francisco javier es una (pesadilla) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2013-02-10 10:34:00 |
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Titanic smacked Lin in the chest. With a startled sound, he caught the bright red DVD case in his hands, turning on the spot as he watched Sam exit the room with a tone of finality. A handful of words surged to his lips, but they broke there as well, and he was silent for a long moment as a thousand and one thoughts ran through his head. Had she really just left? She had. And she made it pretty clear she didn’t want to be followed. Damn. Lin half-hoped she’d come back with her cute, gappy smile, raise her hands high and say it was all a joke, lol, gotcha!, but the door remained firmly closed. So now he was alone with Daniel - with the grouch of a man who hadn’t yet aimed more than two sentences his way. Fan-fucking-tastic. “I don’t think she meant anything by it,” Lin replied without thinking, his voice even. It really was none of his business. But, well, he’d been dragged here, and had been standing around when the exchange took place, and if Daniel wasn’t going to acknowledge the fact that Sam’s feelings were obviously hurt, then Lin would. He put his hands on his hips and leveled the man with a sassy look. “It seems to me that she was feeling self-conscious, and that you did nothing to reassure her.” The boy sighed, his hands dropping, and he rounded several stacks of books until he was nearer to his host. He sat himself down, shoulder-to-shoulder with Daniel, because he wasn’t about to start respecting the man’s personal space now. With his head lolled back on the sofa and the movie in his lap, he peered over as Daniel spoke. “Maybe she was just curious to see if you’d turn me into a book like you’ve obviously done to everyone else that’s ever been in your life,” Lin said with a sweet smile. “If you do, though, I request to be made into a hardcover copy of Nibelungenlied. In Middle High German, obviously.” Daniel watched Lin squirm a little bit. That was alright, and somewhat mollified his bad temper. It wouldn’t do to have people too pleased to be around him. He went to a lot of effort to make them uncomfortable, but he paid a lot less attention to his own appearance and none to his expressions. “She didn’t come here to be reassured, she’s not stupid. She knows who I am and she’s not that stupid. She just said it to hurt me.” Daniel was very good at hiding things on paper--especially if he was sober--but in person he was complete shit at it. He’d lived by himself going on two years now and he was as transparent as thin air on glass. Angry flickers of blue eyes, irritation, resentment. Sharp, thin collar bones over pale skin, and shoulders more angle than flesh. Daniel appeared to be healthy and yet, at the same time, fragile. The sudden physical closeness made him frown, but he wasn’t scared or uncomfortable, just confused again at why anyone would then want to be within distance. Maybe after Daniel had a few drinks Lin would go back to the other side of the room. Visibly pleased at Lin’s obvious familiarity with the German language and, even better, an obscure medieval text that grew up to be a big bad opera, Daniel got a better grip on his glass and sat slightly forward. He switched to German entirely. He missed hearing it. “You? That book would eat you alive.” Daniel chewed on his lower lip to work through the first flush of booze and quoted, “...unde mir sîn houbet her für mich trüege/dem fult' ich rôtes goldes den Etzelen rant...” His medieval German really wasn’t all that great, it had a modern twist in accent, but even bored young rich guys kicking around Munich to avoid their parents liked a good story where women demanded severed heads. The translation was something like, And whoever cuts this guy’s head off and brings it to me gets Etzel’s shield full of gold. Lines like that required guts. Daniel liked literature with guts. “After that, you want to watch Titanic?” “I’m not saying she’s stupid, asshole. I can see she’s not. I’m saying she was uncomfortable with something - the way she looked or something, and that you being a dick didn’t help that,” said Lin, not unkindly, his own dark eyes searching the man’s face. He noted the various emotions that seemed to flit across it (including the responsive look the boy garnered with his German), one after another, as he spoke, but, as someone who tended to be rather expressive in speech and gesticulation as well, he could sympathize with how irritating transparency could be, so he said nothing of it. Rather unlike Daniel, it seemed, for as much as he enjoyed poking fun at the mistakes people made and showing them how silly they were, Lin wasn’t (often) actively malicious, and digging at people’s perceived weaknesses held little interest for the boy. No. He chose, instead, to adopt a not-entirely-sarcastic dreamy look as Daniel quoted from Nibelungenlied, even as, inwardly, he attempted to