CALM & NORMAL

Be mine. His mind pinpoints, fixates, turns over, repeats. In what ways isn’t Soren willing to be Keung’s might be a shorter list to answer, considering nothing comes to mind. It seems a little intense to put it that way, though, especially when the mood is so softened by their mutual confessions. The tray of drinks feels suddenly bulky and unstable in shaky hands, jittering more out of excitement and a fluttery kind of nervousness that’s a lot less painful, a lot more exhilarating. “You will?” he inquires, still not yet believing all of this could be real. Cherry had urged him to come clean about his feelings – in all the times he’d pondered it, this outcome wasn’t even a possibility.

It feels pointless to be apart from Keung now, not when they both expressed a desire to be close, though not in so many words. Shuffling with his best attempt at steady hands, he brings lukewarm chocolates along with him to Keung’s side, holding the tray up in offering. “Can this be a date?” he asks breathlessly, turning his gaze up the few inches that separate him and his Keung. “Our first?” The beginning seems like as good a place as any to start figuring out in just what ways this conversation changes things between them. He knows everything has changed; his world is now turning on an unfamiliar axis, sending it out of rotation and catapulting into the sun.

Together, Soren thinks, they burn brightest. Keung’s warmth is white hot at his side, close, where he always should be. Carefully, delicately, Soren’s elbow nudges into Keung’s side in a return to their natural playfulness. Also, he’s missed the touch. He wants more of it.

Soren's disbelief blooms a bouquet of his own, warmth unfurling in the center of his chest. How, he wonders, could it be possible neither of them anticipated it would come to this? Now in the wake of mutual confessions it seems impossible that they’d ever wind up elsewhere. Keung breathes, easier than he has in months, and nods agreement. Of course I will. It would seem they already had each other, maybe, but it overwhelms Keung to think of all the more there is left to have. For the first time immortality truly seems a gift instead of a curse. To voice that feeling is too much, surely, but Keung holds it close to the chest regardless.

A date. Laughter threatens to spill over, giddiness fresh at the surface. A smile breaks his face into dimples, wide enough that he will ache from it later. “Our first,” he repeats by way of yes but as if it means the same. He, too, wonders after all the ways things have changed in the last gentle exchange between them; knows that things have. Here, he feels no rush to figure it out. Anxiety bleeds out into waves of excitement, still warm in the crest of his cheeks. 

A soft sort of recognition swells in him for the boy by the river, the boy that smells of cigarettes, looks like paint smudges, looks like if gentle had a face, a body. Dane wonders at the way that he feels more centered, more calm than he had previously, and he wonders at the all-at-once way that it seems to hit him. Something inside of him settles into place, and he cants his head to the side slightly as he looks at him, a little curve to his lips that can only be accounted for when he sees something he likes. Or someone, as the case is. That’s kind of why he’d gotten up in the first place, and it’s certainly way he’d cleared a seat next to him.

Gesturing towards where he’d been held up, Dane begins to make his way back over there, strides shorter for the sake of not wanting to outpace him. “I was hiding, a bit. I’m glad you didn’t notice I was here.” He doesn’t want people to be taking note of him, for the most part, and although he does have a particular… something, for Keung, it’s always nice to hear that he’s accomplishing what he intends to. “I’ve been fine.” He doesn’t need to tell him any more or less than that. Explaining that he’s been in utter turmoil for over a month, maybe more than that, is not something he actually feels is necessary to get into. “Want to sit with me?”

A gentle calm rests over his shoulders, steadying. He assumes it is less his own calm and more the presence of Dane to blame. “Ah, I see,” Keung's voice flirts with the idea of laughter but doesn’t commit to it, coffee too close to interrupting his mouth. He swallows his mouthful with a nod of understanding for the word fine and all that it does or does not give. Keung is not one to push, and instead he accepts the pull of the offer with the lilt of a smile, “If you don’t mind the intrusion of your hiding spot.”

Darkness cannot fall quickly enough for him. There’s a certain restlessness that comes along with his inability to sleep, with being confined to one place for so long, whether it be his apartment or it be the coven’s mansion. He hates not being able to feel the sun on his skin anymore, hates not being able to experience the brightness of the day. He looks up photos online of the autumn leaves in the light, but it doesn’t replace the way they look in real life, and in fact, it just makes him feel more empty. He might be born of darkness, but he was not made to remain in it, and every day that goes by that he can’t experience seems to wilt him a little bit more. 

