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ashintheairlikesnow · 18 hours

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The Seas No More

CW: Thoughts of murder, nonhuman whumpee, magical whump, creepy whumper, intimate whumper, sadistic whumper, some noncon-y from Gilly, choking

The moon hung heavy and full, pale light shining through the window onto the only water the siren could have now. The rope with its looped end now hung by itself above him, gently swaying seemingly of its own volition.

A reminder.

Left there so be did not forget the hissing gasps for air or his hands opening and closing where they had been bound behind his back, helpless to save himself as his toes left the safety of the ground.

A reminder of the look of shining need in the eyes of the siren’s captor as he watched life fade with every denied desperate gasp.

A reminder of how, just before he could fight no longer to live, his captor would let the rope go and watch him crash back into the tub, water splashing out the sides, new bruises blooming.

Above him was the constant threat that it could happen to him again, if he dared to disobey the captor’s commands.

Not that he could even begin to try.

Not any longer.

Not with the cruel magic written into his skin.

The siren tried not to look at the rope, feeling his throat click painfully with every remembered swallow, but he couldn’t really escape it without the sight of his landlocked prison taking over. Stone floors and stone walls threatened to close in on him with every passing second, and he would rather mourn what he had lost than fear what he was forced to have.

Panic threatened around the edges of every breath, but he fought it back. Barely.

Deeper in this place, in another room, his captor laid out in a comfortable human bed, covered in the cloth that kept him warm. It would have taken so little to kill him, and the siren now was unfettered. There were no ropes digging into his wrists, nothing looped tight around his neck. No wooden bit between his teeth to keep him from singing.

It would have been so easy to stand, and walk into that bedroom, and bare his teeth.

Except… he couldn’t.

He kept trying, over and over again, for hours while the moon slowly rose in the sky. He would open his mouth and try to sing the man in here, to lure him with soaring tenor song to put his own head under the water and hold it there until his very lungs burst and then the siren could walk outside and find the ocean and-

Nothing came out but whispers, his own magic fizzling away before it left the heat of his body.

He couldn’t sing.

It was like being unable to breathe, just a different way of choking, and yet being forced to keep living anyway long past when he should have died with the sense that his lungs needed to expand but they couldn't remember how.

His voice caught halfway up his throat when he tried to use it, and what came out instead was a strange rasping croak paired with a sudden flickering burn along one of the things painted on his right arm.

He cradled it close, now, staring at the symbols that meant nothing to him… but he understood enough to know that he was caged this way, captive to the very enclosure of his own skin.

He could not even die to escape it.

His heart skipped and then began to race, and he curled up even more, burying his face between his knees with his arms around them to hide everything but his hair, terrified of what it meant to have a voice that someone else could command, but which was kept from him.

His sobs were nearly silent, present more in the shaking of his shoulders than in any hitch of his breath. If the man woke to his weeping, he feared there would be more pain. There had already been so much.

The moonlight in his hair felt like a caress, like the way his mother touched him when he was young, a quick graze of fingertips as he swam with his sisters, a loving smile.

The moon was enormous tonight, such a feature of the sky it seemed as though it might be about to fall and crash into the ocean. As if the moon, the creator of sirens and mermaids and all the ocean things, would come chasing after her lost son to save him and take him back home.

The waves created by the goddess coming down to earth, the siren thought, would crash upon the land far, far inland and wipe away all the plague of men with their greedy hands and grasping fingers. With his eyes closed he could picture them in their thousands, swept out to sea and prey for those like his own people or the black-and-whites up north, tossed about by the shimmery silvered dolphins with their playful violence, ignored by the enormous whales who would eat their krill while evil men died beside them.

It was a beautiful imagining, so he followed it further, let it lead him from the fear that threatened to overrun him entirely.

He pictured the moon's gift pouring through the windows here, his captor coughing up seawater he couldn’t stop inhaling, begging him for help. Those stupid greedy eyes would be wide in fear but the siren would do nothing but watch…

And smile...

And then feast upon the remains.

He would bury his teeth into soft skin and rend it apart, watch blood bloom and dissolve into the saltwater, giving him strength to go back to the ocean.

The moon would shine the way for him, show him where to swim, unceasing, until he found his way home. His mother and sisters would have known how to survive the great waves of the moon’s crashing. The moon’s own children would be sheltered from her wrath, and they’d be there on the rocks with their arms open to greet him.

