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There were a few things Thorne was beginning to expect from life in Ashdown. Taxes, strange flower shop owners, cats with three eyes. A strange chill up his spine every time he was out right at sundown, the fact that they never got his order quite right at the coffee shop down the street.

He wasn't sure he was used to this, though. This being the experience of witnessing firsthand what quite possibly could have been car theft if it didn't look like the criminal in question knew the man she was currently evicting from the car. Watching this transaction should have warranted some effort at helping on Thorne's part, but all he could think as soon as he saw the dalmation was, dog. Ah s**t, it's so cute - ah damn -

And then the coffee he'd been holding in his hands - the coffee that was scalding hot and the coffee he'd completely forgotten to get a sleeve for in his rush to be out the door - reminded his fingers that they weren't immune to heat. Thorne fumbled the drink and hissed a sailor's swear, switching it to his left hand and shaking the other violently in a mixture of ill-warranted surprise and pain.

As the pain subsided, Thorne realized he'd probably made a show of both staring and being useless in the aftermath. After all, Rylan had been evicted only a few feet from the ex-captain, and instead of walking on and pretending there wasn't suddenly another human in his way, Thorne had stopped and taken in the view.

Oops.

"I would ask if car theft is commonplace in your life," he said by way of hello, "But I think I already know the answer by the fact that you're hardly even surprised." His eyes flicked to the dog and back to Rylan, and he passed the coffee to his other hand a second time, stretching his fingers, the thorns and flowers of his tattoo sleeve tracing the wrist to the elbow and even further beneath the rolled up sleeves of his shirt.

He prayed he didn't pass as an imposing figure. He'd been avoiding people ever since he'd moved to Ashdown. Maybe here on a street where he was just a stranger, a little conversation wouldn't hurt.

And, of course, there was also a dog.

"Your life sounds tragic," Thorne responded. His smile wasn't as easy, but it slipped against the corner of his mouth, tugging, not quite there. He hadn't smiled casually in what seemed like an eternity, and the rust and disuse made the action feel foreign to him.

The mention of family made the expression fidget momentarily, but Thorne only said, "I guess that's better than a family full of partners in crime stealing your car." His eyes fell on Fidget, and after a moment he knelt, his knees popping from the exertion. Placing the coffee cup on the ground far enough from the dog, he offered one hand to Fidget as a tentative question. To pet or not to pet?

"I don't mind. I love dogs. I just hope he doesn't mind the smell of cat." Thorne's mouth quirked at the mention of his tattoos. Of course that would come into play sooner or later. And why wouldn't it? In hiding all of the scars, he'd managed to pull a different thing into view instead.

"Ironic, isn't it?" He asked, and realized belatedly that the man wouldn't understand. "I'm - " A small, embarrassed laugh crackled from his throat. "My name is Thorne as it happens..." He rubbed the dogs ear once and rolled the sleeve of his shirt up a little more to show the sparrows caught in the tangle and the intricate watercolor congregation of flowers.

His eyes flickered up to Rylan and snagged on the tattoos the other man bore. Everything in him felt wicked and electric at the sight. Full of adrenaline and terror and something else. His expression must have shown some registration of - of something - before he forced himself to look away. Down.

"Marines?" He asked, offering both of his hands this time to Fidget if she wanted more attention. Better to give her attention than some guy that might have had a history like his and risk getting into a conversation he wasn't sure he was ready to have.

Thorne's mouth quirked at the commentary, amused at the easy way the other man laughed everything off. He wasn't unaware of the similarities between them in stature - and the glaring way in which they differed everywhere else. A seed of discontent hummed awake in his body. Not jealousy. Not quite.

"Very true," he said, bending his head to run his fingers through Fidget's fur and tousle his ears. Dogs were incredible creatures and he envied anyone that had the company of one. This man was a lucky case. If he could pick Fidget up, he would have - the dalmation was turning out to be the best thing Ashdown had to offer so far.

"Good, because my cat likes to climb me like a tree." Thorne's gaze turned to Rylan, his gaze intent. "It was rather by coincidence, the tattoos." He scraped a hand over one of the sleeves in a nervous gesture, fingers fidgeting. "Rylan. It's a pleasure. And this handsome guy?" He looked back down at Fidget giving the dogs head a good rub.

So this man had been places. Seen things. It was a dangerous subject. It tasted a lot like kerosene in his mouth, the wrong words a spark he wasn't ready to use. He focused on keeping his hands still, buried in the soft fur of the dog before him.

"And you're - " he started, but there was nowhere he knew to take the sentence. Alright seemed too shallow. Surviving too dramatic. "Well, you survived." The words come out gravely and strange - Thorne didn't mean it in the way that survived meant to most other people. He wasn't talking about a heartbeat or the biology of being alive but everything else. All the other things inside a person damaged by war.

"I mean - " he amended hastily, realizing the severity of the statement, and then gamely, "I'm sorry. That's - I didn't mean to overstep."

If the fur bothered Thorne, he didn't show it, only mussing the dogs head more for the energetic reaction it brought on, a small smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. He glanced up when Rylan came to a squat in front of him, now eye-level. The man had an impressive figure - Thorne couldn't say he could count many people taller than him, and he was pretty sure this guy was one.

"Fire station, huh?" Thorne tilted his head, glasses sliding on his nose a little. "So, out of the marines and into a whole new world. You like it here?" He looked down at Fidget, blowing a raspberry at the dogs wet nose. "I don't think you'll ever find any better for a mascot. Good choice."

