[ No, is the answer his eyes give. When he'd come here, perhaps that had been the plan, after he'd asked the questions he'd needed to ask and gotten the answers he hoped for, but now that he has — how can he drag Isaac any further into this? (Doesn't he owe him a fucking explanation, after all that?)
Instead of words, his gaze drops. Hands, too, to his pocket, fishing out a simple circle of beads strung to a long cylindrical clasp. Has to press them hard against his coat to get at the fastener one-handed, fingers slipping on the clasp, but he breathes and (pull yourself together) sets to unscrewing it. ]
I will handle it. [ A preface. An easy out, for when at the end of this Isaac still wants him gone — from this room, from his life. ]
I trusted someone I should not have, once. It went very poorly. [ It's the thinnest sliver of the story. It's not a lie. (It went very poorly, and he needs to ask now if his would-be lovers enjoy deforming live darkspawn; he can't just tell.) ] But he was dead. Years ago, I was so sure that he was dead.
But either I am losing my fucking mind, or— [ Or he isn't. Is it crazier to wish for a hallucination, or to have one? One end of the bracelet swings free. ] I hoped that I could trust you to just— tell me which. Please.
[ Please. A hand extended, the beads offered in a white nuckled fist. Within the hollow cylinder of its clasp, a small, very old vial of clouded glass and red. It's not Circle standard issue. It's easier to hand a Templar than a story about twisting bones. ]
[ Like he would have handled this? There aren't many ways to be sure. Not ones that end with someone's blood in your locket.
He takes the phial, with a pause that isn't hesitation so much as instinct: A reverence that time and proximity ought to have lessened, haven't. It feels like a bad secret; intimate in the manner of any viscera. The spells aren't difficult, enough Loyalists must know — at least, Loyalists without an arrest record. He doesn't need those lessons now to observe the gleam. Dim, and unmistakable.
(Not so bright as his own.)
I trusted someone I should not have. How peculiar it must be to draw an end to that story. Closure, tied up neat. How peculiar to watch it unravel. If any of this can even be believed — that couldn't be Ilias' blood. Could be anyone else's. As stories go, it's all terribly convenient.
[ Alive. It feels like— something. Finality. A decision. Dread (hope?) flooding his limbs with weightless cold, but at least he can breathe around the damage when he knows its shape. How and why matter less than the fact of it, neatly reducing every nonessential to background noise.
He ought to cut ties now, while there's still time. He ought to follow it, try to finish this again, or just run and run and run, but what he's doing is standing here in front of Isaac's fireplace, surveying his own wreckage.
He reaches to take the phial back, his hand steadier. –Doesn't rush to pull away again. Can't quite find it in him. ]
Thank you. [ In case there isn't another chance to say it. ] Not just for this.
[ There's a way to be sure — more sure than so sure, at least for a location. An identity. A mage bursting into lightning (ice, terror) would find it difficult to hide. He doesn't volunteer it. This could be anyone's blood.
(It seems a bad moment to suggest more sketchy magic.)
Ilias' palm curls about glass. Isaac's hand catches, a second followed up to smooth bloodless knuckles. One cracked thumb circles his wrist like a worry stone, lifted to meet the dip of Isaac's chin, the press of lips where skin meets sleeve. ]
[ A different sort of stillness settles in his eyes; slows breath.
This is not Ilias's finest moment. Isaac has seen him finer. This is shaking to pieces and not being sure how to pull himself back together again. This is vulnerability with a blast radius; the sort anyone in their right mind keeps away from. Not the sort you treat gently.
And yet.
His thumb shifts to find the line of Isaac's jaw. Brows pitch; You have terrible taste. But instead of saying so, instead of saying anything at all that might tilt the delicate balance of this moment, he steps in and presses a kiss to Isaac's lips. ]
[ There are questions to ask. How long ago did it start? Where’d you leave them, that Nevarra, Orlais, Kirkwall didn’t stir it? What exactly were you planning on if you hadn’t liked my answers?
There are better things to do.
Isaac leans in, savours the contact — not long, not to delay the graze of teeth as he pulls back once more, head inclined like the cat still after a canary. Too curious to be entirely self-satisfied, too satisfied with its own curiousity. He has terrible taste; that's never been unique. ]
Show me, [ His grip slackens, twists in turn to settle over Ilias' hand, over Ilias' chest. Skin pressed to skin, to cloth and sluggish glow. Fingers drift exploratory, still tracking the motions of the hand beneath his. A guide. ] What you want.
[ If this is even it; contact kept loose enough to pull away. His other palm slips to rest where muscle meets bone, the overhang of hip beneath cloth. He doesn't really need directions. ]
The hand beneath Isaac's doesn't move first; it's the other that lifts to meet it, two fingers reaching between hand and cloth to draw out that glowing bit of glass, lower it to tuck back into a pocket. Defining a positive with a negative. Not this.
