[ Tommy ducks his head, lips curling up towards his ears again, marveling to himself at how the unintentional mirror of Mark’s words to his thoughts makes something in his chest stutter and shiver. Just as strangely liberating, but so much scarier, those three words: I trust you.
It’s still new to him, the fact that his team trusts him, the fact that all of them more or less understand some part of him due to any number of shared traumas or desires. It’s still a peculiar thing, when an ordinary person accepts his help without much hesitation. His whole life until the team had been a series of instances where he failed, frightened, lost the love and faith of those who, societal norms suggested, should have laid it unconditionally at his feet. And in return, he’d acted out in grander and more horrifying scales. He’d set out to prove that while there were limits to love, disappointment knew no bounds.
Now, here is Mark, who is not in need of any life-saving gestures, and neither is he a member of that little club of monsters-turned-mentors—but he trusts him. Even without the words spoken aloud, the ease with which he fits against Tommy inscribes that open confidence into his muscles like crackling flames, into the air around them both. He feels the chill dissipate from the night, helpless to fight against their simultaneous decision not to run away from something, but towards something else altogether.
Tommy turns his head again, his quiet murmur drifting along Mark’s jaw, ]
Anywhere, it is. Hold on tight.
[ Then he leans low, tilts like a windmill against the dark, and they are flying across the sand. ]
[ His heart had been a shriveled, corpse like thing for so long that he had almost forgotten what it felt like to be alive. But the minute Tommy starts to run it is as if a shot of adrenaline is delivered straight through to his soul. It bursts through him like fire, like electricity, waking up what had been lost and forcing it into action. The wind is a sharp and cutting thing, flaying away all that he has been covered with since returning home to leave him raw and real.
He crows, a delighted sound that gets muffled by the force of their speed. And then he does not think. He allows his new companion to pick their destination and loses himself to the chase of it. It is blissful, it is all encompassing. Mark wants in ways that should make him afraid. But here he is not a Shadowhunter. And nor is he part of the fae. He is merely a boy.
He loses track of time, and when Tommy finally stops, when Mark gets to his feet, then he is sinking to his knees, fingers reaching out to grab the other's hand and press it to his bowed forehead. He does not know where they are, but that would not change his supplication. It's an old movement, a strange one, but he does not care for hiding his feeling. ]
[ They are a merged blur together over dunes and ripples of salt water licking up to dry sand, in turn, as Tommy cuts and weaves a path through deepening nightfall. It is a fraction of his top speeds because he is careful with his new and enchanting passenger; he appreciates the way Mark knows implicitly to tuck himself tightly into his own tall shape, protected against any real harm the velocity could do to flesh not made to withstand it. He appreciates it mostly because, the realization dawns, he feels an inexplicable urge to do the same, himself. Protect Mark. Free him, shield him, lead him astray and then home again.
The crow of delight in his ear sounds so purely effervescent that it pulls laughter up from his own chest like bubbles to the surface of waves that were once too still and quiet.
Yes, he wants to protect that sound, that feeling; make it happen again. Tomorrow, and the next day. He would carry this glass warrior across oceans to hear that joyful timbre directed at him.
When he finally slows, comes to a careful halt, and they are both facing each other at the water’s edge, Tommy quickly finds himself towering over the other boy without having moved, his hand grasped and held captive. Mark is bowing, and he is at once confused and profoundly awed.
He sinks to his knees before him after a stunned silence, and he pulls his hand free, only to carefully pull the goggles from Mark’s head. To possess the full scope of all the planes of his unearthly face. ]
…Who are you?
[ Tommy does not ask with the hope of an actual explanation. There is simply no other way to voice how mystified he is to see a dream breathe itself to life in front of him. ]
[ It's honest, and maybe it's because Tommy is a relative stranger and cannot be hurt by it, or maybe it's because there's something that calls inside of his blood. But it is honest. ]
I am Mark Blackthorn. Shadowhunter. Faerie. Boy. I do not know which one to hold on to. [ He still has a hold of his hand and so he turns it, threads their fingers together. It's a sweet movement, almost as if it could be seductive were it not for Mark's innocence in the moment. He had hated the lack of touch in the Hunt, and while Kieran had helped then, he craves it more and more now. ] I was thrown from the Hunt and I have not felt the wind for many, many nights. I have known great loss, but no longer having that --.