If any sailors had survived, the siren could rejoin his sisters in singing them onto the rocks, and he would take new joy in dragging them into the darkest waters until their lungs burst and they could be brought back to land for the meal.

It would be a fitting revenge, for how they had dragged him away and into the air.

He found himself smiling, just a little. The vision of destruction calmed his fear and settled his heartbeat. His body throbbed on the right side, remembering pain from whatever dark magic had been done to him by the woman who had kind eyes even while she hurt him. While she made him… this.

She had finished and looked tired, swaying on her feet, and left with one final soft touch of her hand to his face.

She had done this to him. The moon would kill her, too. But… she had settled her fingers in his hair, stroking gently, while she had painted over his back with her strange paintbrushes and humming ink. She had held him in her arms when the second agony came, even while the man who held him captive had scolded her.

She had soothed him, whispered things he thought must be apologies from her tone, and encouraged him to rest his head on her shoulder. She had only said soft things, and his captor had not started to truly hurt him until she had taken her leave and gone back to her sleeping-place for the night.

Until he and his captor were alone, she had stood between them even as she built the bars of his cage into his body.

He… changed his imagining, then.

He let his dream shift and told himself the moon would show her mercy, kill her quickly so she had no time even to know what had come upon her. The siren wouldn’t eat her. He would lay her out on a sunny rock somewhere higher up, closer to the sky, and let her go back to her own gods that way.

A kindness, for holding him while he screamed, even if she had been the reason for the screaming.

No human had ever held him before.

“Areyto.”

He stiffened, turning away from the moonlight to look back at the doorway. His captor stood there, hair a mess and little round metal-and-glass things down to the end of his nose. The hated man spoke the hated word that the siren had been given as a name. And he… had to answer, now.

Something in the magic had twisted inside his mind, and he knew he had had another name, a real name, but the magic had stolen it from him, taken the sound of his mother's voice whispering it in love away.

All he remembered now was that the human man called him Areyto.

The magic burned, a lick of fire just beneath his jaw, and he winced, closing his eyes as the obedience was compelled. “Ye-es…” He managed, voice still hoarse from his earlier screaming. “Master?"

His captor’s smile widened, and Areyto felt sick at the sight of it, slick like the whale oil that sometimes they found in shipwrecks, dirtying his skin like the black rocks they burned in their metal cooking things.

“I can’t imagine I’ll tire of that,” His captor said, cheerfully. “What a rush, to be called what I am by what belongs to me. What is mine." The siren understood only bits and pieces, but he understood enough, and let his eyes drop back down to the water he sat in. His captor either didn’t notice or didn’t care - he kept talking.

He never stopped talking.

In his dream, Areyto thought, he would rip the man's tongue out first.

His captor chuckled. "Can’t sleep either, huh? I understand entirely. We had an eventful day. I keep thinking about it… thinking about what we’re going to do together. A thousand years… we could do anything. I could do anything. Imagine what I could become with a thousand years of knowledge built up, with all that power and influence. A thousand years of knives being unable to penetrate my organs, of no weapon able to murder me.”

He stepped into the room.

Areyto fought the urge to cringe away from him, trying to hold still and seem unmoved, unafraid, when panic beat inside his chest like a seabird’s frantic wings. He could not escape this, no matter what happened. There was no way to cover himself enough from the human man's filthy smile and glittering eyes.

He listened as his captor stepped closer, and then closer again. He could feel the heat coming from him when he stood beside the washing-tub. His nose wrinkled at the smell of sweat.

Areyto did not look up.

He was afraid the tears would begin again if he did.

With effort he held perfectly still even when his captor touched his hair, disgust like insects crawling from the roots down the back of his neck, his very nerves desperate to hide away and escape from the way fingers scratched his scalp and twisted into the curls.

His captor pulled and the siren’s head was forced back until it knocked into the metal side of the tub, looking up at the human man. Those eyes, behind the glass and metal, shone with ugly triumph.

And… something much worse. Something he recognized only because the man looked at him like that over and over again.

“Out,” His captor ordered - and the buzz of magic moved the siren’s body for him as he found himself standing, stepping out of the washing-tub that was his only hint of safety here, looking down at the ground to avoid the way his captor’s awful eyes moved up and down his body. There was a desire to his expression that was terrible in a way Areyto didn’t yet understand… but he knew to fear.

