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 Posted: Sat Sep 24, 2016 9:54 pm
Chris doesn't know how to feel.
He knows how he feels - he feels like a train wreck. He feels like a nervous wreck, like something composed of just nerves and anxiety. He feel upset, he feels scared. He feels a splinter of hope - and he tries to squash it down before it gets too big. All he knows is he is coming here to talk. To ask for Thorne to take him back. To see what he can do.
He almost turns back to go home.
But Hyejin told him to talk and so he picks upself up and puts himself together and he tries.
To say he's not a wreck is a lie, he's been a wreck for five days. He's been a walking disaster, a human composed of the barest things. He spent most of his time in bed, refusing to move except for basics. It felt like what had happened when he had first come back from the ball, like he was empty. Like he was unable to be something.
He hadn't slept for 3 days that first week and nothing, nothing had helped.
The sleep he's managed to catch for this is nothing, it's 3 hours by Hyejin's request, a nightmare from long ago. A throw back to when he thought Thorne would be take, but this time he isn't at Coalsmoke to stop it. This time he is trapped by his plants and he watches, helpless, as Thorne goes along.
It was not good sleep, but it stopped the hallucinations.
Coalsmoke has changed in the five days he's been gone, in the near week he's been gone. He pulls up to the apartment, to the gravel that composes what pretends to be a driveway. It feels alien, like coming back to home after a vacation. Awkwardly in the passenger seat, a bag sits with his clothing, the three outfits he managed to get before he left. Most of everything he owned was at Coalsmoke.
He wonders if it's still there. If Thorne kept it. If Thorne threw it out.
The walk up to the apartment is awkward, a little cold. His eyes latch onto the paint, the galaxies, the comets. He bends down to touch it, fingertips grazing along the the design delicately, and something in his chest burns, it aches. It feels like it was for him. He doesn't know if he wants to believe it is, or not.
He runs up the steps, designs flying under his feet as he reaches the door. As he jimmies it open, as he steps into Coalsmoke. He wants to see Thorne more than anything, he wants to find him and apologize. He wants to talk.
But Coalsmoke is empty, it's alien, as the door falls open. As he looks in and finds the flat cleaner than he's ever seen it, clean and alien and nothing like it should be. The plants are in places, the books are straightened up, the couch is cleared of the sweaters and blankets and cardigans that were on it. It looks unreal, it looks like nothing it should.
But there, on the edge's of Chris' vision and he looks and where it is clean, there is also color.
It is the far wall that catches his attention first, a galaxy in its own messy chaos. In it's own perfection. He doesn't realize he's walked in until his fingers are on it, until he his feeling out the space and the stars and the beautiful colors. He turns and with it it's like finding a new world, it's like finding something that had just been on the edge of his vision. He turns and he finds flowers and birds, he finds more space and and stars. It's nothing like Thorne's gallery, the one he showed him when they went to New York. It's chaotic and breathless and so beautifully, perfectly Thorne.
It feels like an echo and a remember me. It feels like a goodbye.
Chris doesn't know how long he stands there, his fingers tracing the patterns as he finds what he can. As he stands there and smells Coalsmoke, the only familiar thing, and wonders what to do. What he's lost.
Because it's clear Thorne is not here and what Chris sees feels like a goodbye. He is too afraid to dig through the bedroom, to look closer to see if he can find something to tell him that Thorne really left. He's scared to see empty cupboards, an empty dresser, an empty closet. He's scared there will be a finality to everything, he's scared that he cut too deep with his words. It has been his fear all along, hidden underneath words that he had been careful to chose.
I'm afraid he doesn't want to talk, really had meant, I'm afraid that I've been left behind. That I've ruined it all.
He had almost burned it down once, the match in his hands when he hadn't noticed Thorne gone the first time. But this time it feels like he's really razed it to the ground, like the heat that was in his words had come to life. Had taken what he had and let it die. His fault, his fault, his fault.
He can feel his hands around Thorne's throat again and something in him burns and he stumbles out of Coalsmoke, the door slamming behind him.
The world is spinning around him and Chris can't breathe and he drops to the ground, curls up in on himself. Face to his knees, arms around him like a shield against the world. The beanie on his head, the cardigan on his arms, they are both Thorne's and smell like him, but the smell doesn't ground him like he wants it to. It just makes everything swim, makes his eyes ache. He feels lost at sea, he feels like everything is too much.
