ash i love vince so much he is my number 2 babygirl (antoni number 1 babygirl forever)
i would like to formally request some vince having a Bad Time, either past stuff with owen or present with recovery being a bitch
because there is nothing better than lovely characters having bad times that they absolutely do not deserve
CW: Alcoholism, withdrawal/cravings, alcoholic anger, Vince and Jameson both PTSD-ing all over the place, guilt
Oh, poor Vince. Takes place post-the Same Bed Arc, after Vince is living with Nat and Jameson.
-
Vince doesn't even look up when he hears Jameson stop in the doorway. He just pours a few shots worth of the gin into the glass, staring fixedly down at it. The liquid, clear as water but with the herbal scent washing over him like a welcome spring rain, spreads over the ice with those gentle cracks he knows better than his own heartbeat.
God, it looks good.
His hands don't shake, now. His heart doesn't race. He doesn't feel sweaty, or upset, or like he'll be sick.
He just feels like he's staring at the solution to all his problems, and all he has to do is swallow it down.
This should feel awful - he knows it should. It should taste awful, there should be something to remind him of the damage he does to himself every time he drinks again. He should hear his sponsor speaking in the back of his mind, he should hear the voices of the others at the meetings he goes to - one for alcoholism, one for survivors of sexual assault, twice a week there's movie star Vincent goddamn Shield among the normal people and admitting he's barely human, just a wreck that only survived Owen Grant because Nat decided she gave a fuck about him for reasons Vince still doesn't understand.
Here he stands, a hollow shell wearing a nice face who let someone else suffer in his place and was grateful for it for far too long.
Kauri hates him but it's nothing compared to how much he hates himself.
Vince lifts the glass, hesitating at the last second with the cool rim just touching his lower lip. Gin smells like blacking out and right now he could use the blessed darkness, hangover be damned.
He can worry about that when the headache kicks in tomorrow morning.
He realizes he's waiting for the sickening crawl of guilt at letting Nat down, at-... at letting himself down. Maybe that will come later, but right now... He feels goddamn good. Settled. Calm.
He and Jameson meet eyes just as he tosses the drink back, three large swallows of juniper-scented gin down his throat like water, leaving only the ice cubes behind.
The burn is perfect.
He pours himself another drink, feeling the warmth slowly spread through his chest to his shoulders, eyes briefly closing. God, it feels like goddamn heaven.
He looks up.
Jameson is still standing there in the doorway, looking oddly soft in a loose sweater that's far too big for him and a pair of old jeans that probably cost a dollar at a yard sale and even that was too much. Vince has jeans that distressed, somewhere.
His cost more than five hundred dollars.
He chokes on the next drink from trying not to laugh.
Jameson's eyes narrow. "What the fuck are you doing?"
"What does it look like I'm doing?" Vince takes another sip, eyes half-closed, letting himself take it slow this time and really enjoy the taste.
He'd honestly been surprised the little liquor store down the block even carried this brand of gin. Not that he wouldn't have bought whatever he could get, when he stood there feeling like he would die if he had to go another day, but still. It's nice to have seen his favorite stuff, top shelf, pricier than it had any right to be. It's not even that good, but it's still his favorite. It still tastes, to him, like the nights he sleeps without nightmares, few and far between.
Gin tastes like those nights he gets to sleep at all.
The cashier had looked surprised as she wiped off the dust and rang it up for him. Then, with a shy smile, she'd asked him if anyone ever told him he looked a lot like Vincent Shield. He'd been kind of sad she didn't card him - it would have been nice to see the look on her face when she saw his name.
Instead, he paid in cash, laughed, and told her the standard I get that a lot, actually.
Jameson doesn't move closer, or leave. "It looks like you're fucking yourself up," He says, lingering in the doorway. "You can't just start drinking again. You know that, right?"
"Oh, I sure as hell can." Vince laughs, but it's a bitter sound. He licks the gin lingering on his lips, then gestures at the bottle. "Have some with me."
He's caught, for just a moment, when he sees Jameson wearing an expression Vince has never seen on him before. He looks... nervous. Afraid, almost, instead of angry.
"I-I don't want to," Jameson says, but there's a way he says it that makes Vince think he'd drink if he offers again. Maybe he wants to, or maybe he just doesn't want to make Vince mad.
If he commanded it, if he gave an order... Jameson would be as he's told, wouldn't he? Damn, that would be some power to have over someone.
This must be why Owen liked it so much.
No.
He won't think about Owen right now.
Vince gulps down liquid until he's breathless, almost panting. The warmth is like the familiar cradle of a softer reality settling in. He makes himself slow down this time, picking up an ice cube and sucking the juniper taste right off it before crunching it with his teeth.
"Vince." Jameson's voice gets harsher, and something seems to break his brief paralysis. He moves closer, grabbing the bottle and pulling it away when Vince puts a hand out to pour the third drink. "Fucking... look at me. What the fuck?"
Vince's hand just... hangs out there, reaching for a bottle that isn't where it was. He stares at the empty space, and feels that dark inside of him threaten to well up yet again. "What?"
Jameson swallows, his eyes moving to the glass, back to Vince's face. He steps backwards, and Vince watches the bottle go with him with a piercing need that could easily knock him off his feet if he weren't holding onto the back of a chair. Jameson clears his throat. "Aren't you... like, sober now?"
"Mmmn. Was. Got the like... three month chip thing and everything." He's gotten thoroughly wasted so many times in his life. Nothing relaxes him better than enough alcohol to force his body to stop living in constant, unending fear of who might hurt him next. "Right now, I am tipsy instead. In about an hour, I'm going to be absolutely fucked up. Give me back my gin."
Jameson's hand moves - then he jerks it back, taking a few steps backwards until he's back in the doorway. His eyes are on Vince's face, watching him with a total focus that Vince recognizes from the others he's worked with over the years - Jameson's just a trained pet, in this moment, watching to see if the master will be angry.
It makes him laugh again, more bitterly this time. Is he the master? Has he ever been his own master, let alone anyone else's?
"I... I can't do that," Jameson says, and Vince hears that he doesn't say no. When Vince moves towards him, he backs up a little more, and Vince comes to a stop just a foot or so away.
"Am... am I scaring you?" He asks, suddenly.
It wasn't what he meant to say, he meant to demand his drink again. Instead, this question that... that just sort of falls out of him like a waterfall.
Jameson's jaw sets and his eyes narrow. "You're not doing shit to me," He snaps, but Vince knows he's really saying yes.
Is this why people buy pets? So they can see something pretend not to be scared, and know they're the monster not just under the bed, but in it?
"Oh," He whispers. "What is it? Why are you scared? I'm just a drunk asshole, why are you scared of me?"
Jameson bristles, but then he offers - as if it's pulled out of him against his will - the softest explanation. "Brute and Robert got drunk all the time. I know what happens when-... when people get this kind of drunk."
There's a look in his eyes Vince has seen before in Kauri's. Not fear of him, not directly, but fear of someone like him, maybe. Fear of having demands made that can't be denied.
Is this how Owen felt, every time Kauri had to playact the loving boyfriend with bruises on his wrists and terror making his heart race? Is this how it feels to have power over somebody else when you can't even control yourself?
It's... it's good, almost.
It feels better than he thought it would.
"Back up, Shield," Jameson hisses, like a cat spitting and arching its back, ready to attack with claws and sharp teeth not because it's confident in victory but because it's so small it has to fight to have even the slightest chance to survive.
Vince looks him over, reading with an actor's expertise how he's projecting a confident swagger he never feels, how the irritation layers itself so carefully over a vulnerability that he sees as weakness. Vince has lived that way, too, since he was twenty-one, since his best friend turned out to be a rapist who wanted Vince to himself, since he started drinking to forget every single night and putting on the perfect face during his days.
They both survived, didn't they?
Jameson just did it by fighting his way out, and Vince by pretending to be someone he wasn't until nobody knew who he actually was, and that's a way of surviving, too. Wear another face, and make sure no one sees the fear in your real one, so they can't refuse to help you... because you've never asked.
"No." At least one of them can say it. Although that makes Vince's heart twist with ugly guilt, the petty cruelty of the thought. "Give me my gin," Vince says, pitching his voice low, and holds out his hand. "Now, Jameson. Give it to me."
"I can't." The strength is gone from Jameson's voice, and he looks at Vince with those dark eyes searching his own, trying to make himself understood. "If you drink, your-... your body's not used to it anymore, if you drink the same amount you'll fucking kill your stupid liver."
"What do you care about my liver?" Vince's voice drops low, almost a whisper. "What do you care about me, about my goddamn joke of a life, huh? What the fuck do you care? Why should anyone care?"
There's a flicker of something in Jameson's eyes - recognition, maybe. Something that lights up, just for a second, before the other man shoves Vince to the side with sudden violent strength and stalks to the sink, turning the bottle over and pouring that expensive artisan gin right down the drain.
