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Character of the Season
Once known as the Butcher of Whitebrim, he's now The Butcher of Dygra, stepping forward as the first created demigod of the Ancients. There is no question that Astaroth casts an intimidating silhouette. Tall, domineering and dangerous, if looks could kill you'd be dead already, but to get up close and personal with the Grounds' resident cannibal tells a much different story. Dripping with charm and clad in only the finest attire, Asta is a gentleman monster, as polite as they come and committed to his role as security for the Dusklight and those who have earned his loyalty. Be careful of that smile, though - those teeth are sharp.
Congratulations, Asta!
Credits
Court of the Fallen was created in October of 2018 by Odd, Honey, and Crooked.
OG Skinning provided by Kaons, with functionality and many custom plugins made by Neowulf!
Any and all romantic intentions weighing Thorn's admission completely flies over Casimir's head, like an arrow intended for an enemy veering high and hitting a tree instead. His face, usually so schooled in its stone-plated neutrality, morphs into one of total incomprehension. If Thorn had suddenly started speaking some long-dead language, Casimir would have looked at him with a similar gaze of utter confusion and shock.
"Oh," Falls from his mouth, a stone plopping heavily into a stream. Where they're clutched in Thorn's light hands, his arms go limp, Thorn's grasp the only thing keeping them up. It was so simple, such a straightforward and simple reason, but Casimir had to be chased down and have it spelled out for him that someone could possibly enjoy his company, and the simple product of that equation visibly works its way through his head.
"We're... friends," He manages, half-questioning. There's no rejection in his tone, nor on his face, nor anywhere even in the stratosphere as Casimir processes -- the concept of the 'friend-zone' does not glance the slow mechanisms of his brain. The man, at heart, is a fighter; one who's been on the run from himself for years, but a fighter nonetheless. He reads bodies in front of him and prepares for a defense, and he does not care what secret intentions linger behind thrown fists. He just fights back.
Thorn's truth is no different, as Casimir cannot possible predict there's anything else behind what Thorn says. The words themselves are so shocking to him -- despite Thorn calling him a friend mere hours earlier -- that it's all he can do to keep himself upright.
"Okay," He says, and he looks like he's been hit full-speed by a runaway horse. He yearns to blurt that Thorn is incorrect, that underneath the layers of sarcasm and grunts and silence is just nothing but rot, but for once, his tongue does him a favor in its refusal to form words. His eyes meet Thorn's, cracked and half-guarded and bleeding, and for once, he's struck dumb rather than choosing -- or being unable to -- stay silent.
Right this second, Thorn isn’t sure if he’s ever seen more emotion bloom across the bartender’s face. The confusion that sits there, like the courtesan isn’t speaking the common tongue, like he hasn’t just blatantly let his tongue run away with his thoughts in the most horrifying of ways. He’s lucky, perhaps, because when the oh leaves the attuned and Thorn sits there with a racing heartbeat that only seems to increase, does he think that perhaps Casimir has read between the lines of what Thorn was saying, that he might see the quiet yearn and longing beneath the surface of shiny, flashy jewelry and a cheshire’s smile.
He doesn’t, though, instead the half statement-half question slips from the bartender’s lips and Thorn latches on like a lifeline, his smile brightening softly as he nods – his seafoam gaze scanning Cas’ face as if to ensure that he proves the point he’s trying to make. “Yeah. Friends.” He agrees – exhaling a soft sigh that’s in part relief that he didn’t see beneath it, but also a small amount of scorn for himself like he should’ve just fucking said it right to begin with.
The okay leaves him and Thorn finally decides to let the bartender’s warm arms go, taking a moment to snag the heavy wool coat to hand it to Casimir with an easier smile, meeting that cracked and guarded gaze. “Put on yer coat, don’t want you gettin’ sick.” He murmurs, before he’s sliding into his leather jacket, drawing it tight around his smaller frame. Glancing back toward the restaurant he can see the bag in the hand of the waiter hesitating before coming out and Thorn diverts his attention toward the door – stepping away and hoping and praying to Freys that the bartender doesn’t take this second to slip away.
