he rips the halos off of angels for the fun of it

Thayer cannot help the laugh that slips past his teeth. There is an understanding of her family that is from another lifetime, hopeful thinking flourished to the moment in front of him. The war has been over for the rest of them much longer than it has been for Thayer, and it will be that way until his body is committed to the earth. Evie's recounting of her family is a way he finds himself wishing he could do, but their names die on his tongue with the memory. There is no life with them before the war or after, their legacies even for Thayer belonging only to how they killed and how they were killed.

"The way you speak of your family is quite... unrehearsed," He admits. "It's rather refreshing. Is it because the Huntington's are the very backbone of our society and everyone knows your parlor?" A smirk, but there is still sincerity in his words.

Most members of the ton were tight lipped, even more so under the eye of a gossip whose eyes they could never point out in a crowd, if only to keep their secrets from spilling over in ink. Other times, it was the perfect script some were convinced were pieced together by the playwrights in the Royal Theatre. The impression of a bachelor or a debutante was one thing, but their family? It could be what ruined a romance.

He puts the book back on the shelf, shut with the softest spell of dust in the air as the pages close.

It occurred to her quite suddenly that she knew very little of Mister Claremont's family.

A gentle swing of her arms round in thought, Evie chuckled at his remark. "Nah, that's too obvious," she replied with an impish grin. "I don't really have to talk about them at all since that's the case. I think it's because I am more of a talent act than just with a ladle and tea kettle, and I should be gracing the biggest and brightest stages in London for thrice my daily wages." A flamboyant toss of her skirts, a bat of her eyelashes, and she basically sold herself.

He made the impression that he was ready to leave right then and there, and she was not a slow study. Replacing the book on the shelf - who knew if he really meant it as a suggestion? - she told herself she could always circle back round for it after, and her father would survive in boredom, as long as her mother didn't put him out to pasture first. Even the warmth of the spring reached a hand through the open door to have her seize the opportunity.

"Oh, above sounds intriguing," she sighed, striding to his side and giving him a meek, knowing smile. "Best if we keep our feet on the ground, though. I fear between the two of us, we'd happily decide never to come back down." With a confidence that barely crossed her mind, she placed her hand in the crook of his elbow. "Let's try left. If the man doing coin tricks is in his usual spot on the corner, I'll buy you a beer. If he's not, you buy me a beer. Accord?"

Whatever hint of a grin she ensued has not made its bare to bare teeth, a smile ever so slowly uncoiling into a grin. There is something that has shifted in the air, and he isn't sure if its a new act to distract him or a mystery he falls into in front of someone who knows just as little about him as he does of them beyond a name. Only good things in her favor, of course, except a possible up charge on new flavors of ice cream that couldn't be found anywhere else.

"It may easier than you think. Lady Whistledown reports many members of the ton have found their way to the stage. I believe they should all retire from debutante responsibilities and create their own company of runaways," He points out in a cheeky jest. Some part of it does tell him to mind himself. After all, his best friend's sister is one of the names dragged through it and tied up in a matchmaking as he was for some time. "Though I think the desire to escape and flee, and even more so pretend, is part of the human condition. We're all dreamers even if we do not remember when we wake."

He doesn't mean to have so much candor of his pursuits away from London, but he knows they are taken lightly. So many look to the heart of this society as the steps to the pedestal they so desire, but Thayer has fallen from it and how he grows tired of climbing once more.

jonathan bailey - 1988

“i  do  hope  it  is  not  i  you  intend  to  hide  from,  sir  claremont.”  where  others  might  have  taken  the  proverbial  hint  …  florentia  did  not  bend  quite  so  easily.  or  rather,  she  preferred  to  press  where  nerves  wore  thin.  to  hold  a  thread  bare  until  it  frayed  against  the  edge  of  acceptable.  one  hand  rests  lightly  at  her  hip,  her  gaze  set  with  stony  regard.  she  is  not  surprised.  everyone  who  is  anyone  has  been  in  attendance  tonight,  and  she  has  made  no  shortage  of  conversation.

And he suspected it was deliberate.

