CHASE BUCKLEY
Demon
Posts: 149
Age:
38
Occupation:
Detective
Status:
In a Relationship
Partner:
Roxanne Braschi
Played by:
ANGE
Last seen Nov 2, 2024 20:18:17 GMT
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Post by CHASE BUCKLEY on Apr 16, 2023 19:36:26 GMT
’Hey man, I’m sorry. Come back home.’
Chase’s thumb hovered above the screen. All it’d take was one tap to start making it up – in the most cowardly way possible. Make Mikey walk in the door, unsure if all really was forgiven, bracing himself against the next venomous tirade from his brother. Nah. The sheriff’s tap at the office door cut off all consideration of it, leaving that anvil hanging over his head for another hour.
Three weeks ago the sheriff walking back out woulda come right around the time Roxxi had turned up. Tubs in hand, lunch spread out on his desk, the best part of his day. They weren’t back there yet though. The first patches over their hearts had only been smoothed into place a couple of days ago. He’d have said maybe they’d get back there if you’d asked him before he’d opened the apartment door up to her, but now it was a certainty that they would, not that nebulous belief that would shred inside his mind every time he tried to wrap his fingers around it. It just wasn’t today.
He could’ve got something from the vending machine, made himself a cup of coffee in the break room – the expensive stuff Carnegie had started sneaking in to replace the gut rot they’d had before (their mysterious benefactor hadn’t been so mysterious after he’d figured out that the guy was Wolfgang Puck in disguise) – but it wouldn’t have done what he needed it to. This was about him biting the bullet and making sure his brother knew that he hadn’t cut him out of his life too. Mikey hadn’t done anything more wrong than Roxxi had. Neither one of them had gone into … had been together … knowing who they were to him. If it had been a stranger on the street in either case he wouldn’t have blinked (not any harder than he had over the video), let alone cut them both out for weeks.
Pushing out of his chair, Chase snatched up his jacket and made for the door. If he sat there considering it any longer the mental images would drift in again, a dark rip tide that it took way too long, too much energy to kick his way free of. If they were gonna get to that future he’d imagined with Roxxi – a house full of kids, all clamouring for Uncle Mikey the minute he stepped through the door, that adoration running both ways between his brother and his kids – he had to open his mouth and let the forgiveness that was threatening to choke him pour out.
Words pinballed through his head as he drove the short distance from the station to the diner. Maybe once they realized their eldest boy had finally – permanently – broken out of the irons the Agnellis had clapped him into – their parents would fit into that happy ever after scenario in his head. They hadn’t seen Mikey putting in the work, how that was all paying off. Or how close he’d come to fucking it up for him by kicking him out of the place of residence that was listed with his PO. Raking his teeth over his lower lip, Chase scrubbed his hands over his face, dragged his hair back from his face as he sat in the car at the curb. How the fuck was he gonna start to explain to them that he’d been the one who landed Mikey back in a cell if this all went wrong?
He wasn’t gonna have to.
Pushing the niggling little doubts to the back of his mind, Chase got out of the car. He couldn’t see Mikey through the window of the Diner but he caught a glimpse of him behind the counter as he walked in. Focused on the work, not expecting his brother to walk through the door and turn this isn’t a public spectacle – not that he was going to. ”Bro, can I borrow him for ten minutes?” Chase asked the long haired guy behind the register, the one he’d found out was Mikey’s boss the first time he’d come in to see his big brother at work a couple of days after Mikey had started.
Kace glanced up at the suited guy in front of him, then back over his shoulder at Mikey. He looked like he was considering it for a moment before he nodded. He handed the woman in front of him her change, then took a couple of steps back and tapped Mikey on the shoulder. ”Hey, your brother’s here. Take a break, I’ve got this.”
Chase hovered there at the counter for a moment, waiting until Mikey moved before he headed for the last booth, the one that was just emptying out – a young brunette slinging a huge purse over her shoulder and calling out a ”bye ma” to one of the waitresses as she headed for the door. The nerves were knotting tight in his gut again and clamping his hands together on top of the table was doing nothing to ease it. He looked up as a shadow fell over the table, swallowed hard as he met his brother’s eye. ”I didn’t know if you’d want me swingin’ by, you know, after what happened. I didn’t wanna say I was sorry by text, you know.” It wouldn’t have been enough – it would’ve been like starting to rebuild that bridge with a single matchstick, it would’ve taken forever.
