meadowlarklogs | 𝚐𝚘𝚍 𝚋𝚎𝚌𝚊𝚖𝚎 𝚊 𝚋𝚘𝚡 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝙸 𝚙𝚞𝚝 𝚖𝚢 𝚝𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚘𝚞𝚜 𝚏𝚞𝚝𝚞𝚛𝚎 𝚒𝚗

You were--what? Thirteen, fourteen? A fucking baby. ( it doesn't excuse literally any of it. there is no excuse for being a shitty human being, there's no excuse for falling so deep into crap you can't pull yourself out of it. doesn't matter if someone is five or fifteen or anything in between. in his world, there's no one to take responsibility for your actions but yourself, so.

aidan throws an arm over his eyes to block out the sky. he doesn't wasnt to look at it. doesn't want to see any changes jai's mood throws at their surroundings. this is his place, not aidan's, and it's also none of his business. so. )

I found Rii when I was fifteen. And shit, I never quit. I'd lay off for a bit, enough to get it mostly out of my system. Enough to lower my tolerance towards crap, but never quit. ( he opens his mouth to start up again. grimaces instead. ) This isn't a comparison. I never made a kid. Which is, honestly, surprising as shit because I've done a lot inadvisable crap. But I haven't, I can't relate, and even if I could it wouldn't matter. But you know? I haven't seen you purposefully or accidentally cause a kid serious harm which is better than at least seventy percent of parental figures down in the Hollies.

I've never met anyone even half so fucking willing to make excuses for my shitty behavior as you.

（ he rubs a finger along his browbone and then, impulsively, gets up and goes to sit beside where aidan's flopped in the grass. not touching him, not trying to, just. sitting an arm's length away, sharing the space. ）

Anyway. You never knew me before I started getting court-mandated therapy. The NA stuff, that's all them and Gal too.

Never said shit about who you were before we met.

( because he doesn't know. because he's not making a judgement call for someone he hasn't met. that's not his call. )

And I never said it was an excuse. There's no excuse for being an asshole.

No. There isn't.

（ he'd wanted it so badly to just be all dass' fault. it was easier to blame her for his shit than try to dig internally — but his therapist sure didn't take that shit from him. he didn't like her much, but he has to admit, she's made him look inward more than he ever wanted to. between her and gal, he's almost a fully functioning person on some days. ）

So there you go. That's like... 99.7 percent of all my secrets you've got now.

( right. well. the arm covering his eyes lowers, and aidan moves to sit himself up, both hands pressing to the grass behind him to hold his weight up. focuses his gaze on jai, with just the barest hint of a smile growing at the corners of his lips. )

Still leaves me with .3 percent to dig into.

And leave me with nothing? All I'll have left is boring you to tears.

（ it's one of those things that seems flippant but isn't, and his tone maybe isn't quite as irreverent as he'd intended. the side effects of dreaming. ）

Don't know if you've realized it yet, but there's absolutely no way you could bore me.

( weight shifting onto one hand so he can slide the other closer to jai without actually touching him. just to get the intention across. )

（ aidan pushes into his space and jai holds his ground. it takes a lot out of him not to flinch away, but his breathing stays steady. ）

Maybe that means you're the boring one.

( look he is very pointedly not touching. he just likes jai's space. it lingers there for a moment, before aidan pulls his hand back and bends his knee up, resting his forearm on top of it. )

Maybe I am.

You weren't supposed to agree, jackass.

（ jai. hesitates, a little, but finally reaches out and just shoves him over onto the grass. ）

You aren't.

( he wouldn't mind being the boring one. being boring has it's advantages. but jai reaches over, shoves him over, and aidan hits the grass with a laugh, lips spreading into a grin. )

I've still got most my secrets.

I don't know, you being soOoOo hot for me was probably a good chunk of them.

（ he wiggles his fingers at the exaggerated so, just to prove a point. ）

I'll admit that was one of the bigger ones.

( don't bully him for his feelings, that's rude. his lips pinch tight for a second before he catches it, shifts it into something softer. )

Can you blame me? You're the one who gives yourself a twelve out of ten.

（ he's spectacularly bad at feelings, but he does catch that misstep. maybe it's easier in a subconscious plane. maybe it's because he's newly come to this awareness and isn't quite sure of how to approach it. either way, his expression flickers with something like contrition and he looks down at his hands. ）

That's just bravado, dummy. Can't believe you fell for that.

Yeah, obviously. But your bravado doesn't hit far off the mark. You're hot, you're the only damn person I've ever actually wanted to spend time around, excluding Rii. You're better than you give yourself credit for. You've got flaws just like every other damn person, I'm not denying them. But neither do you.

( nobody can hear him bring up this crap inside of a dream, right. aidan grabs a fist full of grass, rips it out of the ground. )

I actually want to feel shit with you.

（ he stops short of putting his hands over his ears, which he's not sure would work in a fucking dream anyway. now that he's got the knack of things, there's no immediate weather-related changes either to impress upon his company just how deeply uncomfortable he is with the praise. and aidan gives it out so fucking freely. devora's fucking tits. ）

Can you — just stop. Please.

( he does. raises a hand also to--wave it off. praise is easy. real praise is hard as shit. but there's nobody here to hear him say shit to jai, and aidan --isn't lying, here. wanting to feel shit generally includes feelings. )

You're the one who wanted to touch hands, asshole.

I don't regret it.