(The first time he'd let anyone else touch him, it'd been like trying to scrape off his own skin, raking other people's hands over every bit of him that had learned to want just one, as if the only way to disentangle himself was to shed what he'd been before. Become something new.)
(He doesn't feel disentangled now. He feels like the thing doing the entangling, vines reaching for bricks to twist into against the wind. That's probably not important.)
Isaac doesn't need directions, but Ilias's eyes light at the prospect of giving them, curious in turn what exactly he expects. Shyness? Politeness? Fingers beneath fingers lead up to the collar of his robes, always so tightly buttoned, and unfasten the clasp at the very top -- and the next, and the next, a shaky breath pulled in or released between each, until there's room to slide his hand in around ribs, skin against skin.
(There's a scar, thin white and too clean from the hollow of his throat down, that he tries not to touch at all.) ]
[ If not shyness, perhaps reserve — whatever it is that inspires such earnest attempts at distance —
One unraveled with suspicious ease, along the length of a seam: Pale and deliberate as the path that Ilias cuts around it, and still threatening to snare the eye. Isaac stalls to catch the curve of a rib, fingers splayed to pin Ilias' hand in place. The press of his weight forward, the shift to grip a handful of thigh, betrays more eagerness than he'd care. It's been a while.
(Longer, since there were any secrets worth stealing.)
Stubble grazes under his lips, pressed in again to whisper at a jaw. ]
Like this? [ A huff of breath, amused; another moment to decide that: ] Not like this.
[ It's a shit angle. His neck is going to kill him. ]
Edited (word repetition, my mortal foe) 2019-01-03 06:42 (UTC)
[ A low laugh hums in his throat, even as his head tilts back to bare that vulnerability too. It is a shit angle. The accommodating bend of his knee does nothing to help matters, either — but they're not apprentices relegated to balancing acts in awkward alcoves any longer.
A decision is made; a heated murmur near his ear, and a touch sliding greedily round the back of his neck to the midline, to keep Isaac near as he takes a reluctant step back, ] Follow me?
[ Convenient, that there isn't more furniture in this room after all: a destination, and not much to trip over along the way. ]
[ He shoves, playful, frees hand from hand. It's not the convenient grip to relinquish, that one's still hitching Ilias’ step up the side of his leg.
It makes for a strange, hobbled gait: Four feet and two heads of some Imperial chimera; motion entangled and enumerated by each point of contact — five fingers on his neck, eight teeth in Ilias' — the drum of pulse. They aren’t moving quickly, wouldn’t win a race, but tell that to the blood in his head (lower).
Fumbles at a button, caught in momentary indecision, his or his. But fuck, if robes aren’t the worst for this, and he doesn’t know the Nevarran style to wrangle it blind. Shakes his own loose just enough to stumble, lean into it. What good are arms like that if you can't, occasionally, fall into them. ]
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no subject
Instead of words, his gaze drops. Hands, too, to his pocket, fishing out a simple circle of beads strung to a long cylindrical clasp. Has to press them hard against his coat to get at the fastener one-handed, fingers slipping on the clasp, but he breathes and (pull yourself together) sets to unscrewing it. ]
I will handle it. [ A preface. An easy out, for when at the end of this Isaac still wants him gone — from this room, from his life. ]
I trusted someone I should not have, once. It went very poorly. [ It's the thinnest sliver of the story. It's not a lie. (It went very poorly, and he needs to ask now if his would-be lovers enjoy deforming live darkspawn; he can't just tell.) ] But he was dead. Years ago, I was so sure that he was dead.
But either I am losing my fucking mind, or— [ Or he isn't. Is it crazier to wish for a hallucination, or to have one? One end of the bracelet swings free. ] I hoped that I could trust you to just— tell me which. Please.
[ Please. A hand extended, the beads offered in a white nuckled fist. Within the hollow cylinder of its clasp, a small, very old vial of clouded glass and red. It's not Circle standard issue. It's easier to hand a Templar than a story about twisting bones. ]
no subject
He takes the phial, with a pause that isn't hesitation so much as instinct: A reverence that time and proximity ought to have lessened, haven't. It feels like a bad secret; intimate in the manner of any viscera. The spells aren't difficult, enough Loyalists must know — at least, Loyalists without an arrest record. He doesn't need those lessons now to observe the gleam. Dim, and unmistakable.
(Not so bright as his own.)
I trusted someone I should not have. How peculiar it must be to draw an end to that story. Closure, tied up neat. How peculiar to watch it unravel. If any of this can even be believed — that couldn't be Ilias' blood. Could be anyone else's. As stories go, it's all terribly convenient.
