Welcome to Gaia! ::

Fingers drummed over the doorknob to his home, standing outside of it but looking towards the door next to it. Lucas had been standing there a good five minutes, warring with himself: he doesn't know, Aleksy had said, it could let him go. But he could still smell the smoke in the air, hear the music like a heartbeat at the bar and the taste of Thorne's lips on his, the words they'd shared to give it a try. Yes, he wanted to keep the man safe, but how safe could he keep him, really? He didn't know jack from s**t still and...and if the Otherworld did get a hold of him...would Thorne come to him?

Of course not. They practically ripped the same page out of the same book on how to handle <********. ********. <********> FINE.

Sucking in a deep breath, his mind made, he let his door go and shuffled over to Thorne's. Lucas' eyes fluttered briefly before he knocked on the door. No turning back now.

With one hand on the doorframe (more to keep himself there than bolt), his eyes lifted when the door opened to find Thorne's surprised greeting. The man's smile immediately eased some of the tension out of his shoulders, and returning the devious expression with one of his own, he put both hands on Thorne's stomach and gently started to push him back - letting himself in, as it were.

"A curious man," he answered simply, using his toe to hook the door and close it behind them. Once inside, he moved to the side and away from Thorne, his good hand ghosting over the other man's hips before falling away, taking his time to look around. It was all very nonchalant but he was being calculated about it, thinking, toying. He made the first step. He had to take another now.

"Am I interrupting anything?" he asked innocently enough, eyes flitting over the layout of the apartment that was similar to his but heady with the scent of ground earth and charcoal.

"Mmhmm," he confirmed with a backwards glance over his shoulder, smiling in profile. That was all he was getting. Lucas was playing a game, and if Thorne wanted to keep up, he was going to have to catch up and learn the rules on the fly.

Thorne's hand was extended to him, drawing his pale eyes.

It always started this way with them, didn't it?

The man cut a beautiful figure in the morning light. Lucas' chest squeezed tight, soaking in the moment, the view of Thorne opening himself and his home to him, and felt a twinge of guilt. Let's try, he'd said. God. Please let that not hurt this man.

Extending his good hand, he moved back towards Thorne, taking the inked man's own and holding tight. "By all means, you can give me a tour." He stepped closer still, lacing their fingers together, more intimate. His gaze settled on Thorne's stormy eyes for a moment, considering, before asking gently, "Are you a veteran?"

Thorne's warm fingers over that tender spot made him shiver, his expression saying it was a good thing. He bit his bottom lip, watching the man's face for judgment, discomfort, anything -- but there was nothing. Or everything. Lucas was finding it hard to think around the way Thorne was looking at him, touching him there, his good arm blanketed with faint goosebumps.

"It's yours," he countered softly, "there's plenty to see."

God, he was good. His thumb lifted to trace over Thorne's lips but not take away from the gesture, feeling his attention wind down to that spot, the contact. Luckily, Thorne's words snapped him back to himself, eyes lifting to meet the man's, both brows lifting. "Captain!" He paused. "Esen. Every part of your name sounds so good." He paused, adding, "EOC Operations Officer with the hundred and first, Lucas Silva Tavares Reis."

A grin flickered over his features, but he managed it back into a smile, because their game was far from done. "Alright, Captain." And his eyes flickered down and away, then back to Thorne's lips, and almost hesitantly, up to his eyes. "Have you ever had a serious relationship before?"

A scoff answered the playful words, even as his eyes visibly fluttered and a soft hum lilted at the touch to his neck. That and his hair were sure fire ways to get his attention and interest. Lucas was tempted to melt and forget the questions, the game, but...no. He wanted to get to know this man - filling in some of the blanks of what he'd assumed already - and not wanting to assume anymore.

And forever answer given, Lucas would return it in kind.

"Yes I would. You've always had the power here." He chuckled, low and thick. "My name is just - a string of family line. Yours flows off the tongue. Alexander Esen Thorne. Mm." His heavy gaze was mostly from the gentle touch, like a cat getting their cheek scratched, but he was comfortable and complacent.

Until he saw the shift in Thorne's eyes.