（ as fucked up as he's feeling right now, he wants to drive that home. the last fucking thing he wants aidan to feel is rejected.

he's a lot more fidgety in the dream than he is in real life, so he sort of lifts a hand up, flexes his fingers into a closed fist and then then forces himself to open them so he can reach out. he curls his fingers around aidan's bare wrist. he's braced for the empathy bond but it doesn't come, and as if emboldened by that he tugs his hand up and over to him. stoops a little, to brush his mouth across the back of aidan's hand. not quite a kiss, but — not entirely anything else, either. it's small, and soft, and romantic in a way he would have scoffed at years ago. but it still feels right. ）

( it's the stupid kind of shit he would have laughed off before. would have thrown off as absolutely nothing, made fun of someone for. but it's jai and stupid little things just hit different when he knows how hard jai is trying for it.

the tips of his ears flush; just a soft pink, barely noticeable. his hand stays slack in jai's grip, lets him move aidan however he damn well pleases. )

Better knock that shit out, man. You've got my heart all aflutter.

Do you want it or not?

（ it's hard enough to reach out. he doesn't want to do it for nothing. ）

( don't tell me nice things, jai says. do you want it, he asks. where the fuck is the middle ground between these two points. aidan's knuckles twitch, contemplating where the fuck that line is that he's not supposed to cross and how far he's supposed to push it. )

Yes? ( wait. ) Yes. Heart aflutter, generally a good thing.

（ he traces his thumb against aidan's knuckles to quiet down that tick. he's trying not to think about how long the contact's gone on. it's easier in a dream. barely even counts for anything, and he's so irate with himself for taking that tack that he slips his hand down the inside of aidan's wrist, down to his elbow, trailing his fingers along the skin, across old scars. forcing himself to do it while there's no empathy bond, so aidan can't feel the way he's fighting down nausea. because it's not — it's not fucking him, it's not ever about him, it has nothing to do with him. it's not his fault that jai's so screwed up that the idea of touching people — even ones that care about him — fucks him up this bad.

being the kestrel is all about finding things you can overcome. this isn't any different, it's just something he needs to do. for himself as much as aidan. ）

I mean, you're also describing atrial flutter, which can be a serious medical condition. We should be careful.

（ his attention flicks upwards, to gauge aidan's expression. see if this is something he should draw back from or continue on with. it's easy to act smooth about it, but that's — a kinvaio thing, it doesn't belong to jai artesio, the boy he was before dass, before everything. the boy he still sometimes feels like when he's out of his depth, over his head, drowning in things he's aware of but barely understands. ）

( touching like this is nothing. aidan grew up all about casual touches. all about getting a little too much into others' spaces. about letting others into his space. bodies draped over one another, finding a nice person to fuck when he got the urge. giving a loose shrug and an alright when one of the others under vyres felt frisky. he's kept a bit more to himself over the last few years, but he's never been shy about shit like this.

bodies are just bodies. skin's skin. this is nothing special. except it does mean something to jai, it means something to aidan because of it. he stops breathing for a moment, has to remember to start up again when jai speaks up. )

Promise my heart can take it.

( voice loose, airy. he's trying a little too hard to sound casual because he doesn't want to give jai a reason to stop. it doesn't match the flush, but it's fine. he's fine. he's got this. this is basically second base by jai standards and aidan isn't fucking it up. )

I know. You're tough.

（ he's had some time, some space to think about it. just because he'd never considered aidan in that way doesn't mean it's off the table, it's just. he's been so focused for so long that it wasn't even on his mind. now that aidan's laid it all out, it's got him thinking about it.

the problem is, he's not even sure he remembers how to want someone in that way. the rush, the tangle, the heat — it's caught up in too many other things in his head. the only time he's touched people in the last few years has been the result of fighting or injury, or playing nice at one of gal's functions that he has to attend for propriety's sake. shaking hands, touches on the shoulder. tolerating people being in his space. it's always hard and he's always a fucking wreck after.

but that trust has always been there, with aidan. there was a reason jai went to him over gal when he got hurt. and now that he's examining it in a different context, there was probably a reason that touch always made his pulse jump.

he reaches up tentatively to brush aidan's dumb curly fucking hair back a little from his temple, because dreamscapes apparently don't care that you've recently had your head shaved, and then he just. leans in. not to kiss him, though it crossed his mind he could, but just to press his forehead to aidan's and let that be enough for a moment. just that. casual touch, breathing the same air. ）

( he isn't tough, though. aidan's real damn good at faking, it's his number one best skill. but he's not tough. stubborn. an asshole with a mouth that doesn't quit. an idiot, most days. but aidan would never use the word tough. he almost breaks, here. jai has his hands on him and he knows better than to reach out but he almost does.

almost.

and then jai's leaning over him, pressing their foreheads together and aidan can feel his breath against his lips. for a dream, this shit is stupidly realistic and it's fucking with him. he wants suddenly, inexplicably. wants to reach out his hand and brush fingers through jai's hair, wants to hold onto him, feel him. but he knows how fast a hand going for the side of someone's head can turn bad. how easy it'd be to fist his fingers into jai's hair, yank hard and with purpose. he could throw a leg over jai's hips, try to pull him off balance. he doesn't want to, fuck. but jai is used to fighting, he's used to hands being used as blunt weapons, and the absolute last thing aidan wants to do here is give him any reason to back off.

instead he tips his chin back just a bit. presses that much closer. stays absolutely, perfectly pliant under jai. the ground isn't the most comfortable place to lay down, but it isn't terrible, either. manageable. )

Jai, ( it's whispered soft, barely more than air leaving his lungs. ) can I touch you? Just your cheek, with my fingers. ( this is already a lot. he won't be too disappointed if he's turned down; aidan never expected to get this far, let alone--anything else. )

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject