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Thorne didn't loiter.

He wasn't an a*****e and he didn't make people uncomfortable and he didn't loiter. But s**t, those were some goddamn gorgeous flowers and he'd been standing outside of the shop for five minutes and he had no idea what to do. And Thorne had a problem. Oh. It was a problem. He didn't want to admit it, but he had a problem the size of the sun and it started with the twenty pots hanging around his apartment waiting to get filled and ended with him staring into the window of pocket full of posies wishing he was loaded for the sole intent of buying out the entire stock of the shop.

And <********>, his fingers itched. He wanted to pull out his sketchbook. Or go in. Or - do - something, instead of standing there like a fool, his thick-rimmed glasses only kicking into place the garishly hipster look he was unconsciously mimicking at the moment, hair tossed into a careless fauxhawk, tattoos on display for anyone to see, every muscle in his body prepared for fight or flight. He looked nothing like the military man he'd been and maybe that was the point, but that didn't make him any better at human contact.

Or asking to buy flowers. Draw flowers. Draw whoever might be in there with the flowers. <********>

Thorne's mouth twisted open on his newfound favorite work. "******** - s**t."

Another minute ticked by.

Thorne, a master of deadlifting people like Aleksy and quite possibly hacking firewood for old ladies who asked, had no idea how to handle an actual conversation with other people. Especially about biting.

"I'm - "

No, that wasn't right.

"That's - "<******** -

"I don't want you to bite me," Thorne said, his voice grizzly from disuse in any prolonged conversation in - what, weeks? - "Not now, at least." He gestured with his head, a motion not unlike a dog flicking a flea from its perch. Stepped inside. Shuffled like he didn't know what to do with his hands, his body. Any of it. An apology sounded appropriate, but Thorne didn't know how to get the words out.

"I'm looking for - inspiration. Or, someone- something - anything to draw." It was stupid, all of it, but he needed it. His third sleeve was unfinished and he needed something. "Not physical assault." His eyes roved Aleksey over. "Though that would be something. Can you even reach my neck?"

s**t -

"I'd like to see you try," Thorne said without any heat, subsiding a little to this strange florist and his strange attitude. He tilted his head, considering Aleksy for a long moment. This had to be a fight-or-flight moment.

And I'm probably choosing wrong, Thorne thought, his lips twisting wryly. "I don't think this is the kind of place to pick a fight anyways." His hands went to his elbows, fingers spasming in anxiety. When Aleksy proposed he show him his work and offered flowers to draw, Thorne knew the battle was lost and his expression - hell, the extensiveness of his tattoos - probably showed it. And it wasn't like this kid knew anything about who he was. Who he'd been.

"The surprises just continue with you, don't they?" He blew out a raspberry and leaned forward, thumbs hooked on the lapels of his jeans. "Alright. Do I at least get a name first?"

Thorne's mouth quirked. "Russian?" He asked, more out of mild interest than anything else. He hissed out a long breath, hesitating for a second before offering his own. "Alexander Thorne." He shifted, running a hand through the raven black of his hair, recently returned to its fauxhawk glory. "A pleasure - I suppose. So long as you don't actually bite me."

Thorne didn't try to stop himself staring at the ink of Aleksy's own tattoos. He was a hungry creature when it came to body art. It was a difficult thing to look at the florist himself when the intricacy of the pattern did nothing to help the situation. When he heard the sketchbook open, he couldn't help a small grin tearing across his face.

If there was one thing he could talk endlessly on, it was art.

"You're good," he said, and his voice was raw and honest. "Do you sell at all?"

Thorne went for his sketchbook thoughtlessly, always on him in the event that he wanted to sketch something he saw on the street, in an alley, someones window. He offered it to Aleksy. "Peace offering," he added with a wry look at the florist.

The pages were cramped and spilling with work that settled somewhere between realistic and imaginary. Flowers and eyes and beasts, thorns and windows with figures turned in a half-light, always facing away. Bodies and bruises and broken things, some of them crowned in petals, others nebulous, taken over, destroyed.

