FRANK DAMASCA
Banshee
Posts: 127
Played by:
Ange
Last seen Oct 18, 2024 17:04:31 GMT
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Post by FRANK DAMASCA on Feb 17, 2021 16:32:10 GMT
They’d sat him in the back seat of the detective’s car. A silver thermal blanket wrapped around him like he was the survivor of some sort of plane crash, trying to keep him warm even though his body had given up shivering the minute they’d tried to drag him away from …
Theo
Frank had barely moved since they’d put him there. His hazel eyes had locked on the still form just visible through the trees with the lights the detective had set up. The cops had pushed everybody back behind yellow tape lines but he’d felt the presence of them like needle pricks between his shoulder blades. A faint sting of sensation when everything including the cold and the crinkle of the blanket as he breathed melted away.
They hadn’t moved him either. Before the cops had arrived and had forced him back, Frank had watched the paramedics who’d arrived first check for a pulse, slipping their fingers between his grasping hands and Theo’s bloodied throat. Pink against the cold, pale flesh of his body. The thought had him sucking in a breath, the tears beginning to burn in his eyes and throat again. Frank tightened his fingers, clung to that blanket for a second until the numbness could well back up and swallow the need to scream out his grief again. They’d let their fingers linger there a long while, despite the blood, despite the dull hazel irises peering from behind eyelids gone slack with death. Hanging on like his sheer will alone might have somehow brought life back to Theo’s still body.
A quiet murmur of voices then, a quiet murmur now. Distant, radios buzzing lightly. Others had tried to rush in then, students, coworkers, all calling out to him, only getting so far before the paramedics had pushed them back, leaving him alone with his brother again. Clinging on. Unable to let go of all he had left of the other part of him until the detective had arrive and peeled his hands away by force. Two of them had pulled him back towards the car, trying to coax an explanation for what had happened out of him with those quiet questions. He’d shaken his head, tears streaming through the blood that streaked his face from his attempts to save Theo, to bring him back.
The two – a man and woman – were there now. Talking quietly on either side of the … of Theo. If he’d looked at them instead of at that still form he might’ve heard them discussing what had happened, wondering if the blade had been in his hand and this was some sort of Cain and Abel situation. As if he ever would’ve been able to lash out like that, to carve the other half of himself from existence.
That fist tightened in his chest, leaving him breathless as he hunched forward. Those voices he’d heard in his head before grew in intensity, the weight of them trying to crush him again.
Gone, he was gone.
A breath sucked in that felt like it would never end, the dark water endless above his head as he tried to kick his way back to some semblance of reality, of the horrible truth. Voices grew around him again, the one that had asked if he had a phone with him, anybody to call, the one who had taken the phone carefully from his pocket as he ‘d just continued to sit there statue still. Blood stained and broken. Unable to snap the cord that had always existed between them, no matter how far apart they’d been.
Frank’s eyes watered as he watched the male detective bend and carefully peel back the label of Theo’s coat, fingers indicating something at his shoulder before he looked up and met his eye. He held it, that breath still trapped, until a shadow fell over him. For what felt like the first time since he’d been eased down on the seat Frank tilted his head up. The broad shoulders and long hair were in silhouette, the light from the crime scene equipment wreathing Kit in shadow. The words 'he’s gone' stayed trapped in Frank’s throat as he tried to force them past the sobs that stared to wrack his body as that breath exploded out.
Theo was dead.
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KIT CLARKE
Werewolf
Posts: 136
Age:
33
Occupation:
Manager at The Ruby Slipper
Status:
It's Complicated
Partner:
Katja De La Cruz
Played by:
Julia
"You make my cold heart warm with a touch."
Last seen Nov 11, 2024 19:01:45 GMT
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Post by KIT CLARKE on Feb 22, 2021 21:52:28 GMT
 ━ nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky ━
‘Hello?’ It wasn’t Frank’s voice. He remembered ‘there’s been an emergency’ and immediately thinking something had happened to Frank. He pressed for more answers as he’d rushed into the break room, trying to find a bubble of silence away from the heavy, thudding bass of the music within the club. Frank was fine, but Kit was his emergency contact. The voice had called him ‘Kristopher’, even if he knew his name in Frank’s phone was definitely not that. It brought a level of seriousness to this that immediately overwhelmed him, causing Kit to straighten his back and harden, the nervous knot in his stomach twisting and tangling. He’d pressed for Frank, demanding to hear his voice, but they’d just asked him to get there as quickly as possible.
He’d left work quickly and called an Uber to take him to the college. When Kit had arrived, everything suddenly made more sense. He approached the yellow tape, shouting at the officer who put a hand on his chest and tried to keep him back. He yelled out his own name, then Frank’s, until somebody came over and allowed him passage. He was too nervous to make a snide comment at the cop who’d held him back, quickly tucking his hair behind one ear, following the woman whose voice he recognized from the phone call.
He saw it before he found Frank. Saw the body, bloody and looking identical to his roommate. At first, Kit thought he’d lost his second brother. Another bit of family taken from him, stabbed to death and left to lay on the floor, lifeless in a puddle of his own blood. Had Kit done this? Was it his fault again? Blue eyes fell to his hands, but they weren’t covered in red like they had been that night. How much of this could he be imagining? Were they bringing him here to question him?