This can end now, ]
Alive.
[ But it doesn't. ]
no subject
He ought to cut ties now, while there's still time. He ought to follow it, try to finish this again, or just run and run and run, but what he's doing is standing here in front of Isaac's fireplace, surveying his own wreckage.
He reaches to take the phial back, his hand steadier. –Doesn't rush to pull away again. Can't quite find it in him. ]
Thank you. [ In case there isn't another chance to say it. ] Not just for this.
no subject
(It seems a bad moment to suggest more sketchy magic.)
Ilias' palm curls about glass. Isaac's hand catches, a second followed up to smooth bloodless knuckles. One cracked thumb circles his wrist like a worry stone, lifted to meet the dip of Isaac's chin, the press of lips where skin meets sleeve. ]
Of course.
no subject
This is not Ilias's finest moment. Isaac has seen him finer. This is shaking to pieces and not being sure how to pull himself back together again. This is vulnerability with a blast radius; the sort anyone in their right mind keeps away from. Not the sort you treat gently.
And yet.
His thumb shifts to find the line of Isaac's jaw. Brows pitch; You have terrible taste. But instead of saying so, instead of saying anything at all that might tilt the delicate balance of this moment, he steps in and presses a kiss to Isaac's lips. ]
no subject
There are better things to do.
Isaac leans in, savours the contact — not long, not to delay the graze of teeth as he pulls back once more, head inclined like the cat still after a canary. Too curious to be entirely self-satisfied, too satisfied with its own curiousity. He has terrible taste; that's never been unique. ]
Show me, [ His grip slackens, twists in turn to settle over Ilias' hand, over Ilias' chest. Skin pressed to skin, to cloth and sluggish glow. Fingers drift exploratory, still tracking the motions of the hand beneath his. A guide. ] What you want.
[ If this is even it; contact kept loose enough to pull away. His other palm slips to rest where muscle meets bone, the overhang of hip beneath cloth. He doesn't really need directions. ]
no subject
The hand beneath Isaac's doesn't move first; it's the other that lifts to meet it, two fingers reaching between hand and cloth to draw out that glowing bit of glass, lower it to tuck back into a pocket. Defining a positive with a negative. Not this.
(The first time he'd let anyone else touch him, it'd been like trying to scrape off his own skin, raking other people's hands over every bit of him that had learned to want just one, as if the only way to disentangle himself was to shed what he'd been before. Become something new.)
(He doesn't feel disentangled now. He feels like the thing doing the entangling, vines reaching for bricks to twist into against the wind. That's probably not important.)
Isaac doesn't need directions, but Ilias's eyes light at the prospect of giving them, curious in turn what exactly he expects. Shyness? Politeness? Fingers beneath fingers lead up to the collar of his robes, always so tightly buttoned, and unfasten the clasp at the very top -- and the next, and the next, a shaky breath pulled in or released between each, until there's room to slide his hand in around ribs, skin against skin.
(There's a scar, thin white and too clean from the hollow of his throat down, that he tries not to touch at all.) ]
no subject
One unraveled with suspicious ease, along the length of a seam: Pale and deliberate as the path that Ilias cuts around it, and still threatening to snare the eye. Isaac stalls to catch the curve of a rib, fingers splayed to pin Ilias' hand in place. The press of his weight forward, the shift to grip a handful of thigh, betrays more eagerness than he'd care. It's been a while.
(Longer, since there were any secrets worth stealing.)
Stubble grazes under his lips, pressed in again to whisper at a jaw. ]
Like this? [ A huff of breath, amused; another moment to decide that: ] Not like this.
[ It's a shit angle. His neck is going to kill him. ]
no subject
A decision is made; a heated murmur near his ear, and a touch sliding greedily round the back of his neck to the midline, to keep Isaac near as he takes a reluctant step back, ] Follow me?
[ Convenient, that there isn't more furniture in this room after all: a destination, and not much to trip over along the way. ]
no subject
Anywhere.
[ He shoves, playful, frees hand from hand. It's not the convenient grip to relinquish, that one's still hitching Ilias’ step up the side of his leg.
It makes for a strange, hobbled gait: Four feet and two heads of some Imperial chimera; motion entangled and enumerated by each point of contact — five fingers on his neck, eight teeth in Ilias' — the drum of pulse. They aren’t moving quickly, wouldn’t win a race, but tell that to the blood in his head (lower).
Fumbles at a button, caught in momentary indecision, his or his. But fuck, if robes aren’t the worst for this, and he doesn’t know the Nevarran style to wrangle it blind. Shakes his own loose just enough to stumble, lean into it. What good are arms like that if you can't, occasionally, fall into them. ]