╳┊ weight of war.

                    “Oh come on now, I think you’re setting the bar on being bad way too low,” a grin flourished on his countenance all the same, taking a brazen step to reach out to the vampire looping her in close. Most connections between the two were spurred on by Remi’s sybaritic behalf her allusion to a mutual feeling only prompting Brennan to garner a rare sense of comfort; the vampire normally pushing him outside of said succor. “Though I have to say I can’t even picture you crashing one, if we’re on the trend of being honest.” Grin transformed into a more subdued smirk, raising a brow as if expecting her instant rebuttal. 

                Remi’s snark and brazen essence was one of the reasons he had effortlessly began such head spinning pursuit of her. Her inquiries allowed a laugh to escape him, shaking his head as if out of modesty, “I think I could be the marrying type, right partner sort of thing, you know?” A shrug of his shoulders followed, biting his lip as if toying with the idea to continue, “But I think I’m attracted to trouble, which inevitably, lands me in the hot seat. Those who are trouble don’t typically fancy the idea of marriage, you know?” Russet hues flitted to drift over Remi as if hoping to catch the slightest inkling to the inner workings of where she stood on such belief, his generalization of trouble mapping over the entirety of what she was, in the end. 

          He could recover quickly, the impression of her tumultuous brand of baffling back and forth something Brennan couldn’t quite forget. Thus prompted the grin on his lips, hues stealing a glance at Remi’s flaxen mien as if to understand even an inkling of where she stood now. Despite words that tumbled past her lips, Brennan was hardly naive enough to cling to the thought that she could ever fully mean such extempore. More times than not, it was two steps forward followed by three steps back; a head spin he hadn’t quite welcomed nor declined just yet. “Oh, don’t be silly,” a laugh managed to leave him, gnawing on his inner cheek in tandem, “Leave it to you to abandon me at the alter. Eloping would be more your style; much more in the moment.” 

          Perhaps it was the direct nature of her lexicon, causing Brennan to pause beneath any bitter turmoil he tried to accumulate in regards to Remi. After all, she bounced from a hot and cold demeanor, putting him in a dazed head spin more times than not; any sense of security barren from whatever dalliance this could be defined as. All the same, Brennan near subtly crooned into her chilled touch, his own russet hues filled with a hurt he couldn’t quite vocalize. While more grounded than most who had lived as long as he, Brennan still clutched to a firm sense of self preservation; a guarded means to his own emotions. “Maybe I was waiting for you this whole time,” syllables came off more forlorn than intended, jaw clenched in reminder of her unprecedented absence.

          Tuned hearing could only hone in on familiar tone, one which was deemed near dulcet to Brennan’s ears, a certain predilection for one, particular Carmikael out of the many. Perhaps under the guise of their own perplexing track record, he would have figured her to commit to any sound sense of avoidance; gaze flitting back from her abandoning company to Remi’s winsome visage. Her words easily prompted a laugh to spill from his lips, shaking his head in tandem, “Oh, come on. I got a haircut,” a teasing bite took over gravelly timbre, hand coming up to muss through raven locks, “You don’t like it?”

          “Is this where you say you’re screwing with me,” Words were near apprehensive, knowing Cassidy had a penchant for a particularly nasty mean streak that was only matched with knavish humor. “I can only hope you are,” Brennan near scowled at his sister, their gauchely unenviable mesh of a family proving his own discontent at her eternal salience to remain astray from them. 

@cassidytalbxt

          “I think I was once compared to having a boyish charm about me. Now, I’m no genius when it comes to the ever allusive Remi Carmikael but I’ve got an inkling that something like that is very anti you,” he drawled out, a grin spreading thick on his lips. Brennan had become bold in the presence of her. Something that came with the territory when you were no longer branded as immortal enemies. How far they had come from their initial spark, having broken into a closed coffee shoppe right on the edge of town. How even back then, an eternally reserved Brennan could jump out of his shell at the chance to impress a woman who could barely dare crack a smile at nothing less than murder. While things had snowballed into something far more deep than him doing his damned best to make her smile and her own resistance at the thought; Brennan still had to count the minutes. Count the many times a smile jumped on her face that wasn’t akin to her next vicious move on the Red Creek townspeople. “Oh, absolutely.” He snickered, a near roguish expression on his own face as if genuinely hiding something from her. “Clearly I’ve got a dark side you know nothing about.” 

