a cold shoulder at closin' time
Colt's smile lands on him like a blade flipped to its sharpest edge, and for a heartbeat he lets a glare come through unfiltered, blue eyes darkening beneath the weight of it. The anger rises with startling ease, swift and clean as a blade pulled free of its sheath, but he forces it back down, sanding the expression flat until only a brittle calm remains.
"That’s the fuckin’ problem with you," he says, voice low and unmarred by the jagged edges tearing through his ribs. "I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t. I’m too nice, so I must be hidin’ something. I keep my emotions in check and suddenly it’s why’re you so calm, Vesper. Why're you so unbothered, Vesper. And now, I feel somethin’ about this, and that’s my ugly side." His lip curls despite his best effort to keep it smooth, a small, involuntary sneer he tries to bury by tipping his chin up and pulling in a long breath through his nose, as if the canopy overhead might offer somewhere to tuck his fury until it stops burning so cold in his stomach.
Her insistence that she offered to visit earns nothing but a hollow raise of his brow before he cuts in, the words coming sharper than he intends but far too honest to swallow back. "Oh? So you know what it’s like to be channelled, then?" The drawl threads through the accusation, but it doesn’t blunt it. "To be plucked out of a conversation with the compulsion to obey, to have all of six fucking seconds with you, where you get to fall asleep all satisfied and I'm dumped right back where I was, without even a fuckin' thank you letter to follow it up?" There’s no mistaking the bitterness humming beneath the smoothness of his voice. Not at having been channelled by her, but feeling so used and then discarded.
When she insists she didn’t know it was Thalassa he had attacked at the time, he gives the smallest nod, because fine, he does believe that part. He believed it the night it happened, too. But her explanation barely has time to breathe before he interrupts, calm and cutting. "You didn’t know," he agrees quietly. "But you sure as hell never asked me about it either."Which, unfair, because the timelines overlapped. A humourless smile ghosts across his mouth, cold and precise. "Clearly Thal’s side of the story was all you needed to hear."
The truth of her compulsion should settle something inside him. It should soothe the jagged edges his mind keeps replaying; her leaning in, Thal’s hand in her hair, the ruin of it flashing behind his eyelids every time he closes them. His telepathy has always given him the advantage of understanding people past their excuses, past the lies they tell themselves, past the surfaces. But the knowledge doesn't fix the damage of the memory seared too vividly into his mind. So instead of easing anything, her honesty only drives the wound deeper, because knowing she didn’t even mean it doesn’t erase the sight burned into him. If anything, it makes it harder to tolerate, now that he realizes just how much hurt Colt could inflict on him without even trying.
"That’s the fuckin’ problem with you," he says, voice low and unmarred by the jagged edges tearing through his ribs. "I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t. I’m too nice, so I must be hidin’ something. I keep my emotions in check and suddenly it’s why’re you so calm, Vesper. Why're you so unbothered, Vesper. And now, I feel somethin’ about this, and that’s my ugly side." His lip curls despite his best effort to keep it smooth, a small, involuntary sneer he tries to bury by tipping his chin up and pulling in a long breath through his nose, as if the canopy overhead might offer somewhere to tuck his fury until it stops burning so cold in his stomach.
Her insistence that she offered to visit earns nothing but a hollow raise of his brow before he cuts in, the words coming sharper than he intends but far too honest to swallow back. "Oh? So you know what it’s like to be channelled, then?" The drawl threads through the accusation, but it doesn’t blunt it. "To be plucked out of a conversation with the compulsion to obey, to have all of six fucking seconds with you, where you get to fall asleep all satisfied and I'm dumped right back where I was, without even a fuckin' thank you letter to follow it up?" There’s no mistaking the bitterness humming beneath the smoothness of his voice. Not at having been channelled by her, but feeling so used and then discarded.
When she insists she didn’t know it was Thalassa he had attacked at the time, he gives the smallest nod, because fine, he does believe that part. He believed it the night it happened, too. But her explanation barely has time to breathe before he interrupts, calm and cutting. "You didn’t know," he agrees quietly. "But you sure as hell never asked me about it either."
The truth of her compulsion should settle something inside him. It should soothe the jagged edges his mind keeps replaying; her leaning in, Thal’s hand in her hair, the ruin of it flashing behind his eyelids every time he closes them. His telepathy has always given him the advantage of understanding people past their excuses, past the lies they tell themselves, past the surfaces. But the knowledge doesn't fix the damage of the memory seared too vividly into his mind. So instead of easing anything, her honesty only drives the wound deeper, because knowing she didn’t even mean it doesn’t erase the sight burned into him. If anything, it makes it harder to tolerate, now that he realizes just how much hurt Colt could inflict on him without even trying.
you were beggin' me to stay 'til the sun rose
☆ has a pale star tattoo beneath his left eye, and freckle-sized constellations move across his skin
☽ hair changes from bleached blonde to brown
☆ telepathic: Sunlit Shadows | The user can read the surface thoughts and emotions of those within a 60ft radius. Control is excellent. Note: "Thoughts and emotions" include anything written in a character's narration in a post.
☽ hair changes from bleached blonde to brown
☆ telepathic: Sunlit Shadows | The user can read the surface thoughts and emotions of those within a 60ft radius. Control is excellent. Note: "Thoughts and emotions" include anything written in a character's narration in a post.
