♯ veraelizs .ᐟ ♡

 “(name), sweetie, come on,” vincent wheedled, trying to press the pink spoon against your stubborn pout. “just a bite. it’s, uh… it’s. very good. it’s yummy, i promise.”

 ever as bullheaded as your father, you don’t budge.

 “please?” the great vincent whittman, the god of entertainment and the voice of the future (amongst many, many other titles), reduced to a stressed, pleading mess of a father at the hands of a 20-month-old girl who had too much of his genes. “one bite. then we can watch tv.”

 “no!” you slam your hands down on the high chair’s tray. “tv now!”

 vincent drags a hand down his face, willing himself not to cry. he forces the muscles in his cheeks into a pained smile, clutching onto the goldfish-adorned bowl like a lifeline. “please, baby? mommy’s gonna be so mad at me.”

 if he had gotten a boy on the first try, he swears, eye twitching.

 but no. no. he loved you too much. you were his little princess.

 …not like he’d probably have held the same sentiment for a son.

 “no!” was it possible to eradicate a word from existence? oh, wait, no.

 “c’mon, baby girl,” vincent tries again, before pitifully muttering under his breath, “please please don’t make me eat the applesauce.”

 miraculously, you don’t reply with another slew of screamed no’s.

 unfortunately, wide, glassy eyes stare back at him instead.

 “oh, shi- shoulders knees and toes,” he blurts frantically (fuck, he wasn’t supposed to swear in front of you!) and drops the spoon and bowl onto the table. “no, no, don’t cry!”

 one second, vincent swears he sees his life flashing before his eyes the moment your lips part the slightest bit, and in the next second he feels like he’s seen st. peter at the pearly gates.

 an insane, ear-splitting wail tears through the house, all but rattling the windows and the floorboards. you had your head tilted back against your seat and your throat aimed at the heavens like you were calling down divine retribution upon your father for not letting you consume entertainment on the very medium his career dominated. at the frequency you were hitting, vincent wouldn’t be surprised if the angels did end up coming for him.

 good gracious, you were more scream than baby.

 he had half a mind to shovel the entire 30ml jar down your mouth while it was open.

 “it’s okay, it’s okay!” vincent nearly wails along with you. “no more applesauce! i’m sorry—”

 you only scream louder.

 vincent scoops you up into his arms and practically hurls himself down the hall to the living room where the television set was. “don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry,” he chants—though he isn’t sure if he’s saying it to himself or to you. “daddy’s here, it’s okay, see? we’re gonna watch on the tv now.”

 he almost trips over the carpet before settling you down on the couch, then stumbles to the floor console to fling the doors open and smash the power dial.

 in his haste and panic, he doesn’t realise that you’ve quieted down.

 neither does he realise that your eyes were dry the entire time. (damn it, you really were just like your daddy!)

 soon enough, the familiar, tinny sound of the looney tunes theme song prattles from the speakers and echoes through the living room. vincent finally notices the lack of screaming, and he’s entirely convinced that “the merry go round broke down” was what finally pacified his daughter.

 well, it definitely was pacifying him.

 slumping against the coffee table, vincent lets out a huge, shuddering exhale. it almost felt like being drafted for and serving in the navy for the war was nothing compared to raising a child that was basically a carbon copy of him. and a girl, no less.

 comfortable on your place on the sofa cushions, you begin to nibble on the edge of your thumb, completely satisfied with yourself. somewhere in the back of your developing toddler brain, you wonder when mama was coming home, but the thought quickly flees once lola bunny skips into frame.

 all while your poor father lies at the foot of the couch, looking like he had been dragged through hell and back.

 and he might as well have been.

 “oh, God,” vincent whimpers. “i want my wife.”

꩜ a/n: i took a wee bit of creative liberty cuz the ask was fairly simple heuheuheu ,, i'll admit i had to write this in third person and used my mii-daughter's name at first cuz it felt SO WEIRD writing for a character i've always portrayed romantically in second person still, this was so fun to write!! i did subject myself to my own mother's rage for being up writing til 1:30am, but it was still fun! the writing i mean. not the uh. other thing. chuchu like dat ty to my goat 4 helping me out @whoatemycheezeits and for replying to my frantic slew of messages at midnight ,, and ofc the one n only @timesskip <3 u can thank these two for convincing me to give in to the request LMAOO but i also needed to take a break from writing the drunk text fic cuz ive been shooting blanks blawg i keep #beating it but nothin's coming out

will be cross-posted to ao3 soon !

———

 you knew he liked charlie puth and maroon 5, sure, but this was just…

 “...vince. babe, slow down,” you reason nervously, eyes flitting between him and the rapidly approaching stoplight. “the light’s about to turn red—”

 “and now my heart is- what? oh, shit.” 

 he slows down a second too late.

-

 vincent had the common sense to turn down the stereo, but apparently not enough fucking intelligence to have switched it off entirely. jb's young tenor voice still echoed annoyingly from the speakers at 5% volume— wait, had this idiot put the song on loop without you noticing—?

 “officer.” he tries flashing a charming smile but it comes off embarrassingly sheepish instead.

your nails dig into your bag as you stare holes into your jeans, before glancing up at the police officer with the most haunted in your eyes.

“officer, i swear i do not know this man.” 

 you’re pretty sure you sound like you’re about to cry.

 the policeman looks wearily at you, then pins his gaze down to the matching slivers of metal on both your right ring finger and his. promise rings, he had said, as he carefully wiggled it past your knuckles on your first anniversary after graduating high school.

 vincent’s was thicker—a simple silver band with the outline of a shark leaving a gaping hole in the middle of the metal. predictably, the missing shark was adorning the slimmer gold band that sat prettily on your hand. 

 you feel the blood drain out of your face.

 fuck.

꩜ a/n: and if i said writing stupid blurbs like these were what got me through junior year cuz pretending i had vincent as a boyfriend was better than actually going out and getting a real one took me six months to post this homyga high school/college au's r peak yall even if theyre just in ur head . trust

will be cross-posted to ao3 soon !

———

 “is that you?” you laugh, tracing a finger across the photo to a grimacing child with a splinted arm, tucked away in the second row and standing fourth from the left.

 “yeah,” he winces. “i… got pushed into a shallower side of the river by one of the older kids.”

 you bite your lip in an attempt to hide your humour, but the twinkle in your eyes betray you. “oh, poor thing.”

 “hush, you,” vincent grumbles. “you’re not even trying not to laugh.”

 “i’m not!” you protest, yet your voice contrarily rolled in that throaty giggle he loved so much. “promise, baby.”

“yeah, yeah,” he swats your palm away from his face, snatching it in his grip and lacing your fingers with his as he clamps your joined hands over the thigh of your dress. “whatever you say.” 

 vincent then gestures to another photo, one of him peeking over his father’s telegraph, beaming with a proud smile that missed a tooth or two. “that was when i learned the basics of morse code.”

 you let your free left hand creep back onto the yellowed pages of the album and flip to the next page. 