"Viscountess Rosewood," He announces, if only to have a witness to what she will subject him to. "My apologies, I did not intend to appear so avoidant. I am chaperoning—" Just barely, as she could smell the rum on his breathe if she dared to stand close enough. "— and it seems to have taken the attention I should be gracing such guests as yourself. Are you fairing well this evening? I have had yet to see the Viscount."

she closed her book with care, slipping the ribbon between the pages. “you’ve the look of a man who’s danced too many steps and found too little joy in any of them,” she said, shifting slightly to make room on the bench. “sit, if you like. but only if you promise not to speak of weddings, vows, or any other painfully eternal things.”

a pause, and then, more gently, “tell me something else instead. something with pirates or storms or... perhaps a lie so grand it ought to be true.” she tilted her head, the smile lingering. “do you know any stories like that?”

"After being stepped on one too many times, I think you can assume right," Thayer nods, and he's swept off his feat with a sigh loud enough to convince himself he's found some reprieve.

It's more than that and he knows that she knows, but he will let Theodosia decide if she wishes to rip the veil from it. It is a wedding, after all. Let him be her blushing and lying bride if she seeks the truth before committing to a night of lies with him at her side.

His head falls back, some mimic of sleep if only to make himself believe he's found comfort. Dark hues turns to her, a hand over his mouth tracing the pout of carefully chosen words before he dares to speak again. He feels he owes it to her to be mindful, to say anything at all with at least some purpose. Lady Theodosia is the very reason he can still do it— how the world could hate her and love her all at once if they knew.

kit’s breath caught in his throat — from surprise, from the way thayer didn’t push him away. thayer chose kit’s touch, despite the anger behind it — thayer chose to pull him closer, to steady him gently, when kit felt himself coming undone. as his palm rested against thayer’s chest, he swore their hearts began to beat in synchronicity — and the heart beneath his hand was his entire world. when thayer intertwined their fingers, an emotional sigh slipped through kit’s lips and he squeezed the other’s hand — thayer was his tether, his anchor and he needed to be tied to him forever.

“i came because…,” he stumbled trying to find his words — he knew his feet had moved faster than his brain. “because i needed to see you. i needed to make sure you were still here, even if you don’t want me.”

all he wanted was to bury his forehead against thayer's chest, be enveloped in his arms, and beg thayer to kiss away the pain. "you don't have to do it right, thayer," he begged, "you do everything so well, so much better than you think. but you don’t have to do everything perfectly.”

"you need time," kit repeated thayer's words solemnly, letting them fall from his tongue — heavy, bitter. "all you have ever needed from me was time. when will it run out, thayer?" he felt like every moment thayer needed was time stolen from them and he knew that was selfish, he knew thayer couldn’t devote himself to kit — but he couldn’t help but feel robbed of a full life with thayer. the man he’d love until his pulse stopped, even if he was the cause of kit’s death, even if he held kit’s barely beating heart in his hands and dropped it. kit knew he wasn’t blameless, but gods he was trying to repent. he was fighting on the frontlines of thayer’s army — taking every bullet, wincing through every slice of a sword. and he wondered, when would it kill him?

“i love you, thayer. can’t you see that? can’t you see that with each breath i take, i am desperate to show you how adored you are? how sorry i am for every bit of pain i’ve caused you?” kit’s voice was a trembling plea. “i love you,” he sobbed — the very vow he wanted to whisper into thayer’s lungs each morning and each night, in this life and in all the rest because kit knew in every universe, in every dimension they were soulmates. “i love you.” hands found their way to thayer’s cheeks, his thumbs brushing against thayer’s warm skin, “i love you, but you need time.” dropping his hands, kit took a step backwards — immediately feeling unmoored when he wasn’t clinging to thayer for dear life. his throat grew tight as tears formed in his eyes and he cursed himself for being so emotional. “and you know i’ll always be here desperately waiting for you to love me back.”

a tear fell, kit’s heart jumped, and he closed the space between them again, collapsing against thayer’s chest. “i love you and you don’t want it.”

Thayer wanted to interrupt him, dispel the fallacies he knew where of his own making if only to have to warn Kit of the fractures along the path he'd been forced upon. He wanted to repair them before he walked alongside him in more than just the haven of a room like this, than the cloaks of street corners and back rooms— the glaze of flirtation the world would never know was them trying to behave. But he cannot find the words, the excuses. They are stale and so easily fall apart, dust on his tongue that makes him choke with his own breath.

