[Grace Gatsby]

[nospaces]

[break][break][break][break]

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[attr="class","Gracepostname"]grace gatsby

[break]

[attr="class","GraceDpostlyric"]I've made some real big mistakes[break]
but you make the worst one look fine

[attr="class","Gracepostingbox"]
[break][break]

(cw: mentions of alcohol and drug abuse + some cussing)[break][break]

Dane wasn’t answering her calls. [break][break]

It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary; she knew the little shit liked to do it just to piss her off sometimes. But this wasn’t an ordinary time in their lives. This was a time where they needed each other. Where he needed his family – her and Gemma – even if he was too stubborn and stupid and wounded to realise it. She’d only seen him at the funeral and he’d barely looked at her. Didn’t even react when she’d flung her arms around him and held him tightly enough to hurt the both of them. [break][break]

It was almost like she’d gone back in time. Back to when Dino had died – or perhaps to even before that, when she was still in school and Dino was the one who wasn’t answering anyone’s calls. When she had a fake ID so she could burst into club bathrooms to check if he was passed out on sticky tiles or heaving in a stall, having drunk way too much or taken pills that she’d once had to force out of him by shoving her shaking fingers down his throat. [break][break]

She sighed through her nose before downing the rest of her drink, the glass clinking loudly as she put it back down a little too heavy-handedly. She couldn’t think about Dino. Could think much less about Mona, whose absence was still far too recent, far too noticeable. So she focused on being angry at Dane for not picking up his damn phone, and told herself that when he finally called her back, she wouldn’t answer because that's what the prick deserved for making her worry.[break][break]

(She would answer. How could she not?) [break][break]

Alcohol made all things easier, especially when the friend group accompanying her only seemed to talk about boyfriends and gossip and makeup and fashion (although nowadays they were beginning to expand their repertoire to wedding plans and dreams of becoming stay-at-home moms – ugh). They were good at distracting. Good at demanding her attention and shoving pretty, shiny things her way for approval. They didn’t even know they were doing it. Didn’t know that she needed it.[break][break]

She drank every cocktail that was placed in front of her as if they were only juice. She drank until they flowed through her veins, flushing her cheeks a pretty pink and making her chest feel fuzzy. She wasn’t drunk enough that she would giggle at any average Joe's jokes or fail to walk a straight line if someone asked her to, but she was getting there.[break][break]

Across the table, a playful argument broke out between Ginny (her favourite friend) and Rebecky (who had survived their group longer than Grace had honestly expected and was on her way to being considered a permanent member). Usually Grace would back Ginny up, but she’d lost track of what they were talking about and her plans for the evening had shifted. Her gaze roamed over the bar, trailed past some couples and friend groups, business men who’d had a little too much, and then–[break][break]

“He’s cute.” [break][break]

Amber, sat beside her and sipping something the same colour as her namesake, was apparently on the same wavelength. Grace followed her stare with interest; their tastes tended to align.[break][break]

A man was sat at the bar on the opposite end of the room, dark-haired and broad-shouldered. Although his back was turned to them Grace felt in her gut that he was pretty, and desperately hoped she was right. If she had to experience just one more letdown that month, something would snap. Probably someone’s leg.[break][break]

Better safe than sorry; she ought to check her intel before she got too invested in the hunt.[break][break]

“How’d you know?”[break][break]

“Saw his face on my way back from the bathroom just now.”[break][break]

Grace hummed, head cocked thoughtfully. That was good enough for her. “Dibs.” [break][break]

“Hey! For fuck’s sake, you can’t just – there’s like no fucking way you’re actually dibsing him, you did this last time and we talked about–”[break][break]

Grace was already standing, tossing her hair over her shoulder as she laughed. “You snooze you lose, grandma. Be quicker next time!” She wiggled her fingers at the trio, winking at a smirking Ginny and ignoring Amber’s glare. “Have a lovely night, ladies, and don’t wait for me~!”[break][break]

She sauntered away into the crowd, cutting a straight path towards her target. Amber wouldn’t follow. She wasn’t that brave. Besides, Grace’s outfit was a lot prettier and Grace herself was gorgeous. There’d be no contest.[break][break]

She lightly brushed her fingers across the man’s back as she passed behind him, a familiar anticipatory thrill fluttering in her gut at the feeling of toned muscles beneath his shirt. She slipped into the seat on his left, crossing one leg over the other once she was settled so the movement would draw his eyes to them.[break][break]

“Excuse me,” she began in the most velvet version of her voice, her smile sweet and guileless and ready to play at naïve coquette. Ready to make him think it was his idea and his words that convinced her back to his house because men liked that, feeling in charge…[break][break]

Dino.[break][break]

Everything stopped. The music. The friendly chatter in the air. The warm buzz of alcohol in her blood. It was all static in her ears, blurring everything in her vision except for him. Dino. Dino, Dino, Dino. The blood drained from her face and all she could do was stare at him in mute horror, eyes wide as saucers as she tried to comprehend the sight in front of her and remember to keep breathing.[break][break]

---

[break][break]

OOC: not me starting a new thread even tho I owe so many replies…… as always let me know if you’d like changes lmao
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[attr="class","GraceDPostTag"]Tag: Ashley Wolfe

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[googlefont=Mr Dafoe:400|Roboto:400,400i,700]

[Ashley Wolfe]

[nospaces]

GO ON, TELL ME WHO I AM

tell me what i did wrong, tell me what i should have done

[break]

[attr="class","kestrelflight-text"] (CW: Drug mention) [break][break]

The clubs were decidedly not Ashley's scene. Years and years ago, perhaps, but now he steered clear. [break][break]

