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i write on a whim, so pls don't expect regular updates!
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꩜ [ hazbin hotel ] vincent whittman (vox) x reader
wc: 3.4k+ words
-> second person pov; fluff; humour; foreshadowing; inspired by titanic (1997); banter & bickering (a whole lot of it); soft + whipped + human vox; once again i pride myself on the historical accuracy of this
small note ,
this is a prologue to the oneshot i posted a few weeks ago. i do suggest that you read that first before this one, as this is very heavy with foreshadowing !
now playing… come josephine in my flying machine by billy murray + ada jones
⤷ in queue :: it might be you by stephen bishop
the stars were always brighter around this time of year, you think.
they twinkle against the canopy of night and over the slated roofs of southampton, sparkling in tune to the flurried tinkle of your laughter. two pairs of leather soles clack loudly through the cobblestone streets—one swifter than the other, the other heavier than the first.
“quiet!” vincent hushes you loudly, though unable to hold back his own laughs.
“hurry, vinny!” you giggle, whipping your head to look back at the man you’re dragging by the hand behind you. “titanic waits for no one!”
he picks up his pace, eventually falling into step with you. vincent then shifts his fingers to lace into the spaces between your own. “we’ve got all night, baby,” he says breathlessly, endeared amusement stumbling through the middle of his words. “we’ve got time.”
canute road was surprisingly empty for an hour this early into the evening—though you suppose most people were either tucked in in preparation for the excitement of the next day, or putting on the ritz with the rich and glamorous back at the southwestern hotel.
you could almost see her—titanic, that is—barely peeking over the rooftops as you neared the white star docks. you feel your heart give a happy little flip and you briefly squeeze vincent’s hand in elation.
“oh, darling, just look at her!”
“where?” he squints, scrunching his nose. it barely lifts the thick-rimmed lenses of his glasses to his line of sight.
“there, you silly boy!” you exclaim, pointing up somewhere into the distance.
vincent chuckles sheepishly, “i still can’t see it, honey.”
you stubbornly continue to point at the sliver of pale buff steel that was her mighty funnels. “over yonder, just by the– oh, forget it, you blind rat.” you drop your hand to your side. “we're almost there, anyway.”
vincent laughs again, and the ring around his finger is cool against your skin. “you might have married a blind man, sweetheart, but at least i’m handsome enough to make up for it.” he preens under the yellow streetlights, and your indignant retort is lost to the succeeding guffaw that bursts from his chest.
“i thought you were the one telling me to be quiet!” you protest, though you can't fight the smile that worms its way onto your face.
he doesn't stop laughing.
“vincent!”
“okay, okay,” he relents, beginning to wind down his laughter. “i’ll be quiet now.”
your handheld sprint slows to a leisurely jog as you near the gates to the port—tall, red-bricked, imposing sentries that barred the path to the berths. heavy, wrought-iron pickets were speared adjacent to the massive pillars, and in front of the enormous latch stood a watchman in uniform.
his gaze rakes over the two of you with a severity that makes your breath catch in your throat, but vincent doesn’t flinch. before the guard could part his lips with an admonishment, vincent smoothly slinks his hand into his breast pocket and pulls out a thick, cream coloured card—one that was folded in such a way that made it fit neatly in his suit, yet strategic enough to flaunt the embellished White Star Line logo that adorned the margins.
“evening, officer,” vincent greets with a small, self-assured smile. “second-class passengers. my lady wanted to see the ship up close before we board tomorrow."
the watchman’s eyes flicker from the ticket to vincent’s tailored coat, gives your silk and pearls a fleeting glance, then immediately nods. “mind the railroad tracks in the dark, sir.” he pulls back the hefty latch with a metallic clink, and slightly bows his head toward you in acknowledgment. “and have a good evening, ma’am.”
you hesitantly return his gesture, then carefully move your hand to wrap around vincent’s arm.
as the gate carefully swings open, a flash of gold gleams beneath the postlight. vincent tosses a coin, flicking it from his pocket, and the watchman catches it almost effortlessly. his stern demeanour relaxes with a slight upturn of his lips.
“good man,” vincent winks. “we won’t be an hour.”
the watchman responds with a casual salute, pockets the coin, then turns back to his post.
you exhale the breath you were holding. “oh, my goodness!” you burst into another fit of giggles once the two of you reach a considerable distance away from the gate. “i was so nervous!”
vincent does a complete 180°, his earlier suaveness gone with a turn of his heel. “did you see how i handled that?” he asks proudly. “keen, huh?”
“positively dashing,” you agree, tiptoeing to press a delighted kiss to his cheek.
“all about the execution, sweetheart,” vincent says smugly. “shall we, my love?” he places his hand over where yours rests in the crook of his arm.
“where to, sir?” you grin, deciding to humor him. “the stars?”
it was around a quarter of a mile further down to the quay, but you were in no rush.
you had time.
briefly squeezing your hand thrice, vincent smiles, relishing in the way you glow with joy. he leans down slightly, lowering his voice to an almost conspiratorial whisper.
“the ship of dreams.”
—
loose gravel crunches beneath your feet as you walk, together, past the row of cargo sheds that line the dock. quayside cranes loom over your heads like trees unshaken by the spring breeze; a zephyr that rolls in from the southwest and blows a shiver through your clothes.
vincent breathes out a chuckle that clouds in front of his lips. “didn’t bring a coat?”
“got too excited.” your teeth chatter, though it does nothing to chase away the smile that all but splits your face. “c-couldn’t wait to leave. dinner was stuffy.”
“silly girl,” he huffs, returning your earlier remark in kind. “come here.”
your walk is paused momentarily as vincent takes a second to unbutton and shrug off his dinner jacket, before he settles the coat around your shoulders. the warmth that follows is immediate and endlessly comforting—though you notice how the weight of the tickets settling upon the space above your heart was far heavier than the wool.
“vincent—” you start.
“i’ll be fine,” he hushes you. “i run hot anyway, remember?”
the fabric of his waistcoat fits neatly against his stomach and chest, and you can’t find it in yourself to complain. still, you roll your eyes.
“oh, praise,” you drawl sarcastically, settling back into his side. “my hero.”
“i know, i know.” vincent lets out a theatrical sigh, shaking his fist. “such sacrifice. the very image of chivalry.”
“you’re just pushing it now!” you say loudly, then try to stomp your right heel over his dress shoes. he narrowly dodges it with a tiny yelp.
“i- hey!” he protests. “is that any way you should be treating your hero?”
“no, but it's how i should be treating my husband.” you throw him a dirty look, before adding, “for being an idiot.”
the mock-offense on his face melts almost immediately. a newborn star gleams in his eyes, and he softens, tenderness bright in his mismatched gaze.
you blink at his change of demeanour. “what?”
“i don’t think i’ll ever get used to it,” he finally says. vincent turns to look ahead, resuming your walk. the most boyish, happiest smile you’ve ever seen him wear stays spread across his face.
“to?”
“you calling me your husband.”
the raw honesty in his voice was staggering—uncharacteristic, though not unwelcome. it steals the witty retort that had been brimming on the edge of your tongue, and in its place blooms a sudden, sweet ache that you try hard to swallow. that same ache swells in your chest and dances through your skin, warming your cheeks in a flush you can’t blame on the evening chill, and gravitates the blood in your fingertips toward the pulse in his. you trail your palm down his arm until you find his hand, and you slip into where you’ve always fit; where you’ve always belonged.
“better start getting used to it, then.” is all you can muster. a watery laugh unwillingly breaks out of you, and you press your cheek into the ironed cotton that dresses his shoulder. “i don’t plan on stopping any time soon.”
“not even for the next ten years?” he teases, nudging his chin down to rest upon your head.
“not even for the next seventy.” you scoff, smiling.
vincent lets out a thoughtful hum. “still sounds a bit too short. how about eighty?”
“you drive a hard bargain,” you remark playfully. “would a lifetime satisfy you?”
he beams. the sight of it warms your heart. “indubitably.”
eyes crinkling at the corners, you tighten your grip around his hand and say, “you’ve got yourself a deal, mr whittman.”
“pleasure doing business with you, mrs whittman,” he teases. as you round the corner of a shed, what greets you on the other side completely steals your breath away.
there she is.
titanic.
she emerges from the darkness, all one hundred and seventy-five feet of her standing tall and proud upon the waters of the river test. a hundred thousand rivets—millions, perhaps—adorn the sleek structure of her hull, jutting out from the steel in rows like aligned constellations dotting the sky. the pungent scent of fresh paint danced with the salty waft of sea spray, and she glowed against the port with lamps that lined her portholes and decks in an almost incandescent golden light.
the magnificent curve of her stern faced you, and above it fluttered a flag of the british blue ensign. she was vast, immense, utterly unprecedented in scale; a two hundred sixty-nine metre titan that stretched through the wide expanse of berth 44. across the lip of her rear was painted the word liverpool, etched in ochre and yellow, beneath the careful, precise inscription that grandly read titanic.
and truly, did the ship of dreams live up to her tremendous name.
“oh, vincent,” you breathe, entranced, taking a step away from him and toward the ship. your fingers touch the rouged flesh of your lip, utterly captivated by the enormity of the grandest moving object that had yet to grace the ocean by far.
you had never felt smaller. more miniscule. standing below the hull of a ship they had claimed to be unsinkable—it was impossible not to.
but, oh, you felt nothing but wonder as you marvelled at how humbling it felt to stand next to something of such sheer power and size.
“she’s beautiful.”
“...yeah,” vincent murmurs, though his eyes land elsewhere. “she is.”
he watches you turn around slowly, your gaze glued to the vessel, starry with rapt captivation. the joy on your face was so immense, it almost baffled him to think about how much a hunk of metal and steel could bring such bliss and happiness.
and he couldn’t help but love you for it.
nevertheless, being loved by vincent whittman didn’t come without a price.
“still, though,” vincent comments offhandedly, mischief tugging at the corner of his lips. “it doesn’t look any bigger than the mauretania.”
you whip your head toward him so fast you nearly throw out your neck, with a look so offended it was almost hilarious. “you can be blasé about most things, vinny, but not about titanic!”
vincent crosses his arms, entirely delighted that you took the bait. “oh, really?”
“yes, really!” you fire back, gesturing wildly at the hull. “mauretania was only seven hundred ninety feet long. titanic is almost a hundred feet longer, and far more luxurious!”
“the mauretania is faster, though,” he points out, trying hard to hide his amusement. you were too easy.
“oh, you and your obsession with speed!” you say hotly. “so what if cunard line ships are 5 knots faster than white star line’s? at least this one won’t rattle your eyeballs sideways from the vibration of steam turbines!”
“mmm, perhaps,” vincent acknowledges, pretending to tilt his head to the side in deep thought. “the mauretenia was built to break speed records, after all.”
“exactly,” you stress. “besides, this is the height and technological marvel of our era. luxury and advanced propulsion, yes, but— oh, don’t you even get me started on the watertight compartments!”
“yeah?” he comes up behind you, planting his hands on your waist and his chin on your shoulder. “and if i do?”
you subconsciously lean back into him out of habit. “it’s just state-of-the-art, vinny,” you immediately gush, pointing up at the hull and waving your fingers around as you gesture here and there. “groundbreaking. sixteen watertight compartments and fifteen bulkheads below her decks—she’s practically unsinkable!”
vincent hums. “how so?”
“she’s built to stay afloat even if any two compartments flood,” your words are rapid-fire as you explain excitedly, “and even up to four of the forward-most compartments, over there by the bow.”
your hands stretch out to the sky, flattening your palms against the stars. “mauretania’s got compartments too, yeah, but hers are longitudinal. they run parallel to the ship’s sides so they’re more inclined to listing if water flooded into her hull.” you exhale almost wistfully. “it’s just one of the many reasons why the titanic is so amazing.”
vincent laughs. “if i didn’t know any better, darling, i’d think you’d want to marry this ship.”
this time, you take the bait only to dangle it over his own head. “if anything,” you shoot back, “i’d want to have married her designer.”
“...what.”
the easy, smug indulgence that had been oozing off him in waves vanishes faster than a cunard line ship could cross the river clyde. vincent’s hands freeze over your waist, nearly stunned to paralysis, and you have a feeling he’s stopped breathing altogether.
you don’t even bother turning around, instead taking another step closer to the edge of the berth, keeping your eyes trained on the portholes. a wicked little grin threatens to split your lip as you tilt your head up toward the sky, wrapping your arms around yourself like a pining schoolgirl to polish off the act.
“thomas andrews,” you sigh dreamily, making it a point to sound as moony as possible. “an irishman, from belfast. he’s the one who designed olympic, too.”
“wait– hold on–” vincent splutters, frantically stepping around to force himself back into your line of sight. his eyebrows are pinched together so hard they almost coalesce into one over the rim of his glasses as both his hands clutch at your shoulders.
