KACE CLARKE
Werewolf
untriggered
Posts: 99
Age:
30
Occupation:
Owner of the Diner
Status:
Single
Played by:
ANGE
Last seen Nov 29, 2024 20:38:09 GMT
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Post by KACE CLARKE on Feb 20, 2021 21:34:23 GMT
Kit would’ve kicked his ass for this. Willingly getting himself stuck here instead of turning what had been a fucking tragedy into something that maybe brought some peace for one of them. How was he meant to grab someone’s hand and go sing eternal rounds of Kumbaya somewhere when Kit was sitting in a jail cell or torturing himself here? That wasn’t what brothers did.
Hadn’t been what he’d done.
Tipping his head back on the couch, Kace closed his eyes. He should’ve known that popping up at this time in the morning after Kit had pulled a late one last night would mean catching the tail end of something he definitely fucking didn’t wanna hear. He could’ve skedaddled back out, roamed the town until the tawny skinned, dark haired woman had pulled her walk of shame but after months of wandering this town he’d realised there wasn’t much here to see that you couldn’t get through in a week. Six months and that tether he had to whatever part of him Kit was holding onto wouldn’t stretch much further than that.
Kace tugged his hands back through his hair, grinding his palms into his eyes as he yowled his way into another chorus of Girl’s Not Grey to drown out the final throws of whatever morning after shit his brother was pulling in there that he didn’t want to hear, let alone know about when he could barely fucking touch a thing from here. As the months had passed it seemed like the veil that kept him here and all of them out there had thinned, but it was still like pulling some Patrick Swayze shit every time he pushed against that barrier. He was sure Kit had started to see though, caught those blue eyes staring in his direction in a way that had him half regretting his choice every damn time.
The rusty voice trailed off from the AFI song, launched into another. Another. For a time there was quiet, the faint babble of voices the only sign that Kit wasn’t the only one awake here as the loud Saturday night filtered into the cool grey of a misty Sunday morning. The roommate was here, Frank, holed up in his own bedroom with the curly haired dude he swore had looked right at him too, quiet though, none of rattling the walls, shrieking the place down entertainment that he’d barely managed to block out.
Light was filtering around the edges of the drapes when the door opened and near silent footsteps carried the woman out. She didn’t hesitate as she made her way past him, her eyes didn’t stop as she’d glanced over him to peer back. To her, to most of them, he was pretty much invisible and hell, the way he was going he was gonna stay that way.
Kace let his eyes open to slits as the bedroom door opened again in the wake of that quiet click of the front door. He left his fingers in his hair, just watched as Kit appeared, thankfully not with everything on show again. There were enough mental scars from what he’d had to watch since he’d made that choice not to go cool his heels upstairs, enough tearing at his gut as he’d watched his brother suffer … as he’d watched him turn with the full moon. A brutal fucking truth kicking him in the gut that he still didn’t entirely have his head wrapped around. Swallowing hard, Kace kicked a foot against the coffee table, a couple of the bottles rattling faintly. ”Man, you look like shit.” His brow furrowed as he saw Kit’s eyes flicker in his direction again.
Close, so fucking close to breaking through. ”You hear me?” Kace asked, hauling himself up to scoot forward to the edge of the couch, pale blue irises peering through his lashes. ”You need to lay off what you're doing before your wrecked ass ends up here. Trust me man, this isn’t fun.” Wasn’t funny either. He lashed out with his hand, thumping the edge of the table, earning another of those faint rattles like a truck going by outside, sending vibrations through the house. A thin barrier, almost nothing there between them anymore except for his screw up and the guilt from it that was eating his big brother alive.
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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 22:59:59 GMT
 ━ nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky ━
Ignoring his wellbeing and taking care of Frank certainly didn’t help, though. Kit found himself diving into the worst of things once he was back at work, drowning in like his life depended on it. Mostly, he tried to keep it out of the house, doing his best to separate it all while Frank was still grieving. But he didn’t have a choice sometimes, especially not that night.
Kit had asked her to be quiet. He’d even teasingly told her he’d use other means, and then he had when she didn’t shut up, but it barely worked. He didn’t kick her out, though━he wasn’t an idiot. He’d finish up, and then haul her out the door as soon as possible.
Thankfully, she got the clue when he pretended to still be asleep by the time the sun came up. She was up and gone, and Kit was rolling a smoke by the time she’d closed his bedroom door. His tongue slipped over the large, tobacco leaf, gluing it tightly together. It hung from his fingertips as he made his way to the kitchen━only after he’d heard the front door open and close, of course.
Starting the day sober was always difficult. Usually, he had something before he left his room, but even then he couldn’t be safe. There’d be a flash of blond hair, a sad look, leaving Kit scrambling to get to his bathroom and to the bottle of prescription pills.
His first drug that morning, though, was meant to be coffee. Kit wandered into the kitchen, finding the pot and getting it ready, purposely ignoring the figure he saw on the couch. It was too fucking early for this. All he wanted was to smoke on his day off and forget about the tragedy plaguing this house, but if it wasn’t about Theo, then Kit’s own dead little brother had to be lingering nearby, threatening to send the veteran into a full-blown PTSD attack.
