Welcome to Gaia! ::

He'd just woken up not long ago after taking a long nap after his shift, exhausted as usual after a full 24 hours at the station. The calls had come in seemingly one after another, from a man who had somehow climbed out of his apartment window and gotten trapped on the ledge outside to an elderly lady requiring assistance in her home as well as an accident on the freeway just outside of town.

Rylan dragged himself off the floor, where he'd fallen asleep with Fidget, rolling his stiff shoulders to restore some feeling into them. "Alright bud," he said, rousing the dog from his sleep by picking up the stainless steel bowl in the kitchen. The sound of the metal against the ground had the Dalmatian bounding to his feet in a blink. He pranced into the kitchen, tail high, ears pricked, looking for his dinner.

Rylan dumped two scoops of dry food into the bowl and set it down as an excitable Fidget looked on. "Take it," he said, giving the dog a pat on the rump as he passed. "I'll be back... I don't know when. Don't wait up."

And with that, grabbing the artichoke dip he'd mentioned in his text, he got into his truck and made the short drive to Lucas' apartment. He had... an idea of what might follow. It wasn't necessarily his idea of a fun night off, but it was important and Rylan had never shied away from big conversations when it came time for them.

He pushed the door open and ducked into the apartment. "Last one here, huh," he said.

He could hear Rylan approaching before he got to the door, staring at the open space in anticipation. When the firefighter appeared, a light smile formed, crossing the room to the taller man, putting his arms around him and kissing him lightly. "Thorne's a cheater, being next door and all." He gently squeezed the man where he held him. "Happy you could make it, though! You can sit with Jump the Gun McGee over there," he glanced over his shoulder at Thorne, arching a brow, "'cause I'm getting my hello and the chips for that dip."

Giving the taller man a gentle swat on his backside, he moved to the kitchen and grabbed the aforementioned chips, bringing them to the table and giving Thorne an apologetic kiss before sitting down in the chair again -- across from them. Looking at them, so he couldn't hide, and he could remind himself about what was important. Who was important. And what was worth taking the risk for.

Lucas slowly rubbed his hands together, feeling the segmented joints of his prosthetic rub over the callous of his skin, and really took a moment to look between them. And before he could change his mind, he took a breath, and let his thoughts be heard rather than keep them to himself.

"I've, um, I've reached my limit, I guess." Pale eyes turned down to his hands briefly before he forced himself to look at them again. "You both know I've -- I've been dealing with some s**t. And if you don't want to deal with it, I get it, I just -- you deserve to know the full extent of it." He licked his lips nervously. "Especially because there's sort of a looming deadline on it."

But that wasn't all. He looked at Thorne, wild artist who broke into his place at night and had all but turned his life upside down, and then to Rylan, who he'd met in the middle of the day after an act of altruism. His storm and his sun. "I met you both -- totally different ways. And you've both, in that time, entirely changed my life for the better. Completely. No doubts. Even if I want to punch Thorne in the shoulder for some things," he cast the man a playful smile, "and I want a hell of a lot more of Ry's time," a more demure smile was given to him, "you both make me stupidly happy. I want you to know that first and foremost."

He could already feel his throat tightening, like he was reciting some sort of vows and now had to move on to eulogy. His own. Lucas rubbed his hands together again, hard enough it hurt. Pale eyes flickered towards the window where Millie watched the outside world turn by. "When I met Thorne, I was -- I was having some issues. Aches in my limbs -- all of them, even the missing ones, which, you can imagine, was really ******** weird." His eyes turned downwards. "The second time we met, I said that I -- I thought I was becoming something. A monster, I think is what I said." A smile flickered, and it was distant, self-deprecating.

"There's -- there's no easy way to go about this. Ah, when Thorne came back and he -- the Otherworld." Lucas did look up then, somber. "I've known about it since I met Autumn Smith, some two months ago. I met her cat, Rosalinde, and she talked to her. Legitimately talked. Knew I had a prosthetic leg without seeing it. Anyway, the point of that is to say, pretty much since then, bad things have happened. Changes, me, learning about what's going on there, other people involved."

He paused. This part was harder.

"I've -- gotten involved. Or, I'm about to be." His throat worked and his eyes lowered, trying to will himself to keep going. He'd told Autumn, but...she was already neck-deep in it. They weren't. Rylan and Thorne were the type of men he'd want to come home to, only...that...he shouldn't.