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MIKEY BUCKLEY
Kanima
Posts: 143
Age:
41
Occupation:
Line Cook
Status:
In a Relationship
Partner:
Mab Carmello
Played by:
Jodi
Broken isn’t the same as unfixable
Last seen Nov 12, 2024 16:41:49 GMT
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Post by MIKEY BUCKLEY on May 30, 2023 15:27:19 GMT
Mikey didn’t need to text Chase every hour of every day to say he was sorry, his brother knew how sorry he was. He suspected Roxxi would be busy blowing up Chase’s phone anyway, but what more could they say? It was a mistake. A great massive fucking mistake and Mikey was the king at fucking up. He’d yet to learn his lesson, but maybe he never would. Forever a disappointment to those around him. He’d spent days beating himself up about what happened with Roxxi, even though Mab had insisted he’d done nothing wrong. Chase didn’t see it that way. He never thought he’d be thankful for meeting Mab considering she tricked him into breaking the law, but she had opened her home to him and let him crash on the couch for the foreseeable. She helped to keep him company each evening, distracting his mind from Chase. First she offered the couch, but after a while she offered the right side of her bed after Mikey commented about having a bad back, as if he hadn’t been sleeping on a piece of stone for the past twenty years. The couch was a damn sight better than the bed he was provided with in prison. Mab insisted the mattress would be good for his back, which it was. It was like sleeping on a cloud, but the first few nights he couldn’t take full advantage of the bed. It was difficult to fall asleep with a woman next to him, considering he hadn’t shared a bed with a female since he was a teenager. He lay there for hours listening to Mab breathe softly, wondering if she also was wide awake, lying ridiculously still. But one night he climbed into bed and drifted off to sleep with ease. He was content at Mab’s but waited desperately by his phone for Chase to text him, telling he was welcome back, but the text never came. Maybe he’d completely fucked it this time and his relationship with his brother was broken beyond repair. Sleeping with Roxxi was the final straw for Chase. It sounded like it hadn’t been Roxxi’s first fuck up either. Cooking lunch for the citizens of Mystic Falls was sometimes more stressful than serving up food to inmates. The inmates were told to shut up and eat their food, even if they were happy with it but it was different when someone was paying for it. It wasn’t often a plate was sent back to the kitchen, especially for something so trivial. The man sitting on table seven was kicking up a fuss because the lettuce on his burger was too crunchy. Mikey let out a loud drawn out sigh when the server came rushing back with the plate. Kace stepped in though, tapping Mikey on the shoulder. It wasn’t time for his break yet, but Chase was in the diner. His gaze drifted from Kace to Chase as he smiled softly, “Thanks.” He said to Kace before moving from behind the counter. Chase’s hands were empty so he hadn’t arrived to give Mikey the rest of his belongings and hand him an eviction notice. Nonetheless, nerves were bubbling inside of him. He followed Chase to one of the vacant booths, sliding into the seat across from him. His hands tapped nervously on his thighs, “Hey.” He managed to force a greeting out despite his throat feeling like it was about to close up. “Sorry?” He shook his head, “Bro. You’ve got nothin’ be sorry about… it’s me who’s gotta say sorry. I’m sorry… I should’ve said somethin’ sooner.” It was a long drawn out process because Roxxi spent forever avoiding the subject, “Have you spoken to Roxxi?” Had he reached out to her as well, offering an olive branch. CHASE BUCKLEY |
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CHASE BUCKLEY
Demon
Posts: 149
Age:
38
Occupation:
Detective
Status:
In a Relationship
Partner:
Roxanne Braschi
Played by:
ANGE
Last seen Nov 2, 2024 20:18:17 GMT
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Post by CHASE BUCKLEY on Jun 17, 2023 18:06:29 GMT
Guilt had bit Copperhead hard almost the minute silence had descended on the apartment. He’d slammed into his bedroom, yanking the still rumpled sheets off of the bed, dragging in Roxxi’s scent with every ragged breath. Eyes stinging he’d shoved them into the machine, as though ridding the apartment of her would somehow ease the sting in his heart where those fangs of betrayal had sunk deep. It’d been a dead man walking who’d left the apartment an hour later, worry over his brother filtering into the back of his mind. Roxxi had somewhere to go, an apartment of her own where she could wallow, drowning in his scent on her sheets and the guilt he hoped was choking her. Mikey though … he’d got the apartment for the two of them, making sure that Mikey had a home. If his parole officer realised that it was no longer than then those first stirrings about breaking his parole would start.
