❛ if i kissed you, i do not think that I could stop. ❜
❛ you had my heart before i could say no. ❜ / Dahlia&Jhin
& Valentine's libations – accepting !
@varldsormr // Jhin
source (x)
Dahlia does not take lovers.
Because she is a woman, especially in her line of work, responsible for feeding eight mouths including her own, to keep a roof over their heads – she does not take lovers. A man would want her to back down, to marry, to bear children, to make him feel like he has a purpose on God's earth. And it isn't that she is strongly against settling down, but that there is more to her life than living in someone else's shadow, or being someone's wife. There is a whole community that depends on how she plays her hand.
For these reasons, and then some, keeping a companion becomes a fantasy for the lonely, early hours and holds no place at the table of her affairs. Before Thorne there had only been another – a boy, a journalist, pining across the street and exchanging sweets but nothing else. Boarding the train headed West put a quick end to all that.
"Did you know I made the first move." She had confessed to Jhin as they sat on the porch steps, away from the revelry of the house, boys being boys drunk on New Year's celebrations. Her words carry shame, the very same she so often held close to her body, womanhood she tried to wash, cut off, and then stitch back again. She had boarded that train just a girl. 'That is your most precious gift', meant for a husband. Meant for someone to take. So there comes a time when your body will stop being yours, and they will fight over it, who gets to be there first. Such commotion. Such violence.
She picked him. Someone who would never be a husband. Someone who wouldn't care, and who'd follow her regardless, and adore her, blood or not. In hindsight, maybe there had been something in the blood, because now the trouble was getting the devil to stop pestering her for a hot minute. At least it was done.
But ruin didn't come. Not then.
It came later, when Jhin washed up in town and her heart crawled up to her mouth. They took him in. For weeks she wouldn't eat right, think straight; she'd walk into corners, furniture, slam fingers, burn her neck on the hot iron while curling her hair. Wherever he was she had to nail herself to the floor to prevent gravity from taking her too. It crept up like a low, mad fever, robbing her of sleep and focus, too aware of the noises coming from the next room, learning the sound of his steps on the corridor, heavy and measured, wishing they would linger by her door.
Understand that Dahlia does not take lovers, and for her to ask, at the dawn of the new year, "Would you kiss me, if I asked you to?" it took several planets to align, endless moons and bleeding in between, two glasses of sherry and a gargantuan ocean of longing that she could no longer contain. There, on the porch, under the cosmic tapestry of the night sky, umber eyes glimmer, reticent but hopeful.
Jhin is quiet for a while. His tides move slowly but drag the earth beneath them, beneath her feet, and she wonders if he can tell she's trembling under warm layers of shawls and knits. When his answer finally pierces the air between them, she has half a mind to search for his hand in the dark and bring it tentatively to her lips, desperately refusing to break contact. God, let her be in the halo of his love, even if it's borrowed, even just for the night.
"You wouldn't have to stop." She holds his gaze with all the steadiness she can muster, the seam of her lips brushing gingerly over weathered knuckles. Her voice fans out over his skin. "I don't think I would want you to." Still, she was certain he would – that he'd never take anything more than what she put out. Restraint had been hard-earned with some of the joyful idiots in the house, but not with Jhin. He would halt at the lift of a finger, that much she knew.
What she doesn't know is how to process the idea that her feelings might be reciprocated, and that whatever grew in her, had grown in him too. A stubborn weed taking roots, blooming in the inhospitable arid land.
How many wrong turns did they have to take to find each other out here?
"Even if you had no choice, I hope you let me keep it."
❛ i never planned to have you on my mind this often. ❜ / Thorne&Jormun
❛ you matter to me, fool. ❜ (gently edited--) / Thorne&Jormun
❛ i have been taught to kill, but never how to love. ❜ (gently editedx2) / Thorne&Jormun
any of these /peek
& Valentine's libations – accepting !
