[Training] Call me a teddy bear the way he stuffs me

She's reached a point where she can breathe and the drag of air doesn't send him tumbling though her mind. He's still there to be sure, like a cough she can't completely shake. She'll be fine for hours, doesn't even brush against him once, then suddenly is seized until she's doubled over and gasping, ribs weak from the continued strain. The nights are the worst, even though she hasn't seen one since the first evening she trudged back from the Grounds. He’s so woven into them for her that she bought blackout curtains the next day for every window in her home, and makes a point to be indoors before dark like some reverse vampire. She still knows it's out there though, and that time of day is when her work quiets and everyone retreats, leaving just her and the silence together. It’s impossible to ignore the sound of his footsteps then when he approaches her thoughts.

It's less about the hurt, at least compared to the first night. Now it's the wondering. She's trying to solve a puzzle, but doesn't get to see the front of the box where it's complete, and she definitely doesn't have all the pieces. She's trying to force some in, but they keep popping free, no matter how many times she tries. She wanders from grief to confusion to anger and back around again. Right now? She's angry.

Her thinking is, she can't turn off the night, much as she'll try and hide from it. She can't remove Jack, or Calypso, or Nova, or Vesper from King's End, but she can avoid the areas they frequent. What she can do, is scrub the parts of her home he's stained. She's already arranged a buyer for the mare and yearling he helped her with the first day they met—they’ll ship out tomorrow. Her couch is currently in her yard, ready to be set on fire, she’s just got a few more things to add to the burn pile. Her screen door is propped open with one of its cushions, making it easy to chuck the remainders outside.

She’s staring at them right now. They’re not in movable pieces, yet, but the sledgehammer in her hand will take care of that for her. With a hip cocked, barefoot in blue jeans and a black cotton shirt, hair braided to the side and sunglasses serving as safety goggles, she takes a sip from the tequila bottle and regards her kitchen island. The quiet snarl that finds her face has nothing to do with the bite of liquor, and without one more thought spared, she sets the bottle aside and swings into the base of the island. The impact shudders up her arms, the sound loud as wood splinters and sinks in with the force of the strike, the granite slab above shuddering as it's base weakens. All the island's contents are piled up haphazardly on her counters—pans and pots, utensils, lids and such. Things she doesn't want broken, but need a home somewhere, so for now they're spilling around her kitchen with as much organization as her mind.

The only thing that’ll survive the purge is the sweater he gave her, safely tucked under her bed, so it’s out of sight and out of mind. That’s what she’ll tell herself about it anyway.

 

Colt

// and it's alright, that's the way i like it —

It had taken a lot to work him up to the point where he felt like going and seeing Colt to ask hey what the fuck, though, because after the letter she’d dropped he hadn’t been sure how to respond if she wasn’t heading back to the Ranch. He made sure to give them the instructions she told him, but other than that, he didn’t know when she’d return. Hell, he doesn’t even know if she’s there right now. But she’d shown up at the desert event with Sunjata of all people, which leads him to think that she’s probably in the vicinity.

So it’s taken some courage – and a slow day of work – for Thorn to drag himself from the House of Midnight, setting out to reach the ranch to see if she’s home, half expecting to find it empty and dark. It’s why he doesn’t prep anything he intends to say, instead simply figuring it’ll be nothing more than an aimless jaunt to the ranch and back, maybe say hi to a few hands she has working for her and the dogs.

But the courtesan comes upon a very interesting sight as he arrives – the door wide open, screen door propped open by a cushion of a couch that seems to be set outside in the yard. It’s one he recognizes, one he’s sat on a couple of times at least, and he wonders if she’s intending on replacing it with a new one. He didn’t think it was damaged, but he’s also not entirely sure at this point what he knows.