translate as the words came. It’d... been a while. Lin had studied abroad his junior year - in a little town in Baden-Württemberg called Freiburg-im-Breisgau -, and it was there, in a medieval literature class, that he’d last read the text. He thought he got enough of the drift to continue anyway. (And enough of it to be impressed by Daniel’s memory, even if his pronunciation was off.) “Are you telling me, if I, after being transfigured into a book, bring you Hagen’s head, you’ll not only give me a ton of gold, but you’ll also watch Titanic with me?” The smile that had been sweet only moments before relaxed, melting into its more natural state: one of extreme mischief. Normally, upon meeting someone new, Lin tried to tone down his ...intensity, at least for a little while. But, as Daniel wasn’t new, he was more or less just letting it all out. There was no sense playing coy when he was anything but. “Because if that’s the offer, I’m in.” He stuck out a hand to shake on it. Daniel ignored the hand. It was one of the things he did to make people awkward and uncomfortable around him, and it usually worked pretty well. To put a hand in the air between yourself and another person was to offer something to them, and to be ignored was not only an deliberate rebuff, it was inescapably obvious. He focused on Lin’s face, which to him seemed inhumanly healthy and young, like a wicked Hermes come to taunt him with the comparison. The German successfully derailed any real plans to kick Lin out without continued opportunity at conversation. Daniel transferred his glass to his other hand to make it really impossible to shake, and then he took a deep drink really worthy of an alcoholic. He pressed his lips down against the burn and then said, in German, “Of course she was uncomfortable with how she looked. She’s sick. Looks half-dead compared to the way she was before. You think I’m supposed to pretend she’s all okay? That’s ridiculous. She almost killed herself with drugs and drink and you want me to make her nice and comfortable? Here?” He indicated his glass, himself, and the apartment in a long sweep of arm. Quite often Lin’s willingness to abuse and break personal and social boundaries was underestimated by those who didn’t know him. Of course he felt the awkwardness forced upon him by Daniel’s obvious refusal to take his hand, - he'd grown up a member of general American society, after all - , but the declination did nothing to dampen his spirits. With his left hand this time, he reached forward and, as the drink was moved, took the other man’s hand in his own, wondered briefly at its warmth, then shook it vigorously. It was well-timed, Lin thought, because Daniel was too busy sucking down his drink to see it coming. The boy released his victim after a span of seconds, as he wasn’t looking to get socked in the face or anything, and smiled, eyes following the man’s arm as he gestured grandly. “You listen as well in person as you do on the comm,” Lin said lightly in English, turning on the cushion and pulling his feet up, so that he was now cross-legged on the sofa, facing Daniel’s side. (It was a good thing the boy was as small as he was. His tendency to splay out or curl up in cat-like positions would be much harder to pull off were he bigger in size.) He played with the DVD case, his eyes idling on the man’s face, tracing the lines there. “Pretending someone is okay and reassuring them are two very different things. As are “making someone comfortable” and not being a dick to them.” Daniel probably could have reacted better to the unwilling shake, but he also could have reacted worse. Lin didn’t get the drink in the face, and Daniel had grown up a member of general American society, too. His fingers automatically closed in a brief acknowledging grip before he could remind himself that he didn’t care about all that polite stuff and he’d just been trying to make a point. His fingers hung in the air for a second, palm curled, and then he pulled his arm back like he wasn’t ever going to stretch it out again. He tucked it against his chest and deliberately looked away. The comment in English earned Lin a dark look, but things were going well because the DVD was still in its case. Daniel had eyes shot through with red the color of clean ice and Atlantic ocean, and he stared rather than blinking. Even a naturally youthful face, somewhat round and overgrown with dark curls, could not hide the premature bitterness around his eyes and mouth. He didn’t like the appraisal and shifted several times. “I don’t reassure. I told you. She wouldn’t come for that. No reason for her to be here if she needs anything at all.” His look was meant to inform Lin of the same in case he was thinking about bursting into tears. Lin heaved a dramatic sigh, his still-not-indifferent shoulders rising and falling exaggeratedly, and his eyes dropping to his lap. He turned the DVD case upside down, then balanced it, somewhat precariously, on the back of the sofa. He