 “and this was when—wait, hey, i wasn’t finished-!”

 the paper lands.

 red—unadulterated beet and rosy red—crept up the sides of vincent’s neck and brushed his ears in embarrassment. pure humiliation rippled through his features, mouth twisted open in an emotion that could be named as nothing but absolute horror at what lay in the middle of the folio.

 “oh, my goodness.”

 “no!” an uncharacteristic, strangled shriek tore out of his throat as he lunged for the photo album, uselessly clawing at the spine. to his utter dismay, you were quicker to snatch it back.

 “give that— oh, fuck, sweetheart, do not—”

  beneath a half-crinkled photograph, scrawled in his mother’s careful handwriting, was ‘vincent, age six.’

 and there he was, decked out in a charming little pair of shorts and a striped sweater vest, dark hair impeccably gelled and combed to perfection. wide heterochromatic irises peered through thick-framed spectacles that swallowed half his face, something that he had (thankfully) grown into. his eyes, glassy and innocent, were a far cry from the constricted pupils of the mortified manchild who had basically gone rabid next to you.

 because, there was his mouth.

 an inhumane mass of metal stretched across the expanse of his jaw, protruding from between his lips, fused and welded to the enamel of his teeth. to make it worse, the steel framing his cheeks connected to a larger metal fixture that clamped over the sides of his face and his head, essentially jailing the child in an orthodontic contraption.

 six-year-old vincent looked just about ready to die.

 two decades later, twenty-six year old vincent seemed to share his sentiments.

꩜ a/n: hm. i feel like i can still add on to this .

will be cross-posted to ao3 soon!

———

© dostoevskya 2026. all rights reserved.

through your daze, you faintly register how the floor is flooded.

the cold seeps past the ankle of your heels and into your socks, soaking the cotton in a heaviness that mirrors the weight on your chest.

sparks fly and sizzle above you. a thousand televisions hover around him in the centre of the room like a tangled spiderweb, outlining his figure like a holographic halo. he stands on a stage in front of the crowd, just as he's always loved, arms outstretched to a future only he could see. a promise of a brighter tomorrow emblazons the final words on his lips.

and with a final burst of light, akin to the final shower of sulfur before a firework dies out, a television breaks free from the ceiling and crowns his head with one of the very screens that America loved him on.

the pain that follows is excruciating.

electricity licks at your veins and up your neck—white hot, blinding. bodies seize in harmony with yours as the voltage tears through the waterlogged room and into the mortal flesh of a hundred brainwashed men and women.

you feel the gold around your left ring finger conduct a stronger current that claws at your atriums with lightning. as you hear the violent scream that rips from his throat, part of you wonders if he feels it, too.

most would say you had married an icarus, but he has always been sisyphus. chasing more—bigger, brighter, the most of the most—is the rock he rolls up the hill for all of eternity.

and you, ever the fool, his merope in blue, loved him for it.

oh, my vincent.

꩜ a/n: this was originally a poem and ive got it somewhere in a notebook but i can't find it rn ahah... ANYWAYS ! little explanation cuz i feel like it's due in greek mythology, merope is sisyphus' wife, and one of the seven pleiades (the daughters of the titan atlas and the ocean nymph pleione). she is often referred to as "the lost pleiad" bc she is the faintest among the seven main stars, and the only one of the sisters to have married a mortal. in most myths, that dimness extends to the shame she felt for her husband's crimes against the gods. her name quite literally means, "with her face turned". my metaphor was originally just supposed to involve sisyphus (for those of u who don't know he's that guy who rolls a rock up a hill in the underworld only for it to roll back down whenever he reaches the top) but i found it insanely fitting and entirely ironic that his wife held such a symbolism in classical mythology and astrology. it was just perfect.

will be cross-posted to ao3 soon !

———

© dostoevskya 2026. all rights reserved.

 canute road was surprisingly empty for an hour this early into the evening—though you suppose most people were either tucked in in preparation for the excitement of the next day, or putting on the ritz with the rich and glamorous back at the southwestern hotel.

 you could almost see her—titanic, that is—barely peeking over the rooftops as you neared the white star docks. you feel your heart give a happy little flip and you briefly squeeze vincent’s hand in elation.

 “oh, darling, just look at her!”

 “where?” he squints, scrunching his nose. it barely lifts the thick-rimmed lenses of his glasses to his line of sight.

 “there, you silly boy!” you exclaim, pointing up somewhere into the distance.

 vincent chuckles sheepishly, “i still can’t see it, honey.”

 you stubbornly continue to point at the sliver of pale buff steel that was her mighty funnels. “over yonder, just by the– oh, forget it, you blind rat.” you drop your hand to your side. “we're almost there, anyway.”

 vincent laughs again, and the ring around his finger is cool against your skin. “you might have married a blind man, sweetheart, but at least i’m handsome enough to make up for it.” he preens under the yellow streetlights, and your indignant retort is lost to the succeeding guffaw that bursts from his chest.

 “i thought you were the one telling me to be quiet!” you protest, though you can't fight the smile that worms its way onto your face.

 he doesn't stop laughing.

 “vincent!”

 “okay, okay,” he relents, beginning to wind down his laughter. “i’ll be quiet now.”

 your handheld sprint slows to a leisurely jog as you near the gates to the port—tall, red-bricked, imposing sentries that barred the path to the berths. heavy, wrought-iron pickets were speared adjacent to the massive pillars, and in front of the enormous latch stood a watchman in uniform.

 his gaze rakes over the two of you with a severity that makes your breath catch in your throat, but vincent doesn’t flinch. before the guard could part his lips with an admonishment, vincent smoothly slinks his hand into his breast pocket and pulls out a thick, cream coloured card—one that was folded in such a way that made it fit neatly in his suit, yet strategic enough to flaunt the embellished White Star Line logo that adorned the margins.

 “evening, officer,” vincent greets with a small, self-assured smile. “second-class passengers. my lady wanted to see the ship up close before we board tomorrow."

 the watchman’s eyes flicker from the ticket to vincent’s tailored coat, gives your silk and pearls a fleeting glance, then immediately nods. “mind the railroad tracks in the dark, sir.” he pulls back the hefty latch with a metallic clink, and slightly bows his head toward you in acknowledgment. “and have a good evening, ma’am.”

 you hesitantly return his gesture, then carefully move your hand to wrap around vincent’s arm.

 as the gate carefully swings open, a flash of gold gleams beneath the postlight. vincent tosses a coin, flicking it from his pocket, and the watchman catches it almost effortlessly. his stern demeanour relaxes with a slight upturn of his lips. 

 “good man,” vincent winks. “we won’t be an hour.”

 the watchman responds with a casual salute, pockets the coin, then turns back to his post.

 you exhale the breath you were holding. “oh, my goodness!” you burst into another fit of giggles once the two of you reach a considerable distance away from the gate. “i was so nervous!”

 vincent does a complete 180°, his earlier suaveness gone with a turn of his heel. “did you see how i handled that?” he asks proudly. “keen, huh?”