He steps up on the porch, just about to enter the house when he hears the large slam of the sledgehammer against something hard and large. His heart thunders immediately, the shock of the sound absorbing through him. He just barely misses a lid that’s jumped loose from the force of the slam, rolling on its side past his leg as he pokes his head in. “Wha- What the fuck’s goin’ on, Colt??” He asks her, calling out loud enough she might hear him, his face a mess of surprise and concern and in part anger that she hasn’t come to see him yet if she was back. Instead, choosing home renovations over the simple attempt to reach out to him.

thorn

— getting crucified,
every time you cross my mind //

She hoists the destructive tool back in her hands after a sharp tug from where it’s indented into the wood. It swings back, heavy, the momentum nearly threatening to spin her around more than she means. She fights against it though, wrestling control with a frustrated grunt before swinging it back into the island with another impressive shudder. She pours all her weight into the delivery, twisting at the hips and lending her full strength to the motion. It’s not just the demolition of a place he’d been, it’s the furious ripping of a silver thread Vesper had spun up for her, tarnished by the very hands that wove it so neatly into place. She can barely fight back the sob that rises as she watches the echo of something she once cherished flicker into dust and debris, but she’d rather kill it now than let its ghost haunt her repeatedly. Even now, there’s a phantom image of him leaning against it, smile cut into the full force of her destruction, every inch of him languid with disinterest disguised as composure.

Thorn’s voice slams in with the resounding thud of the sledgehammer, whirling her around on the spot at the sound. Her eyes widen in surprise behind her glasses, and though he likely can’t see, they’re glassy with a bundle of emotion that hasn’t filled the corners enough to run over yet. Her braid swings with the movement, flopping against her shoulder. Stray hairs too short to be captured in the knots instead frame her face like tiny exclamation points. The handle of the hammer falling to the ground, dropped from her hands with the startle, is the only noise that precedes the slow and loud collapse of one of the wood panels.

”Thorn!” she gasps, caution immediately splintering into recognition and shortly thereafter, guilt. ”Oh fuck! Thorn, I’m so sorry. I meant to write you, I meant to come over, but—” Her hands press on either sides of her cheeks, utter dismay draining the color from her. She had thought about writing him a few times when she’d been in Stormbreak, but she had run on purpose, to escape. Not telling him, or anyone, where had been intentional. There are times when she seeks out the comforts of others, and times when she hides, no better than a dog backing into a den and growling at any presence that comes near. Then she’d figured, if she was visiting Vesper before coming home, she could wait to tell him something about the whole ordeal. She just didn’t know the devastation that little trip would deliver, and from there all sense and thought scattered like ash in a breeze.

She quiets suddenly, swallowing and straightening, hands dropping into the curl of each other at her waist. They fidget nervously, aware she’s entirely done wrong by him and hating it. Fuck, maybe Vesper’s right, maybe she does use people. ”You didn’t deserve this, I’m sorry.”

 

Colt

// and it's alright, that's the way i like it —

If he understood the reasoning, he might harbor more understanding to the distinct shift of everything. But it feels like he’s losing her as much as he’s losing elsewhere – even if it didn’t seem like it between his nonchalance. Shit’s been lonely, lately, and coming out here to the ranch and going on little adventures with Colt have been the high points of his seasons as of late, and Thorn finds himself standing there in the middle of her destruction – a bystander, watching with wide eyes and a touch of anger he doesn’t know where to place it when she looks over as sees him.

Her gasp, the explanation, all of things that she’d meant to do but hadn’t. The only grace he has right now is that she truly does look distraught at the fact she had done none of the things she’s meant to. “I didn’t know where the fuck y’went.” He admits, taking a step back from the kitchen and all the pieces that are strewn about, objects that had one been pristine and perfect, a part of her home and a part of her life now adrift on the floor and broken up, splintering out like a masochistic spiderweb. “An’ I couldn’t write to ya ‘cause I didn’t know where to send it. An’ then I saw you at the fuckin’ desert thing. What’s happening??” There’s urgency in his voice, a touch of his frustration and panic that settles in his gut as he decides after a second to storm over the mess and destruction to get closer to her, his brows pinched and his seafoam gaze doing a shitty job at hiding the hurt and simultaneous worry that’s encased in them.

thorn

— getting crucified,
every time you cross my mind //

Caught red-handed being selfish, she can only slap down the apology he's owed, everything else draining clean out of her. In place of it all, a quiet, unmistakable dread creeps in instead. A gripping worry that she's done bad enough by him that she very well might lose him too, all confidence in their friendship thoroughly shaken by the fact she can't seem to read any situation right anymore. Thalassa had started that needlework in her, and Vesper had made a butchering of it, and now all she's left with is the complete ruins of her trust and sensibilities, in herself more than anyone else.

