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holocene-sims · 2 years

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may 17, 2021 10:30 p.m. grant's house

grant says his final goodbyes to shannon at the front door when colm comes by to take her home, though it won't be long until he sees her again, given that she would not cease insisting upon accompanying him to see his doctors tomorrow afternoon.

he unlocks the door and slips in the house, and well...

unpacking his things feels like an impossibility. grant is running on empty–not that he had much energy in the first place–and his ability to power through crippling levels of pain collapses as soon as he enters his own home. rushing as best he can, he leaves his suitcase just outside the bedroom door–promising himself to attend to it later, when päivi isn't inhabiting the room–and puts in the freezer the numerous tupperware containers of food his grandmother sent along with him.

and when he’s done?

grant idles in the kitchen, dwelling on the fact that his only task left for the night is to limp down the stairs to the basement and force himself to curl up on the couch he’s much too tall to sleep on.

not that he’ll be blessed with sleep anyway.

he glances around the dimly lit kitchen and weighs his other options.

he'd do well not to smoke anymore, though the unopened pack of cigarettes hiding in the glovebox of his car is quite enticing. he replaced that fix with vaping, sure, but there's no fun to be had in that. most of all, he shouldn’t touch the liquor at the back of the fridge. buying it last week for the sole purpose of getting blitzed and engulfing his feelings was a mistake.

in fact...

grant cracks open the refrigerator and blindly fishes out the bottle of vodka. it’s tantalizing–it is, it surely is–but he makes a beeline for the trash can and tosses the bottle in before he gives it any more of his time and attention.

he won’t do it. he won’t drink it. he won't change his mind on a sudden notion and he won’t dig it out tomorrow after the dawn of a new day. he won’t drink it, if only so his grandparents will never find out he played with fire again.

he won’t touch the alcohol–won’t even glance in its direction. he won’t lumber outside and fetch his old cigarettes. he won’t go pilfering in päivi’s locked medication drawer again. he won’t plunge head-first into his old fatal vices. he won’t do it.

he won't disappoint his grandparents. he won't allow this relapse to spiral out of control. he won't wreak further horrors on his already ailing body.

god only knows he's in agony now, and he cannot risk upsetting the razor thin margins controlling his incurable disease, not after–

his train of thought comes to a screeching halt as the sound of running water slices through his consciousness. he startles, gasping out of sheer instinct. when he looks up, his heartbeat ringing in his ears, stands päivi at the sink, pouring herself a glass of water.

she must have heard him react. she glances over her shoulder at him, frowning.

“you don’t have to act like you’re scared of me,” she comments as she turns off the sink, “i apologized for how i acted before.”

don't make things worse. you can't trust her anymore but–

“i get nervous every time anyone sneaks up on me. PTSD stuff. i'm sorry.”

päivi takes a long sip from her water. “okay? all i did was walk into a room. there’s really no need for you to react like i stabbed you or something.”

the tone in her voice is suddenly unfriendly and ice cold, but more than anything, too familiar. too intimately familiar. it's just the way his mother spoke to him, like a snake waiting out its prey, venom seething at its teeth.

“again, i'm sorry.”

he can't help but shy away, fawning at the first sign of resistance. but then remembers his earlier conversation with his father and shudders from head to toe.

grant has fought tooth and nail to escape his fate, to avoid turning out anything like the fools who raised him, and yet–

fuck. you really are just like him. you’re just as spineless as the old bastard himself. just roll over and play dead, will you?

“whatever.” päivi rolls her eyes and marches towards the bedroom. “i already apologized to you a thousand times. for everything. you won't even hear me out anymore.”

don’t let other people decide your fate.

don't let her talk to you like this.

don't be like your father and back down like a coward.

fear overwhelms him but the words find his tongue, so he commits.

“i don’t owe you forgiveness.”

furious, päivi stops on a dime and spins on her heels to face him. she looks to say something, her lips quivering, but whatever it is, she abandons the thought. her eyes fill with tears, and then she’s gone in a flash, disappearing behind the wall and leaving her water behind to break her silence.

the glass meets the hardwood floors and explodes like a bomb.

grant could confront her. he could run after her, trying to avoid the millions of broken shards of glass certainly blocking the one exit out of the kitchen. he could yell for her to come back.

he considers it, but his stomach is already churning and he's shaking like a kicked puppy. a tsunami of panic swallows him whole, and the thought of fighting back a second time makes him wish for death.

but he’ll never be able to clean up the glass by himself. not when his vision is blown out. not like this, not when his pain is spiking into unmanageable levels. he'll never be able to.

but he can’t leave it. the water will corrode the flooring.

grant gives up.

he stands there, trapped in the prison of his own anxiety, and waits for a solution to materialize in his brain.

just as he begins to relax at last, after what seems like a millennium, päivi emerges from the void, reappearing in the haze of his vision.

“grant–” her voice has changed again, now soft and shaky, weighed down by a blanket of emotion. “wait, i–”

the fear and the fury return in tandem.

goddamn it. he'll do what his father never could do. he'll do what his mother would loathe.

he'll end it. right here. right now.

never. again.

don’t let other people decide your fate.

he didn't stand up to his mother to cower in fear again and again.

no, he's come too far in life to trap himself back in the patterns that traumatized him decades ago.

finally, he breaks.

grant interrupts her mid-sentence. “don't fucking bother. i don't care. be mad at me all you want that i'm uncomfortable around you after everything you did. you cheated on me, and then you lashed out when i dared to get upset. be mad, but you're not going to act like this. i'm done! i should have said that last time but no, i'm done. i will not stand here and let you treat me like this. clean the glass up and then get the fuck out of my house! you can stay until you have a place to go, but as soon as you do, get out.”

päivi sobs. “grant, please–”

he turns his back on her and vanishes down the stairs at the rear of the kitchen to the basement.

the moment he slams the door behind him, he bursts out in tears, grieving what could have been.

#ts4 #sims 4 #the sims 4 #sims 4 story #ts4 screenshots #simblr #hlcn: everything the stars promised #just to clarify: grant cannot like see her face at all LMAO #i described her expressions because it's important but your boy still can't see for shit #anyway!! much more to come!! this isn't it for them #also i am so sorry about the lighting skdjdskfjdksjfkds #i hate lighting at night in the sims #hlcn: grant #hlcn: päivi #holocene.docx #holocene.png

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