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Thorne had thought - honestly thought that he could make it home in one place and through the front door.

But as with most things in the ex-captains life, that hadn't gone according to plan.

In fact, it had gone so wrong that he wasn't sure that what he was doing could be considered remnant of any standard to which functioning adults in society were meant to hold themselves. He was avoiding - avoiding what? Neighbors? Noise that indicated human activity outside of his door? How embarrassing. How shameful. How -

"Convenient," Thorne hissed through his breath, pushing himself up and over the divider between the front of the building and the guarded back, staring up at the single window that was open in the distance. His window. He just hoped Millicent was still there and hadn't decided to explore the outside world again. But the cat was complacent so long as he left her cat food and toys, and he was sure that she would be loud and happy to see him the minute he got home.

The night was dark and full of shadows, and the only reason Thorne managed not to kill himself getting to the window was because he had done this at least five times before since moving here. He knew it was a habit to kick - a habit that wasn't healthy. But today had been decent, the evening a decline. Now, Thorne was wired and frayed. His mouth felt empty and his hands restless and he didn't want contact with strangers and fake smiles and - and everything. The world. People that looked at him with vacant eyes.

Thorne hooked his hands on the window sill and hauled himself up, fluid and graceful for someone built like an inverted dorito. It was muscle memory though, tied intrinsically to years before the war, years in dance studios, art circles, clubs and underground scenes where the music drowned out everything else.

But when he hit the ground, everything was silent.

Everything was silent - and that - that was a problem.

Where was his cat? Wait, s**t - wait - this isn't what I meant to do -

Oh god, he was hot.

This was, in fact, the least of Thorne's worries - or should have been. But why did men have to sleep in nothing but boxers on nights when the ex-captain ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time? And why did it have to be him that had to deal with it? Thorne obviously wasn't fit to function as an adult in society. This was asking too much of him and he was ready to call quits or call god and complain.

Thorne very deliberately did not look down.

But he didn't think either. This was one of those moments in life where it might have been a good thing to pause, to breathe, to remember this was basically breaking and entering, and he wasn't the one who should be affronted that he was being accosted by a man in nothing but underwear with a dumbbell.

The gap between them was easy to close. Thorne moved with the same hungry, restless grace and stealth of someone trying very hard not to be noticed, a remarkable differentiation from the clumsy, anxious ex-captain he was during the day.

His fingers curled over Lucas's and pulled - he didn't want a fight but he really didn't want neighbors knocking either - if they weren't busy doing other things instead.

"It's my mistake," he said, his voice low and raw and gutted with the restless anxiety he felt doing the one thing he'd meant to avoid by climbing into his window, "I climbed through the wrong window. I have a bad habit, and you're its victim, it seems."

He realized, belatedly, that his fingers still had contact with Lucas's, and that he was no longer the safe distance he kept with everyone around him ever since moving to Ashdown. And s**t. This was not how his night was meant to be.

Something banged out in the hallway. Feet clattering up stairs, down stairs. Thorne struggled to remember it was the weekend and all those with normal jobs were probably gearing to enjoy their free nights. His eyes found Lucas's in the dark and a tremor ran through his hand.

"This is the wrong way to meet your neighbor, but if you want to give me a concussion for breaking and entering..." His mouth curled slowly into a smile, fueled by the nameless terrible thing that slept inside of him, awake because he was on the edge of everything, of what it meant to function and what it meant to decay, "well, you have every right."

Thorne hissed at the sound of doors slamming shut somewhere in the halls around them, grounding himself in the touch that fell on his chest, the warmth beneath his fingers. The tremor sharpened, his body vibrating against Lucas's, eyes tight with - something. Verging on a fault line between alright and not. Every sound was getting louder in the hallway, scratching his broken record and daring him to snap.

It didn't make it any better that his stomach now churned with a different song all together. He hadn't realized the craving until it was this - until it was a stranger and the fact that it was dark and he was wearing boxers and this was the wrong damned place and the wrong damned time. He hadn't realized his mind was clutching at anything to keep him steady, awayawayaway from the threat of everything else, that instead it was pulling him towards an entirely different kind of hunger that Lucas wasn't helping.

The human mind was a terrible place to be.

His eyes flicked briefly over the other in the dark, razing the man's appearance with all the candidness of someone without the necessary hours of sleep or faith in his own self-control to pretend to be more preserved about the way he handled situations like - like these. There was a strange weight to the arm resting on his chest, but Thorne really didn't want to look down. There was a a different sort of danger there.