“i mean, he’s tall, intelligent, soft-spoken, kind, and gentle.” you blithely list off each trait on your fingers like they’re virtues, avoiding his eyes as you try hard not to laugh. “he plays cricket as well, so i hear he’s strong. and, goodness, what an architect–!”
“he’s a married man!” vincent shrieks, before immediately catching himself, his eyes darting toward the direction of the dock gate in fear that the watchman would have somehow heard his undignified outburst from half a mile away.
you finally collapse into laughter, feeling it bubble like champagne from your stomach and up past your lips. you take his face in your hands, gently cradling his cheeks between your palms as you press a chaste kiss to his downturned lips. “oh, baby, i was joking!”
“it’s not funny!” he insists, looking so crestfallen it almost makes you feel bad.
almost.
you pepper more kisses across the strong bridge of his nose and the corners of his quivering mouth in an attempt to pacify him, laughing all the while. “m’ sorry, i had to try and get back at you somehow.”
“not like that!” vincent’s adamant refusal to stop pouting almost perplexes you, but you could tell that even despite himself, he was thoroughly enjoying being the object of your affections. “unbelievable,” he continues heatedly. “not even a year into marriage and my wife’s already moony-eyed for another man. a married one, nonetheless!”
your laugh buzzes pleasantly against his neck when you throw your arms around him in an embrace that nearly knocks him off his feet. vincent steadies you, trying to keep you both from losing balance, and you give him a silly smile as you pull your head back to look at him. “i just admire him, vinny. no more, no less.” you punctuate the sentence with another peck, and your lips curve into a smile against his own. “i’ve got eyes for no one but you.”
tension deflates from his shoulders as he huffs. he’s convinced, you know this well—but of course, vincent being vincent, he was going to be petty about it long enough to drive you insane.
“as you should,” he grumbles, pulling you in tight and flush against him almost as if the head designer of harland and wolff actually were about to swan dive over the portside guardrails and steal you away. his hand settles over your head as he holds you close, and you feel his rapid heartbeat settle into an easier rhythm that beats in harmony with yours.
titanic stands to vincent’s back as you mindlessly start to sway to a tune that wasn’t there. chin hooked over his shoulder, you continue to look up at her tremendous form, committing every square inch your eyes could land upon to memory.
“come, josephine, in my flying machine,” you sing softly, moving your lips to brush against the skin just below his ear. it was a parlour song you had taken a liking to after you heard it in the first house-party you both had attended as husband and wife. vincent would be so incredibly vocal about his distaste for the ragtime tune every time he’d hear it in passing—though you knew he loved it almost as much as you did because it was a song that fell often from your lips. “going up, she goes, up, she goes…”
“wouldn’t it be a sailing machine in this situation?” vincent muses, and you feel the weight of his head settle gently over your own.
“oh, just go with it,” you chide, looping your arms around his neck as his hands find home over your hips once again. “balance yourself like a bird on a beam…?”
vincent lets out a low, stubborn hum, and you lightly smack his back in retaliation. “come on, vince, you know the words!”
“...in the air, she goes, there she goes,” he relents, his smooth baritone rumbling against the curve of your ribs. you almost feel the chuckle he ghosts between the lyric thrum into the veins of your heart.
happiness blossoms in the apples of your cheeks, and you both continue to sway slowly to a song that hung only between the two of you, dancing in secret beneath the ship that promised a future of dreams.
“up, up, a little bit higher…” you hum contentedly, feeling your eyes flutter shut as you lose yourself in the melody.
“i… forgot the next lyric,” vincent admits abashedly.
you laugh for what must have been the hundredth time that night, stepping back from the waltz and taking a good look at him, the novelty of belonging to each other still fresh on your finger and young in your souls.
a beat of silence passes, and so does another fluttering breeze. vincent smooths his thumb over your cheekbone, just below your eye, and his gaze grows impossibly softer than it was before.
another smile quirks up on the edge of his lips. “are you gonna tell me how it goes?”
“it’s definitely not up,” you joke. “we’ve established that pretty well.”
“what is it, then?” vincent asks quietly, tenderly tucking a strand of hair behind your ear.
“oh, my, the moon is on fire.” your eyes twinkle as you croon the verse, tilting your head to gesture somewhere behind him. “and it is,” you grin. “look.”
he turns to glance at the sky, only to be greeted with the sight of half the moon glowing silver against the starry drape of evening. “huh. you’re right.”
you step closer to him again, smoothing your hands over the front of his vest. “i think it’s a good omen.”
vincent looks down at you, smiling lopsidedly in the way that always made only one of his eyes crinkle. “a good omen,” he repeats, just as he would raise a glass and echo a toast to prosperity and life. “i’ll hold you to that.”
and hold you he would.
꩜ a/n: girl is this even about vincent whittman anymore like atp this was just an excuse for me to nerd out over boats and project my big fat crush on thomas andrews
HAHA HOW'D U LIKE THAT METRIC FUCK TON OF FORESHADOWING
this fic was genuinely such a feat for me cuz like 3k words in 4 days is just INSANE as of where i am in efficient writing right now (◍´꒳`◍) i am very VERY happy with this one. literally such an amazing palate cleanser after that enormous hunk of angst i spent the last month writing HAHAHA i am a fluff writer first and foremost after all !
once again, all my love n thanks to ac, bel, shay, zeke, nue, & milo <3
and a very special mention to @tuquoque for helping me regain faith in my characterisation for vincent !! (ily so so much big sis)
no citations for this one cuz i'd argue most of my research came from me going through the ancient depths of online forums and fighting google earth just to calculate the geography of southampton's port #cartographerism
i'm just now realising this fic was the turning point for my titanic fixation expanding into a fixation on ocean liners in general
(and yes, the title is absolutely taken from the song that jack whispers to rose during the "i'm flying!" scene in the titanic (1997) movie; the same song that rose sings to herself as she waits on the floating door waiting for rescue after the sinking!)
another tidbit for the filipino hazbin hotel enjoyers (particularly the vox/vincent ones)
so earlier this afternoon, after finals, a couple of classmates and i were walking through a part of Times Street in QC (on the way to karaoke IN THE POURING RAIN cuz all the Grab drivers cancelled on us) and there was this really REALLY nice big house w a wide terrace and lots of cars . like yk one of those big houses that u can tell is owned by an old-money family? yeah
as we walk past the house i lean over to my friend and whisper “damn this (part of the city) would absolutely be his turf” then she lets out the LOUDEST giggle and tells me she was just thinking that—
“his family would own a big house just like that and they’d definitely throw house parties often. he’d invite you to one of those parties (along with some of his other friends) then he’d take you out to the terrace at night after dinner when the stars are out and confess his love for you under the yellow capiz lights.” cuz he’s just a cheesy bitch like that (OUUU I NEED HIM SO BAD)
heh. just a lil #foodforthought
anyways can u guys tell that i like writing for vincent more than vox cuz i have more creative liberty with his human form 💞
i just finished writing a 1.7k word bullet-point analysis of my fic, debunking intertextualities, metaphors, symbolism, historical facts, and a whooooole lot of easter eggs.
i can say with full confidence that this is historically sound and accurate (˵ •̀ ᴗ - ˵ ) ✧
...i also tackled the intentional calculation of their positions and their chances of survival . live and be tormented by the thought that you are probably never going to know why certain things were the way they were in the story <3
unless . of course. i have a change of heart. or if i just naturally favour u
but just as magicians never reveal their secrets, neither do poets betray the meaning of their poems. and, well, i am foremost a poet rather than a writer of prose 💞
꩜ [ hazbin hotel ] vincent whittman (vox) x reader
wc: 1.1k+ words
-> second person pov; (heavy) angst; tragic; ambiguous/open ending; inspired by titanic (1997); mutual pining; YEARNING; reunion hug; kissing + crying (lots of both); soft + whipped + human + potentially ooc (?) vox (he is a mess he is not ok); i pride myself on the historical accuracy of this
now playing… unable to stay, unwilling to leave by james horner
⤷ in queue :: can't help falling in love - with the philharmonic orchestra by elvis presley
a dull, aching sort of numbness had enshrouded your hands. whether it was from the frigid breeze biting at your flesh, the unnatural coolness of the metal fused to your petrified fingers, or the chill that ran through your veins from sheer terror, you don't know—all that you could fathom was that it was cold.
so, so very cold.
you were someplace near the stern, clutching onto a railing for dear life, eyes wildly scanning the horde of people that clambered higher up the ship as the bow dipped below the surface of the ocean.
where was vincent?
the two of you had lost each other in the hysteria of the crowd when the flares were first fired. of how long it had been since then, you were staggeringly uncertain. hours had bled into lifetimes, and lifetimes into seconds—for while the iceberg’s killing blow may have landed the starboard, the sands of time were the first to perish and disappear into the atlantic deep.
frost clawed through the crevices of your lungs with every shuddering breath you stole back from panic. tears pricked at the corners of your eyes as the syllables of his name ghosted across your quivering lips in an echoing plea, one that was lost to the clamour and dissonance of every other terror-stricken soul on board.
it felt as if every pound summed from the blocks of cork in your lifebelt weighed nothing compared to the fear that imprisoned your chest between its teeth. and as it seemed that every face on this side of the ship was everyone's but his, it might as well have been heavy enough to sink and tow you headfirst to the ocean floor before the Unsinkable’s hull could crash into it, because fragments of him in the bedlam were all you could see.
an old, ashen-faced gentleman with a nose that sloped like his. a young freckled girl from steerage with a similarly chipped tooth; you saw the gap between her molars as she cried out for her sister. there was a child with watery blue eyes, and another with unblinking glassy greens—then there was their mother, who had a divot in her throat that jutted out almost like the one you kissed every night before you went to sleep.
the roaring pandemonium of screams and the dying howls that erupted deep from within the heart of the ship all but reached the peak of their crescendos as your eyes continued to dredge the thousands for a glimpse of the man you loved in a sea of strangers. the deafening clamour of it all swelled into an orchestra of white noise that tore severely through your head—
—until the first, trembling miracle of the night presented itself in a cry of your name.
and there he was.
God, oh, God—there he was.
vincent stands, almost petrified, at the starboard landing of the stairs that lead up to the aft deck; disheveled, frantic, and wild-eyed all at once. still, wretched as it was, the sight was something straight out of your most sacred prayers. just like he always had been.
though you suppose the ones you used to utter as a young girl were disparate to the pleas you now begged.
the scream that tore from vincent's throat across the deck seemed less like the sound of your name and more like a desperate cry to a God he had ignored his whole life—calling out in the fragile, infinitesimal hope that it would end up saving yours.
because for a split moment in his fear-shaken periphery, as the rear of the ship rose higher and higher into the sky, you were closer to the stars than he was to you.
with a shuddering groan, the titanic tilted and lowered her head deeper into the ocean, yet you paid it none of the mind your life could ill afford to spare elsewhere. the sight of him alone—alive—gave you enough courage to dare taking your hand off the railing. each nerve in your body, your temples, and your eyes were fixated on him as he lurched through the hysterical crowd, lunging past the raining current of people that had lost their grip on bulwarks and the debris that fell with them.
every last shred of wisdom, judgment, and survival fled your wits just as the evils from pandora’s box did so long ago. with a shaking, whispered, "vincent," you feel your body lean forward along with the bow of the ship as you reach out toward him, almost surrendering yourself to the pull of gravity—the same force that he wrestled to defy for his body to collide into your own.
one of his hands seizes the railing before the two of you could slide further down the deck, while the other clutches you tightly to his chest. the rush of adrenaline allows him to swing and hurl you both onto a mooring capstan, but even then, he doesn’t once loosen his hold on you.
instead, vincent pulls you closer. he all but intertwines his ribs into the gaps between your own, almost as if he was trying to merge your two shivering heartbeats into one just so he could be sure yours was still pulsing.
"honey," his breath comes out staggered as his hands find your arms, your hair, the curve of your jaw, and everywhere else his desperation could reach. "oh, baby. sweetheart." the kiss he crushes into your lips with a choked sob tasted of the sea and tears. "fuck." he pulls back, the blue and green of his eyes brimming with trembling, terrified relief. “you’re so stupid!”
“vincent,” a whimper catches in your throat. you utter his name once more, then twice, and thrice again; it felt like the only word your mouth could remember to say. “oh, God, vincent.” your clammy palms find the pallid flesh of his cheeks, tasting a hiccuping sob of your own claw at the ridge of your larynx.
“why the hell didn’t you get onto a lifeboat?” vincent demands, his face crumpled with anguish. you notice his glasses are missing. “they already made the women and children go first and you didn’t—damnit, (name), you could die!”
