mittens off

if you try and chase the sun you're never gonna catch it

The snow is sun-bright and blinding, a dazzling sprawl of white that crackles underfoot and shimmers against every edge of the treeline. Laughter echoes distantly—sharp, breathless, the kind that skids along the surface of chaos. Somewhere, someone yells about rules. 

And right in the thick of it, Vesper hits the ground like a stone tossed across a frozen river.

Snow crunches hard beneath his back as Iskra slams him down, a spray of cold bursting up around them like applause. The impact jars through his spine, momentarily stealing the breath from his lungs—but not the grin from his face. His laugh sticks halfway in his throat, caught between a gasp and something gleefully wicked, the silver star at his temple catching a flash of light just before he disappears.

One flicker. A ripple of shadow, a drag of displaced air. And then he’s gone.

Vesper reappears just behind Iskra, rising from the snow in a soft bloom of dark mist—tall and silent, all edges and intent, as calm as if he were still sitting on the sidelines sipping something strong.

"That all you got?" comes the low murmur, too close to his ear to be anything but deliberate.

His arm tries to slip around Iskra’s middle, not tight—just enough to shift his centre of gravity, to tip him subtly off balance. All around them the snow holds its breath, heavy with the hush of a world paused mid-chaos. Shadows slither up from the churned drifts like they’ve been waiting, sculpting a slush-packed snowball with unnerving precision. They float up, intending to press against Iskra’s chin, angled toward his mouth like a dare.

"Open up, sunshine," Vesper drawls, voice syrupy-sweet and twice as cruel, every word tasting like a grin.

And then—lower still, a breath of venom behind the ear, more smoke than sound: "Y’know she thinks you’re pathetic, right? Only sticks around ‘cause Ludo told her to." A surgical strike, placed with all the cold clarity of a blade between ribs. "It’s pity tether, not a friendship."

---

Set directly after [PQ] mitten in the stars

And now it's turning out to be the worst of my bad habits

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

ISKRA

The twisted satisfaction of toppling Vesper is an unfamiliar warmth that coasts through him with a terrible ease—like it knows the hollows of him already, just watching, waiting for him to finally acknowledge this portion of himself he thought did not exist. Peaceful it laughs wryly in the back of his mind, a different sort of cruelty than the whisper that tells him he can never be enough. This one, this one tells him he is too much. Their little spark? A soft, crooning question, full of too many teeth to be a smile as it calls into question his name, the basis he's been built on. A light in the dark? No—an ember to ignite, an electric pulse to destroy. He's been hiding from himself all these years in more ways than he's realized.

Not today.

Iskra glares down at the twig he's got in his grip, pushing him into the snow like he is something that can be ground away against the angles of ice and frost. The heat is smug, because he's got him exactly where he wants him, and Iskra kneels down over that stupid smile to wipe it from Vesper's skinny face one punch at a time.

There's a glint, then he's gone.

Iskra sinks deeper in the snow, briefly unbalanced as the rat beneath him squirms away with his slippery tricks. Iskra whirls, fist still cocked—too slow. That all you got? the taunt asks as it slides with a chill against his ear, too akin to his own traitorous thoughts. It burrows deeper than likely even Vesper intended, not fully aware of the dark and broken depths of the man he faces. For someone who spends most nights drinking away the ghosts of memories, Vesper feels like a manifestation of all Iskra's worst parts. He is that haze of self-hatred made real, requiring Iskra to wonder just when he'd picked up the drink today to conjure this devil. He much preferred fighting the phantoms of his past than squaring off with one of his demons.

Vesper's arm doesn't need much to push Iskra the rest of the way off balance. Iskra falls on his left side, driving against the snow with a splash of white around his elbow that flails up, angling for control and a buffer against his head and the ground. The fist of his right arm slackens, fingers spread against his right ear and the side of his face in a shield, and to bat away the fucking starry-gnat buzzing around there. The snowball sandwich looms on twisted tethers of night, one snagging his chin. He grimaces against it, trying to twist his head away, nostrils flared with the rage that sparks hotter in his veins at this forced meal and his weakness for slipping into this position at all, especially by him.

The gnat returns, it's whine grating against his brain as it settles along his ear. The insidious whisper trickles in with all the careful and capable harm of someone in love. Like rot it curls up alongside the portions of him where Melita has left a shimmer. The viscous drip of Vesper's poison splatters dark and sticky on them, dulling the shine with a crippling fear. Vesper only took the worry that was already there, plucked expertly, a taut string beneath a musician's proficient hand. "What?" Iskra demands with a mangled whisper. His resistance stutters, eyes alight with a wild desperation that overwhelms the roar of pride and brutality. He twists his gaze towards where she should still be on the playing field, yelling out about the conclusion of the game, undoubtedly disappointed in the manner with which he assisted in ruining her fun.