 “positively dashing,” you agree, tiptoeing to press a delighted kiss to his cheek.

 “all about the execution, sweetheart,” vincent says smugly. “shall we, my love?” he places his hand over where yours rests in the crook of his arm.

 “where to, sir?” you grin, deciding to humor him. “the stars?”

 it was around a quarter of a mile further down to the quay, but you were in no rush. 

 you had time.

 briefly squeezing your hand thrice, vincent smiles, relishing in the way you glow with joy. he leans down slightly, lowering his voice to an almost conspiratorial whisper. 

 “the ship of dreams.”

—

 loose gravel crunches beneath your feet as you walk, together, past the row of cargo sheds that line the dock. quayside cranes loom over your heads like trees unshaken by the spring breeze; a zephyr that rolls in from the southwest and blows a shiver through your clothes.

 vincent breathes out a chuckle that clouds in front of his lips. “didn’t bring a coat?”

 “got too excited.” your teeth chatter, though it does nothing to chase away the smile that all but splits your face. “c-couldn’t wait to leave. dinner was stuffy.”

 “silly girl,” he huffs, returning your earlier remark in kind. “come here.”

 your walk is paused momentarily as vincent takes a second to unbutton and shrug off his dinner jacket, before he settles the coat around your shoulders. the warmth that follows is immediate and endlessly comforting—though you notice how the weight of the tickets settling upon the space above your heart was far heavier than the wool.

 “vincent—” you start.

 “i’ll be fine,” he hushes you. “i run hot anyway, remember?”

 the fabric of his waistcoat fits neatly against his stomach and chest, and you can’t find it in yourself to complain. still, you roll your eyes.

 “oh, praise,” you drawl sarcastically, settling back into his side. “my hero.”

 “i know, i know.” vincent lets out a theatrical sigh, shaking his fist. “such sacrifice. the very image of chivalry.”

 “you’re just pushing it now!” you say loudly, then try to stomp your right heel over his dress shoes. he narrowly dodges it with a tiny yelp.

 “i- hey!” he protests. “is that any way you should be treating your hero?”

 “no, but it's how i should be treating my husband.” you throw him a dirty look, before adding, “for being an idiot.”

 the mock-offense on his face melts almost immediately. a newborn star gleams in his eyes, and he softens, tenderness bright in his mismatched gaze.

 you blink at his change of demeanour. “what?”

 “i don’t think i’ll ever get used to it,” he finally says. vincent turns to look ahead, resuming your walk. the most boyish, happiest smile you’ve ever seen him wear stays spread across his face.

 “to?”

 “you calling me your husband.”

 the raw honesty in his voice was staggering—uncharacteristic, though not unwelcome. it steals the witty retort that had been brimming on the edge of your tongue, and in its place blooms a sudden, sweet ache that you try hard to swallow. that same ache swells in your chest and dances through your skin, warming your cheeks in a flush you can’t blame on the evening chill, and gravitates the blood in your fingertips toward the pulse in his. you trail your palm down his arm until you find his hand, and you slip into where you’ve always fit; where you’ve always belonged.

 “better start getting used to it, then.” is all you can muster. a watery laugh unwillingly breaks out of you, and you press your cheek into the ironed cotton that dresses his shoulder. “i don’t plan on stopping any time soon.”

 “not even for the next ten years?” he teases, nudging his chin down to rest upon your head.

 “not even for the next seventy.” you scoff, smiling.

 vincent lets out a thoughtful hum. “still sounds a bit too short. how about eighty?”

 “you drive a hard bargain,” you remark playfully. “would a lifetime satisfy you?”

 he beams. the sight of it warms your heart. “indubitably.”

 eyes crinkling at the corners, you tighten your grip around his hand and say, “you’ve got yourself a deal, mr whittman.”

 “pleasure doing business with you, mrs whittman,” he teases. as you round the corner of a shed, what greets you on the other side completely steals your breath away.

 there she is.

 titanic.

 she emerges from the darkness, all one hundred and seventy-five feet of her standing tall and proud upon the waters of the river test. a hundred thousand rivets—millions, perhaps—adorn the sleek structure of her hull, jutting out from the steel in rows like aligned constellations dotting the sky. the pungent scent of fresh paint danced with the salty waft of sea spray, and she glowed against the port with lamps that lined her portholes and decks in an almost incandescent golden light.

 the magnificent curve of her stern faced you, and above it fluttered a flag of the british blue ensign. she was vast, immense, utterly unprecedented in scale; a two hundred sixty-nine metre titan that stretched through the wide expanse of berth 44. across the lip of her rear was painted the word liverpool, etched in ochre and yellow, beneath the careful, precise inscription that grandly read titanic. 

 and truly, did the ship of dreams live up to her tremendous name.

 “oh, vincent,” you breathe, entranced, taking a step away from him and toward the ship. your fingers touch the rouged flesh of your lip, utterly captivated by the enormity of the grandest moving object that had yet to grace the ocean by far.

 you had never felt smaller. more miniscule. standing below the hull of a ship they had claimed to be unsinkable—it was impossible not to.

 but, oh, you felt nothing but wonder as you marvelled at how humbling it felt to stand next to something of such sheer power and size.

 “she’s beautiful.”

 “...yeah,” vincent murmurs, though his eyes land elsewhere. “she is.”

 he watches you turn around slowly, your gaze glued to the vessel, starry with rapt captivation. the joy on your face was so immense, it almost baffled him to think about how much a hunk of metal and steel could bring such bliss and happiness.

 and he couldn’t help but love you for it.

 nevertheless, being loved by vincent whittman didn’t come without a price.

 “still, though,” vincent comments offhandedly, mischief tugging at the corner of his lips. “it doesn’t look any bigger than the mauretania.”

 you whip your head toward him so fast you nearly throw out your neck, with a look so offended it was almost hilarious. “you can be blasé about most things, vinny, but not about titanic!”

 vincent crosses his arms, entirely delighted that you took the bait. “oh, really?”

 “yes, really!” you fire back, gesturing wildly at the hull. “mauretania was only seven hundred ninety feet long. titanic is almost a hundred feet longer, and far more luxurious!”

 “the mauretania is faster, though,” he points out, trying hard to hide his amusement. you were too easy.

 “oh, you and your obsession with speed!” you say hotly. “so what if cunard line ships are 5 knots faster than white star line’s? at least this one won’t rattle your eyeballs sideways from the vibration of steam turbines!”

 “mmm, perhaps,” vincent acknowledges, pretending to tilt his head to the side in deep thought. “the mauretenia was built to break speed records, after all.”

 “exactly,” you stress. “besides, this is the height and technological marvel of our era. luxury and advanced propulsion, yes, but— oh, don’t you even get me started on the watertight compartments!”

 “yeah?” he comes up behind you, planting his hands on your waist and his chin on your shoulder. “and if i do?”

 you subconsciously lean back into him out of habit. “it’s just state-of-the-art, vinny,” you immediately gush, pointing up at the hull and waving your fingers around as you gesture here and there. “groundbreaking. sixteen watertight compartments and fifteen bulkheads below her decks—she’s practically unsinkable!”

 vincent hums. “how so?”