No. They’d told him Frank was okay, that Kit was only called because he was their next contact. Next in line. After… Theo.
It almost hurt more. Kit was never as close to Theo as he was Frank, but he knew what it was like to lose your brother. He knew the hurt coursing through Frank, how he must have been shattered and heartbroken, left to go on without his other half.
He was led to the car and, finally, to Frank. The man looked like an absolute wreck, wrapped up in a blanket that reminded Kit of a burrito. Even the image couldn’t bring any humour to his expression, though. This was real pain; one Kit had hoped Frank would never have to feel. And though it hurt him more than anything to have to relive it, he knew he’d be by Frank’s side no matter what. This was the man who had stuck with Kit when he’d killed his own brother, the only one that still answered his calls in jail and even gave half a shit about him. They were bonded from more than just the war, though that surely took up a large chunk of their friendship. They were continuously saving one another, being there when nobody else would be, and Kit knew this was his duty now. To serve what family he had left, after he’d been removed from anything else that had given him purpose. His country turned its back on him, his family, but not Frank. Never Frank, and Kit wouldn’t do that now, no matter how much this tore him apart on the inside. Frank was hurting more, and that’s what mattered now.
He didn’t have the words. They didn’t help. What he did have was an undying brotherly love and loyalty towards Frank, and it was what brought him to kneel outside of the car. Kit leaned in, wrapping his arms around Frank and cradling him there, just as Frank had done the night they’d sat outside and talked about this very nightmare. He tried to give all that he could to Frank through that hug, and to take his pain, even if he knew that wasn’t how his abilities worked. They could draw out physical pain, but not this. This heartache would last forever.
“They gonna let you go home?” He asked quietly, still holding Frank after a few long moments had passed. “They’re gonna… need t’look at this for a while.” Kit didn’t think Frank would want to leave his brother. He wasn’t trying to pull him away, either, because he wouldn’t have left Kace if they hadn’t cuffed him and thrown him in the back of a police car. But even if he’d been allowed to stay with his baby brother, it wouldn’t have done anything but prolong the pain. Kit knew that now. It was what he was trying to protect Frank from.
FRANK DAMASCA |   |
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FRANK DAMASCA
Banshee
Posts: 127
Played by:
Ange
Last seen Oct 18, 2024 17:04:31 GMT
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Post by FRANK DAMASCA on Mar 5, 2021 18:57:04 GMT
Drifting in that drowning current of relief and shock, Frank hadn’t known where to reach for an anchor. He wanted to throw a hand out, to find way to stop sinking, someone to help pull him out of whatever nightmare this way that he suddenly found himself adrift in. The cops had asked, pushed to get someone here for him to do just that with but the words wouldn’t come. Theo had been that person for him the last time, the one to pull him out of his drug ridden haze when he’d come around from the surgery to patch his shattered shoulder together. Theo had always been the one but now his brother’s death was that nightmare, his loss the current threatening to take him down with him to those black, smothering depths.
With every passing moment he sank deeper. The detectives had told him they’d spoken to someone, that they were coming for him but then he’d been alone. Eyes only able to focus on the nightmare of the scene in front of him, watching mutely as they had searched the area, as that detective had bent over Theo, slowly unwrapping the coat from where it had tangled around Theo, revealing more of the damage, indicating, focusing. His brother’s body under a microscope and he didn’t want to see. He wanted Theo to jump up and spread out his arms, laughing how all of this had been some elaborate prank. God, he would’ve pounded him into the floor for it but this was no joke. Theo hadn’t pranked him, given him a story he’d eventually tell Niko about when he saw him, laughing into the tender skin at the nape of his neck, the curls he loved to wrap his fingers in brushing against the side of his face. The world would be OK then, everything as it should’ve been.
But it wasn’t, it never would be now.
The nightmare future he’d spoken about with Kit on that night they’d both ended up in the yard, trying to exorcise their demons with liquor, here, drowning him, killing some part of him too.
Then Kit was there, as he had been that night. The shadow he cast clearing as he dropped to his knees in front of him. The anchor he’d desperately wanted, pulling him into a hug. The sobs shuddered through him again, hot tears spiling from his eyes as he slammed his lids shut. His fingers let go of the blanket that crinkled around him, clutching at his friend as he collapsed into him. All that pain poured out, feeling like it was spilling from every pour. Frank held tight, waiting for that torrent to end. It felt like an eternity before he could finally draw in a breath again. The numbness settled back in, his head lifting just high enough to see them covering Theo’s body with a sheet.