He collects the bag, pays, and turns back to Casimir. “So there’s a quiet courtyard around here, or.. we could take it back to the House? Grab a booth or a room or somethin’ so it’s more familiar?” He leaves it open for Cas to choose which he’d prefer, because at the end of the day Thorn didn’t care where they were, so long as he got to spend time together with him.
Hawthorn
so tell me your name and tell me your problems, i got the same
The loss of contact on Casimir's wrists make them feel cold and smarting, almost sizzling from the change in temperature, but when he glances at them, there's no evidence anything is wrong. His hands grasp his wool coat and the temperature of the outside finally slams into him now that he's evening out of his whirlwind of self-made panic. The crash rearing in his head is not dissimilar to one that happens after a made, when the adrenaline seeps away and the body realizes exactly how many times he's been hit, and his shoulders nearly ache when they slip on the coat.
Another jolt of guilt -- ever-present, ugly and stinging -- nearly sends him to his knees when Thorn huddles into his jacket, shielding himself from the horrible weather that has undoubtedly been wracking his lithe frame when he chased after Casimir. The soft exhale of something like relief shoots stars into the terrified bartender's eyes, and as the courtesan turns to get their food, Casimir fights off another primal instinct to flee. He forces his feet to root themselves to the cobblestoned streets, though, and he's exactly where Thorn left him when he turned away. A grimace suppresses itself as Thorn once again poses another question, and though the words are a soft balm against Casimir's smarting fight-or-flight, he reviles the necessity of verbalizing his decision. Thorn looks at him with such gentleness and affection that Casimir feels like a wounded animal, but he's acted too strange and spooked tonight to get angry about being treated like the injured thing he is, and forces himself to trust the gentleness.
The part of him that hasn't been ruined -- if there's any part left -- wants him to extend it back. (Look at where that got him in the restaurant). Still, the unending, futile task of trying to let Thorn get what he wants and know him begins again. With hands only slightly shaking from the exertion of it, he levers his coat off his body and moves it artlessly to Thorn's shoulders, letting the folds of it envelop the leather. When his words have failed -- and oh, had they failed him that night! -- his actions have always spoke on his behalf, and he falls back on that to allow it to answer Thorn's question.
Whatever he chooses, Casimir is with him. At least for tonight.
He waits, unsure of whether or not he’d get an answer. It wasn’t as if it mattered much to Thorn either way, but there had been a part of him that hoped maybe since Casimir had already unleashed a steady barrage of words that there might be something left in the tank for him to offer to decide where they’d eat. He should know better, that perhaps the bartender had used up his quota for the whole season just to tell him he wasn’t good, to wax poetics about how Thorn was good and bright and how, somehow, this should be a mistake.
He doesn’t get an answer. Not from the lovely baritone of the other man’s voice. Instead, he gets the warm weight of Casimir’s wool jacket over his smaller shoulders, injecting heat almost immediately into the leather that’s been trying its best to ward the cold away. And it’s with almost hesitant hands that reach up to clasp it closer, kohl lined eyes rising to scan Cas’ face like he’s trying to decide whether it was a good idea or not that he go without his jacket when it was this cold outside.
Instead, he’s met with a look that seems to suggest whatever Thorn decides would be the answer. But that he wouldn’t be enduring it alone. He blinks in his quiet surprise, a dark flush of heat pours into his cheeks and the tips of his ears, a small smile tugging on his face as he lets the quiet charm infiltrate and fill each crack of Thorn’s exterior to bolster him. “Thanks.” He says softly, clutching the bag of their food in his other hand. He stays like that for a moment, chewing on his bottom lip in contemplation, when he finally decides he’d prefer some place warmer since he was sure Casimir would freeze to death should they stay out here for the rest of the night.
The courtesan seems to straighten, looking down the street toward the sign post they’d taken to get here. “Let’s go back to the House.” He decides, twisting in place so that they can start heading in the right direction, and in the process very intentionally bumps his shoulder against Cas’ arm when he starts to walk. “Grab a room so it’s warm and just us an’ it can be whatever we want it to be.” Because maybe if Cas doesn’t feel up to speaking his thoughts, perhaps showing the courtesan would be easier.
