I need your hand but I don't want to burn it
Her hesitation catches against him before the grass whispers beneath her boots, a brief tug backward toward the tents before whatever pride or stubbornness keeps her moving wins out. Vesper feels the shift as cleanly as a current changing beneath dark water, and by the time she falls into step beside him, he’s already aware of the way her attention begins to travel over his face.
It moves like something searching through wreckage, finding the shape of what used to be there beneath everything time and distance have laid over it. The dislike that follows has teeth. She looks at him and sees a stranger wearing familiar bones, some poor imitation of the man she’d once known well enough to touch without thinking, and Vesper keeps his eyes ahead rather than let her see how easily the thought slips beneath his ribs.
At the question, he glances down over his shoulder, one pale brow rising beneath the moonlight. Oh, he’d gotten the letter. It hadn’t taken a telepath to find the hooks buried in it, not when she’d taken something he’d once said and twisted it around until the point faced him again. Gratitude offered like settlement on a debt she resented owing, polished up enough that she could wave it between them while making it plain she still meant to use him whenever necessity outweighed whatever remained of her regard. "Yeah," he says dryly. "I did."
His gaze returns to the meadow ahead, though he stops when she does and turns once the glass begins to complain between her hands. He doesn’t bother looking down at what she’s brought. Instead, Vesper looks at her properly for the first time since she found him, and the familiarity of her face only sharpens how little of the woman beneath it he recognizes now. Her explanations wash past him while the thoughts beneath them press louder, each careful choice wrapped in old resentment and something softer she’s trying to bury beneath it. His attention drifts along the contours of her face, searching without meaning to for whatever piece of her might still fit the memory he carries, until the mention of the missing basket snaps his eyes sharply back to hers.
Even the freckles scattered across his nose seem to flinch with the movement. A dry laugh leaves him, low and brief, with none of the hurt prickling beneath his skin allowed anywhere near the sound. Of course this is what she’s chosen to make good on, the bitter little promise thrown between them after she’d called him into her bed and he’d finally snapped that being useful wasn’t the same thing as being wanted. Shame on him for thinking he was owed anything more than her annoyance; then and now.
For one distant second, he can see the easier path. He could take the bottles, give her some flattened version of thanks, and let the night swallow the rest before either of them has the chance to make it worse, but then she goes on. Rather, her mind does.
Vesper straightens slowly, not with the jerk of a man struck but with the gradual rise of something realizing the trap has already closed around it. Surprise is rare for him, rarer still when the person standing in front of him is thinking loudly enough to paint every wall, and yet he stares at her as though she’s managed to become something impossible all the same. "You think I came all the fuckin’ way north to tell you not to call me?" His lip twitches beneath the weight of everything trying to force its way out. The smile that finally pulls at his mouth could be mistaken for cruelty, though there’s too much hurt behind it to be anything so clean. "Fuck you, Colt," he all but whispers, before turning to stalk back toward camp.
It moves like something searching through wreckage, finding the shape of what used to be there beneath everything time and distance have laid over it. The dislike that follows has teeth. She looks at him and sees a stranger wearing familiar bones, some poor imitation of the man she’d once known well enough to touch without thinking, and Vesper keeps his eyes ahead rather than let her see how easily the thought slips beneath his ribs.
At the question, he glances down over his shoulder, one pale brow rising beneath the moonlight. Oh, he’d gotten the letter. It hadn’t taken a telepath to find the hooks buried in it, not when she’d taken something he’d once said and twisted it around until the point faced him again. Gratitude offered like settlement on a debt she resented owing, polished up enough that she could wave it between them while making it plain she still meant to use him whenever necessity outweighed whatever remained of her regard. "Yeah," he says dryly. "I did."
His gaze returns to the meadow ahead, though he stops when she does and turns once the glass begins to complain between her hands. He doesn’t bother looking down at what she’s brought. Instead, Vesper looks at her properly for the first time since she found him, and the familiarity of her face only sharpens how little of the woman beneath it he recognizes now. Her explanations wash past him while the thoughts beneath them press louder, each careful choice wrapped in old resentment and something softer she’s trying to bury beneath it. His attention drifts along the contours of her face, searching without meaning to for whatever piece of her might still fit the memory he carries, until the mention of the missing basket snaps his eyes sharply back to hers.
Even the freckles scattered across his nose seem to flinch with the movement. A dry laugh leaves him, low and brief, with none of the hurt prickling beneath his skin allowed anywhere near the sound. Of course this is what she’s chosen to make good on, the bitter little promise thrown between them after she’d called him into her bed and he’d finally snapped that being useful wasn’t the same thing as being wanted. Shame on him for thinking he was owed anything more than her annoyance; then and now.
For one distant second, he can see the easier path. He could take the bottles, give her some flattened version of thanks, and let the night swallow the rest before either of them has the chance to make it worse, but then she goes on. Rather, her mind does.
Vesper straightens slowly, not with the jerk of a man struck but with the gradual rise of something realizing the trap has already closed around it. Surprise is rare for him, rarer still when the person standing in front of him is thinking loudly enough to paint every wall, and yet he stares at her as though she’s managed to become something impossible all the same. "You think I came all the fuckin’ way north to tell you not to call me?" His lip twitches beneath the weight of everything trying to force its way out. The smile that finally pulls at his mouth could be mistaken for cruelty, though there’s too much hurt behind it to be anything so clean. "Fuck you, Colt," he all but whispers, before turning to stalk back toward camp.
No I don't deserve it, I don't deserve it
☆ 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.