But Jason, a coworker from the retirement home who worked in the kitchens, had asked him to "babysit" him and a friend of his while they blew off some steam. To make sure phones or wallets weren't lost, that no one made too big a fool of themselves, and to be their Uber for the night. Ashley had initially hesitated. Now that he was aware Dane was somewhere in the city, he could only imagine his brother frequenting places with good drinks and boozy girls to woo. But — after some bribery via pudding cups — he'd let Jason rope him into it. [break][break]

He couldn't return to living in fear, after all. Not so shortly after he'd decided to start actually living in the first place.[break][break]

And the night had gone smoothly. He'd only had to step in once when Jason (thoroughly smashed and trying to impress the pretty, blonde giggler on his arm) had confidently demanded the most expensive bottle of champagne on offer. But both men had eventually left with a pair of women. Briefly, Ashley had considered whether his role as "babysitter" was meant to keep them from doing so — the lockscreen of Jason's phone suggested he had a girlfriend, after all — but he'd decided that the pair of them were adults. So he'd only made sure they had all their things, that the driver was in good sorts, and that he knew where they were headed in case they called him later on.[break][break]

Now he was sat back at the bar, decided that he'd earned a single beer before he made his own way home. With his arms folded across the counter, he cast his gaze about with subtle appraisal as he'd done for much of the night, idly observing the people around him and pretending he wasn't hyper-vigilant for a too-familiar face. [break][break]

Most of the people were there for fun. Out with friends, enjoying drinks, and maybe even prowling for a potential bedmate to roll around with for the night. But, subconsciously, Ashley was more acutely aware of the abjecter persons in the crowd. Creatures of habit sprinkled among casual and hardcore partiers alike. The people who looked a lot like Dino had in the last couple of years of his life.[break][break]

He could pick out every dealer in the room, eagle-eyed as he'd once been to spying a place to score. Could recognize the looks on various countenances, having gazed upon the same in his own mirror plenty of nights (or watched it on video or seen it in pictures — a lot of them from outings he could hardly recall). There were those people with their hands raised high above rolling heads, lids fluttering over dark eyes, pupils blown; laughing too loud and beaming too wide as they threw themselves to the beat. Others fighting to stay present, their smiles a little too eased as they hung off their friends (or strangers) and slurred their speech. [break][break]

He could even see, in a couple more shadowed faces, those few people that were coming down. And he remembered what that had looked and felt like for him, too. When feeling itself had started to edge its unwelcome way back into a suddenly too-tight chest, making his breaths difficult and shallow. When the tremble returned to his fingers and the thoughts he fought so desparingly to keep quiet would begin their whispering taunts in his head. It was the sort of thing that had him stealing away to darker corners or packed bathrooms, looking to find the familiar eye of a 'friend' that could set him back up again when he started to fall. Could send him high enough that he'd be unable to think beyond the pull of his smile and the sound of his laugh or bring him so low that he could just be numb.[break][break]

He was relieved it was no longer his life. [break][break]

A ginger touch ghosted along his back, fingers trailing across his shoulder blades to provide a sudden, pleasant reprieve from his thoughts. Ashley let a faint smile curl at one side of his mouth — the left side, intentionally for her, as the woman the touch belonged to slipped into the seat beside him. [break][break]

He dipped his chin and dropped his eye to his drink, giving it a long, fond look through a lidded gaze and turning it slowly in his palm while she settled. He let his smile even and curl the tiniest bit further — insuring it crinkled just barely at the corners of his eyes — before he angled his attention toward her with a slow, comfortable blink. His gaze settled first on the purposeful bob of one bare knee over the other, knowing it was what she wanted, and he allowed his lip to tug a fraction more before he raised his eye to her face, brow lifted curiously, expecting to meet an appraising look; one, perhaps, approving of his reception.[break][break]

Despite what he sometimes wished to believe, he was still a Wayland. He liked to flirt. It was in his blood. Something not so easily changed as his name or his hair color. Though doing so now — at thirty, as Ashley — felt and looked a lot different than it had ten years ago. Much less of that effortless and stupid charm he'd possessed as a tall, naturally-mussed, and dark-eyed boy. All he'd had to do back then was smile his big, dumb Dino smile and tip his head just a bit when a girl spoke to him. Now he was softer. More knowing and intentional. Phishing for something a little more honest and genuine between lingering looks and good-natured tease. Making it clear that he desired more than simply finding a place to put his hands for a night. That he wasn't just looking to pass the time.[break][break]

Her advance wasn't the first he'd fielded tonight and, going off earlier exchanges, he could guess mostly how it'd go. Clubs could be somewhat predictable after all, especially so late. He'd chuckle when she spoke. Muse over the answers he gave her with warm deliberation, gaze returning every so often back to the beer twisting in his fingers so she could poke her own about his profile. There'd be a bit of back and forth. But, eventually — likely when the flirtations grew a little less harmless or became a little too directed, suggesting next moves — he would have to tell her he was spoken for for the night. Feign a bit of remorse. And she'd pout. Maybe uncross her legs and lean across the bar, attempting to draw his eye to the plunge of her neckline as she honeyed her voice and tried to convince him otherwise. [break][break]

But the look Ashley met when he lifted his eyes to the woman's face was almost horrified. Wide-eyed and shocked. Large brown eyes swimming with an open despondency that immediately forced the warm grin from his mouth. Then, only a beat later, as he pulled his concerned gaze about the rest of her blanched features, Ashley's own eyes widened in turn, expression slackening gradually into a more subtle imitation of her own.[break][break]

