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 Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2016 11:10 pm
Chris can only remember getting angry only a handful of times. Frustrated, pissed off, these he'd had happen many times but rarely a true fury. Rarely something that has settled in his bones, has made its home like this has, waiting for its time. It sits there like a fire as he watches Mare disappear with a handful of questions, sits there as he forces his way home to face the facts. To realize what has been going on, what has been there right in front of his face.
Oh, was he stupid. Mare had told him to his face he had been blind - he realized now how true it was.
The walk up to Coalsmoke was quiet, as was the jimmying of the door. He stepped in, taking a deep breath.
"Thorne," He said, voice flat. A calm before a storm.
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Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2016 11:14 pm
"What," Thorne said.
He was staring at a far wall, arms crossed, his hip against the side of one of the couches. He didn't look at Chris, wouldn't look at Chris, shoulders rolled back. A low tension roiled through him, inhuman. There were bad days, bad states, bad nights, but this was something different all together. He was learning the duality of himself again. Splitting between two roles, and it was a sticky mess discovering how to slide neatly from one to the other.
He turned to look at Chris.
"What's wrong?"
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Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2016 11:15 pm
"You tithed Alg," He said and it wasn't a question. It was a flat statement, a truth he was laying out in the open. He wouldn't move from the door, still in his shoes.
Fury was coursing through his bones as he stared at Thorne, but his expression was still curiously blank. He did not know how to deal with what he was feeling. He didn't want to.
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Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2016 11:21 pm
Thorne turned to face Chris fully, straightening out, his shoulders thrown back. It wasn't necessarily a stance that asked for a fight or anticipated one. It was the wary pretense to a choice between the two. He'd been anticipating this; Mare wouldn't shut up about anything, least of all her recent encounter with Chris.
"Yes," Thorne said.
He wasn't a liar.
He hadn't told Chris, but he wasn't a liar.
He felt something pulse in him, powerful and sharp, the wrong edge of agony.
"It was his choice."
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Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2016 11:24 pm
It's this that does Chris in. Had Thorne been any other way, had he not blindly accepted it, Chris may have been calm. Maybe would have had the fury in his bones die away.
But Thorne is like this, and Chris is like this, and so his only reaction is to bend down, untie his shoe, and then throw it at Thorne.
"You didn't TELL ME!" He yells and oh his anger is beautiful. It's a spark that ignited quickly, a full flame that encases his body in rage. He is angry and upset and it is clear as day, as night.
"I talked with a monster, I talked with someone who wasn't him, I was led on-!!"
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Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2016 11:29 pm
Thorne weathers Chris's explosion with a grimace, his mouth sliding into a thin, hard line. He straightens, imposing and brittle, his expression not angry, not yet, but folded in on itself. It is an inversion, an opposite of everything that he shows Chris. Everything that he had lied to himself he could feel with Chris without this ever getting in the way.
"No," he said, "I didn't want you to know. I didn't want that on your shoulders."
It doesn't come out as an excuse.
It comes out as a fact. Right or wrong does not matter. Thorne is not trying to avert blame. He is telling Chris exactly what he is thinking, because he knows where this will go.
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Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2016 11:34 pm
The flame's been lit and Chris is not able to slow down, not able to reach that peace he had before. The other shoe is off now but only in his hand, not yet to be thrown.
"You didn't want it on my shoulders," He sneers, watching Thorne. Waiting. "You should have thought about it since you know I'm his friend. You know that I visit him!!"
There goes the other shoe but it misses its mark by a mile - he's too upset to have aim.
"I talked to him and- and I thought it was him and he's- Does Jer even know? Or did you hide this from him too? Does he not know that he has a monster in his home?" His voice has risen louder steadily, with him now screaming at Thorne.
Something in him faintly remembers that they've had domestic disputes called on them, that if he doesn't quiet down it'll happen again.
Something else in him tells that thing to shut up.
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Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2016 11:53 pm
Thorne doesn't snarl, doesn't feed the thing inside of him that reminds him of his father. He'd crawled as far away from it as he could, but he still feels its turnings inside of him, malignant and misaligned.