It can't be true, can it? She isn't here just because she has to be, is she? She told him she had to spread cheer in Ludo's name, including at Halo, but God's did that mean him too? Is he just part of her pact, a stepping stone in her demi-godhood? Makes sense the very-Vesper like part of him agrees, tempted forth by the hammering of his heart, exertion yielding to anxiety. After all, what could she ever see in someone as useless as him? He can't even win a fucking snowball fight against someone from Torchline.

Never felt a feeling of comfort
And all this time, I've been hiding
I'm at one with the silence
I found peace in your violence

if you try and chase the sun you're never gonna catch it

The things Vesper feels through the fracture in Iskra’s thoughts aren’t pretty.

They’re hot, raw, tar-thick—self-hatred flaring like the snap of a faulty wire, panic folding in over pride until it curdles into something sharp enough to bleed on. It's not just fury in Iskra’s mind; it’s fear, glittering and gold-bright and aching, tangled up in the thought of her. And Vesper, gods but he could do damage with that. He knows it. Knows how to break someone open so quietly they don't even realize they’re bleeding until they drown in it.

And it's tempting...it really is. But he doesn’t. Instead, he exhales slowly, the tension bleeding off his shoulders in one lazy shrug. The shadows fall back, slinking away from Iskra’s chin, the snowball dissolving mid-air before it lands.

Vesper dusts his hands on the thighs of his pants, casually, like none of it—none of Iskra’s shame or desperation—touched him. But there’s a weight in his glance, a glimmer of something unreadable in the constellation of freckles across his cheek as he murmurs, almost kindly: "Yeah," he says with a faint chuckle, stepping lightly over the patch of trampled snow. "But y’know Ludo probably made her swear not to give up all the gory details. S'posed to be all about chaos, right?"

Assuming that Iskra was going to stay crumpled there in the snow—steam rising faintly from his shoulders, his pride scraped raw—Vesper straightens, rolls his neck once, then starts to walk off across the churned-up battlefield, hands tucked into his pockets. His voice carries easily behind him, casual as ever.

" 'Spose I oughta walk my fellow demigod home." Surprise bitch, Melita wasn't the only one who could pack a divine punch.

And now it's turning out to be the worst of my bad habits

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

ISKRA

Vesper couldn’t know something like this unless it was true. It doesn’t make sense otherwise—Vesper isn’t in his head, and he’s not this vicious. Maybe Mel had told him, laughing one night along the strip of beach they used to run down. Maybe he'd been there when Ludo made the deal. Maybe it’s just how gods work, and Vesper, another demi-god, just knows better.

Maybe Iskra can get his head out of his ass.
Nah.

He stares at the tilted world, breath curling against the snow cradling his cheek, prickling with cold. Iskra might have remained there, content to wallow in his own writhing misery, a familiar place for him. Except, as Vesper's shadows withdraw, as his shoes crunch against the snow, as he turns to walk away, he opens his big fucking mouth again. That sharp-toothed wrath flares brilliantly again, a blaze of action among the darkness of dread. As only someone who is afraid of losing something can, Iskra tightens his grip on the notion of Melita, on the idea that she is his. Vesper’s words are a veiled threat—to yank her away, like two bulls rutting over a doe, and Vesper’s the one who trots off victorious.

Iskra shoves himself to his feet, ice patchworked across his sides, already melting into his jacket as he thunders after Vesper’s retreating back. With a roar, he lunges, aiming to tackle the fuckwad. “DON’T YOU FUCKING GO NEAR HER!”

Never felt a feeling of comfort
And all this time, I've been hiding
I'm at one with the silence
I found peace in your violence

if you try and chase the sun you're never gonna catch it

The warning comes long before the roar.

Iskra’s thoughts hit Vesper like a siren—too loud, too raw, a surge of desperate fury coiled tight around the image of Melita like barbed wire. It’s all possession and panic, that feral refusal to lose, and Vesper could drown in the noise of it if he weren’t already so used to tuning out the screamers.

So when the thunder of boots punches across the snow behind him, when Iskra's yell tears through the air, Vesper doesn’t flinch.

He just grins.

The smirk tugs slow across his mouth, all teeth and danger, and then he’s gone—vanishing in a flicker of shadows, the mist of his step curling like smoke in the space where his body had been.

Iskra hits nothing but air.

