𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐎𝐍𝐄
familiar and unfamiliar faces

𝐒𝐈𝐋𝐀𝐒 𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐁𝐀𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐍 𝐃𝐈𝐃𝐍'𝐓 want to say he had a penchant for being the appointed family disappointment. Regardless, it was something he took unfathomable pride in. It sated him, knowing that the irritated crease that appeared between his mother's blonde brows, tugging her previously phony convivial expression down, was the outcome of his temperament. It was all ironic, this entire situation of finding himself cornered in her mother's spotless silver Sudan going 80km down the water-clogged roads of Forks.

Silas wasn't supposed to be in this position, certainly not without a graduation certificate as a stern prerequisite for his return. He was supposed to wait out the finalisation of his schooling years at Eccleston College. An institute where obstinate men with noisome bravado shaped chancy boys and whimsical girls into outstanding members of society. A place spoke with high reverie through word of mouth, through the notable manifestation of their pupils and acclaimed professors. It was every respectable family's dream, to have their children wear the navy blue two-piece uniform, to be the centrefold of envy and praise. It was all a fucking sham.

Eccleston College, despite its foolproof image, was a cesspool for illicit activities. Gangs roamed the cool stone walls, ruling part of the courtyard with staunchly iron fists, trading vibrant pills and snaplock bags beneath desks and in closed textbooks, debasing themselves for unattainable ambitions - pleasuring God-appointed men. Guileless to the stony eyes from overseeing statues, an accessory of religious affectations. A place Silas's mother was none the wiser, ignorant to its true colouring and the perpetual opposite effects she wished on her eldest son.

Silas loved it purely out of spite and moved to settle, even if just barely if it meant that it would be thrown back in his mother's face. That the final culmination of his destitute childhood, of starchy uniforms worn thrice before boxed up in the attic, of miscellaneous reasonings and anger frosted eyes, would end up in his court. That his grand unravelling would be on her call, in his time and her consciousness.

The irony lies in the outcome of the chain reaction of his behaviour. When his mother was called up, in the early hours of the morning, and informed that her son was very much expelled and on the cusps of being sent to juvie if serviceable evidence came forward- she opted to bring Silas home. Not that Washington felt like home. If anything, the four walls that boxed him in at Eccleston College held more coming-of-age value.

Silas could acutely remember his mother seething into his face that if he fucked up once more, she wouldn't be there to pull him out of the hole that he dug herself into. That Eccleston College was his last chance (how many of those she gave out, Silas stopped counting after his fifteenth birthday). His last chance to be normal was to smother the urge to release the tauten anxiety and consuming tension in his chest through the heat of a fire.

Silas didn't have it in him to be surprised anymore, nor did he expect anything more than what became routine in his seventeen years of existence. Jacqueline Verbatten handled the problem with her usual savoir-faire. For someone who dictated his entire existence, despite not wanting to be even in it, funnily enough, she was decidedly disappointing with her punishments, unimaginative at best.

Even worse following through with her 'justifiable' discipline. Whether it was out of sheer laziness or because she already wasted enough energy on his stiffneckedness, he was yet to conclude. Not like he would mull more on it, he didn't have it in him to care at all.

"Doctor Maharaj prescribed your new medication, and said they'll be more successful to your current issues, given you haven't been lying to the nurse." Silas meets his mother's narrowed blue eyes in the rearview mirror, noticing the blatant accusation before she flicks them away to watch the road. "Take one now. Orange bottle, the other one is for when you're weaning into the other medication."

Silas forces himself to swallow down the dry laugh that threatens the seam of his scabbed lips, opting instead to snatch up the ornery neon yellow paper bag that emblazons Fork's local pharmacist. The crinkling of the plastic and the jarring rattling of the pills permeate the air obnoxiously as Silas investigates the contents. Catching sight of the singular granola bar and bottled water, his lips mould into a mirthless purse.

"I hate peanut butter."

"I don't think you're in a position to be making requests." His mother rebuked, a manicured finger flicking on the right indicator with more force than usual. Silas allows a bitter smile to stretch across his face. While his toes curl inside his battered Doc Martens in agitation, his bony finger presses down on the window button causing the hissing of tires sliding across rain-slick roads to oscillate through the car. With a lazy flick of his wrist, the granola bar soars out the open window, the car already metres ahead before it hits the sodden ground. Jacqueline's head turns sharply at the sound of the window whirring up.

"What are you doing?" She demands. The soothing intoning of Frank Sinatra fades quickly as she wrenches the volume button mute, the hymn of tension instead falls over the car muggily.

Silas grunts. "Getting some fresh air. Your obvious disappointment in me is making it muggy."

The rest of the car ride is spent in silence, Silas's feline eyes tracing the raindrops that cascade to the seal of the window in a furore of conviction. His attenuated fingers, covered in small white scars and mottled skin, pick at the lint on his black jeans in a futile attempt to distract him from the gnawing craving for nicotine.

