the die has been cast (alea_iacta_est) wrote in 2145ic, @ 2018-08-19 17:56:00 |
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Entry tags: | vaughn, vic |
promises
who: vic & vaughn
setting: their place/central park
Vic had been avoiding his brother. He wasn’t proud of that fact, but it was the truth. But, family was family and he’d been living in a little dream bubble for long enough. He needed to go out and do some checks. Maintenance checks on the remaining clients he had for his black market business, but most importantly a check on Vaughn.
He made his way to their tent in Central Park, choosing to wear the same clothing he’d worn when he got to Chase’s and not any of the nicer, softer plush clothing Chase had bought for him. It wouldn’t go over well in the Park. He opened their tent flap and immediately saw Vaughn there, curled up in the hammock.
It confused him when Vaughn didn’t immediately move at the sound of someone else in their home, so Vic came closer and caught sight of his brother covered in blood and bruises, and his heart dropped. “Vaughn, what the hell?!” He said, loud enough that he thought his brother might wake from it.
Vaughn basically looked like he’d decided to pick a fight with all of Harlem. It wasn’t too far from the truth. He looked even worse off than when he’d seen Arc last, and despite avoiding their place like the plague, he’d had to drop of exhaustion somewhere. So it had been when he’d been home. He was so deep under that he didn’t wake up until Vic was shouting. He jumped a little, and everything hurt. He groaned and shot his brother a very dirty look. “Fuck off,” he grumbled. “‘M sleepin.” And also he was incoherent still.
“Are you fucking serious?” Vic yelled, his voice actually cracking at the top from the sheer force of his anger. He could have a concussion. He could be bleeding internally. He could be all sorts of dying and Vic was only just finding out about this now. Because he was the shittiest brother known to man.
The guilt covered him and he let it, but couldn’t let it paralyze him. He moved closer to Vaughn and reached out to put a hand on either side of the hammock, then began shaking it back and forth to try and force Vaughn awake. “Wake the fuck up!”
Vaughn winced, his head aching hard and Vic's volume wasn't making it better. He'd been about to drop off again however when everything was shaking and it made everything hurt worse. So he jumped, and fell out of the hammock, practically bowling Vic over in the process. “What the fuck, Vic?” he shouted in a heap on the ground. He righted himself enough to sit up, and he groaned as he pushed his head against the heel of his hand, like that might somehow turn off the slamming sirens that seemed to be going off inside his skull.
Vic fell to the ground, hitting his ass hard and wincing at the contact. Well, shit. He was positive his leg was going to act up again, but honestly none of that mattered as much as getting Vaughn...patched up didn’t even make sense for what they needed to do. “Did you think you were just gonna fucking sleep this off? Look at you! You could literally die in your sleep from this shit, Vaughn. What are you thinking?!”
He immediately pulled up his chat, flicking through the remaining contacts he had to call in favors for any and all medical aid they could send him. He knew it would clear most of the debts people owed him for product out and he’d be left with no real bargaining chips anymore, but he didn’t care.
“I’m fucking fine, I just have a headache!” he shot back. He looked up at his brother and narrowed his eyes. “And don’t you fucking dare call in favors. If I wanted help, I’d get it myself,” he growled. “What are you doing here anyway, I thought you moved in with your boyfriend. He learn to fuck you where he doesn’t end up leaving you hurting for days yet?” Vaughn finally managed to struggle to his feet, and he got back into the hammock, stubbornly trying to close his eyes and go back to sleep, even if that wasn’t happening anymore in the first place, and he knew Vic wasn’t going to allow it even if he was capable of it.
“You are not fucking fine,” Vic spat. He took a deep breath and exhaled, wanting to spout venom back at Vaughn when he jabbed him with that boyfriend remark but he didn’t. He needed to conserve his energy to fight the very-obviously broken brother he had right in front of him. “You are not in a position to tell me what to do with my favors. Fuck you. Prove to me you’re fine and maybe I’ll call them off.”
Flicking the chat to the side, he focused on Vaughn again. “Get up, do a jumping jack, a sit up, anything and fucking prove it.”
Vaughn's ire was burning bright but fast, his energy sapping. “Vic, I'll be okay, I just need to get sleep,” he tried, in a lower, more reasonable tone, even if it was still tight. “I'd be fine if you hadn't shown up, I've been fine since you haven't been around. I'm not going to drop dead because someone didn't come here and check my blood pressure. It's not worth it to call anyone. Nothing I got can be fixed through anything but time anyway.”
Vic calmed himself as Vaughn did, feeling the tension in the tent change a little. Just enough for him to see straight again and bite the inside of his mouth to keep from spouting off at his brother about that him-not-being-around shit. Because it was true. He hadn’t been around and this was what had happened to Vaughn. It steeled a resolve inside him that he couldn’t actually leave. Even if he’d thought about it. Even if he’d seriously wanted to; he couldn’t leave his brother to live his life like this. “...What the fuck happened, Vaughn?” He asked, his own voice lower too.
