming up to rest on Thorne's shoulders. In the morning, Chris will not remember this. In the morning Chris will be incredibly hungover and he will wonder when he became a lightweight, when he started getting drunk after a bottle and a half of soju, or two bottles, or whatever his amount was. He'll have a bad day and he won't remember anything at all.
But that is a problem for morning Chris and it doesn't matter at all in the moment, because Chris is drunk and he is getting what he wants.
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