 “she’s built to stay afloat even if any two compartments flood,” your words are rapid-fire as you explain excitedly, “and even up to four of the forward-most compartments, over there by the bow.”

 your hands stretch out to the sky, flattening your palms against the stars. “mauretania’s got compartments too, yeah, but hers are longitudinal. they run parallel to the ship’s sides so they’re more inclined to listing if water flooded into her hull.” you exhale almost wistfully. “it’s just one of the many reasons why the titanic is so amazing.”

 vincent laughs. “if i didn’t know any better, darling, i’d think you’d want to marry this ship.”

 this time, you take the bait only to dangle it over his own head. “if anything,” you shoot back, “i’d want to have married her designer.”

 “...what.”

 the easy, smug indulgence that had been oozing off him in waves vanishes faster than a cunard line ship could cross the river clyde. vincent’s hands freeze over your waist, nearly stunned to paralysis, and you have a feeling he’s stopped breathing altogether.

 you don’t even bother turning around, instead taking another step closer to the edge of the berth, keeping your eyes trained on the portholes. a wicked little grin threatens to split your lip as you tilt your head up toward the sky, wrapping your arms around yourself like a pining schoolgirl to polish off the act. 

“thomas andrews,” you sigh dreamily, making it a point to sound as moony as possible. “an irishman, from belfast. he’s the one who designed olympic, too.”

 “wait– hold on–” vincent splutters, frantically stepping around to force himself back into your line of sight. his eyebrows are pinched together so hard they almost coalesce into one over the rim of his glasses as both his hands clutch at your shoulders.

 “i mean, he’s tall, intelligent, soft-spoken, kind, and gentle.” you blithely list off each trait on your fingers like they’re virtues, avoiding his eyes as you try hard not to laugh. “he plays cricket as well, so i hear he’s strong. and, goodness, what an architect–!”

 “he’s a married man!” vincent shrieks, before immediately catching himself, his eyes darting toward the direction of the dock gate in fear that the watchman would have somehow heard his undignified outburst from half a mile away.

 you finally collapse into laughter, feeling it bubble like champagne from your stomach and up past your lips. you take his face in your hands, gently cradling his cheeks between your palms as you press a chaste kiss to his downturned lips. “oh, baby, i was joking!”

 “it’s not funny!” he insists, looking so crestfallen it almost makes you feel bad. 

 almost.

 you pepper more kisses across the strong bridge of his nose and the corners of his quivering mouth in an attempt to pacify him, laughing all the while. “m’ sorry, i had to try and get back at you somehow.”

 “not like that!” vincent’s adamant refusal to stop pouting almost perplexes you, but you could tell that even despite himself, he was thoroughly enjoying being the object of your affections. “unbelievable,” he continues heatedly. “not even a year into marriage and my wife’s already moony-eyed for another man. a married one, nonetheless!”

 your laugh buzzes pleasantly against his neck when you throw your arms around him in an embrace that nearly knocks him off his feet. vincent steadies you, trying to keep you both from losing balance, and you give him a silly smile as you pull your head back to look at him. “i just admire him, vinny. no more, no less.” you punctuate the sentence with another peck, and your lips curve into a smile against his own. “i’ve got eyes for no one but you.”

 tension deflates from his shoulders as he huffs. he’s convinced, you know this well—but of course, vincent being vincent, he was going to be petty about it long enough to drive you insane.

 “as you should,” he grumbles, pulling you in tight and flush against him almost as if the head designer of harland and wolff actually were about to swan dive over the portside guardrails and steal you away. his hand settles over your head as he holds you close, and you feel his rapid heartbeat settle into an easier rhythm that beats in harmony with yours.

 titanic stands to vincent’s back as you mindlessly start to sway to a tune that wasn’t there. chin hooked over his shoulder, you continue to look up at her tremendous form, committing every square inch your eyes could land upon to memory.

 “come, josephine, in my flying machine,” you sing softly, moving your lips to brush against the skin just below his ear. it was a parlour song you had taken a liking to after you heard it in the first house-party you both had attended as husband and wife. vincent would be so incredibly vocal about his distaste for the ragtime tune every time he’d hear it in passing—though you knew he loved it almost as much as you did because it was a song that fell often from your lips. “going up, she goes, up, she goes…”

 “wouldn’t it be a sailing machine in this situation?” vincent muses, and you feel the weight of his head settle gently over your own.

 “oh, just go with it,” you chide, looping your arms around his neck as his hands find home over your hips once again. “balance yourself like a bird on a beam…?”

 vincent lets out a low, stubborn hum, and you lightly smack his back in retaliation. “come on, vince, you know the words!”

 “...in the air, she goes, there she goes,” he relents, his smooth baritone rumbling against the curve of your ribs. you almost feel the chuckle he ghosts between the lyric thrum into the veins of your heart.

 happiness blossoms in the apples of your cheeks, and you both continue to sway slowly to a song that hung only between the two of you, dancing in secret beneath the ship that promised a future of dreams.

 “up, up, a little bit higher…” you hum contentedly, feeling your eyes flutter shut as you lose yourself in the melody.

 “i… forgot the next lyric,” vincent admits abashedly.

 you laugh for what must have been the hundredth time that night, stepping back from the waltz and taking a good look at him, the novelty of belonging to each other still fresh on your finger and young in your souls.

 a beat of silence passes, and so does another fluttering breeze. vincent smooths his thumb over your cheekbone, just below your eye, and his gaze grows impossibly softer than it was before.

 another smile quirks up on the edge of his lips. “are you gonna tell me how it goes?”

 “it’s definitely not up,” you joke. “we’ve established that pretty well.”

 “what is it, then?” vincent asks quietly, tenderly tucking a strand of hair behind your ear.

 “oh, my, the moon is on fire.” your eyes twinkle as you croon the verse, tilting your head to gesture somewhere behind him. “and it is,” you grin. “look.”

 he turns to glance at the sky, only to be greeted with the sight of half the moon glowing silver against the starry drape of evening. “huh. you’re right.”

 you step closer to him again, smoothing your hands over the front of his vest. “i think it’s a good omen.”

 vincent looks down at you, smiling lopsidedly in the way that always made only one of his eyes crinkle. “a good omen,” he repeats, just as he would raise a glass and echo a toast to prosperity and life. “i’ll hold you to that.”

 and hold you he would.