This is going to be a long fucking year.

𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐊𝐒 𝐇𝐀𝐃 𝐋𝐎𝐍𝐆 forgone the feeling of home. It made Silas neither nostalgic nor sentimental, it was simply a place he dropped his suitcase off to only wheel it out a few months later. It wasn't Forks who documented his life as a parent would with height on the kitchen wall, didn't witness the warpath he created in his life, financed by the overwhelming urge to burn shit. Forks was simply a pit stop motel room he checked out on, having reaped no pinnacle memories on the campaign to adolescence.

The frigid wind cleaving through his body felt as revivifying and bitter as it always did, albeit sweeter than the muggy gale of Oxfordshire. The potholes were still as deep since the day they were created, even the antics of the neighbours whose outdated curtains rustled at even the inkling of raised voices.

With an indignant sigh, Silas shifted his weight off the white picket fence that fit snugly around the perimeter of his cousin's house. His shoe crushed the enkindled cigarette that once warmed his mouth, into the freshly mowed lawn before he made the short trek to the front door. The Mallory family embodied an enigmatic dynamic that Silas never fully understood, or particularly inferred the reasoning behind. The family of four lived in a sensible two-story house with white trims on the windows, a mailbox fashioned in peeling, fruit stickers (Silas thought it was tacky, Lauren vehemently emphasised it was a tradition they've had in their family, starting from when she could eat solid foods) and a rusty swing set towards the side fence. It was sickeningly domestic.

His phone chirps, a dull sound that pierces his jetlagged consciousness. He fishes it out of the pocket of his black jeans, the screen illuminated with the notification of a new text.

𝐍𝐢𝐤𝐨𝐥𝐚𝐢: Where r u??? Coming in 5 !

Annoyance pricks in his veins at Nikolai's idiosyncratic spelling. He had only just gotten back into contact with his old friend, after a year of ignoring his texts, and Silas was already regretting it. 

Clenching his jaw, he swipes across unlocking his phone and punches in a quick reply. With his free hand, he raps his scarred knuckles against the mahogany red oak door, alerting his presence. In an instant, he hears hurried footsteps clambering down the stairs. There is a muffled yell sounding out to be 'I got it', a sharp smack against flesh followed by a shrill whine before the lock on the door gives way.

Lauren Mallory appears in all her glory. Her characteristic halo of recalcitrant blonde curls is pulled back haphazardly in a voluminous ponytail. Her toned figure is swathed in a jersey two sizes too large for her, which accentuates her long bronze legs. Chartreuse eyes pierce through Silas, holding undertones of warmth but flickers of dubiousness.

"Should I expect a fourth time? You fucking off back to another prissy school to only come knocking unannounced." Lauren sassed out, a pale eyebrow rising. Silas couldn't fault her reaction, it was true after all. The last he spoke to his cousin was on the eve of his surprising return to Eccleston College, at the age of fifteen, with a plate of food balanced on their knees at Lauren's father's 45th birthday. He cut contact with Lauren after that. He always did with everyone each time he left American soil, much to the chagrin of Lauren who still sent him messages each time something remotely stimulating happened, hoping for even a short reply. The latest being that Chief Swan's daughter had returned. 

"I thought Jacqueline would've told Celine. Got expelled so I'm spending the rest of my schooling here. Jacqueline couldn't be fucked sending me somewhere else, something about a waste of money." Silas clarifies monotonously.

Lauren lets out a dry scoff. "You set the lacrosse field on fire you fucking lunatic. If that isn't the bar for expulsion, then I don't know what could. Seriously Si, what the hell were you thinking?"

"Obviously I wasn't thinking. Who would've known that seedy fireworks could light that shit up like the Fourth of July? Call me a fool, woe me." His phone vibrates in his pocket again, but neither of the relatives acknowledged it. Lauren crosses her arms across her chest defiantly at her sarcastic reply, the glow of the artificial lighting behind her illuminates the soft lines of her face twisted into disbelief.

"You're impossible you know that, I mean are you purposefully trying to land yourself in jail? Does having a criminal record satisfy whatever morbid bucket list you have? That shit is going to get you into some serious trouble soon."

Silas snorts. "Bold to assume I give a fuck about that." The remark is biting, amplified by the British tonality that coats his words. It makes him sound stand-offish, not far off from the irked he intended. That question always seemed to follow him wherever he went, almost as if it merged with the shadow of himself, sewn onto the heels of his feet and leaking into his neurotic identity.

"Whatever," Lauren says, shaking her head in defeat, "Are you coming in or are you too mental to spend time with family? I'd even allow you to show off your fine dining etiquette over dinner." Her tone is brusque, hands pushing the front door wider in invitation. Silas saddles her with a sharp look, ignoring the beguiling warmth that rolled over him like thunder across the sky. If Lauren wanted to play dirty, Silas would reciprocate it with biting impenetrability.

