#ohhhhh the plot

[ofthecaravel]

Brandy

Chapter Five

Summary: A port on a western bay serves a hundred ships a day, and the lonely sailors flock to the Caravel Cantina, run by the Kiszka brothers (minus one). But when their brother returns with a handsome sailor in tow, the youngest Kiszka brother finds his perspective about his family and himself turned upside down.

Words: 3.9k

~~~

Two nights. Sam slept peacefully for two nights.

Two beautiful, beautiful nights that brought back a long buried calm and ease that he reveled in quietly. He noticed the softness creeping back into his voice and the smile that refused to leave him alone, and even though he knew they wanted to give him shit for it, his brothers took it in without a word. The whisperings of a Friday night dinner with Daniel in attendance actually came together, and it had gone surprisingly well for a Kiszka family dinner. Despite being the guest, Daniel had showed up early and insisted on helping, navigating the kitchen flurry of Sam and his siblings scurrying every which way to grab whatever pot or pan they’d left unattended and shrieking over each other. But every dish had ended up only a little bit burnt and the four of them talked well after dinner had been cleared, Josh having decided the previous night that a night off was justified by Daniel’s presence in their home. Sam didn’t get nearly as much alone time with Daniel as he had hoped for, but he was more than happy to curl up into his side on the couch and sneak in side conversations when they could. 

Daniel excused himself at midnight, taking note of the way all the brothers had started to droop and yawn as the light in the fireplace started to dim. Jake made them all group hug before he and Josh drifted off to their bedrooms, leaving Daniel to herd Sam into his room, who protested greatly at Daniel leaving. 

“Just stay here tonight,” Sam purred, sitting on the bed while Daniel shook his head. 

“I’d love to but your bed barely fits you, much less the both of us,” Daniel argued, not budging from his post at the door once he made his way over. “Also, I mean, look, you’re falling asleep right in front of me. You need sleep.”

“Sleep with me,” Sam whined, dramatically flipping the blanket back. “I’ll just lay on top of you. We’ll fit.”

“Sam, if you got on top of me, sleep is the last thing you’d be doing,” Daniel winked with a chuckle. Sam rolled his eyes, flashing hot. 

“Maybe I prefer that,” Sam countered, crawling forward on the bed and flashing his best puppy dog eyes at Daniel, who he could see was already faltering under his gaze. “Come on, I’ll be real quiet.”

“Tempting,” Daniel admitted, his voice a little breathier as he dipped down and kissed Sam’s forehead, who closed his eyes at the contact. “But no. Sleep, Sammy.”

“No,” Sam muttered petulantly, finding it difficult to open his eyes again now that he’d closed them. “I won’t get to see you until tomorrow night. And then after that…”

“I don’t want to think about that right now,” Daniel answered softly, gently steering Sam’s shoulder to make him flop backwards onto his pillow, landing with a frown but still keeping his eyes shut. “Think about nice, sleepy things.”

“You’re a nice, sleepy thing,” Sam replied tiredly, his mind already starting to dapple alongside his consciousness. 

“You’re so fucking cute,” Daniel whispered, kissing Sam’s cheek and brushing his hair back. “How about you sleep over tomorrow night, hm? We can put on that record and-”

“Dance?” Sam interjected, opening one eye with a cheeky smile to catch Daniel’s reaction, who gave him his own smile and eyebrow raise.

“Sure. You gonna teach me?” 

“I don’t know, that’s usually your area of expertise,” Sam flirted, grabbing Daniel’s collar and pulling him down. “Kiss me.”

“You have no manners,” Daniel joked. “Say please and promise you’ll come over.”

“Please,” Sam hummed, jutting his lips out pleadingly and enjoying the sight of Daniel’s eyelids fluttering so close to his face. “Promise.”

“That’s my sweet boy,” Daniel murmured before pressing his lips to Sam’s with breathless pressure. Sam was addicted to the feeling after only a few days of having it, and he felt stirrings of an insatiable need to be somehow closer to Daniel despite being pressed together while they kissed slowly and purposefully. 

“I think,” Sam started to say after pulling away to drink in a quick breath. “That I like that.”

“Kissing? I should fucking hope so.”

