I need your hand but I don't want to burn it
Her thoughts keep changing colour as they pass through him, each recollection bleeding into the next until there’s no clean edge between affection and grief. Peppermint comes bright and green against his senses, followed by the warm brown of lumber and the scraped texture of old pain, then the cool silver she’s laid over every memory of him in an effort to decide which version had been real. Vesper feels each new understanding gather weight before settling, layer after layer, until even the quieter pieces of her begin to press against him. When her attention catches on the indifference he’d worn so carefully, he lets out a soft breath and nods. "It never was like that."
Nonchalance had simply been the safest shape available to him. When he had her voice in one ear and everything she never meant to say in the other, appearing unaffected had been the only way to keep from answering questions she hadn’t asked or reacting to wounds she believed were hidden. Every shrug, every lazy curl of his mouth, every careless look away had helped keep the truth from showing through.
Without the peppermint bark to fold himself around, Vesper stretches his long legs through the grass and crosses them at the ankles. He leans back on one hand, though his chest remains angled toward her, some part of him unwilling to turn away even while the rest wishes for enough distance to breathe. At the memory of the shadowed face he’d once given her, a humourless laugh leaves him. "Yeah," he admits, his mouth twisting faintly. "That was careless." He’d known it then, but he'd simply cared more about giving her somewhere to put the anger than he had about protecting himself from the questions it might raise. For one night, easing something inside her had seemed worth the risk, and afterward he’d relied on her believing she’d supplied the face herself.
The regret she begins arranging around his first heartbreak draws a quiet click of disagreement from his tongue. There had been others before her, enough that he hadn’t come to her untouched in the way she now seems to wish he had, but none of them had caught beneath his skin or made him curious enough to remain. A mind polished clean of old damage might never have interested him at all. It had been the sharpness of Colt, the stubborn heat and all the uneven places life had left behind, that had made listening to her feel unlike listening to anyone else.
Then the sound of his name moves through him, broken badly enough that his fingers dig into the earth. The grass bends beneath his hand as he reaches across with the other, hesitation making the movement slower than it might once have been. His fingertip brushes the wetness from her cheek, so light that it barely disturbs the path the tear had taken. "That’s why," he says softly. His gaze lifts toward the stars while he searches for enough space inside himself to explain, but the dark above offers no easier version of the truth. When he looks back, the blue of his eyes has gone unguarded.
"I thought if I was carryin' the weight of the lie for both of us, it’d be fine." His throat works around the words before he continues. "Figured I could live with you hatin' me if it meant you got free of it." It had been arrogant, perhaps, deciding which pain she could bear and making sure she received it without ever being offered a choice. Vesper’s thumb curls faintly against his palm as the realization passes between them. [asy]"But every time I saw you after, I knew you were carryin' just as much." He swallows thickly, shaking his head. "Worse, really, 'cause it was the wrong kind of hurt. You kept thinkin' you’d imagined every good thing between us, or that you’d been stupid for trustin' me, and I knew none of that was true."
His eyes fall briefly toward the grass. The secret had always been larger than him, something braided through his family and the careful way Jack had taught him to move through the world, but the possibility of losing it no longer feels as frightening as watching Colt continue to turn the blade inward. "Guess I figured if you decide to go tell everyone now, maybe that’s just my punishment for doin' you wrong in the first place."
The admission lands heavily, though he offers it without trying to pull sympathy from her. If the truth spread, every relationship outside his family would warp around it. Every silence would become suspicious, every private thought held tighter when he entered a room, and whatever trust he’d built wouldn't survive the knowledge that he’d always been hearing more than anyone intended to give him. It wouldn’t destroy him as completely as Jack being exposed, but it would change the shape of his life all the same.
After a year spent failing to move beyond Colt, Vesper isn’t certain ruin would feel especially different from what he’s already carrying.
He exhales slowly before answering the other half of it. "Because it wasn’t gonna change the outcome of me leavin'." His shoulders rise in a tired shrug. "So I tried to hold onto my secret. My ma always said I’d be a better demigod if no one knew, so.." There had been practical sense behind it. People revealed themselves differently when they believed their minds belonged only to them, and Safrin’s work was easier when enemies didn’t know what sort of weapon stood nearby. At the time, preserving that advantage had felt more important than letting Colt understand why he was cutting them apart. Now the reasoning sounds thin beside the damage it allowed.
