I hope you're wearing your welcome out

doves and ravens fly the same

The grass is still bent where dozens of offerings had fallen—trinkets, skulls, a crown, things meant to impress or offer some sort of commentary. Vesper doesn’t bother looking back at those still lingering around Vox; his boots move quick across the clearing, the voices behind him fading with every stride.

He finds Colt at the treeline.

"Hey," he calls out, catching up with a short jog, his breath unhurried as he falls into step beside her. There’s a smirk curled across his mouth as he tosses her a sidelong glance. "What, didn’t wanna stick around to see if I walked off with a bag full of everyone’s recently dropped trauma?" His smile falters as he glances over his shoulder toward the shrinking glow of the gathering. A small tsk leaves him, quiet and bitter. "Y’know," he murmurs, voice low, "I’ve seen a lotta monsters now." A pause, longer this time. When he looks at Colt again, it’s with an unguarded honesty that only creeps into his expression on rare occasion. 

"But that thing," he says, jerking his chin back toward the alien like the very word abomination might stain his tongue, "I wouldn’t wish it in anyone’s backyard. Let alone yours." His hands fidget briefly with the silver rings on his fingers, then still. "And I say that as someone who has to look at their fuckin' island every day."

VESPER

Styling stolen from Sky (obviously)

COLT

I'm homesick for somewhere that doesn't exist
For someone I'm still learning to miss
Said goodbye, wasn't ready yet
Only see you in this silhouette

She'd lingered long enough ensure there wouldn't be something other than placated chaos unfolding. Not that she could have stopped it, but knowing about it would have been worth something, a warning passed on to save a life or two, if it came to sprinting from a violet violence. Fortunately, the Family proved merciful today, and so with no other risk except the boy currently calling after her, she made to depart.

She slows at his voice, one heel caught on air before it steps back beside the other and she cocks a look over her shoulder, always too curious to help herself. "You make a habit of collecting trauma?" she tosses back, a hint of a smile edging on one side of her mouth. It fades quick enough though, when she take the time to actually notice him and not just the idea of him. While he's always been part panther, sleek and unbothered by the world, this seems like the first time his tail might have a little puff to it, and that's something worth paying attention to.

Her gaze flicks over the way he throws his, sliding against all manner of people who had all come here to entertain a static tyrant for reasons she doesn't bother to guess at. His voice draws her focus back to him, a subtle tilt given to her head that shifts enough of her hair that a strand slips over her shoulder. The disquiet is so unlike him, the restless spin of his fingers, the stretch of bitterness on his tongue when normally it's strong liquor, burning low and smug. It might have reminded her that perhaps she doesn't know him very much at all, but it settles a little bit softer, maybe because of her own worry curled up against her ribs like something trying to bloom in shade. When all is said and done, no one really knows anyone, themselves included, not really. There's always something threatening to shift, to change, and there's always some manner of pretend everyone is putting on.

So she just blows out a low breath, a crease in her 'brow easing up. "Monsters in all of us," she admits, and often they're the worst kind. The Family are oddly similar to them that way, just so strong that they've tipped the scales so far in their favor, and for the first time, all of them feel more like a rabbit than a hawk. "But, those particular ones won't be a problem much longer. Might've just been taking a last look before we seal them out." Maybe not no problem, but significantly less of one, at least enough to let some headway get made. "Almost a pity," she drawls with a flash of teeth. "Thought I might have to move to Torchline and enjoy the beach for a while." A fine enough joke to make, a complete nightmare for her in reality.

I'm homesick for conversations I would avoid
And now I miss the sound of your voice
Now there's nothing but a shadow left
So I'll just keep on chasing shadows of you

doves and ravens fly the same

He tilts his head, casting a crooked smile down at her from beneath his pale lashes. " I won Pierce’s strongman contest, y’know," he says, tone casual but amusement curling around the edges. "Got a weird flower crown and a condescending pat on the cheek. Which, in hindsight, was its own brand of trauma. So—maybe." His grin deepens, but he doesn’t press the joke too hard. There’s something in the way she watches him—like she’s searching for what the world might’ve scraped raw beneath all his polish—against which he straightens, his shadows heeling between them.