꩜ a/n: girl is this even about vincent whittman anymore like atp this was just an excuse for me to nerd out over boats and project my big fat crush on thomas andrews HAHA HOW'D U LIKE THAT METRIC FUCK TON OF FORESHADOWING this fic was genuinely such a feat for me cuz like 3k words in 4 days is just INSANE as of where i am in efficient writing right now (◍´꒳`◍) i am very VERY happy with this one. literally such an amazing palate cleanser after that enormous hunk of angst i spent the last month writing HAHAHA i am a fluff writer first and foremost after all ! once again, all my love n thanks to ac, bel, shay, zeke, nue, & milo <3 and a very special mention to @tuquoque for helping me regain faith in my characterisation for vincent !! (ily so so much big sis) no citations for this one cuz i'd argue most of my research came from me going through the ancient depths of online forums and fighting google earth just to calculate the geography of southampton's port #cartographerism i'm just now realising this fic was the turning point for my titanic fixation expanding into a fixation on ocean liners in general (and yes, the title is absolutely taken from the song that jack whispers to rose during the "i'm flying!" scene in the titanic (1997) movie; the same song that rose sings to herself as she waits on the floating door waiting for rescue after the sinking!)

cross-posted on ao3!

———

 the two of you had lost each other in the hysteria of the crowd when the flares were first fired. of how long it had been since then, you were staggeringly uncertain. hours had bled into lifetimes, and lifetimes into seconds—for while the iceberg’s killing blow may have landed the starboard, the sands of time were the first to perish and disappear into the atlantic deep.

 frost clawed through the crevices of your lungs with every shuddering breath you stole back from panic. tears pricked at the corners of your eyes as the syllables of his name ghosted across your quivering lips in an echoing plea, one that was lost to the clamour and dissonance of every other terror-stricken soul on board. 

 it felt as if every pound summed from the blocks of cork in your lifebelt weighed nothing compared to the fear that imprisoned your chest between its teeth. and as it seemed that every face on this side of the ship was everyone's but his, it might as well have been heavy enough to sink and tow you headfirst to the ocean floor before the Unsinkable’s hull could crash into it, because fragments of him in the bedlam were all you could see.

 an old, ashen-faced gentleman with a nose that sloped like his. a young freckled girl from steerage with a similarly chipped tooth; you saw the gap between her molars as she cried out for her sister. there was a child with watery blue eyes, and another with unblinking glassy greens—then there was their mother, who had a divot in her throat that jutted out almost like the one you kissed every night before you went to sleep.

 the roaring pandemonium of screams and the dying howls that erupted deep from within the heart of the ship all but reached the peak of their crescendos as your eyes continued to dredge the thousands for a glimpse of the man you loved in a sea of strangers. the deafening clamour of it all swelled into an orchestra of white noise that tore severely through your head—

 —until the first, trembling miracle of the night presented itself in a cry of your name.

 and there he was.

 God, oh, God—there he was.

 vincent stands, almost petrified, at the starboard landing of the stairs that lead up to the aft deck; disheveled, frantic, and wild-eyed all at once. still, wretched as it was, the sight was something straight out of your most sacred prayers. just like he always had been.

 though you suppose the ones you used to utter as a young girl were disparate to the pleas you now begged.

 the scream that tore from vincent's throat across the deck seemed less like the sound of your name and more like a desperate cry to a God he had ignored his whole life—calling out in the fragile, infinitesimal hope that it would end up saving yours. 

 because for a split moment in his fear-shaken periphery, as the rear of the ship rose higher and higher into the sky, you were closer to the stars than he was to you. 

 with a shuddering groan, the titanic tilted and lowered her head deeper into the ocean, yet you paid it none of the mind your life could ill afford to spare elsewhere. the sight of him alone—alive—gave you enough courage to dare taking your hand off the railing. each nerve in your body, your temples, and your eyes were fixated on him as he lurched through the hysterical crowd, lunging past the raining current of people that had lost their grip on bulwarks and the debris that fell with them.

 every last shred of wisdom, judgment, and survival fled your wits just as the evils from pandora’s box did so long ago. with a shaking, whispered, "vincent," you feel your body lean forward along with the bow of the ship as you reach out toward him, almost surrendering yourself to the pull of gravity—the same force that he wrestled to defy for his body to collide into your own.

 one of his hands seizes the railing before the two of you could slide further down the deck, while the other clutches you tightly to his chest. the rush of adrenaline allows him to swing and hurl you both onto a mooring capstan, but even then, he doesn’t once loosen his hold on you.

 instead, vincent pulls you closer. he all but intertwines his ribs into the gaps between your own, almost as if he was trying to merge your two shivering heartbeats into one just so he could be sure yours was still pulsing.

 "honey," his breath comes out staggered as his hands find your arms, your hair, the curve of your jaw, and everywhere else his desperation could reach. "oh, baby. sweetheart." the kiss he crushes into your lips with a choked sob tasted of the sea and tears. "fuck." he pulls back, the blue and green of his eyes brimming with trembling, terrified relief. “you’re so stupid!”

 “vincent,” a whimper catches in your throat. you utter his name once more, then twice, and thrice again; it felt like the only word your mouth could remember to say. “oh, God, vincent.” your clammy palms find the pallid flesh of his cheeks, tasting a hiccuping sob of your own claw at the ridge of your larynx.

 “why the hell didn’t you get onto a lifeboat?” vincent demands, his face crumpled with anguish. you notice his glasses are missing. “they already made the women and children go first and you didn’t—damnit, (name), you could die!”

 “i couldn’t go,” you sob, “i couldn’t go, vince. not without you.”

 that only deepens the grief that lined his brow. “you could die,” vincent repeats desperately, the pads of his thumbs pressing violets into your cheekbones. “please. not you. anyone and a-anything but you. please. i-” tears flood the precipice of his lashes, yet he fought to make them remain unshed. “i can’t lose you, baby.”

 “and i already thought i did!” another heaving convulsion from the dying ship punctuates your futile grief. “i thought you were dead, vincent.”

 “rather me than you!”

 whatever retort stung the back of your eyes and the cusp of your lips was stolen by the shriek of steel tearing viciously against steel. it resounds ominously throughout the entire ship, followed by a tremor so violent it shook the weakening floorboards beneath your feet. the flickering amber lights saturate into a dimmer, reddish glow that illuminates the vehement fear and anger swirling in vincent’s lachrymose glare—a mournful gaze that once again hardens with a ferocity for survival as soon as the chorus of screams grew shriller against the stillness of the barren atlantic.

 he didn’t wait for you to piece back your words. he couldn’t.

 vincent clamps his hand over your wrist with a bruising grip and makes a break for the edge of the afterdeck, yanking you right after him. your mouth goes dry from sheer bewilderment, and you numbly let him drag you further up the stern.

 a sliver of gold catches in the pulsating light, almost tumbling out of vincent’s left pocket. dazedly, you recognise it as his father’s pocketwatch, yet he doesn’t spare the timepiece a single glance. the chain dangles off the third buttonhole of his open waistcoat, and the fractured dial read II and XVI. 2:16.

 the dreadful sound of steel rivets bursting added on to the macabre choir, likening themselves to the crack of gunshots in war. the pinewood decks began to shatter in detonating harmony, and the titanic was succumbing to the depths of the very ocean she had been destined to cross.

 vincent skids to a halt once his eyes register the amount of people crowding the taffrail. the pause was barely a moment, yet a century of seconds you could not afford to lose. the floorboards shook beneath your feet, tilting dangerously to a steeper slope.