“Kneel,” His captor commanded in a whisper.

Areyto dropped to his knees, shuddering when that hand with its heavy weight was again in his hair, resting on top of his head, rubbing his thumb between his dark curls. He kept his eyes on the ground and tried to remember his dream about the moon falling into the ocean, the thousands of evil humans swept to their deaths for he and his kind to feast upon.

This man would die slow, and in agony.

“Say, ‘yes master,” His captor ordered, voice thickened. "Say it for me."

Areyto fought not to, but pain burst in a sudden burn down his back and he groaned, shuddering, unable to fight the agony for long. “Y-... yes, Master,” He whispered, hoarsely rasping hated words. Once he obeyed, the pain vanished all at once.

Where it had been, though, there was something hollowed out inside. A sickly self-loathing, a seed taking root that would only ever grow.

His captor smiled, fingers sliding down to take the siren’s chin in hand, tipping it up until their eyes met. His captor was flushed, breathing more heavily, and he stepped closer. It would take so little, the siren thought as the man’s thumb pushed into his mouth and pressed against his tongue, to bite him.

But he couldn’t.

He couldn’t do anything at all but taste salt and skin and hold still as his mouth was forced open, tongue pressed down, before his captor let go and let him look away.

“You have a lovely face,” His captor said, and Areyto didn’t know the words very well but he knew there was something hideous in the way the man formed the sounds. “It’s too bad you weren’t a female siren, isn’t it? Terrible waste of such beauty. I guess you need a male siren for some sailors, that makes sense, but why could I not have caught a female one? Seems like a ghastly joke, doesn't it?"

The siren, looking towards the window just to try to wash himself clean with the moon, swallowed around the nervous heart beating in his throat. When he saw the way his captor’s eyes dropped to watch his neck shift with the motion, he wished that he hadn’t.

His captor sighed, wistfully, crouching slowly down with a grunt of effort. “I suppose it’s not like anyone else would ever know… You can’t tell them. You wouldn’t even know who to tell or what to say. Besides, you’re not even actually a man, either, are you? Wait. No, Gilly,” He muttered to himself, “No, that line of thought is much much worse. You’re overthinking it. It’s yours, now, and who’s to tell you what to do or not do with your own things? Might as well be my own hand." He met the siren’s eyes, with a smile thick and heavy on his skin, a smile like a hand around his neck. “Besides… you really are too beautiful to waste. I know what I promised Beibei, but…” He trailed off, swallowed hard, moving his fingers to graze along the siren’s jaw and watch him shiver. “She won’t know, will she?”

His captor paused, as if waiting for a response. When the siren only stared at him, he sighed and pushed himself to standing.

Then he backhanded the siren across the face.

Areyto hadn’t expected it, and was thrown to the side, landing hard with one arm bent wrong beneath him, a bright flash of pain. He cried out, but before he could push himself back up those thick fingers were back in his hair, pulling him by his scalp along the floor, through the doorway, into the bigger room.

His cheek hurt where the man had been wearing a ring that had torn skin open, hot blood dripping down his face and onto the floor. He managed to scramble onto his hands and knees, half-crawling and half-dragged along, until he was shoved, and then kicked, and his ribs joined his other pains as he came to a stop and found himself staring at the big human bed in a room that had little else in it.

He didn’t know much about how humans lived - only what he had learned in his time imprisoned here, and what could be gleaned from swimming through the shipwrecks after he and his mother and sisters had eaten the sailors. He didn’t know why the man had brought him in here.

But he knew enough to miss his time alone in the metal tub of water. At least that prison had been a solitary one.

Tears burned hot, blurring his vision. He could hold them back no longer. When he hitched out a sob, his captor gave a shuddering exhale behind him, making a groaning sound that Areyto understood too well, with a new fear that broke like a cold wave against his back and into his chest.

“Listen to you,” The man murmured. “I’m going to enjoy this. And if I want you to… so will you. Isn't that something..."

His foot pressed into the siren’s back, forcing him down onto the cold stone floor until he could barely breathe for the weight on his spine. It felt like having the rope around his neck again as he clawed at the floor but found no help there, no rescue.

No way out.

“Beautiful,” His captor whispered. “You’re mine, aren’t you? Really mine. Say ‘yes, master.’”

Areyto pressed his forehead against the stone, the words coming obediently from a throat that no longer belonged to him. He couldn’t hold them back. “Yes… m-master.”