was annoying himself with his apparent inability to remain still. After eying it to make sure the DVD wasn't going to slide down and hit him in the head, the boy looked back to Daniel and just kind of observed him for a long, quiet moment. There was something sad about the man that Lin hadn't been expecting. On the forum, certainly, he'd encountered the bitterness and the acerbic remarks - none of that was surprising, but he hadn't counted on the strange melancholy that had settled around the room like dust, so very lightly. The Daniel in his mind was bigger, less crumpled. Was that weird? Lin bit his bottom lip, finally understanding that what he was saying to defend Sam was also making his unwilling host feel bad, or whatever negative emotion that he hadn't yet puzzled out. "Okay, then," said the boy with a half-nod and a tone of finality. It was time to change subjects, he thought; it was in no one's interest to continue the conversation about Sam. It was obviously going nowhere. Lin arched a brow then, as his habitual, playful smile returned. Still on the cushions facing the older man, he rocked forward a bit, though he was careful not to touch. The boy pushed his own black hair out of his eyes. "So when were you going to tell me you lived in a giant, fancy refrigerator? I always imagined you in a small apartment somewhere in a corner with, like, a stack of newspapers and a computer from 1996 that could only play Minesweeper. Which, I guess, minus the 'small' part, I was spot on about." And because he always amused himself, Lin gave a delighted, self-satisfied laugh at that. As Lin stared at him, Daniel stared back with the full knowledge of what Lin was thinking. He was well aware of the contrast between how he sounded and how he actually was; Daniel was a writer, and he had been a writer since before he’d gotten up the guts to throw it in his parents’ faces. The journalism degree was not a means to an end nor a random choice based on what credits he’d managed to acquire; it was an earned, conscious choice, and just because he hadn’t won a pulitzer didn’t mean he didn’t deserve every best-selling penny that came from his novels. He relished the jealous hatred of his fellow journalists across the globe with almost equal enjoyment. Writing was Daniel’s life, and he knew exactly how he sounded on paper, every word intentional. The reality must be disappointing. He had been aware of that the second he discovered who Lin was, and the choice to invite him in had been a willful desire to get it over with. He disliked Sam a little bit more for about ten seconds, sinking his chin deeper into the collarbone. Another two seconds later he disliked himself more and forgot all about blaming Sam, as was a very common pattern these days. With the same impulse he actively refused to react in any way to Lin’s upright movement, whether it came close or tipped away for the brief laugh. Daniel remained permanently slumped in place, and if anything he dug in deeper as if the pull of gravity became abruptly too much to deny. “I like print, doesn’t mean I can’t use a computer. And if you’re cold, I could find you a blankie somewhere.” Maybe that was why Lin had never become anything even close to a writer. (His job was to literally look at fossils for eight hours and then ask, why?) Presentation and reality were one in the same with him. There was no disconnect. Over the journals, he was a bossy, annoying, hyperactive little shit - and, in person, he was a bossy, annoying, hyperactive little shit. He’d learned long ago there was no use trying to deny it. It did nothing to win him friends, but he was okay with that. - That didn’t mean, however, that he didn’t recognize that not everyone was like him. He could understand cultivating an appearance, to be sure. And, honestly, disappointment hadn’t factored into how he was feeling about the revelation that Daniel was, in fact, a human being and not some unfeeling wit (well, he still was an unfeeling wit, but he was also a human, which was a nice addition). “Um, I’ll take the blankie if my name is monogrammed on it. Otherwise, not interested,” replied Lin brusquely in English, even as Daniel seemed to be disappearing into the couch inch by inch. Either the man didn’t want to be as near to Lin as he was, or the sofa was eating him alive and he was too stoic to raise alarm about it. Lin raised his eyebrows, then appeared to be struck by an idea. The boy leaned to the side, so he was halfway off the sofa with one arm on the floor holding him up. He peeked into the dark abyss under the couch. It was kind of dusty. Lin pushed himself back upright, bumping the DVD case into his lap. He tossed it to the floor, obviously annoyed that it hadn’t stayed put, and gave Daniel a confused look. He tipped himself forward again, just to see if the man would shy away from him. “Is there a black hole under there, or what the fuck are you doing, weirdo?” Daniel learned that being in the same room with