“No, stupid,” Sam laughed, smiling at the sight of Daniel’s scrunched nose while he grinned, his eyes glittering almost supernaturally in the lamplight. “Being your boy. I like it.”

“Me too,” Daniel replied, his voice barely audible as he rested their foreheads together. Suddenly, the air between them grew quiet, and when Daniel’s voice piped back up, he was soft spoken and serious. 

“Sam, listen, I wanted to say,” Daniel began, and Sam felt himself wake up a little as he watched Daniel struggle for words for a moment. “I know it’s only been a few days, and this isn’t even anything yet, but I wanted to tell you that I really do like you.”

“Yeah?” Sam answered quietly, his stomach fluttering as adrenaline started to fizzle at his fingertips and his muscles. 

“Yeah,” Daniel affirmed sincerely, seemingly a little taken aback by his own sentiment. “I mean everything I said on Wednesday. And it’s really fucking fast, I know, and I gotta leave, but I don’t want you to think that I don’t genuinely like you. I do.”

“You’re a sweetheart,” Sam muttered, putting a hand on Danny’s jaw and trying and failing miserably at suppressing a smile. 

“And I know you like me, too, so I won’t even make you say that,” Daniel teased, which Sam answered with a bewildered scoff. “You do! You do. I see it. That’s what makes it so much better and simultaneously worse. But, I was thinking. I could write to you as much as I’m able to. We hit lots of ports with postal, so I’ll just send someone down to mail it for me. It’ll be like I never left, still talking your ear off like I always do.”

“I wish I could write you back,” Sam complained. “But I know your ship sure as shit doesn’t have an address.” 

“Nope,” Daniel laughed a little before falling somber again, his voice still lilting with humor but laced with a genuine belief. “You probably won’t even like me by the time I come back.”

“Danny,” Sam protested with a whine, absently swiping at a smudge of Danny’s pencil liner as he tilted Danny’s chin to look right at him. “Don’t talk like that. I do like you, and, you know, my brother has made me a very patient person. Wouldn’t be too hard to keep you fresh in my mind, especially since I want to. I mean it.”

“You’re unreal,” Daniel marveled, his eyes dancing thoughtfully over Sam’s sleepy face. “But don’t think about that just yet. Like I said, think nice sleepy thoughts right now. I’ll be here in the morning.”

“You promise?” Sam prodded, the tiredness starting to seep back into his body as he finally entertained the thought of falling asleep. 

“Promise,” Danny promised, giving Sam one last kiss before standing back up and stretching. “I think I’ll sleep when I get back to my bed, so don’t have any exciting dreams until I get there, okay?”

“Okay, weirdo,” Sam smiled, kicking his legs under the covers and settling in a little more. “Turn off my lamp, please.”

“Of course,” Danny obliged with a fond smile, strolling back over to the door and dimming the light until he was only a blue silhouette in the dark. “Sweet dreams, sweet boy.”

“Goodnight, Danny,” Sam answered shyly, his voice sounding embarrassingly loud in the dark, night time quiet of his room. 

“I love when you call me that, by the way,” Daniel commented briefly, opening the door to escape before Sam could tease him properly. “Goodnight, Sammy.”

After the door closed, Sam sat up in bed, listening to Daniel’s footsteps in the threshold of the house before they disappeared behind the sound of the front door opening and then closing. He fell backwards against his pillow again and covered his face with his arm, pressing his hot cheeks into his skin and sinking back into his exhaustion. The last sensation Sam remembered before he drifted off was the smell of Daniel on his pillow, letting the comfort of it lull him into a deep sleep.

- 

Sam was startled awake by what sounded like a brittle tree branch tapping against the window pane, and he blinked in annoyance as the noise kept him from falling back asleep. Wiping his eyes with the heels of his palm, Sam slowly sat up and blinked a few times before turning to glare at the window. Judging by the light, Sam guessed it couldn’t have been more than 3am, and judging by the dark outline in his window, Sam guessed that it was definitely not a tree branch. Sam jolted with a stilted gasp, instinctually scooting up against the wall before his bleary eyes started to decipher more details. Suddenly, his muscles contracted with a shock as he realized what the shape was. He clumsily threw himself off of his bed to get to the window to prove his theory.

