bless the young and rich

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.

Casimir

and nobody told me it ended

on the low, i get vertigo from body overdose

”You’d be missed.” It’s precisely what he wants to hear, precisely how he wants to hear it, and with the alcohol burning through his head and chest it’s as close to an admission that Thorn can whisk away into his creative mind, the artistic narrative that he’s conjured up. Casimir would miss him, his clients would miss him — but the difference was that his clients might come to visit him in a different region. He’s not so sure Cas could get out from behind this bar and venture out that far.

He’s not so sure the bartender would want to, least of all for him. So the game is fun, refreshing, even when brutal honesty comes creeping in through the cracks and Thorn has very little time to notice it before it’s already there, sitting like a dark cloud above all his usual sunshine and vibrancy.

“Good.” He murmurs, trying to reach for the sun’s rays again but the fingers of alcohol are long and sharp and keep him rooted under the shade of the clouds. “I’d miss ya, too.” The courtesan says before he can think about the words, not sure how they’d land or how Cas might spin them to make fun of him when they’d been said with such pure honesty.

Where there’s a will, there’s a way, he supposes.

So he focuses instead on fidgeting again and trying to not blatantly stare at Cas with all the curiosity and desire that’s grown in the past few years, because opening that door always brought trouble and Thorn was tired of dealing with the monsters that crept in. He chooses this time to fiddle with the rings on his fingers, spinning them idly just to do something with his hands, and before the courtesan knows it, he’s speaking again.

“I’d miss this.” He admits, taking a moment to look around the bar like he means the view entirely. But his seafoam gaze lands back on Casimir, shadowed but bright, like storms of worry couldn’t quite keep the glimmer of hope from streaking its way through like gods rays.

Hawthorn

so tell me your name and tell me your problems, i got the same

i fell in love with a war

Casimir watches Thorn fiddle with the rings on his fingers, the glittering metals catching the light. It's easier to look at them than to meet Thorn's eyes again, the naked honesty bared and open within them, light like sunlight on the waves of the ocean sparking. He can't tell if it's the whiskey moving through the courtesan or something else, something more dangerous to have. Something like guilt spreads within him, oil floating through water, dancing and heavy at it sinks to the bottom of his gut. Those ringed fingers should reach out and grasp this future ahead of him, not encircle an empty glass of whiskey at Casimir's bar. The silence crosses his throat like a wicked slash. 

Thorn responds to words Casimir didn't quite say, grasping at meaning still stuck behind barbs. How had he been able to hear what was still stuck behind layers of dried blood in Casimir's throat? Or was it just what he had needed to hear, plucked out of the sarcastic, intentional blankness of Casimir's tone? His eyes drag back up to meet Thorn's, cold and hard, light pools of unreadable blankness. Something has been shuttered behind them. 

Silently, with his boxer's grace, he reaches behind the bar and fills a glass of water. The sound of it scraping against the counter seems to fill the room, and he slides it a few careful inches away from Thorn's graceful, twisting hands. This time he doesn't make a sound as the glass gets passed, doesn't tap the counter or huff or scoff, just a ghost in the flickering hue of the bar. He stays there few another silent minute before the neutral slash of his mouth murmurs a quiet, sarcastic, "You shouldn't." 

It comes out with the same dark levity as all his other snark has, just another quip from the world-weary bartender, but there's a graveness to it that bleeds through, and his eyes darken with something unreadable. They flick towards the full, cool glass of water before returning to Thorn's kohl-lined stare, unwavering and intense.

Casimir

and nobody told me it ended

on the low, i get vertigo from body overdose

He’s never been good at grasping his future – often one that goes from whim to whim. In fact, it was a surprise he’d stayed here as long as he has. But comfort had become something Thorn strove for, and to be honest he isn’t sure if the desert would have that. The only thing it has for him is prospect and Colt, but he can’t yet go and agree to take it on just yet. Sure, the idea remains, but the more he thinks about it logistically, the more it starts to worry him, to stress him out.

