if you try and chase the sun you're never gonna catch it
The boardwalk thrums with the kind of energy that always comes just before a storm breaks—sunlight sharp, sweat sour in the air, tension coiling tight around the edges of each footstep. Vesper rolls his tongue along the peppermint bark tucked in his cheek, more out of habit than taste now, and watches Jack crack his elbow across a jaw like it’s a chore he’s been lookin’ forward to all week.
He doesn’t have to be in Jack’s mind to see the hunger in his eyes. That blood-bright glint, hot and mean. Something in Vesper shifts—not quite mirroring it, but answering. Shadows twitch at his heels, eager, but he ignores ’em.
Instead, he vanishes in a sharp breath of air and black smoke—misty-steps fast and clean—and reappears behind one of the brawler’s friends just as the man takes a swing meant for where Vesper was.
He’s not a brawler. Not really. But the timing’s sweet, and the look on the guy’s face as Vesper appears behind him is even sweeter. He rears back and throws a punch—not elegant, not trained, but committed—that clips the guy just behind the ear. Bone and cartilage crunch under the knuckles of his ring-heavy hand, and the thug staggers sideways into the edge of a fish crate with a yelp.
"Damn," Vesper mutters, shaking out his hand with a wince. "Y’got a head like a brick wall."
He doesn’t have to be in Jack’s mind to see the hunger in his eyes. That blood-bright glint, hot and mean. Something in Vesper shifts—not quite mirroring it, but answering. Shadows twitch at his heels, eager, but he ignores ’em.
Instead, he vanishes in a sharp breath of air and black smoke—misty-steps fast and clean—and reappears behind one of the brawler’s friends just as the man takes a swing meant for where Vesper was.
He’s not a brawler. Not really. But the timing’s sweet, and the look on the guy’s face as Vesper appears behind him is even sweeter. He rears back and throws a punch—not elegant, not trained, but committed—that clips the guy just behind the ear. Bone and cartilage crunch under the knuckles of his ring-heavy hand, and the thug staggers sideways into the edge of a fish crate with a yelp.
"Damn," Vesper mutters, shaking out his hand with a wince. "Y’got a head like a brick wall."
And now it's turning out to be the worst of my bad habits