 “vince–?!”

 “this way!” he roared, suddenly jerking you to the right. his hand slips tightly from your wrist to your palm as he clambers up the stairs to the docking bridge, hurling you both against the balcony’s balustrade. you yelp upon impact, shouting out in pain, but vincent barely gives you time to recover before he hauls you into his arms and charges toward the port side of the bridge, recklessly pushing past the few people that were also up on the platform.

 then, it happens.

 you can’t even begin to describe it.

 the strobing incandescent lights surged into a final, blazing flash—one that threatened a detonation of its tantalum bulbs—before a mighty crack tore through the ship and plunged it into overwhelming darkness.

 wind rushes out of your lungs and whistles past your ears in a scream that never made its way out of your chest. all fifty-two thousand and three hundred-some long tons of the titanic slams her great propellers back into the face of the ocean, and the endless cries of passengers grew impossibly louder upon landing.

 reeling from the shock, you break out into a cold sweat and feel panic creeping up the atlas of your spine.

 did… did the ship split in two?

 eyes widening in horror, you subconsciously raise your quivering fingers to your lips, before slowly closing them over your mouth.

 realisation dawns on you. 

 there were people in the water beneath the stern.

 poets and scientists alike had always emphasised how spectacularly light could blind. what they never quite mentioned, however, was how equally harrowing the theft of sight by darkness could be.

 “sweetheart?” vincent’s voice whispers weakly. you sense the familiar brush of his touch blindly fumble for you beneath the veil of night.

 “...i’m here,” you say hoarsely. every inch and crevice of your body was trembling.

 “oh, thank goodness,” he breathes. his hands feebly wrap around your shoulders again, and you notice that he’s trembling, too.

 “vinny,” your palpitation stumbles, and you swallow nervously. “vinny, i’m scared. i’m so scared.”

 vincent’s right hand moves to cradle the back of your hair as he hushes you. he presses his forehead to yours, almost as tenderly as he did when he first promised you the world. “i know. trust me, baby, i know.”

 “i–”

 “listen.” for once, the dying vessel isn’t what interrupts you, though it was getting increasingly harder to ignore as its hull begins to rise out of the water again. he pulls you in closer, urgency building in his tone. “we’re going to have to jump.”

 your heart stops. 

 “what?”

 titanic gives another agonising lurch, one that seemed like her final deathbound farewell. a jagged noise staggers in your throat from the sudden movement, and you instinctively claw for the front of vincent’s shirt in fear.

 “we have to jump before the ship goes down,” he repeats gravely. “when i tell you to jump, you jump.”

 “wait, vincent–”

 vincent doesn’t stop. “keep your legs straight as you fall. cross an arm over your chest to hold down your lifebelt so it doesn’t seize up and break your neck.” he’s practically just muttering the instructions against your lips now. “and make sure to cover your face with the other hand so you don’t inhale water into your lungs from the shock of the cold.”

 “vince–”

 “once you hit the water, swim. swim as- as far as possible from the ship so you don’t get pulled down with it. if we get separated in the fall, don’t look back. don’t come back for me. swim for the lifeboats as soon as you can- and live, (name), you have to promise me that you’ll live–”

 “goddamnit, whittman, would you shut up for a second and listen to me!?”

 the ground tilts into a slanting wall, and it would not have been far-fetched to presume that the propellers once again loomed like guillotines above the sea and below the sky it mirrored. as your eyes begin to adjust to the darkness and the faintest starlight gives you a glimpse of the distress that had overcome his face, you’re almost certain that he, too, could see the outrage that was plaguing yours.

 “if i jump, you jump.” you seethe. the tip of your finger jabs into his chest. “we will jump together, and we will stay together.”

 his hand catches your wrist, and you feel the anger in his grip as it digs into your pulse. “don’t be a martyr, (name),” vincent snarls. “we don’t have time for this.”

 “you think time would mean anything to me once it passes without you?” you spit furiously, though fresh tears were burning rivers through your throat and past your cheeks once again. “what about new york, vincent? the station? your- our dreams?” a choked sound threatens to disrupt your impassioned retaliation. “i’m not about to search for you in every shadow of a city we’ve never lived in!”

 “you’re the only reason why!” he says desperately. vincent forces your hand closer to his body, so you had no choice but to flatten it over his chest—right above where his heart continued to beat wildly. his fingers lace through the spaces between yours. “all of it would mean nothing without you. you’re the reason why i even have a dream to lose. hell,” he lets out a watery laugh, before it bleeds into an uncharacteristic sob. 

 “you are my dream, (name). you are my reason why.”

  he knew you were running out of time. he knew it was a fight he would lose. letting you fire back a response wasn’t in the cards of fate, nor was it in his. it just wasn’t.

 titanic was already a few degrees shy of ninety by the time you felt him inching you both closer to the edge of the balustrade. it was a dance in the dark—a fragile waltz upon the tightrope that was the railing—strung together in infinitesimal faith with every trembling step he blindly led you through.

 “so we’ll jump,” he breathes with finality. “so help me God, we jump.” his nails dig into your skin, a four-crescent etch of promise. “together.”

 below you, the ocean spreads its wide behemoth maw, bubbling perilously as it continues to swallow the ship into a watery grave. the thought of it alone was daunting enough, but the fact that the vortex was perceivable only by sound and not sight made it all the more terrifying.

 you fumble for the rail, feeling your hand quiver violently as your skin meets iron, and take great care in swinging your leg over the narrow bar.

 “careful, now.” there’s a slight, concentrated wobble in vincent’s voice. “i’ve got you. i’m still here.”

 almost mockingly, the ship gives another sudden lurch, and you grip his hand even tighter than before.

 “it’s okay. shit, it’s okay,” he rambles feverishly, though you aren’t sure if he’s reassuring you or himself. “i won’t let go. you’re fine. keep going.” vincent squeezes back firmly. “but hurry.”

 it’s significantly harder to bring your other foot over the railing. your heart hammers painfully against your ribs, increasing in tempo as you inch yourself further to the left, quite literally dancing on the edge of the world.

 or what was left of yours, anyway.

 you faintly sense vincent all but tumble onto the precipice along with you, hearing the way his chest heaved from the effort. the railing presses coldly into your back, and you feel your stomach drop when you sense the port side twisting the slightest bit forward.

 “shit,” you curse under your breath. “oh, shit, shit, shit.”

 neither you nor he had to see to know that you now hung off angled toward the ocean. time was ticking, the world was tilting on its axis, and you had to jump now.

 “remember what i said?” vincent asks urgently, reaching around your back to lay a hand over your lifebelt’s left shoulder—half with the intention to help you keep it down, but with all the reason to still be able to hold you in the fall.

 “yes.” you mirror his actions, crossing your right arm over your chest. you meet his fingers over your shoulder, and he shifts to reposition his hand over yours.

 “do not forget to cover your mouth.”

