okay I lied that was so not half an hour it was a lot more than that
anyways here's Vlancy and it's like. I don't know how I got here but we're here?? @pinkfeatherglass here's your food. 1.1k words oh god
Clancy didn’t.. Well, he didn’t understand.
And the thing he didn’t understand was Vessel. Just.. as a whole.
He didn’t understand what this was. This situation. The reasoning behind this guy’s appearance in his life. Clancy had enough to deal with already, with Nico and the niners and the Banditos- a tall brit with six eyes and charcoal skin who had his own load of crap going on on top of that? His head was spinning.
That’s why these moments were nice.
Feet dangling over the edge of a cliff, mindlessly worrying his stole in his fingers, breathing in the crisp sea air, basking in the dimming light of the sun.
It helped Clancy clear his head. Set him back on track.
Torchbearer would come looking for him eventually. The Banditos needed him. But he needed a few minutes more to figure out how to help Vessel out. The guy had a band with him, plus their own deity they needed to deal with(that honestly sounded.. Tempting to devote to), and buckets full of issues.. Clancy wanted to take some of that weight off of his shoulders.
Call him a people pleaser, what could he do?
Right, focus. Okay, so, what had Vessel told him about Eden? Shorelines?
The warmth at his side and a pair of feet appearing over the ledge next to his snapped him out of his thoughts.
“Torch, hey, I’m gonna head back soon, I uh..” Clancy trailed off, looking up at the person next to him.
“Wrong person. But I was going to ask you about that,” Vessel murmured. His voice was surprisingly soft for how rough he looked. Even in the Bandito jacket they’d given him(because that.. robe was doing nothing for him out here).
Yellow looked nice on him.
The newcomer folded his hands in his lap as he settled, tilting his head at Clancy.
“The.. Banditos.. are looking for you. They worry.” He had to hold back a laugh. Vessel found the word “Banditos” to be weird. Gosh, wait until he learned about the Neds. “Ah, yeah, no, they do that. Nico’s always out to get me. I mean, like, I’m fine, clearly. Not kidnapped. Just.. taking a breather, y’know? Leadership is heavy. All these responsibilities.. Gotta take a step back every now and then.”
“Of course. I understand. I need the same, when it comes to my own duties. Sleep asks a lot of me. I manage all of Arcadia for him.”
“And how big is that kinda task? Bigger than breaking generational long cycles and freeing a continent?” No malice, just.. Curiosity.
Clancy liked hearing Vessel speak. He was a good storyteller.
“Well, I cannot compare what I do to what you do. Not exactly. I care for the realm nearly entirely. II is by my side, and the others, but it is still a great weight to shoulder while also concerning myself with writing and music.”
“Oh, man, now you’re speaking my language! It’s wild, right? Like, I wanna sit and play piano, not run a group of people who all look up to me to break a cycle.”
He threw up his hands flopped back in the grass, letting a sigh deflate his chest.
Vessel watched Clancy—which always felt odd, by the way, because Clancy knew there were three sets of eyes on him but only one face—and hesitated for a moment before joining him on the ground.
“I find the cycle breaking to be the worst. Ending or enduring.. Sorry, wait, you play piano, too?”
“Heck yeah. Well, sorta. I don’t know a ton of chords. I hit just the black keys and that.. It sounds pretty nice. Nice enough. I bet you’re tons better than I am, though. You got good fingers for it.”
A pause between the two. Clancy spluttered in an attempt to correct himself.
“Not like- not like I look at your fingers a lot, I mean, like, they’re really nice lookin’ and of course you play piano- Sahlo- shut me up, please.”
Vessel turned his head to look at Clancy, who responded by turning his away, staring up at the darkening sky.
“I could teach you.”
“Huh?”
“I could teach you chords. You said you do not know many. I could show you how to play properly. My fingers are made for it, after all,” he murmured, soft amusement lacing his words. Vessel lifted a hand upwards, examining it, the slender appendage framed by the faint flickers of stars and increasingly dim sunlight.
“Oh. Yeah, really? I- that’d be cool.” It would be cool. Really. Clancy, though, was not cool. Thank goodness for his mask.
The man next to him laughed softly, as though he saw the flustered blush through the grey and red fabric.
“It would be.”
He paused, taking a steadying breath.
“Let me see your hand, next to mine. Some chords are more difficult than others, and, er, my hand is long enough that I do not often struggle. I.. want to see if you might. To.. to er.. Evaluate what to teach.. You.?”
Oh, very smooth.
Both of them, truly. Smoothest talkers in all of Trench. And Arcadia.
Clancy held a hand up next to Vessel’s. His was shorter than the latter, his fingers a little wider. Vessel’s palm was larger. Both had similarly blacked out skin. Clancy found it to be an intriguing detail, especially with how impossibly different the circumstances of the two of them gaining such features was.
If Vessel had a plan, Clancy could feel it die out as their pinkies brushed.
It was his turn to laugh, now.
And be the bold one.
They were taking turns, really.
The Bandito flipped his hand around, grabbing onto Vessel’s, lacing their fingers.
They both stilled.
Now nobody had a plan.
“Well-” “Should-”
“Oh, sorry, you-” “Please-”
“I could-” “Do you-”
They both turned their heads to look at each other and promptly burst into laughter.
Soft. Easy. Free.
Clancy spoke first.
“Is this okay?”
“Yes. I.. I wish I had done it, though. I intended to.” “Oh. I could.. Wait, here.”
He unlaced their fingers.
“Okay, restart.”
Vessel smiled at him before directing his attention back to their hands, taking the lead in twining them together this time around.
“.. everyone is asleep, mind you. I came looking for you because I.. missed you.”
“You missed me?”
“Yes. You have become familiar to me, here, where nothing else is.”
“.. oh.”
Clancy thought for a moment.
“I.. I wanna get you back to where everything is familiar to you. Even if it’s where I won’t reach you. You deserve it.”
“I want to help you save your continent.”
“I want to stay in contact.” “I think we can manage that.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Cool. Let’s.. Let’s do that. We’ll plan that out. But you gotta teach me chords, first.”
“Of course. So long as you stop mistaking me for Torchbearer.”
“I’ll work on it.”
“Good enough, I suppose.” “You suppose?”