"Grace," he whispered, her name falling from parted lips on a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. As soon as he spoke, the acknowledgment stirred something instinctual within him — a bit belatedly and with a terrible urgency, he tore his eyes from hers; turning his head and letting his gaze fall more safely to the bartop. He shifted in his seat, feeling something resembling fear threaten a chilly sweep through his limbs, prompting his fingers to tighten around the drink still in his palm.[break][break]

Following closely on the fear's heels was a fainter prickle of guilt. He hadn't feared Grace's void since they were children. After years and years of training side by side, he'd learned to trust that dark, inky nothingness. To trust her. Enough so that he'd become unflinching when she blinked him away in the midst of a fight (seconds before a lethal blow could strike home). Practiced enough to reappear with his feet beneath him and wielding a regained advantage when she brought him back moments later.[break][break]

But he was afraid.[break][break]

And it would be unwise to assume (or hope) this would go anything like how it'd gone with Gemma. That Grace would be forgiving. That her initial reaction would be to throw her arms around him and allow him that moment to breathe. As much as the Gatsby girls were alike, they weren't the same. Especially, perhaps, where he was concerned. Grace's anger... her scorn... had always been much more akin to Dane's than her sister's. External and explosive. Forced to be felt and heard immediately.[break][break]

Decidedly not turning to face her, Ashley only let his eye slowly sift to regard her sidelong. Then, brow crinkling, he wet his lips. "A bit weird to know you're old enough to be here without a fake now," he tried a quiet laugh but the sound of it was only vacant, more breathless than breath. "I'm sorry I missed your twenty-first. I bet it was a big bash."

[break]

all these trees have fallen and i don't know[break]how to walk with all that leaf on the ground

Tag: Grace Gatsby [break]
Headcanon: Dino, reigning Void Night Champion, yay or nay?[break]
Give me a nudge for any changes! I know this is all over the place lmao.

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[Grace Gatsby]

[nospaces]

[break][break][break][break]

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[attr="class","Gracepostname"]grace gatsby

[break]

[attr="class","GraceDpostlyric"]I've made some real big mistakes[break]
but you make the worst one look fine

[attr="class","Gracedpostingbox"]
[break][break]

OOC: that’s 100% canon. meanwhile, in this week’s episode sad-girl Grace goes on a Rant[break]
cw: lotsa cussing[break][break]

---

[break]

Connecting the dots… took a moment.[break][break]

Like finding a constellation in the sky. A languid sort of piecing together that was detached from the rest of reality. She absently wondered if this was how it felt to be in her void. Gemma could sort of demonstrate what it was like to be in there; she could make her float, suspended in the air like a speck of dust in an old attic, but she could still see, hear, feel. Even the floating felt different, or so she’d been told.[break][break]

Dino’s eyes were wrong. Dark, yes, but even under club lights she could see that they were blue. Not brown like they should be. His hair was different as well; too dark, too short, not the shade of dishwater blond that she used to lighten her own hair to as though to match. She almost apologised to the man. Almost decided it was a case of mistaken identity, triggered by grief and the percentage of alcohol pumping through her bloodstream.[break][break]

But… no, that face was definitely his. Older, but his. Which meant it could be some sick joke, an illusion put in her path to gain a reaction, or perhaps the person in front of her was an oblivious shapeshifter; someone who had met Dino once and taken a liking to some of his features. She could understand that. She could imagine someone liking the shape of his nose or the set of his jaw so much that they copied them onto their own visage.[break][break]

“Grace,” he whispered.[break][break]

The way her name sounded from his lips… It settled coldly in her stomach. Closed her mouth. Made her swallow. When Dino died, she hadn’t been able to see his body, had she? No one had. The nature of his death wouldn’t allow for it. Just a bloody mess left in a spot where he once stood, and Antonio’s confirmation that he could no longer feel the ink under his son’s skin.[break][break]

Dino – not a mirage, not a shifter, Dino – hastily broke his stare from hers to focus instead on the bartop and the bottle in his hands. It wasn’t unfamiliar. Smarter Guild members did it all the time; in more ways than one they were like the animals they were tattooed with, avoiding her gaze to show submission and/or because they were scared of being vanished away… But even if he hadn’t averted his eyes, Grace would have picked up on any anxiety he felt – on any fear – like the good little service dog she once was to him.[break][break]

And the words he spoke next, she did not like at all.[break][break]

The beer bottle was in her hand before either could blink. In the same fluid movement she was standing, throwing it down hard enough that it shattered into a thousand glittering fragments that skittered across the floor. One splinter caught her ankle. A few droplets of beer splashed against her shins. The sound gained them eyes and cheers arose from drunken patrons who probably thought it was an accident but she barely noticed any of it. He was lucky she hadn’t smashed it over his head. “Fucking look at me you spineless coward.”[break][break]

The cold misery that threatened to bleed into every limb had turned out to be gasoline, and was set ablaze by the hateful way he addressed her. But it wasn’t preferable. She wasn’t glad for it. She would rather be feeling neither. She would rather be in the dark. She would rather not have been betrayed.[break][break]

“Is this – was that supposed to be cute?” She scoffed. “Do you remember it as all fun and games? Sneaking me in so we could all party together and have a laugh? Gem got me that fake ID for you, Dino. So I could find and look after you. Not because we all just really wanted to go to some shitty bar or nightclub together.” Venues were never an issue. Drinking underage was never an issue. Her dad let her have her first sip of scotch when she was seven for Christ’s sake and her mom never bat a perfectly curled eyelash. They owned clubs and houses all over California that only ever needed her name for entry, not a stupid piece of plastic with the wrong year of birth on it.[break][break]