He wants back Thorne.
So he sits on Coalsmoke's porch and he tries to breathe and he tries to act like Thorne isn't gone. He tries to act like he has his life together, that any minute he can turn around and go back in Coalsmoke and find that Thorne hasn't left and that they will talk. That he can fix this. That he hasn't ruined everything.
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Posted: Sat Sep 24, 2016 10:32 pm
Thorne doesn't take a car, but he does go far away.
He goes far into the hungry edge of Ashdown. The perimeter line. Here is civilization, it says on one side, and here is the wilds of the other. The highway goes one way, splinters off into a thousand dirt paths and roads and wandering trails with signs that have faded into obscurity over time.
The beautiful thing about Coalsmoke is that it is close to this wildness. Beyond it, far in the distance past the crabgrass and the fallout of another age entirely, there is nothing but wilderness. Pine trees where mist sleeps in the early morning, where dew collects on the ground and there are slopes and rock faces and fairy rings.
Thorne hadn't realized he'd been walking with any direction in mind, trekking the dirt and grass and bark, until he was standing at the edge of the forest, an old, pothole-laden road on one side, and a field of crabgrass on the other. Coalsmoke rises in the distance.
Like a haunt or a memory. His. Only his.
No, he thinks, not only.
The dreams had come more and more in the recent days, full of churches broken down by forest, the altars overwhelmed by wildflowers, and Chris drawing them alive into his skin from somewhere far away.
"If you miss me," he kept saying, "Why did you leave?"
Thorne wants to say that he hadn't left, but that would be a lie. There were different ways to abandon someone. In all of his hurt, in all of his selfishness, his attempt to keep Chris safe by biting down on his words, he'd left him. He'd left him.
The shame pierced deeper than the sadness, than any form of guilt.
Standing there, Thorne knows what he looks like. The faded henley is unbuttoned all the way down, slicing open the white to reveal the tattoos of his chest. The ink glares against his dark skin. His boots are muddy and covered in soil. He taps them against the ground and dislodges some of it, but doesn't bother with much else.
Why'd you leave? The dream asks him again, even though he's awake, and Thorne's breath plumes the air before him.
I didn't mean to.
But that didn't make it alright.
Thorne doesn't know how long it takes for him to reach Coalsmoke. The gravel crunches beneath his feet as he approaches the back of it and stares up at the hollowed out windows, at the echo. He thinks of Chris and his chest hurts and he wants to take the car parked out behind and run again, the keys burning an excuse, an out into his skin. Because he blinks and he sees Chris in the window. He see Chris in the bedroom. He sees him everywhere, in everything, no matter how far he's hidden it in the drawers, how two-dimensional he's made the warehouse for his absence. He cannot stand it without Chris, because Chris had unknowingly written himself into the walls, into the scent and taste and smell of Coalsmoke, everything that made it what it was.
Maybe that was why Thorne had painted so much. To give back. To give, to apologize. To return to him, even if it was too late.
He gives out a soft exhale, presses the heel of his palm to his hand.
There is a desperate hope in him, that Chris will be there waiting. But Thorne doesn't want to walk around and let it collapse in his chest. He doesn't know if he can handle it. Not again.
But he does anyways.
He does.
Thorne notices the car before he notices Chris. And it is like a blow, like something physical, the weight of everything coming down. It's a dream, Thorne thinks, it has to be a dream.
But his pulse flutters beneath his skin, and he could beat himself into the ground and know he would not wake up.
So he swallows it instead, all of the fears inside of him, everything that had ever made him run from Chris the first time. That now made him want to run again. Because Chris could easily be here to pick up the rest of his things and go. Because Chris could be here to finalize this empty world, this hollow home.
He is shaking by the time he reaches the steps beneath Chris. His hands are trembling, one of them gripping his other arm to stop him from reaching out, from touching. Because he knows, he knows, he knows. He can only hurt Chris.
Don't touch me, he'd said.
Thorne felt it like a blow all over again.
His voice is a mess. A wreckage.
"Chris," he says, gently.
He walks past him and it's agony. Kicks the mat out from the door. He'd painted a single cluster of flowers there. Roses in red and white, Hyacinths crowning them gently.
I'm sorry, they say.
He picks up the key and turns it over in his palm, and looks back at Chris.
