i fell in love with a war
Casimir flinches.
It's an inadvertent reaction, one he thought had been beaten out of him by his life and his death and the distance he puts between himself and the things that could matter to him, but Thorn in front of him is open and earnest and his voice is soft and it feels like the claw that raked against his throat. His eyes close for a second against the pain, face knocked slightly to the side as if braced against a biting wind and inside, his heart is clenched like a shaking fist.
His mother used to call him that.
Thorn studies the countertop with an intensity typically only reserved for the most dedicated of stargazers and Casimir responds in turn, stilling shaking hands by busying them. The rag in his grip moves quickly, scrubbing at an invisible speck on a glass as he tries his best to gather his screaming thoughts. It's not him, he tells himself, that Thorn is looking to hear reassurance from. He wants to hear it from someone, and Casimir holds the shape of familiarity. Whether he wants someone to hold him back, or push him forward, or even merely acknowledge that he exists in this world, Casimir can't say.
Thorn doesn't want Casimir to miss him. He can't. He just wants to be seen. It cannot be from Cas, he really wants, the ruined husk of a shell with hands made for bruising and a rotting touch that kills all he lingered on.
There's a question there, implicit in Thorn's request, a question Casimir doesn't wish to know the answer to. The sparkling courtier had flounced and laughed and flirted and complained at his bar for the past few years, his presence providing the closest thing to companionship Casimir has, and Thorn is asking him to reach past the distance and ask him what it means. Blood soaks into the ground and Thorn wants to know if it stains. Would he miss Thorn if he left? If he chased his dream and ran towards something brighter and bigger and meaningful and true and he ran towards instead of away? What would it mean for Cas if he were to admit his shadow touched more than just dirt?
Casimir allows his silence to envelop him like an armor and knows he is running from something. When he looks up, his gaze is cool and guarded, impassive and unbroken, a mask of cool affect and everything he had been for the past few years. "You'd be missed," The bartender says, and there's just a touch of cool, disinterested sarcasm, the same way he had wielded all his other short, clipped statements at Thorn.
It's an inadvertent reaction, one he thought had been beaten out of him by his life and his death and the distance he puts between himself and the things that could matter to him, but Thorn in front of him is open and earnest and his voice is soft and it feels like the claw that raked against his throat. His eyes close for a second against the pain, face knocked slightly to the side as if braced against a biting wind and inside, his heart is clenched like a shaking fist.
His mother used to call him that.
Thorn studies the countertop with an intensity typically only reserved for the most dedicated of stargazers and Casimir responds in turn, stilling shaking hands by busying them. The rag in his grip moves quickly, scrubbing at an invisible speck on a glass as he tries his best to gather his screaming thoughts. It's not him, he tells himself, that Thorn is looking to hear reassurance from. He wants to hear it from someone, and Casimir holds the shape of familiarity. Whether he wants someone to hold him back, or push him forward, or even merely acknowledge that he exists in this world, Casimir can't say.
Thorn doesn't want Casimir to miss him. He can't. He just wants to be seen. It cannot be from Cas, he really wants, the ruined husk of a shell with hands made for bruising and a rotting touch that kills all he lingered on.
There's a question there, implicit in Thorn's request, a question Casimir doesn't wish to know the answer to. The sparkling courtier had flounced and laughed and flirted and complained at his bar for the past few years, his presence providing the closest thing to companionship Casimir has, and Thorn is asking him to reach past the distance and ask him what it means. Blood soaks into the ground and Thorn wants to know if it stains. Would he miss Thorn if he left? If he chased his dream and ran towards something brighter and bigger and meaningful and true and he ran towards instead of away? What would it mean for Cas if he were to admit his shadow touched more than just dirt?
Casimir allows his silence to envelop him like an armor and knows he is running from something. When he looks up, his gaze is cool and guarded, impassive and unbroken, a mask of cool affect and everything he had been for the past few years. "You'd be missed," The bartender says, and there's just a touch of cool, disinterested sarcasm, the same way he had wielded all his other short, clipped statements at Thorn.
Casimir
and nobody told me it ended