“And you – you’ve been dead for years and all you can say to me is ‘Oh, sorry I missed your twenty-first birthday, Grace’ – as if THAT’S the priority? As if THAT’S all there was to miss? What about my twenty-second, my twenty-third, my twenty-fourth, my – oh-ho, I think you get the point.” She laughed, a little hysterically, and clapped her hands together. “And oh yeah! It was a great time, thanks. Just peachy. I especially enjoyed the three straight hours where our black-out drunk brother and depressed sister talked about how you weren’t fucking there to celebrate with us.”[break][break]

Grace had cried for him too, when she first heard the news. Lost track of days, trying to understand why and how it could have happened. But then, after the initial shock had faded, thinking about him couldn’t even make her sniffle. She’d numbed herself to it all. Learned to roll her eyes and dodge genuine conversations about Dino as if he were a pesky ex on a road trip who was trying to get her attention with sappy quotes and photos of sunsets, texts waxing poetic about how it was or how it could be.[break][break]

He’d always been weak. And then he’d been reckless. They had all known he would be gone sooner or later and were only delaying the inevitable – they should have been more prepared, should not have been so affected by it. So she snapped at Dane whenever his eyes started to dull. Brushed past Gemma or yanked her up whenever she had that sad droop to the corner of her mouth. Dino had broken pieces of them, and Grace only wished she had numbed herself to him sooner. Wished that she hadn’t shed a single tear for him at all. Because now she knew, now she understood: he had done it to them on purpose.[break][break]

“Where’s the apology for everything? Where’s the explanation? Where’s the being brave enough to actually look me in the eye and tell me what happened? Why are you just sitting there looking at your beer with some dumbass line like this is some predictable, bittersweet reveal in a shitty straight-to-DVD movie. You might as well have said ‘look at you, Gracie, all grown up,’ you melodramatic, theatrical little–”[break][break]

It was all too much. Too much to feel, too much to think about, too much to say and not enough words to articulate herself in a way that would make him hurt, and Grace had always been better at violence and lying than telling the truth. She slapped him across the cheek. Hard. Her hand stung from it. Her whole body was shaking.[break][break]

“I can’t believe it took me this long to realise how selfish you are. Making us run after you for all those years and now this! Your head is so far up your own ass I’m frankly amazed you can breathe at all. You should be dead from THAT if nothing else.” She gripped him by the collar and wrenched him towards her so roughly that she heard fabric rip. A knife appeared in one hand within the same moment, one of her more discreet blades that she wasted no time pressing to his throat. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”[break][break]

[attr="class","GraceDPostTag"]Tag: Ashley Wolfe

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[googlefont=Mr Dafoe:400|Roboto:400,400i,700]

[Ashley Wolfe]

[nospaces]

GO ON, TELL ME WHO I AM

tell me what i did wrong, tell me what i should have done

[break]

[attr="class","kestrelflight-text"] Ashley knew he'd misspoken, mere seconds before the beer bottle between his hands was ripped from his grip and sent shattering to the floor. He tried not to wince at the sound of it breaking, at the relative hush (and then drunken cheers) that followed it, and the feel of numerous eyes turned in their direction. When she started in on him — her voice cold now; sharp and dripping — he tucked his fingers into the clasp of his empty palms and closed his eyes. Felt a heavy dread settle and spread throughout the whole of him.[break][break]

Gemma had lowered his guard. Made him too comfortable. Too stupidly and naively hopeful. He'd known before how he was going to react if recognized. He had practiced it plenty of nights, early on in his self-imposed exile. A light-hearted joke hadn't been in those scripts. Little talking at all had been in those scripts. But she'd somehow made him wonder if all those things that threatened him — that loomed like a big, great doom just on the outskirts of his tomorrows, waiting to be met; dark, roiling thunderclouds overhead waiting to break — wouldn't be as bad as he spent six years imagining them to be. [break][break]

He should have known better. He should have run after that night. Better yet, he shouldn't have let that night happen at all. He didn't want to flee again. Perhaps wanted it far less this time than any other time before it. But it wouldn't be the first time he'd swallowed his reluctance and accepted what was necessary. It would have hurt, like it had before, but then the hurt would eventually fade, like it had before. [break][break]

He let her words strike precisely where she intended. She scoffed. Accused. Reminded him of the hell he'd put everyone through during those last couple years of his life (propounding just how grossly misplaced and inappropriate his nonchalant greeting had been). She touched on Gemma and Dane's resulting misery — just something else she'd had to endure on his behalf.[break][break]

And as much as each venomous hiss and seething curse stung — as much as he knew everything she said was true — he decided that her rage was far preferable to the tears he'd shared with Gemma. It still hurt, like fingers plunged into an open wound, twisting and seeking, but it hurt less. Somehow, stomaching her hate was far easier than stomaching anything else she might have met him with. He was more prepared for it. More expectant and deserving of it. And they were better versed in it. All of them. He'd made Grace furious countless times before. Had dealt with it countless times before. Instances where he'd had to wipe honest tears from anyone's cheeks, tears that he was responsible for, were far more difficult to recall.[break][break]

She demanded an apology. An explanation. For him to be less of a coward, to look at her, and to answer for all that she laid at his feet. [break][break]

Ashley unfurled his fists and spread them on the bartop, trying to appear more settled than he was. He angled toward her, steeling himself to meet her eyes, but instead caught her palm in a hard slap across his face. It held nothing back. The blow reverberated down his neck and through his shoulders. He felt it in his teeth. And in his veins, there was a faint, almost-but-not-quite-ignorable stir; an inherent want to curl his lip and breathe a warning. A tight, low caution that he didn't like being screamed at and wouldn't let himself be hit twice. He felt himself warm as he pinched his eyes shut and clenched his jaw, testing its ache.[break][break]

A second later, he forced the reminder (what had almost become a mantra in the last six years) through his ringing skull — 'that's not me anymore'. But before he had the chance to get his hands around it, to wrangle the instinct back down before it could fully finish rearing its head, Grace's fingers were twisted in his collar. She yanked him to her, ripping his shirt, and pressed a knife to his throat. [break][break]

Ashley took a deep breath through flared nostrils and pressed his lips tight, eyes slowly unlidding to finally meet her hard eyes. Immediately, it twinged something sorrowful in him, instantly stronger and more powerful than his budding, instinctual disdain. Even though she was perhaps most familiar like this — with her steeled eyes and that furious set to her face — he knew her other faces, too. And he realized, the moment he met her waiting gaze, that he had no idea how he was supposed to appeal to her. It had been easy with Gemma. Honest. But he wasn't sure wet eyes and sincerity would sway Grace.[break][break]

Grace, who had only been five years old when he'd first met her. And a bossy, sassy heiress even then, at such a tender age. He'd watched her grow. Rubbed dirt into scraped knees. Pulled loose teeth. Let her curl his lashes and tie ribbons in his hair. Been there as she learned how to harness the power she had at her fingertips. Wrestled her off of his brother when he'd earned her wrath (or let her pummel him with only a raised brow when he merited it). Fought with her, alongside her, bandaged wounds, taught her to drive, beat up bad boyfriends, carried her on his back from bars... [break][break]

... and he'd known, once, how to reach past things like this. [break][break]

But Ashley suspected... no matter what he said or what he did, nothing would be able to cut clean through that rage. Not this time. He was too out of practice and he'd given up the right. There'd be no chink in her angry armor to find, not when he was the reason she donned it this time. Not when it was his neck she held the knife to. [break][break]

His eyelids fluttered. He felt everything drain from him as he lifted his hands slowly, palms out, and took a deep, steadying inhale. He wet his lips. "It was a bad line." He took great care to keep his voice neutral; trying to seem as inoffensive as possible. He swallowed and felt her blade kiss barely at the bob of his throat, threatening to nick. "I'm sorry. But what do you want me to say, Grace? 'It's so good to see you', with your knife to my neck?" He inched his hand through the air and tentatively tried to curl his fingers about her wrist but made no further attempt to coax it down or move her weapon away. "Do you want me to beg for my life?"[break][break]

How many people had begged him for their lives? "I won't."[break][break]

"You're right." He lifted his brow, eyes searching her face with an accepting, resigned calm that he was proud he was able to manage. "I am selfish. And I'm not sorry for that. It's the only reason I'm still alive. But if you need to make me pay for that, Grace — make me pay for being alive — and if this is how, then do it."

[break]

all these trees have fallen and i don't know[break]how to walk with all that leaf on the ground

Tag: Grace Gatsby [break]
Give me a nudge for any changes! Or if you need more. ;v;
[break][break]

SPOILER: Click to show

[break]me reading grace's post: "yo girl, yes, get his ass!!" [break][break]

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[Grace Gatsby]

[nospaces]

[break][break][break][break]



[break]

[attr="class","Gracepostname"]grace gatsby

[break]

[attr="class","GraceDpostlyric"]I've made some real big mistakes[break]

but you make the worst one look fine

[attr="class","Gracedpostingbox"]

[break][break]



OOC: oop – off she goes again lmao, Grace is a hater, lemme know if it’s too much[break][break]

---

[break]



For the Wayland’s and Gatsby’s, aggression was how they expressed themselves. They snapped and snarled when they were angry. Broke things when they were sad. Shoved their joy down each other’s throats and made it the whole world’s problem when they were happy, all while showing their affection by taking blows for each other, ruffling or tugging on each other’s hair, tackling each other in too-tight hugs and making obnoxious faces and kissy noises at each other. Even Gemma, who Grace suspected liked to think of herself as the calm one of the group, was a menace in comparison to the average woman.[break][break]



So for Dino to talk to her so evenly, for his gaze to be so void of the fire she grew up with… The neutrality, to her, read as dispassion. The calm as detachment. Disinterest. A purposeful measure to stretch as much distance between him and her as he could to make it all the more clear that they weren’t the same anymore. That he’d changed. That he didn’t love her anymore. [break][break]



The curl of his fingers around her wrist was a fleeting relief. It tricked her into thinking she was wrong about her assessment. That he did care because he was going to fight back. Snap her wrist or yank her arm away or dig those fingers uncomfortably between her tendons. But he didn’t. His hand simply rested there, as if to keep her own steady, and he asked if she intended for him to beg for his life.[break][break]



“Beg for your–” she breathed incredulously, and he continued. Telling her that he wouldn’t. That he was selfish and he wasn’t sorry for what he’d done.[break][break]



How was it possible that he could hurt her, even now? Betraying her should have made anything else he shot her way feel like a fly buzzing around her head. An annoyance. Easily swatted. Not like a swarm of hornets digging their stingers in her eyes. What was worse was that he didn’t even appear to be trying. Didn’t care enough about her feelings to make such an effort while he was so preoccupied with keeping his head up high, feeling justified. Making a martyr of himself.[break][break]



“You don’t–” She shook her head, disbelieving. There were too many ways to end that sentence. You don’t get it. You don’t get to talk to me like that. You don’t understand what you’ve done. You don’t get to act like we’re nothing to each other. You don’t get to pretend to be someone new, someone better than me because you chose to run. “You don’t care at all, do you?” she landed on. Her gaze flit searchingly between his eyes, and a lump grew in her throat when she couldn’t find what she wanted. “You heartless bastard, why would you put us through that? Why would–”[break][break]



Even the knife to his throat, in a way, was just a greeting. Par for the course. Like how Dane would sneak up behind her and put her in a headlock so she’d hurl him over her shoulder onto the ground. Or how Gem would fling a knife into the wall by her head to announce her presence or toss her up in the air with no gravity to tether her. But Dino didn’t recognise that. Didn’t recognise that violence (whether threatened or followed through on) was also a display of fondness.[break][break]



He must have thought she was planning to kill him. She should be, for leaving the Guild. She wanted to, for leaving her. But she wasn’t sure if she would. Not now. Not when there was so much for him to answer for.[break][break]



Another derisive laugh burst from her throat. “This–” she lifted the knife away from his skin – “isn’t because you deserted. You think I’d put you down on sight like any other defector? No. Oh no. This is because of your shitty greeting and – no. Actually? Never mind. It’s because you let us think you were dead. You abandoned us. Us! The only people who matter.”[break][break]



The knife vanished and she yanked her wrist out of his hold. “Wanting to live isn’t what makes you selfish. Everyone wants that. And this might be a crazy concept to you but I understand that the Guild was killing you and you needed to get out, because I have a thing called empathy. We all saw what you were doing to yourself and agreed that you weren’t strong enough for this job, that you’d only get yourself or others killed. What I don’t understand is – you didn’t think Dane would’ve liked to be rid of his tattoo?”[break][break]

Her lip curled into a sneer and she scoffed, releasing his shirt as she shoved away from him. “You didn’t think Gemma would’ve fallen over herself at the chance to run away with you? To have your babies and live a nice, picket-fenced life somewhere?”[break][break]



It was something she’d never verbally acknowledged. She’d refused to. Turned her back and rolled her eyes whenever she saw it because it had always been insufferable. Pathetic and cliché. Their little games they liked to play; pushing boundaries, seeing who would chicken out first. The will-they-won’t-they of it all. They’d threatened to ruin their perfect quartet’s whole dynamic, almost as if they expected her to pair off with Dane of all people and be happy couples together. Sisters dating brothers. Thinking about it struck a fresh bolt of resentment through her from where it festered nastily in the pit of her stomach. What had been the point of all that if Dino was going to leave anyway? Why toy with her?[break][break]



“Sure, she can have most of that anyway without the dramatics of faking her death and I imagine someday she’ll do it with a far better man than the likes of you, because she deserves better. But Dane. Your brother. Aw, the baby boy, do you remember him?” She widened her eyes with false sincerity, lifting her hand into the air. “About yay-high? Lanky kid. Huge fucked up wolf thing and more scars than you can count all over his back from years of torture, usually with a black eye or bruised ribs. No? Not ringing bells?”[break][break]

She hummed thoughtfully, folding her arms and tapping a finger to her chin. “What if I say… the guy who was always looking after you? Finishing the job so you wouldn’t get punished? Going out to karaoke with you and making you laugh when the rest of your life felt like Hell? How could you have left him in the dark?”[break][break]



Somehow, Grace still didn’t feel like Dino was getting it. She imagined he would be so sure of himself, set in his ways just like his father, with the belief that what he had done was right and couldn’t have been avoided or changed in any way.[break][break]



“You could’ve taken someone – any one of us – with you. You could’ve taken–” She faltered. Scoffed again. A bottle of vodka appeared in her hand and she wasted no time uncapping it and swinging it back, her eyes squeezed shut as the gulps slipped down her throat. It didn’t burn half as much as her chest did and his earlier question echoed in her head. What did she want him to say? What could he say, to make it hurt less?



[break][break]

[attr="class","GraceDPostTag"]Tag: Ashley Wolfe

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[Ashley Wolfe]

[nospaces]

GO ON, TELL ME WHO I AM

tell me what i did wrong, tell me what i should have done

[break]

[attr="class","kestrelflight-text"]An incredulous breath passed her lips and she shook her head. She called him heartless, accused him of not caring at all, and Ashley only breathed slow through his nose and set his mouth tighter. He tried to remain steadfast and unaffected under her gaze, beneath her blade, as he watched her eyes drag about his face. Somehow, it was her scrutiny that felt more critical; more threatening of injury than the touch of steel at his neck. And whatever Grace was searching for, he got the impression she was disappointed when she gave a bitter laugh and lifted the knife away. [break][break]

He braced himself again as she started in on him once more. Attempted to watch her without reaction. To keep his breaths measured and his resolve secure as she yanked her wrist from his ginger grasp. She seethed some more. Sneered and scoffed and shoved away from him, pulling her fingers from their twist in his shirt and forcing him to steady himself. [break][break]

He resettled on his stool and faced forward, eyes staring ahead as he returned his elbows to the bartop and smothered a hand across his face. His eyes lidded, gaze darkening of their own accord, as she stated she just couldn't understand how he'd left everyone behind. Said (with such a loaded contempt) how her sister had deserved better than him. Would find better than him. Described his brother as if Ashley didn't know or had forgotten all that Dane had done for him their whole lives. [break][break]

Then she stopped herself and finally angled away. Appeared to give up. As if she'd exhausted herself (impossible) or thought he was no longer worth the effort to chide. She conjured a bottle of vodka that she instantly tossed back with some hearty, dramatic gulps and Ashley's expression twisted with distaste, halfway between a grimace and a smirk.[break][break]

Even though he knew, he knew arguing with Grace was almost always a losing battle, he still felt the want to stir within him. She had always been skilled at goading a rise. At poking where it hurt in such a way that demanded retaliation. And she'd always been so adamant about getting her way, about being right, the spoiled brat that she was. Forcing what she wanted from people and only doubling down when they resisted or didn't give her the reaction she sought. Tantrums, breaking things, yelling. Rarely had in-fighting between them — any of them, the boys had often been just as bad as the girls — ever been reasonable. Never civil. Always a game of escalation — seeing who could scream louder and showing that 'they could break things, too'. [break][break]