Vesper’s breath leaves him heavily, and his head tips in a small, defeated shake before his gaze searches for the amber of hers. When he finds it, his shoulders finally slump away from his ears, all the tension he’s carried through the confession losing its hold at once. "But I couldn’t stand you beatin' yourself up and bein' upset for all the wrong reasons." His voice trembles faintly, though he doesn’t look away. "Still can’t."
Nonchalance had simply been the safest shape available to him. When he had her voice in one ear and everything she never meant to say in the other, appearing unaffected had been the only way to keep from answering questions she hadn’t asked or reacting to wounds she believed were hidden. Every shrug, every lazy curl of his mouth, every careless look away had helped keep the truth from showing through.
Without the peppermint bark to fold himself around, Vesper stretches his long legs through the grass and crosses them at the ankles. He leans back on one hand, though his chest remains angled toward her, some part of him unwilling to turn away even while the rest wishes for enough distance to breathe. At the memory of the shadowed face he’d once given her, a humourless laugh leaves him. "Yeah," he admits, his mouth twisting faintly. "That was careless." He’d known it then, but he'd simply cared more about giving her somewhere to put the anger than he had about protecting himself from the questions it might raise. For one night, easing something inside her had seemed worth the risk, and afterward he’d relied on her believing she’d supplied the face herself.
The regret she begins arranging around his first heartbreak draws a quiet click of disagreement from his tongue. There had been others before her, enough that he hadn’t come to her untouched in the way she now seems to wish he had, but none of them had caught beneath his skin or made him curious enough to remain. A mind polished clean of old damage might never have interested him at all. It had been the sharpness of Colt, the stubborn heat and all the uneven places life had left behind, that had made listening to her feel unlike listening to anyone else.
Then the sound of his name moves through him, broken badly enough that his fingers dig into the earth. The grass bends beneath his hand as he reaches across with the other, hesitation making the movement slower than it might once have been. His fingertip brushes the wetness from her cheek, so light that it barely disturbs the path the tear had taken. "That’s why," he says softly. His gaze lifts toward the stars while he searches for enough space inside himself to explain, but the dark above offers no easier version of the truth. When he looks back, the blue of his eyes has gone unguarded.
"I thought if I was carryin' the weight of the lie for both of us, it’d be fine." His throat works around the words before he continues. "Figured I could live with you hatin' me if it meant you got free of it." It had been arrogant, perhaps, deciding which pain she could bear and making sure she received it without ever being offered a choice. Vesper’s thumb curls faintly against his palm as the realization passes between them. [asy]"But every time I saw you after, I knew you were carryin' just as much." He swallows thickly, shaking his head. "Worse, really, 'cause it was the wrong kind of hurt. You kept thinkin' you’d imagined every good thing between us, or that you’d been stupid for trustin' me, and I knew none of that was true."
His eyes fall briefly toward the grass. The secret had always been larger than him, something braided through his family and the careful way Jack had taught him to move through the world, but the possibility of losing it no longer feels as frightening as watching Colt continue to turn the blade inward. "Guess I figured if you decide to go tell everyone now, maybe that’s just my punishment for doin' you wrong in the first place."
The admission lands heavily, though he offers it without trying to pull sympathy from her. If the truth spread, every relationship outside his family would warp around it. Every silence would become suspicious, every private thought held tighter when he entered a room, and whatever trust he’d built wouldn't survive the knowledge that he’d always been hearing more than anyone intended to give him. It wouldn’t destroy him as completely as Jack being exposed, but it would change the shape of his life all the same.
After a year spent failing to move beyond Colt, Vesper isn’t certain ruin would feel especially different from what he’s already carrying.
He exhales slowly before answering the other half of it. "Because it wasn’t gonna change the outcome of me leavin'." His shoulders rise in a tired shrug. "So I tried to hold onto my secret. My ma always said I’d be a better demigod if no one knew, so.." There had been practical sense behind it. People revealed themselves differently when they believed their minds belonged only to them, and Safrin’s work was easier when enemies didn’t know what sort of weapon stood nearby. At the time, preserving that advantage had felt more important than letting Colt understand why he was cutting them apart. Now the reasoning sounds thin beside the damage it allowed.
Vesper’s breath leaves him heavily, and his head tips in a small, defeated shake before his gaze searches for the amber of hers. When he finds it, his shoulders finally slump away from his ears, all the tension he’s carried through the confession losing its hold at once. "But I couldn’t stand you beatin' yourself up and bein' upset for all the wrong reasons." His voice trembles faintly, though he doesn’t look away. "Still can’t."
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.