Prone to bursting out when night finally falls, Dane doesn’t think anything of it when he leaves at twilight, not wanting to stay there any longer. Somehow it’s still disappointing when he finds nothing but slowly settling darkness, and he spends a few, long moments just staring up at the sky on the front steps. Then he notices him, standing there a little ways away, cigarette in hand. Dark eyes flit from Keung to the surrounding area like he expects to see more people, lycan or vampire, but as it turns out, it’s actually only him here. He wonders who he’s waiting for, or if he should approach him at all. Notices that his eyes are glued to him.

“Hi.” It’s a simple enough greeting, and he only speaks it, knowing his voice will carry with Keung’s heightened senses regardless of whether or not he raises it. He approaches a little bit slower than he strictly needs to, like he’s waiting for something to happen, but nothing does. “Are you here for someone?”

Dane’s eagerness is hard to miss, bursting out onto the street the way he does. Keung aches vaguely, uncertain whether the source is at his appearance or the sudden realization that what he’s doing must seem equally eager. He wonders after what cases Dane’s— watches the way his head tips back toward the sky and thinks it might have something to do with chasing the last bit of sun before it shrinks under the city. Keung has always been a creature of night, prone to insomnia long before the moon demanded his attention, so to imagine Dane’s desire for the sun is not impossible. Still, he knows it is sorely unfathomable to understand the depth of his yearning. Keung is so enraptured in this line of thought that he misses the moment Dane notices him and skips right to the part where he’s been spoken to.

Well, shit, his mind provides non-eloquently. “Hi,” Keung returns, his voice much meeker than it has a right to be. He nearly flinches at the sound of it and instead busies himself with flicking ash from his cigarette. Has he actually taking a drag from it? He can’t remember. Dane’s slow approach gives him barely enough time to recompose himself but enough all the same.

Maybe it’s a little risky and self serving to go to an art exhibition centered around Chinese history. His family was there – woven into the tapestries and immortalized upon canvases that were yellowed and dated. His likeness was nowhere to be found, of course. He was the forgotten prince, buried in the chaos of the upheaval and revolt. There were faint traces of him nonetheless and that was enough. He feels at home here, surrounded by portraits and vases and finery he’s long since forgotten. A figure draws up beside him as he ponders an especially intricate etching of one of his closest relatives, a sibling. Bolin can’t keep the sadness out of his smile. As it’s nearing closing time, the gallery had mostly cleared out by this point which makes him curious as to his sudden company. “It’s a shame this one isn’t in color,” he remarks quietly, turning to his (lycan) companion. “I’ve heard he had the deepest brown eyes.” 

Keung had jumped at the opportunity to work the event when his gallery manager had asked. It wasn’t the usual art show he is accustomed to running but he’d hardly cared about that aspect of it. His culture is something he’s felt lacking in since his turning and the distance it put between him and his family. Keung hadn’t spent much time around any of them in the last three years. To be immersed in Chinese history, recalling his grandparents’ summer lessons and ancient myths, had been a pleasure. He finds it bittersweet to watch the hour tick closer to close.

It’s maybe a bit silly, how much Soren misses Keung while they’re standing in the same apartment, only a few feet away. It’s because, he reasons, they’re so accustomed to touching. Cherry had once joked that her cubs were like magnets and that if they were even remotely in the same space, where you’d find one, you’d find the other suctioned to his side. Soren doesn’t think it’s a bad thing that they’re both overly tactile, at least with one another, but it does make even the slightest distance feel like a chasm. He’d even venture to say the temperature dropped a few degrees – Keung makes Soren warm. 

Keung apologizing makes Soren’s brow furrow. It seems like a bad sign – like every one of Soren’s fears is about to be confirmed. Sorry I don’t feel like you do or sorry but I don’t feel comfortable with you having a key. Maybe even sorry for leading you on though Soren doesn’t think it’s Keung’s fault that he’s lovable. It’s silly to apologize for being everything Soren’s realizing he’s wanted. His head shakes automatically, glancing up from the cardboard drink carrier to meet the other’s gaze best he can, fighting down the near constant urge to cry. They’re suspended in the moment where their eyes meet; Ren can barely remember how to breathe. 