          “Maybe I am. Just try not to go out on some rebellious streak and try and prove me wrong on that. I’ve been told I can be a bit of a sore loser,” he shot back without missing a beat. Perhaps if she was in a position where her lifespan had countered over a thousand years, her nonchalance might have been something for him to breeze over, but now it stuck with him, the original waiting for the perfect moment to verbally pounce with such question. Once they had began their stroll out of the facility he started again, a brow raised with concern at the witch, “You know I’m not always gonna be here to be able to walk you home. --- What then?” Not that Lenore could never not handle herself, the notion itself being ridiculous. Still, he could be concerned; this towns hunters always known to be more on the violent or careless side, and never a settled mix in between; unfortunately. 

          “I’m just surprised you managed to one up me on something. You’d think I’d have seen any of those movies or picked up one of the many books....but, here I am.” He offered a faint chuckle, before shaking his head at the mention of their youngest sister, “She’s out there somewhere. But she’s definitely worse than you when it comes to checking in. Sorry.” 

          He knew life was considered to be on the more bittersweet side of things for Ezri; or just plain sour when he genuinely thought about it. And perhaps Brennan could only hope that his roommate would just focus on the little things in life instead of all the shit that was just plain bad. It took him a long while to take such route and so for some with a normal life span like Ezri; it might as well take all their life. Still, Brennan had gone from hating the part of him that was a wolf to being enchanted by the immortality that came with it. An obsession with science, literature.... and anything and everything in between allowed such immortality to feel like a breeze. When you didn’t focus on the fact that everyone around you that you could come to care for would soon die. Everyone except your family. And half the time, the Talbot’s were seen butting heads and giving each other the silent treatment than attempting to get along. He scowled in a teasing bout, “Yeah, yeah, let’s go.” He followed her through the apartment door shooting her a pointed look that had a hint of a joking tone to it. Brennan could never actually be mad at her, especially when it came to silly things like such tasks she had mentioned. “Must you try to corrupt me?” He clicked his tongue as if in disapproval, offering a shake of his head to back it up, “Well, I’ve got an 8AM lecture tomorrow, but I won’t protest to a couple of beers and then some.” His lips tugged into a small grin, shrugging his laptop case off his shoulder and onto the little kitchen table that fit snugly in the room. 

          “I must say, I was surprised,” Brennan murmured in regards to Jonah’s low grade. “You’ve always been an outstanding writer in your papers, some would say the best in your class. Rough week?” It was a question posed with the raise of a brow, sort of a take it or leave it moment as Brennan clicked on his laptop in hopes of finding a sheet that could give some form of extra credit that he wouldn’t have to make up on the spot. 

          Brennan had to grin at that, lips pulled into an amused expression mostly at how effortlessly the laugh had fallen from her lips of all people. She used to be the one who would do anything not to show such emotion, letting such happier feelings elude her simply by choice. And sometimes it still surprised him to figure that he could be apart of such factor that broke her open enough to see such light that she never liked to prove was there; hidden beneath such dark factions of herself that constantly took over. “I’d like to think I’m not. I mean, c’mon, Remi -- there’s a good couple of hundreds years you’ve yet to learn about me. Surely we’ve both got too much to catch up on. That is till you get sick of me,” the last words came out in a taunting tone, sporting an almost amused expression. He knew how Remi operated, or rather any immortal being could feel. Sometimes, such commitments felt inconsequential when you kept on living forever. Normally, in the beginning, Brennan likely would have sported an expression of surprise at her own brash nature, this time letting out a sigh in good spirits. “Oh, I’d love nothing more,” he retorted with a scoff. He no longer commented on how she could jump from hot to cold, the remembrance of how she had down all she could to instigate a fight with him always there, until one day it could hopefully fall to the wayside like all the other memories that would melt into a muddled pool of time. His thumb grazed the palm of her ever cold hand, giving a shrug as he offered an almost challenging look. “Mm, waffles. Love ‘em.” Of course not as serious an answer as one could ever give which is why he knew it might be all the more testing to that of Remi. But hey, she did bring up the topic of breakfast so she only had herself to blame. 

           “When did I ever say you had to listen?” A brow shot up at her but he kept his soft, teasing nature in which was typical of him. “Is shit just your curse word of choice? But, hell, plenty of snow on the ground, so why not go ahead and make one of those stupid ass snow angels.”