It must be obvious to Casimir how the liquor has hit him – not the usual fun and bubbliness of it. Not the way he’d become languid and even more cat-like in fluidity. This time when the liquor hits, it brings insecurities, uncertainty. And that is something that Thorn is unfamiliar with. So he watches the water as it gets slid his way, fingers stilling in their fidgeting to claim the glass. And he’s half assuming the conversation will end there, with Thorn having said too much in too short amount of time, to someone who was a constant part of his story these days even if they only ever spoke here.

He takes a sip of the water like it might wash the pining out of his chest, almost choking on it when he hears that he shouldn’t.

His seafoam gaze flits up to catch Casimir’s gaze again, brows pinched as he coughs a little and tries to ensure he hadn’t just drowned on land. “Which part?” He asks, trying to follow the line of thought, fingers stilled on the glass as his voice slips from him, hoarse and rough from the water that he’d tried to accidentally inhale. “You ‘r this?” He asks, gesturing with his free hand to the area around them.

“S’comfortable, y’know? You do your thing, ‘n I do mine, ‘n somehow we’re all a part of this big ol’ wheel that keeps rollin’ like nothin’ could go wrong. I give you shit ‘n you ignore me or give it back ‘n it’s fun. Always has been fun.” Even right now when he’s toying with what to do with his life, and it’s precisely because he’s managed to get more words out of Cas with this than he would have any other day. And perhaps, those are the lines Thorn reads between in order to realize just how much Cas might actually miss him if he did go.

Hawthorn

so tell me your name and tell me your problems, i got the same

i fell in love with a war

Casimir's eyes the curve of Thorn's bobbing throat as the water from the glass disappears, averting his gaze when Thorn coughs and starts. His throat is burning from his words, perhaps the most he's said in a single day in all his time as a bartender here, and it feels rusty and cracking from disuse. For every thread Thorn unravels within himself, drinking and wondering and chatting as he is, Casimir wounds another notch up. He thinks he's unraveling too, in a way, grasping at shattered fragments with bleeding fingers. 

"Shouldn't miss it," He clarifies, perhaps a little unnecessarily, and takes Thorn's glass back to refill it just so he has something to do with his hands. The words claw out of him, burrowing out of some long-dormant husk of truth and care he's fought so hard to bury. The water spills into the glass, the condensation building on the outside and wetting Casimir's hands. He flicks off a droplet before setting it back on the counter, pushing it decisively towards Thorn. Some of the water pushes itself over the edge, landing on the counter. 

Comfortable. The quiet, soft dirt of a grave is comfortable. The stillness of the night is comfortable. The complacency of a long-settled, cushioned chair is comfortable. There's more he can say here but the words don't come when called and for the first time he wonders if the neutral, sometimes affronted, sometimes sarcastic, but altogether silence is less of a choice than he thinks. He's always been better with his hands, his body, his movement than with sweet-honey words. 

He's not sure Thorn knows how much he sees behind his post at the bar, his ever-vigilant gaze constantly on the prowl for familiars and threats and trouble and joy. He's not sure Thorn knows how much he knows him from the dozens of evenings spent with the courtesan splayed on the bar, filling the silence as much as Casimir preserves it. 

His fingers curl under his palms where they're pressed on the mahogany bar and his throat screams. It takes a few minutes for him to muster the words up, body still like a calculating fighter, eyes curiously lingering on Thorn's shifting body. "Life's worth more than fun," he finally spits out, the rasp of his voice mixing with the crackling of the fireplace.

Casimir

and nobody told me it ended

on the low, i get vertigo from body overdose

Why shouldn’t he miss it? Why shouldn’t he miss his room in the back, relatively small but full of a variety of clothes and jewelry and books on architecture, different colognes to wear depending on the occasion. Today, as he clears his throat from the roughness of the coughing fit he’d had, he’s chosen to wear a sandalwood mixture, deep and dark and alluring, even if he had no one to indulge in it.

The water is refilled and as it’s pushed toward him, he watches the water slip over the edge. Still, Thorn reaches for it, fingers taking the glass and dragging a line of water as he pulls it closer. He doesn’t sip from it yet, instead choosing to return to the line of liquid, running his jeweled fingers through it.