[ It could kill him, if he let it. And it hurts more than the whipping ever did. But he has an obligation to his family. ]
[ Small notions start to fall into place, to piece themselves together and speak the same language, when before they had been slightly discordant, earnestly communicative but not fully understood. Tommy’s eyes widen a fraction as he absorbs.
So it’s much more than demons, and hunters, or even angels and gods. It’s Neverland, and wilderness; a trackless way into some Other Place. Some world where Mark has maybe left a foot, or a memory, or a perhaps a very real piece of his heart. A life that Tommy seems to remind him of, offering up an altered version of what he knew.
Yet it’s simpler than all of that too, of course. ]
…Boy.
[ Tommy’s lashes lower while he studies their entwined fingers, wondering if this is what it feels like to touch another galaxy. They are not serenely or even sweetly holding hands. There is a whole world hidden in their joined palms. They are explorers, now.
They are Lost Boys, together.
Slowly, he lifts his other hand to graze fingertips across the high slope of Mark’s cheek; he holds it there. Empathy. Acceptance. ]
[ His smile blooms like a midnight flower, petals unfolding in the dark of the night. Tommy touches him and Mark turns into it without thinking. He feels more himself than he has done in weeks and so he yearns to keep soaking up the moment for as long as he can. ]
I would like to know you better.
[ It's easy for him to say. He does not remember how to navigate human interaction and so he's stubbornly, refreshingly blunt in his affections. Mark would like to keep this boy, the one who can run wild on his own two feet, who does not balk at strangers bearing knives nor ones with strange eyes and stranger hearts. It is something he is forging for himself, a bond that did not have it's roots in the boy he was before. ]
[ That smile has begun a pattern of knocking the wind directly out of him. It’s even more potent with the clarity that Mark is completely unaware of what an unexpected treasure it is. Some use their beauty as a weapon alongside their blades.
Tommy suspects Mark has no earthly idea how beautiful he is.
He drags his thumb a little wistfully, a little mournfully, along the corner of that smile as his hand leaves the warmth of Mark’s cheek. But he has a purpose, even if he is immediately colder for the absence of contact. He uses that hand to pull his phone from his back pocket and offer it to the boy before him; selfishly, perhaps, he lets the fingers of his other hand remain tangled with Mark’s as he does so. ]
Here, [ He starts, unlocking the screen, ] Your number. I… want to know you, too.
[ Mark stares at the phone for a moment as though he is not sure what to make of it before his expression clears. Emma and Julian had bought him a cell phone shortly after he'd agreed to stay with the Institute. He takes Tommy's and programmes in the number very carefully, placing it under the name of Mark Blackthorn.
Once he is done he tucks the phone back into Tommy's pocket - yes, his back one. He doesn't even look like he cares much that it was a provocative movement. Mark can be both flirtatious and innocent within the very same breath. ]
Then this is how you will find me.
[ He tips his head a little, gold eye glinting in the dark. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
[ Tommy ducks his head, lips curling up towards his ears again, marveling to himself at how the unintentional mirror of Mark’s words to his thoughts makes something in his chest stutter and shiver. Just as strangely liberating, but so much scarier, those three words: I trust you.
It’s still new to him, the fact that his team trusts him, the fact that all of them more or less understand some part of him due to any number of shared traumas or desires. It’s still a peculiar thing, when an ordinary person accepts his help without much hesitation. His whole life until the team had been a series of instances where he failed, frightened, lost the love and faith of those who, societal norms suggested, should have laid it unconditionally at his feet. And in return, he’d acted out in grander and more horrifying scales. He’d set out to prove that while there were limits to love, disappointment knew no bounds.
Now, here is Mark, who is not in need of any life-saving gestures, and neither is he a member of that little club of monsters-turned-mentors—but he trusts him. Even without the words spoken aloud, the ease with which he fits against Tommy inscribes that open confidence into his muscles like crackling flames, into the air around them both. He feels the chill dissipate from the night, helpless to fight against their simultaneous decision not to run away from something, but towards something else altogether.
Tommy turns his head again, his quiet murmur drifting along Mark’s jaw, ]
Anywhere, it is. Hold on tight.
[ Then he leans low, tilts like a windmill against the dark, and they are flying across the sand. ]
no subject
He crows, a delighted sound that gets muffled by the force of their speed. And then he does not think. He allows his new companion to pick their destination and loses himself to the chase of it. It is blissful, it is all encompassing. Mark wants in ways that should make him afraid. But here he is not a Shadowhunter. And nor is he part of the fae. He is merely a boy.
