francisco javier es una (pesadilla) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-11-13 01:21:00 |
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Entry tags: | jekyll & hyde, joker moreau |
Who: Aubrey Rois & Lin Alesi
What: Sads/Theon bouncing.
Where: Lin's car & then Lin's apartment
When: After this
Warnings/Rating: Low.
Lin turned down a dark, ill-lit street, his boat of a car taking the turn wide. His headlights skimmed across the pavement and he scanned the sidewalks in hopes of seeing a familiar, tall figure. His heart was in his throat - not because it was particularly frightening out in the dark (though it was a bit), but because he’d been torn from his traditional Halloween game of Silent Hill during a particularly tense moment. He’d been running around like a madman with a shotgun, being chased by a gigantic moth that spit acid. He knew how to defeat it. He’d done it hundreds of times before. But that didn’t mean that Aubrey’s call hadn’t made him nearly jump out of his seat. In fact, it had. He had jumped. Out of his seat. And his ChapLin (get it?) mustache had fallen off, fluttering the floor with the last bite of a Twix bar he’d had in his mouth. He’d had to stick the ‘stache back on while fishing for his phone in the mess of blankets atop the sofa. Approximately twenty seconds after hanging up on the phone call to his ex-boyfriend, Aubrey forgot that it had ever happened. In the fifteen or so minutes that it took for Lin to make the trip downtown, an incoherently drunk James Bond had made his way back inside the club and promptly been thrown right back out again for trying to light a cigarette on the dancefloor. He had at least managed to smuggle out a bottle of champagne under his jacket, and so he stood in the shadows under the building’s awning and sipped and swayed and smoked one cigarette, then another. He was lighting a third and holding the bottle of bubbly precariously under one arm, cupping his free hand around the flame to shield it from the wind or the surrounding darkness, when a familiar car pulled up to the curb and Charlie Chaplin told him to get in. For a few seconds (that felt like an eternity, in that drunken sort of way where time went all sticky), Aubrey just stared blankly. At last something clicked and he climbed in through the open passenger-side door, closing it behind him with a clunk and resting the half-empty bottle in his lap. “Lin?” He asked around the cigarette that jutted from his mouth, squinting as he tried to bring the costumed man into focus. “Did I call you?” The question was disconcerting. It was confusing the way watching a video with slipped audio was confusing. It took a moment to notice that the lip movements didn't match the shapes of the words one was hearing, but once one saw it, it became overwhelmingly obvious, almost painful. Lin bit his lip as Aubrey slid into the car, eyes sweeping down the man's body. He noted the suit - expensive, dark -, the hair - parted to the side -, the dangling cigarette, and the large bottle cradled in Aubrey's lap. He wondered just how drunk the man was (oh, was he supposed to be a Bond? A very, very inebriated Bond?). How could he have forgotten he'd phoned? When the door closed, the boy turned his attention back to the street and pulled away from the curb. It was strangely quiet in the little cocoon of his car. There was normally something playing at a high volume. But, tonight, there was nothing but the sound of tires on pavement and a motor propelling tons of metal down the street. Though he had left as soon as the call had ended, only pausing to finish eating the dropped Twix and fetch his keys, Lin had spent the drive over to Fremont St. attempting to mentally steel himself for whatever was to come. He didn't know. But Aubrey plus booze plus ...killing someone didn't sound like an especially happy equation. "You did call me," stated the boy with uncharacteristic solemnity as he turned the car toward home. He stared forward, watching the world whizz past in varying shades of black and gold. Smoke filled the air between the two men. The stupid mustache itched like hell. After a pause, Lin glanced sideways at his passenger. "You seem better now. You - ...are you alright?" “I just. I don’t know man, this day is just crazy you know?” Aubrey’s words all ran together and his voice was thick with liquor and smoke and tight-packed emotion, and he made a face as he took a long pull on his cigarette. His gaze was clouded-over with a fog and he stared out at the horizon with watery, unseeing eyes. He was empty, and he did not care. His hand shook as he clamped the cigarette between two fingers and then leaned his head