"It was always yours," he says.
But he doesn't go inside. He won't, not unless Chris does too. He had never owned Coalsmoke alone. And he didn't ever want to walk into it that way either. If Chris wanted to take his things and leave, Thorne wouldn't stop him.
But he would wait.
For Chris, he would wait.
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Posted: Sat Sep 24, 2016 10:50 pm
He's curled up into his own little world, comprised of his arms and his jeans and the cardigan. Sometimes his boots, when he can see them. Sometimes his knees, if he bothers to tell them apart from his jeans. Mostly, though, it's just himself and his breath and the smell of Thorne and the fear crowding in on him and he sits and he waits and he waits and he waits.
He doesn't know how long he's sitting there.
Thorne's steps up stairs only register faintly, only really draw him out of his little hole when Thorne's right by him. When he can register the warmth of another human near him and he blinks up, air leaving him again as he sees Thorne.
"Thorne," He says back quietly, and he feels proud that his voice doesn't tremble.
He watches him kick the mat away, his eyes widening at the spray of flowers. Their meanings come to him slowly, flickering into his head as he thinks back to what Jer told him. To what the internet gave him when he went home that night.
I'm sorry, it means, and he feels something in him tighten.
He's blank for a second and then unfolds, drags himself upwards from the ground. It's hard, it feels like gravity is pulling against him with all of the force it can manage. But he's up and he's looking at the key for a long, long moment and then he looks at Thorne.
He thinks of the conversation with Mare. He thinks of how she told him how it would be his one day, how ghosts were always drawn to a place of remembrance. He thinks of the art in the walls, of how it reads of Thorne and how Chris feels, selfishly, it feels a little like him too.
"It's not mine without you," He says, "I don't want it without you."
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Posted: Sat Sep 24, 2016 11:05 pm
Every word from Chris's voice scratches him raw. The shell he'd built up around himself had only been enough to fool strangers, to fool acquaintances. And he didn't want a shell around Chris. He was not going to lie to him again. Not again.
Thorne waits, his breath forced and slow, as Chris pulls himself up and regards the key. He curls his fingers around it, lets the metal press into his skin. He turns fully to face Chris, the half-light hitting against the sharp angles of his figure, the tight lines that make him what he is.
His knuckles have scars and his body is wired for the worst. But Chris speaks and Thorne doesn't know what to do, doesn't know what to say, knowing what Jeremiah had said to him before. He blinks, shudders, his breath coming out shaky and torn.
"I'm not her," Thorne blurts out before he can help it. It has been tearing him apart inside, this confession. "I know - I've done things that cannot be forgiven. I know I've hurt you, and you don't have to forgive me. You never have to forgive me."
He shudders again, curls the key into the center of his palm and bows his head.
"No matter what happens here though, I'm not her, I'll never be her - and I know - " His breath hitches. "I don't want this if it's not with you."
He presses his hand to the door that they know how to jimmy open. The space where they'd once belonged to.
"It's not anything without you. It never was."
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Posted: Sat Sep 24, 2016 11:23 pm
The key sits between them, tentative and shiny, the metal like a promise. He wants to reach out and touch it, he wants to run his fingers across Thorne's knuckles. He wants to register the lines, wants to catalog and burn it into his memory.
But he is afraid that if he touches Thorne, he will hurt him. He will burn him.
His head jerks up at Thorne's sudden confession, the words tearing through the air. They're a reminder of what Jer said and he wonders, where Thorne got them. How long Thorne had been thinking of them, had let them eat at him.
"You're not," He says and it's a confirmation, firm, steady. He thinks back to his phone call with Hyejin, to his nightmares, to their time together. Thorne is not like her and Chris would not listen to Jer for once because what he knew was true. "I know you're not her Thorne, I know. I-I don't care what Jer said. I know what's true."
His eyes follow Thorne's hand to the door and he's quiet for a long moment.
"I was really, really hurt Thorne," He admits, the first confession of the fading light of noon. "I was hurt because this was - this is - ours. I want to help you. But you locked me out, you didn't give me any say." He closes his eyes, takes a breath.
"I want this with you Thorne, I want this more than anything. But you can't do that again. I'm here with you, for as long as you'll have me. But you can't have me and keep everything away from me too. I'm just as wrapped up in it as you."