“Daniel?” Sam asked in a hush, leaning in and seeing it was indeed Daniel’s face peering at him from behind the glass. He quickly opened the window when he saw the horrible expression painted over Danny’s usually cool and collected features. He was silently gasping for breath and looking feverishly at Sam with an animalistic panic in his eyes that made Sam’s stomach drop.

“Sam,” Daniel huffed, his voice bordering on inaudible as he leaned in, his knuckles white as he gripped the windowsill. “I have to go.”

“What?” Sam slurred, suddenly worried he was still asleep and having a spontaneous stress dream. “Go where?”

“The ship,” Daniel hurried, his words slipping over each other nervously. “I have to go to the ship with Jake, we’re going, everybody else, we’re going right now.”

As if on cue, Sam heard a soft rustling from his home behind him, the floors creaking and carrying the indecipherable sounds of his brothers’ muffled talking. His heart threatened to seize as his whole body began to shake with adrenaline. 

“What is it, what’s wrong?” Sam whispered, his words straining as Daniel looked over his shoulder. “Danny?”

“People are talking,” Daniel struggled to explain through his fast words. “One of our crew caught wind of some kind of confrontation against us tomorrow. We can’t risk that, we have to go. Now. Before dawn and before word can properly spread and people speculate.”

“No,” Sam answered dumbly, suddenly reaching out and holding Daniel’s cold face in his hands. He felt like he was seconds away from hitting the ground. “No, Daniel, no. You can’t. You can’t.”

“We have to,” Daniel choked, tears welling up in his eyes as he ineptly grasped at Sam’s waist and pulled him close as he could with a window between them. “I just told Jake a minute ago and we can’t stay for much longer than a few minutes, baby, and then we have to go, okay?”

“You promised,” Sam spit, tears of his own already hotly spilling over and clouding his vision as he anxiously realized this was his (last?) chance to properly remember every perfect detail of Daniel’s face.

“I’m so fucking sorry,” Daniel rasped with a restrained cry, his face crumpling with remorse and upset as glittering tears began to race down his cheeks. “I swear, I had no idea, I don’t want to leave, Sammy, I promise. I want to stay but we can’t.”

Sam couldn’t do anything but choke down frustrated sobs for a few seconds, his body quivering with nerves as he heard Josh yell in the living room with Jake answering him in a tearful plea. Daniel’s fingers were digging so deep into his skin that Sam knew he would bruise, and he secretly wished that Daniel would dig so deep that even more remnants of him would stay on Sam’s skin.

“Say something,” Daniel begged, his voice shaking and breaking when Sam closed his eyes and let out a soft little sob. His eyebrows knit and purled between anger and despair while Daniel watched, thoroughly disgusted with himself even though he knew it was truly beyond his control.

“I’ll hide you,” Sam offered pathetically, shakily combing back Danny’s frenzied bangs with shivering fingers.

“You can’t,” Daniel replied defeatedly, his hands now roaming Sam’s torso anxiously as he tried to soothe him. “I’ll be fine, I swear. Jake too. We are so, so safe with what we do, I wasn’t lying about that either.”

“You lied tonight,” Sam seethed, his grief melting into anger like it always had. “You said you’d be here in the morning.”

“How could I know?”

“I don’t know!” Sam burst, trying desperately to dampen the volume of his voice as Danny tried to pull him closer again and rested his head on Sam’s shoulder. Sam pressed their cheeks together and let out a little whimper at the comfort he felt in Daniel’s embrace, accepting with horror that this might be the last time he ever felt it. He held onto him tight because of it, his nails slotting into the soft corduroy of Daniel’s jacket as they held each other with an iron grip. 

Behind them, Sam’s door opened and his head whipped around to see Jake’s unmistakable silhouette in his doorway. He hurried into the room towards his brother and Daniel, and Sam felt the tears start up all over again at the desolate look on Jake’s face. 

“Sammy, I-”

“I know,” Sam rushed, turning away from Daniel’s embrace and diving into his big brother’s arms, clasping his long arms around him snugly. He could feel the heat of Jake’s face as they clung together, and for a second, they were 4 and 7 years old again. Sam stretched it in his mind as he desperately tried to take in every nanosecond of what was happening.

