February 4th, 2013.
It hadn?t been the best of evenings spent at the Red Dragon Inn. A rare visit by one Cooper Gallows, one of Mesteno?s oldest friends, had resulted in an ugly confrontation more a result of frustration than animosity, a towering Gurahl facing off with a knife slim greyhound of a man perhaps half his weight. Evander had played silent witness to it, and in the aftermath approached his lover without trepidation with intent to spirit him away from the inn. Neither of them had been prepared when Cooper intercepted them before departure could be achieved, and it was difficult to say whom was more surprised when, with Evander still looping an arm around the necromancer, Cooper had dragged the latter into a hard hug, smudging out the boundaries of personal space. Mesteno hadn?t rejected it.
Uneasy, Evander had tolerated watching it without intervention, and even entertained conversation with the pair until Cooper had unwittingly set the cat amongst the pigeons; one jest about proposals being made of the matrimonial variety, and Evander had bolted as if from a nightmare suddenly made real.
The necromancer, accustomed to the Gurahl?s humour but of no inclination to declare himself wanting of rings and ceremony, had been ready to laugh it off and reprimand his friend, but he hadn?t expected to see his own damned lover flee. In fact he?d stood there staring nonplussed at the door for some moments before he realised Evander wasn?t coming back. That he?d taken it seriously.
He?d made it outside in time to bellow at the Llessilm?s back, but the ice slick steps on the porch had seen him over on his a** and lame on one leg before he could properly pursue. It had been a blessing in disguise, for the tumble brought Evander back to see him on his feet again, where a rare thing had happened. They?d argued. In eight months, Mesteno could count the occasions they?d fought (verbally at least) on one hand. More often than not their thoughts and natures were too well aligned for conflict to be necessary. On this occasion, he was furious. The fleeing was only a small part of the cause.
Snarlingly he?d reminded him of what he wasn?t. Reminded him of his own uneasiness over marriage or even bonding of the sort other friends shared. Between hard shoves and accusations, he?d asked him if he was so very repulsive that he?d needed to run.
Evander had experienced a few irritants in a short span of time (the worst of it was people's penchants for embracing the Sadist while the Llessilm was still attached to him and he wasn't so sure he liked just how long that embrace had endured between the two men either), making his temper somewhat shortened as well as heated, and he half lifted Mesteno as much as bullied him into that alley, a chokehold about his neck.
With strong, copper hands gripping him at a hip, an arm he tried to twist behind his back so he couldn't punch him with it, opting for not making his injured, limping leg drag in case he'd hurt it severely, but his aim was to crush him up into the alley wall, higher so that it was his own hips that supported him up rather than Mesteno's legs, pinned elbow to shoulder with a hand flattened over his mouth so that the damn Sadist couldn't interrupt him.
Hot-headed and struggling against the indignity of the chokehold, Mesteno gasped as soon as it was released, and though he tried to twist his arms loose to fend off the bullying (not to flee, but prove himself capable of walking) his chances of protest were scuppered by a wall and a smothering palm. There was a scrabbling of toes at the refuse strewn alley floor before he ceased his belligerent attempts to get loose and actually listened, seething behind the palm, eyes wildly golden, fierce.
Evander hissed the words out between clenching teeth. ?You are not repulsive to me! Marriage is repulsive to me! There is a f***ing difference, a big one, an' while I ain't sure why it's so repulsive to me 'cause I don't sit around with a thumb up my a** psycho-analyzing myself, it is, all right? Scared the f*** outta me. I understand it was a misunderstanding, a dumb f***in' a**hole joke on his part, and I took it literally 'cause nobody's ever joked like that about serious sh** with me before, y'hear me? And if you don't wanna get married anyway, stop bein' a little damn a**hole about my reaction to it 'cause -- hey, if we feel the same way about it, ain't nothin' to be pissed over. Get over it. But don't y'dare act like you ain't mine when you can walk around sayin' 'mine mine mine', and true, you ain't mine all the way, 's why I hadn't said it yet because I didn't want to do no half-a**ed mine, but don't want y'thinkin' you ain't at all mine no way. 'cause it ain't damn true, punk. This body, is mine. It's about more than just your body, but it ain't yet your heart. I ain't claimin' that, not yet. 'cause if I claim it, when I claim it, I'm going to really f***in' mean it. But I don't know how to put that into words, how it's more than just your body but not quite that. I don't know how to f***in' communicate that without sounding like a f***in' jack a**, y'understand? So give me a little damn slack, 'steno.?