For months after Nemo had turned up in the street and had cleaned his clock, he’d made trips around all the local motels, the B’n’Bs, even that swanky hotel on the square, trying to figure out which rock the snake had crawled back under. The day after, while he was supposedly on the clock, Chase had taken another trip around them, hoping to see his brother heading back to one of them so he knew he was somewhere safe instead of sleeping on a park bench. There’d been no sign, but Mikey was at work at least. A smudgy figure visible through the steamy windows of the Diner. Relief had eased the ache in his chest at least far enough that he didn’t try again. Mikey wouldn’t let himself screw up at this point, he wouldn’t risk his freedom that way.
Chase could still feel the scars in his heart where the guilt had laid, they itched like a healing wound as Mikey’s boss turned around to grab Mikey from the grill. This place probably had an apartment over it, like most of the businesses around the square seemed to. Had he thrown open the door to the place for an employee without somewhere to go? Was Mikey even that friendly with the guy? It was all stuff he should’ve known, but he’d been blind to more than the tension between his girlfriend and his brother and that shit was stopping.
Months on end of paranoia about what would happen when – not if – the Agnellis would make a reappearance had meant that he wasn’t living. He’d made plans with Roxxi for a future, but she hadn’t known what that was gonna look like, because like the two of them he’d been keeping the truth close to his chest. At some point he needed to warn Mikey about Nemo coming here, but not now.
Lifting his chin in a silent greeting to Mikey, Chase felt his chest tighten. Was Mikey gonna take one look and walk away? Nah. He was smiling, that had to be a good sign right? Even if it wasn’t at him. Chase swallowed hard, shifting his weight as he watched Mikey work his way out from behind the counter. There was an itch between his shoulder blades as though everybody in the place was watching them. He glanced down the line of booths as he sat down, no eyes on them.
The minute Mikey was opposite him the apology started to spill out awkwardly. Chase shook his head the minute Mikey questioned it, dark brows knotting up. ”Yeah, sorry, man.” He paused, his lips all pursed up before they twitched. ”Bullshit. You already did that.” The apologies had spilled out in the kitchen along with what they’d been keeping from him. It wouldn’t have mattered when they’d told him. By the time Roxxi had almost left that first time he was already falling in love with her. He would’ve got his heart torn out just the same.
He bit down on the tip of his tongue, head dipping slightly as he tried to get the words lined up in his head the same way he had done when he’d started to patch things up with Roxxi. Maybe he’d done that the wrong way around, letting her in before he did Mikey, but he couldn’t change any of it now. ”It woulda been the same whenever I heard it, and it shouldn’t have been. I kicked you outta your home cause I couldn’t stop … seein’ it in my head. That wasn’t fair on you. Did you find somewhere?” He’d keep apologising for that until Mikey was back there. Raking his teeth over his lower lip, Chase nodded slowly. ”Couple of days ago. She’d been droppin’ food off at the house – her way of sayin’ sorry, I guess. We talked … I told her about some of the stuff that happened after you … after you got sentenced. I was hidin’ stuff from her too and she needed to know.” So she could walk away if she had to.
