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❝ I'VE BEEN STARIN' DOWN THE BARREL OF ANOTHER LIFE ... SAID I 𝖢𝖮𝖴𝖫𝖣'𝖵𝖤 𝖡𝖤𝖤𝖭 𝖠 𝖫𝖠𝖶𝖸𝖤𝖱, WE WOULD'VE BEEN 𝙵𝙸𝙽𝙴 THEN. ❞

────── ❝ I. ... OR, BASICS.

full name: scout jude vonnegut. nickname(s): none. age: thirty2. gender identity: demi man. orientation: bisexual biromantic. place of birth: port isaac, cornwall. date of birth: may 6th, 1991. former occupation: electrician. three positive traits: assiduous, blithe, equitable. three negative traits: languid, satyric, ornery. moral alignment: chaotic neutral. faceclaim: aaron taylor - johnson.

────── ❝ II. ... OR, TOWN INFO.

current residency: the town. current occupation: handyman.

────── ❝ III. ... OR, HISTORY.

i. you can divide it all, can’t you ? two categories: the before, the after. you shouldn’t be able to remember them in such vivid detail. christ, you were only a kid-

ii. before, part one: your mother, she wasn’t expecting twins. in truth, she hardly wanted one. twenty - three to his forty - four, they exist as a cautionary tale. ( did you hear about elizabeth lawrence ? shame, she had such a promising future. / loose lizzie, gave it up for her poetry professor. ten pounds says he wasn’t the first one she’d fucked. / for a good time, call 01632 960062 ! ) she, wide - eyed student in awe of her older, glamorous professor ; he, preening under the attention of a pretty little undergrad, brimming with promise & the scent of pink candy on every delicate pulse point. puerile wonder meets erudite grace, it’s a hell of a combination & it never ends well. ( you know her friends called her the next sylvia plath ? well, if the shoe fits … ) it is the kind of tale with only one end — lust turns lukewarm, regard becomes resentment. it takes him exactly eight months to realise that he’d made a mistake / twelve to slip into someone else’s bed & leave your mother’s achingly cold / sixteen to start planning. ( in muted conversation with his mistress, he’d called it wiping the slate clean. just a shame he forgot to do the same to his call logs. )

iii. before, part two: she loved you. she didn’t like a lot / you remember her in expressions: furrowed brow, tight mouth, crossed arms. she was too young to have the kinds of grooves she did, pressed into creamy flesh so prematurely. she never looked happy around your father. ( he, of the reputation that preceded him … him, you only knew in passing. he was always in his study, rarely at the dinner table, never there for the moments that counted. later, you would look upon the figure shackled at the wrists & hardly recognise him. ) with you, & your sister ? she was the picture of delight, gilded warmth & maternal joy, scented like fresh linen. you can remember the taste of sea salt on cracked lips, a thick coat from where the three of you would spend hours dashing meaningless circles in the sand just to watch the tide wash it all away. how were you to know it was the last time you’d feel that, the kind of ebullient happiness that bubbled underneath your ribcage, fierce enough to sweep you clean away ?

iv. the two of you are at a sleepover when it happens. she’s late to pick you up, & nobody thinks much of it until the sun’s threatening to creep down over the horizon & the gravel still hasn’t screeched with news of her impending arrival. your friend’s mum, she’s pacing near the windows / phone in hand, contact details a faint glow, but she pastes uneasy smile over the crack of her mouth. it doesn’t soothe you, so much as unsettle you even more. fatal move: “how about i drive you kids home?” oh, she shouldn’t have / & fuck the backseat of her car, she ought to have swaddled you in cotton, protected you. instead, she delivers you to the sight of your mother’s broken neck at the base of the stairs.

( interlude: oh, the blood … the angle of her neck wasn’t the least of it. framed like a break - and - enter gone wrong, she’d practically been torn apart. what does it say about a crime, that every juror unfortunate enough to be dealt the case of your mother’s slaughter took up the court - offered counselling session ? )

v. the tabloids called it the butcher and the bard. the judge called it one of the most gruesome murders england had seen in a long time. relatives call you lucky, for being in the right place at the right time. what do you call it ? because it tastes an awful lot like survivor’s guilt, like wishing to trade places. you’d fall down the stairs a million times if it meant saving hers / it’d be your neck, your blood. your technicolour imprint, ghosting along the backs of her eyelids every time she so much as deigned to let them flutter closed. ( you never tell anyone, how often you dream of her. how are you meant to ? “did you sleep well?” “nope, saw my mother’s mangled body. again. pass the toast?” )