He drew back then, his head dropping to Kit’s shoulder, his eyes squeezing shut again to block out the sight. To hide the truth from himself about what had happened since he’d blinked in his office and ended up out here like some twisted version of Dorothy waking up in Oz. ”Y-yeah,” he croaked, his voice barely audible. The single word feeling as raw and bloody as the wounds that had carved deep in Theo’s chest. He drew back slowly, his hands finding Kit’s shoulders as he stared into his eyes. He shook his head side to side, tears brimming in his hazel eyes again. ”I don’t know what happened. Kit, I don’t remember…” The words trailed off to barely a whisper, as though his throat were trying to lock them in as the truth emerged. ”I was … one minute I was in the office, I was getting smug because he had to stay tonight and I could head out … then … I was here. He was here, and I was screaming. He’s gone … Theo’s gone … someone killed him …” Another sob caught him in its grip then, the shakes starting again until he was shuddering like the temperature had dropped thirty degrees in an instant. His hands fluttered, fingers loosing from their grip on Kit’s shoulders until he was wrapping his arms around himself, trying to stop the spill of this all now.
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KIT CLARKE
Werewolf
Posts: 136
Age:
33
Occupation:
Manager at The Ruby Slipper
Status:
It's Complicated
Partner:
Katja De La Cruz
Played by:
Julia
"You make my cold heart warm with a touch."
Last seen Nov 11, 2024 19:01:45 GMT
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Post by KIT CLARKE on Mar 9, 2021 20:34:17 GMT
━ nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky ━
Even if he had, Kit would’ve stayed by him. Frank had. They were brothers now, and nothing would change that. Not even the worst shit imaginable━shit like having your brother sliced up, his blood on your hands literally and figuratively.
He was on his knees before he could think about anything else. Giving Frank what he knew the man needed, all Kit had wanted while he was locked up and unable to find any sort of physical connection. Thick arms flew around Frank, wrapping him up and replacing that blanket, though Kit was sure his werewolf heat would do a lot more than some burrito-like cover. Even in the extreme cold of February, he always ran hot, and he hoped Frank was drawing comfort from it. If he couldn’t take Frank’s pain away, Kit hoped he could at least give him that.
One hand slipped up to rub Frank’s back in small circles, allowing the man to seek any sort of solace in his arms. Despite the gay jokes and all of the times Kit had tensed up, thinking he’d crossed some kind of bro-line, he didn’t recoil from the touch. Kit would be there for as long as Frank needed him, maybe even when he didn’t want him.
Kit looked at Frank as he drew back, his own head casting a shadow over the other man’s face. Darkening it completely, though nothing could hide the glisten of tears in his eyes. He listened silently as Frank relayed the story, not pulling much sense out of it, but he understood the lapses in time when trauma was involved. For once, Kit tried to be a quiet observer, allowing his best friend to get out everything he needed. But then Frank was pulling away, and Kit was losing his hold on the man, everything he was trying to avoid.
Kit moved back in, enveloping Frank once more, though this time Frank’s own arms were caught between their chests. “They’re gonna catch the bastard that did this.” He let the words seep out, fury hidden somewhere deep in him. His care for Frank came out in anger, wishing there was some way he could stop his friend’s pain or reverse this all together. There wasn’t, and he knew that, making him all the more frustrated. If he could get a whiff of Theo, he might’ve been able to catch the other person’s scent, but for now, all that he could smell was the odour of everybody around them, the thick smell of blood overlaying it all, just like the blanket.
Frank hadn’t immediately fought him on the suggestion of going home, so Kit thought that he could push a little more. Getting Frank out of there, to somewhere safe and warm━somewhere he didn’t have to stare at his brother’s dead body━was Kit’s only goal at that moment. “We should… get you home,” He brought it up quietly, gently, as if he was worried Frank would smack down the idea at any moment. Being softer with Frank than he thought he’d ever been with anyone in his whole life. “You got your keys?” He asked, “They’re just gonna take him away in a minute, it ain’t… somethin’ you wanna see.” Flashes came of Kace’s body being carried from the scene while Kit sat in the back of the patrol car, his forehead pressed to the window as he sobbed.
“C’mon, we’ll go and… get you somewhere warmer than this. ‘Cause this fuckin’ blanket’s not gonna do shit.”
FRANK DAMASCA | |
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FRANK DAMASCA
Banshee
Posts: 127
Played by:
Ange
Last seen Oct 18, 2024 17:04:31 GMT
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Post by FRANK DAMASCA on Mar 19, 2021 17:34:26 GMT
Cut free, sinking, sinking, drowning. Then Kit had been there. Without thinking Frank had thrown out hands, clung on tight. It should have felt heavy, this should have been pressing down so hard that his bones would crack with it but somehow seeing Theo … gone … had left him weightless. Adrift, hollow, insubstantial with the other half of himself just as hollow. A shell laying there in the snow, smeared with so much more violence than had torn his own body apart when the IED had blown. Then he’d floating on a cloud of pain, vision tinted red with his own blood. This time it was Theo’s staining his vision, still staining the hands that clutched at the solid muscle of Kit’s back. Tinting the world red and blinding white, the cold caught under the silvery cover of the emergency blanket the paramedics had wrapped him in like the survivor of some disaster.
Heat and empathy radiated from Kit as he sobbed it all out against him, sinking into his flesh. One hand on his back, smoothing over him in circles the way his mother’s always had when they were younger. Soothing them to sleep, pushing fevers back, easing queasy stomachs with that simple touch when they’d been sick, sat on the floor between their beds, a hand on each of them.
