#also violante hearing ruven's last line: i hope you will forgive the knife i will plant in ur throat (: with time (: foreshadowing much

[deadrlngers]

WIP DAY.

i was tagged by @nuclearstorms @katsigian @nokstella @arklay and @morvaris thank you all soso much!!

tagging (if you already did this feel free to ignore me <3): @devilbrakers @uldwynsovs @girlbosselrond @steelport @reaperkiller @indorilnerevarine @risingsh0t @swordcoasts @calenhads @honeysofte @faarkas @moiragf @shadowglens @camelliagwerm and whoever else wants to do this bc i love reading your amazing writing mwah

i have two wips to share this time. incredible. a bit long but there's so much that makes me SCREAM here

1. vesper/fenix. year 2074, a few months before breaking up, they are going Through it. i picked two different moments in the wip bc i think it's interesting to see vesper's desperate and contradictory resignation vs fenix's bitter one

The walls of their apartment felt comfortingly claustrophobic, like a scaffold they willingly accepted to walk to; Fenix’s stuff was still scattered on the floor of the living room as when she threw it around–or maybe at him, she couldn’t remember. A few shirts, one of his favourite jackets, a bunch of bullets the sole of her shoes made her aware of as she trudged through the dim hallway of the house.

Fenix was holding her hand as he lead the both of them through the darkness–was it out of care? for her wellbeing, her decaying eyesight? dare she hope for the spectre of concern? He knew, he must. Volatility of chance? impossible…hope, hope…–and it felt almost intimate, to be able to experience the other’s touch after so long. Normalcy, among the mess. It could last only one moment, so it’s safe to make the most of it.

Neither dared to speak. Silence was in the wake of their steps and it felt quite strange to be in that room again with this new guest; the same space that a few hours earlier witnessed the opposite of peace. Yes, it was quiet now but the remnants of their pitiful spectacle still lingered in the air. In the dimmed light of the kitchen they forgot to switch off before leaving with a slam of the door, in the memory of the tears that wanted to escape but didn’t, in sharp glares and the persistent stench of pride, in the buzz that kept plaguing Vesper’s ears–be it the loud music of the club they just left or the memory of her voice turned strident as she yelled. Words she meant, words she didn’t; it didn’t matter any longer.

They walked through a place that should have the comforting title of ‘home’ like strangers, and no one dared to speak. The echo left by their shared anger was at home, not them. The echo spoke for them.

Then Fenix turned and Vesper felt his arms around her: again she didn’t fight it, not when he kissed her nor when they ended up in their room. An expected end, desired but mortifying nonetheless. Vesper wished she could’ve kept that unbreakable front, hold her ground, keep that anger inside her, but for what gain? It’s the last time, she reminded herself. Never again, right?

If love lasts one single day, then be gone in the morning. I will wait for the next one–No! She had to remember. Never again. But remembering was so difficult when it was drowned by a consoling embrace such as this one.

Rewind time. Erase him completely like the night they first met never happened. That, would be easier.

[...]

He threw the phone on the passenger seat and shoved his hands into the pockets once more. He needed a smoke.

Truth is, Fenix hoped she would answer with a big, enormous, ‘fuck you’ so that he could finally tear a reaction out of her. All the yelling and aggressive looks weren’t so bad after all, he experienced something worse which is the silence–the indifference–and now he prayed to hear the sound of one more interminable fight. Funny. Or something like that.

Rolling paper, filters and tobacco. He was running low on the latter but it was too late to come back to Night City now. Ignoring the disturbing spasms of his right hand, he laid the paper between his index and middle finger, and covered its surface with finely cut leaves.

Indifference…indifference…It plagued Fenix. His apathy? Justified. That’s the way I am – the easiest of justifications, he was lucky. But what excuse Vesper had? To be that silent and inert after unrestrained rage pushed her body even at the plainest of the provocations. Instead she didn’t move a muscle when he left. Laying motionless on the bed with her face stuffed into the pillow and the sheets balled up in her hands. Fenix was sure she wasn’t sleeping. He didn’t expect her to plead, to say ‘stay’, that’s fantasy. Yet he could’ve been happier if she at least gifted him one last heinous remark before he left.

There’s no love without someone crying, someone once said, and no one cried that night. Maybe he finally fucked up enough to make Vesper give up.

Weirdly comforting, when someone gives up on you. No one left to disappoint. Unsettling. I’ve loved wrong my whole life, he noted as he watched the tobacco fall on his jeans when his fingers turned paralyzed by the pain, there’s nothing else I could do. Justifications are so incredibly easy.

2. violante&ruven in their younger days and their toxic codependency, a quick little physical abuse mention tw

Among real wounds and the ones that were committed by her own hands in honour of a humble desire–witnessing remorse into those beautiful eyes of his–which one was he staring at?

“Did you want her to hit me?” The question was viciously insinuating, Violante knew exactly where to lead her little game. Her fingers were digging into the bruised flesh of her left cheek where her sweet mother's hand inflicted the real pain, the shame, as she waited for the answer.

Ruven exhaled a heavy breath, tired, bored by the conversation. “I want you to learn.” Pretentious, as no one else could be. “To never trust. Not even myself.”

Heart of a devil, he had. Violante fed on that rotten insides of his for far too long to let something so small faze her, and yet rancor shined bright in her golden eyes, as her false, soft gaze turned into one of an executioner. “Who could ever trust someone as atrocious as you, unloved even by that whore of your own mother…a snake, a–”

“You.” His words were deafeating, more than ever when accompanied by the sweetest smile anyone ever spared for Violante. Unloved by your own mother and anyone else in the world, just like myself, my own mirror of rot.

With disarming calm, Ruven extended his arm towards Violante and offered her an open palm. She should’ve answered with hostility–she hoped she could–but his offer was ever so comforting, tempting. Companionship. Violante didn’t think it twice as she reached to unite her hand with his. My own mirror of rot.

“You will thank me, in time,” Ruven added with honeyed voice “for the venom.”