vi. after: your aunt’s apartment in london ; the seemingly endless drizzle of rain against the windows ( home, school, child psychologist, courtroom, rinse, repeat ). someone seems to think it’s a good idea, for the jury to lay eyes on the children who only narrowly escaped their fate. the collars of your overly - starched shirts itch against your pale neck, you wish you didn’t have to keep coming to these fucking things. the judge casts a sympathetic gaze every time you reach to scratch at your throat / if she had her way, you’d be far away from all of this. instead, the jury rises & it falls & you are there to see it all. unanimous verdic: GUILTY. life in prison, no chance of parole. sole custody, granted to miss margaret lawrence. the therapist they make you go to, she asks you about it & all you can do is shrug. s’pose it could’a been worse, y’know ? he could’a killed me.

vii. & the thing is, he killed a part of you. something — childish wonder, a love of life, ambition, that feathered thing they call hope — it’s slaughtered on the floor with your mum that day, bleeds out right beside her on expensive marble.

viii. the years speed by, the anniversaries blur. the booze helps with that one. at thirteen: you have your first sip of something that hits the bottom of your stomach & makes you feel like the princely twat to pull the sword from the stone. at fifteen: a friend offers you a joint, the world seems to haze at the edges in just the right way. christ, pot’s a fuckin’ wonderful thing, isn’t it ? at seventeen: the drink, the drugs, the deliquency, it all catches up & your aunt can’t go to one more fuckin’ school meeting about your truancy, about your bad attitude. ( about your promise, the way it breaks teachers’ hearts to see you squandering your intelligence, your good heart. maggie lawrence is not a woman that enjoys pity, & your misery doesn’t help to detract from the enormous pile of it that she carries now. ) she sits you down, delivers an ultimatum: you get your shit together, or you get out of my house. you go to school, you get good grades, you stop stealin’ my vodka. you sort yourself out, or you leave.

ix. you leave. it’s the wrong choice.

x. you finish year 12, at the very least, but university is not a topic you so much as consider. in a hangover daze, you peruse local newspapers & online ads, offer handyman services / odd jobs keep you in your vices, & you can’t ask for much more than that. it’s not an active choice, to hide from the world in the way that you choose to, but it ends up happening all the same; it grew so very tiring, watching the recognition spark behind a stranger’s eyes at the sound of your last name. you can only deal with being a public spectacle for so long, before it makes you want to lash out & drink until you can barely remember how to stand, let alone your goddamned name. is it any wonder that you retreat, that you drink & smoke & snort & destroy yourself for a while ?

xi. she comes to you in a dream. your mum, maybe. aunt maggie ? shit. could be your sister too, they did always look awfully alike. in one swift movement, your dream-relation whacks you upside the head & tells you, time to wake up, chucklefuck. you do. you’re also violently ill in the sink, but you’ll leave that part out when you tell the story of how you pulled yourself out from the depths of your psychological despair.

xii. it’s a more conscious choice to return to the world of the living. you apologise to your aunt, to your sister, for being such a right little prick as a kid. ( you owe maggie a fair few bottles of vodka & a few packs of smokes, too. you weren’t slick about any of that, you know ? ) you try to make amends, to fix what you so willingly broke, & the most heartbreaking part of it is how easily it all comes back together. there’s no waiting period, no pacing back & forth waiting to see if your family will have you. your sister wraps her arms around your neck, your aunt presses a kiss to your forehead & manages to wipe away the errant tear that slides down her cheek before you notice. in another world, you deserve a happy ending, a soft epilogue. in another one, you get it.

xiii. the crows are what damn you in the end. your sister, she always had such a fondness for weird birds. as a kid, her favourites were puffins & pacific gulls, you can still rattle off facts about them / it’s the fuckin’ birds. you pull over, snap a photo, & by the time it sends you’re doomed. ( oh, honey. you were always walking a tenuous death sentence. it was only a matter of time. )

────── ❝ IV. ... OR, WANTED CONNECTIONS.

twin sister !!! ↷ prob needs to go up on the main at some pt, but alas ! pls bring his twin sistter who arrived recently bc she was hunting her dickhead brother down <333 very luke/nell crain vibes here. more than a dash of the twin telepathy. the only person who knows him in their goddamn marrow. probs freaked when he fell off the radar & didn’t want a repeat of their whole mommy getting got thing </3

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