“i couldn’t go,” you sob, “i couldn’t go, vince. not without you.”
that only deepens the grief that lined his brow. “you could die,” vincent repeats desperately, the pads of his thumbs pressing violets into your cheekbones. “please. not you. anyone and a-anything but you. please. i-” tears flood the precipice of his lashes, yet he fought to make them remain unshed. “i can’t lose you, baby.”
“and i already thought i did!” another heaving convulsion from the dying ship punctuates your futile grief. “i thought you were dead, vincent.”
“rather me than you!”
whatever retort stung the back of your eyes and the cusp of your lips was stolen by the shriek of steel tearing viciously against steel. it resounds ominously throughout the entire ship, followed by a tremor so violent it shook the weakening floorboards beneath your feet. the flickering amber lights saturate into a dimmer, reddish glow that illuminates the vehement fear and anger swirling in vincent’s lachrymose glare—a mournful gaze that once again hardens with a ferocity for survival as soon as the chorus of screams grew shriller against the stillness of the barren atlantic.
he didn’t wait for you to piece back your words. he couldn’t.
vincent clamps his hand over your wrist with a bruising grip and makes a break for the edge of the afterdeck, yanking you right after him. your mouth goes dry from sheer bewilderment, and you numbly let him drag you further up the stern.
a sliver of gold catches in the pulsating light, almost tumbling out of vincent’s left pocket. dazedly, you recognise it as his father’s pocketwatch, yet he doesn’t spare the timepiece a single glance. the chain dangles off the third buttonhole of his open waistcoat, and the fractured dial read II and XVI. 2:16.
the dreadful sound of steel rivets bursting added on to the macabre choir, likening themselves to the crack of gunshots in war. the pinewood decks began to shatter in detonating harmony, and the titanic was succumbing to the depths of the very ocean she had been destined to cross.
vincent skids to a halt once his eyes register the amount of people crowding the taffrail. the pause was barely a moment, yet a century of seconds you could not afford to lose. the floorboards shook beneath your feet, tilting dangerously to a steeper slope.
“vince–?!”
“this way!” he roared, suddenly jerking you to the right. his hand slips tightly from your wrist to your palm as he clambers up the stairs to the docking bridge, hurling you both against the balcony’s balustrade. you yelp upon impact, shouting out in pain, but vincent barely gives you time to recover before he hauls you into his arms and charges toward the port side of the bridge, recklessly pushing past the few people that were also up on the platform.
then, it happens.
you can’t even begin to describe it.
the strobing incandescent lights surged into a final, blazing flash—one that threatened a detonation of its tantalum bulbs—before a mighty crack tore through the ship and plunged it into overwhelming darkness.
wind rushes out of your lungs and whistles past your ears in a scream that never made its way out of your chest. all fifty-two thousand and three hundred-some long tons of the titanic slams her great propellers back into the face of the ocean, and the endless cries of passengers grew impossibly louder upon landing.
reeling from the shock, you break out into a cold sweat and feel panic creeping up the atlas of your spine.
did… did the ship split in two?
eyes widening in horror, you subconsciously raise your quivering fingers to your lips, before slowly closing them over your mouth.
realisation dawns on you.
there were people in the water beneath the stern.
poets and scientists alike had always emphasised how spectacularly light could blind. what they never quite mentioned, however, was how equally harrowing the theft of sight by darkness could be.
“sweetheart?” vincent’s voice whispers weakly. you sense the familiar brush of his touch blindly fumble for you beneath the veil of night.
“...i’m here,” you say hoarsely. every inch and crevice of your body was trembling.
“oh, thank goodness,” he breathes. his hands feebly wrap around your shoulders again, and you notice that he’s trembling, too.
“vinny,” your palpitation stumbles, and you swallow nervously. “vinny, i’m scared. i’m so scared.”
vincent’s right hand moves to cradle the back of your hair as he hushes you. he presses his forehead to yours, almost as tenderly as he did when he first promised you the world. “i know. trust me, baby, i know.”
“i–”
“listen.” for once, the dying vessel isn’t what interrupts you, though it was getting increasingly harder to ignore as its hull begins to rise out of the water again. he pulls you in closer, urgency building in his tone. “we’re going to have to jump.”
your heart stops.
“what?”
titanic gives another agonising lurch, one that seemed like her final deathbound farewell. a jagged noise staggers in your throat from the sudden movement, and you instinctively claw for the front of vincent’s shirt in fear.
“we have to jump before the ship goes down,” he repeats gravely. “when i tell you to jump, you jump.”
“wait, vincent–”
vincent doesn’t stop. “keep your legs straight as you fall. cross an arm over your chest to hold down your lifebelt so it doesn’t seize up and break your neck.” he’s practically just muttering the instructions against your lips now. “and make sure to cover your face with the other hand so you don’t inhale water into your lungs from the shock of the cold.”
“vince–”
“once you hit the water, swim. swim as- as far as possible from the ship so you don’t get pulled down with it. if we get separated in the fall, don’t look back. don’t come back for me. swim for the lifeboats as soon as you can- and live, (name), you have to promise me that you’ll live–”
“goddamnit, whittman, would you shut up for a second and listen to me!?”
the ground tilts into a slanting wall, and it would not have been far-fetched to presume that the propellers once again loomed like guillotines above the sea and below the sky it mirrored. as your eyes begin to adjust to the darkness and the faintest starlight gives you a glimpse of the distress that had overcome his face, you’re almost certain that he, too, could see the outrage that was plaguing yours.
“if i jump, you jump.” you seethe. the tip of your finger jabs into his chest. “we will jump together, and we will stay together.”
his hand catches your wrist, and you feel the anger in his grip as it digs into your pulse. “don’t be a martyr, (name),” vincent snarls. “we don’t have time for this.”
“you think time would mean anything to me once it passes without you?” you spit furiously, though fresh tears were burning rivers through your throat and past your cheeks once again. “what about new york, vincent? the station? your- our dreams?” a choked sound threatens to disrupt your impassioned retaliation. “i’m not about to search for you in every shadow of a city we’ve never lived in!”
“you’re the only reason why!” he says desperately. vincent forces your hand closer to his body, so you had no choice but to flatten it over his chest—right above where his heart continued to beat wildly. his fingers lace through the spaces between yours. “all of it would mean nothing without you. you’re the reason why i even have a dream to lose. hell,” he lets out a watery laugh, before it bleeds into an uncharacteristic sob.
“you are my dream, (name). you are my reason why.”
he knew you were running out of time. he knew it was a fight he would lose. letting you fire back a response wasn’t in the cards of fate, nor was it in his. it just wasn’t.
titanic was already a few degrees shy of ninety by the time you felt him inching you both closer to the edge of the balustrade. it was a dance in the dark—a fragile waltz upon the tightrope that was the railing—strung together in infinitesimal faith with every trembling step he blindly led you through.
“so we’ll jump,” he breathes with finality. “so help me God, we jump.” his nails dig into your skin, a four-crescent etch of promise. “together.”
below you, the ocean spreads its wide behemoth maw, bubbling perilously as it continues to swallow the ship into a watery grave. the thought of it alone was daunting enough, but the fact that the vortex was perceivable only by sound and not sight made it all the more terrifying.
you fumble for the rail, feeling your hand quiver violently as your skin meets iron, and take great care in swinging your leg over the narrow bar.
“careful, now.” there’s a slight, concentrated wobble in vincent’s voice. “i’ve got you. i’m still here.”
almost mockingly, the ship gives another sudden lurch, and you grip his hand even tighter than before.
“it’s okay. shit, it’s okay,” he rambles feverishly, though you aren’t sure if he’s reassuring you or himself. “i won’t let go. you’re fine. keep going.” vincent squeezes back firmly. “but hurry.”
it’s significantly harder to bring your other foot over the railing. your heart hammers painfully against your ribs, increasing in tempo as you inch yourself further to the left, quite literally dancing on the edge of the world.
or what was left of yours, anyway.
you faintly sense vincent all but tumble onto the precipice along with you, hearing the way his chest heaved from the effort. the railing presses coldly into your back, and you feel your stomach drop when you sense the port side twisting the slightest bit forward.
“shit,” you curse under your breath. “oh, shit, shit, shit.”
neither you nor he had to see to know that you now hung off angled toward the ocean. time was ticking, the world was tilting on its axis, and you had to jump now.
“remember what i said?” vincent asks urgently, reaching around your back to lay a hand over your lifebelt’s left shoulder—half with the intention to help you keep it down, but with all the reason to still be able to hold you in the fall.
“yes.” you mirror his actions, crossing your right arm over your chest. you meet his fingers over your shoulder, and he shifts to reposition his hand over yours.
“do not forget to cover your mouth.”
“i could say the same to you,” you say weakly, fingers digging into the canvas.
“good.” vincent tightens his grip. “on my mark.”
impossible thunder roars beneath the ocean, rumbling with a legion of tempests as air collapses within what was left of the broken stern. your fingertips scramble to relearn the grooves in the galvanised rail and commit it to memory one last time; bidding a quiet, heartbroken farewell to the ship of dreams.
“now!”
you let go.
wind howls deafeningly in your ears as the plummet rips you both downward into the darkness. for the shortest, yet longest moment of your life, you were weightless; and the powerful current that gusts with gravity savagely strips the air from your lungs. you don’t hear yourself scream at all, but the pain that seared your throat proved otherwise.
vincent’s fingers claw wildly for your neck as you fall, before all traces of his touch vanish for a bloodcurdling heartbeat. he shouts something, but you barely register it over the vicious sound of the rush.
fear douses your spine as you plunge, untethered, until you feel his body miraculously crash into your back again. he shoots an arm across your sternum and clamps over your right shoulder with renewed strength, snaring you to his chest with more regard for your life than his own.
you struggle against the pull, fighting to force a hand against your mouth. your lungs stagger, you choke, you almost forget how to breathe—
and a thousand knives tear from your ankles to your skull as you slam into the atlantic with a violent crash.
ice shoots up your body, near-paralysing in shock, and a gasp instinctively rips through your lungs from the cold. it snaps your jaw open in a desperate, primal demand for air, one that the ocean was undeniably all too happy to fill. brine floods into your mouth and stings the back of your tongue like lye—frigid and piercing as liquid fire; a cold so intense it burned.
then, almost as swiftly as you plunged into the deep, it hurls you right back out. the cork in your lifebelt nearly forgoes your head, and you struggle to keep it down as the buoyancy sharply forces you to resurface. you sputter out water as the dead, bitter cold sinks its teeth into your skin once again, and you thrash against the invisible current that dared to tow you under.
coughing madly, completely agonised by the ice that burned in your lungs, you heave for air. neither fear nor shadow had ever acquainted themselves with you this much until tonight—and neither bore hands you had ever wanted to shake.
above you, the sky steadily slips the drape that was the titanic’s silhouette off her starlit shoulders. the disrobing of the night was captivating in theory, yet devastating in actuality; for the confines between the atlantic and the styx had begun to surge into a single downward current. the vessel is pulled beneath the water with a haste that paralleled the rape and capture of persephone into the underworld, though some may argue that one’s death was more merciful than the other’s abduction.
she grows drunk on the sea, drowning her hollowed carcass in brine, and filling her rooms with saltwater where she could not carry dreams—dreams that man’s hubris had intended her to carry, for the sake of honour, glory, and renown.
a mighty undead roar rumbles from within the iron cadaver as the bubbling maelstrom that was the titanic’s last breath finally sinks beneath the lifeless tide. and in the briefest, most impossible instant, the unsinkable ship of dreams disappears into the heart of the ocean—with a quiet humility she had never been fated for, and with a thousand five hundred souls she had never been supposed to kill.
it leaves a rattle in your skull and a thunder in your ears, and you feel the distant sound echo through your blood in a hypnotising tempo that fools your pulse into an equivalent cadence.
you don’t know if you should be grateful that you couldn’t tell which direction the ship sank in. orientation had entirely lost its hold on you; left was right and east was west, and you realise too late that it’s not the only thing whose touch your flesh missed. with a growing horror, you realise that the only weight you carried was your own—
and the weight you lacked had no means to stay afloat.
your blood runs cold.
“VINCENT!”
the scream hurts—burns—more than the cold ever could. it tears up the sides of your trachea, trailing fire in its wake, yet is nothing but a needle in a haystack of wails. the placid air seems to have solidified into a tremendous wall of sound that presses upon the surface of the atlantic, petrified by the shrill coalescence of voices crying out for a salvation that would never come.
and oh, how you miss when pain was easier to fathom.
a litany of emotion, sensation, and anguish yank at the veins of your heart, stretching them apart into a forced web of bloodied tapestry, just as the flesh of a lamb torn to shreds by wolves would spill past yellowed canine fangs after the slaughter.
you are entirely alone in the chorus, a discordant note in the paradoxical shrieking harmony, fighting to see even in sightlessness. thrashing in the water, you fight to stay upright, blindly reaching out into the darkness in hopes to feel his skin against your touch. was it foolish? searching for what could not guarantee survival but would have promised life even in death?
perhaps. entirely.
so let it be as it were — thus a fool you’d become, and a fool you’d remain.
blood and screams pounding in your ears, you splash around, kicking and flailing despite the buoyancy wrapped in canvas around your torso. you fling more needles into the hay, crying out into a night that replied with nothing but echoes mocking your desperation.