Her dry remark draws a soft huff from his chest. "Oh she's confident," he murmurs with a little shake of his head. "Pretty, too." The compliment’s tossed out like a coin, light and insincere—but the way his eyes linger suggests he means it more than he lets on. "Dangerous combination."

Then comes her quip about the beach, and he feigns theatrical disappointment, sighing low through his nose. "Shame," he says, slanting a grin her way. "If you’d moved to Torchline, we’d’ve been practically neighbours. Think how often you’d have to pretend you weren’t thrilled to see me." He leans sideways into her just enough for their shoulders to knock, a quiet nudge that’s as familiar as flirtatious.

And then, quieter, stretching his arms out above his head as he walks, trying to shake the tension like it’s something he can shrug off, "I bet if the world was endin’…" He casts her a sidelong look, not a tease this time, just soft curiosity wrapped in shadow. "Reckon you’d stay right there on your ranch anyway." He lets the words hang for a moment before adding, "and then probably some guy you went to school with would show up, remindin' you of some promise you made drunk one night, about you and him at the end of the world."

VESPER

Styling stolen from Sky (obviously)

COLT

I'm homesick for somewhere that doesn't exist
For someone I'm still learning to miss
Said goodbye, wasn't ready yet
Only see you in this silhouette

"Flowers and cheek pats are all it takes to traumatize you?" she asks with a wry twist of her lips. "Here I thought you were made of firmer stuff." A tease to pair with his own humor at the tale, though she suspects having Pierce get anywhere near your face would be worthy of some therapy.

There's a bit more of the usual Vesper. All sharp angles protecting the softer edges. Warm, but in the way that might burn if you hold on too long. That's what it felt like any time she tossed him around her mind anyway, little scorch marks lingering like a brand he tried to leave behind.

It comes back quicker than she expected, the normal Vesper, and she can't help but feel like she just watched him slip back behind a barrier he normally keeps propped up. Maybe he caught himself, or maybe it was the weight of her look, no more fond than she at being exposed. It sets her lips together into a thin line, a shade of regret that she hadn't held onto that a little bit longer before she lost it.

She glances at him with a shake of her head, "you just stating the obvious now?" One 'brow lifts, unimpressed. "I can do that too—he's arrogant, and—" She bites back the rest with a click of her teeth and huff. There's dozens of complaints she could launch against him, most false just to be an irritant the way he's been for her. Because admitting to the other sides of him feels like an invitation for them to linger. She doesn't want that, doesn't want him beside her like this, alone and without a task to keep her distracted from that cutting smile, so might as well prod him enough that he leaves. Quicker than she'd like though, one of those sides she's trying not to look at catches her eye. So she stills a bit, reasoning that can keep her head, that she will. "That's all you get," she says instead, shrugging.

Just as she decides not to wield her blame at him like a weapon, he doubles down on that frustrating way of pressing right on the spot she's most sore, as equally skilled at that as he'd been at pushing pleasure. "Pretend?" she snorts. "Honey, what you took for an opossum is just an armadillo." One hand lifts to meet his bump with a smack on his arm, too light to mean much, but part of her is still prickling at the truth he's scratching at.

Chewing on her ire as they walk, he manages to set down something softer again, enough to earn a look that isn't shale. It subdues even further as an abrupt laugh peals from her, "that's the most absurd thing. Were you reading your sister's books again?" A smile lingers, stubborn. "There's no one waitin' at the end of the world for me except Mort." She'd promised that end to one guy once already, she'd not be making that mistake again. "And I don't make promises while drunk." Or in general, if she can help it. Word is worth something, but any kind of binding seems to beg to break when she feels it. A beat, and she's more solemn. "But... yeah. I'd stay, as long as I could. No sense dyin' over old wood and dirt, but worth fightin' for it for a bit at least." This kind of way of being seen, it doesn't rankle quite so bad. "You're the same way," she accuses with a glance and a subtle return of her smile. Maybe not for a ranch, but he'd go down swinging for his sisters.