out the window, pursed lips exhaling the smoke in a vapour trail while the wind ruffled his hair. “I thought I called you. But it. Wasn’t real. Thanks, though. Where are we?” He squinted again as if he really believed that it would help him see better, peering out the window at the lights flashing past Lin’s car. He grabbed the champagne by the neck and tipped his head back and he poured several long gulps down his throat, trying to melt the block of ice that sat heavy in his stomach. He shivered. Took a drag. Glanced down. Squinted. “Where are my shoes?” He wondered aloud, laughing in that hollow way that didn’t reach his eyes. He’d lost them... somewhere. God, why couldn’t he remember? Somewhere. Back there. No, it was too much. He didn’t know. Aubrey let out a weary sigh and slumped back against the seat, closing his eyes and squeezing them shut for a moment. No, this was wrong. He shouldn’t have called Lin. “I’m... sorry. I... ” he trailed off, one hand making vague shapes in the air in front of him, as if that would help him make his point. “I messed up.” It was all Lin could do to keep his eyes ahead of him and on the road. Aubrey was sticking his head out the window and for a brief second there, the boy wished child locks had been invented when his car was being made. Not that he expected the other man to jump out. But, well, - the boy flicked his eyes to Aubrey, then back to the road - he was drunk and he was upset, so it was best not to rule anything out. As it was, there were no child locks, so he would have to make due with gripping the steering wheel as hard as he could and hoping for the best. He listened as his ex-boyfriend slurred drunkenly and tried to parse the lucid thoughts from the rambling, nonsensical ones with little luck. Had this been any other day, under any other circumstances, he would have laughed at the fact that Aubrey had ...misplaced both of his shoes, because how? But tonight he just pressed his lips into a thin line and stopped at a red light. He chanced a glance at his passenger. "Hush. We'll be at my place soon, then I'll listen to your apologies," said Lin with a ghost of a smile. The light changed to green and washed the car in an eerie, very Halloween-y light. He accelerated through the intersection. It wasn't a long drive to Flamingo - to the condo. And because most everyone else was out, either annoying their neighbors by knocking on their doors asking for candy or drinking dangerous amounts of alcohol and losing their shoes, the roads were empty. It was hardly any time at all before the car's tires bumped up against the block of cement that denoted Lin's parking spot and they were hobbling, Aubrey leaning heavily on the smaller man (God, please don't let his knees buckle now), to the front door of the condo. Somewhere along the way, Lin's mustache was lost. He realized this only as they barged into the living room, lit only by the TV screen, frozen on the badly rendered scene of the moth circling Harry, and he freed himself from Aubrey, depositing his ex-boyfriend on the candy-strewn sofa. He pushed his hat back on his head. Well, fuck. Aubrey kept up the running commentary as Lin helped him out of the car, pausing only to curse a blue streak as his filthy, blood-stained feet were shredded to further ribbons against the pavement. He rambled all the way up to Lin’s condo with his eyes still glazed over, leaning on the smaller man far more than he should have and marveling at the decor of the building as if he was visiting the Taj Mahal for the first time. “This is really nice. Lin, this is nice. I like the... elevator. That’s a nice elevator. And the paintings! Normally the stupid art they put in condos is hideous, but I could probably look at those for a few seconds without wanting to puke,” he rambled semi-coherently as Lin half-carried, half-dragged him down the hallway. His feet hurt like a motherfucker, and he was leaving a trail of bloody footprints all the way up to Lin’s condo, but the point was that he was safe now. He couldn’t hurt anyone here. He couldn’t do more bad things. Somewhere along the way he had flicked his cigarette into a potted plant, and so when Lin deposited him on the couch he only had his champagne to focus on. “What are watching? Lin, no, Lin - c’mere,” he slurred, pushing himself into a sitting position and sloshing only a small amount of the booze onto the floor. “Can we talk? Please? I just - I can’t -” here he broke off, fumbling over words that escaped him as the last twenty-four hours started to come back to him and his face darkened into a thundercloud. When he finally spoke again, his voice was no more than a whisper and his hazel