He opened his mouth to say something, but stopped, letting the man finish. "I've had two, if you can consider high school serious at all. The other one ended in a Dear John mid-tour." Lucas smiled, a touch thin, shrugging his shoulders slightly. "I don't begrudge it. It brought me here. But -- " He tried to focus his eyes on Thorne's, brows knit in a touch of concern. " -- you don't have to elaborate if you don't want to. 'Yes' and 'no' are acceptable answers. So is 'pass.' This isn't an interrogation. Just me thinking of you and wanting to know you."

Lucas took in a hesitant breath. This one was going to be a little harder. "And in preface, this can be a pass." There was a flicker of apology in his pale eyes. "What happened, the second time we met. That -- didn't have to do with your time serving, did it?" It was less of a question and more a rhetorical one, a confirmation. "That's all I ask about it. I promise." He wanted to know more what to expect and handle it if it happened again, but he didn't need Thorne to relive it. He wanted the man to heal - with him at his side - on his own time.

Lucas was losing him. Thorne stepped away, and suddenly, the game wasn't so harmless anymore. He felt empty and cold, the man's warmth absent from him, the storm receding. Regret made his throat tight, words in short supply. <********. Good job Lucas. Kick him in the balls next time, it might hurt less.

His tongue rolled behind his teeth, dry and suddenly bitter with the taste of upset that he may have really made a huge ******** mistake. Lucas opened his mouth to say something, but Thorne's voice reached him and stole any words he might have tried to use. He fell completely still, completely silent, watching with heavy eyes.

That tone of voice - that laugh - he knew it. It was how he first met Thorne. Realization clicked into place: when he'd first met the man, it had been during a bad time. The danger of their situation could have been more than he fathomed, but ... but it hadn't. He wanted to tell him that - it was a game, he went too far, this didn't have to happen. Thorne never had to look back if he didn't want to. Still, he found himself wordless and empty, shadows swallowing the man with the passing clouds. It was...apt, somehow. Thorne spoke again, and reality crashed down.

He was angry, I think. My father.

Lucas drew in a sharp breath, vivid flashes of Thorne on his floor playing behind his eyes, pleading. His pale eyes were wide, his pupils dilated in shock, his lips parted with the realization writ across his face. Thorne was looking at him and all Lucas could do was stand there, small, absently gripping his prosthetic arm while the other recounted.

Third grade.

I can't, he heard Thorne's voice shake in the memory.

Fourth, sixth, seventh.

Please!

Thorne pointed to tattoos that blossomed over the scars, but Lucas saw them now. He couldn't miss them. By the time the other was showing his forearms, the first tear fell from his long lashes. Horror and terror and guilt devoured him wholly, just struggling to breathe as the man laid bare the worst of his fears and the greatest of his demons, named father. His shoulders were tense, shaking, his expression as if he'd seen each blow being dealt with his own eyes. If Thorne was a storm, he'd over-taken Lucas, his pale eyes wet and threatening to spill again.

Thorn just stood there, letting him go. Giving him a pass.

It was enough to make him shake his head sharply. "********. Thorne. <********>" His voice was thick and too emotional on the last part, taking the few strides between them quickly and cupping Thorne's face between both hands, kissing him on the mouth, hard. Nothing was off limits, the kiss seeking to be intimate, fingers sliding to the man's neck and - almost automatically, now - following the scar down the side of it. He pressed close, as bodily close as he could, fingers hooking into Thorne's shirt at his chest when he couldn't follow the scar anymore.

This kiss ended when air was in short enough supply that he felt dizzy, leaning his brow against Thorne's and readjusting his hold from the man's shirt to his shoulders, fingers brushing over the shortest parts of his hair, eyes closed as if he could fight back the wave of pain in his chest for what Thorne had endured - for what marked him. "My family," his voice trembled, "is enormous. I have eight siblings, my parents are married and open-minded, and they will love you. You'll be swarmed and used as a jungle gym but it just means they like you, the girls will love your tattoos, and they'll want to draw with you, the guys will needle you about me and show you the most embarrassing ******** pictures but they will -- they will love you and respect you and make you family." His voice cracked and he opened his eyes to look at Thorne, eyes still brimmed with tears, though he was gathering himself a bit more.

He felt winded. And now he felt angry. "Is -- is he dead?" he asked, the anger tangible in the air, emulating the storm he always perceived Thorne to be.