Hawthorn
so tell me your name and tell me your problems, i got the same
Casimir absolutely does not want to go through that horrible, nausea inducing contraption that is the blasted signpost, but he grits his teeth and makes to follow Thorn to the awful thing. There's a part of him that dreads going back to the House, tying these strange new threads of friendship and newness to the safety of what their roles were before, but he had 'told' Thorn he would do what he wanted and damnit he would follow through. Even through that Gods-damned signpost.
The jolt of Thorn's shoulder against his reels his mind back to the present and he walks side-by-side with his evening companion. The heat from the touch -- even through two coats and the sturdy fabric of his shirt -- radiates from the point of contact, burning and screaming and itching, and he deliberately sets his body a few inches away from the walking form of the other man.
Next to him, Thorn's ears and cheeks have reddened it seems from the cold, dark-lined eyes blinking through the rush of the wind, but his step is jovial and merry even so. Casimir's curls go flying up and around in the wind and for a moment he feels unmoored, so totally far away from what he had been. That brightness Casimir coined for Thorn radiates from him now, as he shines under the streetlights, rosy and sparkling even under the kiss of the rough winds. As his feet moves under him, carrying him in an even pace with the shorter man, he want to ask him where he gets it. This strange, all-encompassing radiance within him, this thing that even after Casimir spent all evening throwing punches and roadblocks keeps him pretty and clean and kind under the lights.
He won't, though, even if he has the words, which he doesn't. The walk towards the signpost is spent with his throat bobbling, jaw working with closed mouth, working up the words to say something very, very important to the courtesan. Something that worth pushing through the barbs that constantly encircled his throat.
When they reached the signpost, he turned to face Thorn, taking in the flush of his face and the way the wind drove his hair wild around him like a halo.
"If you were this desperate to get me alone... Why didn't you say so?" His mouth curves into something sly and self-satisfied, words bitingly sarcastic and full of the playfulness the two had been exchanging for years. Without letting Thorn eke out a response, he disappears into the signpost, eyes sparkling with something almost like happiness.
He’s riding the high of Casimir’s quiet charm, the scent of the man that lingers in the wool coat around his shoulders he keeps tucked tight around him. A slow inhale of citrus – reminiscent of the lemon he’d been cutting before Thorn had corralled him from behind the bar out into the Great Unknown. He relishes in it and the undertones of the bartender himself. It brings a bit more pep in his step, a feline grace that’s inherent to the courtesan but one that has dimmed earlier with his rush to keep Casimir from leaving.
Barely even noticing the extra few inches of distance between them while they walk, Thorn’s content to drift in silence, quietly contemplative of what kind of room Casimir would create, while the sign post comes up closer into view. He doesn’t get to do the fun little quip before vanishing – because much to his surprise, it’s Casimir that chooses to do it. His steps come to an abrupt stop, a small smile tugging on his face as he looks up and sees Casimir turn toward him, the way the wind whips up his curls and in the low evening light he looks like he was cut from stone.
Hearing the playfulness underline Casimir’s words, the rich baritone flooding his flushed ears, Thorn watches with raised brows as the sly and satisfied smile twitches across the bartender’s face before he fucking vanishes right before Thorn even has a second to wrap his head around what Casimir’s even said.
So obviously, not wanting to be outdone, the courtesan darts forward in the space Casimir left behind, taking the sign post back with all kinds of grace and ease, only to whirl toward the bartender when he has him in his sights again. “I would’ve!” He protests with a chime of laughter spilling from his throat, the silver choker dancing with the movement. “I just didn’t think it was gonna work.” Raising a brow and shooting the bartender a smug smirk, Thorn picks up his pace a little to start guiding back to the House of Midnight. “If ya want me to be more.. direct, I think I can manage it.” It’s a bold claim, because for whatever reason, the charm and ease that Thorn usually had with clients felt more like foreign territory when it came to the handsome, familiar face of the bartender.