More? They’re more? Naturally, Soren agrees but he can’t quite believe he’s hearing Keung correctly. Instead of rejection he’s… confessing. Oh god, he’s confessing. Softly, Keung’s voice carries and then fades, leaving the next move to Soren. It’s fitting, for them. It’s never been all give or all take – they are an ebb and flow. A balance. “I want to be more than more, Keungie,” Ren admits shyly. “I don’t know how or if it’s something that you want or if I’m just jeopardizing everything good in my life for this scary, fluttering feeling in my stomach and wrapped around my heart but…” Although Soren’s voice gets quieter, quicker, and he drops his gaze to hide his quickly growing blush, he speaks his words with confidence, “I sometimes, often, really want to kiss you and be held by you and be more than more with you so if you’ll ever have me, you know where to find me? I guess?” He feels both better and worse for having gotten his point across, messed up jumble though it may be. He’s red to the tips of his ears and, just for something to do to calm the sudden pounding of his pulse, he crouches down to grab their cooling hot drinks.

Gravity feels threatening in the chasm between them, small as it might be. Keung sits perched on the edge of it and pleads, silently, for Soren not to let him toppled over. Locked gazes feel like a step in some direction. Whether he means to be caught or gently pushed back from the ledge is uncertain. Most things seem uncertain. His conversation with Cherry should have illuminated some confidence and while it had, in the moment, Keung can’t help but anticipate losing his balance. Hands tremble into his pockets and hide there, waiting for a verdict.

I want to be more than more. I don’t know how or if it’s something that you want. Keung feels foolish. Or if i’m jeopardizing verything good in my life for this scary, fluttering feeling. How could they be feeling the exact same and be so blind to each other? How easy it must have been for Cherry to see it from the outside. No wonder, no wonder. Keung listens, carefully, to Soren’s poured out words while they pick up speed, as they soften and strengthen simultaneously. So if you’ll ever have me, you know where to find me? Keung aches in a way that feels both awesome and awful. Here, he hopes to find him here. That’s the point of the key, isn’t it? He thinks, watching Soren pick up the beverages from the floor. The tips of pink ears calm his own raising blood pressure. It is such a relief to not be the only one who is nervous.

Silence. Soren expects a stuttered response, a dismissal, a rejection. He expects to be let down gently and firmly all at once, soft touch accompanied by sharp words. What he doesn’t expect is to have to interpret silence. A million and one possibilities flicker through his mind, most of which don’t have the best translation as far as an answer is concerned. No, we aren’t brothers; we’re not that close. No, don’t ask me this. A head shake out of embarrassment. Awkwardness. Maybe he should have been more straightforward himself. Do you have feelings for me? or Do you love me romantically? are harder to misinterpret and might have made his heart soar or sink depending on the conviction of their response. Then, Keung won’t even look at him and, moment of boldness already flickering out at best, Soren decides to retreat. 

“Sorry!” His voice sounds strange to his own ears, high and frantic. “I didn’t mean to – um – I’m sorry. Forget I said anything.”

Desperately, he gives an even tighter squeeze to Keung’s elbows. Look at me, it says. Let me see how you’re feeling. Knowing each other as well as they do, Soren thinks he’ll be able to tell just how badly he’s irrevocably messed things up between them if they’d just meet gazes. His throat feels tight and getting tighter, like it’s threatening to close and swallow him up. He wishes that it would – maybe then he wouldn’t have to hope the ground might do the same. His vision dots at the edges before blurring completely and then it’s his turn to look away. Keeping his hand tight around his key – please still be his – Soren lets his touch fall away from Keung next. “We should drink our hot chocolate before it gets cold!” The chipper edge to his voice is forced; he doesn’t have much of an apatite, even for one of his favorite drinks.

Keung feels suspended above an uncomfortable height, waiting to fall to a stumbling stop. It kind of happens that way, too. Soren's voice changes,then his grip, his words backtrack, then his hands. Keung flounders in the sudden absence of him as if it happened in fast-forward. His gaze snaps up while hands hover, still reaching, left behind as Soren retreats from him. Misunderstanding lingers in a pause. Had he decided he didn’t want the answer, or had Keung been to passive? He swears silently, inward. He’s never been good at finding the middle ground. When he speaks he gives too many words and when he falls silent, there aren’t enough. 