"I have to do it right!" He finds his voice, cuts it in between Kit's cries. Like a blade slipped under a rib cracked open to be given to another, it's a ripple of pain they both know too well. It tempts the scales, an never ending imbalance of blame but he swears he is the one who carries it tonight. "I have to do as I should, because I do not know how much more we can endure— I do not know how much is left to survive."

His voice falters, a slow break taken in brushes of his own breath he isn't worthy to swallow. Still, he does not pull away. He folds Kit into him, buries his face in his shoulder but they are crumbling. The weight of him drags him down but Thayer does not surrender. Kit's hands fall from his face as his body gives out in waves of ache that Thayer knows he can only stand in front of. As he pulls away, he feels as though he has lost everything all at once— until he crashed into him again. He takes him with every inch of his body, holding him tight if only to remind him that the pieces are still together.

There it is again, a declaration that Thayer swears is another noose. How many times has it ended in tragedy for them already— and how can he give such weight to three words alone? The admission tastes sacrilege, like bile in the back of his throat as he feels himself hum with need each time Kit utters it— begs for it.

"I see it and I am terrified for it, but not because I do not feel it. I am not deserving of it— of you. I am indebted to means I wanted to conceal if only to protect you," Thayer tells him, pressing Kit's hand tighter to his chest. If only he could fit it in his palm to calm it, to prove that it is his and has been even when it dared to fall so faint he's convinced himself he knows how this will all end. "What I do not want is your pity, Kit, or your disappointment. I thought if I could bare it a little longer, keep you at arms length, I could be good enough to try this all again. I thought I could become some semblance of the man I have promised you I am, that I could be."

Could he tell him without risking him? The man he saw like the sun, far greater than any fool decreed by a god as divine, could not be reduced to a pawn. He would not let it happen. Kit, if anything at all, was the forever kings and queens wished they could be. Thayer tries to find his gaze under every sob that rakes through his body, fearful that he will break under the weight of the truth.

"Everything I've done, every white veil I have denied as a lie, when I have pushed you away... It has never been because I did not want you. I did not want you to become another bargain, let someone turn you into something I could lose. Not again," Thayer said, his lips brushed over his cheek. "It has been easier to treat you as a prayer I know I am unworthy to have answered. You're not losing me, Kit— if anything at all, I think I have been losing you and I did not let myself believe it until this ache. I thought if I gave myself to you so soon, I would break."

He shakes his head, holding on to him tightly with each lunge of Kit's body into sorrow.

"I do not know if I can be yours, or if you can be mine. The one thing that should be, she is holding her from me." His voice is just barely above a whisper. "The Queen. My devotion and obedience haunts me like a dog she has yet to put down. I do not get to claim her as mine, as my daughter, until I prove myself loyal enough, discreet enough, valuable enough in a fight that is not mine once more. I have been forced to ache once again for a throne that has taken everything, including my right to hold what I love."

And he wraps his arms around Kit tightly, to prove to himself that in this moment it is not true.

“I love you,” Thayer breathes, like a confession— like a surrender, but he isn't sure to who.

His lips press to Kit’s cheek that sting with his tears. What he brushes against his skin this time is not a kiss, no— it is something quieter, something he hopes will live longer in this moment longer than any promise he has already broken.

"She should have been yours," He chokes. "If anyone deserved a family of their own, one they could love unconditionally, it should have been you. I would have been able to love her instead of fear for her for being my own blood. I am not asking you to wait forever, but I am pleading for just a little longer— if you can."

And that was precisely what he had done. Perched in the farthest corner, the brandy in his hand proved a poor companion — a traitor, offering nothing but softened torment. He could even feel it in his body, the tension gripping at his shoulders, weighed down by sleepless nights. Was that all his mind could muster now, even with alcohol seeping in? Complaints?