The bottles on the table rattled, and he heard Kace’s voice chastising him. He sounded the same as he did the last time Kit had heard it━when his baby brother had been alive. But he wasn’t now. He was gone, and this was just a hallucination, a figure pulled from his memory and sent to torment him. Maybe it was karma or some shit━what he got for taking lives when he was stationed over in some shitty, Middle Eastern country.
Kit’s hands began to tremble, blue eyes flicking to the table, though he made sure to keep them low━to not see whose legs those belonged to. His eyes went back to the papeer in his hands, and he pulled a lighter out of the pocket of his boxers, putting the end in his mouth and desperately trying to light it. Before he could, though, the figure got louder. Kace got louder.
‘You hear me?’
He did.
The voice sent Kit stumbling back into the fridge, finally looking up from the vices in his hands. Maybe this was his subconscious, coming forward in the form of his brother and trying to teach him a lesson. Deep down, Kit knew what he was doing was wrong. He knew it was self-destructive━that he was doing everything in his power to end his life while still breathing. It didn’t mean he would stop, though.
He didn’t talk to the voices or the hallucinations anymore. Kit had learned better than that by now, found ways to drown them out, but he was hurting. Frank was in pain, and Kit had to relive every second of it by his side, doing all he could to be an emotional rock for his friend. And now, here was the source of Kit’s own insecurities and discomfort, the physical representation of everything he’d fucked up in his meaningless life, and it was reprimanding him. He couldn’t take it anymore.
“I’m trying.” It was a lie, but they were the only words that came out of his mouth, desperate for some sort of escape from this. “I’m fuckin’━I wanna die, man. I don’t give a fuck what I get into. It hurts ‘cause I did━to you━” Kit was choking on his words as the tears spilled out, his eyes dropping to Kace’s torso, a shaky hand pointing to where Kit had stabbed him. There was no wound now, but Kit saw flashes of it in his mind. Red on his hands and his own bare chest, not stopping until his brother’s body collapsed.
It was the only time he was truthful about this. He avoided too many of these conversations with Frank, and he’d always been honest with Kace. So, he thought, he could at least be honest with the image of his brother that still lingered in Kit’s mind.
KACE CLARKE | YAAAAAS  |
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KACE CLARKE
Werewolf
untriggered
Posts: 99
Age:
30
Occupation:
Owner of the Diner
Status:
Single
Played by:
ANGE
Last seen Nov 29, 2024 20:38:09 GMT
|
Post by KACE CLARKE on Feb 26, 2021 18:03:28 GMT
There’d been a pall over the house for as long as Kit had been here. A reek in the air that Kace was pretty sure he could smell even on the other side of that invisible curtain that kept him separated from all of this. Grief, depression, melancholy. Punctuated by those bright, explosive nights filled with other things and left him like he’d been last night. On the couch, hands clamped around his ears as though he could drown out any of what he was hearing or make that miasma dissipate so he didn’t have to choke on it all. They were suffering, all of them in a way. Kit over what he’d done, the roommate over what had happened to his brother.
From that same spot on the couch he’d watched all of that too. Stomach twisting as he’d watched echoes ripple over Kit’s face. His brother hadn’t been there to see him go in the ground, had been behind bars while they’d buried his coffin and marked a life cut short. Frank had been there for his brother, that short ceremony he’d avoided – he’d seen enough of those thanks – and Kit and the dude with all the curls and the knowing eyes had been there afterwards. Holding themselves together, barely, watched by a dude trying to do the same. Spirits clinging to them all. Him, the soldier who drifted in and out, practically mute, a far more distant spirit bound here by something he hadn’t been able to fathom, silently, caught in some pall of misery that had him backing off himself. The brother too, like a mirror image those first couple of days before he had broken free, gone most of the time like a dog with two masters splitting himself between them. The boyfriend had watched them all too much for it to just be a coincidence.
Maybe it was his presence that had turned that opaque curtain into something tissue thin, friable, fragile, something he’d been able to tear through far enough to give some more concrete sign that he was here. A boot against the table, that burst of temper rolling out of him like he had should’ve been giving a shit about how badly his death had torn his brother up. He did, Kace thought, giving that table a rattle with his boot as Kit dragged his sorry ass into sight, a smoke already between his fingers, the coffee pot snatched up with the other hand.
Kace felt that push of temper. Pissed at himself, at Kit, for what had happened, more pissed at Kit for what he’d chosen to do since. Not seeking help, steeping himself in drinks and the sort of women who were just a temporary blindfold for what fucked up shit was going down on the inside. He let it all go in that single honest comment. Shit was the polite way of putting it, although polite seemed to hit the mark. Blue eyes dropped, watched as Kit’s hands began to shake, as his brother looked at the bottles but not him. Instead of facing him he had the smoke in his mouth and lit in up instead.