Lin was very much like talking to him on paper: bewildering, confusing, rather endearing, and ultimately concerning in a fairly intimate way. He watched Lin shift around and waited until he made his point about the gravity-pull of the sofa. Daniel clearly remembered a time painted in Mediterranean blue and faintly swampy salt air when he would have thought the prolonged theatricality was hilarious. The patience eluded him and always had. Daniel’s humor had never been the type to stay patient, it snapped and quickened like a match, and it always burned the unwary before it went out. Now laughter seemed less likely than a sudden indoor tornado. Daniel took a deep drink as Lin squirmed around, tossing the DVD from side to side, and he was licking his upper lip with abstract concentration on a former life when Lin returned to upright and was abruptly moving. Instead of sinking farther back, Daniel sat up, abruptly, closing the distance but making a move with his hand that sloshed the drink and bore a suspicious resemblance to startled rabbits. “What?” He put out one soft palm and blatantly tried to push Lin away by the shoulder, not hard, just a movement meant to automatically maintain some distance. The hand came as a surprise. And that surprise registered in Lin’s eyes as he was lightly rebuffed, Daniel’s palm connecting with his shoulder. His smile disappeared - just for a split second - just long enough to be noticed, before it returned and settled stubbornly once again on his lips, though it had lost its playful edge. People did not push Lin. Lin pushed people. It was like, one of the Laws of Physics. That was just how the universe operated, just how it went, and he did not appreciate that being turned on its head, by Daniel or anyone else. It wasn’t that he was offended by someone touching him. Touching didn’t bother Lin at all. It was more the message behind the palm. See, when Lin pushed people - physically -, it was because they said something stupid and he was, likely, jokingly telling them to shut the fuck up. That wasn’t what this was. Lin had to bite his tongue to not ask Daniel if the only time he touched people was to push them away. (He had to do that a lot, actually. Even he knew there were times he ought try not to be too much of an asshole. He wasn’t on eggshells, per se, around Daniel, but he wasn’t keen on getting a glass to the face, so.) Instead, he looked the man in the eye for a few long seconds, blank faced. His eyes narrowed. He considered pushing Daniel back, but Lin wasn’t the violent sort. Instead, the boy did what he did best - exactly the opposite of what was wanted of him; he moved closer. You see, he'd always been curious about boundaries and he was the sort that was always needling to see how much he could get away with. He didn’t climb into the man’s lap, but he came forward a good inch or so in a series of short, but deliberate movements, until his own knee (as he was still cross-legged and facing Daniel’s side) only just brushed his host’s thigh. Lin raised his eyebrows expectantly, and waited for another hand to push him away, but for once, he said nothing. This collection of events deeply unnerved Daniel. He was not particularly adverse to touch, and spent the night with a random selection of women carried forth on clouds of fruit-flavored vodka and high heels, but none of them particularly mattered to him, and therefore he little troubled himself with their existence, whether they be near or far. Lin, on the other hand, had his conniving little emotional hooks in Daniel good and deep, much like the oblivious Sam. These people therefore had a different status, and they were capable of doing small things like showing up at his door and rattling his world like dice in a cup. Daniel recognized he'd done something that amounted to a challenge, but he didn't know why. The glass was empty when he looked down at it in some excuse of motion, and Lin's sudden silence made Daniel's limbs freeze closer in their sockets. A flicker of confusion and alarm widened the keen stare and took some of the age from his gaze. He gave Lin a look meant to communicate general dislike. (Not especially successful.) "Stop it." When one was sitting as close as Lin was to Daniel, even the finest of details, the most minute of ticks and furtive of glances, were all but laid bare, open for perusal and interpretation. The boy continued to observe the man with interest. He really couldn’t have been much older than Lin was himself. It was no secret to those that knew him that, along with simply being contrarian, curiosity held a lot of sway in his decision making. The tension that held Daniel rigid beside him and the unease that flashed in his eyes held Lin in thrall. He smiled impishly. Emboldened by the lack of retaliation (and that warning look), the boy came just little bit closer; his body was far from relaxed, however. He was prepared, his muscles coiled, to jump away if he had to and he watched very closely