“I’m sorry,” Jake whispered against his shoulder, clapping Sam on the back and sniffling. “I’m so sorry, Sam. I’ll be back before you know it.”

“I know,” Sam repeated, looking past Jake’s hair to see Josh now standing in the doorway. He was rumpled and his face was pink and drenched in absolute misery. Sam reached an arm out and Josh approached them, trying to embrace both of his brothers at the same time. The three of them stood there for another minute, their breaths synchronizing and beginning to even out slightly as they held back further tears and words that would get them nowhere. 

“Come back,” Sam finally whispered, stepping back to wipe his face and let Jake go.

“I will,” Jake said firmly, dabbing at the moisture on his cheeks with his dark sleeve. 

“Jake,” Daniel said desperately, still looking over his shoulder as he pleaded reluctantly with his eyes. Jake nodded and embraced both his brothers one more time before running his fingers through his hair and letting out a shuddering breath to stabilize himself.

“I’ll meet you at the front door,” Jake replied, his voice low and resistant. Daniel gave him another nod and Jake turned towards the door, Josh one step behind him as he cast a last look back at Sam and Daniel by the window. 

“I love you, Sam,” Jake promised. “We’ll be back next summer, but hopefully before that.”

“I love you, too,” Sam answered instantly, his lip quivering and his voice shaking all over again. He drew in a shaky breath as Jake disappeared behind the door and he swung his head to look back at Daniel. Sam had never recalled a time before this where he had felt as ill as he did seeing Daniel standing teary eyed in his window. 

“I…” Sam trailed off, reaching for Daniel’s face again and settling a knee on the windowsill so he could align with Daniel’s chest. 

“Yeah,” Daniel replied simply, not wasting any time before catching Sam in a searing kiss. They held each other with a hopeless grip, Sam’s tears fluttering onto Daniel’s cheeks. 

After another few seconds, Daniel pulled away and dove his hand into his jacket pocket, digging around fervently for a second before pulling something out and pressing it into Sam’s palm. He felt the cold flush of metal against his shaking hand and Sam flattened his palm to see the ornate face of a silver locket and its braided chain piled around it. 

“What?” Sam blurted stupidly, searching Daniel’s eyes. “For me?”

“The finest silver from the north of Spain,” Daniel explained, his voice still hushed but a smile finally beginning to bleed into his words. “I got it a million years ago and promised myself I’d only give it away to somebody I really care about. Open it, quick, Jake’s waiting.”

Sam slid his nail between the clasp and the locket clicked open, falling open like a book and revealing two little treasures for Sam. On the left side, a small piece of parchment with Daniel’s scrawled, inked handwriting curving into a heart and his own name. On the right was a small dark ringlet secured to the silver backing. Sam’s stomach flipped and his face prickled with warmth as he looked back up at Daniel with round, soft eyes.

“It’s just a little keepsake,” Daniel said, his body losing some of its electric tension as he watched Sam press his finger against the ink. “So you don’t forget me.”

“I could never,” Sam breathed, snapping the locket shut and throwing an arm around Daniel’s neck and pulling him in again, kissing his cheek and burying his face into his neck. “I’ll never take it off.”

“You better not,” Daniel smiled, pressing one last lingering kiss to Sam’s lips before leaning back out the window again. “I have to go.”

“I know,” Sam whispered, tears welling up in his eyes again as Daniel took a step back. 

“I’m not gonna say goodbye, because it’s not goodbye,” Daniel insisted, his voice giving way to a tremor for a moment. “It’s just ‘see you later’. So, I’ll see you later, Sammy.”

“See you later, Danny,” Sam rasped, willing himself not to blink as he watched Daniel linger for another moment before he turned and disappeared around the side of the house and out of sight. 

Sam hesitated for a moment too long, pondering if he should just throw himself out of the window and follow after them. But the moment passed and he heard two sets of footsteps disappearing down the street before he ever had the chance. 