I'm homesick for conversations I would avoid
And now I miss the sound of your voice
Now there's nothing but a shadow left
So I'll just keep on chasing shadows of you

doves and ravens fly the same

"From an alien from space tryin’ to take over everythin’?" Vesper lifts a brow, flicking a sidelong look her way. "Yeah. I reckon flowers and a cheek pat are the least nice thing about it." His mouth quirks like he wants to grin, but it doesn’t land, not really.

Normally, Colt’s jabs roll right off him. Usually, there’s a kind of music in her bite, something half-wild and half-playful that makes her mind feel like a place worth wandering. But not tonight. Tonight it’s coiled barbed wire and shuttered windows, brittle with signs that say keep out, and for someone like him, someone who listens without trying, it hits like static. Like splinters in the soft parts of him he doesn’t show. Her thoughts used to be golden in places—reckless, stubborn, sun-scorched and wild. He’d liked them. Liked her.

But now?

It’s not the insults that wound. It’s the barricades she’s hammered in where once there was room for him. Where uncharacteristic as it was, he'd felt like he could be unguarded, and call him selfish all day long, but he'd liked it. Gone out of his way to feel more of it. But now, Colt's words feel sharp even before they’re spoken. The way she fights to push him out, as if him being there is something that should shame them both. So when she snaps back about pretending, he exhales a laugh, soft and hollow, too dry to hold much humour. "Yeah," he murmurs, "well. That was my mistake."

No venom. No edge. Just quiet resignation and the faintest shake of his head as he tried to sidestep the gopher holes now littering the once pristine fields of her mind.

There’s more he could say. He could call her on the loneliness she wears like a brand. Could say something about the end of the world and how maybe he might just been there too, if she let him. But that’s not the game they’re playing tonight. And he’s not interested in bleeding for someone who’s already built the gallows. So instead, when she says he’d go down swingin’ for his sisters, he nods once, shoulders squaring like that much at least is easy. Uncomplicated. True.

"Speakin’ of," he says, voice light again, though it doesn't ring right, not even to his own ears. He glances over his shoulder toward the dying glow of the gathering, where Nova’s probably still throwing glitter into the wind like it’s a weapon. "Oughta go make sure Nova got home all right." It's a clear enough out given that Jack is standing right there, but fuck, if she wants him gone that bad, he'll go.

VESPER

Styling stolen from Sky (obviously)

COLT

I'm homesick for somewhere that doesn't exist
For someone I'm still learning to miss
Said goodbye, wasn't ready yet
Only see you in this silhouette

Well, maybe not completely normal Vesper. Not the version that first ran up to her, but not the one that strolls up like noon on a Sunday, all lazy and unexpected, after you've been comfortable laying in bed the whole morning doing absolutely nothing. That she’s the one who’s changed—that all her effort might actually be working—doesn’t even cross her mind. Not when it still feels like she can't even look at him straight or else she'll forget what breathing is, nothing other than a doe-eyed fool.

So when he starts to get hollow, when he glances back like something's tugging him from her side, she doesn't tighten her grip. It blows through her like wind across a canyon, a little bit more getting carved away. He's handing her exactly what she asked for, right? This is what she wanted, right?

Yeah.

She's made too much habit out of walking away to just quit it now, so the muscle memory kicks in, smoothing the confusion starting to bloom on her face, turning it into simple acknowledgement. It tucks away that little part of her that wonders why he bothered to come up to her if it was just to say nevermind, making it a quiet nod, like his excuse makes the most sense in the world. It'll protect her, the distance, the silence. It has managed to keep her safe all these years, fulfilling the promise she made to herself not to get hurt again.

"Sure," she says with a glance back towards the way they'd come, stopping like she intends to watch him go. "Oh," she says suddenly, a request for his patience, a moment longer. She bends down, pulling something a small package of peppermint sticks from between her pantleg and left boot. She offers it to him like she's dealing a card, though she's not really the gambling type. "Since I owed you," she murmurs, meaning the day she took his last one, the day he'd startled her enough to start seeping in through the cracks. She doesn't tell him she saw them at a shop and got them because they made her think of him. Doesn't say that she likes the way the smell of them has started to linger in her house, filling it up with a little bit of him. Doesn't say she's been carrying them around in her boot every day, hoping she'd run into him, looking for him on the horizon like she expected to see him stroll up. Doesn't say anything other than her debt's been paid, because she can't let the rest through, or else it'll let him in.