She kissed Thal. She misread Vesper. She upset Thorn.

Instead of stiffening at the outcry of his frustration, she folds further, hands dropping to try and smooth against her pants. The motion tries to do more, deeper inside for her, but it doesn't reach her much. "I—I know," she admits, head dropping, avoiding the look of him now. "I didn't tell you on purpose," she says softly, the truth strained, aware that it's no good even when she says it. The things make sense, in the moment, inside her head, but put out into the world they sound like idiot fantasies. "I—I never, wanted to kiss Thal at that party. I mean I did, in that moment, weirdly, but not before and not after. It freaked me out, so I had to get out." Fuck's sake, she sounds insane. She wouldn't blame him one bit if he just flipped her off and walked away now.

With a tired sigh, aimed entirely at herself, she withdraws her sunglasses and tosses them to the counter with the tequila. She drags her gaze back up to him as his retreat shifts suddenly. He's moving towards her now with such intent, the look of a storm brewing in his features and his voice, the sort she's never seen on him before. She draws in a strangled breath, aware she deserves to stand in the path of it, but reflexively dodging more hurt. She backs up, one hand held out for balance towards the counter, knocking free a small avalanche of utensils and one clattering pot. "I'M A MESS!" she shouts over the sound of the chaos, all of it barely seeming to register for her, too similar to the noise inside her head as of late. "I'm a fucking mess, Thorn, I'm sorry!" Her lip quivers with the force of it, but she draws herself up a little fuller now, stopping as her hand threatens to topple more kitchen scenery. "Always have been, always will be." There's no pride in that, but a smidge of acceptance. That she's still too broken, even after all this time, and she best embrace how fucked up she is now, and he better too, or else they'll keep being disappointed.

Quieter, she adds, "S'why I'm not cut out for being loved." Not the kind that leaves someone beside you at the end of the world, at least. "It's why V—" She catches suddenly on his name, the sound of that first letter drawn out. She hasn't said his name yet, trips over just the thought of it. Blinking back the threat of tears at just the sound, she opts for, "why he's fully gone now. Didn't mean nothing, in the end."

 

Colt

// and it's alright, that's the way i like it —

His head shoots up a little, straightening in surprise that she tells him that she didn’t tell him on purpose. Because he doesn’t know why it mattered so much that he couldn’t know. And it burns in all the spaces Thorn has long since cordoned off, kept fluid and open so he doesn’t get hurt like this – and here he is. “What?” He asks in full on confusion, hands dropping to his sides as he watches her, brows pinching. “I mean, I get that. I had some sudden fuckin urge to scream like I’ve never screamed before.” He points out, but it hadn’t been a reason for him to leave. Just a little what the fuck.

He deflates a touch as he gets back in her space – her backing up like he’s going to hurt her (when would he ever??) when all he wants is an easier conversation. One that feels less like they’re each on their own island shouting across to one another from across the distance.

She shouts and he winces instinctively – not because of her or her shouting, obviously, but it stills him. Like it’s opened some long since blocked memories that Thorn’s tried hard to get rid of. “Yeah, and?” He asks her, a touch of urgency leaving him until he realizes what fully happened – her comment of being a mess like they all weren’t messes. And selfishly, he wonders why she thinks she’s worse off than the rest of them.

But Vesper’s gone – that too much of a pretty boy starry demigod, flashy and shadowy and full of mystery that seemed to trap Colt within the confines of his allure. The courtesan sighs heavily, reaching up to run a hand through his hair, a bangle on his arm dancing down his forearm with the movement. And maybe it’s a little selfish of him and a little mean, but he slips his seafoam gaze back over toward her, hardened with some amount of steel he’s not sure she’s seen in him before. “So… You’re just gonna let him ruin your life 'n shit?” He asks, that hand in his hair gesturing to her house and even gesturing between them. Because apparently, this whole not talking to you on purpose Thorn, is because I’m a mess and nobody will love me all because some stupid demigod won’t was the thought pattern she’d gone through.

thorn

— getting crucified,
every time you cross my mind //

The dogs that normally swarm her place had well and truly fucked off the moment she went on her warpath and grunted and swore and banged the couch around outside. The start of the sledgehammer kept any of them buried underneath her porch still, too shy to even greet Thorn, and plenty had slunk off to bother men, horses, and cattle instead. If they thought there'd be any peace, the rain of utensils and exchange of lifted voices offers no solace to the hounds, and more of them scrabble free of the house and trot away to more pleasant fields, ears pressed back in displeasure.

