Outside of the city – of course. It’s not too different to Seoul, or any other city. The bright lights dim the stars, the sky more grey than black. But this? This is breathtaking. Dawn appreciates beauty when he sees it, and this, this is beyond beautiful. How many other places exist in the world where the night sky shines like this? It’s hard to comprehend, anything past the familiarity of Seoul, past what he remembers from the facility. Dawn feels like a teenager again, his first few steps into freedom under the wide sky of Korea.
Except this time, he isn’t on his own.
And perhaps it’s that that lets him let down his guard, just enough to let himself feel, let himself breathe. He closes his eyes, grounded by Dane’s hand in his, and something in him stirs. His life could have been so much more. He could have had friends, too. Could have had something better than what he got.
He reels it all in, stubborn even now, yanks himself out of his thoughts with force to return to reality. In the here and now, he’s stuck in the middle of the desert with someone who had the guts to call him dense, and that won’t do. Dawn closes the distance between them, brows furrowed. “Maybe I wouldn’t be desne if you weren’t cryptic. I read between the lines as a job. Do you really think I need it outside of it, too?” It’s his voice that’s sharp now. On purpose. “Are you going to speak or are you going to keep staring? It’s getting cold.”
For a moment, it feels like something softens. It only lasts a breath, only lasts long enough to get lodged inside of him between one moment and the next, and it’s enough to make it so it sticks like gum. He’s not supposed to hold onto things like that, not supposed to get lost in the seconds that make up the in between’s of who they are, of what they’re doing, but here he is. Here he is in those moments that reside between one place and the next, a beginning and an end, home and his destination --- also home? Maybe. Maybe it’s both, and maybe he’s supposed to bring Dawn, for as much as he acts put-upon like he’s been forced.
Dane doesn’t really believe in things being fated; he’s much too analytical for that. Still, there’s a certain romanticism that comes with being out under a sky like this, and for just a breath, the vampire entertains the idea that they’re here for a reason. That they met for a reason.
It’s silly, and he brushes it off almost immediately, casting a glare in Dawn’s direction and shoving him lightly with his shoulder. He knows that his words are like acid only because he managed to get under his skin, but he also knows that generally means that he needs to find a way to soothe his wounds if he wants to get a word in edgewise. Then he says something that decidedly distracts him, and he pauses in the cadence of his walk, releasing his hand only out of necessity. The leather jacket over his shoulders is shrugged down and off of him, and he ignores the chill that prickles along his skin as he drapes it over Dawn instead.
“Don’t speak to me like I’m the only one who does that, Dawn. Like I’m the only one who talks in between the lines, or whatever it is that you’re implying. Especially out of the two of us.” Certainly Dane isn’t alone in that, and he isn’t going to pretend that he is either. “If you want to know something, ask me.”
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