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Posted: Sat Sep 24, 2016 11:38 pm
Thorne is sharp and wild as he watches Chris, the rawness in his eyes, the intensity of them nearly frightening with their depth. He is afraid, he is terrified. A dark thing prowls in him, and it reminds him every day, every night that he has failed. That everything he has done has been wrong, wrong, wrong.
He had fought all of his wars alone.
He hadn't realized that in the carnage, he'd struck Chris down as well.
"But Jeremiah told me - " Thorne says, his breath blowing from him sharply, and it's in his eyes, some sort of wild disbelief, not at Chris but at something else entirely, a hurt that strikes deep, deep, deep, "He told me that you thought I was Melany's - that I was no better than her."
And it doesn't come out elegant, it comes out like a confession, like something sloppy in how desperate it is to know the truth. Thorne feels a different sort of fall here.
His arm trembles where it's stretched out. He looks at Chris and he wants to touch him but every time the hunger crawls into his bones he remembers the fight. The shouting. Don't touch me, don't touch me.
"I know," Thorne says, "I was so afraid of what it meant, I was so afraid that you would leave me that I didn't listen. I - locked you out, and I left you." He hurts. Every part of him hurts. He wants to cry but he won't. He wants to do something with his hands but he doesn't know what. "I don't have an excuse. There's nothing to pardon what I did. I was so busy being selfish that I - I couldn't even see you. And I'm sorry. But I see you now. And if it's too late, I understand."
Thorne shudders, animal, and drops his hand from the door.
"But this, all of it, is yours," he says quietly, "And I don't mean the building or the things, or the plants. I am yours, whatever you ask me to do. I won't lie anymore, I won't keep you out anymore."
Thorne presses the heel of his palm to his hand and shakes and shakes and shakes.
"I can't do it again, I won't. It has destroyed me to do it once, but more than that it hurt you," he breathes out. "I made you feel - like you weren't important, but that's the furthest thing from what you are to me, Chris."
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Posted: Sun Sep 25, 2016 12:07 am
Something in him says he should be afraid of Thorne - the intensity in his eyes, the fact that he is not human. That he is something else entirely, an animal that is unchained.
But Chris has never been afraid of Thorne and he meets his gaze with his own intensity, his own fear. There is something here that isn't right as Thorne speaks and he doesn't know what to do.
"That isn't-" Chris replies and his own eyes are wide. "He told me that you might be a produce of Melany, he said that you might've been made into something like her. That if you- you might not be on our side."
It's his own confession of sorts, about as graceful as Thorne's. Because this information not matching up, this conflict, it speaks of something Chris does not want to consider. Things had been taken from him, become fragile. He does not want to lose another.
"I came here," Chris says, softly, "Because I want to fix this Thorne. It's not too late, if you want it too. If you don't I can accept it but I want this. I want this with you."
He looks up at Thorne and he's scared, for everything. For them, for what could happen in the future. But he knows and it is a fact sewn into is being, etched into his bones, that he and Thorne are each other's. That they have been for a time now.
"All I'm asking Thorne is that you talk to me," He begs, "I want you to tell me things. I won't judge you, I can't. We have to talk, because that is what messed us up. And I'm sorry too, I'm sorry that I didn't approach you calmly. That I didn't even try to talk, I just blew up on you. I'm afraid and I took it out on you."
He stares at Thorne's shaking hand and he wants and he wants and he can't find it in himself to deny. He moves his own, hesitant, and like many times before, hooks a gentle finger around one of Thorne's. The same question, like so many times before, but with so much more meaning behind it now. A breath, sitting there.
"I didn't mean to step on that fact. But I thought you had given up on me Thorne, that you were resigned to seeing me die. That you weren't going to fight for me."
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Posted: Sun Sep 25, 2016 12:34 am
Thorne looks at Chris, eyes wide, night-dark in this form but burning even then. He studies Chris like he is relearning him over again, every quirk and movement, every nervous gesture, habit that he hasn't forgotten, only - missed.
"That doesn't make sense," he says, chokes, "But I - I'm not. I will never choose anyone's side but yours. I've made mistakes, I've done things that don't deserve forgiveness, but I will not become her."
A distant part of him wants to pursue this conversation, because it screams at him of misinformation, things that don't add up. Jeremiah would not lie to both of them, pit them against one another - and yet -
But there is a more immediate issue here to address. They can tame that one later, they can draw it out and connect threads. But here, now, Thorne lets out a slow, sharp breath when Chris speaks again, his chest in atrophy, his heart a hummingbird caged inside of his ribs.