Until he froze. His gaze shifted from glass to man, and back to the glass, tilting it in his hand as though to inspect the liquor that remained. Strong enough to summon spirits, it seemed. Adrian dared another glance, this time allowing himself to take in the features of a face that made him feel twenty years younger and somehow, older still. “Ah.” He chuckled. “Not dead, nor married. But not untouched by either fate, I’m afraid.” Widowed. Bitter. In debt beyond coin. And still, he smiled at the man before him. Contained, but undeniable. His body shifted slightly on the stool, seeking a better view, still not fully convinced. “I like to believe, were you a ghost, your entrance would’ve involved a thunderclap and more… spectral attire. So I suppose it really is you, Claremont.” A purse of his lips. His cravat suddenly felt too tight. Or perhaps it was just his throat. “I thought—” A pause. His voice quieter now. “I thought you were lost in combat.”

There's something heavy about his presence, that is how Thayer allows himself to believe his claim. Ghosts were suppose to feel like a flicker of wind against a flame in a windowsill, the touch of a feather on the back of your neck that send a chill down your spine. Adrian Harrow's company was thick in the air with the smell of liquor hot on his breath, and his body fighting the fever of intoxication with waves of heat. He was, in fact, very much alive.

And so was Thayer, just one drink behind him on a road of memories he wanted to forget.

"I promise that when I do finally leave this realm, I'll ensure I send a storm your way to rattle your bones," He grins, but it's habit alone. There is something that tells him tonight he does not have to pretend, but it is easier to believe than to follow through. With a shake of his head, Thayer offers some clarity. "My brother were lost, same as my father. They pulled me from the frontlines after an—"

Attack, but he cannot find the word on his breath. Some part of him still believes it could have been warranted, that he is still a pawn even after the war has been won.

"I shall not be anywhere near that dance floor. At least not if I have a say in it."

Anthony Bridgerton (Jonathan Bailey) in every episode of Bridgerton : 2/∞

"Does that make you fool, Miss Kara, or gluttonous for a suffering you can convince yourself you are in control of?" He asks her, the lining of her words like the edge of a blade he had found himself leaning against far too many times in his life. "You are human, are you not? Our bones even know our instincts can be simplified to fight, or to run. We are creatures of survival, but those who stay and linger in the face of danger... they are not heroes, or gods. They seek to endure rather than survive. Their last breath may surpass the rest, but at what cost? They are still prey."

Thayer knows better, and yet, he bites his own tongue whenever he tries to soothe the ache in his chest. He knows that the honor he holds is tainted crimson because he made it so, because old wounds turn into scars that make it harder to slip away. It is easier to wallow, to taste hell and grow accustomed to its bitterness, than to risk falling in love with heaven. It is better to die for the idea of it than live to see it fall.

Shallow embarrassment at his too-kind remark of her loquacious father sparked tiny flowers of red on her cheeks. "Amusing?" She laughed, "Sir, I don't mean to offend your kindnesses, but I'm absolutely sure he didn't even know if you were listening." How dearly she loved her family, and how readily she would defend them in times of need, but sometimes their habits warranted a good jeer. "I'm sure you're almost too good of company when he has only my little brother to compare to and talk of manly things. At least you don't whinge about things like sweeping - or, indeed, holding a single conversation with a woman."

It seemed they were even more alike than fate could let on when he decided to approach - how strangely that worked sometimes. Evie sighed, as if dropping a heavy sack of potatoes from her arms. "Hear hear," she said, pulling a face that said I've eaten books, and they don't taste good. "I do so appreciate the artists that put such time and devotion into their works, they really are stunning, but I agree. We are here but once, and I intend to use every minute."

She held the book up to her chin and tapped in thought. "My adventures," she mused, "I think we should start with getting out of here, what do you think?"

Thayer cannot help the laugh that slips past his teeth. There is an understanding of her family that is from another lifetime, hopeful thinking flourished to the moment in front of him. The war has been over for the rest of them much longer than it has been for Thayer, and it will be that way until his body is committed to the earth. Evie's recounting of her family is a way he finds himself wishing he could do, but their names die on his tongue with the memory. There is no life with them before the war or after, their legacies even for Thayer belonging only to how they killed and how they were killed.