@varldsormr // Jormun
source (x)
There's something profoundly tragic about how they only seem to be getting words out when they're silly drunk and/or on the precipice of something – usually Thorne convalescing from injuries indirectly self-inflicted as a result of consistently poor life choices. It's a double-tragedy because Jormun so rarely opens up that, when he does, the devil is so thoroughly flattened that he can't respond with anything intelligent let alone mature. And by drunk he means... drunk drunk. So drunk he can hardly get it up so he's all hands and no game, but it's fine if the big man can still do it, because he can certainly take it. Jesus, no, head on straight, a shake and a hard blink. What had he been talking about?
"I'm hard to get rid of." He retorts, proudly, mouth all teeth and rum breath. Above them, an ocean of stars swirl slowly, blurring together in and out of focus. Waves lap at the shore a few feet in front of them as they recline against the dunes, Thorne's guitar long set aside, shoulder to shoulder. The night is peaceful and dark and cool, and he'd been thinking about his mother again. About Dahlia, and the ones who'd grown tired of him before death came. I'm just a toy, use me then lose me, the line comes back to him – the beginning of his downward spiral.
He mulls over his friend's gentle reassurance, a branch offered. Sheepishly, he looks at Jormun, so much sincerity in such a massive body. Between them, a tangled nest of feelings they continuously failed to make heads or tails of. They are precious though. This is. It doesn't need a name.
"I'm sorry to make you listen to Sad Hours FM. You're a good friend." He bites down on the inside of his cheek, swallows the discomfort that comes with the word. Friend is an anaemic term when you've loved someone for half a fucking millennium. Thorne's head drops for him to nuzzle his cheek against the serpent's shoulder, trying not to poke him in the face with one of his horns. He keeps it up for a while, groaning contentedly, inching up so his nose is pressed to Jormun's hair and the rubbing continues against his jaw and cheek like a starved cat. With a sigh he relents at last and takes another miserable swig.
"I don't know. I would love you even if you tried to kill me. You must be doing somethin' right."
For humans, it's usually easy to figure out what it is. They're hungry, they're horny, they're ill, they're sad. They paint elaborate stories and write themselves out of solutions that would otherwise have been so easy to grasp. So easy. Too easy, maybe? They make no sense. They're fascinating.
Summers are mild up here, and it's only his second down this side of the coast. Humans are at it again, tearing each other to shreds for some manmade God, and it's not safe for the circus to linger long anywhere. So they move, pack up, load the carts, strap the horses and the mules, and find somewhere else to camp. Most of the crew stays there, because they're the kind of freak that's easy to pick out from the bunch and throw in the pyre. Satan this, Satan that. The excuse is always show business, makeup, fake, it's fake, it's fake, safer together.
But he's fine. He's got his tricks going, and looks eighteen; a young man, a boy. Wanted for a different reason.
The few that make it to town spread the word – there's a show on Saturday – and give out tasters for a coin. Acrobats, jugglers, strongfolk. Tricksters. Astaire has his own makeshift stage just off the church square; it's risky, but anywhere is risky, and he looks just odd enough to draw the eye but not enough to justify the crucifix. Odd as in foreigner. Thick accent, strange garb. Up there on the rotting wooden pulpit he saunters around in nothing but an open vest of the richest purple, its seams adorned with brass coins that had been polished and sewn in for visual and audible charm, tinkling along to his bold, sweeping, enchanting moves. Around his waist was a dull red scarf, covering the most indecent expanse of his lean midriff, doubling as a belt for brown woven pants. In the heat, he walks barefoot.
A decent, bubbling crowd gathers 'round: peasants, merchants, children, and the other, the odd, the curious. What a tall drink o' water. Salt still on his skin, bronze godling, full of rage and wonder alike. What Thorne wouldn't give for a bite of that. But these days he also starves, and his admirer doesn't look like the kind who'd have a silver to spare for a blowjob. His focus drifts. He reads them all like the open book they are, tells them what they want to hear. What they fear. Incites excitement and intrigue. Confirms affairs, reveals curses, shines light on hearts fluttering with love. She loves you, loves you not.