Another burst of that temper and he was growling out that question as he pushed forward, trying to tear through that last bit of the shroud that had hidden him for six months. A thump of his fist on the edge of the table, a colder bite in his voice and Kit was stumbling back. ”Shit,” he breathed, meeting Kit’s eye as he finally looked up. ”You can.” Fina-fucking-lly.
Shaking his head, Kace started to laugh as he pushed to his feet. Kit wasn’t trying to claw his way back out of the hole, he had been sunk in it up to his neck ever since he’d been released and had found a way to numb himself continually rather than trying to pick those feelings apart and drag himself out of the quick sand. ”Bullshit!” he snapped, gesturing at the door. ”That chick was trying? Failing maybe. You might not give a fuck but you should.” Kace shook his head, some part of him burning now that he could get through to him. He saw Kit’s eyes drop as the tears started to brew. Raising a hand, he clapped it against his chest, right where he’d been stabbed. It felt solid, whole but hollow in a way. ”It fuckin’ hurts for you? How’d you think I felt man? I was the one on the end of that blade and I’m the one who’s had to watch you try and stab yourself just as deep ever since. You want me to watch you die? What is that? Payback? You want that man who’s tryin’ to keep your head above water to go through that again too? It’s bullshit. ‘s not tryin’, it’s you failin’ right now.” A harsh fucking truth, a blade in his mouth that he used to cut deep as that red bloom of anger blossomed under his skin.
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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
|
Post by KIT CLARKE on Mar 9, 2021 19:18:14 GMT
━ nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky ━
The realization was something he’d never seen from one of the hallucinations before. He started to wonder if this was more than that, but cut off that thinking as soon as it began. It wouldn’t be the strangest thing Kit had ever experienced━nowhere near changing into a wolf on the full moon━but it would be too much hope that he didn’t want to have. Grasping for the possibility of seeing his brother again, talking to him, and maybe fixing their relationship. It wasn’t going to happen, and there was no use in wishing for it.
But the other things he did to cope wouldn’t help either, and he still did them.
As the image of his baby brother snapped at him, Kit’s shaking hands couldn’t manage to light the cylinder of paper between his fingers. He cowered from Kace in a way he never had before, maybe looking so silly as a giant of a man leaned back against the fridge, terrified of the apparition. It wasn’t even there. He’d look so stupid if anybody chose to come into the kitchen at that very moment, but how he looked wasn’t of any importance to Kit. His mind was rushing a mile a minute, the piece of him that was trying to will it away shrinking by the second. He engaged, even though he knew he shouldn’t have. Talking to it as if it was real, or could even make a difference.
A lump formed in his throat as he motioned towards the space where he’d stabbed the knife in, trembling further when the vision touched it himself. It was horrible to see, and tore at something deep inside of Kit, making him want to throw up and disappear all at once.
‘It fuckin’ hurts for you? How’d you think I felt man? I was the one on the end of that blade…’
It all started to fade away then. Kace’s voice became a blubbering noise, like he was underwater or had a bad cell connection. Like he was dead. Kit choked on his tears as they flooded down his face, looking down once again. Finally, his fingers managed to listen to him, sticking the smoke back between his lips and lighting it. He inhaled slowly, deeply, not caring if it left him hacking with a burn in his chest a moment later. Kit needed this, allowing the smoke to penetrate more than just his lungs, then releasing it in staggered breaths while he cried. His mind was showing him flashes of that evening, Kit’s worst nightmare playing again and again in his head because it wasn’t just a dream. It was real━he’d done it. He hadn’t just ended the life of a guy trying to shoot him; he’d murdered his baby brother. Not innocent in a lot of ways, but surely in the fact that he didn’t have to die. That was Kit’s fault, and the ghost of his brother reminded him of it.
Frank? Did he want Frank to lose him, too? No, of course not. Frank was his brother now, and Kit would do anything to protect him. But he was too stubborn to give up right away, not going to allow the illusion his subconscious was showing him to win. He wasn’t actively killing himself, anyway. He wouldn’t be in the ground tomorrow. It was a slow process, and maybe Frank would be doing a little better by then. Maybe he’d be able to handle Kit’s death when it happened.
Another drag and he was shaking his head, blue eyes still pointed at the ground. “No, no,” He sobbed, swallowing the smoke, saliva thick in his throat. “I ain’t fucking doin’ this. ‘M not doin’ this with you,” Kit continued to shake his head, moving to lean over the sink. His hands gripped the counter’s edge, smoke still sticking out from between his index and middle finger. He brought up a mouthful of spit and then shot it into the sink, the glob of unnatural, greenish-yellow mucus sticking to the edge of the basin. “Fuck me.” Kit puffed out a breath, raising his hand for another deep inhale. He was going to finish it as quickly as possible and then go for more, or something stronger.