eyes were brimming over. “I did a bad thing.” Luckily for the drunken giant of a man, Lin had been laboring under too much weight to notice the cigarette butt arcing in the air into some plant in the hallway or the blood that darkened his floor. And now, inside the condo, with the door locked behind them, he lifted his feet distractedly. Where had that strip of a mustache gone? He squinted in the dim white light of the TV, but to no avail. He tossed his bowler onto the very 90s stylized bar that looked into the kitchen with a sigh and shed his too-small jacket onto the back of a chair as he turned toward the sofa. Aubrey sort of swayed where he sat, amid the wrappers and blankets. Some of his champagne tipped onto the floor. Lin sat down warily. He wasn’t afraid Aubrey was going to suddenly turn violent or something and kill him, but, while he had so far managed to remain clear-headed and calm, he didn’t really know what was going to happen, and that was scary. The boy bit his lip again and fetched up the controller from where he’d left it on the coffee table. He turned it over in his hands, peering down at it until Aubrey’s voice trailed off. There was a moment of semi-silence as the fight scene music played on low volume from the TV. Aubrey was crying and Lin’s mouth opened and closed uselessly as he tried to find the right words. Finally, he just reached a hand forward and rubbed Aubrey’s back consolingly. They were sitting close enough that it was a partial hug. “It’s okay. What did you do? Do you want to tell me?” Aubrey coudn’t help but stare as Lin picked up the video game controller and twirled it around in his hands, making it dance with nimble fingers. He was a mess. Aubrey was scrubbed raw, made into a pink disaster that threatened to drown in sparkly rainbow liquor. He wobbled even as the sat on the couch, closing his eyes against the occasional bout of the spins and sucking the bottle dry as if that would protect him for just a little bit longer. “Okay. A bad guy. Bad, Lin - he wasn’t good. I thought he had something to do with my dad, but someone gave me shitty info. He didn’t know anything. But he was a piece of shit. He didn’t deserve to live.” More than half of the words that left his lips were more to reassure himself, muttered under his breath and packed into acidic bursts of breath. His chest heaved and then he sobbed, once, twice - hot, wet tears rolled down his cheeks. He needed something more. He knew he was not good. “I just don’t know, Lin,” he gasped, leaning into the half hearted hug and reaching out to steady himself. “I don’t want to be part of the darkness.” Lin moved to hook his arm around Aubrey’s broad shoulders, even though their height difference made it more than a little difficult. He didn’t care. He just put his arm around his ex-boyfriend and pulled him in closer, leaning his head on Aubrey’s shoulder that was somehow still the perfect height for such. The controller lay forgotten on the cushion near Lin’s knee. He kicked it to the ground as he pulled his feet up. “You’re not.” The boy leaned on the other man, reaching forward with his free hand to brush tears from Aubrey’s cheeks as best he could. The expensive suit was silky against his cheek and smelt familiar - like alcohol, cigarette smoke, and cologne. His own white-button up was bright against the black of the room. He looked at Aubrey. In reality, it was hard to assess what he was feeling. Lin was more concerned about the man next to him than his own confused emotions that surrounded the fact that someone was dead because of Aubrey. To think that the hands that could be so gentle had pulled the trigger, that the now red-rimmed eyes, iris’ a beautiful mix of blue and green, had watched as life left the body of this man - who, according to Aubrey, was not a good person, undeserving of life - it was all too much for the boy on the sofa to process. All he could do was push it from his mind and focus on the task at hand - on the very drunk man who had reached out to him for some unknown reason. “I don’t think you could ever be a part of that,” said Lin with as much certainty as he could muster. “I could. I am,” he protested weakly, arms falling limp at his sides once more before he reached up to scrub both his hands over his face. “I’m getting closer to the darkness every day, Lin. I can feel it.” His ruddy cheeks were wet with tears and he needed another cigarette, another drink - he grabbed the bottle from his lap and chugged it down, down, down. There. Better, for now. His stomach roiled and churned against the assault, but he was too far gone even to register the nausea. What he felt was... cold. Frigid with fear. Aubrey