Hawthorn
so tell me your name and tell me your problems, i got the same
Casimir hides his nausea rather well, he thinks, only stumbling a little when he emerges. The sound of Thorn’s laughter, close behind him, is rich and full and fills the air with its merriment. His comment about being direct brings another spark of mirth to the bartender’s eyes — really, hasn’t Thorn learned he couldn’t be anything but, when talking to the taciturn bartender? — and he wonders what undercurrents of Thorn’s words he so often misses when the man is playing coy.
(Why would he even want to get Casimir alone in a room? It was a ridiculous notion. With the courtesan’s pretty face and delicate features, he could anyone alone. He didn’t need Casimir for that).
The shorter man quickly overtakes him and Casimir slows his footsteps, letting the man guide them towards the gentle lights of the House. It’s a comforting sight as it rises into view, like collapsing in front of the fire after coming in from the cold, and he’s surprised at the sense of familiarity it arises with him. Somewhere, somehow, this hiding-hole has become sort of a home to him. He casts a sidelong glance at Thorn’s hurrying back. Is it the same for him? Or is it something that traps him, that he wishes to outrun? Would Colt’s desert treat him with the same kindness?
When the house comes into view, he catches Thorn’s eye and jerks a head towards the back door, leading him towards the lesser-used and more private entrance. There’s enough rumors spreading around him at the House — that he lost his voice in an underground fighting ring, that he had a harem of secret lovers hidden away, that he spawned alongside the brothel and wasn’t allowed to leave — and he didn’t need to add anything about him and Thorn to the chattering whispers.
He traipses up the stairs with Thorn, shoulders clenched and hunched like he’s expecting an attack. The bartender has never been on the second floor of the House, never had a reason to, and as he creaks open a strong mahogany door, he doesn’t know what to expect. The surroundings morph in front of him like dripping paint down a canvas, blurring the scenery into something soft and unfocused before morphing into a cozy living room. In the small room, two plush armchairs sit in front of a roaring fire, inviting and warm and safe, and Casimir finches so hard he knocks into the wall, his chest heaving heavily and frantic.
He blinks, and the room shifts easily, the armchairs morphing like flowing sand into hard, familiar stools.
The bar of the House of Midnight sits innocuously in front of them, gleaming and shining and familiar.
He has to give the bartender props, because as soon as he sets eyes on him, he can see he’s handled it way better than he had before. It’s still amusing, though, seeing that spark in the other man’s eye, the way Thorn isn’t sure whether to continue this little game, to make his snide little comments and playful answers – like throwing a paint balloon at a board and seeing what stuck.
He’s happy to guide him up ahead, wearing Casimir’s coat like a blanket that keeps his shoulders and chest warm. The bag does the rest, tucked beneath the wool jacket and clutched in one hand so he doesn’t drop it. As the House comes into view, he glances back to make sure he hasn’t lost the bartender. He sees him, though, relieved, and it’s that jerk of his head to the back door that Thorn immediately diverts course for. He knows the rumors of the bartender – hell, he’s probably added a few himself inadvertently. Namely the one that might suggest he’s got some kind of hidden harem.
Thorn will keep this secret away from the rest of the House for as long as he could, though, gliding up the stairs with ease until they reach the door of an empty room on the second floor. And as usual, it opens relatively normal for him, letting his partner choose how he wanted the room to be morphed into – and the second he steps in toward the center he’s greeted with warmth of a fireplace, two plush seats. A living room that looks extremely comfortable with décor and architecture that Thorn wouldn’t mind spending the rest of the night laying on the fur rug and staring up at it like it was his equivalent of stars in the night sky.
And then? It’s gone. Instead, familiarity creeps in as the room morphs and the bar comes visible. And Cas might see the way Thorn stills like a predator might, taking in the surroundings before he’s huffing a scoff of a sound and turns toward Casimir to level him a flat and unimpressed look. “The chairs looked comfy.” He whines, but he puts up with it. He’d promised they could make it whatever they wanted to keep it familiar, and if Cas wanted the bar to be the thing they ate at and enjoyed a night at, Thorn would give it to him. “But you better sit on my side’ve the bar or I get to sit on yours.” He doesn’t shrug out of the jacket, almost like he’s attached to it, but he does set the bag of food down on the bar and hesitates as if deciding whether he should stick on this side or the other. Instead, he chooses something else entirely. "Actually..."