The man’s foot briefly left, but then was replaced by the weight of his body, sitting over Areyto’s lower back, one hand between his shoulder blades and the other gripping into his hair, forcing his head back. “Don’t hide from me. Say it again.”

“Yes…” He gasped - wanted to fight, but felt the threat of the agony returning in the symbol on his neck. Tears stung the cut on his face. “Yes, m-... master-”

His captor groaned again, and it felt like the sound was right beside his ear. He felt the man’s hot damp breath on him and would have begged for mercy, if he could, but those words weren’t allowed to him now.

“Again,” His captor demanded, yanking on his hair so hard his scalp burned, fingernails digging into his back. “Say it again!"

Areyto's wail went from nearly a whisper to something sharper and loud when he felt a tongue move up his neck over the marks that branded and caged him, hot and wet and repulsive. “Yes-... ye-es… master!”

“Again.” His captor’s voice was rough, and he pulled away but then his tongue was replaced by his hands closing around the siren’s neck, grip tightening in a sickeningly familiar feeling.

Spots danced before the siren’s vision, the world spun. He tried to obey, but had to fight for every single searing gasp for air.

His captor moved against his back. “I said say it again.��

“Yes…” Areyto’s chest heaved, his lungs burned. There was nothing to fill them with, and it took the last air he had to finish the words. “M-... m-ah-... master-”

“Good. Again.”

His captor’s grip tightened.

“Y-... yes-... M-...” He couldn’t finish. The moon moved behind a cloud. Even the goddess hid from her child's fear and shame.

Areyto fell tumbling into the mercy of the dark.

Taglist: @burtlederp @finder-of-rings @theelvishcowgirl @whump-for-all-and-all-for-whump @bloodinkandashes @squishablesunbeam @mj-or-say10 @apokolyps @wildfaewhump

Covers @whumptober prompts 10, 11, and 12

#reblog

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ashintheairlikesnow · 1 day

Note

ash i love vince so much he is my number 2 babygirl (antoni number 1 babygirl forever)

i would like to formally request some vince having a Bad Time, either past stuff with owen or present with recovery being a bitch

because there is nothing better than lovely characters having bad times that they absolutely do not deserve

CW: Alcoholism, withdrawal/cravings, alcoholic anger, Vince and Jameson both PTSD-ing all over the place, guilt

Oh, poor Vince. Takes place post-the Same Bed Arc, after Vince is living with Nat and Jameson.

Vince doesn't even look up when he hears Jameson stop in the doorway. He just pours a few shots worth of the gin into the glass, staring fixedly down at it. The liquid, clear as water but with the herbal scent washing over him like a welcome spring rain, spreads over the ice with those gentle cracks he knows better than his own heartbeat.

God, it looks good.

His hands don't shake, now. His heart doesn't race. He doesn't feel sweaty, or upset, or like he'll be sick.

He just feels like he's staring at the solution to all his problems, and all he has to do is swallow it down.

This should feel awful - he knows it should. It should taste awful, there should be something to remind him of the damage he does to himself every time he drinks again. He should hear his sponsor speaking in the back of his mind, he should hear the voices of the others at the meetings he goes to - one for alcoholism, one for survivors of sexual assault, twice a week there's movie star Vincent goddamn Shield among the normal people and admitting he's barely human, just a wreck that only survived Owen Grant because Nat decided she gave a fuck about him for reasons Vince still doesn't understand.

Here he stands, a hollow shell wearing a nice face who let someone else suffer in his place and was grateful for it for far too long.

Kauri hates him but it's nothing compared to how much he hates himself.

Vince lifts the glass, hesitating at the last second with the cool rim just touching his lower lip. Gin smells like blacking out and right now he could use the blessed darkness, hangover be damned.

He can worry about that when the headache kicks in tomorrow morning.

He realizes he's waiting for the sickening crawl of guilt at letting Nat down, at-... at letting himself down. Maybe that will come later, but right now... He feels goddamn good. Settled. Calm.

He and Jameson meet eyes just as he tosses the drink back, three large swallows of juniper-scented gin down his throat like water, leaving only the ice cubes behind.

The burn is perfect.

He pours himself another drink, feeling the warmth slowly spread through his chest to his shoulders, eyes briefly closing. God, it feels like goddamn heaven.

He looks up.