Vesper reappears a few paces to the right, standing at an easy angle with his weight on one leg and a crooked eyebrow lifting like a challenge. One hand is already pushing the hair out of his eyes, while the other flicks lazily to dust off a phantom fleck of snow from his sleeve. "Tsk," he murmurs, the condescension coiled soft and smug in his tone, like a teacher disappointed in a particularly dumb pupil. "You always this dramatic, or am I just lucky?" His shadows slither faintly around his boots again—ready, just in case—but for now they linger like amused spectators. Vesper doesn't move to strike. Doesn't need to. He’s already got the upper hand, and the snarl on Iskra's face only confirms it.

And now it's turning out to be the worst of my bad habits

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

ISKRA

How the fuck does he do that, is the last thought in Iskra's mind as he sails across open air and smoking remnants of where Vesper had just been. He hits the ground in a spray of white that breaks around either side of him as his chest hits and skids forward briefly, arms outstretched in front like he thought he could fly. The impact forces a grunt between his teeth, but he's already rolling to his side and scrambling back up, too incensed to yield to the knowledge he is deeply outmatched.

"You always this cowardly, or are you just extra jumpy today?" Iskra spits at the ground after rubbing the back of a hand across his jaw and beard, bits of snow wiping free.

He begins to stalk across the snow back towards Vesper, one glance spared to the writing shadows at his heel. Iskra doesn't have a plan, figures he'll make it up as he goes since the shithead will just slither off anyway, so he'll have to adapt on the fly if he has any hope of snaring him. He just knows he needs to feel something of Vesper break beneath him. "You've got no honor, no strength, and I'd bet your dick is as pathetic and scrawny as you are. No wonder you're so good at running away." Iskra smirks, that warm press of anger pooling against his tongue.

As he nears closer, Iskra sweeps a toe through the snow, trying to fling the powder towards Vesper, trying to spook him into wisping away so that Iskra can turn and grab the real portions of him and slam his forehead against Vesper's nose.

Never felt a feeling of comfort
And all this time, I've been hiding
I'm at one with the silence
I found peace in your violence

if you try and chase the sun you're never gonna catch it

Vesper watches Iskra skid and scramble with all the grace of a kicked wasp nest, and the smugness that curls through him is effortless, gilded by the fact that he doesn’t need to raise a hand to keep winning. Iskra’s rage is a storm without a rudder—loud, messy, and wildly predictable.

"Bit slow to land a hit, sunshine," he drawls, brushing invisible lint from his sleeve with a flick of his wrist. "Doesn’t make me a coward—just means you fight like you fuck."

The insult hits the air like a thrown brick, but Vesper only laughs—sharp and amused, the sound low in his throat like a purr. "Aw, sugar," he coos, eyes glinting. "If you wanted a peek, you could’ve just asked. But I get it—you’re used to coming second to everyone, must be hell on your self-esteem."

The snow flicks up like a trick shot, fast and well-aimed, and Vesper is already vanishing in a twist of shadow. He reappears thirty feet away, mist curling at his boots, the wind tousling his hair as he casts a sidelong glance toward where Melita still lingers in the distance. Iskra's mind might have dulled to a whiteout of impulse, but if there was one thing even brutes like him could pick up on it was predictability, and Vesper saw no reason at all to let his performance get stale. 

One hand lifts to his mouth as he blows Iskra a kiss. "Next time buy me dinner first and maybe I'll let you get a bit closer."

And now it's turning out to be the worst of my bad habits

Code 100% taken from the queeeeeeen herself, Sky <3

ISKRA

Given that Iskra has neither been in a fight or fucked, Vesper's cutting remark is more honest commentary than taunt. Still, Iskra knows the implication, and it's the annoyingly cunty way Vesper says it that really gets under his skin.

That pales in comparison to the REALLY irritating way the fucker just vanishes into smoke and shadow at every moment Iskra thinks he's about to close in and have him. As expected, the scatter of snow sends the walking reed scurrying away, but this time he poofs far. Rather than appearing nearby for Iskra to turn to, rather than getting his hands dirty in any manner, he just—poof, like a fart in the wind.

Iskra heaves out a frustrated breath, the cold inhale afterwards curbing the last bit of his embers. Hard to stay heated when you can't catch a damn thing to burn. Besides, he glances in a similar direction as Vesper, Melita has likely seen the entire piss-poor show. Not that it matters, if she's forcing herself to spend time with me, the Vesper-infection croons.

Iskra flips him off and walks away, because well fuck, he doesn't have much else of a choice.

[FIN]

Never felt a feeling of comfort
And all this time, I've been hiding
I'm at one with the silence
I found peace in your violence