I'm homesick for conversations I would avoid
And now I miss the sound of your voice
Now there's nothing but a shadow left
So I'll just keep on chasing shadows of you

doves and ravens fly the same

Vesper accepts the peppermint sticks like they weigh more than they should. His brows tick up just slightly at the neat, boot-warmed parcel, tucked away like a secret meant only for him. It’s not the sprigs that gives him pause—it’s everything curled behind the gesture. Every sharp-edged feeling Colt keeps trying to bury under dry quips and false exits, everything she won’t say but keeps screaming anyway. The way she'd carried it around, not knowing when she'd see him next, but having it at the ready just the same.

He hears it all. The softness trying not to bloom, the wind carving canyons.

Colt’s mind, once sun-wild and rattling with laughter, now trails barbed wire through every valley he used to wander. Once, he would’ve said it reminded him of the desert—untamed and stubborn and painfully bright—but now it’s more like a locked paddock: sharp edges, warning signs, a single peppermint smuggled beneath the fence.

He slides the bundle beneath one arm like a pressed letter he’ll never open, and steps forward without ceremony. His fingers cradle her jaw like she’s made of glass and gunpowder—fragile, but only in the ways that matter. He tilts her face up to his like it’s instinct, like gravity's pulled them into this moment, and when he kisses her, it’s not a question.

There’s no fire in it, no urgency, and he'll kiss her slow and deep as long as she'll allow. It's the kind of kiss that tastes like red dust and old promises, like peppermint and second chances he’s already forfeiting. A goodbye pressed into skin and memory. If she knees or slaps him for it, so be it. He figures that’ll be easier for her to stomach anyway; a story she can tell to Thorn over drinks. And then the arrogant bastard had the nerve to kiss me, and so on.

"You don’t owe me nothin'," he murmurs, voice hoarse in the way that only truth can manage. "Not for any of it." His hands fall, dragging the shape of her face down to his sides, leaving her untouched. His shadows curl close, more for comfort than protection, and he doesn’t bother hiding the tired exhale that slips through his teeth.

He turns then—not sharply, not dramatically, just the quiet pivot of a man who knows when the door’s been locked behind him. Given who and what he is, Vesper isn't the sort to ever have to ask twice or be told to go more than once.

VESPER

Styling stolen from Sky (obviously)

COLT

I'm homesick for somewhere that doesn't exist
For someone I'm still learning to miss
Said goodbye, wasn't ready yet
Only see you in this silhouette

She’s so steeled for his departure that anything else barely registers. So when he closes the gap between them she's utterly immobile, devoid of thought or reaction, initially. Her face is pliant in his hands, tilting as he bids, softening against the kiss he presses into her—slow and final, the worst farewell. It steals every bit of air she's got, leaving her a touch dizzy as she sucks in a breath after the inevitable break of it.

It brings her back to the beach they embraced like salvation, so weary and worn that everything felt funny, easy, warm. Gods, she'd been so happy then, and it'd been him. The way he'd lounged in the waves like they were a hammock built for him. The way he'd been power and midnight beneath her. The way he'd just been there, steady and capable, like they could manage it—life.

That's just it though. It shouldn't be so easy, so simple. It can't be. Something must be wrong, something must be about to shatter and hurt. It did the last time.

Her eyes flick across his face, sharp with fear as she searches there for something she once knew. He starts to drift, to turn, to go, leaving her with just the echo of him shuddering through her, and the residue of his words that stain the edges of her thoughts like Tennessee whiskey carelessly knocked over.

Whatever fire he didn't mean for, there's a heat that settles all the same, sparking against all the dry brush and bramble she's let flourish. It catches into a blaze that flares up, hot and angry. "What the fuck—Vesper!" She seethes, half a mind to rip off her boot and chuck it at the back of his damn head. Instead she grabs for his arm, fingers tight. "You can't just—" she's flustered, thoughts and actions all spinning wildly in different directions, neither one exactly in charge at the moment. "You can't!" It's all she can seem to agree on with herself.