Jameson is still standing there in the doorway, looking oddly soft in a loose sweater that's far too big for him and a pair of old jeans that probably cost a dollar at a yard sale and even that was too much. Vince has jeans that distressed, somewhere.

His cost more than five hundred dollars.

He chokes on the next drink from trying not to laugh.

Jameson's eyes narrow. "What the fuck are you doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing?" Vince takes another sip, eyes half-closed, letting himself take it slow this time and really enjoy the taste.

He'd honestly been surprised the little liquor store down the block even carried this brand of gin. Not that he wouldn't have bought whatever he could get, when he stood there feeling like he would die if he had to go another day, but still. It's nice to have seen his favorite stuff, top shelf, pricier than it had any right to be. It's not even that good, but it's still his favorite. It still tastes, to him, like the nights he sleeps without nightmares, few and far between.

Gin tastes like those nights he gets to sleep at all.

The cashier had looked surprised as she wiped off the dust and rang it up for him. Then, with a shy smile, she'd asked him if anyone ever told him he looked a lot like Vincent Shield. He'd been kind of sad she didn't card him - it would have been nice to see the look on her face when she saw his name.

Instead, he paid in cash, laughed, and told her the standard I get that a lot, actually.

Jameson doesn't move closer, or leave. "It looks like you're fucking yourself up," He says, lingering in the doorway. "You can't just start drinking again. You know that, right?"

"Oh, I sure as hell can." Vince laughs, but it's a bitter sound. He licks the gin lingering on his lips, then gestures at the bottle. "Have some with me."

He's caught, for just a moment, when he sees Jameson wearing an expression Vince has never seen on him before. He looks... nervous. Afraid, almost, instead of angry.

"I-I don't want to," Jameson says, but there's a way he says it that makes Vince think he'd drink if he offers again. Maybe he wants to, or maybe he just doesn't want to make Vince mad.

If he commanded it, if he gave an order... Jameson would be as he's told, wouldn't he? Damn, that would be some power to have over someone.

This must be why Owen liked it so much.

No.

He won't think about Owen right now.

Vince gulps down liquid until he's breathless, almost panting. The warmth is like the familiar cradle of a softer reality settling in. He makes himself slow down this time, picking up an ice cube and sucking the juniper taste right off it before crunching it with his teeth.

"Vince." Jameson's voice gets harsher, and something seems to break his brief paralysis. He moves closer, grabbing the bottle and pulling it away when Vince puts a hand out to pour the third drink. "Fucking... look at me. What the fuck?"

Vince's hand just... hangs out there, reaching for a bottle that isn't where it was. He stares at the empty space, and feels that dark inside of him threaten to well up yet again. "What?"

Jameson swallows, his eyes moving to the glass, back to Vince's face. He steps backwards, and Vince watches the bottle go with him with a piercing need that could easily knock him off his feet if he weren't holding onto the back of a chair. Jameson clears his throat. "Aren't you... like, sober now?"

"Mmmn. Was. Got the like... three month chip thing and everything." He's gotten thoroughly wasted so many times in his life. Nothing relaxes him better than enough alcohol to force his body to stop living in constant, unending fear of who might hurt him next. "Right now, I am tipsy instead. In about an hour, I'm going to be absolutely fucked up. Give me back my gin."

Jameson's hand moves - then he jerks it back, taking a few steps backwards until he's back in the doorway. His eyes are on Vince's face, watching him with a total focus that Vince recognizes from the others he's worked with over the years - Jameson's just a trained pet, in this moment, watching to see if the master will be angry.

It makes him laugh again, more bitterly this time. Is he the master? Has he ever been his own master, let alone anyone else's?

"I... I can't do that," Jameson says, and Vince hears that he doesn't say no. When Vince moves towards him, he backs up a little more, and Vince comes to a stop just a foot or so away.

"Am... am I scaring you?" He asks, suddenly.

It wasn't what he meant to say, he meant to demand his drink again. Instead, this question that... that just sort of falls out of him like a waterfall.

Jameson's jaw sets and his eyes narrow. "You're not doing shit to me," He snaps, but Vince knows he's really saying yes.

Is this why people buy pets? So they can see something pretend not to be scared, and know they're the monster not just under the bed, but in it?

"Oh," He whispers. "What is it? Why are you scared? I'm just a drunk asshole, why are you scared of me?"