The answer that managed to make it to articulation happened to be the exhausted truth, too, even if Vaughn hadn't really known that it was. “I don't know.” He was quiet again. “Piph’s...gone. I fucked that up bad, big shocker. You're gone, and in a better place. Your end of the business is going to dry up and I needed to make some more to go off of, get shit to barter. After getting caught not long ago, I figured the best way to do that was the fight rings. Plus I just...really needed to hit things.”
Vic felt the guilt wash over him again and he just stared at his brother. How could he leave the Park when this was what happened to Vaughn while he was gone? “I’m not gone. I told you I wasn’t leaving. You’re my blood. We’re in this together. We can get Piph back. She won’t be able to say no to you for long. Especially if you cut this shit out and heal up. Though...she might be into it if you’re bloody, she’s weird like that. And the business...it was drying up already, but I have the credits to keep us afloat. I can support us. Let me do that...please.”
“Vic – slow down,” Vaughn said, again, too tired to drum up his usual defense mechanisms. Instead he was dropped down in what the anger and spikiness usually hid, the sadder core of him. The kid that was abandoned and never had much luck trusting anyone since. Who still had emotional wounds that never got kissed better. He made himself get up and get back in the hammock. “First of all, I think it's just time, okay? You've got something good going, don't fuck it up for me. I really...I have enough weighing on me, I don't want that too. If you want to make me happier? Be safe. Be comfortable. Be warm,” he said. He did crack a little half smile at the comment about Piph liking him all beat up. That...probably wasn't wrong. “And I'm pretty sure I'm not good for Piph. And I know, it's not usually my MO to care about something like that, but she's...christ, there's so much there. And she already has someone looking out for her. I don't know, Vic, I think I just...need to find my own way right now too.”
He never realized he did this but Vic took most of his cues from his brother. When Vaughn settled further, so did Vic. He shifted closer so he could sit near the hammock and look up at his brother there, hating the sight of him so hurt. He didn’t know what to do so instead of trying to fix it for once, Vic tried to just listen, and it took him a while to answer but when he did it was soft.
“...I’m not gonna fuck it up but you can’t ask me to abandon you either. That’s not gonna work. You...you mean too much for me to do that.” He waited for a moment, wanting that to really sink in about as much as Vaughn would let it before continuing. “How sure are you that she’s good for you, either? Is anyone ever really good for anyone else? I guess...what I’m trying to say is, does it matter if you’re bad for her or she’s bad for you if you actually do care? She seemed to adore you when she was here. Just...don’t write that off yet.”
But it was that last bit that had him the most worried. It sounded like Vaughn was going to do something he didn’t want his brother to do, like disappear. And he didn’t know how to help him but he wasn’t willing to lose him, period. “...If I back off, will you promise not to go full ghost on me? Check-ins and regular chats and everything?”
It had never even remotely occurred to Vaughn that Piph wasn't good for him. That part hadn't ever come near his thought process. That much was clear with the kind of confused shock that crossed his face when Vic asked the question. He didn't answer it though, because he straight up didn't know. He didn't usually think about anything in terms of whether or not it was good for him. He did that for Vic, but not himself. He didn't examine things close enough or have enough self awareness for that. In the end, he nodded to Vic about that part, at least. “Okay,” he said quietly.
When Vic wanted a promise, Vaughn hesitated for a second, but then nodded. “I promise,” he answered. And he didn't hand those out lightly. He and Vic didn't do promises all that much. So when they did it was important. “Promise you'll get out of here, go find the good life and have good things to tell me about when I do?”
That was so hard for him to accept. The promise Vaughn wanted seemed to outweigh the promise he wanted by miles. He bit his lip as he thought it over, clearly in the same vein as his brother when it came to promises. They weren’t light for him and he didn’t just hand them out without thought. “...I promise to expand my life to include good things and have good things to tell you about when I see you. But I can’t promise that I won’t still come here and stay the night with you in our house. I can’t promise to abandon the park.”
Vaughn thought about that. “...I’ll accept that if you spend more nights elsewhere than here,” he said. That would make him feel a little better at least. That he wasn’t always here in the cold. That he had a place to live and he could go there, and be warm and safe. And maybe eventually he’d stop coming back to the park. He could dream for something better for his brother. Vic deserved it.
He weighed those terms and finally nodded. “I’ll give it my best shot,” He said, since that was all he felt he could agree to. “And you’ll start trying to take better care of yourself so I don’t have to call in those favors.” He knew Vaughn would hate it, too, but Vic planned on setting up a constant credit drip into his accounts. At least they’d have something to fight about another day.