"The way you speak of your family is quite... unrehearsed," He admits. "It's rather refreshing. Is it because the Huntington's are the very backbone of our society and everyone knows your parlor?" A smirk, but there is still sincerity in his words.

Most members of the ton were tight lipped, even more so under the eye of a gossip whose eyes they could never point out in a crowd, if only to keep their secrets from spilling over in ink. Other times, it was the perfect script some were convinced were pieced together by the playwrights in the Royal Theatre. The impression of a bachelor or a debutante was one thing, but their family? It could be what ruined a romance.

He puts the book back on the shelf, shut with the softest spell of dust in the air as the pages close.

she had intended to retire to the morning parlor, a favored room of hers with large windows and light that spilled across the floor in golden swaths. it was far better suited to reading than her own chamber, which seemed lately to hold more shadows than warmth. yet as she entered, she was met not by silence, but by the familiar figure of thayer claremont, near the couch. he looked unsettled. weary in a way she had come to recognize all too well.

for a moment, she considered retreating—slipping away before he noticed—but then he turned, his voice gentle as he spoke her name.

“no apology is needed, sir claremont,” she replied, offering a polite, measured smile as she crossed the threshold. “i did not announce myself, after all.”

as she approached, her eyes fell to the open collar of his shirt—no cravat, nothing to conceal what lay just beneath. she had seen that scar before, raw and fresh, her own hands trembling as they worked to stitch it closed. she had been young then, just twenty and four, more heart than experience, but she had done her duty. she had saved his life.

her eyes lingered, unbidden, and before she could stop herself, her fingers reached out. they moved gently—almost reverently—brushing against the scarred skin with the care of one who had borne witness to its pain.

“you have healed quite beautifully, sir,” she said softly, her voice almost lost in the quiet room.

it was not flirtation. it was pride, perhaps. relief. a strange intimacy born not of romance but of survival. she withdrew her hand slowly, folding it with the other over her book. “you look well,” she added, lifting her eyes to meet his. “or, at least, far better than when i saw you bleeding in the dirt.”

Thayer doesn't move.

Her fingers are warm, softer than the memory she touches so delicate. He wishes he can remember it, make something of how gentle her movements are for a moment he lives with over and over again, but can't. It pulls at something sharp beneath the surface, something cold and half buried. He forgets how to breathe. The taste of copper dares to fill his mouth and he swears he can her whisper between the hammering of his heart again to stay away, to hold on just a little longer.

He forces himself to draw a breath as if pulling something from the depths of a well, unsure of what it is or how it will help. His throat tight, his gaze rises with his chest beneath her gaze.

“Beautiful,” He repeated, and its as if the word tastes unfamiliar in his mouth. Though, he's certainly heard it uttered when the world feels anything but. It was comforting at times, but now, he cannot help the laugh that passes his lips instead of a breath. Soft, empty of humor, somewhat startling him back to life with an irony of his own existence. “That is not a word I would have chosen for it, but I will trust your judgement, Lady Hermance. After all, it if were not for your steady hands, I would not be standing here today.”

Dark hues finally meet hers, and the exhaustion is evident. It's not something he can hide from senses like hers, but it doesn't mean he will not try. There is glint not like a blade, but something serrated— broken against the same habit used over and over again to protect himself.

“I don’t remember much of that day,” He admits, his voice low. The admission will cost him something, but it's all he can muster if only to put these ghosts to rest. “But I remember your hands.. They didn't tremble nearly as much as mine did— as much as they do."

His fingers uncrul from the edge of the couch, lifted between them where the tremor is evident no matter how hard Thayer tries to keep it still.

"Banned? I had been told it was more of a... gentle discouragement with plausible deniability and rejection," Thayer counters with a smirk that doesn't take long to turn into a tantalizing grin. It doesn't quiet reach his eyes, though. It rarely did these days. "Does bringing culture into the space grant me some leniency for trespassing?"

Despite how casual he delivers it all, the line he walks and veers off from is done only with the cushion of humor. He adjusted the cuff of his sleeve in anticipation of Lysander's next move. His fingers linger there too long, always fidgeting, always fixing something on himself.

He adjusted the cuff of his sleeve, fingers lingering there too long—always fidgeting, always with something to fix that wasn’t himself.