“oh, God, oh God,” you chant, gasping greedily for breath. “vincent!”
the muscles in your neck strain as you whip your head in every direction, searching without sight. your eyes ache against the darkness, and you thrash to keep upright, carving your fingers into the sea in hopes to latch onto something other than water.
your hand strikes wood—not flesh—and you scramble to dig your nails into it in an attempt to yank the debris closer to yourself. not dense enough to sink, light enough to stay afloat; but too narrow to climb upon.
helpless, you collapse against the flotsam, feeling your cheek burrow into its grooves in a way that was sure to leave marks. you could not find it in yourself to care.
survivors around you had regressed into animals as they fought for breath. their savage struggle for air was inhuman by nature, yet it was the rawest display of humanity you had ever witnessed.
these were all people.
just like you were.
just like vincent was.
is.
tears squeeze out of your eyes, turning to frost before they could slip past your lips. you barely know if you’re even still alive, how much more could you believe he was either?
the darkness answers your ponder in kind.
a hand lurches out of the abyss and clamps heavily around your ankle. panic seizes your throat, wrenching your mouth open in a voiceless scream. the wood pitches downward with a sickening jerk, nearly pulling itself vertical as you pull it down with you. the lifebelt digs into your ribs—taut against your chest, stifling against your stomach.
the weight that came with the intrusive grip was heavy. it almost renders your lifebelt useless as you are dragged down, all the way until your shoulders, and the stranger claws past the skirt and hip of your dress as they try to escape the clutches of the ocean.
but it was a grip you would recognise in every lifetime.
the surface explodes beside you, and a head breaks out of the water with a violent, coughing gasp. the wooden beam falls back against the ocean as the shadow lets out a painful retch, emptying their lungs of seawater. he frantically heaves in air like a man starved—but his first breath was a feeble croak of your name.
you feel your heart somehow stop and revive all at once. “vince?”
the stranger shifts in the water, and the wood dips where he was clutching on to it. “(name)?” he wheezes thickly.
“vince,” you sob in relief, “oh, baby.”
“(name),” he chokes, and God, he sounds so weak. “(name).”
you reach out blindly for him, but he meets you halfway, and you feel the locks of his hair press wetly against the underside of your chin. vincent coughs as he writhes, inching himself closer to you, and his fingernails scratch dully at the back of your lifebelt. he shakily huddles into your chest, right over the sound of your weakening heartbeat.
still, desperately, foolishly—in hope and in agony—he listens. he writes each sequence and impulse into the backs of his eyes and the membrane of his ears and he holds you, holds onto you, with every ounce of strength he had left in his body—the only thing that could still keep him afloat.
you were his only lifeline.
“darling,” your lips move against his hair. “can you–” you give an involuntary hiccup, and vincent presses himself closer to your body. “can you take off your boots?”
“w…what?”
“try… taking them off… if you can.” you loosen your grip just a fraction, but he holds on tighter. “it’ll help you… float easier…”
you feel his hesitation.
“i mean– fuck,” you tremble. “do you… even have enough strength to?”
“if… it’ll help me… stay with you… a little longer.”
his words hang heavy between the two of you. vincent moves, slowly but surely, to untangle his fingers from the straps of your lifebelt. your hand shoots out to clutch the scruff of his collar, making sure he’d still be tethered to you, as he sacrificed seconds of his life to bargain for minutes from death.
vincent takes in a shuddering breath, stoking the ice that burned his throat, and disappears once again into a darkness that swallows him whole. the temporary loss of him envelops you, even though you know he is just inches below the surface. worry festers in you despite yourself.
underwater, he struggles. you feel him thrash desperately as he tries to untie the cords laced through his boots, though his movements are sloppy. sluggish.
he resurfaces barely twenty seconds later.
“i can’t. my fingers– i’m–” vincent sounds completely heartbroken. “i’m sorry.”
“no- no-” you hush him, pulling him close to your body again. “you’re… you’re okay, baby,” you promise, though your breath stutters. “you’re f-fine. i’ve got you.”
you feel him slacken against your chest, and you knew that he, too, was crying.
around you, the wall of wails slowly crumbles into the sea like the city of jericho, fading into a quiet that proved to be more terrifying than the noise.
“tell me… about the house,” you whisper. “the one in… the one in new york.”
“our house?” his voice is muffled.
you breathe out a wet laugh. “yes, my love. o-our house.”
“i’ve–” vincent shivers fiercely as he attempts to inhale, gently untangling from your embrace, then slowly swims toward your scanty piece of driftwood to hold onto it himself. “i’ve already got the deed.”
“y-yeah?” you prompt him.
the wood gives a tiny lurch as he finally drops and rests his head on top of it.
vincent takes a while to respond.
“…and?”
“it’s… it’s in my trunk,” he finally says, before letting out a weak, almost pitiful chuckle. “at the bottom… of the ocean.”
silence stretches for a moment.
nudging the side of your hand against his, you murmur, “t-tell… tell me more.”
“like what?” he asks weakly, quietly.
“the kitchen. the… the garden.” you’re already beginning to feel the cold seep into your bones and ebb at your life. “you told me… it was near…. central park.”
“r–right. it was. it is,” vincent corrects himself. his tremors begin to grow sharper.
“and what… what ab-about it?”
“th’re’s… a big, wide window… in the kitchen,” he breathes, reciting it almost mindlessly off the top of his head. “looks right o-out into the river, so you can watch the ducks as… as you cook. be-because– you… you’d like that. yo-you’d like that, w-wouldn’t y-you… honey?
“i would,” you promise, and your little finger quivers as you try to hook it over his own. “i… d-definitely would.”
he continues. “and a… a big old library. w-with shelves…. an’ ev-everything,” vincent swallows laboriously. “all e-empty, though. ‘c-cause we– we were s’posed to… to fill them up… with books… as time passed. and our children would’ve… ‘d’ve learned how to read… there… ‘cause we’d– we’d teach them how. t-together.”
ice forgoes your heart as it crawls up your muscles, turning your blood into glaciers and your tears into winter rivers. your pulse swells, then it eclipses; imprisoned by frost, and ensnared with grief.
you try not to let him hear the way your voice breaks.“and t-the garden, vinny? tell me about… tell me about the garden.”
anything to keep him conscious.
"flowers... that hang around th-the balcony... lilies, 'c-cause i know those are your f-fav-favourite," he hiccups, then shudders; it was obvious that every word he whispered wracked pain through his body. "and we'll... sit out there... in- in the mornings, ov-over c-coffee."
vincent weakly raises his head with the intention to look at you, but the mind-numbing cold pushes his cheek back against the soaked wood. "you'll call me an idiot... and i'll–" he lets out a heaving cough that sounds like a cross between a sob and a laboured gasp. "i'd tell you that you're beautiful."
it was too dark to see anything. night fell heavy over the waters of the atlantic, and the cries of whoever had still been alive begun to wane into nothingness. your sight failed you—all you could fathom was darkness; but still, you felt him. you’d know his presence in shadow, you’d hear him in silence, and you’d have found him even in places no one else would be found.
the stumbling, fragile flutter of his breath ghosts over your numb fingertips, and vincent’s hand fumbles to lace through the spaces between yours. you lower your head and press a frozen kiss to his knuckles—the bloodless flesh just below where his wedding ring sat.
his next words come out slurred; weak with cold, drunk with sorrow, and heavy with regret. it echoes in your ears and the endless sea, over a still tide that mirrored a moonless sky full of stars you were never meant to name or rewrite.
“i’m sorry i couldn’t get you a better ticket.”
꩜ a/n: aaaand there goes my longest fic EVER, and my first official angst work! i spent way too much time researching and watching documentaries just to get every single detail correct. i kid you not, this fic had me reading entire wikipedia articles in class and giggling over blueprints and hunting down 3d models of the ship and watching morse code logs with rapt attention. call me james cameron cuz best believe i'm citing all my sources below .. muehehe
this started out as a writing exercise for a supposedly longer fic, then ended up becoming the longer fic. spent 43 days and countless 5am nights pouring my heart and soul into this—it went from being just another fanfic to being my love letter to the ship of dreams.
the reason why this fic took so long to write was bc describing the high-stakes action was absolutely KICKING my ass. i'll stick to my emotions and dialogue thank you very much. but yes, thank you, to everyone who waited patiently for this and supported me all the way!!
i can almost say with certainty that this is historically accurate. i hope you enjoyed the fruits of sleepless research born from the revival of a 3rd grade obsession <3 thank you, dear reader, for reading this all the way to the end. i am honoured to have been a steward of your time. i hope you loved reading this as much as i loved writing it!
knock knock, voxblr, wake up. mommy's home (¬ᴗ ´¬ )
(and yes, the title is absolutely taken from a track of the titanic musical score!)
as promised, the citations. ♡
꩜ taglist: @whoatemycheezeits @tuquoque @aquaticari @etcherrie @safination
this fic was like witnessing the birth of a first child, i swear.
little fun fact, the only way i was able to get myself to finish writing this was by rickrolling myself on loop for dopamine . special mention to mambo no. 5 and brozone's back from the 3rd trolls movie
but the most messed up part? the song that was playing as i finished this at 4am last night was the philharmonic orchestra version of can't help falling in love.
i cried twice while writing this . i don't know what to do w myself anymore dawg i put everything i had in me into this and it's deadass the night before finals week rn
(i am posting this on the school wifi . "go uste" pa ba?)
anyway that list of citations was insane . who want me
im ngl im scared this is gonna flop cuz the community's highkey been so quiet (•︵•)
꩜ [ hazbin hotel ] vincent whittman (vox) x reader
wc: 1.1k+ words
-> second person pov; (heavy) angst; tragic; ambiguous/open ending; inspired by titanic (1997); mutual pining; YEARNING; reunion hug; kissing + crying (lots of both); soft + whipped + human + potentially ooc (?) vox (he is a mess he is not ok); i pride myself on the historical accuracy of this
now playing… unable to stay, unwilling to leave by james horner
⤷ in queue :: can't help falling in love - with the philharmonic orchestra by elvis presley
a dull, aching sort of numbness had enshrouded your hands. whether it was from the frigid breeze biting at your flesh, the unnatural coolness of the metal fused to your petrified fingers, or the chill that ran through your veins from sheer terror, you don't know—all that you could fathom was that it was cold.
so, so very cold.
you were someplace near the stern, clutching onto a railing for dear life, eyes wildly scanning the horde of people that clambered higher up the ship as the bow dipped below the surface of the ocean.
where was vincent?
the two of you had lost each other in the hysteria of the crowd when the flares were first fired. of how long it had been since then, you were staggeringly uncertain. hours had bled into lifetimes, and lifetimes into seconds—for while the iceberg’s killing blow may have landed the starboard, the sands of time were the first to perish and disappear into the atlantic deep.
frost clawed through the crevices of your lungs with every shuddering breath you stole back from panic. tears pricked at the corners of your eyes as the syllables of his name ghosted across your quivering lips in an echoing plea, one that was lost to the clamour and dissonance of every other terror-stricken soul on board.
it felt as if every pound summed from the blocks of cork in your lifebelt weighed nothing compared to the fear that imprisoned your chest between its teeth. and as it seemed that every face on this side of the ship was everyone's but his, it might as well have been heavy enough to sink and tow you headfirst to the ocean floor before the Unsinkable’s hull could crash into it, because fragments of him in the bedlam were all you could see.
an old, ashen-faced gentleman with a nose that sloped like his. a young freckled girl from steerage with a similarly chipped tooth; you saw the gap between her molars as she cried out for her sister. there was a child with watery blue eyes, and another with unblinking glassy greens—then there was their mother, who had a divot in her throat that jutted out almost like the one you kissed every night before you went to sleep.
the roaring pandemonium of screams and the dying howls that erupted deep from within the heart of the ship all but reached the peak of their crescendos as your eyes continued to dredge the thousands for a glimpse of the man you loved in a sea of strangers. the deafening clamour of it all swelled into an orchestra of white noise that tore severely through your head—
—until the first, trembling miracle of the night presented itself in a cry of your name.
and there he was.