The weight of the locket felt like a barbell in his palm, and all Sam could do was stand there and sway and stare into nothing. The cool breeze coming in from outside was starting to make him feel a little sick when he thought about it rolling off the sea. The same sea that was stealing his brother and now Daniel from him. He reached one hand out and slammed the window shut, not caring about the deafening rattle it made when the wood hit the sill. 

“You want me to put it on you?”

Josh stood in the doorway, holding onto the wall for stability as he exchanged identical looks of miserable sympathy with Sam. Sam clamped his lips together to prevent a cry from escaping and shook his head, holding the locket out to Josh and pulling his hair over his shoulder. Holding the locket to his chest, Sam stared emptily at the floor while Josh’s cold fingers grazed his neck and clasped the chain. 

 Sam knew that Josh would keep himself composed for both of their sake, but he felt his brother’s grief as his own as they stood in silence while Josh fiddled with the necklace and Sam kept the locket clenched protectively in his fist.

“Careful that this doesn’t yank on your hair,” Josh muttered, his voice low and rough from what Sam assumed was tears and the yelling he had heard earlier.

“You could cut it and I wouldn’t care,” Sam answered absently.

“Do you want me to?” Josh asked. “I think that’d be the least exciting portion of the night if we did.”

“Fuck it,” Sam said, laughing without any humor. “Get the scissors.”

-

They ended the night on Josh’s bedroom floor, with Sam sitting with a halo of his hair around his legs and back and Josh carefully cutting Sam’s long locks until they grazed his shoulders. They were silent, a rarity for their household, especially when it was the two of them. By the time Josh was done, the first amber fingers of dawn started to reach through the curtain and reminded them both of how little sleep they had actually gotten. Sam yawned and leaned his head back against Josh’s shoulder, who accepted him with a one armed hug and rested his head against Sam’s. Clarice had roosted in Sam's crossed legs, and he never thought he'd find her presence anything less than annoying, but he found himself enjoying the comfort of her warmth.

“You wanna sleep in here with me tonight?” Josh questioned quietly. “Like old times? We can pull the mattress from…”

“No, I’m okay,” Sam replied, his voice dry and painful. “Are we closed tonight too?”

“No, we got to go,” Josh sighed, dragging a hand over his face. “To, uh, keep up appearances. Jake would want that.”

“Don’t talk about him like he’s dead.”

“Sam.”

“Sorry.”

“He’s not gonna die,” Josh insisted, almost like he was talking to himself. “Jake’s smarter than that. Dan, too.”

Sam went quiet again, breathing in deeply and letting it out slowly as his eyes shut.

“You really like the kid, huh?” Josh prodded, his voice hushed. Sam didn’t answer verbally, only nodding after a moment of hesitation as he came to terms with it himself. 

“I’m really happy for you, Sammy. He’s an honest man.”

“He is,” Sam affirmed, letting out another sigh. “I knew he was going to have to leave and I wasn’t going to get attached or anything but…I don’t know. It hurts.”

“It does,” Josh assured him, pulling Sam in closer. “I only understand the half of it, and I’m sorry for that.”

“Half is good. I’m happy you’re here.”

“I’m happy you’re here, too.”

They left a beat of silence for Jake, whether they meant to or not. Another one followed it before Sam leaned forward again and brought a hand up to rake it through his hair, enjoying the physical weight that had been lifted.

“Go look in the mirror and then go to bed,” Josh ordered, clapping a hand on Sam’s shoulder and using it to stabilize himself as he got to his feet. “Don’t worry about the hair on the ground, I’ll clean it up later.”

“Okay,” Sam said, standing up and sending Clarice fluttering across the floor, feeling an ache in every inch of his body as he shuffled to the door.

“We’ll be okay, Sammy,” Josh told him assuredly. “Just get some sleep and we’ll go from there.”

“Yeah,” Sam replied, moving through the door and navigating back to his room. He passed by Jake’s door and pushed down the urge to peek inside and catch a glimpse of anything he might’ve left behind, but it stayed on his mind as he turned to the mirror. The light outside was seeping in through his window and he could see the feathery layers of his hair as it shifted on his shoulders and kissed his jaw. In the thin, orange light, Sam could also see the look on his face. And after who he had felt himself becoming in the past few days, there was a second where he didn’t recognize the tired eyed boy staring back at him at all.