set the bottle down on the floor beside the couch, demonstrating a surprising amount of care when he placed it far out of the reach of his wayward legs. Then he moved closer to Lin, to the warmth and the softness and the inexplicable care that radiated off the younger man. He was so intimately familiar with the planes of Lin’s body that he could have found his way there with his eyes closed, or blurred with tears as they were. His arms went around Lin’s slender waist and his face went into the crook of the man’s neck, breathing in his scent. Home. Lin smelled like mint and clean soap and old books, and he smelled like home. Once Lin had been his home, and these arms his savior. And in that moment, Aubrey knew he would give anything to have that back. He spent several long moments with his face pressed against the soft skin of Lin’s throat, long enough to feel his tears dry up and for his ragged breaths to settle down. Slowly, he grew still in the embrace. He felt warmth. Peace. “Lin,” he breathed softly, holding the man close with one hand pressed against the small of his back. “Lin. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have bothered you tonight. I just - god, I love you. I still do. You know that, right?” Aubrey pulled back, slow and sticky like he was swimming through molasses, gazing into Lin’s eyes. Searching. “I love you.” The champagne had been forgotten by Lin. He wasn’t sure how, but it was surprising all the same when the bottle came swinging back into view and was lifted to Aubrey’s lips. He almost snatched it away. The last thing the other man needed was more alcohol in his system. Lin was happy to comfort and soothe, but he didn’t know if he was up to the task of clearing vomit from his ex-boyfriend’s air passage before performing some butchered form of CPR. Not tonight, anyway. - But before he could reach for the offending drink, Aubrey stretched forward and placed the bottle on the floor several arm lengths away, then came in close. The bottle was forgotten again. Lin sat with his arms around the man next to him, with his knees pulled up and bent toward Aubrey’s lap. He felt himself flush, the warmth washing over him in a wave, as Aubrey pressed close and his breath tickled the sensitive skin of the boy’s throat. Idly, he ran his fingers through his ex-boyfriend’s short hair, glad the man’s breathing was coming slower as the minutes ticked by. Maybe it would be a short night, after all. Or maybe it wouldn’t. As Aubrey began to speak again, Lin’s eyes grew wide in the white light of the TV because - what the hell? He forced a laugh, trying to focus on the alcohol-soaked confession or whatever it was was just that. He reminded himself that it meant nothing and that Aubrey was talking to make himself feel better more than anything else. It would be selfish of him to take it any other way. They were words he had wanted to hear for so long, yes, that he had imagined Aubrey saying to him time and again, in all manner of contexts. But not like this. This wasn’t right. The words were nothing but wind. Still, his heart skipped a beat, and suddenly the hand that sat at the small of his back felt - wrong. “I -” Aubrey gave him a searching look and Lin smiled reassuringly. He nodded. “Yes. I know. It’s okay. I - love you too.” It wasn’t really a confession if it would be forgotten by morning, was it? “No, no - don’t laugh,” he pleaded, soft and mournful as he felt a few more tears slip down his cheeks. He wasn’t supposed to laugh, that wasn’t the point. Aubrey’s chest was wide open and he held his heart in his hands, and he wanted Lin to take it. He wanted Lin to accept his love, and to love him back. And maybe he said the words, but he didn’t really mean it - did he? No. He didn’t really get it. Aubrey wiped his cheeks dry with the back of his hand and then he reached out, gently cupping Lin’s cheek in his palm and stroking over the smooth skin with the pad of his thumb. There was a smile on those lips, but it did not ring true. It felt empty, like there was nothing behind it. And oh, god - he wanted so desperately for there to be something behind it. “No one will ever love me like you did, Lin,” he murmured, leaning in even closer until their foreheads were pressed together and his champagne-sweet breath mingled with Lin’s. He closed his eyes again, drinking in the closeness. And then he did it. He closed the gap between them, and he kissed Lin, and it was soft and tender. It was what he needed, more than anything else in that moment. More than anything on earth. Whatever existential crisis and crushing doubt Aubrey was currently enduring, Lin could only sit and watch, confused and