He’s contemplative and quiet as Casimir speaks the most he has in what felt like ever, relishing in the rich baritone of the bartender’s voice, however disheartening the words might be. He chews on his lower lip, his bright seafoam gaze dancing between the glass of water and the man on the other side of the bar. “Yeah? Like what?” He asks, voice shifting a touch deadpan and quieter. “Shouldn’t it all be about fun? Or.. enjoying yourself?” He doesn’t seem to be enjoying anything right now, but still the courtesan tries to understand. “Don’t you go out and have fun when yer not here?” He pauses, brows lifting as if a dawning realization has occurred. “You do leave sometimes, don’t ya?”

It’s a barrage of questions for the man that hardly spoke, but Thorn can’t help but to try and understand a little more. The man that watched behind the counter silently and stoically like nothing bothered him certainly has a rife life outside of here, doesn’t he? Though, the more Thorn thinks about it, the more he realizes he hasn’t heard a single thing about what Casimir did unless it was here. Hell, he can’t even recall hearing any gossip about him apart from him doing his job.

Hawthorn

so tell me your name and tell me your problems, i got the same

i fell in love with a war

This time, Casimir doesn’t flinch or blink as the questions are turned onto him. Though they ring closer to genuine curiosity, perhaps edging even on concern as they come from Thorn, they’re the same flavor as the dozens of similar ones he fields off every day from other interested patrons. Thorn perhaps was the most insistent in trying to solve the mystery of the House of Midnight taciturn, ever-present bartender, but he certainly wasn’t the only one.

He lifts one broad shoulder in a shrug, rehearsed and precise, a sign which should have been mocking in this context but comes out perhaps a little sharper than he meant. There’s a little room in the back, a space that maybe one was a particularly generous pantry but now was a cozy hiding-hole with a bed, some shelves, and several sets of near-identical dark clothing. When it was quite clear he had no where else to go, nor more necessities than just the minimum, Sunjata had permitted him to stay there, like a ghost haunting the place of their death. No one gets invited back there — for anything — and Casimir typically circles the block a few times before turning in for the night. There’s nothing that reeks of hedonistic pleasure in his life; just the quiet mundanity of days passing by. Of staying behind, of running away, of peering behind a pane of thick glass.

There’s a reason he’s seen as a fixture here.

He allows the silence to paint whatever picture Thorn wishes to see, face impassive, eyes flat and ungiving. There’s no sly tip of the cards, no flash from the dealer telling Thorn how to play this game, and if the handsome courtesan continues to search for cracks in Casimir’s gaze, he won’t find any. As usual. Perhaps more if Thorn tries to exhume this grave.

There could be a sly word here, a biting comment, something along the lines of how everyone had more of a life than Thorn did. Instead, as the shrug settles his shoulder back down, he allows the corner of his mouth to curve up into just the smallest of mischievous smiles. It says, you’ll never know. It feels closer to familiar territory, but Casimir knows Thorn’s words come from this place of true curiosity, intentional vulnerability, that threatened Casimir this whole conversation.

But, if there’s anything Casimir is good at, it’s staying silent. He meets Thorn’s eyes and dares him to try again.

Casimir

and nobody told me it ended

on the low, i get vertigo from body overdose

The shrug is as noncommittal as the rest of the conversation, and for that Thorn finds some amount of comfort in it. But what he’s starting to put together from the aloofness (and also never really seeing him outside of this place) is that the bartender tended to haunt the House of Midnight much like the spirits of the graves surrounding the building in the Barrows.

It causes the courtesan to squint at him – far more obvious than he would otherwise be, but Thorn is hammered now and despite the water in the glass that’s overspilled and left a puddle behind that he’s dragging his fingers through, he hasn’t quite sobered up at all. The silence continues, and the longer he stares at the other man, the more Thorn realizes it’s almost an impossible task to keep his mouth shut. He watches him, finding zero cracks in a perfect mask, one that’s always been stellar and perfect and he wishes he had that amount of luck with his own.