There are other things. A daisy pulled out of thin air for a young girl, a whisper. Fluttering they go. He steps down from the deck to mingle while his assistant collects donations in a hat, and the show carries on. Up close and personal, he has hands everywhere, he sees everything. He only targets those that have something to spare but haven't done so yet – and those whom he personally wants to remember. Just in case. He stops behind the tall stranger, enough for the heat of his skin to mingle with the warmth of the afternoon, to graze the cold one. One bite.
"Hope to see you all this weekend, my good people." Having pocketed his chosen recuerdo, Thorne theatrically bows to the stunned audience and offers them a sharp, vulpine grin before retreating into a narrow side street, teeth sinking into a crisp apple fished out of their loot and bidding his page farewell. His boy was set to head straight back to camp, but the demon had yet to call it a day.
They listen to the draw from a settee in the gallery, dregs of ichor staining chalices on the floor, hearts thrumming on a sustained note of gentle euphoria. Thorne has almost entirely draped himself over his companion, claiming most of his lap, commanding his undivided attention. Mlle. Armetta's composed grace had begun to unravel. Locks of onyx hair fell loose from her crown, and her tulle scarf was now in careless loops around her wrist, leaving her throat bare to the scruff of Jormun's beard. She cares very little for what their host has to say, words and applause swirling in the irrelevant background of their private reverie. In fact, she hardly remembers the lines of verse she penned down, or the edge of emotion that drove her hand.
When silence precedes the reading of the winning wish, when the first few words strike the chord of recognition within his heart, Thorne's smile vanishes under a sobering wave of embarrassment. It didn't make sense. There were hundreds of guests in this snake pit; these weren't odds he usually beat. Suddenly indisposed, he peels himself away from his spot and approaches the rail, peering down at the stage below, catching the beady eyes of their ghoulish patron. His already climbing apprehension grows into mortification when they are informed that the wish should be granted on stage, before the incredulous mob.
No amount of wine sipped straight from a God's lips would have saved him from the intimate hell he plunges into. He feels himself a spectator of his own old circus act: the illusionist with many cards up his sleeve, pulling roses from his mouth and wishes from the crowd; the one who preys on your sorrows and doubts, and what can't he do for the right price... while an audience cheers, cries, and feeds off your stage-propped hope. Regardless, he continues to believe M. Marley works with nothing but a trick of the light. It won't be his Dahlia, but some other young face, smeared in blood for the play, while they look on, hungry for his pain.
He doesn't want to be made fool.
"Excuse me for a minute." Collecting the hem of her dress, Tomasina hurriedly abandons her perch while angling her face to conceal any worrying trace of emotion from her friend, taking to the spiral stairs in hurried gait. She aimed to catch the host himself but he had already faded back into the bowels of the stage, so she comes to a near screeching halt by the designated assistant, towering over him with a flicker of hell-forged wrath in her eye.
"We were told nothing about this being turned into a public spectacle."
Eyes on the horizon, they scan for silhouettes the rain threatens to otherwise conceal. It pours incessantly without thunder, muddying the path, silencing the world around them. Tirelessly, her needle weaves in and out of a cut of white linen, embroidering little leaves around a stalk with a dull green silk thread. The light has faded outside. Soon it would be too dark to glimpse the horizon at all, and all anxieties rise in the nightfall. That they are taking too long, that something might have gone wrong, that nobody will get a wink of sleep until news arrive. Gloria would be coming up to the lady's room, asking what to do with the chicken, twisting her hands in her apron.
Not yet. As is, their beloved cook dozes by the hearth, specs slid all the way down her ruby nose, a knife and bowl of green peas still in her lap. These days it's just the two of them watching, waiting, running the house and the business. Waiting, mostly. While Dahlia traces and retraces their plans, finger-combing for unspotted risks, adding up the accounts, writing endless letters and coded telegrams to connections across the West, Gloria dusts and sweeps and cooks and sings to herself songs that have followed her since she was a girl.
