More Than My Hometown
Fandom: Brassic
Pairing: Erin Croft x Vinnie O'Neill
Characters: Vincent O'Neill, Tyler Croft, Erin Croft, Thomas 'Tommo' Schaffner, Lesley 'Cardi' Titt, Carol Dennings, Jehan 'JJ' Jovani, Sugar Jovani
Rating: Teen
Word Count: 1758
Summary: Hate that loaded down car you got your keys in, but I hate even more that you're leavin'
Tags/Warnings: On/off relationship, love, friends, angst, reference to grief, moving house,
Notes: lemme just rewrite all of season 7 because what was that
⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧͙ ‧͙*̩̩͙❆ ͙͛ ⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅crimbo limbo writing challenge ⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧͙ ‧͙*̩̩͙❆ ͙͛ ⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧͙ ‧͙*̩̩͙❆ ͙͛
The perfect girl didn’t exist. Not for Vinnie anyway. When he heard his mates or old blokes down the pub ream off lists of must have qualities all their potential suitors might have, namely big tits, a love of football and an ability to have a hot meal on the table for when they got home from said pub steaming, he rolled his eyes. People weren’t made for one another. There wasn’t one perfect person for everyone, after all what was the likelihood that the one perfect person for you, your soulmate, would’ve been plopped half a mile from where you were on pure chance. Even that seemed to be well matched enough didn’t make it in the long run most of the time.
He just couldn’t be convinced. So he was never chasing perfect, just enough. Someone he fancied who fancied him. Someone who didn’t mind the weed and his merry band of idiot mates. Someone who didn’t hate him even when his own stupid brain was making him hate himself.
And to his surprise he found it. Right there in Hawley. Erin Croft was his ‘perfect girl’ and as he looked back he realised, she always had been. She was beautiful, but not in the way he’d heard dirty old blokes at the Rat and Cutter talk about her. Her beauty was like mesmerising in the way a sunset was, and he caught himself staring from time to time, admiring her like she was the colours of the sky fading from blues to pinks and oranges. Her aura just lured him in, every interaction, every moment they spent together with Tyler like that first buzz off a beer or the thrill of pulling off a job.
He didn’t even know what it she even liked about him they just seemed to fit together like neither of them ever expected. She brightened up his life. She’d given him his little boy, something he’d never thought he’d have even if the road to finding out had been rocky. And they were good together except they never could get that together bit right.
But they had been getting there. Slowly sure but getting there. And then Dylan.
You’d think being in love with your best mates ex would be the thing to sink any chance of a relationship but it was the loss of him that made things drift. They grew closer in mourning but he could see it on her face whenever Dylan’s name was mentioned how scared it made her. That life could be over in a minute. She’d run and come back more times than he could count but it never stuck and he knew deep down it was his fault. He couldn’t leave Hawley.
And she couldn’t stay.
✵✵✵
‘Where’s Vinnie?’ Erin asked as she slammed the boot shut, the normal clink more of a dull thud given that the entire car was chocked full of their possessions.
‘Think he said something about Jim needing him,’ JJ said, offering a lame excuse neither of them believed.
‘He’ll be here,’ Cardi promised, trying to reassure her with a smile.
‘Yeah course,’ she said mustering a returning smile which she brightened as Tyler came through the gate carrying his electric scooter and a couple of bags for life crammed with more of his stuff.
‘This should be the last of it,’ he said looking at the already full car with growing concern as he scanned the entourage and found his dad not amongst the throng.
‘’Ere let me help with that,’ Tommo said, stubbing a cigarette out on the tarmac under his shoe as he took the scooter from the boy, ‘Cardi love gi’ us hand will you.’
As Erin watched the boys help Tyler, Sugar and Carol watched her, concern on their faces that only made a lump form in her throat so that she looked away announcing to everyone and no one, ‘I’m just gonna do one more sweep yeah?’ before she darted down the garden path and into the house, closing the door behind her and resting on it, eyes closed. She could feel hot tears forming, seeping down the side of her face though she tried to keep them in by keeping her eyes shut.
The thing was she knew she had to leave. As much as she loved her friends she couldn’t stay here, every bad thing that had ever happened to her looming over her.
‘Thought I’d be the first one to cry,’ she heard a voice say which made her snap her eyes open. And there, standing in the kitchen doorway with a sad smile on his face was Vinnie.
‘How did-’
‘Back door,’ he answered simply.