concerned. He wasn’t sure why the drunk man was crying (he’d said he’d loved him back, hadn’t he?), but he attempted to console him all the same. He wasn’t sure there was much else he could do. But then, Aubrey had his hand on Lin’s cheek and the boy was even more confounded and unable to mask it any longer. He blinked up at his ex-boyfriend, trying to figure out what was going through his slightly deranged mind. All he got by way of explanation, however, was an extremely long, soul-searching, despairing look. Lin wondered what had happened to talking about how the other man had, y’know, killed someone and how had they gotten to the normally off-limits topic of loving each other. The boy shifted on the couch, pausing when he sensed Aubrey was about to lean in closer. He tried to smile again, though the other man’s helpless words only served to fluster Lin all the more. And then they kissed and it was - surprisingly gentle and, really, considering how sloshed Aubrey was, actually quite nice, and then Lin felt like he had no fucking clue what was going on. He pulled away from the embrace, as easily as he could. “You know that’s not true,” he said, their faces still close. Now was not the time to make out, he figured - or, his mind figured, though the rest of him rather disagreed. Lin didn’t want to be responsible for making Aubrey feel worse than he already did. And though he would have loved to have believed that his ex-boyfriend did love him and did want to sleep with him, …well, even he was a little suspicious when such confessions came after a boozy, tearful murder confession. He wasn't a priest, after all. He had some morals. “You’re quite loveable. Like a teddy bear with more personality.” “No,” Aubrey protested weakly, squeezing his eyes shut so that a few more tears were forced to spill out. “No, no, no - “ his voice cracked and his hand make small, desperate gestures in the air between them before he reached out and pressed it against Lin’s chest. He pressed his face into the crook of the younger man’s neck, focused for an endless moment on the steady thrum of Lin’s heartbeat beneath the cold, clammy palm of his hand. He just wanted closeness. He didn’t want empty words to wash over him, and he didn’t need Lin’s lies. He needed to feel loved, if only for one more second of his sad, pathetic life. “Lin,” he whimpered, trailing a line of soft, tender kisses over the column of Lin’s neck and reaching up to thread his fingers through the dark hair at the nape of the man’s neck. “It is true. You loved me like no one else. You made me better, and now I’m nothing. Dante never loved me, not really. I wasn’t enough for him to stay. He left me, just like everyone else is always going to leave me. But not you, Lin. You make me something good. You make - you don’t -” At some point Aubrey’s words trailed off into whimpers and quiet, ragged gasps for breath, and he leaned his forehead against Lin’s shoulder, holding him tight, rocking back and forth almost imperceptibly. The profound sadness that fell in brimming tears, trailing down Aubrey's face one after another, startled Lin more than he could say. The hard shell he was used to encountering was gone and the man leaning so heavily on him was wholly vulnerable - nothing but a sad, drunk man in his hands. He listened to the slurred words, to the desperation in them, and felt the way Aubrey's hands held him, moving through his hair so carefully, and the softness of his lips as they tickled his neck, and it was like his heart was breaking again. So much of this was his fault. Lin's own breath hitched in his throat, but he braved another smile when finally Aubrey's words failed him and they rocked on the sofa. He put a cool hand to the man's wet cheek and looked down at him, irritated with himself for the way his mind automatically made him think of himself as the victim - or just how it centered on him, when, really, it was Aubrey who needed help right now. He didn't show it, however. "Hey - how about we continue this talk tomorrow, hm?" The boy's eyes darted to the TV, to the controller, to the slightly ajar door that lead to his room. He struggled to stand and get Aubrey to do the same. He helped the drunk man hobble to the bedroom. "Come on, baby, let's go." It was that moment - the decision to finally let something come before his own wants that changed everything. And as Lin tucked his ex-boyfriend into his bed and propped himself on the edge of the mattress to sit and wait for the man to fall asleep, a hand idly trailing through his hair, he didn't know it, but he was left behind. Theon wasn't ready, but the boy on the bed knew some things couldn't be put off forever. |