Nothing she said was untrue. None of it was anything he didn't deserve or hadn't asked himself before. But still, beyond the want, he felt the need to defend himself make an unwelcome creep into his chest. But he tried to clamp it down. Implored himself to remain calm. To stay rational. To stay Ashley and to not let this affect him. Because he was past this. He shouldn't care what Grace thought of him. He didn't need her to understand. He shouldn't care if she hated him. It was better that she hated him. [break][break]

He poked his tongue into his cheek and tipped further away, dragging his gaze in the general direction of the club's exit. Tried to think of how to rationalize. How to reason with her. How he was going to get away from this. But when he exhaled a long, frustrated breath, he felt himself slip and his mind empty as he acknowledged the ache in his lungs from keeping himself tightly poised and his breathing even. He turned to her and when he opened his mouth it was to just speak.[break][break]

"Easy to say what I 'should have done' isn't it? For you?" He was surprised to hear his voice wasn't as level as he'd intended it. As he wanted and needed it to be. But the sound of it on the air between them... the feel of its subtle bite as it left his mouth... he felt the familiarity in it. The temptation of it. And he allowed it to loosen his restraint. Rather than forcing himself to pause and try to wrestle himself back into something carefully contained — something carefully Ashley — he pushed his tongue hard into the back of his teeth and leaned closer.[break][break]

"Do you think I had it all figured out back then? That I thought I would get this far? Make it out of Riverside? Last a week? Do you think it wasn't hard? That I just flipped a switch and didn't love my family anymore?" [break][break]

Once started, he couldn't stop. And it was easier than he wished it was, to find that cold voice. Probably because it was her. Someone who had witnessed his resentment countless times before. Suffered his clipped tones and ugly sneers on numerous occasions and almost always without falter. He couldn't make her flinch. Couldn't scare her off, surprise her, or take her off guard with it. Unlike anyone else he met as Ashley, he hadn't made her believe this part of him didn't exist. Hadn't desperately made her think he was wholly incapable of growling. [break][break]

As if further encouraged by the thought (or given the allowance to tip into it rather than inwardly recoil), Ashley reached out to pull the vodka bottle from her hands; moving and abandoning it on the bar an armlength away on the other side of him. It was a useless ploy; if anything, she'd probably just summon another one. And how many times would she let him repeat the act — no doubt with an increasing fight — before she couldn't picture another bottle accurately or decided to throw hands? [break][break]

"'Crazy concept', Grace, but what good did your empathy ever do me?" Though he kept his voice quiet and low, he could hear himself how it grew fuller. More sure and direct, encouraged by the embraced heat seeping languidly through his veins. "Yeah, you guys brought me back. Chased me down, dragged me home, cheered me up, forced me clean... thanks and I'm real sorry for the inconvenience that was... but then what?" He shrugged a shoulder and pursed his lips. Almost as if giving her space to allow a response before he answered for her. "Right back to it, right? You weren't saving me. You were just keeping me there."[break][break]

He nodded, giving the slight barb a chance to breathe. Then he continued. "You 'saw' and you 'understood'. That's really nice. So did my Dad. And it didn't. Change. Anything. It didn't get rid of my tattoo." He lifted a hand and pulled down the neck of his ripped collar to show his marred skin; ripping the shirt more as he tugged further, wanting her to see all of it and not just a peek. "I did that. And it was more than just carving away skin. I paid for it with more than just blood. Yes, I abandoned you. And I know it hurt, because I lost you guys, too. I'm sorry no one got to pick and choose what pieces I got to take with me when I gave up my life."[break][break]

Though he hadn't raised his voice, hadn't scoffed and hadn't laughed snidely, he knew there was a palpable heat in everything he said. And as he released his shirt and turned away again, settling back in his seat, he closed his eyes and grit his jaw. He didn't like it — the feeling of it lapping through him, dark and ugly. A throb threatened between his ears but, still, he couldn't help but tacking on a little more. "You may consider us family, Grace, and I do too, but the difference is I'm not your father's son. I'm my father's son. I don't get the luxury of doing and getting whatever I want."[break][break]

He blinked his eyes open. Breathed a shaky inhale. "As for Gemma," something prickled in him, discomforted and cold, but he kept it from making him pause. Kept it from his face. "Well, you said it yourself, didn't you? Your sister deserved better." He tried not to consider that desperate, fleeting hope in him that perhaps he was enough now. Not only was this not the place or the conversation, but there was no merit to it. And the thoughts didn't belong in his chest at the same time as the current cut in his voice. He looked at her. "What should I have done? Asked her to leave her family, her life, you, for me? Someone who needed scraped from the floor most nights and was too stupid and scared to ever be completely real with her?" He shook his head, a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth as his eyes searched hers with conviction. [break][break]

"And Dane..." he faltered visibly this time, fingers curling into his palms as he blinked hard and held a breath in his chest. Then he turned away, unable to hold her eyes now while his mouth pulled tight. "Maybe I should have..." he trailed, brow giving the faintest knit before he forcibly hardened his features once more. He knew his brother would have gone with him. Wouldn't have asked a single question or hesitated, just dropped everything and everyone, even their mother, to stay glued to his side like he so often had been. [break][break]

But it was Dane.