A cheshire smirk is flashed toward Casimir briefly before he’s grabbing the lip of the bar and hauling himself up onto it to sit his happy ass right on the wood countertop – something he’s sure Cas would have killed him for were this the real bar downstairs.
Hawthorn
so tell me your name and tell me your problems, i got the same
Casimir breaths through his racing heart, trying to still his heaving chest and return to his normal still, solid state. His eyes squeeze shut for a moment, willing the memory of that living room away, inhaling the familiar scent of the bar and letting Thorn’s innocuous chatter wash over his ears. When he opens them, face settled back into unimpressed passivity, Thorn is grinning with a decidedly mischievous grin and looking very much like the cat that ate the canary. Either the other man is too kind to mention his brief outburst or is too excited for what he’s about to do to say it, and either way, Casimir exhales a brief sigh of relief for his lack of acknowledgment.
The bartender can almost see it coming in the graceful curve of Thorn’s hips and the shining gleam in his eye when he walks to the counter. When he reaches it, he splays his ringed hands on Casimir’s beautiful hardwood counter and lifts himself up. He’s seen the cat-like courtesan move with unnatural grace countless times before but this seems almost a purposeful refusal of his lithe body, and he plonks heavily onto the forbidden space of the counter. His grin, naturally, can only be described as shit-eating.
Casimir levels him a deeply unimpressed stare, filled to the brim with flat disdain. Downstairs, at the real bar, he would’ve shoved the smiling courtesan off with a heavy and unflinching movement of his hands, but here? He just gazes at him, letting the stone mask of his face speak for itself.
The bar here, that Thorn’s ass sits upon, is virtually identical to the one downstairs, and it sends Casimir slightly reeling from the uncanniness of it all. The familiarity of the space, without their designated roles, is almost (almost) worse than the haunted living room, like tracking mud through an ancient and well-worn carpet. Like he’s reuniting something reliable.
Slowly, he moves through the room, following Thorn’s trajectory. He doesn’t even look at the bar, won’t even pretend to play the game he’s entertaining the idea of bending the rules that much, but he does ghost towards the unfamiliar stools. His body perches upon one of them, practically right under Thorn, looking up for once at the shorter courtesan. His breath catches in his throat for a single second, the space of a heartbeat; has Thorn’s eyes always been that shade of blue, or had he just never seen it on the other side of the bar?
His hand creeps up from where it rests on his lip, and like a cat with a glass of water on the edge of a table, tries to shove Thorn off the countertop.
He doesn’t know the tells of Cas just yet to be able to tell which parts send him over the edge. So for now, it’s that passive stone faced approach he catches that makes him feel like everything is back to normal – normal enough that the courtesan has to go and ruin it by absolutely being his best impression of a cat to haul himself up on the wooden counter, the familiar grains of wood beneath his hands when he finally settles and watches Casimir approach like he did in fact eat the canary.
He tracks him, just to try and see which side of the bar the bartender would be claiming, and much to his surprise he sees the way he aims for Thorn’s usual side of the bar. A bit of glee creeps into his gut, warm and inviting, but it’s nothing compared to the sparks of fireworks that thread through his veins to see as Casimir sits directly below him on the well worn stools and looks up at him.
He’s still wearing his jacket, watching with curious eyes as the bartender’s hand creeps up and for a split second he wonders if he’d completely misread the situation earlier and maybe he should have just asked him directly if it meant he could get his hands on him. But, like a cold bucket of water getting thrown on him, the bliss and quiet approval of the warm hand that touches him is doused the second he’s shoved.
