Chapter Text
“Vinny,” Evan starts quietly, his eyes peering up at Vinny, voice shaky. “I tried.”
There’s a slight pause, they both feel like they’re holding holding their breath.
“Tried what, Evan?” Vinny replies, his eyes burning, and throat feeling unpleasantly tight.
“I tried to keep you safe.” Evan says in a whisper like tone, his entire body trembling just slightly, but enough for Vinny’s dull eyes to catch. Vinny’s eyes flick away momentarily, he doesn’t know what to say, he’s not good with this sort of stuff. “Ev, it’s okay, you did your best.” He mumbles half heartedly, he would try harder if it wasn’t for the fact he was close to tears, and Vinny didn’t want to look ‘too flirty’ as he always liked to say whenever attempting to comfort someone.
Evan can almost feel how uncomfortable Vinny’s feeling right now, he sort of relishes the way Vinny seems to almost shrink under his direct gaze, he pushes that feeling away, at least for now. “It’s not okay, Vin. What about this entire situation is okay?” Evan says, his voice rising in desperation.
Vinny flinches slightly and looks up from the floor which he seemed to be staring a hole into. “Evan—“ “No It’s not ‘Evan this Evan that blah blah fucking blah.’ I’m a— a monster, Vinny.” He says quickly, his words coming out erratically, he stands up abruptly and paces back and forth before clenching his jaw and looking away. “You don’t even— don’t even try to help, because you’re always filming on that stupid camera! Thinking it’ll help when— why would it?!” Evan sneers, eyes icy cold like HABIT’s for half a second, Vinny swears he sees a glint of it in Evan’s eyes, before Evan slows down and stares at the floor, not looking up at Vinny.
“It’s none of your business what I do with MY camera, Evan! I like to film because it— it makes me feel something other than dread each day, it helps me get through— through this!” Vinny yells back at Evan sharply, his usual soft brown eyes now narrowed with anger at him.
Evan doesn’t respond, the silence stretches long and uncomfortably, he fidgets with the hair on his arms and twists each strand between his fingers, his lips pursed.
Vinny bites the inside of his cheek and looks at Evan out of the corner of his eye with conflict in his expression, like his face couldn’t quite decide what to do, the sharp lines of resentment kept blurring into the hollow look of remorse. He didn’t like yelling at anyone let alone Evan, he likes Evan, no, loves Evan, even if he won’t admit it. His need for secrecy is almost a sickness.
…
They didn’t speak for the rest of the night, the silence was almost thick enough to choke on, Vinny’s eyes kept drifting to Evan, who didn’t dare to look up or even utter a word, and most definitely not an apology.
Vinny was laying in bed, almost in a trance like state with his earbuds in, his mp3 player blasting his ears with some sort of metal music that Jeff always complained about like a broken record, constant bickering over what music is the best. Eventually he falls asleep, he’s not sure when or how, but he was lulled into a broken sort of sleep that left him with a collection of half finished dreams that didn’t quite fit together. He felt himself constantly waking up by the sound of creaks from the house settling, at least that’s what he hoped it was , even through his headphones, which eventually he ripped out of his ears and threw on the floor in exhausted despair, he hadn’t had a full nights sleep in forever, at least not since everything started.
Though, when he did fall asleep, he was woken again by something other than creaks or the low hum of the fridge.