Jameson bristles, but then he offers - as if it's pulled out of him against his will - the softest explanation. "Brute and Robert got drunk all the time. I know what happens when-... when people get this kind of drunk."

There's a look in his eyes Vince has seen before in Kauri's. Not fear of him, not directly, but fear of someone like him, maybe. Fear of having demands made that can't be denied.

Is this how Owen felt, every time Kauri had to playact the loving boyfriend with bruises on his wrists and terror making his heart race? Is this how it feels to have power over somebody else when you can't even control yourself?

It's... it's good, almost.

It feels better than he thought it would.

"Back up, Shield," Jameson hisses, like a cat spitting and arching its back, ready to attack with claws and sharp teeth not because it's confident in victory but because it's so small it has to fight to have even the slightest chance to survive.

Vince looks him over, reading with an actor's expertise how he's projecting a confident swagger he never feels, how the irritation layers itself so carefully over a vulnerability that he sees as weakness. Vince has lived that way, too, since he was twenty-one, since his best friend turned out to be a rapist who wanted Vince to himself, since he started drinking to forget every single night and putting on the perfect face during his days.

They both survived, didn't they?

Jameson just did it by fighting his way out, and Vince by pretending to be someone he wasn't until nobody knew who he actually was, and that's a way of surviving, too. Wear another face, and make sure no one sees the fear in your real one, so they can't refuse to help you... because you've never asked.

"No." At least one of them can say it. Although that makes Vince's heart twist with ugly guilt, the petty cruelty of the thought. "Give me my gin," Vince says, pitching his voice low, and holds out his hand. "Now, Jameson. Give it to me."

"I can't." The strength is gone from Jameson's voice, and he looks at Vince with those dark eyes searching his own, trying to make himself understood. "If you drink, your-... your body's not used to it anymore, if you drink the same amount you'll fucking kill your stupid liver."

"What do you care about my liver?" Vince's voice drops low, almost a whisper. "What do you care about me, about my goddamn joke of a life, huh? What the fuck do you care? Why should anyone care?"

There's a flicker of something in Jameson's eyes - recognition, maybe. Something that lights up, just for a second, before the other man shoves Vince to the side with sudden violent strength and stalks to the sink, turning the bottle over and pouring that expensive artisan gin right down the drain.

"No!" Vince's voice is a ragged shout as he lunges after him, but it's too little too late.

Jameson's foot kicks out and slams into Vince's calf, sending him stumbling, clawing desperately as the gin is gone, glug glug glug, down into the pipes, disappearing towards the ocean.

Rage and terror fight in Vince's mind in a sudden white noise and he gets to his feet, grabbing Jameson by the arms and squeezing as hard as he can, shoving him back across the room. He hears Jameson hit one of the chairs, the clatter of wood and Jameson's grunt of pain as both hit the ground hard. The bottle is in the sink, and even when Vince scrambles to pick it back up, there's less than an inch of gin left.

He sucks it down, and only once he's gotten that final drop does he suddenly go still.

Oh.

There's the guilt and the horror and feeling sick at himself, just... twenty minutes too late. He sets the empty bottle carefully down, and then turns slowly around to look at Jameson.

Jameson sits on the kitchen floor, staring up at him with wide eyes. His face is pale, making the scar that twists the corner of his mouth stand out even more. His hair is nearly grown back in now, the bald patches hidden by the rest.

Vince exhales in a rush. "Oh, hell. Jameson-" He holds out a hand.

Jameson flinches.

Vince pulls his hand back, backing up until his back hits the edge of the sink. "Right. Okay. I'm-... I'm sorry Jameson-"

"Yeah." Jameson's voice is gruff, all the vulnerability and fear wiped away as soon as he realizes it's showing. He gets to his feet, shoulders protectively hunched, arms crossed in front of himself defensively. "Whatever. Sure you are. Drink yourself to death, shitbag, if that's what you want."

"I'm so sorry."

Jameson's jaw works. "... Everybody's always sorry. Then I get fucking hit again." Then he turns and walks - limps, really, his knees threatening to give out with every step - away. Vince stands there, frozen, listening as he makes his slow, painful way up the stairs.

Vince stares at the place he was for a while - he isn't sure how long. The gin is sinking its velvet claws into his mind, and he's drunker than he should be after only two drinks.

But then, it's been months.

Months, he made it without taking even a sip.