God, how was he going to tell her, how was he going to tell the both of them when he couldn’t even get the words out now? Their son was gone. Theo was dead, cut down, left there for him to find, to scream over in a way that still seemed to echo in his ears and vibrate in his bones now. Frank felt the words stopper up there until Kit spoke, a log jam that needed help to clear. They felt as bloody as the hands that still clutched Kit’s shoulders as they emerged. In the office, then out here, staggering through the snow towards the body on the ground, falling back as that scream had torn out of him and filled the entire campus. An alarm, a warning, a call to arms, agony. Any or all, he didn’t know. He didn’t know anything, except for the fact that someone had killed Theo.
Pulling back, he tried to get a grip on himself, on the shudders that wouldn’t stop coming now. Like the hypothermia they’d been taught to deal with in training, a core temperature so low that the body gave up trying to warm you by shivering as it rushed the blood to the vital organs just to try and keep you alive. It hadn’t been cold enough for that out here but there was an ice of a different sort in his bones, cranking all the colder every time that buzzing whisper returned to the edges of his hearing. Frank clutched at the blanket, stretching it hard enough over his shoulders that it would have hurt if his flesh wasn’t as numb and frigid as marble.
Hazel eyes fluttered shut as Kit leaned in, his body stiff in his hold. He couldn’t see the police around Theo’s body now, couldn’t hear them talk, only felt the rumble of Kit’s voice against his chest. Shaking his head slowly, he let out a ragged breath. ”Who? I don’t know who did it. Why him? Why would they kill him?” What had his brother ever done to anybody to warrant this? Mystic Falls wasn’t a warzone, nobody was fighting for their life. It had been cold, callous. Murder.
Mutely he opened his eyes again, the tears still brimming on his lashes, breaking in those streams down his cheeks that he couldn’t feel the heat of anymore. The detectives were clustered now. A small knot of them talking to men in the paper jumpsuits that marked them out as crime scene. He didn’t want to go, didn’t want to leave Theo with them but … they would take him soon. To the cold of a morgue where he’d be alone in the dark. He didn’t want Theo alone, didn’t want to be alone himself. Kit was here though, the solid warmth, the unyielding presence of his friend right there as he dropped his head in the closest thing he could come to a nod. ”I didn’t want to leave him,” he whispered. ”They … they made me, told me they would l-look after him now.” The detective, the dark haired guy with the quiet voice, had made the promise. He was still there, looking around as though he could figure it all now.
Fingers shaking, Frank looked away again, tried to extract the keys from the pocket of his jeans. They were a hard lump there, biting into his hip but his fingers wouldn’t work to grip there. The shudders were rolling in harder now, the numbness giving way to shock, his body refusing the orders he tried to give it. ”I can’t … I can’t get them …” There was a thin thread of panic in his voice. He fought his way up off of the seat, the blanket falling away as he frantically dug into his pocket. ”T-t0o cold, Kit, I can’t.” The misery was back on his face as he looked up, his hands flexing uselessly in the air as he stared at his friend. Everything was shutting down, every little bit of control he had seeming to fall away with the blanket.
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KIT CLARKE
Werewolf
Posts: 136
Age:
33
Occupation:
Manager at The Ruby Slipper
Status:
It's Complicated
Partner:
Katja De La Cruz
Played by:
Julia
"You make my cold heart warm with a touch."
Last seen Nov 11, 2024 19:01:45 GMT
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Post by KIT CLARKE on Apr 6, 2021 17:48:51 GMT
━ nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky ━
Kit was supposed to be the one who was eternally broken from the loss of his brother, Frank lifting him and piecing him back together. He wasn’t strong enough to support Frank like this━or, at least, he didn’t think he was. Frank had gone to the ends of the Earth for him, providing a home and, above all, an unbreakable bond. He’d been there when Kit’s own family turned away, disgusted and distraught at what he’d done.
But Frank hadn’t done this. And Theo… well, fuck, Theo hadn’t done anything in his entire life━Kit was sure of it. Frank could be a boy scout at times, but Theo was the innocent of the two, pure through and through. Frank was a soldier; he was tainted just like Kit, but… fuck, Theo. The kid who’d sat with him in the hospital room, doting over his fucking brother in a way that always reminded Kit of when Kace was sick. Kace had never ended up in the hospital half-dead from an explosive, but it reminded him of his little brother all the same. That was before he’d lost him━before they’d lost anybody like this. And even still, Theo had been a good guy to the very end.
“I don’t know.” Kit mumbled. It didn’t make sense to him. He couldn’t fit the pieces together to reveal the reasoning behind such a heinous act. This was rage, it wasn’t a fucking accident.
He knew that holding Frank like this only left the space behind Kit to become clearly visible, but he hoped the physical comfort could overrule that━even just a little. Frank had to know he was safe in Kit’s arms, that nobody would hurt him here. If only he could’ve been there for Theo. He wasn’t his brother like Frank was to Kit, but Theo was still family, and Kit would’ve defended him until his dying breath. Now, Theo was the one who’d never breathe again.
“I know.” Kit tried for empathy, though there was a blockage there━a warning sign that told him if he went too far, he’d be deep into territory he couldn’t return from. This was about Frank, not about the demons Kit still had to battle. “They will. They’re gonna take care of ‘im.” He promised it because he knew, and he needed to help Frank move through this━get him out of here and back home.