She should let him go. She should let it end, with this, a fine enough goodbye as any. She'd get what she wanted, and the warmth of him, the memory of him, it'd fade with time, all good things do. She should—"you can’t just do that, say that, mean that, and then walk away." she finally manages with a huff, her other hand curling up in a fist that lands weightless against his chest. He can't just sneak back in right at the end and make her miss him.

I'm homesick for conversations I would avoid
And now I miss the sound of your voice
Now there's nothing but a shadow left
So I'll just keep on chasing shadows of you

doves and ravens fly the same

The shout cracks behind him like a rifle shot. Not the word—his name—but the way it lands, wild and raw, flung like a rope in the hope that it’ll catch. It does.

He doesn’t flinch when her hand finds his arm, but it’s not the grip that stops him. It’s the spike of feeling—hers—thundering into him like a rogue wave. Her mind is a wildfire now, uncontained and wind-fed. Regret, fury, want. The thoughts fight each other like feral things, none of them in charge. That tug-of-war does more than any hand could. It’s messy, unguarded, real, and it punches through his chest far harder than her fist.

He turns back, blue eyes locking on hers—but it’s not her expression he studies. It’s the bramble behind her eyes, the heat building beneath every word she doesn’t say. "You’re right," he says softly, the words a little rough, a little raw. "I can’t seem to do right by you."  There’s no accusation in the tone—only observation, as if cataloguing another constellation in her ever-changing sky.

They’d crossed a damn continent together. Dragged their half-dead bodies through sand and ruin and heat, fought beside each other and slept tangled up in the breathless dark like it meant something. And, apparently, he was the fool for thinking it had, because when the morning came and she had what she'd needed, Colt had offered him only silence and distance.

He could say more, could unpack the silence she wrapped herself in after the desert, or the way she looked straight past him at the ranch like he was a set of spurs she'd meant to leave behind. He could mention the way she’d gone and found cleaner lines in someone else's bed as if all he'd ever done was scuff the floors. Of course he doesn't, though. He doesn’t move closer either, but gods, part him wants to. Wants to wrap a lasso around her storm and hold it steady long enough for her to catch her breath and realize she's just being flighty. But she wouldn’t thank him for it, same way a horse wouldn't. Her mind’s still all sharp wire and bolted doors, and some part of her still wants him gone—still thinks that’s safer.

His eyes stay on her face, unreadable in that way he’s mastered. "Carrying around peppermint bark don’t exactly square with sayin’ I was mistaken ‘bout whether you wanted to see me again." There’s no accusation in it—just fact, bone-dry and quiet. He shrugs a shoulder like it doesn’t matter; he's got sisters after all, knows the sort of barbs that get thrown out to try and snare even if honey would do the trick just as nicely. But being a telepath doesn't mean that shit doesn't sting. "I've never asked you for nothin’, Colt, but you seem hung up on somethin’ all the same." He pauses, the weight of everything unsaid hanging between them like dust before a monsoon.

"I won’t apologize for kissin’ you, though," Vesper adds, his voice dropping just a shade lower.

VESPER

Styling stolen from Sky (obviously)

COLT

I'm homesick for somewhere that doesn't exist
For someone I'm still learning to miss
Said goodbye, wasn't ready yet
Only see you in this silhouette

You're right stuns her almost as much as the kiss had. It's gentle, and curled a bit along the edges, like a bruised petal. It's nothing like the rising fury she expected to reflect back at her. She'd braced for something to fight against, for his silver tongue to glint like a switchblade, for something spiteful to edge into all the parts of his face she'd once held. She expected the ugly parts of him to finally show through, wanted them to even, so that she wouldn't be the only one wearing them. Instead he levels a careful calm, and beneath it some of her heat gutters.

