Re: log: antique store - louis, misha, and damian
It took Louis a moment to realize there was nothing rattling around inside the bottle. He had known about Damian's addiction before this morning, that much was true - but it was also true that the bottle hadn't been sitting on the table when he sat down to breakfast. His eyes fixed on it.
Damian's desire spiked palpably when he looked at the label, like a solar flare. It washed warmth through Louis that drained away the chilly sluggishness he had woken up with, a chill that had nothing at all to do with the very ordinary spring frost that had struck the town overnight. He looked a little better. It was subtle, but his color improved a little, and he watched the empty bottle intently.
Just as he flushed with health, his expression took a dive in the opposite direction. He looked up at Damian, then at Misha, stricken and unpleasantly surprised as a sleepwalker. No more smiles here. "I'm so sorry," he said, to Damian. His hands had been sure and easy when he tossed the pill bottle - now they were shaking, so he slid them beneath the tabletop, clasping them together tightly in his lap. "I don't know why I did that." He sagged a little in the chair. "It seemed like the most natural thing in the world to do. I haven't felt anything like that since I was in the Capital last month."
"I wish I could tell you," he said, to Damian's question from before. "I haven't felt well since your father left and the building was empty again. It was worse this morning than yesterday. I felt as I did after the party. Used up, sort of." He shook his head. "No, of course I don't know him well. I don't know why I said it." At least Damian looked catlike rather than angry, and Louis really didn't care if he dropped ashes all over the couch. He didn't really know why he'd said that, either. He glanced to Misha. "That won't happen again."
He took a slow breath, and he composed himself. He could continue apologizing for the next hour, or they could move ahead.
"What should I attempt to do? You both want each other, as you well know." He smiled a little, small and a touch pained as he recovered himself, more typical of him than the knife-like grin of a moment before. "Aside from that, the other wants are smaller. Important, of course, but not as pressing. Music, for instance," he said, to Misha, and to Damian, "Sleep, for a start. You want each other, but you have each other. It gets worse when two people who love each other are apart, or one is gone. A want with an absence is more intense than a want without one. That's what happened with Sam, when she met me in the Capital." The wounds on his forearms from the crash were just about healed now. The ghosts of the scrapes were dark marks on his skin, but they wouldn't leave much of a scar. "On the other hand, proximity of the other person to me makes it worse. With physical contact, it can be very intense." Hence why he'd stayed frozen in the chair, even when out of control of most of the rest of himself. Distance was the last defense, and the only foolproof one. It was why he'd stayed locked in the antique store for almost a month.
Louis might have looked and sounded precisely like himself when he they first entered the room, but such easy calm and confidence was not exactly his style. Now he was very much his usual nervous self, hands still in his lap, and completely unconcerned about the furniture.