But his mask is fractured already, enough to let his insecurities out on display. He’s grateful there’s no potential clients nearby to see the stringed up mess the courtesan is at this present moment. It’s a blessing only Casimir gets to see.

He stares at him – both seeing and unseeing – but he catches the challenge in the other man’s gaze, the dare that sits below the surface. “Oh, so you’re a hermit?” He asks, head tilting so much that one could wonder if the courtesan had an avian shift. He doesn’t, but it doesn’t stop him from staring at Casimir like he can take apart all the layers of the handsome bartender and piece them back together in a puzzle that made sense. “When’s yer shift over today?” He asks, hand lifting to the rim of the glass of water to drag his wet fingers along the top in a circular motion.

Hawthorn

so tell me your name and tell me your problems, i got the same

i fell in love with a war

The look shining from Thorn's shifting eyes is one Casimir is all-too familiar with, having become intimately acquainted with hundreds of people drinking hundreds of drinks poured by his steady hand. The other man's gaze is loose and slippery, and seems to dance from eye-to-eye as he looks, like he's forgotten exactly how to look straight ahead to meet someone else's eyes. Casimir could laugh at the question spilled from Thorn's clearly loose tongue -- or scoff more accurately -- but he does neither, choosing instead to continue his level gaze flat, unimpressed, and just a touch cold.

It's not an unfamiliar question. Many have come to the House of Midnight asked if the bartender were on the menu, and learned very quickly that he would make for poor conversation and even worse company. He had even heard it from the other workers here, curious courtesans and interested bartenders. He may have even heard it once or twice from a teasing Thorn, looking to see if that would be the question that finally broke through the bartender's cool disinterest. As Casimir studies the sloshed, swaying form of the courtesan, he can't quite configure why the question comes to him now. 

Thorn doesn't seem to be flirting, at least not in the way he usually does, open and bawdy and unserious. He's too drunk to have any hidden motive, and if he did have one, Casimir would expect it to fall from his hands and land on the counter with an obvious sound. It almost seems genuinely curious, and paired with Thorn's tilted head, a wave of being beheld sweeps through the still bartender. Thorn looks at him too intensely, like he's trying to read his thoughts. He's curious and open and seems fascinated by something, and Casimir feels a sliver of something like fear. 

His gaze grows cold, eyes shuttering slightly into a shape just next to a glare. It's not quite a warning, not yet, but it's the warning of a warning. Thorn is waving his ringed fingers too close to an open flame, looking to see if it'll burn. Jaw tightening slightly, Casimir feeds his silence. The more Thorn moves and sways, Casimir stills in an inverse. And, of course, he does not reply. He hopes the silence stings.

Casimir

and nobody told me it ended

on the low, i get vertigo from body overdose

The more Casimir shifts toward looking aloof and indifferent, cold and unimpressed, Thorn treats it like a wound in his mouth. Poke and prod until the soreness continues just to remind you that it’s there. A habit that’s hard to break and never quite fixes itself up enough to heal when you kept fucking with it. His words hang in the air without much of a reaction, Thorn’s head tilting despite how the world seems to shift with it, and he stares back at the beast that is the bartender, standing before the bear and continues to poke.

He could choose to let Casimir keep his secrets, but given that he’d spent the last few years allowing the bartender the secrecy he seemed to so desperately need, the courtesan decides the moment that his gaze shifts closer toward a glare to say fuck it and cross a line he hasn’t before.

The bar held the clipboard that had the rotating schedules of them all, and somehow in the past Thorn had never thought to snoop on the rest of the workers. This time, however, he fully intends to find out. So, Thorn tangoes with the silent flame, uncaring if he gets burned. He’s got the scars to prove just how much he’d burned in the past, anyway, so what’s a couple more?

The courtesan lifts the glass of water to his lips, throat decked in the shiny choker bobbing as he swallows the sip, sets the glass down and stands. He sways for only a second before he’s prowling on the other side of the bar, toward the back open space with a surprising amount of grace for how much his head is already swimming, slips behind the bar and hunts for that drawer with the inventory lists and the rest of the paperwork for this section of the House of Midnight.