Their mistress continues to weave her fine thread, waiting. It's late in the afternoon when the first horse comes into view. Abandoning her work, Dahlia flies from the armchair by her bedroom window to run down the spiral staircase, shouting quick orders in the general direction of the kitchen. Gloria jumps in her seat, startled by the commotion, but quickly starts on the pots and pans with decades of practised ease.
The headcount begins. One, two, three, four– "Thorne's with his pearls." Relief hits at once, Dahlia's breath drawing as she steps back inside the house and follows Wallace into the dining room. He carries a satchel bursting with papers she knows they'll have to go through in the morning, but for now she wants the quick rundown of events. Her eyes dart anxiously to check on Jhin and the brothers, unable to rest until she had confirmed their good health. They all stand there shuffling, in and out of the hallway, peeling off soaked coats and wet boots, careful don't get it on the rug, who gave you that shiner, young man?, go get changed before supper. She shoos them all upstairs, her helpless heart lingering on one, leaning as he passes, and draws her shawl over her shoulders to go help Gloria with their meal.
They'd been on the road for three days now. It's well known that Thorne doesn't love sleeping underneath the stars. That four days is pushing it, five days is his limit. He likes the towns and the women and the inns; he likes the greasy card games and easy bets, the flowing booze, the local bards in the saloons. However, the devil had never been in any rush to settle. He's more than content going from place to place, seizing opportunities as they came to them. Even if that meant copious nights spent out in the open, amongst the lizards and the coyotes, with his guns under his pillow like they were the most precious things he owned.
On a clear night, they don't bother with the tent. The lady gets the wagon, naturally, and sometimes one of them lucky bastards, though the occurrence doesn't happen often and relies on the belly of the moon for guidance. Jhin, the brothers and him all scatter around the fire, often with Thorne's insufferable guitar and Javier on the harmonica until they all agree it's time to sleep. Tonight, though, the air hot and dry and the blackness above immensely starry, the five of them share some after-dinner pears and liquor as the conversation flows easily from one hour to the next.
Dahlia perches on the smooth slope of a rock with one of her knees propped up and the other leg flush against Jhin's oblique. She had convinced the man to let her plait his hair into a french braid, which she handled with meticulous care and precision, aiming for perfect symmetry. The boys had been tossing stories about old haunts back and forth, and she'd been asked about any crushes left pining back East. Almost immediately, a dreamy, gauzy look comes over her, a little smile painted on fire-lit features.
To their right, Thorne leans forward with vested interest, propping his chin in his hands as his best impersonation of innocence, cigarette ablaze between dirt encrusted fingers. He waited patiently for each slice that Jhin would feed him from the pear he slowly carved, eyes shimmering with unbridled glee.
"I'm not telling you heathens anythin'." She declares, much to the crowd's dismay, who boo and lament not getting a glimpse of this other life their leader had lived. The lady only laughs in response, her head cocked at a drowsy angle, sifting her digits in an upward motion from Jhin's nape in order to gather more of his tresses. "I already know more about you lot than I'd care to."
starter for @inter-vivosmosis & @varldsormr // Harry & Jhin
It's a big day for town gossip when the devil is seen arriving flanked by a foreign angel nobody had yet set eyes on. They traverse along the main artery heading for the railway line mid-morning, at the place's busiest, each on their own steed. As if that alone isn't enough to draw copious amounts of attention, Ozzy smells every mare in need within a five mile radius and keeps trying to break into a trot, snorting furious, deep-chested grunts through dilated nostrils. Used to his trail partner's antics, Thorne pays him no mind, merely keeping a firm grip on the reins to let him know they had work to do, first. Hormones had been victimising a few around here lately, huh.