“We can heat it back up—” Keung answers, an autopilot solution for the problem Soren presents as an excuse. The edge of wait, please, wait straining his voice. It breaks around the words, even after he clears his throat, “—Soren, I. I’m sorry.” Keung huffs a breath, trying to shake his body free from the shell-shock stillness. He almost reaches for his arm again, fingers closing around open air instead. In heightened-awareness he notices that they won’t stop trembling; that he’ll be ruined for painting the rest of the night. It hardly matters if he ruins this.

Keung pulls back but it is, thankfully, not far. Soren’s hands fall naturally to his elbows, keeping them in a half embrace that allows them to breathe perhaps a bit better than their previously airtight squeeze (though, sometimes, Soren finds Keung leaves him breathless anyways). His eyes flicker over Keung’s face now that he’s in a better position to see him. He spots happiness reflected back in his eyes and curling up the corner of his lips. There’s a tension setting his features though, underlying their shared joy. Soren makes a note to ask about it, if the opportunity naturally presents itself. Cherry also has one. It’s not a dealbreaker whatsoever – if anything it makes perfect sense. They may be members of an overarching pack but they are, together, their own unit: a mama and her cubs. It’s that sentiment drawing a panicked tremor to his heart.  

He does his best not to let it show but… Cherry’s words echo back to Soren. How do you know he doesn’t feel the same? Keung did want to make this special, just for him. Surely, that means something. Would it really hurt to ask? Soren thinks that it will hurt. He thinks that he likes very much having his own key and that maybe, if he comes clean about his feelings, he’ll lose it the very same day it came into his possession. But he also feels his heart spiraling back down towards the ground when it had been soaring and that really isn’t fair. Not to his Keung. Not when he’s made this so wonderful. He takes a steadying breath, gripping tighter to elbows. “Keungie?” if his voice had been wavering before, it absolutely trembles now. “Do you –” love me? Of course he’ll answer yes; that’s not really the question. “Do you see me as family?  As… as a brother?” He tells himself that he’ll be fine regardless of the answer – he doesn’t mean to project feelings where there aren’t any and this is the surest way he can think of to check.

Soren keeps him grounded by the elbows and for all the breadth and breath it allows them, Keung wishes he hadn’t created space. It occurs to him too late that from this vantage point his face is wide open. The only downfall to being so transparent with Soren at all times is that when he tries to keep them under check it becomes terribly apparent. He hopes for mercy or distraction, allowing his own hands to fall to Soren’s forearms. A sigh escapes, steadying more than anything else. Calmness slowly breathes through him with the breath and he nearly goes to pull away entirely— to address the hot chocolates that await by their feet; to settle into the comfort of Soren’s company until he builds up the courage to broach the big subject.

They are already clinging tightly to one another, barely enough room to breathe. Soren squeezes in tighter all the same. He can feel the impression of the key in his palm, biting into skin, and it makes him dizzy. It goes above and beyond just a little piece of metal and the open invitation it implies. For Soren, being turned into a lycan hadn’t been easy. He’s still masquerading as his old self, unbothered and untouched by the politics of it all. Finding the pack did help him come to terms with it more, giving him the means to explore his new existence but Cherry and Keung, they helped him belong. While it had always been a permanent thing for Soren, the key felt like a promise. It’s a commitment. It’s anytime, anywhere, you have a home here. He’s touched, though some selfish little part of him wants desperately to attach more feelings to the sentiment. 

“The best things in life are the ones you have to work for,” Soren sighs wistfully, swaying his and Keung’s conjoined bodies with a giddy sort of energy he’s also radiating into the aura settled around them. Soren feels alight. He’s buzzing from the inside out. “I’m in med school; I would know.” His fist curls around the key even more; he can feel the grooves and edges with some measure of specificity. “It’s really for me? For keepsies?” He touches his temple to Keung’s, gently. “Thank you.” It’s not enough.

“It’s for you, for keepsies.” A giddiness lives in his chest, too; a breathing, winged thing. Keung hardly notices in the wake of such a creature, that Soren’s sigh draws out his own. It occurs slowly and with a spreading warmth, as if he had just noticed their breaths and beats are entirely synced together. Something unsettled inside him becomes more restless. It is the same feeling Keung gets on the edge of a rooftop. Adrenaline, fear, serotonin. It takes everything in him to muster the courage to stray closer to the ledge. He leans, instead, into the gentle touch of Soren’s temple and allows himself a moment more of certain safety. It is enough. “You’re welcome,” Keung breathes the words and means them. Anytime, always, you are welcome here.