They stared at each other for a moment and Erin tried to supress the uneasiness that had been building in her for days since he’d found the contract for the new flat on the kitchen counter when he’d come over to see Tyler. She hadn’t been trying to hurt him, she hadn’t even been keeping it a secret she just didn’t know how to tell him she was moving hundreds of miles away, his son in tow, for good. He fled like he’d been burned, as if standing in the house one minute longer might make him explode.
‘Tyler’s out front,’ she started.
‘It’s you I came to see,’ he said.
‘Vinnie,’ she started but he shook his head and walked into the kitchen forcing her to follow. He was in the yard when she got through, a pokey thing with a tiny patch of grass to she could loosely deem as a garden that Tyler could play in though these days he was more interested in his phone than a play kitchen or a bike ride. Smoke was billowing from him as he sucked on his safety blanket of a vape, trying to buzz away the turmoil inside him with a hit of nicotine, and he was watching the clouds as they moved lazily through the sky.
‘He’d be proud of you, you know,’ he said after a minute, staring at the sky a moment longer before he looked to her, ‘Dylan. For getting out I mean.’
‘Vinnie,’ she sighed.
‘Nah I mean it. He was brave for leaving…you are too. I mean no one should stay here forever,’ he said, looking back to the sky.
Erin paused, hopeful that he might have changed his mind. The lump in her throat hadn’t gone but she forced her words to push by it as she said, ‘you could too.’
‘No I couldn’t,’ he said sadly.
‘You could Vin! Hawleys not the be all and end all! There’s so much out there different places, different people who don’t know us,’ she begged, ‘Tyler has so much potential but here he won’t get to use it, none of us do.’
‘And what would I do in London?’ he asked sceptically, ‘when my brain goes weird or my dad needs someone or fuckin’ I don’t know Jim needs-’
‘And why’s that your responsibility?’ she asked, ‘they’re adults. What do you think they do when you don’t answer eh? They manage alright then and or at least they’d have to if someone wasn’t around cleaning up after them because I’ll tell you something when you need ‘em, really truly need ‘em are they there?’
Vinnie went quiet.
‘We could be though. Me and Tyler,’ she said putting her hand in his. She’d never been this forward before, always cautious to flirt between the lines of a real thing and something they thought about, ‘we could be happy us three.’
‘But not here?’ he said staring into her eyes, sad and guilt ridden. She shook her head. She could never settle here, never let Hawley win.
He sighed, rubbing an errant tear from his face before he grabbed her hand and raised it to his lips. Her own tears had returned as she pleaded, ‘please Vin.’
‘Can’t,’ he sniffed.
‘Why not?’ she said.
‘Not built for it. Not built for anywhere but this fuckin place. That’s the thing about me and you were just different,’ he said, moving his hand to her face, ‘you’re adventure and experience and I’m…well I’m just none of that. You dragging me out of Hawley would go as well as me trying to keep you pinned down here. It wouldn’t work, we’d just be miserable,’ he said, Erin dropped her gaze, and as if proving his point he said, ‘see.’
‘You do make me happy though,’ she vowed, taking his hand from her face and placing it in between both of hers, ‘I meant what I said. 34%.’
Vinnie pulled her to him, and she buried her face in his chest as he wrapped his arms around her.
‘If only we didn’t have that bloody 66% looming over us like this eh?’ he laughed softly, the rumble of it against her ear. They stood there for so long, holding one another as though it might be the last time, though Tyler was sure to pull them together again, the way he did now as they heard him shouting through the house, relief on his face as he saw them standing in the garden after a quick untangling.
After that Vinnie put on a show. He helped load whatever else was needed, put on a sure face as people asked for update texts and safe landing phone calls amongst hugs and kisses. He pretended he was fine when Tyler wrapped his arms around him, trying to ignore that the little kid he’d found out about was now folded awkwardly just to hug him the same way he used to.
But as they drove off, down the road with their band of merry men in the review he closed the curtain. He’d disappeared before any of them could even notice he was gone and could hear them call for him for a moment before there was some hushed whispered and a unanimous decision to let him go on his own.
Because he’d accepted it. The way he’d accepted there was no such thing as a perfect girl, no such thing as perfect full stop. Just enough. Hawley was enough. His little cabin in the woods was enough. His knobhead mates and all their stupid shenanigans were enough. Knowing he had a family was enough.
There was no such thing as perfect, but even if there was, if he had that 66%, he wasn’t sure he’d know what he’d do with it.
⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩❆ ͙͛*̩̩͙‧͙ ‧͙*̩̩͙ ⋆꙳•̩⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅more than my hometown⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧❆ ͙͛ ⋆꙳•̩̩͙*̩̩͙❆ ͙͛ ⋆꙳•̩̩͙❅*̩̩͙‧͙