Kit shifted back a few inches to watch him desperately try to retrieve his keys, and was slowly working to his feet by the time Frank had given up. He was frightened, panicking, and the werewolf tried to remain calm for his friend. An oxymoron, maybe, but loss changed people. When grief struck, you never knew how those around you would react, and Kit hoped to change every surface-level impression he gave━at least for the next few moments. “It’s okay,” He reached out, closing both of his hands around Frank’s. Rubbing them quickly, trying to warm him with the friction. Pulling away after a moment, Kit shrugged off his jacket, leaving him in only a sleeveless shirt. He was boiling anyway, and Frank needed it more than he did. Carefully, he shifted the fabric around Frank, letting it rest on his shoulders like some sort of nineteen-fifties high schooler. Once it was secured, Kit dipped his own fingers into Frank’s pocket, pulling out the keys.
“Come on,” Kit spoke gently, a warning before he moved in to slide his arm around Frank’s middle. He straightened up, lifting Frank with him, up and out of the car. Making quick eye contact with one of the detectives to ensure it was okay for them to leave, Kit started towards the parking lot before Frank had any time to change his mind. They had to get out of there and go back home, where Frank could start his painful and slow journey of recovery all over again. Internal this time, not from wounds that tore his body apart.
In the hand that wasn’t around Frank, Kit held the keys, continuously pressing the alarm button instead of simply asking Frank where he’d parked. He hadn’t much in the way of words, knowing there was still that line he needed to be wary of crossing.
Once he’d helped Frank into the truck, secured his seat belt and got into the driver’s seat, he still couldn’t offer much more than a reach over, a hand clamped around Frank’s arm to keep him grounded━to let him know there was still one brother there with him, even if the other was gone.
FRANK DAMASCA | |
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FRANK DAMASCA
Banshee
Posts: 127
Played by:
Ange
Last seen Oct 18, 2024 17:04:31 GMT
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Post by FRANK DAMASCA on May 15, 2021 19:30:53 GMT
None of this felt right. Not the violence that had somehow followed him here, to a place that should’ve been a million miles away from the stretch of blood and that explosive punch of pain. Not that it was Theo laying there instead of him. Not that either one of them should’ve been touched like this. It wasn’t Afghanistan, it wasn’t even New York or Chicago. This was a tiny town, people were meant to go to places like this to retire, to totter around the square shaking sticks at teenagers and telling them about their own salad days spent here. White picket fences and happy ever afters … the exact shit Theo should’ve been able to spend his life doing. What had been snuffed out because somebody had …
Frank gripped onto the foil blanket tight, his knuckles whitening again as Kit tried to block that world out for him, to hold together the pieces of him that had shattered with that scream he’d let out. His knuckles pressed tight between his body and Kit’s, the pressure against them somehow easing the pressure in his chest. ”There’s gotta be some reason for it … people don’t …” End up dead in the middle of the woods for no reason. Not here. Not even if the newspapers were full of news of missing people and bodies every day of the week. That was some other part of Mystic Falls, some dark undercurrent that had never even threatened to drag either one of them in. Whatever excuse came in the end, it wasn’t going to be enough.
In the shelter of Kit’s arms Frank felt held at a distance from it somehow, the numbness not biting deeper but not retreating either. A state of suspended animation he’d been thrown into the moment the scream had stopped echoing around the space. Eyes that were burning with the tears that filled them fixed on that brutal middle distance. Would it have been easier if they’d covered him? Hidden him from view? Would it have been possible to believe that Theo was still in his office, missing out on someone else being hurt and his brother being freaked out about finding himself in the middle of it? To fool himself into thinking that his brother wasn’t the one turning cold as the snow he lay in.
They’d take him from it soon. Zip him into a bag and take him to the morgue. Someone would cut him again, looking for the answers the needed to find whoever had done this and make them pay. No cell would be enough for this, no life of punishment. Frank’s fingers tightened, the muscles in his jaw jumping as he tried to reel himself back in as he lifted his head again. He’d do it with his own hands, letting all that grief pour out with a shattering roar as he pounded the guy’s face to pulp. A life for a life but still not enough … never enough because it wouldn’t bring Theo back. ”They won’t release him til it’s done,” he whispered. A freezing cold drawer in a morgue, everything hovering in that limbo until they’d found everything they needed to for their investigation. The thought of Theo being alone there, cut off from him in a way he couldn’t resolve with a phone call or an email, beyond him forever, had Frank’s hands shaking again.
They refused to grip the keys. He couldn’t even work them into his pocket. The shakes had threatened to tear him apart when the cops had first parked him here, they’d murmured to him about hypothermia and shock, had retrieved the emergency blanket like it would miraculously wipe away everything his body was going through. Nothing, not even Kit being here could do that. Frustration added to the tears, left panic boiling under the surface in a way that threatened to shake him apart again. Words stumbled out of his mouth, his teeth clacking together before he could grit them. His hands shook in the air, not stilling even as he stared at them like he could will all of this away. ”I’m s-sorry,” he stuttered, despair filling his eyes as he looked up at Kit. His friend wrapped his hands around his own, rubbed them like he was trying to work heat back into them. It was fruitless until Kit pulled back, working his jacket off to drape it around him. Fingers worked them way into his pocket, like a mother taking care of a three year old while his own hands clutched at the jacket again.