"Of course I want it," Thorne says, and his eyes find Chris's, "I want it - I've always wanted it. You." And perhaps this is a scene replayed from their past cycles. Perhaps this a scene inverted, written with different lines, but similar all the same. In all his iterations, in every rebirth in which they had scratched the framework of each others worlds, Thorne wants to believe that all paths would have led him here.
That no matter his mistakes, he would have followed them back to Chris.
"I - " Thorne starts, hitches, "I'll give that to you. All of it. No more lies, no more. I'm sorry, I was so afraid." It's a messy confession, bearing no resemblance to his elegant mask. "You are so important to me, and I was so afraid. But I'll tell you - I'll tell you all of it. I won't leave you alone in the dark again."
He looks down at his hands.
"I forgive you," he says softly, "It was deserved. It was - you had every right to be furious with me."
And then Chris touches him and it is a starburst. It burns through him, and he feels his whole world narrow down to that point of contact. That warmth that always manages to pull him back.
Thorne barely hesitates before tangling his fingers with Chris, the motion so easy, so simple, that he does not even have to think about the act itself. He steps closer to Chris, hesitant, as though asking permission.
A trilling shiver runs against his back.
I missed you, I missed you, I missed you.
"Never," Thorne says, his voice adamant, his voice soft, "I was lost. I said terrible things to you - things that hurt you, because I'd - given up on myself. But not you. Never you."
He takes another step, a question, and looks at Chris.
"I will fight for you until the stars burn out from the sky," he says, and it is conviction, a promise, desperate in its entirety, "But I don't ever want to see you die, Chris. And surely I have before. But not again."
He strokes a thumb over Chris's knuckle. He tries to breathe. Tries not to feel the hurt swelling up in him, the ache that comes simply from being this close, this close and unsure.
"I want to end this," he says, "For you. For us. So I'll keep fighting. I'll always be fighting. Because you matter, Chris. Because you are everything to me."
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Posted: Sun Sep 25, 2016 1:07 am
Every part of him is alight, burning under Thorne's stare and yet Chris does not want to pull away. He himself is tracing over Thorne, committing what he can in this dying light to memory that he cannot touch.
"No," He says, "No you won't. You won't and I was stupid to listen to him, it makes no sense at all."
He drops it then and there, lets the thread sink away. Thorne might bring it up later, or maybe Chris, but he is scared and it took all his courage to bring himself to Coalsmoke and sit himself on the porch and wait and he does not want to waste it on this. Does not want to waste it when he is still afraid, still worried that something will happen.
"I want you too," He whispers, feels like he is seeing something happen again in duplicate. A path rejoining, a pair reconciling, something torn apart being brought back together. He meets Thorne's eyes and for a second does not feel afraid, he just feels - complete. Assured.
Like something has fallen back into place.
"It's okay," He whispers, "I was afraid too, we both were. We were both thrown into something that we didn't know what to do with. Just no more lies, no more omitting information."
Because it's hard to think that Other Ashdown is still something far beyond them. That because maybe while they have the ability to be there, survive there better, they still had a lot they didn't know. That they had to struggle with.
That Thorne himself was in something far beyond Chris could know and that he hadn't thought of that at all.
His breath catches at the warmth, at the feeling of Thorne interlacing his fingers with Chris' again. It's familiarity, home, all over again. His question answered with such little hesitation that he is reassured in an instant. Thorne's step closer isn't even registered, the closeness so instinctual that Chris leans in a little.
"You forget," Chris says shakily, "That I have fought for you. That I will fight for you, over and over again. Don't give up on yourself Thorne, because I won't stand for it. I can't."
Because he had seen it once, when Melany had taken everything from him. When he hadn't even remembered Chris' name, just him running on instinct. It still burns at him some nights, a fear he won't ever unsee.
"I've seen you die too, I bet. Nineteen times, that this has gone around. We've both probably seen some things but Thorne, god, I am determined to change this. I want this with you until the end, I want Coalsmoke to be ours."
He shudders out a breath at the contact, takes a step to close the distance between them. He has never been good at staying away from Thorne and this is yet another proof of that.