"You're right," Thorne says icily, "And then you would have thrown your shoes at me for taking him in the first place."
He doesn't move, still as though if he does do anything it will be like a trigger being pulled. His arms are coiled tight against his body, the sharp new claws of his hands biting into his henley, ripping it, as though he is afraid of what he can do. What he can say.
"He will," is the only response Chris gets.
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Posted: Thu Sep 22, 2016 11:56 pm
"I would have thrown my shoes because you're an a*****e!" He screams and he wants to stomp across the room. He wants to shake Thorne, he wants to demand his reasons.
But he stays by the front door because it's the safest place to be right now. Because Thorne is ice to all his fire and if he touches him something will happen that neither of them can take back.
"You didn't tell him?! You're just letting him live with a monster and think it's him? You know what that did to me and you- you're just-" He breaks off and he's painfully upset, unable to understand Thorne right now.
"Who are you?"
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Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2016 12:01 am
"You're right," Thorne snaps. "I am an a*****e, and I deserve this, so why are you still here yelling at me?"
He steps back, away from Chris, as though his touch will burn him. He doesn't want to be close because he doesn't know what he is capable of and -
Chris asks him who he is and he doesn't know because he can't remember the person before those three months, and he keeps being told that he is still himself in these weeks afterwards. He doesn't know because Pax told him he was a guide, unbound from the cycle, meant to tithe and watch and wait and build -
But he snarls at him, the sound animal in his throat.
"Don't you dare ask me that."
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Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2016 12:04 am
"I'm standing here yelling at you because you don't seem to ******** get it! Because you don't seem to realize that saying nothing is ******** damaging!" Chris snaps back. He runs his hands through his hair, exasperated.
Thorne steps away from him and Chris moves as well, keeping his distance. He is not afraid of Thorne, he is never afraid of Thorne. He is afraid of himself, right now.
"I'll ask you that because I have the goddamn right to know. What happened to you were going to tell me? Is there anything else you've conveniently left out?"
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Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2016 12:11 am
"Damaging?" Thorne responds, and his voice rises, hideous and terrible. "Damaging? You really think there is anything I can tell you that will hurt more than not knowing? You really think I keep things from you because I want to make it worse?"
Thorne laughs, the sound sick with misery.
"What does it matter?" He asks and it is a bite, a lash, vicious and snarling and hateful - but not of Chris, "What does it matter who I am, what I am? You're going to leave anyways!"
He breathes heavily, shoulders thrown back.
"What does it matter? You'll forget me, anyways."
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Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2016 12:16 am
"You make it worse by keeping it from me!" He screams and oh, there he goes. It's lucky his shoes are gone, that he won't go near Thorne or anywhere across the room to get them again. That he won't throw books or plants, that he has no ammo on him.
"You're a ******** a*****e," He hisses, furious. "I ******** - I trusted you. I trusted Alg, I trusted I wasn't going to be talking with something who could - who would- " His voice falters and falls as he remembers Corr, remembers Shiloh's fetch. Feels breath and hands on him that he doesn't want.
He shakes it off, stares at Thorne. "Forget you? How can I forget you, why would I leave?"
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Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2016 12:20 am
Thorne stares at Chris, his breath caught and tangled between his teeth. A choice sits in front of him. He remembers Mare's words. He lets Chris carve his own into his bones, into his core.
"Do you hate me?" Thorne asks.
Because he knows Chris will.
He laughs, the sound sick and miserable, his eyes baleful. He says, "What, did she not tell you that too?"
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Posted: Fri Sep 23, 2016 12:22 am
"No." His reply is instantaneous, true. He is angry but he never hated Thorne, not in his moment, not in the next, not ever.
"Did she not tell me what?" He says, bitter, venomous. "All she did was tell me in, a very vague and roundabout way about you taking Alg. And something about how we weren't - we couldn't be a match."
His lips thin.
"I don't know why."
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