"No!" Vince's voice is a ragged shout as he lunges after him, but it's too little too late.
Jameson's foot kicks out and slams into Vince's calf, sending him stumbling, clawing desperately as the gin is gone, glug glug glug, down into the pipes, disappearing towards the ocean.
Rage and terror fight in Vince's mind in a sudden white noise and he gets to his feet, grabbing Jameson by the arms and squeezing as hard as he can, shoving him back across the room. He hears Jameson hit one of the chairs, the clatter of wood and Jameson's grunt of pain as both hit the ground hard. The bottle is in the sink, and even when Vince scrambles to pick it back up, there's less than an inch of gin left.
He sucks it down, and only once he's gotten that final drop does he suddenly go still.
Oh.
There's the guilt and the horror and feeling sick at himself, just... twenty minutes too late. He sets the empty bottle carefully down, and then turns slowly around to look at Jameson.
Jameson sits on the kitchen floor, staring up at him with wide eyes. His face is pale, making the scar that twists the corner of his mouth stand out even more. His hair is nearly grown back in now, the bald patches hidden by the rest.
Vince exhales in a rush. "Oh, hell. Jameson-" He holds out a hand.
Jameson flinches.
Vince pulls his hand back, backing up until his back hits the edge of the sink. "Right. Okay. I'm-... I'm sorry Jameson-"
"Yeah." Jameson's voice is gruff, all the vulnerability and fear wiped away as soon as he realizes it's showing. He gets to his feet, shoulders protectively hunched, arms crossed in front of himself defensively. "Whatever. Sure you are. Drink yourself to death, shitbag, if that's what you want."
"I'm so sorry."
Jameson's jaw works. "... Everybody's always sorry. Then I get fucking hit again." Then he turns and walks - limps, really, his knees threatening to give out with every step - away. Vince stands there, frozen, listening as he makes his slow, painful way up the stairs.
Vince stares at the place he was for a while - he isn't sure how long. The gin is sinking its velvet claws into his mind, and he's drunker than he should be after only two drinks.
But then, it's been months.
Months, he made it without taking even a sip.
He swallows, again and again, and then pulls his cell phone out of his pocket, finds a contact, and presses the button to make the call.
The phone rings until he's certain it'll go to voicemail, before a voice he knows as well as his own is in his ear.
"What the hell do you want?"
"I-I need to talk to you," He stammers, his heart cold. "Please. Please. I-I've been drinking. I need... I need help."
There's a pause.
"From... me?"
"Yeah... yeah. You'll-... I need somebody who won't be nice to me-"
"Oh, well, if there's anything I love it's the chance to be mean to you, let me drop my entire life to come listen to you whine about yours."
"Please."
An exhale. "Whatever. Yeah, okay. I'll be over there in like... half an hour? An hour, maybe. Drink some water and I'll be there as soon as I can. Don't leave the house."
"Thanks... thank you, Kauri."
Kauri hangs up.
Vince pours himself a glass of water over the leftover gin-soaked ice, sipping it, barely flavored with a hint of the liquor he wants so badly. He rights the chair he'd accidentally shoved Jameson into, and listens to the creaking floorboards and muffled cursing above him as Jameson makes his halting painful way from stairway to his room, a couple thumps when he clearly falls and had to force himself back upright, until the pacing abruptly stops when he must have collapsed into his bed.
He hears the gentle patting of Trash Cat's paws as she leaves her place on the living room couch and follows him, too, her soft meowing until Jameson opens his door to let her come in after him. Then silence again.
Vince sits back down at the table, leaning over with his head in his hand, staring as the ice slowly melts, cooling the water around it.
He should have called his sponsor instead.
Whatever Kauri is about to say can only make this worse.
But he deserves it, anyway.
Vince doesn't move a muscle until he hears the sound of Jake's truck pulling into the driveway, crunching briefly over gravel before it's on the pavement again, when he raises his head.
Kauri walks in without knocking, stops in the doorway to the kitchen, and looks at him like his younger self ashamed of what he's grown into. Vince knows Jake must have driven him, but he's nowhere to be seen - maybe just staying outside, for now. He's clearly dressed for bed in a matching navy blue silk button-up and pajama pants, barefoot even.
"Hey," Vince says, weakly. The alcohol feels like poison now, not the soothing warmth it had been before. "I... I fucked up, Kauri."
"Yeah, I can tell just by looking at you, you're a goddamn mess." Kauri looks at Vince head-on, even though it still hurts him to do it, and Vince can see the flinch he suppresses as the headache kicks in. His blue eyes are identical to Vince's in nearly every way, except that Kauri's gaze has always been stronger. "What the hell did you do?"