This kitchen has seen its fair share of arguments and battles. That it's here that they're facing off too, does little to quell the surge of her fears. She and Vesper had almost had a moment here too, so maybe the space is just fucking cursed. Could be half the reason she doesn't bother to cook much anymore, though having meals flung around for no reason a decade ago had well and truly killed all desire to spend much time here, undoing every good imprint her mother had left behind, Vesper undoing the rest, and now Thorn threatening to make her wirld her sledgehammer into every counter and cupboard here and be done with it all in full.

This fight's different though, and while the tremor of grief that eclipses most everything else still slots into place, she's still got the edges of her fire burning. This argument, much as she can't see it just yet, isn't trying to snuff that out, but feed it a little with every word he slings back.

When he mentions the urge to scream her eyes flicker wide for a moment. It's swallowed by the rest unfolding though, overshadowed by the heat of the moment and the very visible display of just what a fucking mess she is. To which, he just demands so what, which thoroughly stuns her for a moment. Shouldn't she be better than this? Shouldn't mess be something she can crawl out of eventually, yet she ends up back here time and time again, like she can't ever retain the lesson, too stupid to keep grasp of the subject of not being a fuck up. Her 'brows lift with the disbelief, breath hitching behind a sputter that doesn't fully take form, instead twisting into the confession of what she's lost, as if that should be proof enough for him of her state, a good reason to so thoroughly fall apart.

It doesn't seem to land on him, though. "No," she snaps back, because framed like that, no. Quickly she swipes a finger into the corner of each eye, pulling away tears with such a practiced motion she doesn't even realize she's done it. "My life isn't ruined," she huffs out, and it's perhaps the first time that thought has crossed her mind since the Grounds. "I just—" she starts, then bites back, lip tugging under a tooth for a moment as she considers. She sighs, curling a hand under her chin as she props it on her chest. "I didn't let him ruin shit, he just...did it all on his own. Wasn't even a proper fight. I went prepared to talk, and he just threw the party's kiss in my face, said I used him, and walked off whistling like a happy songbird after all the ugly shit he said."

She glances up from where her gaze has sunk to the floor, searching for some amount of understanding in him. "He acted like none of it mattered, so I'm trying to make him not matter either," she whispers forcefully. Which is easier said than done when he's a sturdily built piece of wood and stone solidly implanted in the center of her kitchen. "I thought, if I could cut out all the places I remember him, then I'd finally be free of him. Have some godsdamned peace again, because this hurts, Thorn." She blinks around at the empty space where the couch had been, at the sagging island, and seems to see for the first time the destruction of it rather than the removal of things that've been stained.

Her teeth set together, lips firming, and something like defiance sharpens through the glass of her gaze. "Punch me," she demands. "You deserve to be pissed," she reasons, "I don't wanna take that away from you. I wanna fight, Thorn. I wanna feel something other than this." Maybe she has fully gone mad at this point, and in her fucking kitchen of all places, but this time she's asking for it instead of being blindsided by it. She wants to take something back, finally.

 

Colt

// and it's alright, that's the way i like it —

Shouldn’t they all be better than this? Maybe. Are they? Not at all. After all, half of his job was to help people feel something when they too were in the pits of their despair. That didn’t change whether or not he was also a mess. So there’s little pity in him when it comes to the shit that’s happened to her and how she’s handling it, choosing instead to focus on a touch of his anger and hurt, letting his words fall upon her to make her think because it sounds like she isn’t fucking doing that at all.