He listened intently to Rylan's commentary without looking up again, the coffee half forgotten. Barely, the man said. And Thorne could believe it. "I'm glad to hear it," Thorne said, scrubbing his hands over Fidget's side. "That you came back from it all. That's - not easy." His stomach twisted uncomfortably at the words and his hands felt restless and dangerous all at once. But this wasn't the time or the place to spill his guts to a stranger.

Oh. Right. Stranger.

He chuckled and glanced at Rylan, his eyes crinkling with dry amusement. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to accost you right after a carjacking to talk about such a - such a topic."

Probably, in a tiny part of Thorne's own mind, he was in the same place as Fidget. He'd always known that dogs were the best thing to grace the earth, but he had rarely been the object of attention in any dogs life and this - well, he could get used to this. A surprised laugh rushed from his lips when the dog covered him in wet kisses, and he wobbled ungraciously before kissing the dogs nose in return. "You're dangerous. Don't go to town or anything, or everyone will fall in love," he told the dog seriously, his attention momentarily diverted.

"It's - a grayscale." Thorne bent forward, resting his forehead on Fidgets for a second and humming. "There's no saving people without paying some sort of price in the - out there." He smiled, looking up at Rylan. "I'm glad you found something like this though. A place where it doesn't look like you have to pay anything but your time. Maybe a few cat scratches." He marveled at Rylan for a moment and the casual way he held himself. Maybe it was the dog, maybe it was just a strange day, but Thorne didn't feel the normal anxiety that swiped at him when he got too close to these conversations with anyone else.

"I - " Thorne's expression twisted when Rylan mentioned that he seemed to get it. He held the syllable of sound a moment too long, and something almost unwound in his chest. "I know." It was a graceless offer, not quite justice or payment for everything Rylan was telling him now. "What it's like, I mean."

He shrugged and smiled again at the other man. Looking at him now, Thorne could imagine it. A fireman, ex-marine. It was fitting and it looked good on him. He was glad, even though some small part of him envied all that Rylan was. "Did you try?" he retorted, his voice raw with amusement. "I don't think I'd know how to handle having my entire family in one place. And yours looks like a handful - judging from your sister."

Thorne's immediate family wasn't large by any means, but the extended family that they had on both sides was considerably more chaotic to deal with. Even the thought of facing them made Thorne wince violently. Captain Alexander Thorne, back from the war.

They would ask about all of it if they could. Moving here meant they didn't have the chance.

"Seems like a nice place to move back to," Thorne mused, glancing up at the sky and back to the man and his dog. "I've only been here a couple of weeks. It's - has it always been so - eccentric?"

Strange and slightly terrifying were also adjectives he might have used, but Thorne wasn't about to insult Ashdown for playing tricks with his mind. Yet.

Thorne sighed. "What a tragic life this dog must lead." He wasn't surprised in the least to hear that Fidget was so popular with the town. Everyone needed a model hero on four legs when this town seemed bent on being as strange and distressing as possible at every turn.

"How do you deal with it? That guilt?" Thorne asked him, his voice strange and calm in his own ears. "We talk about human lives like they aren't important until they're ours. And the excuse - the excuse is because it's war."

Thorne watched Rylan speak, open and friendly and unabashed to speak about this topic. It was weird and it wasn't what Thorne expected. But it was nice. Hell, it was different. And it wasn't - bad. Coming back to the states felt like stepping into a dream. The reality - the reality of warfare, the sound of it all, became muted, and no matter where he looked, everyone seemed at peace because they couldn't see it. It was too far away. And they were aware. But that was different than knowing what it meant to be there in the first place.

"There's no coming back from that." Thorne gestured helplessly to Rylan. He meant the war - the world - the hard, gritty, terrible reality of everything out there and everything that this bubble of fractured reality didn't understand. "There are some things you never get to be again. But you - " He laughed, slow and raw, "you seem like you've done a lot of good for this place and these people. And maybe that's enough. Maybe that's what should be enough."

His expression wrinkled, his voice dry when he said, "And were you able to prove it to yourself? That you could? I think this community would miss you if you stretched yourself too thin and snapped. If Fidget is any indication to go by."

After all, it was remarkable the similarities between dog and appointed caretaker. And Thorne found it amusing above all else.

Thorne chuckled. "We're all somebodies monster," he said, his voice wry. He glanced at Rylan, curling one hand into Fidgets fur gently. "There is some logic behind the idea that this world was never just black and white."

Rylan said things that Thorne had heard before in many different places. But coming from the other man, it didn't feel so shallow and routine. At least he understood. He'd been there, after all. Not in Thorne's shoes - everyone had a different nightmare to face - but in ones similar. It was a small comfort, but a comfort nonetheless. "I wish I knew how," Thorne returned, his voice softer than he'd meant it. And then he colored, heat rising to his cheeks, realizing his mistake. His breath hissed from his lips and a quiet anxiety jerked awake in his chest.

There was a sudden, jolting stream of adrenaline through him, the fight or flight instinct that came when he let himself slip up. The only thing keeping him rooted - and god knew he looked ready to run, like a deer in headlights - was a dog and a man that looked like he had the best intentions at heart. Too late to go back now, a small part of him whispered, and Thorne caught the inside of his cheek with his teeth and bit to wake himself up and ground himself from booking it as fast as he could.

"How long did it take you? For this to stop feeling like some sort of dream?" He smiled, sardonically. "I keep waiting to wake up, I keep thinking I'm not really here." It was easier just to give up, Thorne thought. Maybe that was why he'd come here in the first place.

The next part made Thorne scoff, even though the panic had subsided enough that an anxious sort of amusement flickered in his expression, feeble but there. "You sound like a motivational poster," he commented dryly. And then, "I wish I knew where to start. I don't think cats count."