~~~

[yrsonpurpose]

lust. for power.

[rox-of-iu]

ayo guys guess what time it is again :)) 💜💜

spoiler warning for cultivate ch 41-46

hehe finally scrambled brain enough to be able to catch up and cultivate makes me go 🥰🥰😌🤗😊😊

cultivate of course by @neonghostcat beloved

[kazu-naito]

take: all mcs names should be customisable unless they actually mean something in the story

[infizero]

oh its so over for me.

[gogodollie]

sister imperator is super autistic about rosemary’s baby (1968) but she dgaf about rosemary at ALL.

she spends the entire movie/book being mad that rosemary isn’t appreciative of carrying the antichrist and rejects him initially (she’s turning to nihil at the end and going “well, PERSONALLY, i would have accepted him immediately and done a wonderful job raising him.”)

imperator is watching minnie castevet so intensely and giggling at all her jokes/allusions and dreamily sighing because she cannot WAIT to be an overbearing satanic old lady just like her.

[mean-scarlet-deceiver]

What I'm hearing is that Trevor has one enemy in the world

[perenlop]

pokeani moments that exist purely to make Me miserable:

the line where they call ash's oshawott a throwaway pokemon in the unova league so they're just flat out saying they think it's a worthless pokemon

to thine own pokemon be true (extra angst points for me bc ambipom was my second favorite on the team at the time)

the granddaughter of the guy who trains gliscor calling gliscor pathetic and weak to her face despite gliscor being an extremely sensitive pokemon

pretty much everything about that gible

blue episode (favorite color but they made it a fetish somehow and also dewott and brionne and meowstic are all there and its so bad)

boxing heracross immediately. also that battle frontier episode where it's literally the only returning ash mon (barring torkoal i think but i dont count it bc its native to AG) to get humiliated onscreen

pidgeot returning but gliscor didn't even show up in the miniseries despite being an Actual Character

[grimcatician]

Something something something book omens’ focus is about the love of humanity something something shows is about the love between two (not) ppl something something something dolphins

[dnangelic]

playing through the new rev1999 chapter and losing it bwkwbljgkjk

daisuke: vertin they said my number was 666

daisuke, being approached from behind by some extremely nervous looking arcanists lifting him up by the armpits: what does 666 mean

daisuke, being dragged towards the direction of the dungeons: WHAT DOES 666 MEAN

[fantastic-nonsense]

re-reading beamirang's Genesis-verse fics is so fascinating because there's a vast chasm between the stuff I know about Star Trek at 28 vs. the stuff I knew about Star Trek at 16 (when I originally read them) and I'm picking up on soooooo many things I didn't get the first time I read them

[kingjasnah]

'its final fantasy 10" girl where's the blitzball

[cuntertaker]

also im a big theme park nerd so im about to dig in on some lore content regarding characters and seeing if there is a community in which i can scream about things i apologize in advance

[toss-a-coin-to-your-stan-account]

watching the boxtrolls was such a surreal movie experience in hindsight bc its like. wow at its core this movie has a solid theme about what defines family and identity in the face of a society that shuns a core part of you and your loved ones (but you may be treated differently by people in that same society if you pass well enough as a member of theirs). wow the driving "antagonistic force" (so to speak) of the film is the maintenance of societal prejudice for personal gain rooted in classism. wow the antagonist literally orchestrated the widespread bigotry and ostracization of a certain group (based on a false narrative of them preying on children) for the sake of his own entitlement and heightening his own standing in a classist society. and then. well then there was The Transphobia

[spasar]

riverdale finale HUGE win for archiecomic scholars presumably huge loss for riverdale fans I don't know. I don't care

[mekatrio]

to me this line doesnt just apply to vera (who passes away in the bad ending where she receives a guilty verdict; i intepret that as her committing suicide somehow) but also to thalassa... my personal interpretation is that her accident just took away her eyesight and her amnesia was a psychological response to all of her trauma, bc of how hesitant she is to try and recover her eyesight/memory while she was lamiroir + this quote from her in this same scene

so i think this whole "having something worth living for" line applies to thalassa too, bc the mason system didnt just supply vera's innocence, but also gave thalassa a reason to look forward to life (she learns tht she has two children who grew up into happy and healthy young individuals)... 🥹