It does, however, bring him the closest to Casimir he thinks he has been before, and no longer sitting he’s stuck with the realization that this close the man is delightfully tall enough that he has to look up to meet those cold eyes. Not that he has, so far, not as he slides open the drawer and snags the clipboard, scanning the subsect of names. He finds the bartender section and when he finds the endpoint for Cas, he can’t help but to turn to the bartender with the clipboard clutched in his glittering fingers, shooting him a roguish grin. “You’ve got less than ‘n hour??”

It's about now that he does take into account the way he has to look up, his seafoam gaze sparkling with mischief and liquid courage. "Let's get somethin' to eat when yer done."

Hawthorn

so tell me your name and tell me your problems, i got the same

i fell in love with a war

As Thorn ambles closer to Casimir, dancing his way behind the bar and digging through things he is not supposed to be digging through, the bartender carefully keeps his body just a few inches short of close to the other man. He doubts Thorn, in his current wobbly state determined mission, notices how precisely Casimir moves to be just slightly farther away. A habit picked up from his streetfighting years that always served him well behind the bar, he now employs it in a vain effort to keep Thorn away. 

When their eyes meet, it takes everything in him not to flinch away. Instead, he lowers his chin so he's bearing into Thorn's gaze, refusing to cow. Thorn's light eyes glimmer with bravery and the kind of decision-making process that only comes when one is a little too deep in the bottle. Not ungently, he wrests the clipboard from Thorn's fingers, moving to hold it against his broad chest. 

"No," he says flatly, levelly, trying not to leak in the little bit of panic that has spread into his chest at the thought. His voice is iron-steel and biting, even in its near-whispered volume, and he aims it to hit true at Thorn. In all their years together, playing their game and nipping at each other's heels, Thorn has never suggested moving it away from behind and in front of the bar. In fact, his shambling ignoring of that literal line, moving behind the bar and digging into things that don't concern him, feels too apt a metaphor for the way his ringed, jeweled fingers are starting to pry into the seams of Casimir's carefully sewn skin. He's crossed behind the bar, and with, crossed closer to Casimir. 

Once again, as much of their conversation has been tonight, it seems too real to Casimir. Too close to something true. Why would Thorn want to ruin this thing they had? Casimir fumes silently. Like Thorn had said, it was fun, it was comfortable, and--

Casimir had told him there was more to life than having fun. Fuck. He absolutely had not intended to follow his own advice, however, and isn't going to start now. 

With a start, he turns away and places the clipboard purposefully on a high shelf, deliberately well out of the other man's reach, muscles shifting under his shirt. He wasn't even sure the drunken courtier would even make it another hour, with the way he was grinning and swaying slightly on his feet. Chances were, in an hour, Casimir would be escorting him to his bed to sleep it off. Until then, he points to the other side of the bar and stares, jaw clenched, steel and warning and a slight hint of fear in his eyes.

Casimir

and nobody told me it ended

on the low, i get vertigo from body overdose

His face is so passive, it’s impossible for the courtesan to see what hides behind the façade. And perhaps that’s why he keeps edging closer, trying to spark a reaction where he can, bold and bolstered by the sudden realization that the game he enjoys may not go on forever and instead, might actually have an end. It’s almost as terrifying of a thought as it is for Casimir to realize the way Thorn tries to find those little holes in his armor to pour his honeyed self into.

He doesn’t grip the clipboard tight when Casimir reaches for it, taking it from his hands. Thorn’s seafoam gaze drops to the clipboard held against the bartender’s broad chest, the no that leaves him flatly has Thorn’s gaze rising again, brows lifting as he snorts in response. It’s a one-word answer, sharp and biting and Thorn finds that he craves the sting.

In his state, however, Thorn doesn’t notice the way Casimir keeps the distance between them, how every inch Thorn tries to get closer, he steps away in his own dance. Instead, the abandoned only spots the way he turns away and takes the clipboard up to a high shelf where it would be next to impossible for the courtesan to reach, lest he were to climb all over the bar. And even he, for his usual lack of drinking too much, wouldn’t dare attempt it without making a fool of himself.