for any sign that Daniel was going to physically lash out at him. He could deal with the verbal assaults well enough, but anything beyond that - no, thanks. The time would come, he figured, that Daniel would yield to him in person, as he had over the journals - inasmuch as a person like Daniel could yield. Such was an advantage of having a decidedly relentless nature. He just had to hold out until then. “Daniel.” Lin said the name with a little more force and uncharacteristic solemnity than he intended, but pushed on with determination. His eyes found the surprising blue of his host’s and held there. “Am I making you uncomfortable?” Daniel was not a naturally violent person. If he had been, he wouldn’t have reduced himself to this state over a dead body in a pool of sticky dark blood. It was not necessarily physical isolation he was seeking, and therefore the new twist of singsong challenge riled him. Lin’s question has the same effect on Daniel that it would have had on a stubborn five-year-old, except Daniel had several years of experience in and out of the bedroom and considerably fewer qualms about little things like morality. Daniel met Lin’s smile with a squint of perceptive assessment, taking in the youthful features and trying to understand if there was more than mockery there. Results were inconclusive. Daniel’s shoulders went loose, the pale shirt washed into transparency and lying close to his skin in the violently chill air, stretching away over pallid bones. The cupid curls abruptly lost their innocence, and Daniel set his chin down so that he could settle his lashes more deeply over his eyes. “Is that what you’re here for?” he asked, the question serious but not grave, as if Daniel was considering something that had not occurred to him seconds before. “Bored with the other rich drunk you left at home?” Perhaps Lin had limits on his mockery, but Daniel did not, and the cruel comment was accompanied by a shift of hip into the back of the couch. The smooth scent of the unforgiving whiskey pervaded the air as Daniel moved his torso in a long movement forward until he was only a few inches from Lin’s face. His face had little color and faint dots of sweat turned the dark curls shiny and heavy against his forehead. Lies gave his mouth a very slight, dangerous twist. Something was happening here. Lin wasn’t sure what it was, but he watched, wide eyed, as it unfolded before him. There was some kind of transformation taking place, he gathered, from the abrupt change in Daniel’s demeanor and the sudden, sort of weird way his appearance seemed to go with it. This wasn’t good at all. The boy swallowed as half-lidded eyes moved over him. But he didn’t do anything. He didn’t move, he hardly even breathed, until the words came out of Daniel’s mouth. His rich drunk. Right. Rude. His lips parted, as if ready to quip, but - there was... only silence. He said nothing. He looked - at the brown curls and the light eyes that really had little more than darkness in them, he looked at the way the angle Daniel had his chin tucked downward and the implications that went along with that. Lin’s gaze traveled down the man in confusion in that brief span of time before Daniel came toward him. It took every ounce of willpower in him not to scramble backwards, away and off the sofa, but somehow he managed not to budge - at least no more than a single, involuntary flinch. With their breaths mingling, the boy forced himself to maintain eye contact. (Looking down was dangerous at this little distance, that much he knew. There were lips and things.) - Lin was afraid. For the first time that day, he was genuinely scared. Not that he was going to accidentally kiss the pretty man or anything stupid like that. He was scared that maybe Daniel actually was going to taxidermy him - metaphorically speaking. Fortunately, he was just as obstinate as his potential killer and taxidermist (was that redundant?) and he could play this game. He drowned the crop of responses that immediately came to mind in favor of something a little simpler. “Yes,” answered Lin, with a well-practiced smile, equal parts coy and sly. A hundred small muscles adjusted around the darkened lines of Daniel’s lashes. He held the pose and stayed exactly where he was, but he was an excellent judge of expression, and he thought he perceived something new. Daniel didn’t victimize scared boys, even if he was curious about their presence and actually liked them enough to stand their general interference. “Liar,” he said. Lin tilted his head to the left, just so, as he sucked on his bottom lip thoughtfully. This was not how he had expected his morning to go. What had happened to watching Titanic? What had happened to him being accompanied by Sam? Oh, right, Daniel was an asshole. That’s what had happened. It had been unexpectedly naive of him to expect everything to go as expected, hadn’t it? It was too late now, anyway. Here he was, maybe an inch away from a man he had never met before now, a man whom he, if he was being honest, did like - though in what capacity, he wasn’t certain, a man who was, at present, calling him a liar. Lin was not a scared little boy. ‘Wet paint - do not touch.’ Ha. The biggest joke in the history of the universe, that. Lin’s eyes flicked up to meet Daniel’s, asking him if he really wanted to go down this road. But, the question was brief and rhetorical, because it didn’t matter. He clenched his jaw. There was so little distance between the men that Lin’s body far outpaced his mind. Before he could even begin to ask himself if this was really a wise decision, given what he knew about Daniel and the fact that he (Daniel) was straight, it had been done. Somehow his hands had found the man’s thigh and they helped leverage him the centimeters he needed. His lips were on the man’s so quickly it almost startled him. Daniel watched Lin think about it. Lin could be about as transparent as Daniel, when it came down to it, and in the early flickers of confusion Daniel smiled in amusement that was temporarily free of the darker elements of his nature. No mockery, no disgust, no bored distaste. He even smiled without cruelty, and it made him look like a better person. Some of the taut manipulation eased out of the lines around his mouth, and he settled an elbow into the cushions that made up the back of the absurdly striped couch. He knew what Lin would do about a split-second before he did it. Daniel was starting to notice that all he had to do was tell Lin he couldn’t do something and he would, and any idiot that paid the slightest bit of attention to the scribbles would notice that Lin and Aubrey had practically reached the status of old married couple. This was Daniel’s perception, at least, and he was certain, in his own way, that Lin was simply making a point. Possessed by the same imp of perverse, and bestirred more by the certainty that Lin would spook and leave, Daniel decided (in the second between the weight on his leg and the abrupt pressure on his mouth) that he would let it play out. He hadn’t kissed any men in his immediate memory, though considering the amount of champagne-soaked, money-burning affairs he’d attended, it had probably happened a few times. Daniel wasn’t the kind of person to be troubled by that sort of thing; he couldn’t possibly be more sure of himself if he tried--at least when it came to sex. You probably couldn’t call it masculinity, because the term implied a certain pride in manhood, and being a man didn’t have to do too much with it. Daniel was just Daniel. He had a brief thought, made up of mingled triumph and self-disgust, that this should get rid of Lin in short order. And if he was going to do a thing he might as well do it right. Daniel’s elbow came off the couch and he caught the side of Lin’s neck, pulling him forward into a kiss that gained the edge of rough tongue and whiskey breath. Lin was simply making a point. Really. He was. Right up until the second Daniel hooked his arm around the boy’s neck before pushing his tongue into his mouth without so much as a warning. That was when he started to get a little blurry about the whole ‘making a point’ thing. Still, some insistent, half-remembered worry from the morning paused in his mind just long enough to remind him that he wanted to be Daniel’s friend. Friend. Right? To be honest, this was not the first time Lin had semi-deliberately jumped the invisible, but important dividing line that ran between ‘friendship’ and ‘friends with benefits.’ In fact, this was a long-standing problem of his - one he’d had since before he’d met Aubrey, even. Apparently, he had a difficult time differentiating between what was appropriate in a friends-only relationship (what if being a ‘friend’ included sex, by his definition?) and had, several times in the past, made the mistake of simply not caring. And now that he found himself poised to tread the same wanton path, he - oh, fuck it. There was nothing to think about here. Not about himself, not about Aubrey and how he'd feel bad - nothing.He was kissing a man on a couch. And it was really very nice. Lin shifted within Daniel’s grasp, so as to be able to uncross his legs and come closer. Always closer. His hands left the man’s leg for his chest, where they took hold of his wrinkled shirt with surprising strength. Lin kept his elbows tucked close and managed to prop himself up just enough to keep his neck from snapping and/or keep himself from tumbling into Daniel’s lap. He leaned into the other man. There was no hesitation in him - nothing to notice that he had gone from being intentionally insolent, daring Daniel to stop him, to all too happy to oblige in the span of about two seconds. He could no longer feel the chill of the room. All he felt was his mouth open on Daniel’s to taste whiskey and the way his skin tingled and flushed under the man’s cool touch. The grip on the back of Lin’s neck immediately loosened as Daniel forgot his original