A short little yelp escapes the courtesan and he does go falling back off the other side of the bar, still wearing Casimir’s coat in the process. But Cas won’t hear the thud of him hitting the ground on the other side. Instead, Thorn rises gracefully with the help of his air magic, gusting around him and rippling Casimir’s coat as he sets himself back on his feet and looks at the other man with far too much dangerous amusement in his gaze.
“Wow, rude.” He teases. He could get back up on the bar, but he chooses not to, instead choosing to lean across it toward the bartender, draping like a thick blanket over the back of a couch. “But seein’ as I’m on this side, now.. What can I getcha, pretty boy?”
Hawthorn
so tell me your name and tell me your problems, i got the same
07-09-2026, 04:18 PM (This post was last modified: 07-09-2026, 04:21 PM by Casimir.)
i fell in love with a war
He shouldn't--
Casimir's gaze lingers on Thorn's body splayed across his bar and knows this is dangerous. He had only just managed to get himself under control after his freak-out at the restaurant. He had only just started to let the trust trickle in, softening his eyes and getting under his armor. Even now, in a facsimile of his home he can barely wrangle his adrenaline under control to let himself ease and remind himself they're friends, Thorn likes him, that he had tried running and all it had done was make Thorn chase him.
Even with reticence thrumming under his skin and intertwined with his heartbeat, he can feel some other part of himself start to take control. A part of himself he thought had died when he ran home, or had bled out when the daemon's claws had raked across his throat and splattered who he was on the stark-white snow. As Thorn looks at him, grinning that charming, edged smile, his shoulders can't help but lean forward slightly. The sharp corner of his mouth turns up just a little, nearly imperceptibly, even as his hand on the counter curls into a fist. His fingernails dig into his palm and he sharpens his mind onto that sensation. Under the curve of his hand, the mahogany is cool and familiar and reminds him that the more something in him opens tonight, the more of him can bleed.
Still. Still, still, still. Even so.
He'd ruin it. He'd hurt Thorn. He already had hurt Thorn, earlier that night, and would do it again. He wasn't-
But Thorn thought he was. And maybe that made him want to try.
Pretty boy, he'd said. (What did that mean?)
His cool gaze appraises the 'bartender,' hand slowly unspooling from its twisted fist. He had already run that night. Had already hurt him that night. If he ran, now, it would be final. Casimir didn't want to.
His eyebrow cocked slightly and his head tipped a single degree to the left. A single muscular shoulder lifted, just a touch, and his eyes stayed fixed on Thorn. It wasn't quite 'batting his eyelashes,' but he wasn't fleeing from the room, so. Baby steps. Guess, it said.
It means exactly how Thorn had meant it. And as he stands on the other side of the bar, languid grace and sinful smiles, he’s happy to be appraised by the bartender on the other side of the bar – the space the courtesan typically occupies. He waits to hear what he might be able to get him, and when there’s no verbal answer, Thorn thinks he’s getting a pretty good idea of what Casimir doesn’t say.
His head tilts to the left, the shoulder lifts, his eyes remain glued to his and were it not for Thorn’s unique ability to not be flustered quickly, he’s sure his body might have lit up with those fireworks again to see him look at him like this. It isn’t anything special, but the eye contact was enough to keep that warm flush to his cheeks and his ears, because Thorn was used to being looked at but not so much being seen.
“Ah, the special. Comin’ right up.” He straightens up from the bar and shoots Casimir a wink, pushing back from the edge of the bar to shrug out of Cas’ coat and hang it on the coat rack, putting his leather jacket up on the next hook beside it, before he’s pushing up his sheer sleeves to keep them out of the way and shakes out his shoulders a bit.
It’s his best attempt at trying to be Cas’ with the steel rod in his spine, the posture that’s both commanding and controlling, and as he grabs the glass and turns back to set it on the bar, he has an almost kind of passive look on his face while he creates the drink. Now, it’s evident that he’s watched Casimir quite a bit, with how he takes the mixing glass and the whiskey and combines it with a syrup and a couple different bitters to give it a fruity twist, mixing it up with a long bar spoon.