Gentlemen's hats tip as the duo passes, and faces appear at windows and doors, wide-eyed and scrutinising. Ladies air themselves a little faster, murmuring to each other behind fans of plume and lace, resisting the temptation to stop and stare but not to glance every chance they get. Thorne had imagined they would attract some curiosity, but the minute he turns away and finds Harry swarmed by a wreath of skirts he curses under his breath, having to practically fish the boy out of the piraña pond by the scruff of his neck.
"Is the young man working for you, Mr. Astaire?" A wave of giggles and sighs erupts, dainty steps hurrying next to them in trios and pairs.
"Miss Denvers' cousin is just visiting." An easy enough story to tell, accent and hair as selling points. When that doesn't seem to tank anyone's shameless ogling, he adds: "He'll be running errands for me, if you ladies would be so kind as to not delay him." Though spoken with the same charming smile that had both won and terrorised the town, it's the finite note in his voice that finally buys them some space and quietude so Thorne could show the boy around the main points, just as he had promised.
They follow the shade for the most part, though even in the blistering heat Thorne traipses around with his coat slung over his shoulders like a cape, cigarette always in hand. He checks in where he has to, figuring the local bookshop would be a safe place to leave Harry unattended while he pays someone a home visit, then swings by to see if he needed money. "Seen anything you like? Need a new paintbrush?"
After lunch, they head for The Ring Circle where the devil ought to check on his birds, most of whom should be rising from their sleep after the night shift sometime soon. They must first come to a mandatory stop at Trail's End, the saloon standing out in its seawash blue amongst the dirt and clay, wavering like a mirage in the hot early afternoon sun. Inside, however, the air is blissfully cooler, feature that Thorne is convinced to be exclusively achieved by the barkeep's icy demeanour.
"Got anything sweet, old man?" Thorne greets as he languidly glides through the swinging doors and over to the bar, removing his jacket in exaggeratedly camp fashion to leave it draped over one of the stools. "I need you to look after this young man while I tend to some business."
Late January, the world is frozen. The gang hibernates up on the hill, temporarily divorced from trouble, coming down only to collect fees and restock supplies. The trek through the snow takes double, and the horses are wet and wheezing by the end of it, and the wind cuts like a knife across the eyes and cheeks with nothing to stand in its way. Their cook has been to check on her sister and bellows for one of the guys to come get her down from the saddle. Javier trots outside to get her and relieve the horse of its load. She rushes in, distraught, twisting her red hands, forgetting the supplies she'd gotten in town, distractedly waving off 'How's yer sister then, Glo?' questions.
She wants to speak to Thorne alone.
"No entré." She swears, clutching the crucifix she wears by her throat, as if the idea of going into such an establishment was unthinkable. The fire spits behind Thorne, languidly thrown over a settee, still blinking through the crust of sleep. She means to tell him about one of the saloons, the one that closed for a while. It's up and running again, apparently, and she goes through a detailed roundabout of the things that changed and those that didn't – oh but no, she didn't go in. Would never. Swears on it. "Lo vi a través de la ventana." Not even a quick drink to warm her up on the ride back. She crosses herself, still breathing heavily from fright or effort – Thorne couldn't say. He sits upright.
"Quien, mujer?"
"Jhin."
****
The devil storms through the swinging doors of the saloon, a flurry of luminous, soft snow trailing in behind him. His cheeks glow a bright vermillion from the cold and his breath follows his racing, heart, wild with fear, choked with hope. Sure enough, that mad woman had been right. The man behind the bar turns to face the commotion like the rest of his patrons and Thorne feels his stomach plunge at the sight of this ghost. It couldn't be.
Resurrection is for gods.
"Get out." He instructs the customers – faces he should recognise now mere shadows in his eyes, addressing them in a rapidly escalating frenzy. When their reluctance to move begins to irk him, Thorne draws one of his pistols and swings it around, which promptly spurs a cacophony of scrambling movement.