"You don't?" Thorne couldn't help retorting, his voice a husk of sound, a breathy tease. "Well, wait around. I'm sure I'll surprise you even more." With more sleep, with a better coping mechanism for everything in his life, Thorne might have been less of the hungry, restless monster he became either intoxicated or sleep-deprived and more the anxiety-ridden ex-captain he usually was.

Unfortunately for Lucas, he was getting this instead.

"Where's the fun in that?" Thorne smiled. It was self-deprecating and his eyes flashed, wild and cruel, filled with a sudden wave of unmitigated self-loathing. "I told you. I'm full of bad habits. If I hadn't climbed through the wrong window, my entire plan of not existing would still be in place. Damn," he added the swear almost as an afterthought, once again distracted by the heat radiating the limited space between them.

"That's a lot of trust to put into someone that just came though your window, and for a small price too," Thorne remarked, thoughtlessly flicking his thumb over the fingers still clasping the dumbbell. The motion, so small and unconcerned, made his eyes widen though and his entire body tremble. He pulled it away, his expression crackling with - hunger, selfishness, conflict, -

Stupid, he thought, berating, Mother ********, jesus. Why me?

"Lucas," His voice hitched on the sound, and his shoulders rolled back, tattoos flashing beneath the paint scratched tanktop he'd thrown on that morning in a rush. He reveled in the name, speaking slowly, his voice raw as it scraped against the syllables.

There was something interesting about men that didn't immediately try to kill him for breaking into their apartment.

"I - " Thorne felt a tremor run through him. He knew he had to pay the price of this mans trust. But names were personal, and he hadn't been lying when he'd said he'd been trying to keep a nonexistent presence in the building. In Ashdown. Everywhere. It was surprisingly difficult to disappear. And this man was unfairly hot, so maybe he didn't want to... just yet. "Thorne." He cocked his head, a muscle twitching in his jaw. "I'll count myself lucky indeed. I'd return the favor, but I think we're on uneven ground. I'm nothing to you."

And then - oh, and it was brilliant really, - and then the sirens went off in Thorne's head.

Red alert, they screamed, You literally just went too far! Jump out of that window now!

Oh god. Oh. God.

Thorne might have been wired, but he wasn't inattentive. He felt rubbed raw by every breath from Lucas's mouth, the way his body shifted, the heat that scraped at his throat, his neck, the small of his back. Daring him to snap. Daring this to get worse. Out of control.

He cocked his head at the expression, sucking his lower lip between his teeth and biting to sate the emptiness crawling at the back of his throat. And it was concern that built - of course it was concern - in the other mans expression, and Thorne almost wanted to laugh. Of course he couldn't find someone to be attracted with without setting off an alarm bell in their head that he was something else, something dangerous, something wild you found in back alleys and streets after midnight. He lifted his free hand, and the nails bit into his neck, scraping at the flesh, grounding him.

I know what I am, he wanted to say out loud, to Lucas, flirt if you want but I know what I am. And you'll know soon enough too.

But then there was touch - a bright static shock against every raw part of him, and as tiny as it was, it drew him to Lucas like a dog at attention. He was starved and tired and the world had spun wrong again today. And this was threadbare contact, burning him and he wanted more, and he knew he couldn't have it. But that didn't mean he wouldn't react. And as he drank in the sight, pushing past the barrier of his own mind, he felt the full shape of Lucas take shape, from the realization that the arm was a prosthetic, that this man wasn't the same breed that ran Ashdown by day and s**t jesus, he really ******** up this time.

And he was speaking softly - there was something all at once electrified and soothing about the way in which this man worked. Part poison, part god. Thorne wasn't sure that leaping from the window wasn't a better option than sticking around and seeing how royally he could make this situation even worse. He held Lucas's gaze without thought, his jaw working visibly for a moment, every part of him drawn thin and thinner in the presence of the other. What a way to meet someone you were living next to. If all else failed, he supposed he could hop country lines. Mexico wasn't that far away.

"I think we did away with the traditions of love-thy-neighbor the moment I crawled in through your window," he returned, his voice a low rumble of sound. His smile was slow and wild. He still didn't feel himself, straddling the line between functioning and fracturing, between who he'd been before the war and who he was now. His jaw twitched at the next exchange, and his canine sank into the soft flesh of his bottom lip. "If only I were so lucky as the rest of this ******** building then," he said and stepped into Lucas's space, close enough that the heat radiating between them scraped at his control, burning closer to the wire of his entire being, ready to snap.

