synnet | ( obligatory birthday post )

Gotcha, see you soon!

[ everything's fine for birthday times. of course she recognized the brother lore drop, but jinx knows how to bide her time. birthdays should be fun at least. ]

( He appears as fresh-faced as he can be, glasses covering up most of the red-eyed post weeping damage. Either way he's hurrying towards her, a package in his hands. )

Okay, so I was at the tanabata and I won you something, only I forgot to bring it, so you're getting it now. ( It's his birthday, and he gets to give people things if he wants. Which means he proudly presents Jinx with her very own bubble gun, you're welcome. ) It shoots bubbles! Like, so many of them. And I know you're a sharpshooter too, so I thought why not? I'm real good at festival games, and there's only so many plushies I can bring the kids.

( Have the most terribly earnest of baby faces, Jinx, take this old man's offering. )

[ jinx gives him a perplexed look, hands on her hips. ]

Uh, do you not know how birthdays work?

[ that being said, jinx is never going to say no to presents and the bubble gun is cute. she promptly shoots a couple of them right in his face. ]

Birthdays work how I say they work.

( A sniff. )

Besides, it's about sharing the joy. That's what Rem says.

[ jinx slips the bubble gun safely away in her hammerspace pocket, thanks to the gloves LILITH gave her. ]

Who's that?

( Ah. )

My mom? She was like a mom anyway. Our first birthday she made us these hats, and a cake. It was great.

( First, and he was the size of an eight year old and too clever to boot. )

That's neat. An adoptive mom.

My first dad used to do shit like that. We didn't really have fancy cakes, but he'd make this awesome meat pie and we got to have some of the top shelf drinks. Just a little.

A meat pie!

( It sounds cute. He wonders how old she might have been. )

When's yours? Just so I know to be prepared!

[ a casual shrug. ]

I dunno, maybe a few months from now?

( A lil' side-eye. )

September? Or October?

[ right back at you. she knows what game you're playing. ]

October. And that's all you're gonna get.

Stop using me to be weird about your birthday.

Just tell me closer to the time so I know, okay? And then we can do something. We'll go look at the animatronics at the zoo.

( That's ... a birthday activity, right? )

Also I'm not being weird.

[ she raises an eyebrow at him. ]

Yeah, yeah. But you are definitely being weird.

Bad memories?

Kind of.

( He pulls a face. )

The last one wasn't great. I've been trying not to think about it.

No, you haven't.

[ casually, not critically. jinx eyes her own fingernails. ]

You want to stew in it. Let those memories drown you as they come rushing back. And you want to be alone in them.

( His whole body falters in his step, pale face turned to look at her before he puts his eyes back on the pavement again. )

I don't think I deserve anything else.

( Casually, too. )

I think today should hurt. That's only right.

Okay, but you get that being hurt doesn't actually fix anyone else's hurts.

It just means there's more hurt all around.

( He's silent for another few steps, clearly thinking. Vash knows she's right, he knows it makes sense. If anyone else were doing this around him he'd try the very same way she is. But still, his throat hurts.

He trusts her though. She's been kind to him. So he shoves his hands in his coat pockets, rounds his shoulders a little. )

My brother's dead. He died a year ago today.

( A mournful little hum. )

I'm the one who killed him.

[ that's rough buddy. jinx's expression doesn't shift much. ]

My sister tried to kill me. And I tried to kill her. It sucked. Mostly because she couldn't get the job done.

[ sighs. it would have been nice. peaceful. no more grief, no more voices, no anything. the stain that she is, wiped clean. and jinx wouldn't have let anyone else do it. vi, though . . . vi had that right. ]

I've killed lots of people. I was a kid with blood on my hands. So much blood. If you hate it so much, it's better to get a bullet in your head than to mope. What's that going to do?

It'll never fix you. Or him. Or anything.

That doesn't really work with me.

( A bullet to the skull, he means. ) I'm like a bug, I always crawl away from the wreckage.

( A laugh, a little hollow. )

I miss him though. I think that's the worst part. All the things we've done to each other, and all of the time we've spent apart, we didn't talk to each other for a century, and I still miss him. He'd be so unimpressed, he hates when I'm a cry-baby. He also hates birthdays though, so he'd be double unimpressed. Do you miss your sister?

Yeah. Shame, right?

[ that last question though. jinx goes pensive, tight around the corners. like she's building walls around herself just by thinking about it. she misses vi. she doesn't miss vi. the way she is now . . . vi will never love her.

and she can't . . . help that. ]

I guess. Sometimes.

( He notices the way she tightens up, swings more into her space to knock his real arm against hers, friendly. )

Family's can be really complicated sometimes, it's okay.

[ jinx gives a disbelieving snort, but it's not really directed at him. ]

Wow, tell me something I don't know.

( A hum. )

If you could do anything you wanted right now, what would you choose?

Whose birthday is it anyway?

[ jinx is going to grab his cheek and pull it. ]

Enough waffling. You need to choose.

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cw: suicide ideation

gonna continue the trend

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