"You better like it," Lucas drew in a wavering breath, a trembling smile forming over the anger like a band aid. "Because I'm keeping you, you a**, and if you ever suggest I wouldn't want you because of -- " he bit back his more descriptive words he had in mind for the deceased Mr. Thorne, " -- if you ever think I wouldn't want you, for any damn reason in the world, I'll -- I will cry. Big ugly tears." His smile was tender beneath Thorne's gentle kisses, lifting his head to kiss the man's chin in return. "It just means I care, and you're not alone. Let me carry some of the burden with you."

And he held onto the man's shoulders, gently nuzzling against his scarred neck before pressing a kiss there and touching his brow to Thorne's. "You're not alone," he repeated softly at the other's halting words. "And as long as I'm here, I will hold you until you can't hear him anymore. Any time. Every time." Lucas pressed a soft kiss to his lips like a promise.

"So, ah," his lips stayed ghosted over Thorne's, "on the heels of that wonderful subject, how about, um..." Another stolen kiss, chaste, trying for playful. "If you had to pick a cabin in the mountains or a retreat on the beach, what would it be?" Lucas grinned briefly, punctuated by another kiss. "Mm. How about, what's your favorite thing to draw? Anything you'd feel comfortable to show me?" He had to bite the inside of his lip to keep from kissing Thorne again and again, feeling a little light-headed from his emotional response to his previous question and the kisses that he was peppering over his skin.

Ah. The sound of Thorne's laughter was like sunbeams through the storm, filling him with light and comfort and peace, like just maybe, he'd done a good thing. "Don't hate yourself. Stop that. This instant." Lucas gave him a mock-critical look. "I don't hate anything about you, and I don't want you to hold yourself in contempt. That's not fair, not when when I'm trying to learn every part of you."

Lucas wrinkled his nose, and he would have protested, but the man's laughter and kisses, his playfulness, it was sweeping him up in the moment. Making him believe they actually had a good shot at this -- being happy. "I think I'm -- mngh -- " and even though he tried, the words dissolved uselessly when Thorne cupped his face, teasing him, pulling every bright and hungry feeling out of him effortlessly. Lowering his own arms, he instead wrapped them around Thorne's bare middle, his non-metal fingers tracing patterns up and down his spine.

And there it went; his control, what he thought he'd have this time, was utterly taken from him. He liked it.

"Mmn," he hummed positively at the beach response, smiling against Thorne's answers. "I dunno what that is," he murmured back softly, words nearly slurred from being so drunk on the man's closeness and affections. "I'll have to see it." When Thorne began to ask questions, Lucas found his focus, eyes opening with a pleasant surprise, grinning that the man was playing the game, too. "Beach. We're good there. I mean, it'd be hell on certain prosthesis but I'd make it work. My favorite part of the day is whatever part I get to see you." He ducked his head, looking almost abashed. "Really, though...sunrise. It's always been, mm, an affirmation I made it another daaay-hey -- cheater!"

Lucas uttered a soft sound of surprise, followed by laughter, quickly and easily following the slow, pointed steps. His own arms moved from Thorne's middle back up his chest, one hand over his scar, the other lifting to cup the man's jaw as he leaned in for the kiss. His laughter was abandoned for that kiss, one that made him see stars behind his closed lids, made him feel weak in the most delicious way. Time stalled, and Lucas reveled in sharing the moment with Thorne.

"Like one of your french girls," he said almost automatically, before turning his head back and laughing into Thorne's shoulder at the ridiculousness of it, shoulders shaking with his embarrassed mirth. "I mean -- yes, yes, you could any time you wanted to." He looked back to Thorne and bit his bottom lip, grinning, quite possibly close to blushing.

Pushing on, he cleared his throat to dislodge the rest of his laughter and nestled in close again, kissing Thorne's bottom lip gently. "Do you have any idea, how you make me feel?" He nipped the spot, soft. "Amazing. The answer is: amazing. That was a freebie." Another grin flit in place. "But really. And it may be too early to ask, but...are you happy?" His lips settled briefly on Thorne's chin, eyes holding more hope than he knew he should have. The darkness that lurked in his mind was pushed back, then, and he didn't want it to come back, not when he was so filled with light.