With a smile that speaks volumes of trouble, Silas waves an apathetic hand in her face. "I have plans. Meeting up with the guys they have fresh meat. Daia, you might've heard of her?"

The languidness that coated Silas's form caused Lauren to bristle, eyes flaring in betrayal. Behind him, the sound of a car pulling up and muffled music seeps into the night's air, elevating the abrupt tense atmosphere that enveloped the two of them.

Silas had no qualms in throwing personal shit back into people's faces, he was indifferent to the fact that his morals were as loose as the sweater that sat on his lithe frame. He didn't have the emotional capacity or empathy to hoard people's calamities, furthermore, he found himself caring. He would drop their feelings and let them shatter into hundreds of pieces, kicking the shards out of his way impartially. Even after feeling the prickling of ice streak down his back at the hurt that glazed Lauren's eyes, he disavowed finding context or dwelling on it too long.

"You're such a dick-"

Turning his back on his cousin, he ignores the sharp exhale and the slamming of the door to instead focus on Nikolai, the platinum-haired figure shrouded in all black, leaning against the unfamiliar silver Jeep. An impish smile plasters firmly on Nikolai's face, all white, mischievous and promising a plethora of catastrophes. Without a word, Silas lets himself be swept up into a hug that crushes his organs against his ribcage, pulverising the breath out of his lungs. He tries to ignore the way his skin crawls at the overabundance of touch,  the feeling of skin against his skin and a warm breath hitting his cheek. Retaliating, he digs his chipped nails into the exposed skin of Nikolai's neck in a glaring warning.

"Sorry baby- fuck. Don't decapitate me!" Nikolai hisses out, slackening his grip on the shorter male to flinch back, his hand rising to rub at his reddened, assaulted skin. "Can't a man give a little love to his homeboy? I'm trying to end this toxic masculinity bullshit."

Silas hears a rumble of laughter before the click of a door opening averts his attention. Kol Levski's face appears, flushed cheeks and bleary-eyed, brunette ringlets falling gracelessly in his eggshell blue eyes. Something sharp twinges in Silas's chest, causing him to bite down on the inner flesh of his cheek in protest. Silas steps away from Nikolai's body that radiates sickening amounts of sentiment and expensive cologne and ducks into the fabricated warmth of the running car, sliding over Kol's long legs bent to accommodate the limited space. He settles in the middle. Beside him, the last of the four founders of their unconventional group Sung-Hoon Kim sends him a look akin to delight.

"About fucking time Verbatten! Why didn't you set shit on fire sooner?" The Korean boy chides a sharp smile making the pointed angles on his face prominent in the dinky light. Long gone was the baby fat that used to round his face, instead, it was reinstated with a jawline as cutting as his tongue. Pointy. Silas concludes, raking a quick look. But soft around the edges.

"What makes you think the terms of me returning is because I set something on fire?" Silas rebuts back, waving off Kol's attempts to buckle him in. 

"One, because this is the Silas Verbatten we're talking about. Local pyromaniac, never seen without a lighter. Two, and I say this with as much sensitivity as I can, your mother despises you. Why the hell would she want you to return?"

It stung. Despite Silas's mottled approach to feelings, only being able to reciprocate the bare cusps of the entire enigma of affection, whether romantic, familial or platonic; having someone, a delegation of the skeleton of his childhood, talk about it so freely cut deeper than he thought.

"Fair," Silas says, quickly but attentive to keeping a neutral tone. "It was the lacrosse field. An accident though, I'm not suicidal enough to want to spend the night with the campus police." 

Sung-Hoon scoffs in reply as if the statement is the most mind-numbing concept he's heard. "An accident, my left sack. You never do things by accident you vigilant schizo."

"The bloodhound isn't happy you've returned." Nikolai breathes out, body careened around to look over the headrests, exhilarated at the current prospect. "You know what that means...she'll be sniffing around our arses more than ever."

Over Silas' left shoulder, Kol's face twists unpleasantly at the connotation of his mother. He kicks the back of the passenger seat in retaliation causing Nikolai to fall back and hit the dashboard with a rattling thump. Petra Levski, the acclaimed tyrant of the Fork's adolescent culture, and single mother of Kol, was a nefarious presence that tormented the group. Starting from the moment the Levski family immigrated from Bosnia to live out a more opportune life in the United States. The move galvanized Petra to trade life as she knew it to pick up a badge and gun, from then on the teenagers of the small populated town had to stall their illicit activities. Or pray to get away with it, under her scrutinizing eyes and an iron fist. 