“Frank’d be better off without my shit around him. He’s got that little crackpot t’keep him company, and... whoever else. He’s a nice dude; he’ll make friends.” The tears were almost too much, and Kit’s eyes closed as he bowed his head, dark hair moving to shield his features. “It’d hurt him for a bit, but he’d… he’d be fine in the end. Better than you were. ‘Cause that’s what fuckin’ happens if I’m around people for too fuckin’ long. I just ruin ‘em.” He hated the way that sounded. He didn’t feel sorry for himself; it was the only truth he knew. Kit made things terrible for everybody near him; that was why it was easier to outwardly be a wreck. Nobody wanted to get close to some irresponsible asshole with addiction issues and PTSD. If they perceived him that way, like an idiot with nothing going for him, then they’d keep their distance, and Kit would never have to hurt anybody again. The only exception to that, Kit’s only fault, was Frank. Frank never gave up on him, and stayed close anyway, no matter how bad Kit got. And maybe he’d keep it together for him, his only living brother, because he needed Frank just as he hoped Frank needed him.
KACE CLARKE | no notes. |
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KACE CLARKE
Werewolf
untriggered
Posts: 99
Age:
30
Occupation:
Owner of the Diner
Status:
Single
Played by:
ANGE
Last seen Nov 29, 2024 20:38:09 GMT
|
Post by KACE CLARKE on Mar 23, 2021 15:28:38 GMT
Kit was fumbling. Shaking hands unable even to light the smoke in his hands as he practically cringed away from him. Afraid of what was sitting there in front of him as he was of what swam around in his head. That demon that had plagued him since the knife had sliced deep come to life and sat there like the voice of fucking reason for what he should’ve been doing. The fact that he could see him at all came as a damn surprise. The guy with the pretty eyes and curls had been the only one to fix on him that way and even he hadn’t spoken to him, held the first proper conversation he’d had with someone in months. Kace breathed his disbelief, watched Kit continue to shrink away from him.
Always trying to hide from the truth, blotting it out with every drop of alcohol that slipped past his lips, whiting it out with any one of a hundred girls. Anything to hide from it and struggling now because that shit didn’t play anymore.
The blame was there in the pit of his stomach, some part of him wanting to let it all out in a barrage that would do more than have Kit shaking like the damn prom queen when the king came knocking to celebrate after. Kace knew it was a slippery slope, the reaper had warned him about that when he’d tossed the offer back with a polite ‘fuck off’. You started down it and the part of you that wasn’t pissed slowly boiled away in all that heat. When it was all you had left you started to push it on them because they had so much more, were still so much more. He let it lace his words, verbal slaps to get Kit to straighten up without delivering the coup de gras that would knock him on his ass for good.
Another swing, a snap of his voice as his hand came up. Fingers banging against his chest as Kit had gestured to that tender little spot that had given way so easy to the keen edge of the blade. A knife through butter was a pretty sick way of putting it but it had been that easy, no resistance as Kit had jabbed it deep, tender tissue parting, pouring blood. Now there was nothing but that thin layer of black cotton that he’d been wearing when he’d died. Kace swayed slightly as the verbal blow hit. Kit trembling like a whipped dog before he started to choke, tears spilling. Shit. Both his hands rose now, scrubbing over his own face, fisting back into his hair. He was the one doing this and not just from lurking like a giant, creepy elephant in the corner of the room.
Kace stared past the heels of his hands, his palms pressed hard to his temples like it would hold all of that back and let the part of him that desperately wanted to drag Kit out of the quick sand he was allowing himself to sink so deep into win. The other part wanted to snatch one of the bottles up from the table and throw it at Kit as he drew on the cigarette so deep it wracked his lungs with a cough. He didn’t though, didn’t reach for it with only a thin chance that his fingers wouldn’t go straight through it. The smoke reached him, his eyes narrowing against it even though nothing from there could break the veil.
The laugh rolled out, not stirring the air but there all the same. Kace’s lips curled in the surround of the scruff of his beard, flashing teeth almost ferally for a moment. What was Kit gonna do to stop it happening with him? Go upstairs, far something that would work a little better for him, stumble out to the street and call the chick back trusting that his brother would make him look like he’d lost his mind here. ”Screw you man. I’m doin’ it this time. Not gonna just sit there and watch you carve bits of yourself away anymore.” He rounded the coffee table, hands dropping to his sides as he started to pace. Kit had turned away, head shaking, tears rolling as those sobs tugged at him. Head in the sink rather than facing up to the inescapable evidence of how he’d fucked up. Kace gritted his teeth, slapped out with a hand at the fridge to set that rattling too. ”Exactly, fuck you,” he ground out between his teeth. That voice in his head that had been getting harder and harder to keep the volume up on counselled him to cool it but the heat was already there.
A step closer, a foot from Kit’s shoulder now. His hand found the edge of the counter, dirty blonde hair falling around his face as he leaned in to see past the curtain of hair screening Kit from him like that flimsy shield would keep him out. ”He’s sleeping with a guy, getting some comfort from him, maybe that’s enough for now but you strip your self-pitying ass out and that’s not enough. You saw him that day, you think he can take that again?” He’d been here to watch too, him and the brother catching each other’s eye, as muted as if one of them had still been alive. The dude’s hands had moved, queries in his expression and on his fingers but as unintelligible as if he’d been speaking fucking Martian.