He pictured his brother's face. After he killed — bathed in blood with a wild gleam to his eye. All the times he stepped up in Dino's place and then reached out to console him afterward; helped him to his feet and wiped the tears from his cheeks with scarlet-slicked hands. Laughing in a fight and begging for blows. Riling up everyone around him. Egging on brawls where there weren't any. He was violent. Reckless. Antagonistic. Brutal. A desperate animal with its teeth always already half-bared. A liability.[break][break]

He was everything Dino had needed to get away from, conveniently compounded into a single person. [break][break]

He didn't want to admit it. He wanted to keep it trapped in his chest; a secret caged by a shame and guilt that he didn't want to acknowledge. But Ashley made himself turn back to her. He clenched his jaw, felt the grind of his teeth, then parted his lips, feeling his eyes infinitesimally widen as he forced a cold certainty (that he didn't at all feel) into his voice. "But when looking for peace," his lids twitched just barely, "You don't bring a loaded gun."

[break]

all these trees have fallen and i don't know[break]how to walk with all that leaf on the ground

Tag: Grace Gatsby [break]
Holy shit, I'm sorry this got so long (and dramatic pls omg).[break]
Give me a nudge for any changes, if it's too much, etc.!

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[Grace Gatsby]

[nospaces]

[break][break][break][break]

[break]

[attr="class","Gracepostname"]grace gatsby

[break]

[attr="class","GraceDpostlyric"]I've made some real big mistakes[break]
but you make the worst one look fine

[attr="class","Gracedpostingbox"]
[break][break]

There he was. The Dino she knew.[break][break]

The thought was in her mind for only a second before she realised how wrong she was.[break][break]

Yes, he was bristling like he used to, looking far less caught, less resigned, and now more heated; a wild beast in a cage remembering it wasn’t so docile. But it had never been this… cold. Not with Dino. Arguments between them, albeit loud and fiery, had always been with a twitching corner of a mouth or a bitten cheek from one of them as if trying to smother the urge to laugh, either because the subject matter so silly or because whatever drugs he’d taken had made everything in his world a touch more amusing.[break][break]

The genuine coldness, the ice in the eyes that were the wrong colour, no longer the same as hers, had always been something she’d seen directed towards others. She couldn’t recall if she’d ever been on the receiving end of his sincere hostility.[break][break]

He snatched the bottle (her crutch) away from her, firing barb after barb as he tried to counter every point she’d made. Tried to claim that it hurt him to lose them. As if they had been lost. As if he couldn’t have returned or reached out whenever he fucking wanted because they'd been in the same place the entire fucking time. He yanked down his collar, showing off a scared patch of skin where his stag should have been, but Grace only blinked levelly at it, finding she didn’t care at all. Physical injury was only temporary. She’d seen far worse. It wouldn't earn him sympathy.[break][break]

Everything he said sort of blended together in her head. Like a droning lecture. Water over stone, washing over her. All she could comprehend was how selfish his every argument was. She could see the logic in it where it existed, could understand why he thought he had to do it, but all she could hear was ‘I, I, I’ and the empty places where she and Gemma and Dane could have been, could have helped, if he’d spoken to them about his plan.[break][break]

“We were ‘keeping’ you alive!” she snarled, not quite as in his face as before. Her fists remained tightly curled at her sides but did not strike out at him again. “You think we didn’t try to limit the hunts you were sent on? You think I wasn’t volunteering for every case that was heading your way so that you wouldn’t have to do it? You think we could have gotten you out when you were a fucking addicted mess like that? We had our own ideas, Dino. I had plans. I was just a year too young to put them in place.”[break][break]

“If we did it when you weren’t clean, we thought you would have just wandered off and overdosed while no one was around to stop you. But if you’d just talked to us, if you'd said something–” The wind tore abruptly from her sails. She felt herself falter and deflate. Felt her expression and voice crack before falling hollow as she stared unseeingly at his torso.[break][break]

With everything that had happened over the past few weeks, she was exhausted. Tired of fighting people, fighting for people, trying to understand everyone’s motives and needs and what she could give them. I could have helped, she wanted to say. I could have done something, been what you wanted. But could she have? Maybe… maybe his leaving wasn’t merely about him escaping. Maybe he wanted there to be exit wounds. To make her pay for having kept him there for all those years, when he’d been trying to free himself of her the whole time.[break][break]

“You abandoned me, Dino.” She was repeating herself now, but that was the crux of it really, wasn’t it? Her vision burned and blurred. Her throat felt tight. “You could have reached out to me and Gem at any point. Could have given a sign – given some kind of reassurance that you were out there. That you still cared about us even if you had left.” A wet little laugh escaped her then, far softer than the derisive barks she’d given earlier, and she shook her head. “You know, I would have kept it a secret from Dane, if you had explained why. I care about your happiness that much. But clearly you don’t care about mine. And now I wonder if you ever did.”[break][break]

He’d lost interest. Found a better life. Found people he would stay for.[break][break]

“Dane would have liked you being a defector a lot more than you being dead,” she mused dully, her gaze lowering to the shattered glass at their feet. A young staff member had finally grown brave enough to approach the bickering pair to clean it up, but not so brave to tell them to stop. “With how much he rebels, I bet he would have cheered you on.” She closed her eyes, sighing softly through her nose as she turned away. “He’ll like you being a liar who abandoned him much less, especially now your mom is dead.”[break][break]

Ah. She'd been angry about Dane not picking up his phone earlier, hadn't she? Before Dino had popped up. Maybe she should try him again. Or maybe she should go to Gemma first. Discuss how they might break the news to him together.[break][break]

“I’m going,” she muttered, her hands clutching at her arms to hug herself as she walked away. “It’s too loud in here. I can’t stand it.”

[break][break]

[attr="class","GraceDPostTag"]Tag: Ashley Wolfe

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