"I've been visited by a woman, with long red hair, who has informed me that I," he grinned, and it was open and scared and angry, "am a werewolf. And that in three days, I have to go to the Otherworld or risk going mad and hurting people here." The next breath he took trembled. "In the Otherworld, there's a war, like -- like Thorne said. The problem is that, my...brand of existence...puts me against Autumn. Puts me against...you." A brief upward flicker of his eyes towards Thorne, and they fell away again. "I've been told I'm the tool of the bad side. And there's...nothing I know to do for it. I don't even know what it means. Just that I'm -- I'm a freakish monster on the wrong side of the tracks and..."

He had to take a few short breaths. Just talk. You can't change their minds. "...and I don't know how safe it is. T-to keep seeing either of you."

Lucas bowed his head, staring at his now clasped hands, white-knuckled in his hold. "And the reason I didn't say anything sooner is -- couples -- tend to get involved, if one person is in. I had thought -- I had hoped that not defining anything with Thorne and pushing my date back with Ry would somehow...spare you. And now, facing my deadline, I just..."

His shoulders trembled, and then slumped. The worst of it was out. His behavior, his silence, his unwillingness to talk about certain things - the reasons were there. Lucas had warned his two most important people, and there was nothing else he could do. It was done.

Swallowing with difficulty, he still couldn't quite look at them. "If you have any questions, I -- I've done a lot of research, canvasing -- I can answer most of them, probably. And tell you a few things, if you want. Otherwise, that's -- that's my burden to bear, but yours to know."

It was done.

Thorne watched, and waited, and listened.

And this - all of this - this storm... he wondered whether or not it felt better to weather it now, knowing what he did, or worse. He'd thought that maybe if Lucas confessed (and some part of him had been anticipating that much since the ninety-ninth sigh) it wouldn't hurt so much. This thing inside of his chest. It wouldn't hurt. Or at least it would go away.

But Lucas had said it their first night together. This, all of this, was just trading one ache for another. One bullet for the next.

And then Lucas said it was his burden to bear, and something inside of Thorne snapped. He was on his feet before he could see clearly, head spinning. He waited only barely for Rylan to stop talking, to stop being the voice of reason before he moved, his expression wild. Every step he took was taut and snapping with the languid grace of a predator (which was funny, considering he wasn't the animal in the room). He wasn't done moving until he towered over Lucas, eyes bright and hungry and burning. He rolled the words in his mouth like bullets, tasting and testing and wondering.

Where the ******** do I begin?

His body vibrated restless and hollow with the remnants of pain - the first night Autumn had told him and he'd seen Lucas, kissed Lucas, laughed into his mouth while the ******** world felt like it was collapsing in his body. The night of the club. How he'd asked. How he'd forgotten what sleep felt like for the first time in Lucas's arms because he was left wondering if all of this would go unsaid until he was clawing the line to him, praying that he could still reach.

"Baga chono," he said, finally, thoughtlessly, "means little wolf in Mongolian."

His breath burned in his throat. He looked at Lucas like he was looking at a bullet in mid-air. A world paused with the promise of something changing on the other side. He didn't know where this night would go or what he would do in the aftermath, but this was them speaking. Was this them trying? Thorne wanted to laugh. Was this them trying, as the world ended around them?

His jaw worked audibly, teeth crunching into one another in an effort to still every catastrophic work of emotion inside of him, pulling and tearing. He stared at Lucas and he wanted to punch him and he wanted to kiss him and everything was a mess - a ******** mess -

"I'm not going anywhere. I'm not ******** out of your life because you're afraid of yourself, afraid of what you can do to Rylan or I. You think even if you stopped seeing us, even if we had never tried that this world wouldn't find a way to involve us somehow? We're not here because of chance, or fate. That isn't how this - any of this - works." Thorne caught Lucas's chin and tilted his face up so that they looked at each other. His nails bit, and he hoped that Lucas felt the way he shook. "Do you get it? Did she tell you? This is a cycle. We don't break it, we don't stop dying, stop trying over again, until we get it right."

Look at what you've done to me, he thought, savage. Look at what we've become.

He felt his hand shake violently and pulled back, pressing his fingers to the back of his neck, breathing because if he didn't he thought he was going to explode. He wanted to punch something. He wanted to run as fast his legs could take him until his lungs burned and his thoughts became nothing but static. He was angry - but not at Lucas (at least not entirely) and he still didn't know what to say.

There was no getting better from here. There was only holding on.

"So stop acting," Thorne said, leveling his gaze on the other, his words guttural and sharp, "like this doesn't affect all of us. You think we don't carry the weight of it too? You think because you're on the enemies side, I wouldn't cross that ******** line for you? Even if you pushed us away, ended it, all of it?"

Thorne swallowed and his voice was the sharp edge of shattered glass. He was angry, so angry. So ******** angry. But all that came out was desperation instead.

