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A week. A week?

"Nine days," Thorne said to himself, and grimaced at the sound of his voice. He had always been told he had sounded like a thunderstorm, his voice always scratching like an old record from another time. Now though... now it sounded as though he had swallowed broken glass.

And why wouldn't it?

It wasn't as though he'd been sleeping soundly for the past - week - nine days? - nine days.

Jesus christ.

Thorne pulled open the door to the apartment building and felt, not for the first time, a hungry nail of fear drag through his body. You're doing this, he thought. You're going back. You're feeding your ******** cat. You're... What? Pretending everything was normal again? It wasn't. It couldn't be. His first adventure in Other Ashdown had proven that with ease. Whatever the ******** I'm here for, Thorne thought, I'd better do it fast.

The halls were empty, and quiet. And for that, the artist was glad. A passerby might take him as he looked on an average day: a tattooed hipster with thick glasses and a really narrow waist. Someone smarter would see this: nine days of barely any sleep, food, peace of mind. Darkness under his eyes, in them. Knuckles, bruised, split, bleeding, crusted over and speaking a companion piece to the tail of bruises on his collarbone, his arms and the nights he'd spent picking fights to feel something, anything, other than bone-deep fear.

Thorne padded for his door as quietly as he good, sliding the key in the lock and twisting it open. Once inside, the scent of his home - spices and paint and coffee - greeted him, and Thorne wondered how two weeks ago he'd had two men in here, and the world had felt close enough for him to grab and hold. He thought of Lucas and Rylan, and the bird, and his cat. Everything that had been going wrong - but not in a way that made it feel like control was slipping out of reach.

Thorne grimaced and kicked the door shut, locking it behind him. And in the darkness, his life, as though paused, stared back at him.

Canvases, books, sketchbooks. How had it been this easy once? How had, despite it all, been so calm?

Something caught in the corner of his eye. A body, moving.

Thorne turned.

It was a mirror. He remembered that he'd bought it some time ago. A few weeks. In the interest of playing with natural light. In the interest of - something. He wasn't sure what. And it was big. Too big. Too -

Thorne moved to it, pressing his hands to the smooth surface.

How had it been this easy once?

Filthy mongrel. And suddenly it was there. The spider. Suddenly, there was blood - Zac, Leila - and suddenly there was his father. His mouth open and echoing Lucas's voice. Once a mutt, always a mutt. The blood's made you so bad, you couldn't even save a child.

It was the pain that brought him back, bright and sharp, glass shattering at his feet. Thorne reeled away from the broken mirror, eyes wild and shocked. The violence that had always been in him, born from his mongrel blood, had made it an instinct to break the mirror. Thorne hissed, a startled, awful sound and looked down. He'd sliced open his hand, shards lodged beneath flesh. It burned, and burned, and a sound skittered behind him, full of life and terror.

Thorne turned on his heel and caught Millie dash beneath the couch, saw the white terror of her eyes as she looked back at him, nothing but a shadow from where she was flat and shaking.

"No," Thorne said, his voice breaking, "Millie. No. I'm sorry, it's alright. I - "

He dropped to his knees a few paces from the couch, his bloody hand cradled to his chest, the other extending towards her. "I'm sorry I left. I'm sorry I scared you."

He didn't think about the racket he'd made. The window he'd left open or the one probably right next door. He didn't think.

So he didn't run.

Thorne. You in there?

Thorne swore. Millie still wouldn't get out of the ******** couch and now he had Rylan at his door. The glass had shattered, and unless he stayed perfectly ******** still he was going to make noise. Noise that he was sure a man like Rylan, a man like Lucas too (if he was there, and why wouldn't he be far behind? Where else would Rylan have been in the first place?) would notice.

For a long moment, he balanced on the edge of indecision. Some part of him was prepared to stay still and quiet until the footsteps receded. Until Rylan was gone again, safe from this. From him. From his mind. God, his mind. He had tried so hard to keep himself from dragging them in, because Lucas was ******** right - he was a storm. The only mistake the man had made was in assuming there was a break in the clouds.

But the selfish, hungry, starving part of himself that wanted to reach out burned with every echo of Rylan's voice through the door.

"Sorry," he said again, softly, to Millie. And standing, he padded for the door.