So, he folds his arms across his chest, the sheer fabric of his shirt bunching with the movement as he leans back against the edge of the bar, not forced out just yet despite the clear invitation to get the fuck out of Casimir’s space and on his rightful side of the bar. “Why not?” He asks instead, lifting his chin enough that it could be considered trying to stand his ground, if he wasn’t built willowy and athletic and nothing at all like the strong muscles that ripple along the bartender’s arms and shoulders.

At least the alcohol is starting to even out in him so there’s hope yet. “It’s jus’ a couple’ve people gettin’ together to eat. That’s all.” He knows his batting eyelashes won’t work on Casimir, no matter how much he’s tried in the past, so he tries for a stronger approach, one similar to Cas’ own hardened exterior.

Hawthorn

so tell me your name and tell me your problems, i got the same

i fell in love with a war

Why not?

It’s not an unreasonable question, all things considered. Thorn stands tall, arms crossed, stubbornly still on the wrong side of the bar, and Casimir can’t even fault him. He could even respect it if the obstinance wasn’t turned against him. The sharp curve of Thorn’s jaw lifts, and Casimir finds his body slinking towards the man again and he feels very much like a fighter circling his opponent. Thorn’s change in stance feels more like a challenge, and it’s as interesting a change as it is terrifying.

His footsteps are slow and silent against the ground of the bar, and his eyes flicker down Thorn’s body and back again. When he lands barely a foot away from the courtesan, he can smell the slight lingering notes of sandalwood and whiskey. Casimir’s head tilts sideways and down, just off an edge off straight, and appraises Thorn. If Thorn wanted to play with fire, Casimir was going to hold him to his game and see how long Thorn’s gracious fingers would hold before the smoldered and caught aflame.

He holds the silence in his own scarred hands, nurturing it, staring down Thorn all the while. Around them, the bar seems to grow still, the fireplace refusing to crackle and the wind to blow. Inside Casimir’s gut, the panic turns to adrenaline, his vision sharpening from the increased awareness that always comes at the beginning of a fight.

His breath stills in his chest, trying to recenter himself. This isn’t a fight, he reminds himself. Thorn isn’t an opponent. Just… trying to find a weakness. An opening. The question burns in his throat, thick and bitter like blood from a broken nose.

”Why?” He spits out finally. It’s one-part accusation, one-part desperation, and he looks to see how Thorn’s face changes at the asking.

Casimir

and nobody told me it ended

on the low, i get vertigo from body overdose

There’s a small thrill that sparks through the courtesan’s body, one that he hides well enough as he leans with his back against the bar. With every step closer that the bartender takes, the more that sharp spark zips up his spine. And in the face of it, Thorn continues to stand tall and cocky, strong in comparison to the usual cat-like fluidity he often had. His feline grace does little here, not even as he’s being sized up (or simply looked at).

Thorn’s always loved to be looked at – it’s why he wears so much flashy jewelry, juxtaposed with sheer clothing, tattoos both visible and not so much, each a little breadcrumb to keep the eye drawn on him. So it’s no surprise he’s one of the more popular of the courtesans, nor is it a surprise that he is fucking thriving as Casimir stops not too far across from him and the richness of his voice is spat out, a lick of venom that Thorn doesn’t mind being pierced by the fang of.

He’s a sharp poisoned edge, too, when it comes down to it. Aptly nicknamed. “Why not?” Thorn repeats his previous comment, dark brows lifting as he can’t fight the smile that starts to tug on his lips, looking up at Casimir like he might be able to move past the slight amusement in his echoed tone.

He does put him out of his misery of the whys, though. Even if the answer isn’t going to be the one Casimir seeks. Even if it’s the one answer Thorn has that would poison the careful scarred, stone exterior the other man has. “’Cause if I do leave, I’d like to have a fun night with my friend.” His arms remain crossed, standing exactly where he is to hold his ground and look up into those blue green eyes of the bartender that somehow seem so much more colorful on this side of the bar, the curls that seem that much softer and almost angelic in the light of the golden hues the bar was decked out in.

Hawthorn

so tell me your name and tell me your problems, i got the same