She shakes her head when he says he can't do right by her. "No," she says, voice still clipped, but thick with everything she's still trying to keep back. This is one she can admit to though. "You have. You’ve always done right by me. The best, actually." Something sharp fell away when she said it, because that isn't a weapon, it's just the truth, and he deserves it. Deserves a hell of a lot more than that.

She hadn't been sure at first, but now she is. It's definitely worse, the steady way he stays so put together, making all her noise look foolish in comparison. It's one of the things she'd been afraid of, that she'd splinter while he watched, that her grip would be tighter than his. From what she can tell, he's barely holding on, and she—she's been white-knuckling all the memories since she got back from the desert. She didn’t want him to matter, because she’s certain she doesn’t. Not like that. Not the way he matters to her. Each attempt to get her to admit to it felt like taunts, a way for him to prove she'd fallen while he's still standing.

She has no illusions about what they are—plenty of questions, but no fantasies. He could have the world, and she's just one small part of it, nothing but a dusty road he could put behind him. It's why she should have let him walk away. She's the one that's tangled in him, not the other way around, so she's been trying to cut through it to free them both.

Her hands fall away from him, wringing together at her waist now as she retreats from his stare. Her attention flicks to the ground between them, a small distance, yet yawning wider with each exchange. He presses on her bruise again, the one in the shape of him that's bloomed in her chest. She sighs at it, bottom lip snared with worry against her teeth.

Then he says something she can grab onto. "That's just it," she says, low and tight. "Why aren't you asking for something?" Her gaze snaps back to his, finding some footing in this free fall now. It'd been bothering her this whole time, how much he gives. She'd told him he's too good, and she meant it. Too good to be real, too good for her if he is. So why? How? "What do you want, Vesper?" Because it can't be nothing.

I'm homesick for conversations I would avoid
And now I miss the sound of your voice
Now there's nothing but a shadow left
So I'll just keep on chasing shadows of you

doves and ravens fly the same

Vesper doesn’t move while she speaks, doesn’t shift so much as a breath when her hands fall away like she’s the one being dismissed. His shoulders lower only when she tells him he’s done right by her—words shaped with barbs she’s trying not to use, and truth she isn’t used to offering. They settle over him not like balm but like snowfall on bruised skin, and he lets the weight of it seep in.

She’s thinking he looks too put together. That her noise is louder than anything he’s ever said aloud. And maybe it is. Maybe it always has been. But she doesn’t see it—what it costs him to look like this, and the whys of it all. How much he has to hold in check to avoid cracking under the pressure of her heart breaking against his ribcage.

He hears every piece she won’t say: the fear that she cares more, the certainty that she matters less. That she’s just a stretch of road on his way to something bigger. He doesn’t argue. Not out loud. But if she could see the map inside his head—the one he’s rewritten again and again to find his way back to her—she might understand just how many turns he’s taken on purpose. 

And still, she’s cutting through the tether like it’s mercy. Like his silence is permission to be discarded. So, against arguably better judgement, he doesn’t let her finish folding inward. Doesn’t let the distance widen. One hand lifts—not sudden, just inevitable—and he reaches for hers, where they’ve begun to twist together in front of her like they’re trying to hold her upright. His fingers brush gently between them, coaxing them apart with all the slow assurance of someone who’s always known how to open gates.

Then, softly: “All I want right now is to spend some time with you.” His words are plain. Careful. No dressing, no conditions. Just what they are, because he knows her aptitude for twisting things around in her mind when the night stretches long, so better he lay it out clear. “Don’t need it to be more. Don’t want it to be less.”

And then, that same crooked edge she knows too well sneaks into his mouth—more ghost of a grin than full expression, but there’s something wolfish in it, a flicker of mischief underneath the reverence. “I’m a good deal more selfish than you’re givin’ me credit for. You just forgot how damn great it is bein’ in your company.”

He lets the space between them stay small. Lets her decide whether to close it. But his thumb drifts across her knuckle as if she already has.