He was less a dead weight, more some puppet to be guided as Kit levered him up off of the seat. His limbs only moved because someone else was guiding him. Frank tried to twist away to take one last look at Theo but Kit was doing the right thing, already guiding him away. Kit thumbed the remote on the keys, located the car before he worked them both towards it. He was put into the passenger seat, belted in like that kid. Frank blinked, pulled back from that abyss for a moment as Kit clamped a hand over his arm. The tears brimmed again, the sob hitting and barely being held back as he nodded at Kit. ”Thank you,” he whispered, the words broken and hoarse. Not enough, nowhere near enough for any of this.
Silence settled the whole way back, wrapping him in that pall of grief as Kit drove them back to the house. No more sobs, he couldn’t even find the energy for that. Mute and still Frank lost himself in a world of his own, those same voices that had been loud enough to tear his skull apart when he’d first stumbled from his office now whispers, a background hum. He didn’t know when they’d gotten to the house, only starting back out of that fugue when it hit him that the engine was no longer running. His fingers worked a little better now, stiff but not uncontrollably shaking. They worked the belt open, fumbled at the car door and then at his pocket once he was standing in front of the door. It only hit that he didn’t have them when Kit was there. Frank drew in a breath, let out slowly before he frowned. ”I … I got you out of work. I shouldn’t …” He hadn’t called Kit though, had he? There was no memory of making the call in that cloudy haze of what had happened afterwards.
Turning on the spot, Frank glanced behind him like somehow the explanation to all of this would be right there. ”I’ll … I’ll be OK … if you need to go back … I don’t want you to get in trouble. Your boss?” There was a question there in his voice, trailing off like he didn’t know what Latimer Crane would do. He’d seen him a couple of times when he’d hit the club, a looming presence as he’d sat at the bar and joked with Kit. Frank’s frowned deepened as he felt another shudder run through him. The shakes coming back on, that chill leaving his teeth chattering again as he tried to pull Kit’s jacket closer around him. A shield against the cold, against his fear, against the brutal truth of what had happened tonight.
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KIT CLARKE
Werewolf
Posts: 136
Age:
33
Occupation:
Manager at The Ruby Slipper
Status:
It's Complicated
Partner:
Katja De La Cruz
Played by:
Julia
"You make my cold heart warm with a touch."
Last seen Nov 11, 2024 19:01:45 GMT
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Post by KIT CLARKE on Jun 22, 2021 15:53:15 GMT
━ nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky ━
His fingers gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles, careful not to bend the thing out of place while he released his body’s tension through it. He didn’t know what to say on the drive home, so he stayed completely silent, taking glances at Frank every so often. Nobody doted over Kit after the fact, especially not in prison. If they had, perhaps he would’ve known better than to feel like he had to babysit Frank. The worry and care was there now, anyway, keeping Kit’s stomach in knots while his brain debated on the best course of action.
For Kit, it felt like the drive home took an hour or two, when in reality, it couldn’t have been more than ten or twenty minutes. Then came the next step, something more expected of Kit, and he was so worried he’d fuck it up. But his body was springing into action anyway, waiting until Frank seemed ready to move before he began. Frank got his own belt, and Kit was out of the driver’s seat and circling the car, planning to open Frank’s door for him like the gentleman he wasn’t, but the other man surprised Kit, managing to get out himself. Kit placed a hand between his shoulder blades anyway, guiding them both to the house and clicking the lock button on the fob, fingers curled it.
Kit was a step or two behind by the time they got to the front door, hand falling from Frank’s back. He watched the man go digging in his pocket for a moment before Kit’s own brain kicked into gear, words coming out in a quiet breath, “I got ‘em.”
‘I … I got you out of work. I shouldn’t … I’ll … I’ll be OK … if you need to go back … I don’t want you to get in trouble. Your boss?’
One dark brow went up at that, and Kit would’ve snorted at him and his stupid suggestion if they weren’t in such a shitty situation. Instead, he again shook his head, pulling the keys from his pocket. Latimer could be a hardass, but he’d never been that bad so long as you did your job right━plus, Kit was a supervisor now, and he had a valid excuse. Vampires (at least, the ones he’d met) usually got a bit apathetic in their old age, but this was Frank. His best friend, his brother, and one of the only living people Kit would do absolutely anything for. “I ain’t leavin’.” Kit stated plainly, leaving no room for argument━not giving one back. There weren’t facts or anything he could spit out to convince Frank with ‘cause none of it really mattered. What mattered was being at Frank’s side, and that was that.
Suddenly, Frank began to tremble again, and Kit threw an arm around his shoulders to tuck him in close, guiding Frank inside once the door was unlocked and opened. He secured it behind them and let out a long breath, unsure of what was next. What could he do to make this better, to ease Frank’s grief?
If his own taught Kit anything, it was that nothing could. Nobody had the words or the actions to cure it, all they could do was spend fruitless hours trying. And so that’s what Kit was going to do.