God, oh, God—there he was.
vincent stands, almost petrified, at the starboard landing of the stairs that lead up to the aft deck; disheveled, frantic, and wild-eyed all at once. still, wretched as it was, the sight was something straight out of your most sacred prayers. just like he always had been.
though you suppose the ones you used to utter as a young girl were disparate to the pleas you now begged.
the scream that tore from vincent's throat across the deck seemed less like the sound of your name and more like a desperate cry to a God he had ignored his whole life—calling out in the fragile, infinitesimal hope that it would end up saving yours.
because for a split moment in his fear-shaken periphery, as the rear of the ship rose higher and higher into the sky, you were closer to the stars than he was to you.
with a shuddering groan, the titanic tilted and lowered her head deeper into the ocean, yet you paid it none of the mind your life could ill afford to spare elsewhere. the sight of him alone—alive—gave you enough courage to dare taking your hand off the railing. each nerve in your body, your temples, and your eyes were fixated on him as he lurched through the hysterical crowd, lunging past the raining current of people that had lost their grip on bulwarks and the debris that fell with them.
every last shred of wisdom, judgment, and survival fled your wits just as the evils from pandora’s box did so long ago. with a shaking, whispered, "vincent," you feel your body lean forward along with the bow of the ship as you reach out toward him, almost surrendering yourself to the pull of gravity—the same force that he wrestled to defy for his body to collide into your own.
one of his hands seizes the railing before the two of you could slide further down the deck, while the other clutches you tightly to his chest. the rush of adrenaline allows him to swing and hurl you both onto a mooring capstan, but even then, he doesn’t once loosen his hold on you.
instead, vincent pulls you closer. he all but intertwines his ribs into the gaps between your own, almost as if he was trying to merge your two shivering heartbeats into one just so he could be sure yours was still pulsing.
"honey," his breath comes out staggered as his hands find your arms, your hair, the curve of your jaw, and everywhere else his desperation could reach. "oh, baby. sweetheart." the kiss he crushes into your lips with a choked sob tasted of the sea and tears. "fuck." he pulls back, the blue and green of his eyes brimming with trembling, terrified relief. “you’re so stupid!”
“vincent,” a whimper catches in your throat. you utter his name once more, then twice, and thrice again; it felt like the only word your mouth could remember to say. “oh, God, vincent.” your clammy palms find the pallid flesh of his cheeks, tasting a hiccuping sob of your own claw at the ridge of your larynx.
“why the hell didn’t you get onto a lifeboat?” vincent demands, his face crumpled with anguish. you notice his glasses are missing. “they already made the women and children go first and you didn’t—damnit, (name), you could die!”
“i couldn’t go,” you sob, “i couldn’t go, vince. not without you.”
that only deepens the grief that lined his brow. “you could die,” vincent repeats desperately, the pads of his thumbs pressing violets into your cheekbones. “please. not you. anyone and a-anything but you. please. i-” tears flood the precipice of his lashes, yet he fought to make them remain unshed. “i can’t lose you, baby.”
“and i already thought i did!” another heaving convulsion from the dying ship punctuates your futile grief. “i thought you were dead, vincent.”
“rather me than you!”
whatever retort stung the back of your eyes and the cusp of your lips was stolen by the shriek of steel tearing viciously against steel. it resounds ominously throughout the entire ship, followed by a tremor so violent it shook the weakening floorboards beneath your feet. the flickering amber lights saturate into a dimmer, reddish glow that illuminates the vehement fear and anger swirling in vincent’s lachrymose glare—a mournful gaze that once again hardens with a ferocity for survival as soon as the chorus of screams grew shriller against the stillness of the barren atlantic.
he didn’t wait for you to piece back your words. he couldn’t.
vincent clamps his hand over your wrist with a bruising grip and makes a break for the edge of the afterdeck, yanking you right after him. your mouth goes dry from sheer bewilderment, and you numbly let him drag you further up the stern.
a sliver of gold catches in the pulsating light, almost tumbling out of vincent’s left pocket. dazedly, you recognise it as his father’s pocketwatch, yet he doesn’t spare the timepiece a single glance. the chain dangles off the third buttonhole of his open waistcoat, and the fractured dial read II and XVI. 2:16.
the dreadful sound of steel rivets bursting added on to the macabre choir, likening themselves to the crack of gunshots in war. the pinewood decks began to shatter in detonating harmony, and the titanic was succumbing to the depths of the very ocean she had been destined to cross.
vincent skids to a halt once his eyes register the amount of people crowding the taffrail. the pause was barely a moment, yet a century of seconds you could not afford to lose. the floorboards shook beneath your feet, tilting dangerously to a steeper slope.
“vince–?!”
“this way!” he roared, suddenly jerking you to the right. his hand slips tightly from your wrist to your palm as he clambers up the stairs to the docking bridge, hurling you both against the balcony’s balustrade. you yelp upon impact, shouting out in pain, but vincent barely gives you time to recover before he hauls you into his arms and charges toward the port side of the bridge, recklessly pushing past the few people that were also up on the platform.
then, it happens.
you can’t even begin to describe it.
the strobing incandescent lights surged into a final, blazing flash—one that threatened a detonation of its tantalum bulbs—before a mighty crack tore through the ship and plunged it into overwhelming darkness.
wind rushes out of your lungs and whistles past your ears in a scream that never made its way out of your chest. all fifty-two thousand and three hundred-some long tons of the titanic slams her great propellers back into the face of the ocean, and the endless cries of passengers grew impossibly louder upon landing.
reeling from the shock, you break out into a cold sweat and feel panic creeping up the atlas of your spine.
did… did the ship split in two?
eyes widening in horror, you subconsciously raise your quivering fingers to your lips, before slowly closing them over your mouth.
realisation dawns on you.
there were people in the water beneath the stern.
poets and scientists alike had always emphasised how spectacularly light could blind. what they never quite mentioned, however, was how equally harrowing the theft of sight by darkness could be.
“sweetheart?” vincent’s voice whispers weakly. you sense the familiar brush of his touch blindly fumble for you beneath the veil of night.
“...i’m here,” you say hoarsely. every inch and crevice of your body was trembling.
“oh, thank goodness,” he breathes. his hands feebly wrap around your shoulders again, and you notice that he’s trembling, too.
“vinny,” your palpitation stumbles, and you swallow nervously. “vinny, i’m scared. i’m so scared.”
vincent’s right hand moves to cradle the back of your hair as he hushes you. he presses his forehead to yours, almost as tenderly as he did when he first promised you the world. “i know. trust me, baby, i know.”
“i–”
“listen.” for once, the dying vessel isn’t what interrupts you, though it was getting increasingly harder to ignore as its hull begins to rise out of the water again. he pulls you in closer, urgency building in his tone. “we’re going to have to jump.”
your heart stops.
“what?”
titanic gives another agonising lurch, one that seemed like her final deathbound farewell. a jagged noise staggers in your throat from the sudden movement, and you instinctively claw for the front of vincent’s shirt in fear.
“we have to jump before the ship goes down,” he repeats gravely. “when i tell you to jump, you jump.”
“wait, vincent–”
vincent doesn’t stop. “keep your legs straight as you fall. cross an arm over your chest to hold down your lifebelt so it doesn’t seize up and break your neck.” he’s practically just muttering the instructions against your lips now. “and make sure to cover your face with the other hand so you don’t inhale water into your lungs from the shock of the cold.”
“vince–”
“once you hit the water, swim. swim as- as far as possible from the ship so you don’t get pulled down with it. if we get separated in the fall, don’t look back. don’t come back for me. swim for the lifeboats as soon as you can- and live, (name), you have to promise me that you’ll live–”
“goddamnit, whittman, would you shut up for a second and listen to me!?”
the ground tilts into a slanting wall, and it would not have been far-fetched to presume that the propellers once again loomed like guillotines above the sea and below the sky it mirrored. as your eyes begin to adjust to the darkness and the faintest starlight gives you a glimpse of the distress that had overcome his face, you’re almost certain that he, too, could see the outrage that was plaguing yours.
“if i jump, you jump.” you seethe. the tip of your finger jabs into his chest. “we will jump together, and we will stay together.”
his hand catches your wrist, and you feel the anger in his grip as it digs into your pulse. “don’t be a martyr, (name),” vincent snarls. “we don’t have time for this.”
“you think time would mean anything to me once it passes without you?” you spit furiously, though fresh tears were burning rivers through your throat and past your cheeks once again. “what about new york, vincent? the station? your- our dreams?” a choked sound threatens to disrupt your impassioned retaliation. “i’m not about to search for you in every shadow of a city we’ve never lived in!”
“you’re the only reason why!” he says desperately. vincent forces your hand closer to his body, so you had no choice but to flatten it over his chest—right above where his heart continued to beat wildly. his fingers lace through the spaces between yours. “all of it would mean nothing without you. you’re the reason why i even have a dream to lose. hell,” he lets out a watery laugh, before it bleeds into an uncharacteristic sob.
“you are my dream, (name). you are my reason why.”
he knew you were running out of time. he knew it was a fight he would lose. letting you fire back a response wasn’t in the cards of fate, nor was it in his. it just wasn’t.
titanic was already a few degrees shy of ninety by the time you felt him inching you both closer to the edge of the balustrade. it was a dance in the dark—a fragile waltz upon the tightrope that was the railing—strung together in infinitesimal faith with every trembling step he blindly led you through.
“so we’ll jump,” he breathes with finality. “so help me God, we jump.” his nails dig into your skin, a four-crescent etch of promise. “together.”
below you, the ocean spreads its wide behemoth maw, bubbling perilously as it continues to swallow the ship into a watery grave. the thought of it alone was daunting enough, but the fact that the vortex was perceivable only by sound and not sight made it all the more terrifying.
you fumble for the rail, feeling your hand quiver violently as your skin meets iron, and take great care in swinging your leg over the narrow bar.
“careful, now.” there’s a slight, concentrated wobble in vincent’s voice. “i’ve got you. i’m still here.”
almost mockingly, the ship gives another sudden lurch, and you grip his hand even tighter than before.
“it’s okay. shit, it’s okay,” he rambles feverishly, though you aren’t sure if he’s reassuring you or himself. “i won’t let go. you’re fine. keep going.” vincent squeezes back firmly. “but hurry.”
it’s significantly harder to bring your other foot over the railing. your heart hammers painfully against your ribs, increasing in tempo as you inch yourself further to the left, quite literally dancing on the edge of the world.
or what was left of yours, anyway.
you faintly sense vincent all but tumble onto the precipice along with you, hearing the way his chest heaved from the effort. the railing presses coldly into your back, and you feel your stomach drop when you sense the port side twisting the slightest bit forward.
“shit,” you curse under your breath. “oh, shit, shit, shit.”
neither you nor he had to see to know that you now hung off angled toward the ocean. time was ticking, the world was tilting on its axis, and you had to jump now.
“remember what i said?” vincent asks urgently, reaching around your back to lay a hand over your lifebelt’s left shoulder—half with the intention to help you keep it down, but with all the reason to still be able to hold you in the fall.
“yes.” you mirror his actions, crossing your right arm over your chest. you meet his fingers over your shoulder, and he shifts to reposition his hand over yours.
“do not forget to cover your mouth.”
“i could say the same to you,” you say weakly, fingers digging into the canvas.
“good.” vincent tightens his grip. “on my mark.”
impossible thunder roars beneath the ocean, rumbling with a legion of tempests as air collapses within what was left of the broken stern. your fingertips scramble to relearn the grooves in the galvanised rail and commit it to memory one last time; bidding a quiet, heartbroken farewell to the ship of dreams.