Once, twice, Mesteno growled out fierce sounds against skin made damp against his lips, as if he would surely have cut him off mid-speech had the hand not been there, but in the end he had to wait until Evander was finished, until he'd said his piece and the palm no longer suppressed him. The first thing he did was take a couple of deep, gasping breaths, as if he'd been too worked up to get enough air to his lungs through his nose alone, but thankfully, when the reply came, it wasn't some high-volume, viciously abusive counter that might have brought people investigating as they heard them out on the street.
"I was pissed 'cause you made it my f***in' fault. Because y'made me feel like it was me. I mean, f***. Would I even have seen you again if I hadn't gone after you? I don't make a habit of chasin' people down, Evander. I'm not that guy. I've had plenty of people go stormin' off in the past who come cringin' back when they realise they ain't gonna get a rise throwin' tantrums, but you made it seem like I did somethin' so bad, like you were bailin' and it was more than just drama. And okay I get you panicked, but I'm the one that's got your back on this sh** and I was still the one that got kicked in the teeth over it. Am I pesterin' you on the phone at all hours of the God damn day f'no good reason? Am I askin' you to make me promises? No. I don't ask sh** from you 'cept to let me help keep you safe, so next time gimme a little credit, huh?"
He was stung over it for sure, as if he'd been accused of being one of those RhyDin saps that he mocked for their whirlwind romances, but the other part, the possession, he seemed less sure of himself when he replied to that, a little avoidant with his eyes like it was more personal, required more care about what he let spill off his tongue.
"Y'don't claim a heart as yours, 'Vander. The person has to give you that. And I'm not stupid enough to think you're puttin' yours in my care. I'm not. And I'm not stupid enough to think you'd ask for mine, either. If that's what you want mine to mean, fine. I'm yours. You happy now?"
?I ain't gonna lie to you,? Evander told him, ?nor am I good at softening up the truth. You two are close, vishya? In that moment, I wasn't damn thinkin' rationally, 'steno ? it don't fit in with what I know of you so far, but it came out of left field, and I wonder 'What's he been sayin' to this guy to make him say that to me?' I give you a lot of damn credit, but don't expect me to be perfect all the time 'cause I ain't gonna be perfect none of the time. I ain't perfect. I'm real, all right? I'm a real damn person.? And he'd had to think about that, if Mesteno would have seen him again, but his answer was easy when he found it, a quiet, ?Yeah, I'd have mi? I'd have wanted to see you. You woulda seen me again.? But it might have been a week or so, enough time for his panic-and-run reflex to cool off, that compulsion that came to see him (he'd have missed him, he was pretty sure.) Maybe two; perhaps three. Maybe just one. He didn't know for sure. ?I didn't expect you to come after me neither.?
And he didn't -- Niamh certainly never had except to b**** at him, which didn't feel a whole lot different than this in the beginning; probably, he'd expected more than that from the Sadist or else maybe that was just a normal part of the relationships, he couldn't know for sure. It seemed normal, given the repeat.
?In the end, I panicked. I removed myself from the situation freaking me the f*** out. I was gonna go off like a man and resolve that panic on my own -- I dunno, however it resolves itself, thought I'd play it by ear probably, an' for me, it wasn't gonna be the end. I didn't mean to kick your f***in' teeth in. And sh**, isn't that what you mean when you say it? That... I mean... that my body's yours, and there's some more there that can't be put into words, but it feels like I'm yours. Isn't that what you meant??
He was a little confused by the Sadist's wording of 'if that's what you want mine to mean', as if they didn't share a definition -- truly, he'd presumed (and perhaps wrongly) that it meant the same to him. Not the heart, not love, but a little more than sex. Something more than sex, but something that wasn't love. If not, what had he meant?