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So That Happened



Aleksy picks up the phone, puts it on speaker and sets it on his worktop. He's at home, in his studio, palette over his thighs and paintbrushes in hand. "Hey," he says back. "Been out on a run, then?"

"I could pick you up and help you reach them," Thorne says in return, deviously. He looks at Aleksy like he will actually pick him up, but after a moment he just says, "Oh ye of little faith. I think so."

First Friday

So That Happened

"You're panting," says Aleksy, fondness in every syllable. "I'm painting, as it were. The masses will not terrorize themselves in my absence if I don't help them. How can I miss such golden opportunities as unnerving paintings of hands?"

Aleksy falls silent, but only for a moment. "I had the strangest dream," he says. "Not an Ashdown dream. Just a regular dream. I was walking through the, uh. The asylum. With… someone else, I don't remember who. I thought it was odd… they never let me walk around so freely there. And--ah, it was Liam I was walking with, I just… hm. I realized there was a mirror between us. Me and Liam. There were others, people I, I knew from before all this, and I asked them, how could I get to the other side of this mirror, how can I get where you are, and nobody knew."

He pauses to catch his breath, to put the rest of the dream in order. Then he finishes, "Then I found my sister, in the dream, and she said--I remember very clearly--You would have to die, you'd have to drown yourself--and she threw me into a lake and I drowned, and…"

His voice fades out. He taps his brush into the creamy pink paint and adds a layer of it to the canvas before him, cusses when the paint runs down to the bottom of the easel. "I don't know why I told you that," he says. "It's not very relevant."

So That Happened

"I am not," Thorne retorted, sounding mock-affronted before breaking into a deep thrum of laughter. He shuffled to the side and there was a scuffle of sound as he pushed himself up one handed to sit on the rock wall lining the part of the running trail he'd been on. Kicking his feet, he added, "Whatever would the world do without your talent of terrorizing people with hands and your talent for art?" His smile was clear in the sound of his voice. "May I be of assistance in your endeavors in any way?"

He pauses and listens when Aleksy begins speaking about dreams. And suddenly, the weight of the conversation shifts, and Thorne feels as though they're in different territory than before.

"Aleksy," Thorne says when it is over, quietly. It is the sound of full attentiveness, and there is a reverberation of protective want in it. The physical distance between where Thorne is and where Aleksy is now feels too wide, too far. But so does something else.

For a moment, there is silence. And then Thorne says, "Did you want to be on the other side? When she drowned you, was it..."

But he trails off, and the sound in his throat is helpless with things in his head he can't turn into words. "No, it's - " Thorne tapers off and starts again. "It's fine. Tell me more." And then, a little helplessly, "who's hands are you drawing anyways?"

So That Happened

Aleksy doesn't say you are too panting but he thinks it. He's got sharp ears and there's only very little he misses. There's some things neither of them admits aloud, though. That's one of them.

"I woke up," says Aleksy quietly. "So she was right. In a way."

He takes the topic change with ease. "Ah, Finn's," he says. "You should come by and model for me sometime. Your hands are… inspiring." The hesitance comes from hunting for the word. English isn't his first language, and sometimes it doesn't come naturally. "Why were you asking about what I would do if you died?"

So That Happened

Thorne makes a noncommittal humming sound in response. For a moment, it sounds like he won't say anything else. But then, quietly, he adds, "I would want to be on the side you're on." And laughs. The sound is a deep reverberation in the base of his throat, self-conscious but pleased.

He lets the subject roll over and says, "Whenever you want." He blinks at the concept of his hands inspiring anyone, but his laughter now is abashed. "You think so?" He holds one up to the light, tilting it this way and that. "I don't know. They seem pretty normal... But hey, anything for you."

He pauses at the question. "I don't know," he says, his tone a question, "It was just on my mind."

So That Happened

"It would upset me deeply," says Aleksy, setting the brush aside. "If you were to die. So please put your best effort into not dying, and I'll do the same."