She says no, swipes away the tears on her face, huffs out that her life isn’t ruined – her kitchen would suggest otherwise at the moment, and the dogs that have been hiding so much that they hadn’t even greeted him upon his approach, like Colt was this hurricane and they couldn’t reach the eye of it.

It feels like he has, though, with the way she seems to deflate – to explain - and it has Thorn’s gaze landing on her still with that hardened edge. “Fuck, Colt. You’re makin’ him matter by makin’ everything different.” He gestures to the kitchen. “You’re gonna cut out your familiarity because he’s in those spots but you’re gonna change it and then shit’s gonna look different than it did and when you remember why you did it, you’re still fuckin’ thinkin’ about him.” He rubs at his face, unsure why it’s bothering him so much but it is. “’Course it fuckin’ hurts.” He says, like it was the plainest thing she’d said all day.

Her demand takes him off guard though, hand falling from his face as his seafoam gaze focuses on her with confusion pinching his brows. “I don’t wanna punch you.” He snaps, but he doesn’t deny being angry. That much is an obvious given the storm cloud he’d become as he approached her door and the damage.

“But fine.” He says after a moment, deciding he wasn’t necessarily going to fight hand to hand. Maybe it’s cheating, but the courtesan’s hair suddenly begins to whip around like he’s brought his own little tornado into her kitchen. A touch of telekinesis has a piece of board from her kitchen island sailing toward her. “You owe me a lot’ve fuckin’ drinks, I hope y’know that.”

1/4

thorn

— getting crucified,
every time you cross my mind //

Some girls dye their hair or change the style, maybe go on shopping sprees to get a new wardrobe, all of it stripping away the old and embracing something new. Colt's doing the same, her version just involves a little more dust and noise. "You don't keep shit when it's stained and ruined Thorn," she reasons back, chin tilting just slightly with the certainty that of everything she's done so far, this is right. "Things carry memories," she says a touch softer, not defeated, but quiet with the truth as she glances from him to the various things around the house. "Everything in here's got a story or two. They soak in life and replay it. Maybe not every time you look at them, but when the light's just right and you're listening to the walls, it all comes back clear as day." She understands his point, but wholly disagrees with it. "I can't get past him, not if he's standing in my kitchen every godsdamned time I walk into it." A shimmer of salt reappears in her gaze as it darts back to him, but she presses her teeth around the frustration that settled in at the end, and she holds onto it.

It had been the same with her husband. She hadn't redone her entire house, just like she can't steal all the stars from the sky, but she had changed it. Knocked out a wall, replaced all her dishes and her kitchen table, redid all the paint and the floors, like a fresh coat on everything would remove the bruises from the home the same way they fell off her skin in time. That'd been easier oddly enough, because she'd been the one to decide to kill it. He'd already destroyed them, but she's the one who got to walk away with a whistle that time. She'd grieved the man he'd once been over the years, until finally she realized she was eating dinner across from a stranger, and suddenly she didn't feel a lick of remorse about throwing in the towel. Clyde had also knocked her down little by little since the day they said I do, but Vesper kept lifting her higher, right up until they said they'd miss each other, then he yanked everything right out from under her like he meant to see the shape she made when she broke on the ground. She isn't sure what's worse, putting herself back together again from all the little pieces, or that Vesper's methods made the monster of the man who used to beat her seem preferable. Surely just the pain of a fresh wound to an old one, but she'd smiled the night she buried Clyde.

Maybe it's all the habits of his job bleeding in, but Thorn doesn't relent one bit, or push in harder. He's steady, and it's exactly what she needs in this moment to break into something better. She's had her time to admire the world from the floor plenty, now it's time to dust herself off, and sometimes that's best done by someone holding you down, just enough to make you want to fight against them and stand up. Thorn's continually unimpressed responses are exactly that, and she's easily goaded into trying to prove him wrong now, to show him there's more than tears and madness here.

She's about to push back when he first refuses, a crease finding her features. It's worry that he's not switched to coddling her because he is done, and won't bite back more than this for the same reason. He means to walk away, indifference and leaving the worst wounds imaginable. She briefly glances towards the door, calculating a route to intercept him, but he doesn't move. Fine. Her body visibly softens with some relief, shoulders falling from the tight draw they'd begun to make towards her ears. That is, until the air changes, and she has just enough time to catch sight of the board swinging her way.