"I got... I drank."
"Yep. I can see the gin bottle. Did you drink all of it?" Kauri's voice is flat and businesslike. It's like having his own younger self dressing him down, and somehow that feels... really good. Better than he thought it would.
"... No. Just a couple drinks. Jameson poured the rest out."
"Good for him." Kauri flickers a smile. "Where is he?"
"I-... I scared him."
"... you scared him?"
"Yeah. I was-... I wasn't-... I didn't mean to, but-"
"Shut up. All right. Tell me what you did. I'll fix it. This time, taking your place so I suffer for years while you run off and become obscenely wealthy is off the table, got it?"
Vince looks at him in horror only to see a surprising warmth in Kauri's smile. Not... not affection, but something like it. A wry compassion, maybe. Something else he doesn't deserve. "I don't know. I don't know if I can fix this, Kauri. I don't know."
"Well... I happen to the resident expert in trying to avoid dealing with your problems while making them all worse, so talk to me. Tell me what you did, start to finish. We'll figure out what comes next."
Vince lowers his head into his arms.
"Thank you," He says, muffled.
"Not enough thanks in the world, dumbass. Lucky for you I'm an amazing person who just happens to have spent most of my twenties making stupid drunk mistakes. So stop stalling and start talking."
-
@finder-of-rings @endless-whump @arlin-always-writing @newandfiguringitout @doveotions @pretty-face-breaker @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow @boxboysandotherwhump @oops-its-whump @whumpyourdamnpears @cubeswhump @whump-tr0pes @whumptywhumpdump @whumpiary @orchidscript @outofangband @hackles-up @grizzlie70 @mylifeisonthebookshelf @keeper-of-all-the-random-things @autophagay
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"baby, if it feels good, then it can't be bad"
(a post s3 steve harrington songfic based on Gibson Girl by Ethel Cain)
TWs// sexual content, dubious consent to put it lightly but it's more implied to be sexual assault, past csa, grooming, it's not super detailed (the csa much less so, and told through memories where steve doesn't even exactly know what's happening), but like. you know. it's pretty bad. referenced physical abuse. referenced past incestual sexual abuse. alcohol consumption, smoking. lightly implied drugging.
also, disclaimer: this is all told through steve's eyes—the way he sees things is very warped, his relationship with sex is unhealthy to say the least, and just because he's saying he feels good does not mean that anything that happens in this is good. it isn't. nothing about this is good or healthy at all.
She approached him in the dark behind the bar, where Steve was half-considering lighting up in spite of his promise of quitting to Robin. He had drank enough that it didn't seem to matter. She had leather pants on, and sunglasses, despite the dark.
"Corey Hart fan?" he asked lightly. She didn't bother to answer.
"Just saw you leave the bar. I'm glad you stuck around."
Steve didn't recognize her, and she didn't seem to recognize him either. She was dragging her eyes across his body, and Steve was suddenly all-too conscious of his scars on display, his sweat-melted hair wax.
He was sick of it, he was sick of feeling ugly, and this girl had desire in her eyes. Steve was craving desire.
And he was craving thrill. His thoughts had been rapid all week, his body more fidgety, his stomach constantly filled with bees and his energy so high he hadn't needed more than a couple hours of sleep a night. He had so much time in every day, but nothing to fill it with besides the monotony of work, and he needed adrenaline. There weren't any monsters to fight now, and there weren't any basketball games to play since high school, and he needed the feeling. The melting, excruciating, nauseating excitement, racing heart, the feeling of something about to happen, the fear, the risk.
"You came alone to me—from however far away," he mused, lighting his cigarette, delicately placing it between his lips, exhaling into her face.
"How'd you know?" she asked with a grin.
You're all the same.
Steve shrugged. "Lucky guess."
She stepped in, so he could feel her breath on his face. "You gonna buy me a drink?"
Steve put the cig out on his thigh. He didn't feel the burn. "I was just about to ask."
If I'm still walking straight, I need another drink anyway.
They went inside together, sat back at the bar. Steve opened a new tab.
By the time he had a glass of whiskey in his hand, she had a hand on his thigh. She didn't even pretend to drink the vodka she'd ordered, and he was still downing his last gulp of whiskey when she pushed it into his hand with a little half-smile. He drank it.
The lights were bleeding all over him.
He felt a hand in his back pocket, and when he looked up, she was pulling cash out of his wallet.