"I said I would fight for you. What the hell do you think that means?"

Thorne was right. Thorne was right about it all. It didn't matter if there was a war or if they were on different sides of it. They would all of them do whatever it took to bring the others back. That mattered.

From where he sat on the couch, Rylan shifted his weight so it was centered over his feet, elbows resting on his knees, fingers steepled in front of him. He stared at them as if they were the most fascinating thing in the world, waiting for Thorne to finish, waiting for Lucas to give his own defense.

"If one more person," he growled when they were both done. "Tells me they're trying to protect me by not hurting me, I will put my fist through a wall and show you how much pain I can do to myself. That's not protecting anyone."

His eyes snapped up, first to Thorne, then to Lucas where they stayed and bored into him like a hot poker. "We all get hurt. That's life. If any of us were afraid of getting hurt, we'd ******** stay home. I put my life on the line every day for people - strangers, people I've never met in my life and will never see again. What makes you think you're any different?"

That Lucas - or, for that matter, Thorne - could ever think otherwise was almost like an insult to his character. Who did they think he was? It was Rylan's turn to feel anger rising inside him, and it didn't help. He knew this. He knew it was just feeding the fire of emotions raging all around them.

But damn it all to hell.

First it was Thorne losing his cool -- and to be perfectly honest, he'd anticipated that. But Rylan? Rylan getting angry?

Oh ******** no. He was not equipped to handle this.

"Ry, babe it's not -- it's not as simple as that. You can punch the ******** wall - please don't punch the wall - but the wall can't punch back. You can put your life on the line for everyone in this town but you're trying to save them, they aren't trying to hurt you. That's not ******** fair." Despite his words, his voice was quiet, almost diminished in the face of their anger. "You didn't -- "

And he was grabbed by Thorne, spun around and practically man-handled. Shock was so obvious on his face that he could do nothing but be a ragdoll in the man's angry grasp, barely holding onto the hands that rattled him. On the edge of violence. On a very dangerous precipice. And he listened, because what the hell else could he do when it seemed like Thorne was going to bury him in one of his planters? He was pushed, shoved, yelled at, snarled at, made to believe he was going to be struck, hurt, and left, even with Thorne's angry words that insisted otherwise. By the time Thorne was finished, Lucas was wounded, and a wounded animal was not graceful when cornered.

"You mistake my concern for you with giving a <********> about that war, because I don't. I don't care! I don't care about the failures of the past war, I don't care about that -- I care about you two! I care about our now, what future we can have! I care about my friends! I care about my stupid ******** little brother who is oblivious to this and my best ******** friend who isn't because apparently Autumn likes to warn people even if it's getting me in trouble and -- I care about this gorgeous man who by some grace of some god has been steady by our side even with all the crazy," he motioned to Rylan with both hands, "and this angry artist who says the sweetest ******** things one second and then tears my heart out the next and still makes me want to stay!" Lucas stared at Thorne with his eyes a pale fire, memories flickering of the man's laughter, his sadness from before. <******** s**t I did not sign up for this war but I signed up for both of you --

He stepped heavily around Thorne and abruptly lifted his arms to wrap them around the man's angry shoulders, his embrace full and insisting no matter his rage. They had to understand. They had to know he had given them his heart and it was up to them now, not him - he had relinquished his control. He already knew it was a mistake to keep it back, but...but he had to try to get them to see why. Lucas didn't want them to not trust him over this. He slid his fingers into Thorne's short dark hair and held on, looking at Rylan over the man's shoulder, expression dark. "Autumn knows because she was already neck-deep in this, and I had to hear about you," he growled that against Thorne's ear, "from her, why you ran from us for nine days. And I told Jeremiah because he's the ******** detective who can keep people safe from me if something happens and because if Lady turns out to be untrustworthy, I wanted a back up plan. So I'm safe, me and the others -- because I'm not alone in this. Yeah, I'm not the only shifter, and I've been trying to help them, too." He exhaled sharply, his heart hurting, thinking of Eve and if she had to do this with Leila.

"I didn't tell you, Thorne, because Aleksy said you weren't involved yet -- and I didn't tell you, Ry, because I know you put your neck on the line every damn day and I didn't want to -- to just be a distraction, another worry. I wanted to be there for the two of you first, and come to you with answers. I took precautions trying to figure out what the ******** I am and what the ******** I'm going to do, but I can't find any answers so now? Now I'm telling you. I in no ******** way am implying either of you are incapable of taking care of yourself or -- ********, even taking care of me -- I'm saying I had to think this through and it wasn't easy."