"I forgive you," He says and it's broken, almost like a sob. "I forgive you but don't ever do this to me again Thorne. You are mine and I am yours and we will fight to this end because no matter what, I cannot give you up."
His free hand goes up to his face, covers his eyes. He doesn't want to cry but this has been a long five days for him of stress and he doesn't know what to do with this affection, with this fear that is being settled. The relief that is starting to flood through him.
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Posted: Sun Sep 25, 2016 1:33 am
Thorne had known, of course he had known, how lonely he was. But it isn't until he is standing on the entrance of Coalsmoke at dusk, looking at everything that he had let slide between his fingers, that he realizes how deep that wound went.
His heart slides in his chest, a rhythmic, desperate ache for something that is just inside of his reach again. That should not be here, by all the laws of the universe and the world he has known since birth, but is anyways. As though their paths, stubborn through all of these cycles, these nineteen lifetimes, their paths were bound together. Merged in a way unlike anything else.
He lets out a shuddering, wild breath at Chris's words, at everything he says, and yes, it sounds nearly like the edge of a sob for how relieved it is, how painful this world had been during those nights when he'd lain awake, or fell asleep, and the dream had asked him again and again - if you missed me, why'd you leave me?
"No more," Thorne echoes, and looks at Chris, "I promise. No more. I'll be brave, for you. I'll - "
He thinks of Jeremiah's words all those nights ago when he'd found him at the bar. That advice that had been left in the back of his mind, a haunt. Especially when the truth is hard, he had said. Tell it. And Thorne would. He had made that mistake already. But not again. Not again, not at the cost it came with, not at the price he'd paid.
Thorne's breath hitches when Chris leans in, his entire body wanting to react, desperate for the full contact that they've both been starved for. He strokes his thumb again against Chris's skin, a slow, soft gesture in repetition.
He lets out a sound - a soft, trembling, relieved laugh, or a sob, or something caught in the middle, too overwhelmed to hold it in. He has not broken like this in so long he forgets what it is like. He has not been put back together so gently ever before.
"I know," Thorne says softly, breathlessly. "I know. If you hadn't been there, I would - " he sucks in a sharp breath, "I wouldn't have gone. I wouldn't have come back. You brought me back."
And there is something there beyond fondness, beyond simple gratitude. It runs bone deep, this soft reverence, this undivided attention. Loyalty that has clung to his very core, whatever incorporeal thing that makes him what he is, that keeps him coming back through all of these cycles, each and every one.
"Not this time," Thorne says softly, and looks at Chris, "I won't - let it be this time. I want all of it, with you. Coalsmoke that is ours, but more than that - "
And he cannot finish the sentence for the enormity of it, the way it slices down into his core and bleeds everything out of him, every wish and want and dream and desire, all of them tethered to Chris. He presses his lips together but surely the blond knows his thoughts. Can see them in his eyes. I am yours is a mantra he would whisper again and again into Chris's skin if he had the chance.
Thorne watches Chris hides his face and his heart wrenches at the sight. Gently, tenderly, he raises his hand and presses their palms together as he pulls Chris's own away from his face. He works with a certain, unregistered softness, as though relearning every motion they have ever gone through together, ever step in the dance that had reconciled them that night so long ago. He cups Chris's face with one hand and thumbs over the wetness against his cheek, the soft lower edge of his eye.
"Don't hide," he says so gently it could be a whisper, if not for the raw intensity of it, the plea in his voice. "I vow to you I will never hide from you again. I'll never lie to you again. So please don't hide from me. You are everything, everything to me. I am yours."
The space between already feels too much for the rawness of emotion in his stomach, the way his chest aches and clamors, as though it's trying to escape.
"So stay with me, please," Thorne whispers, "So just let me be with you tonight. We'll find a way. We'll find one, and then we'll come home."
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Posted: Sun Sep 25, 2016 2:08 am
The stark difference between his past five days and this moment at Dusk are such a sharp contrast that it almost feels like whiplash to Chris. He had been terrified to lose it all, he had been terrified that he could come and Thorne would shun him. Would have him leave, make good on Chris' word to leave and for him to not come back.
But instead it is them again, together despite it all. He wonders how many times this has happened, that in if all nineteen iterations or how many he's been alive, he has chased after Thorne. If he has followed Thorne each time because Thorne shines so brightly Chris cannot help but be drawn. He would chase after Thorne each time if he had to, just to have this moment.