Kace’s teeth gritted, lips pulling back with his ferocity as he glared at the side of Kit’s face from inches away. ”A bit? You’re fucking blind. He wouldn’t be fine in the end, you’re not fine and he wouldn’t be either. You didn’t ruin me. I fucked up and you slipped and now you’re headin’ back down that line. You think gettin’ out of your head’s gonna give you anymore control?” That white knuckled desperation to beat back the nightmares and the demons, drifting into lax fingers and a misted up mind by what was in his blood stream. Not a fix, not even a band aid, just a blindfold to avoid seeing, to avoid feeling.
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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
|
Post by KIT CLARKE on Apr 6, 2021 18:43:39 GMT
━ nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky ━
So, that’s what this was. Not real, just his brain attempting to deal with the trauma it’d experienced. It felt real, though━like Kace was standing right there, arguing with him as they had a hundred times before. More venomous, angry from death. But he was wearing the same outfit he’d died in, how Kit had last seen him, and that meant… well, he didn’t know what that meant. It could’ve ended up on either side of the aisle━proof that this was a dream, or that the ghost of his little brother was truly standing in Frank’s kitchen and screaming at him, hitting the fridge so hard that a magnet fell to the floor. Kit looked under one of his arms to peer at it, keeping his head down. He hadn’t touched the fridge himself. This was… fuck,
Every step closer to believing it felt like a leap towards going insane. If he thought Kace’s ghost was haunting him, then he was even more fucked up than he’d ever imagined.
‘Screw you, man.’ and ‘Exactly, fuck you,’... it sounded like Kace. Stubborn as ever, using whatever Kit gave and throwing it right back in the older brother’s face. It could’ve been a memory, how Kit imagined Kace would react to him, but he didn’t want to believe it was. Even if it meant he was crazy, he wanted to see his little brother again, to talk to him, beg for forgiveness.
But the energy to do that wasn’t there, clouded in shame and anger.
The visage━no, Kace━moved closer, and Kit couldn’t help but shrink away again, blue eyes glued to the sink once more━to anything but his brother.
‘...but you strip your self-pitying ass out and that’s not enough. You saw him that day, you think he can take that again?’
He wasn’t wrong. As much as he liked to convince himself that Frank was better off without him, Kit knew Frank would’ve crumbled, just as Kit would’ve, without him. But he didn’t mean now, there was no way he’d leave Frank during this━he knew what it was like to feel abandoned and alone, and he wouldn’t put Frank through that. But the loss of a best friend? Frank was equipped for that; they’d lost most of their team in the army.
“I ain’t his twin brother. He’d… he’d fuckin’ deal with it. I ain’t sayin’ I’m gonna leave him now, s’not what this’s about. We all fuckin’ lose people. He’d deal.” His free hand darted up, swatting away the tears that streamed down from blue eyes. The smoke came up once the other was wrapped around the counter again, inhaling shakily. It wasn’t fucking working. He wasn’t steadying━he could feel his fucking heartbeat pounding in his chest, ready to break free from the confines of his ribcage.
‘... You think gettin’ out of your head’s gonna give you anymore control?’
Kit turned to the side finally, dark hair whipping over his shoulder, coming face to face with his brother. “Fuck,” He sobbed, the word broken and cracked, coming from a throat that felt the same. “How the fuck did you fuck up?” He shook his head weakly, leaning on the hand that remained pressed to the counter. “That was me. I fuckin’... I did that.” He pointed to Kace’s chest again, hues ticking there for only a moment, as if staring into the sun. He didn’t want to look for long; otherwise his eyes word burn out of his fucking head.
“I don’ want control, man. The fuck do I got left? If I get away from Frank, then maybe I’ll fuck up so bad they’ll put me in the ground, too.” Kit felt like he was breaking apart, layers peeling away until he was bare to his brother. If Kace wasn’t real, then he didn’t have to worry about it coming up again. Like a journal, he could write out whatever he wanted, scribbling out everything to work it out himself. He wasn’t running from his problems, though, somehow finding the strength to face them head-on, even if it terrified Kit to no end.
KACE CLARKE | no notes. |
|
KACE CLARKE
Werewolf
untriggered
Posts: 99
Age:
30
Occupation:
Owner of the Diner
Status:
Single
Played by:
ANGE
Last seen Nov 29, 2024 20:38:09 GMT
|
Post by KACE CLARKE on Apr 28, 2021 18:17:14 GMT
There’d been times before, split seconds where he’d thought Kit’s eyes had been on him, not staring through that ephemeral thing he’d become. A deliberate aversion of those blue eyes they shared, a heartbeat where it looked like his brother was actually looking him in the eye before that wall slammed down again and any connection was gone. This was so much more though. He was tearing through, tearing into Kit in a way that maybe had his stomach twisting. They’d warned him, Kace thought, that the only thing that lay this way was madness and one day getting pissed enough at them to end up doing something you never would’ve imagined when you were alive. You gave into the anger, no longer gave two shits whether you were terrifying people, if you lashing out resulted in more of them becoming what you were. A never ending fucking cycle.