He loses track of time, and when Tommy finally stops, when Mark gets to his feet, then he is sinking to his knees, fingers reaching out to grab the other's hand and press it to his bowed forehead. He does not know where they are, but that would not change his supplication. It's an old movement, a strange one, but he does not care for hiding his feeling. ]
Thank you.
[ It is not enough. But he does not have more. ]
no subject
The crow of delight in his ear sounds so purely effervescent that it pulls laughter up from his own chest like bubbles to the surface of waves that were once too still and quiet.
Yes, he wants to protect that sound, that feeling; make it happen again. Tomorrow, and the next day. He would carry this glass warrior across oceans to hear that joyful timbre directed at him.
When he finally slows, comes to a careful halt, and they are both facing each other at the water’s edge, Tommy quickly finds himself towering over the other boy without having moved, his hand grasped and held captive. Mark is bowing, and he is at once confused and profoundly awed.
He sinks to his knees before him after a stunned silence, and he pulls his hand free, only to carefully pull the goggles from Mark’s head. To possess the full scope of all the planes of his unearthly face. ]
…Who are you?
[ Tommy does not ask with the hope of an actual explanation. There is simply no other way to voice how mystified he is to see a dream breathe itself to life in front of him. ]
no subject
[ It's honest, and maybe it's because Tommy is a relative stranger and cannot be hurt by it, or maybe it's because there's something that calls inside of his blood. But it is honest. ]
I am Mark Blackthorn. Shadowhunter. Faerie. Boy. I do not know which one to hold on to. [ He still has a hold of his hand and so he turns it, threads their fingers together. It's a sweet movement, almost as if it could be seductive were it not for Mark's innocence in the moment. He had hated the lack of touch in the Hunt, and while Kieran had helped then, he craves it more and more now. ] I was thrown from the Hunt and I have not felt the wind for many, many nights. I have known great loss, but no longer having that --.
[ It could kill him, if he let it. And it hurts more than the whipping ever did. But he has an obligation to his family. ]
Thank you.
no subject
[ Small notions start to fall into place, to piece themselves together and speak the same language, when before they had been slightly discordant, earnestly communicative but not fully understood. Tommy’s eyes widen a fraction as he absorbs.
So it’s much more than demons, and hunters, or even angels and gods. It’s Neverland, and wilderness; a trackless way into some Other Place. Some world where Mark has maybe left a foot, or a memory, or a perhaps a very real piece of his heart. A life that Tommy seems to remind him of, offering up an altered version of what he knew.
Yet it’s simpler than all of that too, of course. ]
…Boy.
[ Tommy’s lashes lower while he studies their entwined fingers, wondering if this is what it feels like to touch another galaxy. They are not serenely or even sweetly holding hands. There is a whole world hidden in their joined palms. They are explorers, now.
They are Lost Boys, together.
Slowly, he lifts his other hand to graze fingertips across the high slope of Mark’s cheek; he holds it there. Empathy. Acceptance. ]
You’re welcome.
no subject
I would like to know you better.
[ It's easy for him to say. He does not remember how to navigate human interaction and so he's stubbornly, refreshingly blunt in his affections. Mark would like to keep this boy, the one who can run wild on his own two feet, who does not balk at strangers bearing knives nor ones with strange eyes and stranger hearts. It is something he is forging for himself, a bond that did not have it's roots in the boy he was before. ]
I would like it if you would allow it.
no subject
Tommy suspects Mark has no earthly idea how beautiful he is.
He drags his thumb a little wistfully, a little mournfully, along the corner of that smile as his hand leaves the warmth of Mark’s cheek. But he has a purpose, even if he is immediately colder for the absence of contact. He uses that hand to pull his phone from his back pocket and offer it to the boy before him; selfishly, perhaps, he lets the fingers of his other hand remain tangled with Mark’s as he does so. ]
Here, [ He starts, unlocking the screen, ] Your number. I… want to know you, too.
no subject
Once he is done he tucks the phone back into Tommy's pocket - yes, his back one. He doesn't even look like he cares much that it was a provocative movement. Mark can be both flirtatious and innocent within the very same breath. ]
Then this is how you will find me.
[ He tips his head a little, gold eye glinting in the dark. ]