He doesn’t know what this is, this press of lips, this shared breath, but it feels right. It feels like he’s found a piece of him that was missing, like he’s found shelter in the storm. It’s warm, even as it trembles like a leaf in the wind in his arms, and all his senses are at once soothed and inflamed.
He presses his brow to the smaller man’s, focuses on his heartbeat and the sound of his breath. There is still a part of him that wants to run, wants to find the ones who inflicted this pain and show them how wrong they were to touch him, to hunt him. He would show them what it meant to be hunted.
But to do that would mean leaving this man alone, and he can’t … he just can’t. He’s only just found him, found this, and the thought of letting it go is almost physically painful. So, he doesn’t. He doesn’t let go, doesn’t give chase, because there is something more important than wrath. Someone more important.
"Show me," he says. He’s reluctant to rise, but he does, gently pulling the smaller man to his feet. He keeps hands on his shoulders, firm but careful, to steady him. His eyes scan the man’s slender form, mapping out every mark on his pale skin and tear in his scratch clothes. His lip curls into something like a snarl at the sight of them all, and a growl rumbles deep in his chest. But he grits his teeth and presses his brow to the man’s again, as reassuring a gesture as he knows.
"You can walk?"
He looks unsteady, shaky on his feet like a newborn first finding its legs. He worries he’ll fall like they do. Stumble.
"I can carry you."
[ W h i m p e r i n g —- ] is scarcely held back by the time they pull apart. Even though it was him, it was his choice to pull away, there is a part that aches to take more as much as he wants to give. Fingers itch to push away fabric, to feel the scalding heat of skin against his palms. God how he wants for things he’s never thought. For those lips at his throat and those hands kissing bruises down his spine. For feeling this man’s weight pressing him down, suffocating him.
Each touch is like breathing air after drowning.
It tears him apart yet keeps him together, keeps the tremors from his body as he’s guided up to his feet. The man bades him to show him and Lucas feels an answering call of ‘Yes. Anything.’ that he does not understand. Normally he would bristle at the notion of being ordered about. But there is a certain amount of good nature this man seems to draw to the surface with each slow contact. Where layers of mistrust should keep him from leaning into that body, Lucas finds himself nearly circling his arms about broad shoulders as he all but nuzzles in close with a sigh threatening to slip free.
Can he walk? No. Not yet. Despite the rather enthusiastic display, he has little strength to count on to make it the length of distance to his apartment. A brief smile threatens to slip free as fingers set to work away that quiet snarl. It was for him, for his sake, that those handsome features are twisted up with rage for him.
“Please,” he whispers softly, asking perhaps moreso for this man’s sake than his own. As if he can sense the bubbling anger if it were his own and knows it would be best for him to stay, for them to be close while this was still fresh. A part of Lucas is terrified that if this wild man leaves he’ll wake up alone, bloodied, and cold in the alley once more.
“Please…stay with me.”