VESPER

Styling stolen from Sky (obviously)

COLT

I'm homesick for somewhere that doesn't exist
For someone I'm still learning to miss
Said goodbye, wasn't ready yet
Only see you in this silhouette

All the fire has left her. The field it burned across is just ash now, curling up into the breeze of uncertainty that cuts through her. She isn't really sure what she's doing anymore. She hasn't made it to here in forever—and even so, this feels different. Every other time it had been easy to shake loose, but this feels like she's fighting herself more than him, one hand finally letting go right as the other one grabs hold again. It's gonna hurt, she's trying to remind herself, but it feels like that already started to set in the second he began to leave.

His hand taking hers stills her into something stiff at first. It has a way of silencing all the noise though, of shoring up everything that's unsteady, and gradually she eases into the fold of his fingers. The wind dies down, leaving just the summer storm to finish rolling in. That's all? she thinks, and for a moment, it feels like she could manage to give him that. He's asking for very reasonable things, and maybe she could try not full sending something for once, try a half-measure.

That'd be more believable if she hadn't already stepped off an edge.

So when he finishes, when she feels the drift of his thumb on her knuckles like its own heartbeat, she tries to press a smile back into place. Something soft to offer, to make up for all the sharpness she didn't mean to turn on him. Something she wishes felt more real, because she'd like to believe him, that they can stay in some limbo where they just enjoy the time they spend together, finding pockets of happiness, or making them. "Sugar, I don't know how to do less, least of all with you." She says it so quiet even her breath feels too loud to carry it without breaking it apart.

He's offering something she could take on most days, but she's already past holding him at arm's reach, he made sure of that at the desert, whether he meant to or not. "I can't spend a single night without you coming to my thoughts, not when even the stars remind me of you. And I haven't known a good night's rest since we got back, because now you're not next to me." Miss him? Yeah. She missed him, the way the dead miss breathing. She could finally admit it—a trade, for the warm curl of his words cushioning the hammer of her heart, an acknowledgement that she wasn't nothing to him. That makes the feelings for him sting a little less, but it doesn't change the risk of having them.

She lifts one hand to her hat and slides it off, stepping up onto her toes to gently pass it onto his head, if he'll let her. It's a memory he can keep, because at least in those it's all still rosy. They'll always have that. Much as she'd been trying to forget lately, hoping that'd fix something, maybe she could just hold onto that bit of him. "And I can't do more. All I got is a broken heart," she murmurs, her hand trailing to his chin, though she dodges his eyes. "Either I’m gonna end up cuttin’ you with it, or you’re gonna break it for me all over again. And if that happens..." Her voice thins, and her hand drops away from his face, settling overtop his hand and quieting that movement of his thumb. "I don’t think I’ll survive it this time. I’m not strong enough."

It would be a mercy, to end this here before either of them gets carved up by the other. "So I don't know that I've got any time to give," she admits, fingers squeezing his in quiet apology as she pulls back from his grip.

I'm homesick for conversations I would avoid
And now I miss the sound of your voice
Now there's nothing but a shadow left
So I'll just keep on chasing shadows of you

doves and ravens fly the same

She’s not holding his hand anymore, but the echo of it still curls around his fingers like smoke, warm and unspent. Vesper doesn’t move—not right away. He stands in the quiet aftermath of her honesty, of all the wildfire truths she finally let burn clean through, and lets the weight of her mind roll through him like a storm through dry grass.

It’s a mess in there.

Not the usual sharp-edged chaos he’s come to know—no, this is the quieter kind. The spiralling, tangled kind. The ache of someone who’s already decided that getting what she wants means losing it, so better to torch the whole damn thing before it ever settles into something real. Avoidance. Longing. Resentment. Need. Every thought a contradiction, every emotion trying to outpace the last.

She misses him like she’s grieving. She wants to stay but can’t bear to be the one who ends up shattered. She’s already convinced herself he’s going to leave, so she’s racing him to the door with knives in her hands and sorrow tucked behind her teeth.

He doesn’t let any of that show, of course. Just keeps his expression calm, unreadable save for the quiet flicker of something behind his eyes as her hat lands gently on his head. It settles awkwardly over his moonlight hair, a little too warm, a little too her, and he lets it sit there like a tribute left at a grave.