One look at Frank told Kit he was A: still cold, and B: covered in dirt and blood. A shower would come first, then he’d get Frank into bed and silently stick close while Frank probably did everything except sleep. At least he’d be comfortable.
“C’mon,” Kit started, voice still a quiet rumble in his chest, another hand on Frank’s back to guide him up the stairs. “Gotta… get you cleaned up.”
If Kit had been asked two years ago if he would undress another man and get him into a hot shower, his answer would’ve been a hard and fast: no. Hell, even a month ago he wouldn’t have believed it, but as he guided Frank into the bathroom and turned on the water, it seemed to quickly become a reality. Frank looked like shit, and he’d barely been able to walk without guidance. Undressing when you felt like shit was even harder, like none of your energy could be forced towards getting your shirt over your head.
So Kit did it for him. He hesitated and cleared his throat like it would ease the tension, then eventually moved close enough to help Frank out of the jacket, and then grabbed the bottom hem of his shirt, pulling it up and off. “Aight, I ain’t scrubbin’ you down or takin’ off your pants.” But he’d stay, like a guard dog on the opposite side of the shower curtain, waiting with a towel━he wouldn’t leave Frank for a second, not even to run and grab him a fresh pair of underwear. He’d thought of it, of course, but the risk of leaving Frank alone was too great. Not that Kit thought he’d open a vein, but still.
Kit would help him under the warm spray, though. He’d just pretend it was like the few times Kace helped him into the shower after he’d puked all over himself from a night spent partying too hard━except the other way around. Helping Frank was more important than feeling a little… gay.
FRANK DAMASCA | |
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FRANK DAMASCA
Banshee
Posts: 127
Played by:
Ange
Last seen Oct 18, 2024 17:04:31 GMT
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Post by FRANK DAMASCA on Jul 3, 2021 20:34:07 GMT
Apologies felt like the only things that wanted to shake themselves loose from his grief paralysed voice box. To Kit for dragging him out of work, to the cops for not knowing anything, for not being able to hold himself together … to Theo. God, just the chance to fall to his knees in front of his brother and apologise for this. For not being there when he’d needed him, for not getting there soon enough to stoop whoever had done this. There wasn’t going to be another chance, no way for Theo to offer forgiveness, no way to turn the clock back and erase all of this. It was wishful fucking thinking and Frank knew he it wasn’t going to get him anywhere but he couldn’t stop any of it. Not the word that kept rattling off of his tongue like it was going to wash all of this away, or the numbness that had seeped from the ground … from Theo’s still body … into his bones, leaving him shaking, as weak as a baby and just as needy as one.
Kit hadn’t uttered a word in condemnation or complaint though. As he had done before he’d scooped him up, held him together. Steady hands on the wheel as he’d done what he hadn’t been able to do himself and drove, steady hands on him, sealing those wounds shut for as long as he needed to before healing would kick in. If this even could be healed. It wasn’t torn flesh or broken bones this time, no surgeon could stitch together the bloody hole torn right through his heart, his soul. Where Theo had once been, even when they’d been thousands of miles apart. There was nothing now.
His brother was gone.
Frank lost himself in the realisation of that on the way back. Mute, his hands limply clinging to the cuffs of Kit’s jacket as it shrouded him. Listless hazel eyes on the road, not seeing anything but Theo’s body still, the only sounds until they’d stopped the car engine and that hum of voices in the back of his head, like white noise that wouldn’t quit. The occasional pressure of Kit’s gaze brushed over him but Frank didn’t turn into it with a joke the way he once would’ve done to allay his friend’s worry, he couldn’t … didn’t have the energy.
Shit. He barely even managed to get his seatbelt undone and himself out of the car. Kit had hovered anyway, a hand on his back, guiding him when his legs wanted to stop and he just wanted to sink down to the ground. At the door he’d stopped, hands fumbling and suddenly aware that he didn’t have the keys. Kit was there again. Something shifted, enough for his voice to come through broken like a TV signal suddenly swimming in. Frank swallowed, shaking his head, one hand rising to grip at the door frame. ”They’re gonna be …” He didn’t know, couldn’t even find the words to finish the sentence as another sob tried to work his way through. When the call had come to say that Kit had been arrested for his brother’s death he’d been on a plane right away, shrugging off classes for a week to make sure he was there when Kit had been led into his arraignment. A silent show of friendship and force that was being returned now.
He wasn’t leaving. Enough relief in it that Frank allowed himself to take another slippery step down that slope to falling apart. Shivers wracking him, the sound of his teeth clacking loud enough that he flinched with it. Trying to gather Kit’s coat around himself far enough that he could just hold on. Kit was there again, throwing an arm around him to pull him in against the heat that radiated from him, guiding him into the house. ”I’m …” he couldn’t finish the lie, not when his eyes were burning and the marrow of his bones felt like ice. On stiff legs Frank tottered forward, crept up the stairs. ”It’s not … mine … Theo’s blood … it was everywhere … there was so much …” Broken images flashing behind his eyes of Theo’s body so still on the ground, the crimson blood that had welled from his chest, still warm, still wet as he’d pressed shaking hands against the wounds.