Some part of him knew that beating up a guy already internally beating himself to death was only pushing this to go faster but for months he’d sat there watching Kit take a long slow slide down that slope already, despite Frank’s help.
Kace glared down at the magnet that’d dropped away from the fridge with his slap. He went to punt it aside but this time whatever had let him start to break through failed, his foot going right through that stupid plastic, kitschy representation of cherry blossoms like he wasn’t there. Kit had to have fucking seen that, his gaze down, peering up his arm like maybe the magnet was gonna give him all the answers he wasn’t getting here.
Still frustrated he stalked forward, cursing as Kit shrank away from him. Like he was the monster in the dark they’d joked about as kids. The thing gramps swore swaggered around the fields at night, just waiting for a kid to go exploring too far when they shouldn’t have been. Laughed at then, a nightmare now. The two of them caught up in it since the night he’d triggered Kit to the point where he’d lashed out in that terror. Kace stopped, close enough that he should’ve been able to feel the heat radiating from his brother, smell that fear in rank sweat oozing out his pores along with whatever he’d poured down his neck last night. He heard Kit break past that silence, laughed at his words with a sort of bitterness that twisted his lips. ”You think you ain’t the next best thing to one for him. You dragged his ass out of the fire right? Those scars all up and down his back, you stopped any one of them from puttin’ him in a pine box like all the rest and you don’t think that means somethin’.” Deal. Frank would deal and more likely than not he’d be the one in this state. Shit rolling downhill the way it always did.
Growling under his breath, Kace sank back against the counter. Hands came up again, the heels of his palms pressing against his palms smoothing out across his forehead as though he could massage the pressure of his temper out as Kit swatted away the tears that had started to roll. Cause of him.
Something had cracked though, Kit finally turning to face him. Kace stared at him as he sobbed, lips pressed together he swallowed. He wanted to laugh, wanted to let all of it out in another bitter rush but instead he was turning, his fingers tapping against his chest as Kit pointed to it. ”You had the knife but which fuckin’ idiot turned that film on man? I knew you were goin’ through shit, knew stuff was settin’ it all off but I was tired and wired and needed to put somethin’ on and I picked the wrong fuckin’ thing. You think you woulda done that if I was in there watching Cinderella or High School fuckin’ Musical?” He’d known the minute the blade had punched deep that it was on him. Anything fucking thing else on that TV and they wouldn’t have been there.
Blue eyes narrowed as he gestured back towards the hall. Frank and his man were still sleeping down there somewhere, not witness to all of this. ”Well, how ‘bout you realise everybody else wants it for you? You’ve got him, you’ve got Kandace. She might be fuckin’ pissed at you right now but you’ve still got her man. You need to start payin’ attention to all of that.” Their sister was a dirty move but each name he added to that line of people trying to for a human chain to stop Kit plunging off the edge the better. Each shot, each pill popped, another step down the slope to not coming back and if he wasn’t ready to let the fuck go, then Kit didn’t get to either.
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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 May 25, 2021 23:59:03 GMT
━ nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky ━
But he turned into a furry fucking beast on every full moon, so, obviously, some things were possible that he would’ve never imagined being so. And he could face them all━or thought he could, at least. He’d survived the army, stabbing his brother to death and sitting in a prison cell for it; survived his whole family turning their backs on him, whatever he put in his system, and all the women that accompanied him to bed afterwards. Usually, he looked the oncoming challenge in the eyes, barrelling through whatever wanted to hit him next━but this? He didn’t know if he could do it. It was easier just to run away, especially when things began to pile up as they were now.
The loss of Theo brought a responsibility Kit couldn’t quite handle. He was supposed to be there for Frank, hold him through this, and he was, but it fucking… it scared him. It terrified Kit with how close it was to what he’d been through himself. “So what?” He breathed, exasperated, wishing the smoke would help him━even just a little. A desperation he didn’t often have, only when he started to see ghosts. “I saved him, then he saved me. We’re even. He…” Kit tried his best to explain it away, as if brotherhood meant nothing to him. Of course it did━he was still seeing his real brother, hovering there like the Ghost of fucking Christmas past. Nah, more like Marley, come to warn Kit of the chain he was forging as each day went by, heavier and heavier until its weight would keep him forever sinking in the afterlife.
Kit turned to Kace finally, tossing his smoke in the sink, hearing the lit end sizzle against leftover moisture, desperate to stay aflame. He cringed when Kace tapped the spot again, as if he were expecting Kace’s chest to crumple in on itself and fade forever, taking away every last bit of his brother. This was scary and horrible, but Kit didn’t want him to go. He’d do anything to keep Kace around, even if it hurt him more than anything ever had before.
Kace taking the blame turned Kit’s stomach. He nearly bent over the counter to throw up into it; that would really put out that smoke. His eyes stayed trained on Kace, though, a deep frown set in his features. Was this his subconscious trying to work it out for him, to take the fault from Kit? His mind bounced back to the idea that maybe this wasn’t real━maybe it was all his imagination. “Fuck off,” He shook his head, “Doesn’t… doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter ‘cause I did it. I killed you.” Kit shook his head, burying his face in his hands while he sobbed into them, trying to keep it muffled. He was falling apart. His brain was… it was going. It was rotting away.
