Gavin touches his face, and Cry can feel his whole world ｓｈａｔｔｅｒ around him. Every careful boundary he’s built up, every secret he’s kept hidden over the years, all of it just ｃｒｕｍｂｌｅｓ under the sheer gravity of the moment.
He wants to run -- he wants to cry -- he wants out. The panic is doing more than just rest inside his bones. It’s pouring out of the cracked bits of his barriers, pooling in his veins, pulling his lungs tight, tight, tight. He’s trembling under the Golden Boy’s fingers, terrified of the repercussions of this moment -- ᴡʜʏ ᴅɪᴅ ʜᴇ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ᴛᴏ ɢᴏ ᴀɴᴅ ɢᴇᴛ ᴀᴛᴛᴀᴄʜᴇᴅ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴛʜɪs?
❝ Gorgeous. ❞
The single word that falls from the Brit’s lips has the very last piece of Cry’s world (ʜɪᴍsᴇʟғ) breaking. An odd blend of a sob and a laugh tears from his chest, somehow sounding as though it edged on sarcastic.
Yeah, right.
As if anyone could find his eyes -- could find him -- anything other than freakish. He was a mutant, a dumb anomaly in the genepool, and he knew it. He’d accepted it, built himself a new identity to spare other people the shock -- to spare himself the abuse.
And yet, here Gavin was, lying to his face. His actual face, not just his mask. The anger, the pain, it all boils under his skin. He wants to ｓｃｒｅａｍ. It isn’t fair.
The Golden Boy has it all.
The looks, the friends, the crew, the family. And here Cry is, having given up the one thing he has to the boy as well.
When he opens his mouth to speak, there’s lips against his own. They’re soft, and the sudden gentleness is jarring. Gavin’s not leaving. Gavin’s not leaving. The realization slowly dawns on him as the Golden Boy keeps him close.
He can’t stop the tears from dripping down his face.
Stunned hands reach up after a few moments, twisting into the Brit’s shirt as Cry returns the kiss. He isn’t sure why he does it; why he wants to be close to the one man that could now destroy him at the drop of a hat.
n. the ambiguous intensity of looking someone in the eye, which can feel simultaneously invasive and vulnerable—their pupils glittering, bottomless and opaque—as if you were peering through a hole in the door of a house, able to tell that there’s someone standing there, but unable to tell if you’re looking in or looking out.
@legitbrit
The look in Gavin’s eyes was indescribable. Stunned, perhaps. Curious, an even bigger possibility. As Cry’s eyes finally met his, for the first time, he saw his own uncertainties reflected there.
For as long as he could remember, he’d kept his eyes hidden in some form. In grade school, he grew his hair out to keep it swept over them. In high school, it was a pair of shades that his teachers often scolded him for wearing. Before he dropped out of college, it was contacts -- but even those, people had questioned. He could never escape the constant barrage of ❛ show me, show me. ❜
The moment he put on his mask, the moment he chose his name and his path, those were the moments he was truly free from all that.
Things were good. He learned how to hack, how to shoot a gun, how to stay in the shadows. People didn’t bother him as he rose to a quiet infamy.
People came to know him and his mask. Came to fear him, even. The constant pestering was gone, replaced with a much-needed silence.
Until -- until Gᴀᴠɪɴ had come along. The Fakes’ Golden Boy was all fire and questions. Nothing seemed to satiate his curiosity. He was the exact opposite of Cry, and the other hacker hated it.
He hated this boy that was so confident in everything he did, in every word he said, no matter how stupid they might have been. He envied Gavin, would have given anything to be even half the person the Golden Boy was.
Maybe it was that envy that had gotten them to their current situation. Perhaps it could have even been the catalyst for what the hate had blossomed into.
As much as he hated the Golden Boy, somewhere along the line, Cry had learned to trust him. Learned to love him.
Whatever strange mix of emotions he felt for the man had led him here, mismatched eyes staring into Gavin’s, as the weight of the world swallowed him up. A faint blush burned high on his cheeks as the panic welled in his chest.
He felt.. lost. It had been years since he’d looked anyone in the eyes like this. Behind his mask, he had the illusion of anonymity. He could never be that ambiguous with Gavin ever again, and the realization had him taking in a sharp breath. He felt so vulnerable like this, as though he’d placed his own soul (like he still had one) into the palms of the other man’s hands.
The way Gavin’s pupils dilated didn’t help him much with the way his heart was pounding, his pulse heavy in his throat as he found himself swallowed up by them. The world disappeared around the two of them -- at least from Cry’s point of view. Everything had narrowed down to himself, and the man he trusted enough to bare one of his most well-hidden secrets to.
The intensity of the situation, of Gavin’s lack of a proper response, had tears prickling in the back of Cry’s eyes.
Time slowed to a crawl as the man desperately searched Gavin’s eyes. All he could find were those two empty pupils staring back at him, himself reflected in the greenish-grey of the other’s irises, and a feeling of.. an almost out-of-body experience.
Dissociation. That’s what it was, Cry reminded himself softly, as he floated, helpless, in the void of the Golden Boy’s pupils.
..Why would Gavin want him around anymore if he knew what a freak he really was?
Cry shrugs faintly, tucking both hands into his hoodie as his gaze finds the ground from behind his mask. It’s far more interesting than the man before him at the moment.
His lips twitched up to a near sadistic grin, not taking anymore steps in case the other becomes hostile. He might actually recognize that name, but he’s not gonna say anything about it.
Cry shrugs faintly, tucking both hands into his hoodie as his gaze finds the ground from behind his mask. It’s far more interesting than the man before him at the moment.
Gavin Free; known to be annoyingly curious. Time to step it up. Literally; taking a step a slightly closer to the other man. Either he wants to get a rise out of him or genuinely know things about him, he’s not sure.
“Anybody specific?” He probed; need to maybe, back off.
“I won’t know them, probably.”
the step forward from gavin is mirrored as a step back from cry. he values the hell out of his personal space, and this guy is making his skin prickle.
“Some tagger. Goes by Cr1tikal.”
even behind the mask, it’s clear his gaze has shifted up, almost a challenge.
Cry shrugs faintly, tucking both hands into his hoodie as his gaze finds the ground from behind his mask. It’s far more interesting than the man before him at the moment.
That was a much better answer than the vague one, made sense and stuff.
But dammit. Dammit, he wants to see the other’s face, his eyes if he’s protecting them this badly. It’s not gonna be easy but he’s gonna try it.
Just ‘cause.
He fiddled with the bracelets on his arms, “True..
“Anybody ever seen them before? Or your face in general?”
god, he’d be so happy to leave it at that, but he’s already coming to learn that this guy didn’t give up. why did all the crews have to be so.. like. this. if he’d forgotten why he wanted to stay on a ‘for hire’ basis, he remembers now.
Cry shrugs faintly, tucking both hands into his hoodie as his gaze finds the ground from behind his mask. It’s far more interesting than the man before him at the moment.
Gavin inhaled softly at the noise. This guy. This guy. Why does he always find people to get so much more interested in when they clearly don’t want his interest.
“I mean…” he started then paused.
“I don’t know, I just wanna know more. That’s all.”
Cry shrugs faintly, tucking both hands into his hoodie as his gaze finds the ground from behind his mask. It’s far more interesting than the man before him at the moment.
Cry shrugs faintly, tucking both hands into his hoodie as his gaze finds the ground from behind his mask. It’s far more interesting than the man before him at the moment.
areudirty
origamiaround
amandla