 “i could say the same to you,” you say weakly, fingers digging into the canvas.

 “good.” vincent tightens his grip. “on my mark.”

 impossible thunder roars beneath the ocean, rumbling with a legion of tempests as air collapses within what was left of the broken stern. your fingertips scramble to relearn the grooves in the galvanised rail and commit it to memory one last time; bidding a quiet, heartbroken farewell to the ship of dreams.

 “now!”

 you let go.

 wind howls deafeningly in your ears as the plummet rips you both downward into the darkness. for the shortest, yet longest moment of your life, you were weightless; and the powerful current that gusts with gravity savagely strips the air from your lungs. you don’t hear yourself scream at all, but the pain that seared your throat proved otherwise.

 vincent’s fingers claw wildly for your neck as you fall, before all traces of his touch vanish for a bloodcurdling heartbeat. he shouts something, but you barely register it over the vicious sound of the rush.

 fear douses your spine as you plunge, untethered, until you feel his body miraculously crash into your back again. he shoots an arm across your sternum and clamps over your right shoulder with renewed strength, snaring you to his chest with more regard for your life than his own.

 you struggle against the pull, fighting to force a hand against your mouth. your lungs stagger, you choke, you almost forget how to breathe—

 and a thousand knives tear from your ankles to your skull as you slam into the atlantic with a violent crash.

 ice shoots up your body, near-paralysing in shock, and a gasp instinctively rips through your lungs from the cold. it snaps your jaw open in a desperate, primal demand for air, one that the ocean was undeniably all too happy to fill. brine floods into your mouth and stings the back of your tongue like lye—frigid and piercing as liquid fire; a cold so intense it burned.

 then, almost as swiftly as you plunged into the deep, it hurls you right back out. the cork in your lifebelt nearly forgoes your head, and you struggle to keep it down as the buoyancy sharply forces you to resurface. you sputter out water as the dead, bitter cold sinks its teeth into your skin once again, and you thrash against the invisible current that dared to tow you under.

 coughing madly, completely agonised by the ice that burned in your lungs, you heave for air. neither fear nor shadow had ever acquainted themselves with you this much until tonight—and neither bore hands you had ever wanted to shake.

 above you, the sky steadily slips the drape that was the titanic’s silhouette off her starlit shoulders. the disrobing of the night was captivating in theory, yet devastating in actuality; for the confines between the atlantic and the styx had begun to surge into a single downward current. the vessel is pulled beneath the water with a haste that paralleled the rape and capture of persephone into the underworld, though some may argue that one’s death was more merciful than the other’s abduction.

 she grows drunk on the sea, drowning her hollowed carcass in brine, and filling her rooms with saltwater where she could not carry dreams—dreams that man’s hubris had intended her to carry, for the sake of honour, glory, and renown. 

 a mighty undead roar rumbles from within the iron cadaver as the bubbling maelstrom that was the titanic’s last breath finally sinks beneath the lifeless tide. and in the briefest, most impossible instant, the unsinkable ship of dreams disappears into the heart of the ocean—with a quiet humility she had never been fated for, and with a thousand five hundred souls she had never been supposed to kill.

 it leaves a rattle in your skull and a thunder in your ears, and you feel the distant sound echo through your blood in a hypnotising tempo that fools your pulse into an equivalent cadence.

 you don’t know if you should be grateful that you couldn’t tell which direction the ship sank in. orientation had entirely lost its hold on you; left was right and east was west, and you realise too late that it’s not the only thing whose touch your flesh missed. with a growing horror, you realise that the only weight you carried was your own—

 and the weight you lacked had no means to stay afloat.

 your blood runs cold.

 “VINCENT!”

 the scream hurts—burns—more than the cold ever could. it tears up the sides of your trachea, trailing fire in its wake, yet is nothing but a needle in a haystack of wails. the placid air seems to have solidified into a tremendous wall of sound that presses upon the surface of the atlantic, petrified by the shrill coalescence of voices crying out for a salvation that would never come.

 and oh, how you miss when pain was easier to fathom.

 a litany of emotion, sensation, and anguish yank at the veins of your heart, stretching them apart into a forced web of bloodied tapestry, just as the flesh of a lamb torn to shreds by wolves would spill past yellowed canine fangs after the slaughter. 

 you are entirely alone in the chorus, a discordant note in the paradoxical shrieking harmony, fighting to see even in sightlessness. thrashing in the water, you fight to stay upright, blindly reaching out into the darkness in hopes to feel his skin against your touch. was it foolish? searching for what could not guarantee survival but would have promised life even in death? 

 perhaps. entirely.

 so let it be as it were — thus a fool you’d become, and a fool you’d remain.

 blood and screams pounding in your ears, you splash around, kicking and flailing despite the buoyancy wrapped in canvas around your torso. you fling more needles into the hay, crying out into a night that replied with nothing but echoes mocking your desperation.

 “oh, God, oh God,” you chant, gasping greedily for breath. “vincent!”

 the muscles in your neck strain as you whip your head in every direction, searching without sight. your eyes ache against the darkness, and you thrash to keep upright, carving your fingers into the sea in hopes to latch onto something other than water.

 your hand strikes wood—not flesh—and you scramble to dig your nails into it in an attempt to yank the debris closer to yourself. not dense enough to sink, light enough to stay afloat; but too narrow to climb upon.

 helpless, you collapse against the flotsam, feeling your cheek burrow into its grooves in a way that was sure to leave marks. you could not find it in yourself to care.

 survivors around you had regressed into animals as they fought for breath. their savage struggle for air was inhuman by nature, yet it was the rawest display of humanity you had ever witnessed.

 these were all people.

 just like you were.

 just like vincent was. 

 is.

 tears squeeze out of your eyes, turning to frost before they could slip past your lips. you barely know if you’re even still alive, how much more could you believe he was either?

 the darkness answers your ponder in kind.

 a hand lurches out of the abyss and clamps heavily around your ankle. panic seizes your throat, wrenching your mouth open in a voiceless scream. the wood pitches downward with a sickening jerk, nearly pulling itself vertical as you pull it down with you. the lifebelt digs into your ribs—taut against your chest, stifling against your stomach.

 the weight that came with the intrusive grip was heavy. it almost renders your lifebelt useless as you are dragged down, all the way until your shoulders, and the stranger claws past the skirt and hip of your dress as they try to escape the clutches of the ocean.

 but it was a grip you would recognise in every lifetime.

 the surface explodes beside you, and a head breaks out of the water with a violent, coughing gasp. the wooden beam falls back against the ocean as the shadow lets out a painful retch, emptying their lungs of seawater. he frantically heaves in air like a man starved—but his first breath was a feeble croak of your name.

 you feel your heart somehow stop and revive all at once. “vince?”

 the stranger shifts in the water, and the wood dips where he was clutching on to it. “(name)?” he wheezes thickly.

 “vince,” you sob in relief, “oh, baby.”