“now!”
you let go.
wind howls deafeningly in your ears as the plummet rips you both downward into the darkness. for the shortest, yet longest moment of your life, you were weightless; and the powerful current that gusts with gravity savagely strips the air from your lungs. you don’t hear yourself scream at all, but the pain that seared your throat proved otherwise.
vincent’s fingers claw wildly for your neck as you fall, before all traces of his touch vanish for a bloodcurdling heartbeat. he shouts something, but you barely register it over the vicious sound of the rush.
fear douses your spine as you plunge, untethered, until you feel his body miraculously crash into your back again. he shoots an arm across your sternum and clamps over your right shoulder with renewed strength, snaring you to his chest with more regard for your life than his own.
you struggle against the pull, fighting to force a hand against your mouth. your lungs stagger, you choke, you almost forget how to breathe—
and a thousand knives tear from your ankles to your skull as you slam into the atlantic with a violent crash.
ice shoots up your body, near-paralysing in shock, and a gasp instinctively rips through your lungs from the cold. it snaps your jaw open in a desperate, primal demand for air, one that the ocean was undeniably all too happy to fill. brine floods into your mouth and stings the back of your tongue like lye—frigid and piercing as liquid fire; a cold so intense it burned.
then, almost as swiftly as you plunged into the deep, it hurls you right back out. the cork in your lifebelt nearly forgoes your head, and you struggle to keep it down as the buoyancy sharply forces you to resurface. you sputter out water as the dead, bitter cold sinks its teeth into your skin once again, and you thrash against the invisible current that dared to tow you under.
coughing madly, completely agonised by the ice that burned in your lungs, you heave for air. neither fear nor shadow had ever acquainted themselves with you this much until tonight—and neither bore hands you had ever wanted to shake.
above you, the sky steadily slips the drape that was the titanic’s silhouette off her starlit shoulders. the disrobing of the night was captivating in theory, yet devastating in actuality; for the confines between the atlantic and the styx had begun to surge into a single downward current. the vessel is pulled beneath the water with a haste that paralleled the rape and capture of persephone into the underworld, though some may argue that one’s death was more merciful than the other’s abduction.
she grows drunk on the sea, drowning her hollowed carcass in brine, and filling her rooms with saltwater where she could not carry dreams—dreams that man’s hubris had intended her to carry, for the sake of honour, glory, and renown.
a mighty undead roar rumbles from within the iron cadaver as the bubbling maelstrom that was the titanic’s last breath finally sinks beneath the lifeless tide. and in the briefest, most impossible instant, the unsinkable ship of dreams disappears into the heart of the ocean—with a quiet humility she had never been fated for, and with a thousand five hundred souls she had never been supposed to kill.
it leaves a rattle in your skull and a thunder in your ears, and you feel the distant sound echo through your blood in a hypnotising tempo that fools your pulse into an equivalent cadence.
you don’t know if you should be grateful that you couldn’t tell which direction the ship sank in. orientation had entirely lost its hold on you; left was right and east was west, and you realise too late that it’s not the only thing whose touch your flesh missed. with a growing horror, you realise that the only weight you carried was your own—
and the weight you lacked had no means to stay afloat.
your blood runs cold.
“VINCENT!”
the scream hurts—burns—more than the cold ever could. it tears up the sides of your trachea, trailing fire in its wake, yet is nothing but a needle in a haystack of wails. the placid air seems to have solidified into a tremendous wall of sound that presses upon the surface of the atlantic, petrified by the shrill coalescence of voices crying out for a salvation that would never come.
and oh, how you miss when pain was easier to fathom.
a litany of emotion, sensation, and anguish yank at the veins of your heart, stretching them apart into a forced web of bloodied tapestry, just as the flesh of a lamb torn to shreds by wolves would spill past yellowed canine fangs after the slaughter.
you are entirely alone in the chorus, a discordant note in the paradoxical shrieking harmony, fighting to see even in sightlessness. thrashing in the water, you fight to stay upright, blindly reaching out into the darkness in hopes to feel his skin against your touch. was it foolish? searching for what could not guarantee survival but would have promised life even in death?
perhaps. entirely.
so let it be as it were — thus a fool you’d become, and a fool you’d remain.
blood and screams pounding in your ears, you splash around, kicking and flailing despite the buoyancy wrapped in canvas around your torso. you fling more needles into the hay, crying out into a night that replied with nothing but echoes mocking your desperation.
“oh, God, oh God,” you chant, gasping greedily for breath. “vincent!”
the muscles in your neck strain as you whip your head in every direction, searching without sight. your eyes ache against the darkness, and you thrash to keep upright, carving your fingers into the sea in hopes to latch onto something other than water.
your hand strikes wood—not flesh—and you scramble to dig your nails into it in an attempt to yank the debris closer to yourself. not dense enough to sink, light enough to stay afloat; but too narrow to climb upon.
helpless, you collapse against the flotsam, feeling your cheek burrow into its grooves in a way that was sure to leave marks. you could not find it in yourself to care.
survivors around you had regressed into animals as they fought for breath. their savage struggle for air was inhuman by nature, yet it was the rawest display of humanity you had ever witnessed.
these were all people.
just like you were.
just like vincent was.
is.
tears squeeze out of your eyes, turning to frost before they could slip past your lips. you barely know if you’re even still alive, how much more could you believe he was either?
the darkness answers your ponder in kind.
a hand lurches out of the abyss and clamps heavily around your ankle. panic seizes your throat, wrenching your mouth open in a voiceless scream. the wood pitches downward with a sickening jerk, nearly pulling itself vertical as you pull it down with you. the lifebelt digs into your ribs—taut against your chest, stifling against your stomach.
the weight that came with the intrusive grip was heavy. it almost renders your lifebelt useless as you are dragged down, all the way until your shoulders, and the stranger claws past the skirt and hip of your dress as they try to escape the clutches of the ocean.
but it was a grip you would recognise in every lifetime.
the surface explodes beside you, and a head breaks out of the water with a violent, coughing gasp. the wooden beam falls back against the ocean as the shadow lets out a painful retch, emptying their lungs of seawater. he frantically heaves in air like a man starved—but his first breath was a feeble croak of your name.
you feel your heart somehow stop and revive all at once. “vince?”
the stranger shifts in the water, and the wood dips where he was clutching on to it. “(name)?” he wheezes thickly.
“vince,” you sob in relief, “oh, baby.”
“(name),” he chokes, and God, he sounds so weak. “(name).”
you reach out blindly for him, but he meets you halfway, and you feel the locks of his hair press wetly against the underside of your chin. vincent coughs as he writhes, inching himself closer to you, and his fingernails scratch dully at the back of your lifebelt. he shakily huddles into your chest, right over the sound of your weakening heartbeat.
still, desperately, foolishly—in hope and in agony—he listens. he writes each sequence and impulse into the backs of his eyes and the membrane of his ears and he holds you, holds onto you, with every ounce of strength he had left in his body—the only thing that could still keep him afloat.
you were his only lifeline.
“darling,” your lips move against his hair. “can you–” you give an involuntary hiccup, and vincent presses himself closer to your body. “can you take off your boots?”
“w…what?”
“try… taking them off… if you can.” you loosen your grip just a fraction, but he holds on tighter. “it’ll help you… float easier…”
you feel his hesitation.
“i mean– fuck,” you tremble. “do you… even have enough strength to?”
“if… it’ll help me… stay with you… a little longer.”
his words hang heavy between the two of you. vincent moves, slowly but surely, to untangle his fingers from the straps of your lifebelt. your hand shoots out to clutch the scruff of his collar, making sure he’d still be tethered to you, as he sacrificed seconds of his life to bargain for minutes from death.
vincent takes in a shuddering breath, stoking the ice that burned his throat, and disappears once again into a darkness that swallows him whole. the temporary loss of him envelops you, even though you know he is just inches below the surface. worry festers in you despite yourself.
underwater, he struggles. you feel him thrash desperately as he tries to untie the cords laced through his boots, though his movements are sloppy. sluggish.
he resurfaces barely twenty seconds later.
“i can’t. my fingers– i’m–” vincent sounds completely heartbroken. “i’m sorry.”
“no- no-” you hush him, pulling him close to your body again. “you’re… you’re okay, baby,” you promise, though your breath stutters. “you’re f-fine. i’ve got you.”
you feel him slacken against your chest, and you knew that he, too, was crying.
around you, the wall of wails slowly crumbles into the sea like the city of jericho, fading into a quiet that proved to be more terrifying than the noise.
“tell me… about the house,” you whisper. “the one in… the one in new york.”
“our house?” his voice is muffled.
you breathe out a wet laugh. “yes, my love. o-our house.”
“i’ve–” vincent shivers fiercely as he attempts to inhale, gently untangling from your embrace, then slowly swims toward your scanty piece of driftwood to hold onto it himself. “i’ve already got the deed.”
“y-yeah?” you prompt him.
the wood gives a tiny lurch as he finally drops and rests his head on top of it.
vincent takes a while to respond.
“…and?”
“it’s… it’s in my trunk,” he finally says, before letting out a weak, almost pitiful chuckle. “at the bottom… of the ocean.”
silence stretches for a moment.
nudging the side of your hand against his, you murmur, “t-tell… tell me more.”
“like what?” he asks weakly, quietly.
“the kitchen. the… the garden.” you’re already beginning to feel the cold seep into your bones and ebb at your life. “you told me… it was near…. central park.”
“r–right. it was. it is,” vincent corrects himself. his tremors begin to grow sharper.
“and what… what ab-about it?”
“th’re’s… a big, wide window… in the kitchen,” he breathes, reciting it almost mindlessly off the top of his head. “looks right o-out into the river, so you can watch the ducks as… as you cook. be-because– you… you’d like that. yo-you’d like that, w-wouldn’t y-you… honey?
“i would,” you promise, and your little finger quivers as you try to hook it over his own. “i… d-definitely would.”
he continues. “and a… a big old library. w-with shelves…. an’ ev-everything,” vincent swallows laboriously. “all e-empty, though. ‘c-cause we– we were s’posed to… to fill them up… with books… as time passed. and our children would’ve… ‘d’ve learned how to read… there… ‘cause we’d– we’d teach them how. t-together.”
ice forgoes your heart as it crawls up your muscles, turning your blood into glaciers and your tears into winter rivers. your pulse swells, then it eclipses; imprisoned by frost, and ensnared with grief.
you try not to let him hear the way your voice breaks. “and t-the garden, vinny? tell me about… tell me about the garden.”
anything to keep him conscious.
"flowers... that hang around th-the balcony... lilies, 'c-cause i know those are your f-fav-favourite," he hiccups, then shudders; it was obvious that every word he whispered wracked pain through his body. "and we'll... sit out there... in- in the mornings, ov-over c-coffee."
vincent weakly raises his head with the intention to look at you, but the mind-numbing cold pushes his cheek back against the soaked wood. "you'll call me an idiot... and i'll–" he lets out a heaving cough that sounds like a cross between a sob and a laboured gasp. "i'd tell you that you're beautiful."
it was too dark to see anything. night fell heavy over the waters of the atlantic, and the cries of whoever had still been alive begun to wane into nothingness. your sight failed you—all you could fathom was darkness; but still, you felt him. you’d know his presence in shadow, you’d hear him in silence, and you’d have found him even in places no one else would be found.
the stumbling, fragile flutter of his breath ghosts over your numb fingertips, and vincent’s hand fumbles to lace through the spaces between yours. you lower your head and press a frozen kiss to his knuckles—the bloodless flesh just below where his wedding ring sat.
his next words come out slurred; weak with cold, drunk with sorrow, and heavy with regret. it echoes in your ears and the endless sea, over a still tide that mirrored a moonless sky full of stars you were never meant to name or rewrite.
“i’m sorry i couldn’t get you a better ticket.”
꩜ a/n: aaaand there goes my longest fic EVER, and my first official angst work! i spent way too much time researching and watching documentaries just to get every single detail correct. i kid you not, this fic had me reading entire wikipedia articles in class and giggling over blueprints and hunting down 3d models of the ship and watching morse code logs with rapt attention. call me james cameron cuz best believe i'm citing all my sources below .. muehehe
this started out as a writing exercise for a supposedly longer fic, then ended up becoming the longer fic. spent 43 days and countless 5am nights pouring my heart and soul into this—it went from being just another fanfic to being my love letter to the ship of dreams.
the reason why this fic took so long to write was bc describing the high-stakes action was absolutely KICKING my ass. i'll stick to my emotions and dialogue thank you very much. but yes, thank you, to everyone who waited patiently for this and supported me all the way!!
i can almost say with certainty that this is historically accurate. i hope you enjoyed the fruits of sleepless research born from the revival of a 3rd grade obsession <3 thank you, dear reader, for reading this all the way to the end. i am honoured to have been a steward of your time. i hope you loved reading this as much as i loved writing it!
knock knock, voxblr, wake up. mommy's home (¬ᴗ ´¬ )
(and yes, the title is absolutely taken from a track of the titanic musical score!)
as promised, the citations. ♡
꩜ taglist: @whoatemycheezeits @tuquoque @aquaticari @etcherrie @safination
is it just more or can you imagine filo!vox bragging about traveling to guam 🇬🇺 for vacation, thinking it’s the same as the british royal family skiing in switzerland?
like he comes back all tan and smug and is acting like he was at a luxury resort but bro was walking around tumon like a goofy tourist 💀🥀
bro hit up abc store for that little phone fan, went shark walking at underwater world, and bought a shipping container’s worth of tropical t-shirts.
i have never been to guam but the concept of this is SO funny oh my gosh 😭😭 he totally WOULD. and he'd be so insufferable about it bye this guy is so annoying can we kill him
on the bright side i do think this guy is incapable of tanning without ending up looking like pampanga's best tocino after two days so at least he gets retribution from that
this was a riot! absolutely spot on, anon.