But he looked at Lucas and for a moment he ignored everything else. The man had mentioned old haunts and fever dreams. And there was a story inside of him past his appearance, past the way he treated this situation selflessly, as though he could treat Thorne to a beer and just let go the fact that he'd all by broken into his life.

"Are you alright?" The question was honest and raw, and Thorne held Lucas's gaze, daring him (perhaps hypocritically) to tell the truth. Because he might not have been the person he was before the war anymore, but he still felt the tremor in his arms to protect. To make right others troubles. To help them, save them, even if he couldn't save himself.

"And, unluckily for you," he added slowly, "I'm no fever dream. I'm as real as it gets." His eyes lidded and he tilted his head back, cocking it to the side. His mouth worked for a second before he said, "Shall I prove it to you?" His other hand lifted, fingers curling to press to the pulse drumming along Lucas's neck. Long enough to burn, long enough for Thorne to want more. But he pulled back because there was a cliff edge and he was standing on it -

And it was already getting hard not to jump.

"We could start with tea," Thorne added, but it was careless and weightless and his eyes found Lucas's and how the ******** was this happening, but he let the unspoken offer burn in the air. We could - or we could just... Thorne swallowed and shuddered involuntarily at the touch. "but I'm warning you - " He said, his voice scathing and breathy, unused to such work, "I don't make for decent company."

He emphasized this by deliberately leaning into Lucas's touch. Subtle could go ******** itself. Thorne could see every warning siren flashing its lights in his mind and he chose to ignore them anyways.

"It looks as though I have a talent for breaking and entering - and ruining everything I touch."

Thorne's mouth felt empty. It had probably been a disaster, it might even be a panic attack in the morning when he was sane enough to think logically about what he was doing now. But his mouth felt empty, and his arms restless, and there was a man with eyes like a gods not even a few inches from him, and damn if he didn't want him closer and closer still. There was a demon in his bones and it crawled out of them every night. He would do anything to ground himself in another and forget that it lived there. Forget the nightmares. If only for a night.

And maybe - maybe he could give something back to this man too. Lucas had all but insinuated his frustrations towards the rest of the buildings sexual endeavors and the lack of his own, and Thorne wasn't about to forget that. His jaw ached from where he ground his teeth together. He tilted his head at Lucas and he thought, You'll see everything.

And he should have been scared.

But that could come later.

"What a tragic life you must lead if it takes my coming through the window to make everything normal." The words were rushed and burning. They didn't matter, didn't matter, but he had to say them anyways, give Lucas any chance at all to back the ******** out before he did something stupid. Before he dragged them both down. His entire body was corded with restless energy. He was on a hairpin trigger, spilling oil and waiting for the match to drop.

"Ah," Thorne murmured in response at the reaction his touch provoked. And it was a hungry sound, deep in the base of his throat. He was aware of how feral he must have seemed to Lucas. A dog off its leash. Tame me, a part of him hissed. I'll break you. I'll break you. But the fear was mute beneath the weight of desire. "I'll make you eat those words."

Thorne felt the pull of the other, physical and sharp in his mind. The warmth of Lucas's fingers triggered the tipping point, and Thorne didn't wait to make his own decision known. He moved forward, sharp and quick, so that he propelled them backwards, one hand curving up against the small of Lucas's back, nails biting the flesh of his spine before finally - finally tangling in his hair. Thorne remembered flashes of this - of experimenting with others before his time in the military. Remembered the heat of it. The hunger.

But this was different. Something else. This was electric and cruel and he was emptier than he'd ever felt before, searching for something in the contact that Lucas gave. He pressed their heads together, not quite allowing himself to close the last gap yet, his lips ghosting over Lucas's, giving him a chance. To back out. To think this through. To be what Thorne couldn't.

"You really want to challenge me?" Thorne was inches from Lucas, pushing them past the entrance to the bedroom, back and back and back into the shadows until they hit the edge of the bed. "I'll devour you."

He bared his teeth, a low snarl of sound rioting in his throat. Their bodies lined, chest to chest, one hand tangled in Lucas's, the other sliding against his hair, the nape of his neck.

"If you tell me to stop, I will. If you want me to leave - " Thorne sucked in a harsh breath, eyes finding the others in the dark. "But if you don't, I'll eat you raw. You think I can't undo you? Watch me."

The dreams didn't come the way Thorne thought they would.