 “(name),” he chokes, and God, he sounds so weak. “(name).”

 you reach out blindly for him, but he meets you halfway, and you feel the locks of his hair press wetly against the underside of your chin. vincent coughs as he writhes, inching himself closer to you, and his fingernails scratch dully at the back of your lifebelt. he shakily huddles into your chest, right over the sound of your weakening heartbeat.

 still, desperately, foolishly—in hope and in agony—he listens. he writes each sequence and impulse into the backs of his eyes and the membrane of his ears and he holds you, holds onto you, with every ounce of strength he had left in his body—the only thing that could still keep him afloat.

 you were his only lifeline.

 “darling,” your lips move against his hair. “can you–” you give an involuntary hiccup, and vincent presses himself closer to your body. “can you take off your boots?”

 “w…what?”

 “try… taking them off… if you can.” you loosen your grip just a fraction, but he holds on tighter. “it’ll help you… float easier…”

 you feel his hesitation. 

 “i mean– fuck,” you tremble. “do you… even have enough strength to?”

 “if… it’ll help me… stay with you… a little longer.”

  his words hang heavy between the two of you. vincent moves, slowly but surely, to untangle his fingers from the straps of your lifebelt. your hand shoots out to clutch the scruff of his collar, making sure he’d still be tethered to you, as he sacrificed seconds of his life to bargain for minutes from death.

 vincent takes in a shuddering breath, stoking the ice that burned his throat, and disappears once again into a darkness that swallows him whole. the temporary loss of him envelops you, even though you know he is just inches below the surface. worry festers in you despite yourself.

 underwater, he struggles. you feel him thrash desperately as he tries to untie the cords laced through his boots, though his movements are sloppy. sluggish.

 he resurfaces barely twenty seconds later.

“i can’t. my fingers– i’m–” vincent sounds completely heartbroken. “i’m sorry.”

“no- no-” you hush him, pulling him close to your body again. “you’re… you’re okay, baby,” you promise, though your breath stutters. “you’re f-fine. i’ve got you.”

 you feel him slacken against your chest, and you knew that he, too, was crying.

 around you, the wall of wails slowly crumbles into the sea like the city of jericho, fading into a quiet that proved to be more terrifying than the noise.

 “tell me… about the house,” you whisper. “the one in… the one in new york.”

 “our house?” his voice is muffled.

 you breathe out a wet laugh. “yes, my love. o-our house.”

 “i’ve–” vincent shivers fiercely as he attempts to inhale, gently untangling from your embrace, then slowly swims toward your scanty piece of driftwood to hold onto it himself. “i’ve already got the deed.”

 “y-yeah?” you prompt him.

 the wood gives a tiny lurch as he finally drops and rests his head on top of it.

 vincent takes a while to respond.

 “…and?”

 “it’s… it’s in my trunk,” he finally says, before letting out a weak, almost pitiful chuckle. “at the bottom… of the ocean.”

 silence stretches for a moment.

 nudging the side of your hand against his, you murmur, “t-tell… tell me more.”

 “like what?” he asks weakly, quietly. 

 “the kitchen. the… the garden.” you’re already beginning to feel the cold seep into your bones and ebb at your life. “you told me… it was near…. central park.”

 “r–right. it was. it is,” vincent corrects himself. his tremors begin to grow sharper.

 “and what… what ab-about it?”

 “th’re’s… a big, wide window… in the kitchen,” he breathes, reciting it almost mindlessly off the top of his head. “looks right o-out into the river, so you can watch the ducks as… as you cook. be-because– you… you’d like that. yo-you’d like that, w-wouldn’t y-you… honey?

 “i would,” you promise, and your little finger quivers as you try to hook it over his own. “i… d-definitely would.”

 he continues. “and a… a big old library. w-with shelves…. an’ ev-everything,” vincent swallows laboriously. “all e-empty, though. ‘c-cause we– we were s’posed to… to fill them up… with books… as time passed. and our children would’ve… ‘d’ve learned how to read… there… ‘cause we’d– we’d teach them how. t-together.”

 ice forgoes your heart as it crawls up your muscles, turning your blood into glaciers and your tears into winter rivers. your pulse swells, then it eclipses; imprisoned by frost, and ensnared with grief. 

 you try not to let him hear the way your voice breaks. “and t-the garden, vinny? tell me about… tell me about the garden.”

 anything to keep him conscious.

 "flowers... that hang around th-the balcony... lilies, 'c-cause i know those are your f-fav-favourite," he hiccups, then shudders; it was obvious that every word he whispered wracked pain through his body. "and we'll... sit out there... in- in the mornings, ov-over c-coffee." 

 vincent weakly raises his head with the intention to look at you, but the mind-numbing cold pushes his cheek back against the soaked wood. "you'll call me an idiot... and i'll–" he lets out a heaving cough that sounds like a cross between a sob and a laboured gasp. "i'd tell you that you're beautiful."

 it was too dark to see anything. night fell heavy over the waters of the atlantic, and the cries of whoever had still been alive begun to wane into nothingness. your sight failed you—all you could fathom was darkness; but still, you felt him. you’d know his presence in shadow, you’d hear him in silence, and you’d have found him even in places no one else would be found.

 the stumbling, fragile flutter of his breath ghosts over your numb fingertips, and vincent’s hand fumbles to lace through the spaces between yours. you lower your head and press a frozen kiss to his knuckles—the bloodless flesh just below where his wedding ring sat.

 his next words come out slurred; weak with cold, drunk with sorrow, and heavy with regret. it echoes in your ears and the endless sea, over a still tide that mirrored a moonless sky full of stars you were never meant to name or rewrite.

 “i’m sorry i couldn’t get you a better ticket.”

꩜ a/n: aaaand there goes my longest fic EVER, and my first official angst work! i spent way too much time researching and watching documentaries just to get every single detail correct. i kid you not, this fic had me reading entire wikipedia articles in class and giggling over blueprints and hunting down 3d models of the ship and watching morse code logs with rapt attention. call me james cameron cuz best believe i'm citing all my sources below .. muehehe this started out as a writing exercise for a supposedly longer fic, then ended up becoming the longer fic. spent 43 days and countless 5am nights pouring my heart and soul into this—it went from being just another fanfic to being my love letter to the ship of dreams. the reason why this fic took so long to write was bc describing the high-stakes action was absolutely KICKING my ass. i'll stick to my emotions and dialogue thank you very much. but yes, thank you, to everyone who waited patiently for this and supported me all the way!! i can almost say with certainty that this is historically accurate. i hope you enjoyed the fruits of sleepless research born from the revival of a 3rd grade obsession <3 thank you, dear reader, for reading this all the way to the end. i am honoured to have been a steward of your time. i hope you loved reading this as much as i loved writing it! knock knock, voxblr, wake up. mommy's home (¬ᴗ ´¬ ) (and yes, the title is absolutely taken from a track of the titanic musical score!)

as promised, the citations. ♡ ꩜ taglist: @whoatemycheezeits @tuquoque @aquaticari @etcherrie @safination

cross-posted on ao3!

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