He swallows, again and again, and then pulls his cell phone out of his pocket, finds a contact, and presses the button to make the call.

The phone rings until he's certain it'll go to voicemail, before a voice he knows as well as his own is in his ear.

"What the hell do you want?"

"I-I need to talk to you," He stammers, his heart cold. "Please. Please. I-I've been drinking. I need... I need help."

There's a pause.

"From... me?"

"Yeah... yeah. You'll-... I need somebody who won't be nice to me-"

"Oh, well, if there's anything I love it's the chance to be mean to you, let me drop my entire life to come listen to you whine about yours."

"Please."

An exhale. "Whatever. Yeah, okay. I'll be over there in like... half an hour? An hour, maybe. Drink some water and I'll be there as soon as I can. Don't leave the house."

"Thanks... thank you, Kauri."

Kauri hangs up.

Vince pours himself a glass of water over the leftover gin-soaked ice, sipping it, barely flavored with a hint of the liquor he wants so badly. He rights the chair he'd accidentally shoved Jameson into, and listens to the creaking floorboards and muffled cursing above him as Jameson makes his halting painful way from stairway to his room, a couple thumps when he clearly falls and had to force himself back upright, until the pacing abruptly stops when he must have collapsed into his bed.

He hears the gentle patting of Trash Cat's paws as she leaves her place on the living room couch and follows him, too, her soft meowing until Jameson opens his door to let her come in after him. Then silence again.

Vince sits back down at the table, leaning over with his head in his hand, staring as the ice slowly melts, cooling the water around it.

He should have called his sponsor instead.

Whatever Kauri is about to say can only make this worse.

But he deserves it, anyway.

Vince doesn't move a muscle until he hears the sound of Jake's truck pulling into the driveway, crunching briefly over gravel before it's on the pavement again, when he raises his head.

Kauri walks in without knocking, stops in the doorway to the kitchen, and looks at him like his younger self ashamed of what he's grown into. Vince knows Jake must have driven him, but he's nowhere to be seen - maybe just staying outside, for now. He's clearly dressed for bed in a matching navy blue silk button-up and pajama pants, barefoot even.

"Hey," Vince says, weakly. The alcohol feels like poison now, not the soothing warmth it had been before. "I... I fucked up, Kauri."

"Yeah, I can tell just by looking at you, you're a goddamn mess." Kauri looks at Vince head-on, even though it still hurts him to do it, and Vince can see the flinch he suppresses as the headache kicks in. His blue eyes are identical to Vince's in nearly every way, except that Kauri's gaze has always been stronger. "What the hell did you do?"

"I got... I drank."

"Yep. I can see the gin bottle. Did you drink all of it?" Kauri's voice is flat and businesslike. It's like having his own younger self dressing him down, and somehow that feels... really good. Better than he thought it would.

"... No. Just a couple drinks. Jameson poured the rest out."

"Good for him." Kauri flickers a smile. "Where is he?"

"I-... I scared him."

"... you scared him?"

"Yeah. I was-... I wasn't-... I didn't mean to, but-"

"Shut up. All right. Tell me what you did. I'll fix it. This time, taking your place so I suffer for years while you run off and become obscenely wealthy is off the table, got it?"

Vince looks at him in horror only to see a surprising warmth in Kauri's smile. Not... not affection, but something like it. A wry compassion, maybe. Something else he doesn't deserve. "I don't know. I don't know if I can fix this, Kauri. I don't know."

"Well... I happen to the resident expert in trying to avoid dealing with your problems while making them all worse, so talk to me. Tell me what you did, start to finish. We'll figure out what comes next."

Vince lowers his head into his arms.

"Thank you," He says, muffled.

"Not enough thanks in the world, dumbass. Lucky for you I'm an amazing person who just happens to have spent most of my twenties making stupid drunk mistakes. So stop stalling and start talking."

@finder-of-rings @endless-whump @arlin-always-writing @newandfiguringitout @doveotions @pretty-face-breaker @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow @boxboysandotherwhump @oops-its-whump @whumpyourdamnpears @cubeswhump @whump-tr0pes @whumptywhumpdump @whumpiary @orchidscript @outofangband @hackles-up @grizzlie70 @mylifeisonthebookshelf @keeper-of-all-the-random-things @autophagay

#reblog #thinking about the next step in this #how badly this shook jameson #and hurt vince

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