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MIKEY BUCKLEY
Kanima
Posts: 143
Age:
41
Occupation:
Line Cook
Status:
In a Relationship
Partner:
Mab Carmello
Played by:
Jodi
Broken isn’t the same as unfixable
Last seen Nov 12, 2024 16:41:49 GMT
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Post by MIKEY BUCKLEY on Jul 12, 2023 18:36:44 GMT
Waking up in Mab’s apartment every morning was pleasant and a damn sight better than a motel room, but he missed waking up in his own bed in Chase’s apartment. He missed Chase, more so than when he was in prison. Whilst inside he knew he would be seeing Chase every Wednesday, without fail, but this time he didn’t know when he would next see his brother. Mystic Falls was a tiny town, but Mikey had been locking himself away in Mab’s apartment. No doubt Chase was doing the same, trying to get his head area what the fuck had gone down. It was touching two weeks by the time Chase entered the diner, but it felt like two months. They needed to stick together though, with a visit from the Agnellis pending. They knew he was out of prison, they had to, so they’d be visiting Mystic Falls soon to collect Mikey, like he was their property. Twenty years spent inside meant nothing to them. It concerned him how easily his probation worker could read him and after weeks of prying he finally let slip he was worried about the Agenllis coming for him, but apparently he should focus on the present. There was no point worrying about what could happen, it wasn’t healthy. Fuck, she sounded like the counsellor he was forced to see when he first got banged up. It was pretty fucking hard to not focus on the future when he was looking at spending the first part of his adulthood in prison. It was easy for him to find himself lost in the if, buts and maybes. He couldn’t say much more than sorry to Chase. There were no excuses and no explaining to be done. Bottom line, he dropped the ball, again. It was tempting to apologise again, but he held back even though the apology was itching to come out. He swallowed it down as Chase continued to speak, but the guilt was chewing away at him. Ripping off chunks as Chase tried to say it wasn’t fair on Mikey. Bullshit. It wasn’t fair that he had kept it a secret from Chase for so long. “You needed some time.” Although he knew it was impossible to scrub that image from his head permanently. Mikey and Roxxi. “Yeah. A friend of mine let me crash on her couch.” To begin with, until he was promoted to the bedroom. That was a chat for another time though. “I guess if you wanna start a family with this woman then she needs to know everythin’... although I suppose she knows some of it from the papers.” It wasn’t complete lies what they printed, there were traces of the truth in there. “You two good now?” Mikey was still working on building up trust for Roxxi, but he hopefully his brother and her had mended their relationship. CHASE BUCKLEY |
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CHASE BUCKLEY
Demon
Posts: 149
Age:
38
Occupation:
Detective
Status:
In a Relationship
Partner:
Roxanne Braschi
Played by:
ANGE
Last seen Nov 2, 2024 20:18:17 GMT
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Post by CHASE BUCKLEY on Aug 12, 2023 18:36:23 GMT
He’d gone twenty years without his brother – the only contact they had monitored by prison guards, restricted to those brief visiting windows. It should’ve taken time after for the two of them to get used to being around one another again, but it felt like it’d taken none at all for them to settle into a routine, for the Buckley brothers to be as tight as they’d once been. Chase had expected for things to shift a little when he’d started to get serious with Roxxi. A woman working her way into their lives, one who’d done a little poking around before he could try and fill in the blanks for her. Eventually they’d have hollowed out room for her – if shit went really well, Mikey and Roxxi would’ve started to get along. He’d been fucking blind and stupid. A thousand times in the weeks that the two of them had been gone he’d wondered how he’d missed it.
This was nothing like the visiting space at the prison. The only people who mighta been paying attention to the two of them were the nosy old folks that always seemed to gravitate to places like this and Mikey’s boss, if he was suddenly gonna change his mind about giving the two of them some time. They could talk, he could explain, he could apologise, whether or not his brother wanted to hear it. Or if he didn’t he needed to make one.
Three fucking weeks to pull himself together, his brother who had a target on his back still and nowhere to go floating out there in a town where you could spit and hit trouble every single time. Guilt had started to creep in days before he’d finally opened the door to Roxxi and now it was a lead weight in his stomach. Mikey was being forgiving in a way it had taken him all that time to be, just making that sick feeling grow.
Chase huffed out a breath, shaking his head. He’d taken too much time, the splintered shards of his heart dug deep into his flesh without him even trying to pull them out, free bleeding for days before he started to try and understand what the fuck had really happened. Weeks to pluck them out one by one and realise that none of the wounds were as deep as he’d thought they might have been at first. ”Too much time,” he admitted, his voice dry. ”To pull my head out of my ass and realise I’d been an idiot.” There were ways of dealing with it all that didn’t include just ripping the entire situation out of your life.