Instead, he was unaware of anything, everything, until the first remembrance of heat and warmth and comfort pressed against his conscious, whispering him awake. He turned his head into the sheets and the crumpled pillows, not quite ready to pull himself from the rare blissfulness of sleep and peace, two things that almost never went hand in hand for him anymore.

Something shifted at his back. Warmth. A pressure. The night came back to him in fractured shifts of light and sound and chaos. Mouths on mouths, a building staccato of sound and desire in his chest, everything beyond. And oh Jesus Christ - that was what had happened. But Thorne was still burning with the remnants of his first peaceful sleep in awhile, and he pushed at the thoughts until they receded. He felt anxiety in his gut, but he could handle that when there wasn't a body next him, so close. Too close.

A finger chased the vines and flowers of his tattoos and Thorne let out a thoughtless groan, riddled with sleep and the gravelly husk of sound. He shifted beneath Lucas's searching fingers, curving into the touch.

And then, from outside somewhere, there was a distinct sound of a pot breaking and a loud, indignant meow.

s**t. Reality wasn't waiting anymore.

"So," Thorne breathed, his voice a ghost of a sound, a whisper, just for Lucas, once the minutes had wiled away some of the sleep-laden cloud over his thoughts, "was I real enough for you?"

Thorne's expression shifted when Lucas turned towards him, and his arms curled inwards, pressing against the mans back, fingers sliding against the sleep-warm skin with appreciation. He felt nerves rub against the ebbing peace in his mind. Anxiety curled like a knife angled in just out of sight. But this, here. This was nice.

Even Millicent the Angry Cat couldn't ruin that.

"Happy? Are you sure you're not still dreaming?" Thorne tilted his head, eyes flashing slightly with wry mirth. He bit his lower lip and sighed out, turning his head into the warmth of Lucas's hand, brushing his lips over the skin there, mouthing his words against it. "I think you know the answer already to that."

But the real world had other plans than what might have transpired had Millicent not broken a potted plant and Lucas's phone not gone off. If they'd been separated from the reality of this, maybe the dream could have gone on.

But it didn't.

Thorne ignored the pull inside of his stomach, separate from the sated starvation he'd felt last night. It was a pull that spoke quietly to his mind in anxious tones, in something that was nearly - hesitant. Not to stay. To leave.

"I have a very surly cat," Thorne muttered with a sigh. "She was probably disappointed that the only food she got last night was not from me." His eyes lifted to Lucas's and he propped himself up on his elbow, leaning over Lucas, still close enough to brush the warmth of the others skin. "Is your friend alright?"

So he wasn't all smooth talking and dumbbells. Thorne's mouth quirked into laughter and he scoffed, the sound deep and animal in his throat. What a complete mess this was. What a complete mess he was. But he didn't regret it. Nah, he really didn't. After all, there was something whole and human about Lucas. A grounding force, a weight that held everything dark and terrible inside of him down.

In a far off dream, he could get used to that.

"It was betrayal of the highest caliber," he retorted, "She'll never love me again. But it was worth it. And don't worry," his voice slid, rocking with tease, "I'm sure I can convince her you're worthy of my time at the expense of hers." He rumbled at the loss of space, a pleased, deep-bellied sound that shook in his shoulders. Lucas was a sight to drink in, and he could spend his time doing it, now that the restless desire inside of them both had ebbed into something slower, something that could have been raked across the hours of morning into afternoon -

If only they had the time. And if only reality didn't hate to move on without asking first.

Thorne watched Lucas go, his eyes raking over him in the morning light until he was out of sight. So they were back to neighbors, now? Thorne's jaw worked. There were two voices in his head. One said that it was alright, that this could just be a dream - stay a dream. It could be a memory, untouched by all of the uncertainty of actually trying to stay in someones life. This was an out. It was alright to take it.

But the other voice whispered at him with pieces of his old self - his new self, even - beneath the weight of anxiety and trauma -

And he wasn't sure why, but he didn't mind what it said.

Thorne threw his legs over the edge of the bed and stretched, a groan of pleasure slipping from his mouth at the way his muscles unwound. Finding his pants was another thing entirely, and he discarded the idea of groping around for his shirt. But he did leave his number, scrawled on a scrap piece of paper and in plain sight, if Lucas ever wanted to pull on this string.

(Alexander Thorne was scrawled above it. Thorne stared at the handwriting for a long moment, the eraser poised to strike. But then he left it. He wasn't sure why.)

And this time he climbed out the wrong window and into the right one.