Her body tenses again, now for an entirely different reason. She tries to dodge back, but it clips her shoulder, her invitation taken swifter and with less obvious fists than she'd imagined. It doesn't keep back the little smile that she puts on though, every bit of anxious energy balling up behind her teeth and blooming out with an eagerness to have something to put the energy into. "I'll get you more than drinks," she promises with the faintest laugh before she grabs a pair of tongs off the counter. She clacks them in a sudden and loud thrust towards him, feinting to distract his attention so that she can step in with her free hand and punch at his upper arm. He doesn't really deserve her hits, but fuck, it just feels good to swing.

"So?" she asks with a breathy exhale as she yanks her arm back. "You felt an urge to just, scream at that party? Does that mean me kissing Thal wasn't just me going insane and losing all my self control? Something happened there?"

---

1/4 board clips her shoulder.
Tries to distract with a tong feint then punches at arm with other hand

 

Colt

// and it's alright, that's the way i like it —

He gets what she’s trying to say, and maybe there’s a touch of jealousy in the spark in his eyes that she can just get rid of whatever reminded her of Vesper when Thorn never quite got that lucky. His jaw works, muscles feathering at his temples as he hisses out a quiet sigh. “Some things y’can’t get rid of, though.” He doesn’t mean her house or the things inside it, each little reminder. It’s more self centered than that.

It’s the scar on his collarbone he can’t get rid of, that sits there as a reminder day after day, long enough that it’s become a background amongst his tattoos but less so these days than it had once been. Once upon a time it had been the only thing he could see, even having healed it the best he could. It never went away and became the reminder as much as it was a part of himself. And he’d learned quickly that he’d just have to learn to live with it.

So maybe it is best to get some of this frustration out with a spar, even if he doesn’t want to hurt her. It might tire him out from his own spiraling thoughts just as it should do for her too.

The wind picks up, the board clipping her shoulder before it shoots off in a loud clatter elsewhere, watching as she picks up the pair of kitchen tongs and clacks them like she’s a dad making dinner and he has to make sure they work. Her distraction works, though, because he does focus on the tongs (he’s not a fighter by any means), and while he uses his telekinesis this time to try and keep the tongs closed or tug them out of her hand when her fist collides with his upper arm.

“Oy!” Thorn mutters as he grabs the knife sharpener, dulled down and well worn with his telekinesis and aims to launch it back her way to try and hit her side. “Yeah, somethin’ was up. Rumor has it that’s kinda what the Blood Moon Festival does.” He explains to her, trying to step back to get out of the main area of attack.

---

2/4 Thorn gets hit but uses his telekinesis to yeet something else at her

thorn

— getting crucified,
every time you cross my mind //

He's not wrong about that, that there's limits to what her knife could carve out. It's why she's considered letting the gods wield their blade, much more precise and capable of drawing out the memories from her, so that all these items around her won't be able to echo them back. She still just might, if blocking out stars and burning couches doesn't do the trick.

She'd prefer to keep her head as closed to the gods as she can manage though, as if some small bit of privacy and autonomy in what she shares with them and what she doesn't is all she's really got left. So sledgehammers and fists it is.

Unable to bite back the grin of success at his outcry as her fist finds him, she's quickly sizing up the new weapon he's grabbing hold of as her question spins out breathy and disbelieving. She waits, trying to time the dodge as the knife sharpener wheels through the air, harder to judge when it's telekenisis moving it and not the small tells of his body, but he still has to think it, and she's starting to get a grip on that sign. She flings herself opposite it, the force sending some of the objects on the counter clattering down as she works to catch her balance. Her finds splay over the mess, grabbing two metal pot lids as she spins back towards him.

All the while what he's said is something she's still trying to work through, tears and fears held back now by utter shock that she'd let herself spin out over a party that supposedly just does that? Fuck the Grounds for throwing the worst festival she's ever been to. "Do you think that's what happened to him?" she wonders as she turns, clanging the two pot lids together loud and fast, sending a loud ring of noise towards either side of his head to dull a sense. Might make him focus on trying to hear her more, and less on the next punch.