Frank held them out now, dark smears of his brother’s blood still crusted around his nails, his hands shaking worse now as the steam began to rise from the shower around him. He curled them in, his lips pressing so hard to together to try and hold it all back. They parted with an huff of breath and the first fresh spill of tears as Kit eased close and started to help him undress. The jacket he’d had wrapped around him fell to the ground, Kit’s fingers lifting the hem of his shirt. Frank closed his eyes, dipped his head as he allowed it to ski over his head. ”And … there was me thinking … I was finally gonna get a sponge bath …” There was gratitude on his face as the shirt hit the ground too. Shaking hands fumbled at the button on his own jeans, at the waistband of them and his boxers as he peeled them off. One hand reached out, gripped Kit’s arm as he eased himself into the shower. ”Don’t go?” A plea on his face as he stepped in.
Kit was there on the other side of the glass as he leaned weakly against the wall. Eyes squeezed shut as the water sluiced over him, pooling red and muddy around his feet as it carried away the evidence of the horror of what had happened tonight. Streams of water scalding hot on his skin but doing little to melt that ice. Sobs sending tears just as hot down his face until eventually he was wrung out and the water was starting to go cold. Frank shut it off, stepped out feeling a margin steadier as he wrapped the towel around his hips. He didn’t bother to try and towel off, just reached for the crutch of Kit’s arm as he started towards the bedroom. Enough strength there now to peel the covers back on the bed. No clothes, no strength to pick through the closet. Knees going weak as he sunk down on the mattress. ”I know … it’s…” A lot to ask, enough that he couldn’t force the words past his lips. ”I can’t stop seeing him. I can’t … I’m freezing … it won’t stop … please?” A hand now clean of any sign of what had happened, reaching out, gripping his friend’s wrist, a plea in hazel eyes filling again, like the torrent of grief was never going to stop.
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KIT CLARKE
Werewolf
Posts: 136
Age:
33
Occupation:
Manager at The Ruby Slipper
Status:
It's Complicated
Partner:
Katja De La Cruz
Played by:
Julia
"You make my cold heart warm with a touch."
Last seen Nov 11, 2024 19:01:45 GMT
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Post by KIT CLARKE on Jul 20, 2021 15:50:09 GMT
━ nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky ━
Kit didn’t have plans to separate himself from Frank any more than the shower door would allow (he wasn’t getting in, after all), but the sheer desperation in Frank’s voice assured Kit that the werewolf wouldn’t be able to move an inch. He stood just like that, like a guard dog, outside of the shower, staring down at his feet. Frank could be in there for hours and Kit wouldn’t leave. The army had taught him discipline, how to stand somewhere and wait patiently, and it engrained the importance of brotherhood. Of course, now they’d both lost their blood brothers, but they still had each other. And Kit would stay by his brother’s side for as long as Frank needed him.
“I’ll be right out here.”
Maybe it was some kinda metaphor, like they were never really cut off from their deceased loved ones. Kit certainly couldn’t escape his, but he hoped it wouldn’t be the same for Frank. Theo was too good a dude in life, there was no way he could come back as some sort of poltergeist-like spirit and torment his twin. Not that Kit believed in ghosts.
His thumbs worked into the terry cloth fibres, not looking anywhere but down. It wasn’t as if he wanted to sneak a peek over his shoulder, but he also didn’t want to turn around and check on Frank, then have the man feel as if he needed to rush.
Kit flinched with each sob that radiated from the shower, wishing there was some catch-all response that could cure this.
Finally, though, Frank reemerged from the shower, pushing back the door and climbing out. Kit offered up the towel, hoping to be at least somewhat helpful.
Unlike the many other times he’d stumbled through these hallways, Kit was acutely aware of all his surroundings. He brought Frank to his bedroom, though Kit had no plan from then on. He’d probably sit at the end of the bed and continue living up to the ‘guard dog’ role in every way, but Frank was proposing something else entirely.
Partway from covering Frank with the bedding, Kit froze when it came out, the soft fabric in his clutches. It was kind of crossing the line, a little too much for Kit, but Frank needed him, and he refused to turn his back on his brother, especially after all Frank had done for him.
He remembered curling up with Kace one time when his baby brother was sick. They were just kids, not full-grown men, but still━this was just like that. Only, Frank wasn’t plagued by the flu, and Kit could actually warm him up━if it were a physical cold, anyway. As much as he’d like to, Kit couldn’t heal that freezing emptiness in his soul. Kit still couldn’t get rid of it himself.
“Yeah.” Finally, he broke his silence, giving Frank a sad smile to push through the awkwardness━not that this was awkward per se, just for when it inevitably became as such. “Yeah, sure.” He twisted the wrist Frank was holding to catch his hand, giving it a small squeeze.
Peeling back the covers again, Kit crawled into bed beside Frank, pausing before wrapping an arm around him. He shared his supernaturally-enhanced body heat and tried, again, to take Frank’s pain.
“Guess you were serious when ya said you were gonna turn me, huh?” He chuckled, deep and low in his chest, but settled in anyway.
FRANK DAMASCA | endin' all da threads today look at that |
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