His grip tightened on Thorne. "Rylan, when you were working and Thorne and I went to the club? I had to make a conscious effort to not murder a man." His jaw worked and Lucas narrowed his eyes at the memory. "I marched up to a stranger in the middle of the dance floor and I thought to myself, 'Don't use your right hand, you could kill him.' And then I socked him as hard as I could with my left. Why? Because -- I don't ******** know why, he was just dancing and I -- I attacked this guy and was going to beat the s**t out of him and Thorne? Thorne had to drag me away. By my ******** neck. The bruises are still there." One hand slid to the back of Thorne's neck, still holding him dearly, if not firmly. "I was -- I was a wordless animal. And what happens if -- if I do that again, huh? To your friends, Thorne? To your family, Ry?" His pale eyes turned between them, begging for understanding.

"Sometimes I want to ask if I can go with you, Thorne, to your art practice, and then I remember what I can do, so I stop. Sometimes I want to visit you, Ry, in the station during your long shifts, but what if I attack your ******** fellow firemen? There's more lives to be ruined by me not knowing, and that is why I kept it to myself. Because I don't know how to tell it to myself, let alone the two of you, that my existence threatens the very things that are near and dear to you."

Lucas clenched his jaw a few times before hiding half his face against Thorne's shoulder, his hold loosening, letting him free if he chose. "I -- I care about you two so much more than I thought I could, and I'm not -- I'm not giving up on me, on fighting, but you have to understand that I don't like not knowing. I don't like being left in the dark for nine days, I don't like questioning why every bird I see is now an enemy, and I don't like not knowing what's happening to me." He shook his head subtly, closing his eyes. His heart was beating so fast and erratic, he was getting light-headed. Everything hurt and there was no safe haven just then, not when both of them were angry.

"I made a mistake and I'm trying to rectify it so just -- I already know. I ******** up. I hurt both of you by trying not to." The words bled between his teeth. "I don't want to hurt you. I don't want to fight. You know what I am, you know almost all that I do about what's going on, I'm -- I'm trying, because the other option was shutting you both out. And I couldn't do it. Call me a piece of s**t, threaten me, whatever, I did what I thought was right because I care about you two. Because I'd do anything, even -- even risk it all so that you know."

God, he felt heavy and air-light at the same time, like he'd both sink and fly away if he tried to move. "You're making a conscious decision to fight and I ******** refuse to make that dedication until I know what's going on for certain. And that's why I'm your enemy, over there. I am fighting, I am not giving up, and I'm not accepting all this hocus pocus bullshit just because some freaky a** deer and red-headed fox tell me to." He looked at Rylan tiredly, Thorne still against him, jaw set. "I'm fighting for the two of you, for the luxury of our happiness, I'm fighting for us the only way I know how. I need to set things right with you and know where we stand before I can move forward."

(rylan's bird buddy is in fact right outside the window, though it is being very quiet and considerate right now.)

(familiars like to be near their wargs)

"But -- "

Thorne effectively silenced Lucas with a charge. A charge. Like some sort of bull-rush, he was all but heaved over the couch by the force of the other, landing on Rylan with a winded 'oof,' still clinging to the man's shoulders. Pale eyes stared up at the two of them, large as saucers, lips slightly parted in the shock of continued speechlessness - and possibly the weight of Thorne on top of him. His arms loosened by necessity of not elbowing Rylan, though his hands stayed on Thorne's shoulders, staring at him in disbelief.

What. The ********. Just happened?

Lucas frowned a little when Thorne turned his head, lifting his own to kiss the man's cheek. "Yeah, the charm," he echoed, watching the other get up. He breathed in deeply, not yet moving, staring at Thorne quietly. In all his efforts to take care of the two men, Lucas had managed to hurt and/or insult both of them. This was probably why he didn't think he was cut out for all this...relationship business.

But ******** if he wasn't trying. He wanted these two men in his life, badly.

As Thorne went to put in the order, he sighed softly through his nose and slowly pushed himself up against Rylan, going so far as to sit in the man's lap and lay his head on his shoulder. "I'm sorry," he apologized softly to him, lightly toying with the hem of the man's shirt, his eyes downcast. "I'm not used to having anyone stick it through with me, in a relationship. It's no excuse, but -- my assumption wasn't based on your character. I promise." His pale eyes turned to the man's perfect, handsome face, feeling his heart skip about in his chest at being so close again.

"You're amazing, I -- I just want you to be happy. With me. With the crazy one over there." Lucas glanced towards Thorne as he was on the phone, smiling a little to himself. "How can I make it up to you?" His eyes turned back to Rylan, and there was small glimmer of teasing there, an opening for things to continue - an acknowledgment of what they all seemed to want.