"It wasn't like him, when I talked to him. He's never been that cold—maybe he was cursed at the festival too?" A small, daring glimmer of hope as she drops one of the lids with a clang on the floor and uses the newly freed hand to swing wildly at his chest.

---

2/4
Dodges the knife sharpener and picks up 2 metal pot lids. Clangs them to try and distract with noise and maybe make it hard for him to hear for a bit, then punches his chest.

 

Colt

// and it's alright, that's the way i like it —

She dodges the yeeted knife sharpener and Thorn’s nose wrinkles with the result of it, watching as she snags the pot lids and he takes a step back to try and get out of the direct line of fire from whatever it is she plans to do with them. Wincing when they clang and leave his ears ringing, she’ll soon learn that Thorn doesn’t really care much to try and focus on what she’s saying when he’s smart enough to realize it’s probably some tactic she’s trying to use on him.

It's muffled, whatever she says, and he dodges her punch to his chest, reaching out to try and snag her fist from her overextension – deciding now’s as good a time as any to decide to get more physical with it. And if there’s someone that knows a thing or two about restraining someone, it’s Thorn. He aims to grab her wrist and pull it behind her to spin her toward the edge of the counter top with him behind her, trying to keep her from being able to throw another punch. “What?” He asks when he thinks he can hear again.

---

3/4

Thorn dodges the punch to his chest, ears ringing, and tries to grab her hand she punched with to spin her and pin her against the counter top with the arm behind her.

thorn

— getting crucified,
every time you cross my mind //

The downside to the pot lids is they also left her ears ringing, disadvantaging the both of them in one set of metal colliding with metal. So probably for the best he didn't much bother with trying to answer, because she'd have been fool enough to lean in and try and hear him better, wanting the answer to that spark of an idea.

Even though he doesn't try to respond, she's tilting in anyway, expectant. It makes the return of her punch too slow and Thorn grabs hold of it, hoisting her off the balance of her toes like she's nothing more than a fish he just got on his line. He reels her in towards him, surprise lifting her features, weight trying to sink back but to no avail when his motion's got the momentum in his favor. It happens fast, the way he just maneuvers her into place, the line of her arm like a traitor he uses to pivot the rest of her.

It leaves her completely flabbergasted when she's pinned to the counter, breathless with the disbelief of how quickly he disarmed her and took control of the situation. His what? draws out a real laugh, head sagging down faintly as her shoulders tremble with it. "I didn't know you also moonlighted as security at the house," she teases, purposefully shouting the words this time, like they're no better than a pair of old folks trying to talk across a kitchen table.

The other lid is still in her hand, having planned to chuck it at his head like a frisbee so she could dart in for a hit beneath its distraction. She doesn't have a good view or reach of him like this though, so she settles for weaving her foot behind his, shoving back with her full weight, using the counter as leverage to push off of, and tries to catch his balance on her boot so she can break free.

---

3/4
Get's pinned with her arm behind her, so puts her leg behind his and shoves back off the counter to unseat his balance (the disadvantage) and break free while he focuses on that

 

Colt

// and it's alright, that's the way i like it —

Multiple ears ringing and yet the courtesan still manages to break through the effect that Colt’s tried to do. He can see her punch as it’s thrown, he can snag it just in time, too, pivoting them so that her arm is behind her and he has her pressed against the slowly becoming demolished island of her kitchen.

Honestly, he hadn’t expected to get this far. If anything, Thorn’s mind kind of freezes briefly, a holy shit leaving him mentally when she laughs hard. “Honey, this ain’t a security move.” He says a little matter-of-factly, huffing his own laugh because it was absolutely the type of thing he’d still do in his job, just not for the reasons he’s enacting them on her. It distracts him, though, enough that her leg can weave behind his foot, and as she shoves back he loses his balance – but he grabs her entirely in the descent he takes toward the floor – air magic trying to buffer the freefall.

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4/4
Thorn grabs Colt on his way down to try and get some purchase, using his wind magic to buffer his fall

thorn

— getting crucified,
every time you cross my mind //