Then finally, a breath. A shift. A faint drawl curling at the corners of his voice like dusk gathering around the porch light. "So what I’m hearin’," he says slowly, the shadow of a frown tugging at his mouth, "is that the options are: I hurt you, or you hurt me." His head tips, just slightly, like he’s working through a puzzle that don’t quite make sense. "And your answer is to hurt us both, shut your eyes at night like that’ll stop the stars from glowin’, and never look at another one again?"

His voice is gentle, but low and steady, like thunder somewhere in the distance, but his voice softens in the last thread of it, like something unravelled just enough to be real. "I ain’t askin’ for your whole damn heart right this second, Colt, but aside from runnin’ across the entire damn desert and then volunteerin’ for strangers to bounce around on my back just to make you smile, not really sure what it is you’re expectin’ me to do here.”

VESPER

Styling stolen from Sky (obviously)

COLT

I'm homesick for somewhere that doesn't exist
For someone I'm still learning to miss
Said goodbye, wasn't ready yet
Only see you in this silhouette

He eases into the space between want and refusal like he belongs there, like he'll find whatever room she's left for him and call it enough. That's half the problem—how easy he makes it all. Given her proficiency for extremes, she's never really been able to agree with enough, so this supposedly selfish man managing to do so is a mystery. He's always been that way though—corners of him smudged with unknown, too blurry to fully see the shape in some regions. Selfishly, she wants to finally be able to trace all the edges of him.

She blinks, caught off guard again, unaccustomed to anyone sticking through the wreckage she tries to pass off as protection. She never usually gets here, because most don’t match her long enough to make it past the first night, let alone start to matter in ways that keep her up at night.

"That's how it always goes, one way or another," she says a bit cautiously to his question of hurt. Any relationship has a bit of blood. She's trying to avoid the cut, but just as equally she's trying to keep him whole too.

Much like a horse being shown something new and reacting without any measurement of calm, Colt is finally run ragged enough to think instead of just respond. So when he lays it all out like that, it doesn't quite sound like the grand scheme of survival she's carefully mapped out each night. "I was figuring blackout curtains and an earlier bed time," she admits with the faintest edge of her usual grin twisting into place at the corner of her mouth. She planned to sell the horse he helped her find, just to be rid of the reminder, and then block out the evenings like they aren't the best part of Longheat, by whatever means necessary. Perfectly manageable, so she'd thought.

The steady presence of his reason—his voice, his calm—previously a burr, is now something that soaks into her as the rain finally breaks. It's turning into something muddy now, but all the residue of what came before is drifting away. One of her hands rests against her hip as she shifts her weight, a deep sigh tumbling free as she settles her gaze back on the blue of him. "Well, I was expectin' you to leave," she says, gesturing loosely toward the stairs. Her hand drops limply back to her side, clapping against her leg with a sound that lands too sharp for all the quiet they’ve managed to arrange. She chews thoughtfully on an edge of her bottom lip again as she more quietly adds, "but you didn't." He would’ve, if she hadn't tugged him back. That sets in like a new concern for her to worry over, but it's distant enough that she doesn't feel the way it edges in among the rainfall.

"Ves, I—" the words snag. Her gaze tips to the side like maybe distance holds courage, and her hands lift to drag her hair over one shoulder. She searches for comfort as her fingers brush through it gradually.

Now what? She hasn't got a fucking clue. Everything she's ever done is practiced, something she's learned from someone else. Not that she's got no mind, but there's a routine to her life, one just sort of passed along to her and that she picked up like walking. He's come and upset everything completely, shown her a different trail, one with no markers.

She shakes her head, hands stilling against her collarbone, fingers still curled around gold. "Alright." It comes abrupt, a bit too loud, her own thunder to make sure it gets out before the wind tries to make it smaller. Her eyes flick back to his, something brighter returned. "I can try," she says gently, all the coiled parts of her starting to loosen. "Time." A ghost of a real smile pushes through. "Besides, I'm too keen on watching you buck someone off." There's still a deep seated fear that roils in her gut, but for the first time, Vesper's stronger than him.

I'm homesick for conversations I would avoid
And now I miss the sound of your voice
Now there's nothing but a shadow left
So I'll just keep on chasing shadows of you