It is dark, it is darkening outside, but Chris just feels like everything is illuminated.
"That's all I want," He murmurs, soft as he can. "I'll do it too, not just you. Both of us. Open, honest."
Because Chris won't demand from Thorne something he won't give back and he says it with finality, with acknowledgement that he knows Thorne will do this. He trusts Thorne, trusts him to not make this mistake a second time. Because he can see it in Thorne that he is not the only one affected by this, he is not the only one who spent days anxious and worried and paralyzed by fear. They both had been scared and they both were learning.
It's hard to not tuck Thorne under him when he leans in, to not wrap his arms around him and comfort him. But he's still scared of rejection, of being pushed away. Of hurting Thorne, even though he is holding his hand. So he lets his thumb swipe over his skin, he tilts his head in so he is as close to Thorne as he can dare. The beanie slips on his head a little, tilts into his eyes over his bangs, but Chris does not care.
As long as he can see Thorne, as long as he can hear Thorne, nothing else matters.
"I had to," Chris whispers, "I had to because you're - you matter. You matter so much. You're worth it, every single time Thorne you are worth it."
He means it with his soul, with his entire being. He would walk through hell for Thorne, would do what it took to bring him back. They were a pair, bonded through time and he hoped, the cycles. The idea that they would be there for each other through time and hell and everything else.
"No, not this time," He says and he thinks of everything he told Mare. She had brushed it off so easily, but it comes back now and he can see it. He can feel that hope rise up again, the idea that Coalsmoke will be theirs and he will keep it with Thorne. That they will stay through this, that they will make this the final battle. The best end they can do.
Thorne doesn't have to finish his sentence because Chris knows, because he has always known. The enormity of it doesn't scare Chris any less than it does Thorne, but he is willing to throw himself on this blade and expose himself to Thorne. To the world. He wants to prove himself, to think he could do something that wasn't just support. To be more than just a side character, to have someone look at him like he was special.
Thorne was that and more.
For that he's pliant under Thorne's hands, his own moving easily at Thorne's request. It's a repeat of that dance, motions the same and yet changed ever so slightly. He closes his eyes and the tears spill, falling down his face.
"I won't" He says quietly, "I vow too, I vow that I will give myself to you. That I'll believe in you, I'll believe in myself. I am yours, I am yours to the very end and past that."
He wants to fold himself into Thorne, he wants to close the space between them. He wants the warmth they've shared on the bed, the warmth they shared on that first night. The warmth they've shared on that dance. Bright and burning and affirming that he was alive, they were alive.
He laughs, something startled through his tears, fond almost. "Thorne," He says, tender, "Thorne don't you know? Coalsmoke, my apartment, even Ashdown. None of this is home, it has never been home. You're my home, you've been my home for so long now. I was home the minute you came up here and didn't leave. I was home the minute you agreed to talk to me and I've been there since and I don't plan to leave. Not again. I'm sorry I did at all."
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Posted: Sun Sep 25, 2016 4:27 pm
Thorne smiles, and the expression is raw and aching and small. It is splintered, fractured, because without Chris he'd felt empty, like something had been taken from him, wrenched away and stolen. But it's the first time he's really smiled since their fight, since everything, and even though it is all so wrong - all of it, their world, the cycles, the cage - in this moment Thorne allows them to be alright.
To be healing, even if the road forward is long.
"Together then," Thorne echoes. His breath shudders from him, a shaky, living thing. He feels every shell splinter open, like Chris has cracked open his chest and allowed everything inside of him free. The ache still lasts, too great in its enormity to be happiness, too hopeful to be a simple sorrow.
It's so easy to say it, and so fierce and frightening to feel it in his bones. Together had been the word that had scared him the most when he had learned what he was, because the opposite of together was apart and a soft, terrified whisper in him had grown into a shout, screaming -
What if he leaves? You're no longer human, you were never human, so why would he stay?
He shouldn't have listened and he knows that now, but it doesn't make the ache of his guilt and shame any less profound. He's already lost three months to Melany. No more lost because of himself. No more lost because he's afraid.
"You're worth it too," Thorne says quietly, achingly, "You're worth it. One hundred times over. You are."