A handful of times over the last couple of weeks he’d woken in a sweat from dreams where he’d found what was left of Mikey after the Agnellis had found him again. The feel of his brother’s blood hot on his skin, red rims to his nails that had remained even after he’d tried to scrub them away. Other dreams of his brother sleeping on park benches or in a cockroach infested motel room. That wasn’t the way Mikey was meant to be spending his freedom.
Smiles hadn’t been coming easy in the last couple of weeks but now one ghosted over Chase’s lips. He tilted his head towards Mikey’s boss. ”A friend like a coworker or a friend friend?” There shouldn’t have been an extra burst of relief at the latter, but it was there. What had been between Mikey and Roxxi wasn’t a relationship, it was nothing like what the two of them had. That didn’t mean he didn’t want his brother to find that someone he wanted to spend his life with. Mikey had said her after all.
The smile was short lived, his face settling back into grim lines as Mikey already started to move back towards the reason he was here in the first place. Roxxi had found out some of what had happened on her own, but on the day he’d let her into the apartment he'd really let her in. Chase propped his elbows on the edge of the table, dipping his head so he was frowning down at the salt shaker and napkin holder. ”I told her my part of it,” he admitted hoarsely. ”I didn’t wanna say about all of it without you knowin’ or giving’ permission or somethin’, you know? She heard about what happened after, how Emiliano tried to get me dragged into all of that shit. If he tries to do it again, I don’t want her bein’ caught in the middle, gettin’ hurt cause I didn’t let go or give in.” He hadn’t wanted Mikey to pay again either, but Nemo could still make it happen.
Nodding slowly as Mikey probed to see if things had been mended between him and Roxxi first, Chase settled back again. That restlessness was still there, the calm inside of him feeling a little like it’d be out of reach until Mikey was back home. ”We’re gettin’ there. She said it was gonna be the last day with the food when I opened the door, but I don’t think she woulda walked.” His lips curved for a second, his eyes meeting his brother’s again. ” I wanted to do the same for you. I want you to come home, man. Will you do that? Let me start makin’ this shit up to you?” Even if Mikey was on someone’s sofa, home was gonna be better. It was his big brother’s place as much as it was his own.
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MIKEY BUCKLEY
Kanima
Posts: 143
Age:
41
Occupation:
Line Cook
Status:
In a Relationship
Partner:
Mab Carmello
Played by:
Jodi
Broken isn’t the same as unfixable
Last seen Nov 12, 2024 16:41:49 GMT
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Post by MIKEY BUCKLEY on Aug 18, 2023 18:55:53 GMT
Roxxi had found Mikey in a particularly vulnerable state. He was fresh out of prison and had been deprived of a female contract for two decades. Of course he was going to crumble at her advances. It wasn’t because he had feelings towards Roxxi, it was because she was offering something he needed. He was following his primal instincts. There was no fucking way he was going to walk away from that. But now he was wishing he did. None of it was worth potentially ruining his relationship with his brother. No girl was ever worth that. Their relationship wasn’t in a complete shambles it seemed. Chase had come to build a bridge between them, even though it should have been Mikey laying the foundations, brick by brick until Chase met him. If Chase met him. Mikey would have accepted Chase’s decision to never speak to him again, if that was the chosen outcome because ultimately Mikey didn’t deserve a brother like Chase. Surely by now he was growing tired of standing by Mikey time and time again, after every single fuck up he was standing right there, telling him everything would be okay. How had he not washed his hands of Mikey by now? He hadn’t been given one second chance, he’d been giving plenty of second chances. At least this fuck up wasn’t going to land him in jail. “Nah man. You ain’t been an idiot… I’d tell you if you were.” There was a flicker of a smile on Mikey’s face. Usually he’d lay everything on the table with Chase, but he couldn’t do that when it came to Mab without admitting he committed a crime since being released. Also there was the whole vampire, witch, kanmia aspect attached to it. A can of worms that could never be opened. They had their lie though, they met in Coffee Bean. “Just a friend. We met when I first moved here and she sort of owed me a favour.” Just two friends sharing a bed who sometimes gravitate towards each other at night when they’re asleep. Neither of them seemed to mind it, perhaps because they were both craving some level of human affection. Mab had shared her story with him, it wasn’t pretty. The papers were there