Wasn’t that what he’d wanted from this, though? For all his memories to fade away, to be left with an ignorant bliss until he was in a grave? If he did, then why was he so fucking scared now?
‘... You’ve got him, you’ve got Kandace. She might be fuckin’ pissed at you right now but you’ve still got her man…’
Kit let out a bitter laugh, muffled by his palms. Slowly, his head raised, icy gaze narrowing at the near-transparent image of his brother. “Kandace?” He spat their sister’s name. Kit couldn’t be angry at her, but he hated how Kace mentioned it so flippantly, speaking as if she was mad at him for something minuscule. Just as she was when they were younger, and the boys played Monkey in the Middle with her and one of her Barbies━without Kandace ever agreeing to be involved.
“She doesn’t wanna fuckin’ see me, man. It ain’t that she’s pissed, she’s scared of me now. Fuckin’... terrified. Won’t let me see her kid, and I━” He whimpered, honest to God fucking whimpered like a goddamn baby. “I don’t fuckin’ blame her. She thinks I’m a monster for what I did t’you, they all do.” Kit pushed away from the counter, leaving the admission hanging in the air that he, too, believed he was a monster.
“I know you’re just… I know you ain’t real.” Did he? Really? His words sounded like he was trying to convince himself of it. “I know you’re just my head trynna compartmentalize this.” Kit motioned lazily to the big lug of meat and hair sitting atop his shoulders, taking slow steps back towards the stairs. “But I don’t…” He met Kace’s eyes finally, halting all movement, save for the slow intake of breath and a squaring of his shoulders. He remained firm, not letting himself blow in the wind like he had been━no longer trapped against the counter. “But I don’t wanna fix myself. I don’t wanna stop hurting.”
When he stared at Kace, at the apparition, Kit really saw it as a reflection of himself, and this was a truth he had to admit. He didn’t want to get better, and one visit from a Christmas Carol-esque ‘ghost’ wasn’t going to change that.
KACE CLARKE | no notes. |
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KACE CLARKE
Werewolf
untriggered
Posts: 99
Age:
30
Occupation:
Owner of the Diner
Status:
Single
Played by:
ANGE
Last seen Nov 29, 2024 20:38:09 GMT
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Post by KACE CLARKE on Jun 15, 2021 20:09:54 GMT
He’d been there in Kit’s room the night he and Frank had ended up in the yard. Confessions on lips left bitter with the booze they’d been sinking to escape those nightmares, the ones he managed to prolong just by being there. Sat on the deck behind the two of them, back against the side of the house, arms clasped loosely around his knees as he’d let his head thud back lightly against the house, he’d heard. Not his confessional, the thing that really linked the two of them something he’d never be a part of, no matter how long he’d lingered. Frank was the one getting him through this while he … while he drove his own brother harder towards that edge. The sudden revelation in his own head left his throat filled with bitterness that he couldn’t spew.
The laugh trailed off as Kit didn’t push back with the spark that had always been there when they were kids. Kit never afraid to back down from any fight, even if it resulted in a punch to that pretty boy face. Afraid to now, just exasperation in his voice where there might once have been a ‘screw you’. Kace’s brows rose, his laugh trailing off. ”So what? It means a fuckin’ responsibility. You saved his ass, he’s not gonna stop til he’s saved yours all the way.” Even in his grief Frank didn’t seem blind to the suffering that had already been hanging pall dark over the house. ”It ain’t even for him, not even fuckin’ close, man.” Scales so far out of balance that they kept swinging, tugging at that thing inside of you until you were so far off balance you … did shit like this.
Tit for tat was bullshit. If it wasn’t he’d be … Kace curled his fingers in towards his palm, drawing it away from his chest. Tighter until it was a fist that he dropped to his side. Tears had always been something to laugh off before, in humour not bitterness, but always wasn’t now, didn’t stretch beyond the grace. His jaw tightened as the hiss of the dying smoke hit the air, twitching as Kace stared at him, the frown carved deeply until the words that were more Kit than anything he’d heard so far were lobbed at him like weapons, dull and too light to do much damage but finally aimed all the same. ”Not happening,” he drawled, knowing that the misery only grew with him lingering. ”Yeah you killed me but it was a fuckin’ accident, you’ve gotta get that through your head. One fuck up on top of another. Mine, yours, doesn’t put all the blame on either one of us. You’ve gotta pull your head out of your ass and realise it.” The venom drifting from his words, his hands coming up to cover his own face as he wanted to kick out again. Heels of them grinding into his eyes as that frustration burned.
Why? Why the fuck had he even done it in the first place. A rom com, some crappy episode of Friends that woulda had him wanting to tear his eyes out, Gordon freaking Ramsay tearing apart some place like this. Anything but what he’d done, anything to avoid seeing his brother like this.