(hehehehe that rhymed)
OKAYYY naisip ko na yung idea/req ko hehehehhhsuhuss lasallian vinny with a gf who’s the opposite of him, yung artsy and mahilig mag ukay ukay, most likely from up diliman or usttt, I think vinny would like be so confused as to why he likes this girl and it frustrates him pero very cute diba opposites attract HHAHAHAHA that being said… imagine si al naman with a LASALLIAN CONYO GF HEHHEE u don’t have to do both u can pick any really!!! yan lang ung faves ko hihi TYYY
hi hi name twinヾ(≧∇≦)ゞ ! sorry it took me so long to get around to answering this HSHSHS i'm so nervous cuz this is my first ever ask waaaah but thank u so much for dropping by omg 🥹🥹
ik i already replied to this in our dms but i will see what i can do ! this is such a cutesy idea I LOVE IT SO MUCH HAUDFHAH
(filipino au!)
the concept of both you and vincent being avid dislikers of teleseryes but after your tiktok fyp starts getting flooded with edits u somehow end up managing to rope him into watching be careful with my heart together (after a whole lot of coaxing) (he finds it hard to say no to you)
then you end up falling in love with the show first and get really endeared with it but vincent keeps bitching and is MORE than happy to trash on the acting styles + cliches, and he'd add on to your occasional comments with extensively impassioned criticisms of his own
til one night ur both in bed and he starts asking "baby aren't we gonna watch?"
a/n: this was largely just me projecting im ngl
(i PROMISE i'm almost done w the titanic fic yall trust 🥺)
tags: @whoatemycheezeits @etcherrie
rewatching titanic rn and earlier into the movie i kept giggling over the fact that vox is canonically a cinephile but i know damn well if you were watching it together w him his ass would be SWEATING every time you groan or roll ur eyes whenever cal (rose's fiance) says a line or comes on screen bc he KNOWS he's probably more similar to cal than jack
then when the "draw me like one of your french girls" scene comes up he's gonna give you a cheeky lil side eye and smugly say some shit like "i mean, i don't exactly have charcoal on me right now but i do have a high-quality stylus and a tablet in my office... just in case you wanna add a little spice to my personal collection if u know what i mean" boy sybau we both know your drawings are SHIT
🇵🇭. hazbin hotel filipino schools hcs !
— this is part 03 of my filo hazbin hotel headcanons: which schools from my country that i feel like each of our beloved characters would be in <3
once more, to @whoatemycheezeits ;
and for the last time this evening: hello, mga kababayan 💕
:: other filo headcanons: vincent/vox , alastor
charlie — UST ; comes from a long line of Lasallians (went to DLSU from nursery til JHS) but wanted to be a Thomasian for SHS & College
vaggie — UST bc of charlie, obviously, but she'd have been awesome in Mapua. probably graduated from Assumption in JHS.
angel dust — FEU . CHANGE MY MIND (you can't) .
cherri bomb — also FEU . likely a troublemaker who got expelled from st. scholastica
husk — PUP/TUP . i can't explain why but i have a feeling and yall r just gonna have to hear me out on this one
sir pentious — MAPUA . ENGINEERING . HELLO
baxter — also Mapua
niffty — CEU or UE !
lucifer — DLSU . like i mentioned in charlie's bit, the morningstars are definitely lasallian royalty
lilith — also DLSU, but went to Miriam for JHS
alastor — UP Diliman, all the way. probably applied to DLSU for funsies, then also Pamantasan and/or PUP bc his mother graduated from one of them
vox/vincent — i think we already expected that he'd be in Ateneo. took Big 4 CETs for bragging rights (passed 3, got waitlisted for UP #deserved). graduated from LSGH in JHS; that's where he met Val & Vel
valentino — DLSU Benilde . there is no way he is not
velvette — also DLSU; probably grew up in Assumption or San Beda (cmon look at her and tell me she wouldn't have been in an all-girls Catholic school)
adam — DLSU for sure . or perhaps UP
lute — while i think she goes where adam goes but i also feel like she would fit UP a lot; was def classmates with vaggie in JHS
abel — i feel like adam could give less than a shit about him so he'd probably end up in either NU or Adamson instead of pursuing any of the Big 4
sera — i'd love to say she'd be in ADMU for the sake of consistency amongst the angels, but something about her just screams Miriam
emily — for some reason, i really see her in NU
st. peter — enderun . i will not be elaborating
WAUUGHHH thus ends this miniseries of headcanons !! this was rlly just for sillies and giggles and tbh is rather a really niche thing but oh well .
all i can say is — if you know, you know <3
check out my headcanons for alastor and vincent/vox if you haven't yet !
once again, thank you, and goodnight! xo, vie
🇵🇭. filipino shs/uni alastor hcs !
— this is part 02 of my filo hazbin hotel headcanons, this time for none other than our moreno crush ng bayan, alastor !! once again: hello, mga kababayan 💕
& in particular, @whoatemycheezeits <3
:: other filo headcanons: vincent/vox , all characters
is very fluent in tagalog. like, jose rizal kind of fluent. he also speaks english very well but his tagalog is just impeccable
grew up around the tondo area, but his province is nueva ecija since his mom is from lupao (+ his deadbeat dad is kapampangan)
YES . I AM PIONEERING THE ILOCANO!ALASTOR AGENDA
on that note, hes fond of mechado, dinuguan, and probably menudo
his version of jambalaya in this AU is mechado and u can’t change my mind
something in my very smart brain tells me he knows how to speak a bit of bisaya
did SHS in PUP (his mom’s school) ; as a HUMSS/ASSH student, believe it or not
bachelor of arts in broadcast communications @ up diliman
iskolar ng bayan!alastor is very real
dspc-rspc-nspc baddie
intramuros dates w this old fashioned sap and u CANNOT convince me otherwise
aside from his canon love for oldies jazz (which we’re integrating into this AU), his music taste was largely influenced by his mom (who was a 70s girlie). think VST, Apo Hiking, Eraserheads, Air Supply, Carpenters, the works. sunday radio ang atake
he’d stick to the tito music taste but i think he’d be a casual ben&ben enjoyer (hi @safination i owe this one to u and ur harana fic with paninindigan kita ,, hehe)
probably won a palanca award for filipino poetry at one point
his fav restaurant is aristocrat (LMAOO)
when he was younger his mom would take him to roxas blvd to watch the sun set over manila bay so lowkenuinely i think he would integrate that into a regular thing if/when he’s courting u
i have this feeling he avoids makati and bgc like the plague (it’s been this unexplainable ick he’s had since he was a kid but the fact that it could be considered vincent/vox's territory would just add on to that LMAOOO)
alastor canonically hates sweets but SOMETHING IN MY HEART OF HEARTS tells me he forever would have a soft spot for mamang sorbetero (the ice cream man). like he wouldn’t eat it anymore but every time he hears the bell jingling from nearby he’d be filled w nostalgia for the times his momma would treat him to ice cream when they visit luneta on the weekends as a little boy
the ladies at farmer’s market know him by name
definitely hates the popular radio stations and would say they “have no class”
WAHAHAH HE WOULD HATE THOSE STUPID SOUND EFFECTS SO BAD
pan de manila / pandesal enjoyer
KAPENG BARAKO ENJOYER !!!!!!!!!
probably knows how to ride a carabao
OHHHHMMMMYYYGOOOOD THE CONCEPT OF HIM HELPING OUT IN THE FIELDS WHEN HE VISITS LUPAO . THE STRAW HAT AND THE PANTS ROLLED UP TO HIS KNEES AND THE TOWEL OVER HIS SHOULDER WAIT WAIT WAITTTTTTTTTT STAY W ME NOW
expert in patintero
DEFINITELY knows how to dance tinikling and hes damn good at it (mimzy is his fav dance partner!!)
not an athletic guy but he plays arnis . also an absolute unit in larong pinoy
has perfect pitch in guitar and piano
was probably an anemic child . half of his bloodstream is ferrous sulfate
has a mercury drug suki card
aunties and lolas (those old ladies at church) LOVE him
“may girlpren ka na ba?” “wala pa po, tita”
“po” and “opo” final boss
HATEEEESSSS jologs, jeprox, and salitang kalye w a burning passion
occasional taho enjoyer (by occasional, meaning he takes one sip then gives the rest to his mom or whoever is next to him)
takot sa ascal + aspin . hinabol sa probinsya nung bata sya .
the designated (unwilling) guitarista when his cousins drag him out to do caroling
his mom’s favourite song is If We Hold On Together by Diana Ross
thinks teleseryes are flaming trash. incredibly entertaining trash (sometimes they’re so bad it’s good), but trash nonetheless
so like he can tolerate his mom tuning in to teleseryes after her afternoon siestas but he CANNOTTT stand It’s Showtime
hates filipino showbiz in general tbh
probably used a nokia keypad flip phone at one point LMAOOO
android user
does not have social media aside from messenger. his fb account is effectively dead
not a beach guy but he’s mildly fond of rivers cuz he and his cousins used to jump off bridges and into the water to go swim during summer vacation
puting t-shirt + shorts warrior (ONLY in the province and at home)
wears hanes shirts under almost every outfit
THE MENTAL IMAGE OF HIM WEARING ISLANDERS IS SO FUNNY
calls his mom “nay”
squid ball, isaw, and balut enjoyer
his favourite pair of shoes are from marikina
like i said: moreno crush ng bayan
i've mostly said everything i wanted to say about this series of hcs in my first post so pls do check out my a/n there along w tisoy heartthrob vincent/vox if u haven't yet !
but anyways hi hello i'm rlly glad ur here hehe ( ⸝⸝´ ᵕ `⸝⸝)
thank u so so much for reading !!
check out the third and final part of this miniseries of hcs: the general headcanons for which philippine schools i think the rest of the hazbin cast would be in <3
thank u to @whoatemycheezeits for pushing me to post these officially HAHAHA
— this one is for my fellow filo vox enjoyers !! hello, mga kababayan 💕
u can find the original ask i submitted to cheeze's blog riiiight here !
:: other filo headcanons: alastor , all characters
so we all know damn well this bitch wld be from ateneo
but he took all the Big 4 CETs for bragging rights
studied in la salle greenhills from around Gr. 5 to JHS
probably went to international schools until maybe like the 4th grade...?
most likely sa brent international school 'yan nag elem HAHAHAH
but anyways from SHS to college he’s a proud #atenean
aiming for a dual degree: bachelor of science in media relations & business management
as a youngin his dating pool was from miriam
probably messed around with assumptionistas too
has "connections from xavier" outside admu and dlsu
would get in csa scandals
would beef with ism kids
hes one of those guys that would, like, reach up and tap the top of doorways and shit with one hand… 💀
not rlly conyo pero legit napaka-englishero . (englishero halata yarn?)
no but seriously tho like it's to the MAX. his tagalog is so painful
uniqlo collared shirts warrior
putragis suki yan sa nike
shops at greenbelt
his go-to shoes r onitsuka tigers
owns a pair of ASICS too
USANA user LMAOOOO his parents r probably distributors
his parents also probably have ties with abs-cbn
i would not be surprised if he’s been hanging out w the ayala kids since they were younger
was probably born in Makati Medical Centre idfk . or St Luke's BGC
his glasses are from essilor and he gets a new pair every year
the kind of guy ur mom would look at and say “ay, may dugong kastila yan”
if alastor is the kind of guy your mother would love at first sight, vincent is the kind of guy she would be SO hesitant about im not even kidding
his family house is in bel-air but they have condos in rockwell, bgc, and qc (the latter being specifically for him so he can live closer to admu on school days)
has never once struggled w commute & it fawking shows
put his bitchass in a jeep to quiapo and he’d end up in cainta
thinks Grab is commute bc he has a driver
but if he were to commute he'd say "kuya pa-stop/pakibigay bayad ko" (his version of "para po/paabot po")
had, and likely still has, a yaya
his fav restaurant is Antonio’s (+ would call it casual ,, boy sybau)
Nono’s is a close second mainly cuz he likes the atmosphere
powerplant mall + bgc dates . the CONCEPT
on the topic of dates, he’d def also take u to Manila Ocean Park (like u mentioned in ur previous post HEHE)
for my fellow thomasian girlies, let us put our heads together for a second and imagine . afternoons in dangwa and dapitan with him
the concept of being spoiled by atenean bf vincent whittman
stop he’d probably be a salcedo date guy as well hes so unoriginal i hate him
probably wore crocs as a kid
in another version of this AU, just because it’s funny asf, i feel like vinny would be one of those kids who was on showtime
cold stone ice cream enjoyer
primarily western music taste but he likes certain opm artists like rob deniel (he would LOVE rob) and cup of joe. like alastor, some of the music he enjoys is influenced by his parents—mainly his father
so don’t be surprised if u occasionally catch him listening to Apo Hiking Society or VST & Company . i fear this would be like one of the few things he and al would get along over
his fav Apo Hiking song is When I Met You (like cmon no shit it’s in english)
also ! speaking of alastor, they probably played arnis together at one point as well lol (would explain the rivalry)
the concept of him in the ateneo blue eagles uniform .. . mmmmmm….. .