You wanna love me right now?
"You wanna get alone with me?" Steve asked. Her eyes were bright, and she nodded, pulling him to his feet and all but dragging him out of the bar. He wasn't exactly sure when he'd gotten there, but he was in the trunk of a car, the backseats folded down to make room. "You wanna get my clothes off and hurt me?"
He hadn't meant to say 'hurt.' But she just laughed and grinned, and ripped his clothes off.
☤
"Baby, if it feels good, then it can't be bad," Lynn says. Steve's eight now, beginning to question if it was wrong. He's remembering his Sunday school teacher talking about how nakedness was wrong, or something. And a new word, he doesn't know what it means. 'Chastity.'
Lynn's touching him, she says it's to make him feel good. He doesn't really know how he feels. It reminds him a little of his grandfather, but Lynn's a woman, and she's not family, so it's different. It's better. If he closes his eyes and lets himself sink into it, he likes it. Is he supposed to like it? Lynn says he's supposed to like it.
He tells her he does, and opens his eyes when she's done, and she's smiling. She promises him a new teddy bear. But for right now, it's his turn to make her feel good.
☤
Steve likes to think he's a good person now, but he knows he's still a whore, and he can't deny the high that comes with being immoral in a stranger's lap. He's kissing over her chest and grinding down onto her leather pants, and she's digging her nails into his back. He still doesn't even know her name. She doesn't know his. Maybe it's better that way.
She hasn't taken off more than her shirt still, but he's fully naked. It's dark, the only light coming from a dim greenish streetlamp outside the car, and he thinks maybe she can't see his scars, but she's running her hands over the scar on his chest, from where the Russian guards had cut him open. She looks at it with something he can't quite decipher. It almost looks like fascination, but he knows that isn't it. Her eyes are wide, her pupils dilated.
Ah. Desire.
"You know, I was serious about hurting me. You wanna add some more?"
☤
"I'm in love with your body. That's why I'm fucking it up." Steve listens to Lynn's voice from where she sits on the back of his legs. He is on his stomach, face turned to the side so he can breathe. He can’t see her. He sees his disorientingly patterned wall. He smells rosewater and orange zest, and his head feels fuzzy. Something hurts. Everything hurts. He doesn’t think about it too much. He just focuses on the warmth, the heat from the points of contact between him and his babysitter, the sweat in the backs of his knees, on his upper lip. The bedsheets are damp. It’s itchy.
☤
Steve tasted his own blood on her teeth as she bit his upper lip. He was starting to see colors in the spaces where she'd been after she moved. And then his face was between her thighs, and when had her pants even come off at all? His heart was racing, exactly like he'd wanted, and his body was wracked with tremors. He listened to the music coming from her lips, the moans rising from her chest, and his heart leapt. I did that. I'm making her feel good.
His arms felt a bit numb as he reached up to rub his thumbs into her hips. She was panting hard, and he was giddy.
"Oh, fuck—you really are special, baby," she hissed.
Steve's eyes widened, watered, and he whimpered against her.
I'm special. She said I'm special.
Steve was going to ride this high for at least a week. He was desirable, wanted, special. He basked in her attention, even if he knew he wouldn't see her again after tonight.
He felt like he was being shown something he could never have. Something he'd searched for all his life. For a second, he could pretend it was love. Love for his brain and his scars and his body. Him taking all of her attention and giving back anything she wanted in return. Just to feel special. He'd do anything.
Because that's what love was, right? Love, want, attention, specialness, was just tied to sex. Maybe his parents didn't love him since they couldn't fuck him. His grandfather loved him, his babysitter loved him, and for one night at a time, anyone could love him. And growing up, it was the only way he was really touched, with affection, at least. In ways other than a beating.
He knew that wasn't right, because him and Robin loved each other. He loved the kids—never in that way, ever, and he still loved them. It was a different kind of love. But then, it was another different kind he was looking for, anyway. Maybe he was ungrateful. But he was hungry for attention, for someone to call him special, to want him around, he was starving for it.
His thoughts weren't making much sense anymore.
She was holding him in her lap, his boxers were back on, he was resting his head on her shoulder. He assumed she'd finished at some point, he didn't remember, and he knew he hadn't, but he hadn't really wanted to anyway.
He was drooling, and he couldn't stop himself, and he couldn't see much, but her body was warm. He crawled closer, squirmed in tighter. It felt good to be held. He felt good.
He woke up almost naked on the sidewalk in the sun with drool pooling at his chin and the rest of his clothes on a pile next to him.
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