He pours it into the glass with a single ice block to keep it cold and slides it across the bar to Casimir as he leans back with the copper barspoon still in his hands, nearly dripping with the leftover liquor that he promptly lifts to run his tongue along for a taste, silent like it was Casimir’s specialty.
Hawthorn
so tell me your name and tell me your problems, i got the same
As Thorn moves behind the bar, Casimir watches with a mix of horror and fascination as the courtesan -- no, the bartender -- moves with a smooth, particular grace to craft a drink. It takes him a moment to recognize himself in these moves, but the more he watches, rapt and unblinking, the clearer it is. It's in the set of Thorn's jaw, the purposefulness of his hands, the soldier-straight spine even as he bends to combine the different elements. When the drink gets slid across the counter with a silent look of smug satisfaction, he gets an overwhelming sense of vertigo, watching what he does daily but in its inverse; the drink slides towards him, not away, and for a moment the bar is inside-out and upside-down. Never once did he think when he was watching his patrons that anyone was watching him back. A shiver races up his spine and the hairs on the back of his neck leap up, and he swears he feels the gaze of eyes on them.
His eyes move from the drink in front of him to catch Thorn's lips darting out to catch a little of excess liquid, and the illusion wavers, there; Casimir would never violate health and safety requirements like that. Thorn's silence is weighty and purposeful and just a little smug, and he knows it's supposed to mirror his, but it still sings just a little something of Thorn's that stops it from being a full, mirrored image. Thorn could try to slip into Casimir's skin if he wished, try on the rot and blood and sins heavy on his back, but Casimir would not be trying on Thorn's. Not fully, at least. Soon, perhaps, the temporary bartender will learn the heaviness that comes with being Casimir and slough it off, and leave the broken man in the dust and find someone who deserves the real focus on his gaze.
The glass gets raised with a mocking toast and he raises it to his lips, taking a cautious tip. He's not a complete teetotaler but the taste of alcohol rarely graces his tongue, and the bitter-sweet burn a hole in his throat not entirely unlike the feeling he gets when his words are stopped up. It's not a bad drink, and he has to commend Thorn for his craft (though he won't). Instead, he tips his head in the barest hint of acknowledgment, face placid and still but not dark.
The drink slides back towards Thorn, not as a refusal, but an offering; Casimir's finger flicks the side of the glass, a low plink resonating in the air, and twitches an invitation to try it.
It’s a good thing they’re in a shifting room, then, because here Thorn’s last care about health and safety has flown out the window. Besides, it’s not like he couldn’t just imagine more bad spoons to appear anyway when he goes to make the next one. But for now, he’s smug in a way that suggests the drink tastes pretty good for someone that’s only watched them get put together. It’s a little too sweet, courtesy of Thorn’s own preferences, but the old fashioned drink sits waiting like an invitation while Thorn reaps the spoils of what he’s seen as his tongue drags against the metal spoon.
He watches as Casimir lifts the glass in a mock toast, Thorn raising the bar spoon with a flourish of his wrist and a little help from his telekinesis magic to keep it from falling as he spins it. But he watches almost a touch too intensely as his work is judged, and with rapt apprehension his shoulders nearly slump with the nod of acknowledgement.
It’s good enough for him. His facade drops to let his grin spread across his face, something warm and inviting and amused as the drink is slid back toward him and he returns to the languid grace he’d had before, bending to rest an elbow on the bar while the other hand braces him. He takes the glass once the dull echo of the plink has left it, lifting it up to his lips to take a sip.
It really isn’t too bad, and it’s just enough to spur the alcohol again from its slumber in his gut, but it takes a bit before it starts to settle in. “Mm, not bad. I know a guy who does it better, though.” He sets the glass down and shifts his weight, debating for a second whether he wanted to try his luck again and sit on the bar. He doesn’t, in the end, but he does push himself up to snag the bag of food to divvy it out again, setting the takeout box of Casimir’s before him as he snags his own and the box of cheese bread. “Eat, before it gets cold.” He says, pointing his fork toward the other man in a playful little threat.
Hawthorn
so tell me your name and tell me your problems, i got the same