i lowk feel like he’d be a biker . like yk those biking marathons in makati? yeah. he’d be there
apple user. every piece of technology he owns is iOS
performatively orders black coffee at starbucks when he’s out with his friends to appear more “grown up” or “professional” (boy sybau) but hes a guilty caramel macchiato enjoyer
forced to take piano lessons as a kid but he dropped it
the whittmans would be one of those families that have yearly photoshoots for christmas 😭
has a golden retriever
has an aquarium in his room
uses ivory soap and sensodyne toothpaste
loves leche flan
was a “mommy, iPad please” kid
calls his parents “mommy” and “dad” HAHAHA
was probably a leash kid. def had a bimpo
WENT TO KUMON. ABSOLUTELY. HE WOULD HAVE AN ENTIRE COLLECTION OF THOSE DAMN YELLOW + BLUE BAGS
has a fully booked membership card
his family owns a vacation house in Coron/El Nido
that one classmate who is somehow almost ALWAYS abroad during school breaks
always had chuckie in his baon during elem WHAHAHA
u bet ur ass he loved baby shark
probably had pinkfong on his tablet even before the song came out
his mom shops at healthy options
ambidextrous (would be so annoying about it) + favours his left hand
has really nice hands lowk
cold tone (silver jewelry)
knows how to work a rubix cube
he would SO own one of those metal sticks that are meant to be twirled around ur fingers and he would be so good at it
lipsync thirst trap tiktoker bruh yung horizontal orientation na 4:3 tas dim lighting and it's to Attention by Charlie Puth
SPEAKING OF . HE WOULD LOVE CHARLIE PUTH . his favourite song to play in the car is Marvin Gaye and is the type of guy to be tapping his fingers on the steering wheel along to the song and look back at you every few seconds while u two sing in harmony
i hate him so bad i hope he swerves into a ditch and dies
cetaphil + kiehl's user
if u two were classmates is the type to come up to your desk during breaktime, drape his arms over you, and lean his cheek/chin on your head #clingybitch
always about 15 minutes early when he picks u up after school
deadass would be ur sundo as much as he can
when you both do online classes at his place, he’d insist on sitting back-to-back as u attend ur respective classes, and if ur camera is off he would occasionally lean back his head and brush a little kiss to ur cheek/temple mid-lecture (ok this is so self indulgent i hate evm classes)
has ALL the streaming services but his fav to use is HBO Max
clubs at BGC
his mom texts him on viber, his dad texts him on whatsapp
his fav maroon five songs are Sunday Morning and What Lovers Do
guilty enjoyer of justin bieber’s earlier music
probably got pulled over in bgc at one point cuz he was jamming so hard to the rap verse in Baby and didn’t notice the stoplight
also gets pulled over at QC-Katipunan area cuz he gets stressed out at Timog Ave
drives an Audi A6
his dad drives a BMW, his mom drives a Benz
their family car (the one that their driver uses) is an Isuzu
went to forbes for PLAYDATES
first time drunk and wasted was at salcedo
to spite yardstick enjoyers bc hes SOOOO different he goes to outpost
gets his hair done at Bruno's like it's a routine
denies he has elitism
would play Valorant & League bc ML is too "low class" for him
can be found in Poblacion LMAOO
WOULD PUT FLAGS IN HIS IG BIO.
🇺🇸🇪🇸🇵🇭
since his last name is Whittman, his dad is Fil-Am ; his mom has spanish blood
so for ur consideration . this fuckass would be one of those guys with three names, some shit like Vincent Gabriel Joaquin . tas his middle name would be Rosario
HAHAHAHHA OH MY GAWD
his mom is one of those stereotypical Manila Moms who does Pilates in Makati
contrary to how Alastor would tolerate teleseryes only for the sake of his mother, Vincent would hate them entirely
would get cancelled for being out of touch (like for the flood control ghost projects) FAWK im breaking up with him
has a vacation home at tagaytay highlands AND another one in Coron
has an older brother who lives in ortigas near eastwood
his kuya is SO MUCH nicer than him,, and wld probably have a Jr or a III in his name
would think Estancia is a low-end mall
would have membership at either Valle Verde or Manila Polo Club (courtesy of his dad)
would take u to MPC for ur first date
tapos lowk ur friends would clown u for it and ur story replies would be 8273 messages filled with texts like "tayo ba ay nasa fine dining restaurant?"
^ he wld be nicknamed as "ay, si ano... si kurakot" and ur friends wld say shit like "ayos may budget nanaman si senator" WAHAAHAHA
he would go to some random parking lot in BGC at night when u get into a fight and blast UMUWI KA NA BABY (Hanggang Kailan) at full volume ttp u can hear it over the sound of the engine outside
his apology song would be Palagi by TJ Monterde (specifically the version with KZ Tandingan CUZ OF COURSE IT IS)
Golden Goose wearing fraud
thinks Wolf Gang Steak House is pretentious (because hes sooo different), tho still goes to it on occasion
but he'd take u to Mamou <3 then Escolta at the Manila Peninsula for like a monthsary or something <33
thinks budots is corny (he is no fun)
does competitive tennis but his mom roped him into pickle ball so he does the latter for leisure
enjoys looking for equipment and he'd take u with him and call it a hangout
you've heard it from me a hundred times before: this is incredibly self indulgent. man i really have to stop pointing that out and apologising for it (¬⤙¬ )
— anyways ... filo hazbin fans where u at !!??
i know this is rather different from my usual content, so i'm quite excited to finally put this out here cuz it's been microwaving in my brain since around december and it's been my literal LIFELINE since then bc apparently not even one of the country's top schools is exempt from the shitty educational system </3
(shh lowkey lang ak guys .. can't let the opps know i lurk on this side of the internet .. but eyy go uste go uste go go go)
this is the first of three filipino-related hazbin hotel headcanon posts hehehe :> you've had a taste of tisoy heartthrob vincent, now our moreno king alastor is up next! and stay tuned for the general hcs for which philippine schools i think our beloved cast would be in ദ്ദി(˵ •̀ ᴗ - ˵ ) ✧ love u all ! xo, vie
📺 — CAN WE ALWAYS BE THIS CLOSE (FOREVER AND EVER)?
꩜ [ hazbin hotel ] vincent whittman (vox) x reader
wc: 1.1k+ words
-> second person pov; (domestic, tooth-rotting) fluff; literal sleeping together; non-sexual intimacy; cuddling & snuggling; soft + whipped + human vox; 1950s; reader & vincent are engaged
now playing… lover by taylor swift
“it’s really not that big of a deal, sweetheart.”
“well, maybe for you, it isn’t!”
vincent raises his brows at you from across the bedroom. truth be told, you really can’t tell if it’s in unimpressiveness or amusement.
he’s sitting up in bed, leaning against the headboard, dressed comfortably in a pair of white-and-blue striped pyjamas. one of his fingers was nestled between the pages of a Fitzgerald novel—your favourite, you note—as his browline glasses hung low on the bridge of his nose, its lenses reflecting amber from the warm lamp on his bedside.
mismatched eyes regard you with an endeared kind of exasperation at the way you lingered awkwardly by the door, fiddling with a ring that hadn’t even left its imprint around your finger yet.
vincent had proposed just the weekend before, and while the two of you had been lovers for quite some time, never had you both shared a bed to sleep.
so here you were now, on the threshold of your newly-acquired fiancé’s bedroom at 8:54 on a Tuesday night, faced with the very situation you could only once entertain in your teenage fantasies.
to say it was nerve-wracking was an immense understatement.
vincent sighs out your name. “honey, you’re being ridicul-” you cut him off with a scathing glare that burned with all the rage of ‘finish that sentence, i dare you’— to which obediently yields, throwing his hands up in surrender with an amused chuckle.
(but deep down, you knew he was right. you were being ridiculous.)
“come on. don’t tell me you’re getting all shy on me now?”
you fidget with your ring once more, momentarily avoiding his scrutiny.
vincent’s shit-eating grin morphs into something softer, a touch more tender—just as his gaze always did whenever he looked at you. he gently sets down his book on the nightstand, shifts the part of the duvet next to him to make room, then turns back to face you.
he opens his arms in a welcoming embrace. “c’mere, baby.”
you stare at him.
“please?” vincent breathes out a laugh, tilting his head to the side, green-and-blue eyes twinkling kindly. “i promise i’ll behave.”
well, how could you say no to that?
feeling your resolve slowly weaken, you reluctantly shuffle toward the bed, picking at the hem of your sleeve as you moved across the carpeted floor. you hear him murmur a quiet, “that’s a good girl” as you draw nearer, and you throw him an irritated look.
vincent just grins at you.
“now, that wasn’t too hard, was it?” he hums once you finally reach his bedside. you feel the cleft of his chin press into the space between your ribs when he snakes his arms around your waist, gazing up at you in adoration as he holds you close. “hi, baby.”
you avert your eyes, biting back a smile. “hi.”
“come to bed, yeah?”
when you turn back to look at him, you find that vincent’s smile had grown infinitely warmer, and you could almost swear he had never loved you as much as he did in this moment.
“...yeah. okay,” you acquiesce, unease fading into nothingness with a swallowing bob of your throat. “okay.”
giving in felt like taking your own heart into your hands and holding it out to him, with the fragile hope that he—your vincent—wild, relentless, tenacious vincent—would somehow find it in himself to be careful with it.
and as your fingers find the hinge of his glasses and slip them off his face, you think that maybe, just maybe, he would.
you chose to believe so.
your fiancé—gods, you feel like a stupid, giggling schoolgirl from the way your heart soared at the title—let out a soft, content sigh at the sensation of being liberated from the head-splitting grip that the frames had clenched his temples with.
“better?” you ask, folding his glasses shut with a soft click, gently setting them upon the well-loved copy of The Great Gatsby that he had discreetly swiped off one of your bookshelves.
“immensely,” he groans, burrowing his cheek further against your silk nightgown. “now can we go to sleep?”
“okay,” you relent, laughing. “scoot over, ace.”
vincent practically beams up at you. “you don’t even have to ask twice, chief.”
he moved over a bit to the side, making just enough room for you to press a knee into the mattress, before muttering, “wait, no,” and scooting back into his original position.
questions die on your tongue before you could think to ask them, because vincent immediately plants his hands on your waist and lifts you into the space beside his right—away from the edge of the bed.
“there,” he huffs as you land with an oof, then gives you a proud little smile. “so you’re on the safer side.”
you lay there, half-sprawled upon the sheets, legs tangled with his. it takes you a moment to register what just happened before you burst out into laughter.
vincent returns your delight with a chuckle of his own. “what?”
you reach out to take him in your arms, and he lets you; losing himself in the tidal pull that was your hold—he, the waves that would forever met your shore. “you silly boy.”
he melts against you, nestling his face into your neck, lips brushing the curve of your shoulder. for once in his life, vincent whittman has absolutely nothing to retort with, and he held no wish to.
the silence paints a pretty picture, alive as a flame within the four walls where you had inevitably found home—the glow of the lamp its acrylic palette, drenching you both in the comfortable golden warmth; the duvet brushstroked with shadow.
vincent traces the aquiline slope of his nose against your pulse, committing the rhythm to memory in a feeble, mortal attempt to sync his own heartbeat with yours. as your fingers find the smooth locks at the back of his head to thread through the salt-and-pepper, he tightens the grip of his arms around your body and holds you closer, almost like he was afraid you’d disappear if he ever dared to loosen his embrace.
“goodnight, mr. whittman,” you murmur, lips curving into a smile as you press them into his hair, an odd familiarity in the intimate gesture like you’ve done it a thousand times.
“goodnight, mrs. whittman,” vincent mumbles cheekily into your skin. you could almost feel the momentary farewell blaze itself into your collarbones.
“not yet,” you hum drowsily, slumber dancing across your eyelashes.
“but soon,” he promises. “very soon.”
there is love in his embrace, and the beat of his heart against your own; “i love you” etched loudly into the silence of night, unsaid yet not unknown—no, never—never unknown.
he’d always make sure of that.
꩜ a/n: "i hate him" then bro writes him with so much love
we sure are nickname-maxxing with this one . props to anyone who caught the gilmore girls reference in "ace", but i'm afraid "chief" was entirely hedonistic (much like a lot of things in this fic). i'm only mildly sorry <3
i hope u enjoyed my (once again) very self-indulgent attempt at keeping the fluffy vox nation alive. ao3 user bag0 this one is for u
AND THANK U to milo & zeke for allowing themselves to be subjected to my relentless texts about this fic i love u both so much my precious beta readers mwa
also . i would just like to say i owe it all to The Great Gatsby (A New Musical) and Taylor Swift for keeping my inspiration alive .