"Way to break the mood you dick." Kol sighed, fending off Nikolai's violent glee with his stark annoyance. Silas restrains the urge to smile, if there was one thing he could claim enduring, it was that all the years couldn't wash away Kol's exasperation when it came to the tomfoolery he put up with. Dealing with the group was an honest nine-to-five job.

The soft creaking of the driver's seat snatches the attention off Kol. "We forgot to talk about the elephant in the room. Silas meet Daia Priestley, the newest and final piece of the group. Daia meet Silas Verbatten, the missing piece for the last how many years." Nikolai muses, a hand diverting the air between them.

Silas didn't have a set impression of Daia Priestley. His perception was gathered from the blunt words that flowed past Sung-Hoon's cracked lips, through Kol's expressive body language and Nikolai's passionate eyes, always watching, calculating. Not that Silas particularly cared beyond the borders of his duty as a friend, Daia was just a reminder that the tides of friendship could be irrational, retreating but ever pulling, tugging.

He didn't have it in him to deny that his wayward friends found their habitat in his corroding heart, held up barely by their strong laughs and bittersweet memories. It lingered unpleasantly, that this Daia Priestley, this teenager basked in a thrum of liveliness, stepped up in his absence. That they allowed Daia, this insignificant female to replace him, to ease the gnawing feeling of sadness.

Daia Priestley, in her eye-watering radiance. The soft lines of her face brought attention to her dark eyes; large and jarring with how sickeningly saturated her emotions were, broadcasted lucidly with how they essentially beamed at him, like a rare summer sun on a crisp clear day. And he despised summer. He also hated how dark her eyes were, as they were akin to two-way windows; Silas reflected back to reckon with himself, but he couldn't reckon with her, no matter how vivid her emotions were flitting across her features.

Looking at Daia felt like staring at modern art, entirely nonsensical and diverting from traditional means, yet those with particular tastes could find some sort of unconventional charm within the spirit of surrealism. He felt nauseated. She seemed to highlight the worst parts of him, the parts he kept in the dark chasms of his being. The parts good and whole, things he parted from the minute catharsis overruled all rational. Overruled the pain of fire biting at his sensitive skin, burning and malformed, twisting flesh into a grotesque canvas of boyhood innocence and sin.

Silas then and there knew he couldn't trust her; he could read her, and yet he also couldn't. Not until the fog cleared, the curtains fell over the mirrors and he stared at the true reflection, not until he could squint his eyes and see past that blinding sun. An emotion that dictated him, an emotion Silas could work with and gain higher ground. She was an enigma and that frightened him.

Upon further investigation, Daia, despite his emotions being guarded inadvertently, was rather inviting to the eye. Principally pretty with long dark hair that framed her face and looked unkempt, like she had just run through the rain and it had dried freely with tangled curls. Dotted at random on her brown skin were moles. A hideously oversized sweater that swallowed her frame and looked to be belonging to an older male figure, stitched in some areas to hang onto whatever was left. From an old conversation with Sung-Hoon, a recently deceased father. Lauren always did like the girls with moot daddy issues.

"Hey!" Daia says, a too-wide smile stretching over her lips and making the corners of her eyes crinkle, a bangle encased hand quickly jumping to turn down the music that was a storm of blaring drums and guitar. A cloud of perfume assaulted his senses as she turned to face him, apple blossom, vanilla and everything too sweet that made him feel even more nauseated. Her expressive eyes landed on Sila's way too long for someone who was behind the wheel. Nikolai only cackled as the car briefly swerved to the right, causing Sung-hoon to reach forward and plant his hand on top of her head to manually turn it back to the road. "Reckon you could tell these hooligans to stop disrespecting my car? They won't listen to me."

Silas tears his eyes away from Daia, ignoring the female's attempted olive branch and reaches into his pocket, emerging with a cigarette. Without a word, Sung-Hoon's thumb brushes against the spark wheel of the lighter conveniently in his hand, and in its wake rises an orange flame. Silas is quick to press the tip into the flame, inhaling the acrid vapour.

He focuses on the way it warms his mouth and sends little pricks of pain to his oesophagus, so it may dissuade him from the Priestley girl who was illuminated under the pale light of the lamppost. Accentuated by the plethora of dangling earrings in either ear and the thrifty rings on her fingers.

With an indignant sigh, Silas leans back on the worn fabric of the car seat and exhales, the smoke cutting through her perfume, "Figure it out yourself. Seems to me like you've settled in fine."

Around him, the group sends thwarted glances at each other. 

━━━━━━ 𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞

hi, hello. welcome to the first chapter of our new and improved silas. from here onwards, things will get rough before they get better but stick it out for our boy. he's honestly so fun even though he can be a stick in the mud - he's trying his best despite everything thrown against him, including the sweetest summers child daia. if you haven't gathered, silas is a huge pessimist and cant handle sweetness and sunshine. rip daia i guess.