intent. Say what you would about the rich drunk guy cliches, but Daniel knew exactly what he was doing (that is, without much realizing he was doing it). Accustoming to dealing with people who weighed about the same or less than he did, Daniel’s fingers slid off Lin’s shoulder and caught his elbow. He hesitated for a second, then actually shrugged very slightly with the edge of his chin toward one shoulder. What the hell. It was only a kiss. Daniel propped his ribs against the side of the couch and tipped his head for a fiercer angle just as the kiss became thoughtful, a curious examination. The edge of Daniel’s lips were rough from inattention, but the movement was a careful suggestion of rhythm. Such kisses didn’t stay ‘just kisses’ for very long. Daniel had left the hotel stone-cold sober, and he’d only managed to get a solid glass in him, so there wasn’t even a haze to veil the sudden, surprising move from conversation to mouths and tongue. Daniel figured kissing to be just kissing, regardless of who the mouth belonged to, and physiological details only mattered once it got to a certain point. No, what really bothered him was that he was starting to enjoy himself, and that wasn’t the fucking purpose of this conversation--both the literal one and the metaphorical one that included a sudden press of warm, comforting weight against his chest. He was supposed to be making him leave. Daniel broke the kiss by pulling his chin off to one side. He took his face out of Lin’s immediate view, toward the couch, to prevent him seeing Daniel’s expression. Then he turned his hip and shoved him roughly off the couch in one hard movement that was mostly leverage. When he thought he’d somewhat collected his expression a split-second later, he looked down, pupils betraying him with a thick darkness but mouth compressed. “Go home,” he said. It was so sad. Lin had come to Turnberry, so very worried that the person who, in his own crotchety way, seemed to like him over the journals, would find him unbearable in person for one reason or another and reject him. But, after the stupid German and the goddamn Nibelungenlied and the motherfucking touching, Lin’s uncertainty had dimmed and flickered, before going out completely; in spite Daniel’s obvious discomfort, he was sure the man had more or less accepted him. Wow, was he ever wrong. (It was finally beginning to sink in that his expectations had no place around Daniel.) He was there, pressed up flush against the man, fingers digging into Daniel’s chest, very involved in a kiss that was quickly becoming more than that, when it happened. Daniel pulled away from the embrace so abruptly, it took a second or two for the boy to realize what was happening. By then, it was too late. Lin sat there like an idiot. He had his mouth open, expectant, confused, even on the verge of asking if he was liar now, and then, with one rough shove from Daniel, he spilled to the floor. Which, by the way, was fucking cold. Because he couldn’t have just been pushed back on the couch. Because nothing in Lin’s life could be so easy as that. (Honestly, Daniel was lucky he hadn’t sent the smaller man sprawling into one of his five million stacks of books. There may well have been casualties.) He was disoriented and a little dizzy, but it didn’t take Lin too long to remember to be upset - or, worse, for color to rise in his cheeks. He wasn’t often embarrassed, but come on. This was ridiculous. From his vantage on the floor, Lin shot the man on the couch a flinty, hateful glare, only barely managing to restrain himself from kicking in that pretty face. His thoughts raced along with his heart, one right after another, but there was no time to stop and think. It was with an indignant scoff that Lin picked himself up off the ground. He brushed off the back of his pants irritatedly. “At least my hypothesis proved correct,” he said in a steely tone, offering no context. His eyes were burning uncomfortably. (Was he going to cry? Oh, god, don’t let him cry. Why did he cry at everything?) Lin sought out the dumb DVD case - to give himself something to do besides stand there and look furious and humiliated. He found it. Another wave of hot anger washed over him, head to foot, as he turned to face Daniel again. It was only his mulish stubbornness and absolute refusal to show how hurt he was that kept Lin composed. Daniel earned a long, pitying look. “You do only touch people to push them away.” He tossed Titanic into Daniel’s lap with as much forced nonchalance as he could muster as he rounded the sofa toward the door. “It’ll give you something to do while you drink.” It was a mean thing to say. Or, it was a mean thing to someone like Lin. Jesus Christ. He needed to find Sam. Like, now. And force her to hug him. Forever. - Lin stopped in the doorway just long enough to throw Daniel a very unhappy smile over his shoulder and say, “It’s really too bad Leo dies at the end.” Then, for once, he did what he was told. He went home. |