His one hand cradled, Thorne pressed the pads of his opposite to the wood. On the other side, Rylan breathed and walked and lived. He probably had a future burning inside of him that was full of somewhere happy, with people that could make him happy - make Lucas happy.

Thorne would strip that from him, if he opened the door.

"Mongrel," he said to himself. Should have learned my place.

Thorne opened the door, and looked up at Rylan. For a moment, he wondered at words, his mouth empty, his jaw pulsing. But then he simply stepped forward, over the threshold, and pressed himself against the mans body, head falling to the crook where the firefighters neck and collarbone met.

"Rylan," he said.

He didn't say anything else.

He almost pounded on the door again, louder this time, when it finally swung open and Thorne appeared. Before he knew it, the man was pressed against him, face nestled against his neck, and he encircled Thorne with his names and held him, quiet.

He would ask, but he didn't need to know. Not really. What mattered most was that Thorne was here, and no matter what had happened... well. He would tell when he was ready.

Be there for him, Autumn had said. She'd been talking about Lucas, but Rylan knew it applied to Thorne as well. She'd told him about the spider, about the way she'd tried to break him. He wished he could say that he understood, but he said nothing.

Instead he brought a hand to the back of Thorne's head and ran his fingers gently through the man's hair, brought his lips to the top of his head and landed a quiet kiss.

Those were the ones that hurt the most - the ones you couldn't save. But Rylan knew it wasn't just that. It was... all of it, and look at Thorne now, he couldn't help but wonder just how terrible Autumn must feel, to have done so much to a man she'd never even met. How they must all feel.

He fixed Lucas with a stare, words working their way slowly to the tip of his tongue. What could he say? There was nothing in his past that could come close to whatever Thorne had endured. He didn't know what that was like. Didn't know how to show that he understood, because he didn't.

"I don't have anything to yell," he said finally. "I have nothing to say except, I'm glad you're back. If you can tell us more, then tell us. If not..." he shrugged. "If not, you have reasons for it."

He couldn't speak for Lucas, but he just wanted all the strangeness to come to an end. Wanted to get on with his life.

"And if you're worried about hurting us," he added, a steely glint in his eye. "I don't hurt that easily. Pain? Doesn't scare me. Even if it's pain I've never felt before."

If Thorne was determined to shut them out, Rylan would go. But not without making a stand.

Thorne watched Rylan, feeling something strange unwind in him at the words. Odd. When had the last time been that someone had spoken that way to him? Never, probably, a voice in his head hummed. At the mention of pain, his mouth quirked slightly. The grimmest edge of a smile.

"Right, the DIY Bungee Jumper doesn't scare easily... I should have known." It was a gentle tease, and Thorne reached out and slid his fingers against Rylan's chest. The smallest, unspoken remark.

This wasn't him shutting them out.

The expression fell, and Thorne closed his eyes. "For - for disappearing. I'm sorry. I'll tell it to you... all of it. If you're willing to listen. Depending on the level of crazy you're willing to bear."

And then it was Lucas - Lucas in a way that Thorne had never seen him before. Lucas angry, reeling, and Thorne let him speak, watching him, letting each word strike and reveling in the taste of imagined metal in his mouth. Because it hurt, it hurt, to have Lucas tell him the conclusion he'd come to in those last few days himself.

He waited, in the heartbeat seconds of silence after Lucas's words had settled, his body shuddering where he touched. And then he carefully, carefully slid his unharmed hand to Lucas's face.

"I know," he said softly, wretchedly, "I know. I ran away when I should have trusted you both. Because I was afraid, I was selfish. I still am. I was - " He pressed their foreheads together. "I promised, and I broke that promise. And I'm sorry. And I'll try again, if you'll let me. I want to give it to you both - everything, but I don't know how without making it hurt. So I ran, and ran, and it led me back to you."

He leaned back, in case Lucas still wanted to knock him senseless, in case his contact wasn't welcome yet. The question raised his brows and he looked down at his hand, the blood crusting.

"It came from mirrors," he murmured in explanation. He looked up at Lucas and Rylan. "I'm not going to lie to you. This - I'm yours. All of me."

His jaw tightened, aching from how much he'd been grinding his teeth and the effects of the metal plate against his bone. Lucas felt like he'd absorbed all of the unbridled wildness in Thorne and couldn't contain it, especially when the man was so calm in turn. The other reached for him, and he didn't deny it, drawing in a sharp breath at the warmth that lit upon his cheek.