It was a mess. But Aleksy had asked, and now he could do with it what he wanted, if he wanted anything from Thorne at all.

Boston and New York. So this kid had been around. Thorne lifted his gaze, watching the other artist with raw intrigue. There was something in him, hungry for more. More of the art Aleksy offered, and the strange personality that he seemed built on. "That's impressive. I wish I could have seen. And yet, here you are?" He gestured vaguely to the shop around them. The flowers were a comfort, but it seemed strange given that Aleksy seemed well traveled.

But then, so was Thorne. And here he was too.

He took the stool offered, though he still loomed over Aleksy until he rested his elbows on his thighs and curled in, shirt falling further to reveal the slope of his tattoos. He recognized the silence that came with exploring someones art and didn't interrupt Aleksy.

The comment made him laugh. It was a dry sound, low and scraping. His smile twisted on his face, half-cruel and half-amused. "I've only recently had the free time to focus on this." He gestured. He'd been drawing since he was young, but his time served in the military had taken from that passion considerably until he'd gotten out, starved for the familiarity of a world of paper and ink to drown himself in. "And I once made it something of a habit to hide. It's a hard thing to break. It's still - hard thing to break."

He tilted his head, eyes falling to the pages of the sketchbook. "You're the first to see this one," he added. It didn't mean much. Maybe nothing at all. But he said it anyways. Aleksy could choose to take it however he wanted from there.

"That's one way of saving yourself," Thorne said, his voice low and admiring. It was strange - reconciling the idea of this offhandedly violent artist with flowers, the earth. But then, Thorne wondered what Aleksy saw in it. Nature. The cycle of it - everything, even the decay. "At least you have something to pull yourself back to."

His laughter was a slow curl of sound, deep and raw. "It's a flaw, I imagine," he returned, his eyes flashing wicked despite the anxiety still cooling in his bones from being caught red handed outside of the shop like a child with his hand in the cookie jar. "I trust too much. Feel free to take advantage, if you can reach."

Thorne accepted the sketchbook, tilting his head at the florist. "That's a lot of trust to show a stranger you just met," he retorted. "Are you sure you want to take that risk?"

Thorne definitely didn't have that.

His lips curved into the sharp edge of a smile at Aleksy's remark though, and he settled, rolling his shoulders back, muscle pulling taut beneath tattooed skin. "Is that what I am to you? Big and scary?" He ran a hand through his hair, fidgeting and restless. "I must be doing a s**t job at this then." As an afterthought, he added, "At least let me draw you first before you murder me."

He wasn't sure if Aleksy was joking. In fact, he wasn't sure that this entire town wasn't trying to terrorize him in its own way. But until threatened, he'd sit and enjoy the goddamn plants. And, well. A human presence as well. That was arguably pretty nice.

"A few weeks. Barely a month," Thorne responded, shrugging a shoulder as he pulled out his own art supplies, fishing for a new page to start work on. "How long have you been here?" His eyes flicked up to Aleksy, wariness and curiosity burning against one another. "Do you know everyone in Ashdown, or is it just a side-effect of running this place?"

Thorne's mouth curved into a smile. "Has it always been like this?" he asked. His eyes flickered to the windows beyond the plants. And what he meant was had it always been so foreign, so strange, so other. Thorne had traveled across continents and he still couldn't say he'd ever been to place quite like Ashdown.

"I'm not interested in hurting you," Thorne retorted, his voice dropping low and raw. He glanced at Aleksy for a moment, holding his gaze. "I make it a habit to be as harmless as possible, anyways." His mouth quirked, wry and sharp. "I'm sure that someone somewhere might protest to that sentiment." He tilted his sketchbook, allowing his mind to drift from the flowers to Aleksy and his artist's hands to the unfinished concepts in his head.

"But you're not so bad yourself."