He thumbs away the tears, bites his lip and tries to tame the rolling in his stomach, the slow burn of truth and understanding inside of him through his veins. Through every inch of him, until there is nowhere left to hide from it. Until there is no lie he can speak to himself to hide away the truth. He shudders, bowed beneath its weight, but slides his hand down to grip the back of Chris's head gently, to bow it enough so he can press their foreheads together.
"I know," Thorne says softly, "And I'm yours. I told you - this... all of this... it's always been yours."
He nearly chokes on the relief, on every word from Chris's mouth, like a starburst inside of him. He hadn't ever expected this, hadn't ever dared to hope. Not since Chris had left after the fight. Not since Jeremiah's visit, his caustic words. Not since his world had splintered, had become bleak again - because there was so much of it that had been colored by Chris's own hand that to go back to that loneliness felt like suddenly seeing the world once more in black and white.
Chris speaks and Thorne wants nothing more than to close the last edge of distance before him, to hold him close and protected from the world beyond. For the first time, though, his hunger doesn't taste like shame. He's not afraid of Chris, of himself, of what he could do to the other, because he knows now that he would rather give his life, everything that he is, than hurt the other again.
He laughs, helpless, the relief like a slow drag in the sound. He pulls Chris closer, he wants to fill the gaps and doesn't know how. He looks up at the other, his eyes glassy, wet, wild and searching and safe. Oh, he feels safe.
"It's alright," Thorne says softly, "You came back. You came home. And it will always be yours - I will always - be yours." He thumbs a gentle constellation against the back of Chris's neck. He does not let himself look away.
"I was looking for you all this time," he says softly, "I'm sorry for all I've done, but I won't run anymore. Not from you."
And it is the abandonment of the ghosts in his head, the choice to let go. He's held onto Corr's fingers for too long, held onto his fathers hand for too long, held onto all of these things that told him he had to be alone.
No more, no more.
"And you're the one who found me," Thorne breathes out, "Thank you. Thank you."
And there is another confession there, softer, hidden in the corner of his chest, in the hollow of his throat. A confession for another place, another time.
For Chris, one day. One day.
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Posted: Sun Sep 25, 2016 5:16 pm
He curls closer to Thorne and has his own smile, small but happy. The first genuine one he'd had in awhile, the first he's allowed himself and it warms him. It gives him hope, it gives him light, almost enough to blind him.
Because they can do this, they can fix this.
The word together sounds hopeful from Thorne, it sounds like something they can accomplish. Not apart, but together, just trying. It would be hard, Chris knew it would be. It was one thing to make promises, to talk about what had done and how to fix it. But Chris believed in Thorne, believed that he would be able to do what he said. That they could work at it, that they could achieve it.
Chris knows that together, they are something and so he'll believe in it. Because they have done this in cycles before, have been inexplicably drawn to each other, that it has to mean something. It has to.
"If you say so," Chris says quietly, and there's an edge of insecurity in his words, but it's mostly a tease. A gentle prod, a gentle play. He doesn't believe that he himself is worth it, not really, not yet, but if Thorne says it he'll go along with it.
He'll follow Thorne anywhere really.
Chris tilts his head into Thorne's hand, presses closer. Closes his eyes, but his tears are slowing. Stopping, to where he follows Thorne's hand. Where he feels their foreheads connect and feels safe, feels like he's back where he belongs.
Mine, mine, mine, something selfish in him hums and he cannot deny it. Thorne is his, he is Thorne's. That's how it is, that's how it will be. He only nods his affirmation to Thorne, unwilling to release himself from this warmth. From this comfort, from his reaffirmation that he's allowed back.
He blinks his eyes open, focuses his gaze on Thorne. He has never felt shy under Thorne's gaze, never scrutinized, just like he was... something. A wonder, a joy, and he shudders at the touch at the back of his neck.
"Mine," He whispers, "I'm yours, I promise too. Until the end. You're home, you're mine."
It's selfish, oh it's a selfish deceleration but it's what he knows is true. He will keep it close, keep it until it stops being simply true and just simply is. A rule of the universe, a law of earth, as easy as gravity.
"I'll always find you," Chris says, "Because you find me. Because you look for me, because you believe I'm something."
And the space between them, it is too much. It is too much so Chris lets go of Thorne's hand, he pulls back and then pulls Thorne into a hug. Tucks him under his chin, wraps his arm around him and finds himself gripping the material of Thorne's shirt too tightly.
"I've got you," He says.
They are okay.
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