It was too late to turn the clock back and pick another channel, any single other fuckin’ channel. Not too late for Kit though, to scrabble together the pieces of his life with those hands he was using to hold himself together, that did nothing to hide the bitterness that rolled out on a life or that icy cold in his eyes. Kandace. Kace gritted his teeth, half wishing he could roll the clock back just thirty seconds and strip their sisters name off of his tongue. Kandace who didn’t want Kit around her kid, scared that the cracks in Kit’s head would open again that he’d … Trying not to picture the kid’s blood on his brother’s hands, Kace swallowed, hanging his head. ”She’s hurting, like you, and yeah, she’s scared now. Not forever, it’s not gonna be …” Who the fuck was he kidding. Kit knew the truth, let it out in that whimper that tore at his chest. ”You too? You think you’re a monster even if I’m tellin’ you you’re not and I’m the one fuckin’ dead.” Not Frank. Not him.
He coulda blocked his path. The looming spectre of his own guilt up in his brother’s face. Kit would’ve felt that cold, backed down. Wouldn’t have been scurrying away like some scared kid to hide under the covers, shuddering with those sobs as he tried to hold himself together. Kace held his ground there at the counter, jaw squared as he shook his head. He hung it, sighed as he started after Kit and then it was blue on blue as the resolve Kit had left seemed to gather itself. ”Fine, you wanna believe I’m some memory here to torture you? Carry on if it’s gonna work but I’m not leaving you man. I want you to stop, I don’t wanna see you hurting yourself no more and neither does he.” The hurt though … was that all that was keeping Kit from just letting go? Kace swallowed, starting slightly as there came the sound of a door opening upstairs.
Quiet footsteps, the creek of stairs whip crack loud in the quiet of the house. Frank appeared on the stairs, eyes on the man at the bottom of them, standing firm, staring at what appeared to dead air. He frowned, reaching up to knuckle a mouth still morning sour as he stopped three steps off the bottom. ”I didn’t hear you get up. You OK?” A rasp to his voice, shadows still cutting deep under his eyes as he glanced into what he could see of the kitchen, then the closed front door, looking for the girl he’d heard here last night, the one whose quiet giggle had been hushed as he’d woken in a cold sweat from another dream of those woods.
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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
|
Post by KIT CLARKE on Jul 19, 2021 14:57:18 GMT
━ nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky ━
What they weeren’t was stabbing your brother to death. That was all his fault, Kit knew that wholeheartedly, and even if Kace was real and standing there forgiving him, Kit still wouldn’t absolve himself of the blame. Maybe it fueled his shitty desire for self-importance. Maybe he couldn’t let it go because he didn’t want to be forgiven for it. What he did was fucking despicable, and though blame laid heavily on his shoulders, and it hurt to have his family turn their back on him, Kit knew he deserved it. If they forgave him, then it would be like Kace never died.
That’s why, no matter how much he wanted to run from this hallucination, Kit knew it was his cross to bear.
He didn’t want to hear Kace’s shit about Kandace. He remembered the few times when he was allowed leave and could hold her baby girl━she was probably walking by now, but all Kit could picture was her happy little face, all drool and gums and smiles while she wriggled around in his arms. It was so weird in such a cool way, holding such a solid but fragile tiny human, forcing him to be more gentle than ever before. He thought of his own baby, how old it would’ve been by now, a boy or a girl.
But it didn’t even have a chance to get that far. Just like Kace, it was gone.
‘You too? You think you’re a monster even if I’m tellin’ you you’re not and I’m the one fuckin’ dead.’
It didn’t help. Kit knew what he was, and this expression of his subconscious wouldn’t change anything━he wouldn’t allow it to absolve him of guilt no matter how much torture he put himself through.
Backing up towards the stairs, Kit swallowed thickly, scared of what was to come next. But… if he didn’t believe this was real, then why was he so fucking scared? Well, he’d seen the apparition make contact with the table and the fridge. Was that just his imagination? One quick look at the floor proved otherwise━the magnet was still there, discarded to where it’d been kicked. “‘Course you ain’t gonna leave. You’re just up here.” Kit maintained, bringing one unsteady hand up to tap his index finger on his temple.
He nearly flinched at the sound of Frank’s voice, somehow never hearing anything before that, too focused on the image of his brother in front of him. There, as if… he was real. Even still, Kit refused to believe it. His mind refused to wrap around it.
Kit whirled around to face Frank, raising his brows, heart thundering in his chest. Frank. He was the one who really needed help, needed Kit to lean on. It wasn’t helpful for Kit to have all these fucking freakouts, and they needed to stop, though it wasn’t as easy as flipping a switch. He knew that.
“Yeah, man.” Kit croaked, doing everything to ignore Kace, keeping his eyes on Frank. “You want some coffee?” He asked, not turning around again, stepping backwards until, with shaky hands, he found some mugs and the pot that’d finished brewing sometime during Kit’s episode. They’d have breakfast, drink coffee, and everything would be okay.
KACE CLARKE | zeee end |
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