It took mere moments for his expression to crumble, closing his eyes and leaning into the contact like it was a life line - and for him, maybe it was. He nuzzled into Thorne's palm, kissing the calloused skin down to the soft inner wrist, lips resting there. Breathing him in. His mind was a bright, aggressive thrum of energy, but the familiar warmth and scent of Thorne helped ground him, bringing him back to himself.

Rylan's fingers curled into his hair and Lucas' shoulders visibly eased and then slumped, the fight leaving him under their combined affection. His eyes fluttered open with Thorne's brow against his, everything in the hallway suddenly settling on his skin with the reality of it all. The acrid taste of fear still clung to him.

"I already told you," he murmured softly against Thorne's inked wrist, "if you think I don't want you - if you think Rylan doesn't want you - you're going to make me cry. Hideous tears, don't make me do it. Believe in us and that we choose you." He pressed a slow, soft kiss to his palm and drew in an equally slow, shaky breath. Lucas felt drained as everything fell back into place, eyes still lidded beneath Rylan's touch; he took the hand on his cheek and put it over his heart, which was still beating too fast in the trail of adrenaline that was receding. "When I get my first grey hairs, I'm coming after you."

He cracked a small smile, finally exhaling and straightening his shoulders. "Listen to the Chief. Let's get you washed up." His smile wavered, trying to keep it in place, but...looking at Thorne, seeing the mottled bruises in various shapes and stages of healing, it hurt. It really ********' hurt. "I'll clean up the glass if you want to get him fixed up, Mr. Fireman." Pale eyes turned up to Rylan, a silent apology offered, along with an immense flood of gratitude. He'd apologize in words later; right now, they had to take care of Thorne, irregardless of what the stubborn man said otherwise.

"Let's not tell him about the our plan to do the bull run in Spain then," Rylan said in a loud whisper that Lucas was clearly meant to hear. "We don't want to give him gray hair." He let a cheeky grin creep back across his face, sweeping a strand of hair back from Lucas' face. There were no plans to run with bulls in Spain or anywhere else, but he figured they could do with a tease.

Besides, it didn't sound like that bad of an idea.

He watched the fight drain out of Lucas, saw the wild fire in Thorne's eyes, and wondered how he had come to fit in with them, both so passionate, so emotional. They must feel on a deeper, different level than he. They were moving in a way that he wasn't.

But for all that they were like the tide, ebbing and flowing, angry and calm, wild and tame, he was like a rock. Still, unyielding. He could take it. And he loved that.

His eyes caught Thorne's, and he nodded, listening to the words. Imagined how utterly violating it must feel, how terrifying that the spider sounded like someone he cared so deeply for. It was a wonder that Thorne was here talking to them, that he hadn't broken.

"You're braver than you probably realize," he said, taking Thorne's hand and holding it. "Stop flexing it like that, you'll make it worse. And no, the fact that you're even here after all of that. It's big."

"Oh, yes." Thorne looked at Rylan, his mouth curving into a ghost grin. "And definitely not the DIY Bungee Jumping. We can't have him going bald." It was strange, this supposed normalcy of conversation after wild ride that had been the last nine days. Thorne fell into it feeling less like he was in some pocket of reality and more like he was still sidling between dreams.

Thorne chuckled when Rylan told him not to flex his hand and glanced at him, lips quirked slightly. "Yessir," he hummed, his voice crackling rough with sound. He sighed, gently, and added, "I should have come back sooner."

As Lucas came to wrap himself around them both, Thorne realized the mistake he'd made in his story. "It was - it was all an illusion. Apart from - " He tapped his head, grimacing at the thought of what rattled inside, and forced himself to continue on. "Apart from anything inside, we were unharmed when we were spat back... back out into this world. But I don't think - I think it will be worse. Later."

He closed his eyes and leaned back against Lucas, simply soaking the words in. But then - oh, and this was bound to happen wasn't it? Then the first realization came out.

He turned in Lucas's arms and stared at them both.

"This might not be a talk we want to have in a hallway," he said slowly, uncertainly. His eyes flicked to Rylan. "Because I'm starting to think we all know something about what's going on in this place."