Chances are, this isn't the last time I'll dance with your memory

I don't wanna romanticize it, but every night it's the place that I go

The fall of night chases her off her porch, and soon after the weariness of the day chases her into an arm chair. Only meaning to curl up in the seat and chew on her wedge of cheese and crackers, tequila left outside and now in the place she dare not go, the residue of thought threatens to overtake her once more. Fortunately, dogs prove a helpful distraction at times, and a long and loud enough play fight erupts that her attention swings towards the duo with sharp accusation. A gruff "hey!" snaps their way, and though their antics pause, eyes rolling to look at her, they remain braced to start again. Smooches has an object that looks suspiciously like her clothing, and the other dog wants it. Admittedly the black out curtains make everything so damn dark it feels like longnight every night now and she has to place lanterns and candles all about now, so from this distance she can't fully tell what the hound has.

Huffing to her feet she stalks over to grab the prize for herself. It's the navy sweater from actual longnight, and she freezes as that realization hits. The fabric is soft in her hands, a little more worn now than when it'd first been given to her, but still whole and now rich with a weight she'd never name. "How dare you," you scolds instead, barely above a whisper. Since it's not her angry voice, Smooches leans in to take it back from her, tail wagging with pride that he's found a toy everyone wants. "NO!" she bellows abruptly, her free hand snapping, the sharp sound setting the whole pack on alert. The other dog currently pilfering her abandoned dinner scrambles to hork it down now, plate sailing as the snap affronts him like he's the one who's been caught. Everyone with a guilty conscience slinks away a touch while she rises, brimming with anger. "THIS!" she says loudly, sweeping her gaze across the lot of them as she holds the sweater up and shakes it, the length dangling from her palm wriggling down it with more appeal than warning to the watching eyes. "Is not for dogs."

She spins on her heel, strides clipped as she flops back into the chair, glancing down at the upset plate with a long sigh. Pulling up her knees to her chest, feet bracing against the cushion, she drapes the sweater like a pathetic blanket across her, not brave enough to actually wear it. It's lucky her destruction day is behind her, the kitchen island torn free and cleaned up, although all her homeless items remain in various piles of chaos, and her couch has been torched on her front lawn, although its charred carcass remains like a statement. If Smooches had pulled this out on that day it likely would have caught fire too, but as it is she's all out of kerosene and matches, and her fingers curl around the fabric with something too tired to rightfully be sad right now. She considers where she can stash it to keep it hidden and protected, since under the bed is clearly off the table, and its to these thoughts that "just resting her eyes" pulls her into sleep.

She's just on the border of dream and wake, the former a fitful thing that creases her brow and causes a twitch here or there. Must be why this particular night, caught with one foot in both places, that her ability answers the twisting scenery of goats and ships and Vesper in the woods. She channels the man she said she never would again, because even if he's the source of her current plight, some small part of her still falls back onto the habit of him as someone trusted and safe. It's a part about herself that she hasn't dared examine, not with too many other puzzles to try and sort out, figuring it'd fade. "Vesper..." she mumbles, subconsciously seeking help from this nightmare.

Colt

Darling, it's a cold kind of violent, to fear this alone

// I got this feeling, yeah, you know where I'm losing all control //

Vesper arrives with the smell of rain still clinging to him, the Greatwood sharp and green in his lungs as though he has torn himself free of wet leaves and bark rather than distance, the channel depositing him into a room that is at once familiar and wrong. The dark presses close here, thickened by blackout curtains and lanternlight, and he registers absently what has changed—the island gone from the kitchen, the couch missing in a way that reads as violence rather than rearrangement—but those details fail to hold him, skidding off the surface of his awareness as his focus narrows inexorably to her.

Cold has folded into herself in the chair, sleep caught halfway between mercy and unrest, her mind a loose scatter of images that tug at him without coherence, goats and ships and forest paths overlapping in a way that makes his chest tighten before he can stop it. He has not let himself think of her, not truly, not since he ended it, burying the habit of her beneath borrowed fur and quiet days spent curled in the margins of someone else’s life, telling himself that distance was discipline and discipline was kindness, but seeing her now threatens to strip that illusion bare.

His sweater lies across her lap, navy and worn, treated like a shield she does not quite dare lift, and the sight of it hurts with a sharpness that steals his breath outright, pain flaring fast and hot before he reins it in through sheer force of will. For a fractured moment he forgets himself entirely, forgets the careful lines he drew and the reasons he drew them, his hand already reaching for the blanket draped over the back of the chair, intent driven by instinct rather than thought, the need to cover her, to warm her, to fix something tangible while everything else remains beyond repair.

His fingers brush the fabric, and he stops. The thought lands fully formed and immovable: this would be a lie. Not a cruel one, not even an intentional one, but a lie all the same, a gesture that would blur boundaries he severed with deliberate care, an offering that would speak of presence where he has promised absence. He can feel how easily it would slide back into place, how naturally he could become something she reaches for again without meaning to, and the knowledge tightens around his ribs until it is almost difficult to breathe.

He forces himself to let go; the blanket slips back into stillness, shifted just enough to mark that something has disturbed it, and he draws his hand away as though from a flame, grounding himself in the hard limit of time, in the countdown he never forgets. He does not touch her. He does not speak her name. He does not stay. 

When he's pulled back to the Greatwood, the room is left unchanged save for the faintest trace of rain in the air and the pale outline of his shoes on the floor, already fading, proof of nothing more than a moment that almost was, and, by a necessity he can't argue against, never will be.

Vesper

//Go ahead and throw your stones, 'cause there's magic in my bones //

I don't wanna romanticize it, but every night it's the place that I go

The fretful dream breaks not long after he departs, woken by the array of barking that rises suddenly from the dogs, who despite recognizing and accepting Vesper, are startled by the sudden appearance and departure of him. Smooches in particular stands near her, tail up and waving, head tilting as he stares at the space that carries just the fading proof of his presence. Colt, equally startled now from the chaos of her mind to that of this reality, is half falling out of her chair with a groggy "what! What!?" The dogs quiet into softer growls and an infrequent, low woof of disapproval, licking their lips as they settle.

She groans into her hand, rubbing at her eyes and getting to her feet, sweater falling from her lap, forgetting that she had it. "C'mon, let's go to actual bed," she mumbles to the pack, retrieving the sweater from the ground and bundling in it her arms as she starts the trudge down the hall. She's oblivious to calling on him, especially with such minor evidence left behind and no good brightness or clear mind to see them, she'll likely never know. Might only have a suspicion if she tries to channel again and finds her calling minutes have all been used for the month, which would be puzzling indeed.

She crawls into the covers of her bed with a yawn, sweater bundled in her arms as she drifts off to the faintest scent of salt and peppermint.

[FIN]

Colt

Darling, it's a cold kind of violent, to fear this alone