for Roxxi to read and gather half of the story, but Chase and Mikey held the rest of it. “I’d rather her know what happened than read some shit in the papers.” Whenever he started to think about the shit that was out there on the internet about him his mind jumped to Mab. He needed to tell her the truth, but it felt like that conversation had passed, drifting away everyday. “Emiliano ain’t doing shit… I won’t let him fuck up our lives again even he tries.” He’d tasted freedom and it was fucking great, so there was no way he was going to give it up again for anyone. It hurt sitting there listening to Chase blame himself for what happened, talking like he was the bad guy in the situation. Like fuck he was. He was the innocent party. “You ain’t gotta make up shit to me. I'm the one in the wrong… I gotta make it up to you.” He broke into a smile though, “Of course I’ll come home man. I’ve missed ya.” When he stepped out of Chase’s front door that hole in his chest opened up again. Yeah, it was great staying with Mab, but he missed his brother. CHASE BUCKLEY - wanna wrap with yours? |
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CHASE BUCKLEY
Demon
Posts: 149
Age:
38
Occupation:
Detective
Status:
In a Relationship
Partner:
Roxanne Braschi
Played by:
ANGE
Last seen Nov 2, 2024 20:18:17 GMT
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Post by CHASE BUCKLEY on Sept 3, 2023 19:31:30 GMT
Maybe it was too soon, but Chase was huffing out a laugh, reaching over the table to slug his knuckles against his brother’s arm. ”I appreciate the honesty,” he muttered. He hadn’t done when Mikey had dropped the fucking anvil through the middle of his life, threatening to wreck what he’d started to rebuild in it when he’d moved here – what they’d started to rebuild in it. The fear had been there that there was no way to patch it up this time, the pieces too small, too damaged to be able to fit back together. It had been what’d woken him in cold sweats – not the dreams of Mikey and Roxxi together (those had left him feeling sick in a different way) – but the ones where the Agnellis came and got their hands on his brother. Where they finally got their revenge for that piece of shit, Georgie.
He'd imagined Mikey halfway there without the anchor of the apartment and his little brother, but in Mikey’s sparse explanation for where he’d been, Chase realised he probably hadn’t need to worry. Maybe wondering if both him and Roxxi had lied about nothing ever coming from it had been entire bullshit from the start too. Chase’s smile strengthened, smug touching it as he chuckled and nodded. ”She, huh?” He was busting his balls again, it wasn’t like they were teenagers anymore, even that young man sewing wild oats bullshit had passed by without the two of them hitting those milestones. ”I’m glad you had somewhere. Favour or not.” Whether or not Mikey was gonna wanna leave his new place was still to be seen.
The gulf was probably always gonna be there between Roxxi and his brother in a way. The shit that had gone down with them burning any of the bridges that might’ve been there – with him in the middle of them. Maybe they could eventually get to the point where they could tolerate one another, but he wasn’t gonna push it to happen yet. Chase raked his teeth over his lower lip, bobbing his head in agreement before he looked up. ”I can tell her. Make sure she knows exactly what happened. She’s gonna believe me over whatever shit that son of a bitch managed to get splashed on the front page.” Emiliano had always been an expert at covering up the shit he waded in with a coat of silk. His son had been an innocent victim, just serving the real guilty party with twenty years behind bars in the end. ”We both make sure he don’t, alright??” Chase met his brother’s eye, held it. There was no way he was gonna like Mikey get anywhere near any of that. He’d do this the right way and they’d both be standing at the end of it.
”Yeah, I do,” Chase muttered, correcting him. ”We all did somethin’ wrong in this and I need to make up for it too.” It’d all started innocently, what had happened after could still be fixed. ”Whenever you’re ready, you come back there.” If the door opened tonight he’d be breathing a sigh of relief. The apartment needed to feel like home again, instead of the cell he’d made of it, locking himself up there with his anger and guilt. Chase plucked the menu out of its holder, his mouth curling up into a genuine smile. ”How ‘bout we start that making it up to me with some pancakes? I got my appetite back.” Like he had with Roxxi, he wanted that bond brought back and it seemed as though his love language had become food with both of the most important people in his life ending up willingly puttering kitchens. Still, Chase to his feet and rounded the table, pulling his brother into a back thumping hug.
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hope to see you in the discord! 
