#vhaato

Chris wants, and has wanted for as long as he can remember - or at least, since that first day he'd seen them again after he'd given them up. Wants in shame and in hot flushes, prickles of embarrassment that run down his spine and spark fires in his cheeks, across his ears whenever a touch lingers too long, whenever there's a particular quirk of the lips or a breath of laughter that goes to places it shouldn't.

He's young and flamboyant and god knows how he ever got into politics, at a glance; this world of stuffy old men where Christopher (always Christopher, because 'Chris' is too simple, too friendly for this cold place that he'd never have followed Byron into if he'd had half a choice) feels like a child even in his forties. He looks the type to be chewed up and spat out, or if he's lucky to have the sense to escape while he's still young, while there's something else out there for him.